What Trump's wall will destroy

Thanks to Outside.

A cozy relationship

Clay Bennett

In today's NY Times:

To the Editor:

As a lifelong safety engineer, I am horrified by the events leading President Trump and the F.A.A. to finally ground the 737 Max 8 fleet.

The relationship of the regulatory oversight guaranteeing the safety of travel and the companies involved — the regulated — represents a failure to establish and maintain an adequate safety culture.

You describe in “Pressure on U.S. to Cease Flights of Troubled Jets” (front page, March 13) an appeal by the head of Boeing directly to President Trump not to take this action. You describe how Boeing and others are allowed by the F.A.A. to choose their own employees to help certify their planes “to help the F.A.A. stretch its limited resources.”

A former head of the National Transportation Safety Board is quoted as saying: “It’s a very cozy relationship. The manufacturer essentially becomes both the manufacturer and the regulator, because of the lack of the ability of government to do the job.”

The steps needed now are clear to any layman: The fleet must remain grounded until the N.T.S.B. determines the root cause of the crashes and it is fixed, with approval of a strong and independent regulator.

While this is underway, Congress must investigate the coziness that exists between the F.A.A. and those it regulates.

Gene Hughes

San Francisco

Adam Zyglis

See also Tracking deregulation in the Trump era and Consumer protection withering away under Trump administration.

Beto O'Rourke and the bipartisan delusion

From the New Republic: The Profound Emptiness of Beto O’Rourke

After months spent teasing his supporters and the political media, Beto O’Rourke surprised absolutely no one Thursday when he officially announced his candidacy for president. “We are truly now more than ever the last great hope of Earth,” he said in a video posted on social media, “At this moment of maximum peril and maximum potential, let’s show ourselves and those who will succeed us in this great country just who we are and what we can do.”

These are exactly the kind of empty platitudes we have come to expect from O’Rourke since last year, when his failed, but lively challenge of Senator Ted Cruz turned him from a back-bench, three-term congressman to a national figure (and former congressman). 

Some have compared him to Barack Obama, with whom he shares a message of optimism and unity. But the comparisons end there. He has all of Obama’s self-assurance with none of his intellectual fortitude, inspirational biography, or oratory power. His rhetoric is as empty as his platform...

Rob's comment:

We Democrats are supposed to practice bipartisanship by getting together with a Republican proto-fascist political party.

Okay, O'Rourke almost beat Ted Cruz. Was that a great achievement? After all, Cruz may be the most hated man in a Congress that has a lot of awful people. Cruz missed his true calling as a movie star playing characters like the villains in those Bruce Willis movies. Instead he's really good playing a creepy right-wing villain in our country's political culture.