July 31, 2019: You Might Want Government Regulations if You Fly on a Jet - or Need Insulin

 

7/31/19: The Wall Street Journal breaks the news. The FAA was aware of serious control problems after the first new Boeing 737 Max crashed in October 2018. All 189 passengers and crew aboard were killed.

 

Undelivered planes - the 737 Max.

The FAA was aware that it “didn’t take that much” for sensors to malfunction and repeatedly push the nose of the plane down. 

The FAA decided that airlines should warn pilots that a similar disaster was possible. Nothing more. 

This was done, as CNBC explains, “to give Boeing and regulators enough time to certify a permanent fix without removing planes from the sky.”

 

Unfortunately, in March 2019 a second 737 Max removed itself “from the sky,” nosing straight into the ground. 

All 157 passengers and crew died. 

Good work, then, Daniel K. Elwell, Trump’s choice to head the FAA until that second crash. And welcome, Stephen Dickson, Acting Director of the FAA till last week. Dickson was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 24, in a narrow 52-40 vote. Democrats mostly voted nay, after senators learned that while Dickson was senior vice president for flight operations at Delta, he was involved in a whistleblower case – and not in a good way. 

When a pilot named Karlene Pettit expressed safety concerns, she was removed from the cockpit. In retaliation, she claims she was ordered to undergo a psychiatric exam and failed. She was grounded for more than a year, “until outside experts overruled Delta’s hand-picked doctor and determined she was mentally fit to fly. She is now suing Delta in a Labor Department proceeding.”

 

The moral of the story: In Trumpistan government regulations are always bad and businesses should regulate themselves. 

Too bad if the passenger jet you’re on plows up some ground.

 

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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS leads constituents north, crossing the Canadian border, to get drugs! 

Heading for the nearest pharmacy, they purchase life-saving insulin that would cost $340 per vial in the United States. In Canada it sells for $32. Canada offers universal health care, which is “socialism” of the worst sort.