Boeing whistleblower tells Congress he was 'told effectively to shut up' as he voiced concerns. Here’s a timeline of the company’s latest problems. https://www.yahoo.com/news/boeing-whistleblower-tells-congress-he-was-told-effectively-to-shut-up-as-he-voiced-concerns-heres-a-timeline-of-the-companys-latest-problems-170104497.html A Boeing whistleblower testified to a Senate investigations subcommittee on Wednesday that despite numerous attempts to flag safety issues he was seeing with aircraft manufacturing, he was ignored and sometimes threatened by his superiors. “They call you on your personal phone to let you know that they know where you live," the whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, testified. "They know where you are. And they can hurt you.” Several witnesses told senators that Boeing’s company culture prioritizes money-saving measures over safety in its production of the 787 Dreamliner and the 777 aircraft. "Unless action is taken, and leaders are held accountable, every person stepping aboard a Boeing airplane is at risk," Pierson said during his testimony. “This is a criminal cover-up.” "Boeing dictates to the FAA, tells the FAA what they will do, what they will accept,” Jacobsen claimed. “Accountability goes all the way to the top,” Pruchnicki alleged about Boeing. “I’d be fascinated to know how many times per week [Boeing’s] CEO people actually talk to their safety people.” Just pathetic and sad. I used to be a big fan of Boeing. They really do make great airplanes and other products. But clearly, as this damning report shows, somewhere along the line money became more important than safety, and I have no idea how the hell Boeing expects people to trust them now. Especially on their 787 and 777 aircraft.

A Principal Confronted a Teenage Girl. Now He’s Facing Prison Time. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/nyregion/nj-principal-student-assault.html What a shiteshow... Anyway, here is a summary -- In a high school lobby in New Jersey, the principal saw a student heading toward a stairway and moved to cut her off. There was physical contact between them, though no blows. The interaction lasted less than a minute. The student filed an affirmative action complaint against the principal, saying he had grabbed her and “slammed” her against a wall. The student is Black; the principal is white and Latino. The principal, reporting the episode later that day, said he was preventing an altercation between the student and three others, who said she had threatened them. On March 11, almost exactly a year after the encounter, the principal, Frank Sanchez, was taken into custody and charged with assault and endangering a minor. [James H. Davis III, chair of the Black Parents Workshop] “These towns purport to be extremely progressive and extremely inclusive,” he said in an interview. “So they’re saying this girl was in a fight. She was a troublemaker. She was a thug. And I said, ‘What does that matter?’” haha! Yeah, for James H. Davis III, apparently it doesn't matter if a student is a troublemaker, a thug, gets into fights, beats-up other students, because you know, he sure seems more worried about the color of their skin. “This is an effort to advocate for Black children by burning up the entire system,” said Khalil Gibran Muhammad, a parent who supports Sanchez. “These folks have played very aggressively and unfairly with people’s lives to try to score political points. And this is an escalation, in my opinion, that is very dangerous and crosses the line.” If a school official can be not just disciplined but also jailed for intervening to break up or prevent a fight, what are teachers supposed to do? [Christopher Emdin, a professor of science education at Teachers College, Columbia University] “The nature of schools is that uncomfortable interactions happen,” Emdin said. In districts with a history of racial litigation, he added, “there’s a tendency to blow things out of proportion and to attach what happens oftentimes during the school day to race and racism. And that’s dangerous for Black kids who are undergoing legitimate racist practices in contemporary schools. Teachers can’t act effectively if they’re fearful that their actions are going to be misconstrued as racist.” BINGO -- I've known a lot of college students in my time that want to be K-12 teachers. I never try to dissuade anyone, but if they ask my opinion, I tell them "Well, if you can get a nice job at a private school, go for it! However, to teach in public education today, that's not something I would touch." It's sad, but reminds me of the case against Daniel Penny -- he likely saved lives, passengers who were threatened are literally calling him a "hero", but he's on trail and could get 15 years in prison. Shiteshow, as I said.

James and Jennifer Crumbley, parents of Michigan school shooter, sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison for manslaughter https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/09/us/james-jennifer-crumbley-sentencing/index.html After sentencing, Oakland County Prosecuting Attorney Karen McDonald said the defendants expressed “feeling bad” but what mattered to the victims’ families most was an expression of remorse and “acknowledgement of the wrongdoing and some sort of reconciliation or apology for that – and that didn’t come.” At their trials, prosecutors used testimony from shooting survivors, police investigators and school employees to prove that the parents were “grossly negligent” in allowing their teenage son to have access to the gun and ignoring signs of his spiraling mental health. Jennifer Crumbley took the stand in her trial and blamed her husband, the school and her son for the shooting, while expressing no regret of her own. “I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have,” she testified. By contrast, James Crumbley did not testify in his trial, and his attorney argued he simply didn’t know about his son’s plans or mental issues. The parents’ defense attorneys have argued the charges have no legal justification, but appeals courts have upheld them. Good riddance! Parents need to be held accountable -- to an extent of course. You can't control kids, but you sure should know when your child has mental issues -- especially when directly told that by a medical provider! and of course they ignored gun safety rules, AND don't forget these two pieces of excrement HID in a warehouse after the shooting! Hope they "enjoy" prison...

Trump can't pay the piper. https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/politics/trump-464-million-dollar-bond/index.html "Former President Donald Trump can’t find an insurance company to underwrite his bond to cover the massive judgment against him in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case, his lawyers told a New York appeals court. Trump’s attorneys said he has approached 30 underwriters to back the bond, which is due by the end of this month. “The amount of the judgment, with interest, exceeds $464 million, and very few bonding companies will consider a bond of anything approaching that magnitude,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. (Trump himself was ordered to pay $454 million; the $464 million includes the disgorgement for his adult sons Don Jr. and Eric.) An insurance broker, Gary Giulietti, who testified for Trump during the civil fraud trial, signed an affidavit stating that securing a bond in the full amount “is a practical impossibility.” Potential underwriters are seeking cash to back the bond, not properties, according to Trump’s lawyers." Probably because his properties are all leveraged beyond the breaking point.

McConnell always looked to me like Ian Ferguson from the Pat show as an old man.

I love Schumer there going, "Well, sucks to be you, Mitch."

Mitch "The Shellshock" McConnell

Migrant Children Sell Candy on the Subway. New York Has No Solutions. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/13/nyregion/migrant-children-selling-candy-subway-laws.html Of all the manifestations of human misery that the two-year-old migrant crisis has brought to New York City, few trouble the conscience more than the sight of children selling candy on the subway — sometimes during school hours, sometimes accompanied by parents, sometimes not. On trains and on social media, New Yorkers have asked: Isn’t this child labor? Is it illegal? Shouldn’t someone be doing something to help these children? The state Labor Department said it was “difficult to determine” whether the practice of children selling candy in the subway would violate labor law, which generally “regulates employment relationships (i.e., between employers and employees).” The city’s child welfare agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, said that anyone who sees a child in a situation that seems unsafe can call the state child abuse hotline. But the State Office of Children and Family Services, which runs the hotline, said that a child selling merchandise or panhandling would not be considered maltreatment or neglect unless there was a specific concern about possible harm, like “children selling candy at a dangerous intersection.” Children's Services in my experience is basically a waste of money. I knew people that were abusing children and when called CS did NOTHING. It was so infuriating. This happens over and over. Something as obvious as helping kids like this, and what does CS do? Again, NOTHING. Not surprised NYC has no solutions, they have had no solutions for most things for decades. But hey, as long as the money is flowing in...

Mitch McConnell to step down from Senate leadership | AP News

As Putin Threatens, Despair and Hedging in Europe https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/18/world/europe/europe-russia-munich-conference.html Vladimir Putin had a message for them: Nothing they’ve done so far — sanctions, condemnation, attempted containment — would alter his intentions to disrupt the current world order. Russia made its first major gain in Ukraine in nearly a year, taking the ruined city of Avdiivka, at huge human cost to both sides...And the American discovery, disclosed in recent days, that Putin may be planning to place a nuclear weapon in space — a bomb designed to wipe out the connective tissue of global communications if Putin is pushed too far — was a potent reminder of his capacity to strike back at his adversaries with the asymmetric weapons that remain a key source of his power. ...almost every available sanction has been imposed, and it was unclear if the United States and the Europeans would be prompted to seize the $300 billion or so in assets that Russia unwisely left abroad before the invasion. When a senior U.S. official was asked how the United States would make good on President Joe Biden’s 2021 pledge of “devastating consequences” for Russia if Navalny died in prison — a statement made in Putin’s presence at a meeting in Geneva — the official shrugged. “I feel underwhelmed and somewhat disappointed” by the debate here, said Steven Sokol, president of the American Council on Germany. “There was a lack of urgency and a lack of clarity about the path forward, and I did not see a strong show of European solidarity.” He and others noted that French President Emmanuel Macron did not attend. ...the warning did not appear to generate an urgent discussion of how to prepare for that possibility. The conference celebrated the fact that now two-thirds of alliance members have met the goal of spending 2% of their gross domestic product on defense — up from just a handful of nations 10 years ago. But a few acknowledged that goal is now badly outdated, and they talked immediately about the political barriers to spending more. Wow, how can anyone not read this and not think of Europe pre-WWII

"If you don't like it, just get another job."

Judge Engoron fines Trump more than $350M, bars him from running businesses in N.Y. for 3 years (nbcnews.com) The judge who presided over a civil business fraud trial against Donald Trump on Friday ordered the former president, his sons, business associates and company to pay over $350 million in damages and temporarily limited their ability to do business in New York. Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the former president and the Trump Organization to pay over $354 million in damages, and bars Trump "from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years," including his namesake company.

Interesting take: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/trump-s-cruelty-plays-to-worst-of-human-nature-for-his-maga-supporters-that-s-the-point/ar-BB1ijA6x?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=828a5db7cbc840869b0d2271cb89dd3e&ei=23

"not The Onion"

“He’s not gonna be like a Hitler dictator,” Klepper said. “No,” the woman agreed. “More like a Mussolini dictator,” Klepper added. “Yes, exactly,” she said. “Put the people in place,” the man accompanying her said. “A dictator can do that, right?” Klepper said. “It can put people in place. The good people are over here, the bad people are over here in a gulag.” “At this point, it’s what America needs,” she replied.

Jury finds Jennifer Crumbley guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/verdict-in-for-jennifer-crumbley-mother-of-oxford-high-school-shooter/ A jury has found Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of the Oxford High School shooter, guilty of all four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Jennifer Crumbley will be sentenced on April 9. She faces up to 60 years in prison — 15 for each count. Excellent. From everything I gathered, it was clear the shooter (her son) was having mental problems and she along with her shite husband were just "Fuck it. We don't care." Bet they care now! Joe Tamburino, a legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, spoke with "CBS Evening News" and said the case "will create a huge precedent for further cases." If you're giving a minor a gun, then yes, you are at least partially responsible for their actions. In this case, it's clear they were BEYOND 100% irresponsible. Hope she rots in jail.

"The World Court on Friday ordered Israel to take action to prevent acts of genocide as it wages war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, but it stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire." https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/world-court-rule-urgent-measures-gaza-genocide-case-2024-01-26/

Maybe that was tech-nine

Isn’t this convenient: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/01/26/texas-border-dispute-gop-states-support-letter/72364737007/

I can tell you that IF we have a civil war, that would be the opportune time for enemy nations to strike us. Rather than hold down the fort, Im starting to feel like it’s about time to move to another quiet country for the next 2 years

Bingo. TPTB need us distracted, confused and fighting each other rather than getting our heads out of our lethargic asses and recognizing that we all share the same oppressor who only wants us enslaved or dead.

I strongly doubt Einstein ever said this