Hard to believe, Harry, but Boeing airplane operators filed about one service difficulty report per day between 2020 and 2023, with Alaska Airlines filing the vast majority of them. Problems include not just windows blowing out in mid-air and denuding children but also fuel leaks and debris in fuel tanks and “malfunctioning stabilizing motors.” And while you may recall the Trump Administration shoving as much taxpayer money as it could Boeing’s way in 2020, the vast majority of these reports have come during Pete Buttigieg’s tenure as Transportation Secretary, and the FAA’s official response to The Lever’s report sure ain’t promising. “(S)ome airlines may file more reports than what is required”? Whoever wrote that needs to lose their job.
Oxfam International tells us that the world may have its first trillionaire within the next decade, and about the only consolation I can take from that is that, if history is any guide, that trillionaire will almost certainly not be Elon Musk, regardless of how good things look for him now. Of far less consolation: the person who does achieve trillionaire-hood will almost certainly be an even worse human being. In the meantime, more than half the world’s population has become poorer over the last three years, while the five richest men on Earth have more than doubled their worth over that same period, but please, right-wingers, keep whining about immigration and crime.
Pro-Palestinian protestors at Columbia University get hit with an Israeli chemical weapon – and college administrators chide them for holding an “unsanctioned” protest! After all, getting hit with skunk is something you ought to expect, since pretty much everyone can buy it at their local supermarket! Seriously, if only you had protested the way we wanted you to you’d have been OK goes well beyond scolding and into hostage-taking. Ask Rosa Parks how well the civil rights movement would’ve done if she’d just protested the way the state wanted her to. (And hey, wanna put some pressure on Columbia over this matter? Jewish Voice for Peace helps you do that.)
Families suing Koch Industries-owned Georgia-Pacific over the havoc asbestos has wrought in their lives condemn Koch for using a bankruptcy work-around called the “Texas two-step” to avoid paying out. Texas law allows corporations to divide into two corporations and then dump all their legal liabilities onto the second corporation – which then declares bankruptcy! I would never expect our Supreme Court to do its duty and assert that such bankruptcy arrangements hurt the rights of others to redress grievances, but that’s what they ought to do. In the meantime, boycott Dixie cups and Brawny paper towels. “Tear-a-square” paper towels are stupid anyway; I’ll always be a size-a-sheet man.
”21 Bodycam Videos Caught the NYPD Wrongly Arresting Black Kids on Halloween,” announces ProPublica, so “Why Can’t the Public See the Footage?” I’m going to go out on a limb and say the answer is “because it would embarrass the NYPD.” Look, if you do bad things, you should expect to be embarrassed, and you should expect your friends and neighbors and family to shame you; all that’s called civilization , and too many powerful people think they’re above it. And if the NYPD remains in control over who can see body cam footage, that doesn’t mean “body cameras don’t work” – it means we should have more control, and the police should have less control, over who gets to see body camera footage.
Finally, a Christofascist who shall remain nameless because history will forget him assures us that folks “involved in election fraud” will be “struck dead by God.” Well, I guess so, eventually, though it seems He’s working awfully slowly, particularly in that Georgia case where everyone heard Donald Trump say he just wanted to find 11,780 – oh, wait, he means us! Everyone thinks God’s on their side, long after it’s obvious He’s not. But then, rage is a hell of a drug.
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