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.

January 8, 2021: Right-Wingers Confuse Botulism, Communism and Socialism

 

1/8/21: The hard-working blogger is admittedly a proud liberal. Despite what conservatives like to believe, that does not make me a fan of communism nor even socialism. Those are two –“ism’s” conservatives conveniently conflate. I should also note that I am not a fan of botulism. 

Governments come in various shades, like red, green, blue, light blue, sky blue and cobalt. There is, for example, Stalinist Russia of the 1940s, brutal communism. There is socialist Finland in 2021, where people are rated the happiest of any country in the world. Two systems, totally different. 

For comparison, people in the U.S. finish in 19^th place, for happiest, which is good, and a vote for capitalism.

Indonesia official explains how Boeing 737-MAX went into nosedive.

The people in Communist China finish 82^nd. (I have argued repeatedly that the Chinese have a system half communist (authoritarian rule), and part capitalism (with hundreds of billions of yuan sticking to the fingers of greedy authoritarian rulers). Most estimates put President Xi Jinping’s personal wealth somewhere north of one billion dollars, which is hard trick for a commie to pull off. 

While this blogger might have disdain for communism, that does not mean capitalism is without grievous flaws. It doesn’t mean that we don’t need government to check the power of giant corporations. 

With most Americans focused on news about the riot on Capitol Hill, the Department of Justice announces that it has charged Boeing with “conspiracy to defraud the United States,” noting that the aircraft manufacturer knowingly misled safety regulators while seeking approval for its 737 MAX aircraft. Two of the planes promptly nosed-dived into the ground, killing everyone aboard. 

Boeing is entering into a “deferred prosecution agreement,” which means the company promises to be good if the feds don’t drag them through the courts. They will pay a $243 million criminal penalty, set aside $500 million to compensate relatives who lost loved ones in the pair of crashes, and pay $1.77 billion in damages to global airlines affected by the 737 MAX grounding. Again, we are reminded that certain corporate types will do anything to make a fat profit.

 

* 

SPEAKING OF HAPPINESS, the December jobs report is out and it’s no good. The “V-shaped” recovery predicted by President Trump and the yes-men and yes-women who guard his ego, has failed to materialize. 

Jobs lost in December: 140,000. Total jobs lost for the year: 9,839,000, subject to slight adjustments. Unemployment stands at 6.7%, which is two points higher than it was on the day Trump took over from Mr. Obama. 

The Labor Participation Rate is 61.5 percent. It was 62.8 percent when Obama exited the White House. 

We also learn today that 2020 was the deadliest for gun violence in more than two decades. Or more cause for unhappiness. 

Since President Trump has claimed credit for almost every positive development, we might as well “blame” him for this. 

According to Associated Press estimates, the death toll from gun violence rose 15% from 2019 to 2020. More than 19,000 Americans were killed in shootings and fire-arms related incidents last year. To give you some idea of how dangerous it is to have guns around the house, in the years 2014-2019, more than 4,000 children, ages 0-11 were killed or injured by guns.

 

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EVEN STARFISH are less happy this year. Or so I think we can safely assume. As NBC reports, 

A mysterious wasting disease seen in starfish around the world may be the result of respiratory distress tied to warming oceans, according to a new study. These environmental changes are likely depleting oxygen in the oceans, scientists said, causing sea stars to “drown.”

 

In research published online Wednesday in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, scientists detailed cases of what’s known as sea star wasting syndrome. 

Read the NBC story, or the journal. Both point, once again, to the growing danger of climate change.

 

* 

LIKE STARFISH, most Americans are less happy today, in the wake of the riot on Capitol Hill. 

At a press conference this afternoon, F.B.I. Assistant Director Steven D’Antuono is asked about claims that Antifa was involved in the attack. “We have no indication of that at this time,” he says. (See: 1/7/21.) 

In related news, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as loyal a lout as ever served an unhinged U.S. president, is forced to announce that there will be a peaceful transfer of power to the Biden administration, which, in every other election since 1788 (not counting 1860) would go without saying. 

He has already had to respond to foreign criticism, that the United States is now a “banana republic.” 

This sets Pompeo to grumbling. “Many prominent people – including journalists and politicians – have likened the United States to a banana republic,” he says.

 

The slander reveals a faulty understanding of banana republics and of democracy in America. In a banana republic, mob violence [emphasis added] determines the exercise of power. In the United States, law enforcement officials quash mob violence so that the people’s representatives can exercise power in accordance with the rule of law and constitutional government.

 

So, we were just moments away from turning into a banana republic on Jan. 6? And Trump was the one handing bananas to supporters? 

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, of Canada, supplies the answer in a news conference of his own. “What we witnessed,” on January 6, in Washington D.C., he tells a gathering of reporters, “was an assault on democracy by violent rioters, incited by the current president and other politicians.” 

(Rep. Mo Brooks, take a bow.)

 

“As shocking, deeply disturbing, and frankly saddening as that event remains, we have also seen this week that democracy is resilient in America, our closest ally and neighbour,” Trudeau adds. “Violence has no place in our societies, and extremists will not succeed in overruling the will of the people.”

 

* 

FINALLY, we know one American who is way less happy today: Namely President-for-12-More-Days Donald J. Trump. As darkness falls over the land, Twitter announces that it has pulled the plug on the president’s account. Trump is permanently suspended, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” 

And so it is. For all intents and purposes Trump’s 55,000 presidential tweets and retweets “disappear.” 

 

FUN FACT – FASCISTS: Rep. Mary Miller, newly-elected to a seat in Congress, offers a glimpse of the future Republican Party. During a rally for Moms for America, she warns the crowd that conservatives will lose unless “we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’” 

She later apologizes, but the image of a Trump Youth Group, modeled after the Hitler Youth Group, ought to make you think twice about voting for Donald if he decides to run again in 2024. 

Or Rep. Mary Miller in 2022.