turbinetree
turbinetree's JournalBoeing papers show employees slid 737 Max problems past FAA
Source: Associated Press
By DAVID KOENIG
16 minutes ago
Boeing employees raised doubts among themselves about the safety of the 737 Max, apparently tried to hide problems from federal regulators and ridiculed those responsible for designing and overseeing the jetliner, according to a batch of emails and texts released nearly a year after the aircraft was grounded over two catastrophic crashes.
The documents, made public Thursday by congressional investigators, are likely to fuel allegations that the vaunted aircraft manufacturer put speed and cost savings ahead of safety in rolling out the Max. Boeing has been wracked by turmoil since the twin disasters and is still struggling to get the plane back in the air. Last month, it fired its CEO, Dennis Muilenburg.
In the internal messages, Boeing employees talked about misleading regulators about problems with the company's flight simulators. which are used to develop aircraft and train pilots. In one exchange, an employee told a colleague he or she wouldn't let family members ride on a 737 Max.
Employees also groused about Boeing's senior management, the company's selection of low-cost suppliers, wasting money, and the Max.
Read more: https://apnews.com/64aa056dc30313ad8785b5b9e226ddc3
AS someone that has been in the industry for over 25 years, from manufacturing , Aircraft technician ( flight line) to being in a engineering department, if you cannot have a conscience on "SAFETY" then you can go fuck yourself , so if the inspection department and the others knew.......................then they have diminished the record's of me and thousands of others that operated on the premise that "SAFETY" was paramount over anything and nothing else...................and need to be brought into account..............
I was trained that it was my job to ground the planes I worked on, in the name of "SAFETY"...............................and to make sure that the planes we worked on were safe for everyone ......................end of story
HBO 'Succession' producer warns the GOP about the end of Trump's 'cult': 'There's going to be a reck
Wealthy Investors Steer Billions Toward New Trump Tax Break
By Noah Buhayar
January 9, 2020, 12:01 AM EST Updated on January 9, 2020, 1:34 PM EST
The controversy keeps mounting over a new tax break for investing in poor U.S. communities. But investors keep piling in.
They just pumped $2.26 billion into funds that are planning to take advantage of “opportunity zone” tax incentives, a 51% jump from early December, according to a survey released Thursday from tax adviser Novogradac. To line up the full benefit, investors had to commit their capital by the end of last year. But the figure also rose because the survey’s sample included more funds and because respondents updated how much they raised.
“It’s been a pretty steady rise,” said Michael Novogradac, the tax adviser’s managing partner. But the size of the jump in the most recent survey “did surprise me,” he added.
Once heralded as a novel way to help distressed parts of the U.S., opportunity zones are now being slammed as a government boondoggle. The perks -- included in the federal tax overhaul that President Donald Trump signed in late 2017 -- are being used to juice potential investment returns in luxury developments from Florida to Oregon. Several reports have shown that politically connected investors influenced the selection of zones to benefit themselves.
While Congress weighs changes to the law to boost transparency and ensure the poor benefit, the Trump administration has been working to get more money flowing. Last month, the Treasury Department issued a final set of rules about what will qualify. Some investors had held off on committing to funds until the government provided more guidance.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-09/wealthy-steer-billions-toward-trump-tax-break-in-december-frenzy?sref=n2cudAla
Senate GOP Must Stop Confirming Judicial Nominees of an Impeached President
BY
Jessica Mason Pieklo, Rewire.News
PUBLISHED
January 9, 2020
Now that President Trump has been impeached, it’s time to halt confirmations of his judicial nominees.
That was the message of a letter sent Tuesday by a coalition of 29 advocacy organizations to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who have filled the courts with Trump-appointed judges who could uphold some of the country’s most extreme abortion restrictions.
“The Articles of Impeachment recently approved by the House of Representatives state that the president of the United States has abused the powers of his office by soliciting a foreign government to interfere with the 2020 elections and has obstructed Congress’ efforts to investigate the matter,” the letter says. “While any president is under the cloud of impeachment for such high crimes and misdemeanors, the Senate and the Judiciary Committee must put a hold on processing that president’s nominees for lifetime positions in the federal judiciary.”
Organizations signing onto the letter include the National Women’s Law Center, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, People for the American Way, the NAACP, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
“It is ludicrous, and frankly offensive, to suggest that a president who has been impeached because of his contempt for our elections and for the rule of law should continue to have his nominations to the federal bench move ahead as if all were well,” said Marge Baker, executive vice president for policy and program at People for the American Way, in a statement. “Senators McConnell and Graham need to show that they grasp this central fact.”
https://truthout.org/articles/senate-gop-must-stop-confirming-judicial-nominees-of-an-impeached-president/
9 Iran pundits with undisclosed ties to the defense industry
Judd Legum
Since Trump ordered the drone attack that killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, television news has been filled with commentary on the strike and its implications. An investigation by Popular Information reveals that numerous pundits appearing on cable TV to opine on Iran have undisclosed financial ties to the defense industry.
This is significant because defense contractors and other entities that do business with the Pentagon profit from war. They sell the products that make war possible. If there is more fighting, they will sell more weapons. That’s why weapons manufacturers saw their stock prices spike after Soleimani was killed.
A television pundit that’s in business with defense contractors will not necessarily advance arguments to benefit their clients. But these financial ties are the relevant context for the viewer. Instead, these pundits are generally introduced only by their former government positions and presented as dispassionate analysts. Viewers are not told of the pundits’ current role in the private sector or their defense industry ties.
Popular Information assembled this information by reviewing transcripts of segments about Iran appearing on Fox News, Fox Business, and CNN between January 3 and January 7. Transcripts of segments about Iran on MSNBC’s primetime shows over the same time period were also reviewed. (Transcripts of MSNBC’s daytime programming were not available.)
https://popular.info/p/9-iran-pundits-with-undisclosed-ties
Untraceable dark money is making state Supreme Courts more conservative
By Lisa Needham -January 9, 2020 10:05 AM
A new report shows just how pervasive — and influential — dark money has become in state courts.
The harmful effect of dark money in national political races is well-recognized, but the role of untraceable unlimited funding at the state judicial level is often ignored. A recent report from the Brennan Center shows just how pervasive — and influential — dark money has become in state Supreme Court races. And that dark money is helping the GOP reshape state courts.
Of course, this all goes back to the Citizens United decision, which held that this sort of spending, bottomless and hidden from oversight, was perfectly fine. With that, it was likely inevitable that state Supreme Courts would become an attractive target for special interest groups.
Spending large sums on state Supreme Court races is still a relative bargain. It's much cheaper to spend money at the state level to change the composition of the court than to install elected officials at the national level. With 39 states using some form of elections for members of the highest state courts, they're a ripe target.
The Brennan Center found that special interest groups accounted for 27% of all state Supreme Court election spending from 2017 to 2018. As a point of comparison, the report points out that over the last 20 years, congressional elections have never seen interest groups account for more than 19% of all spending in a cycle.
https://americanindependent.com/state-supreme-courts-dark-money-gop-citizens-united-republicans/
And yet the Impeachment trial, when it will be held, will be overseen by the chief justice, that thinks that money is "free speech"...........................and basically got this country what we have today ......................
November 3, 2020 cannot get here fast enough....................
Elizabeth Warren shuts down Meghan McCain's Suleimani ranting on The View
Published 3 mins ago on January 7, 2020
By Travis Gettys
Sen. Elizabeth Warren earned loud cheers from “The View” audience after she explained to co-host Meghan McCain why she had not changed her mind on President Donald Trump’s order to assassinate an Iranian government official.
McCain pressed the Democratic presidential candidate to say whether Iranian general Qassim Suleimani was a terrorist, and suggested Warren had offered conflicting statements on the killing.
“You issued a statement calling Suleimani a murderer,” McCain said. “Later, you issued a second statement saying he was, quote, an assassination of a senior foreign military official. This is a man who is obviously responsible for hundreds of American troops’ deaths, carnage that we can’t imagine … I don’t understand the flip-flop. I don’t understand why it was so hard to call him a terrorist, and I would just like you to explain the change.”
Warren thanked her for the question, and explained that her statements weren’t in conflict with one another.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/elizabeth-warren-shuts-down-meghan-mccains-suleimani-ranting-on-the-view/
'We're going to war, bro': Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne deploys to the Middle East
WORLD NEWS JANUARY 7, 2020 / 6:06 AM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO
Rich McKay 5 MIN READ
FORT BRAGG, N.C. (Reuters) - For many of the soldiers, it would be their first mission. They packed up ammunition and rifles, placed last-minute calls to loved ones, then turned in their cell phones. Some gave blood.
The 600 mostly young soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were headed for the Middle East, part of a group of some 3,500 U.S. paratroopers ordered to the region. Kuwait is the first stop for many. Their final destinations are classified.
“We’re going to war, bro,” one cheered, holding two thumbs up and sporting a grin under close-shorn red hair. He stood among dozens of soldiers loading trucks outside a cinder block building housing several auditoriums with long benches and tables.
Days after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the drone killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, raising fears of fresh conflict in the Middle East, the men and women of the U.S. Army’s storied 82nd Airborne Division are moving out in the largest “fast deployment” since the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-usa-fort-bragg/were-going-to-war-bro-fort-braggs-82nd-airborne-deploys-to-the-middle-east-idUSKBN1Z616W
First of all lets bring back the draft........................second this is really sad, to deploy men and woman to a combat zone to help the traitor in the white house defect his treason......................and because he was Impeached for .................
UK will leave Iraq if Baghdad asks us to go: defense minister
Source: Reuters
WORLD NEWS JANUARY 7, 2020 / 11:31 AM / UPDATED 13 MINUTES AGO
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain wants to keep its troops in Iraq but will pull out if Baghdad so demands, defense minister Ben Wallace said on Tuesday.
Iraq’s parliament called on Sunday for U.S. and other foreign troops to leave after the killing of a top Iranian general in a U.S. drone strike at Baghdad airport.
“We are ... trying to get them to say that it’s in your best interest for us to remain,” Wallace told parliament. “(But) we will respect Iraqi sovereignty. If they require us to leave, that is their right and we will respect it.”
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-britain-military/uk-will-leave-iraq-if-baghdad-asks-us-to-go-defense-minister-idUSKBN1Z61ZE?il=0
-snip-
And then there was the letter from the Marine General stating that the US will honor the Iraq vote to remove all US troops from Iraq.................................
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