Ralph Nader Blog, by Ralph Nader

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Boeing’s Perilous Bungling Requires New Leadership
by Ralph Nader
December 16, 2019

The Boeing executives and marketeers responsible for over-ruling Boeing engineers on the 737 MAX are still in charge of this very troubled aerospace company. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg and the rubber-stamp Board of Directors, with two trophy ambassadors, are still running Boeing – thirteen months after the deadly 737 MAX crash in Indonesia and nine months after the deadly 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia that together took 346 lives. Boeing said in October that it would appoint a board member with deep air safety experience, but it has not happened yet. (Muilenburg is the only board member with an aeronautical engineering background)

Boeing has displayed an egregious pattern of mismanagement. The company is in trouble from contractors, the Department of Defense, and NASA. California Representative John Garamendi said Boeing had “serious quality issues” with the KC-46 aerial tanker used by the military and accused the company of “pushing profits over quality and safety.” According to NASA’s Inspector General Paul Martin, NASA “essentially paid Boeing higher prices to address a schedule slippage caused by Boeing’s 13-month delay.”

First-rate former Boeing engineers, including John Barnett and Ed Pierson, are exposing the reckless conditions at the Boeing 737 and 787 Dreamliner plants in Washington state and South Carolina.

Boeing managers and directors are still on the job and paying themselves handsomely. These reckless marketeers are able to get away with this because Congress and the White House have disabled the FAA and turned it from a safety watchdog into an industry lapdog, leaving Boeing free to self-certify its planes.

With intensifying investigation by the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure, under the chairmanship of Congressman Peter DeFazio, a stunning internal FAA risk assessment turned up. After the October 29, 2018 Lion Air Flight 610 was hijacked by powerful MCAS software which took control of the aircraft from its pilots. A December 2018 FAA memo concluded that there would be 15 catastrophic crashes globally over the life of the 737 MAX fleet – ranging 30 to 45 years. That would mean the deaths of at least 2900 human beings.

Dr. Alan Diehl, an aerospace engineer with extensive experience at the FAA, at the Department of Defense, and in private business, told the Wall Street Journal that this prediction “would be an unacceptable number in the modern aviation-safety world.” The FAA analysis, surfacing very late in the wake of the two planes going down due to Boeing’s criminal negligence, was conditioned on the 737 MAX not flying until there are design and software corrections.

Chairman DeFazio noted other design problems with the Boeing 737 MAX, including rudder vulnerabilities. Boeing leadership has displayed all sorts of derelictions, including refusing to adequately inform pilots about the problems with the 737 MAX, producing faulty training manuals, and refusing to insist on full simulator training. Not only that, but the 787 Dreamliner has been found to have inadequate protection in case of lightning strikes (another Boeing bosses over-ruling of their own engineer’s warnings). Boeing also laid off hundreds of quality control inspectors in its factories, preferring to rely on machines.

The FAA’s new chief, Stephen Dickson, recently warned Boeing to stop announcing ungrounding times for the approximately 400 737 MAX already in the hands of the airlines. He indicated that the FAA is stiffening its backbone a little by saying that the ungrounding schedule will be decided by the FAA. Boeing has just announced it was suspending production of the 737 MAX for the time being.

The next step for Dickson would be to ask FAA Deputy Administrator Daniel Elwell and Associate Administrator for Safety Ali Bahrami to resign. Elwell and Bahrami turned their backs on airline passenger safety, let Boeing dictate its own safety decisions, and kept the public and Congress in the dark. There is no way the FAA can recover its responsibilities so long as Elwell and Ali Bahrami are still in positions of any responsibility.

Bahrami admitted he wasn’t even aware of his own agency’s risk assessment of the Boeing 737 MAX, noted above.

Meanwhile, the families of the deceased continue to advocate that the Boeing 737 MAX be required to undergo full certification with full pilot simulator training. In their grief, these wonderful family members are fighting daily for the future safety of tens of millions of airline passengers.

Please see flyersrights.org for updates and your participation. You can find their comprehensive report at the following link: https://flyersrights.org/737-max/white-paper/. And see a Democracy Now! Interview on Boeing’s misdeeds: https://www.democracynow.org/2019/12/16 ... 37_max_jet

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Why Not Also Go With “The Kitchen Table” Impeachable Offenses for Removal?
by Ralph Nader
December 6, 2019

Will the Democrats move to impeach Trump for a narrow brace of violations and accept that the Senate Republicans will keep this outlaw in the White House? Or will they present the Senate with the President’s many proven impeachable offenses, thereby requiring the Senate Republicans, before live national television, in a public trial to defend Trump’s indefensible behavior?

Let’s start with the signal statement by Trump: “Then I have Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President.” For almost three years, he has proceeded to engage in monarchical unconstitutional behavior in far more repeated, brazen ways than any preceding president. It is not even close.

The “abuse of the public trust” was stated by Alexander Hamilton as one definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” or an impeachable offense. Trump’s abuses provide deep evidence that he is (1) a serial, chronic, daily liar on matters of state, (2) a serial sexual predator, (3) a racist bigot, as demonstrated by his programs and policies, and (4) one who incites violence at rallies and in his tweets. Taken together, these abuses as an article of impeachment should be put before the Senate for them to defend. Millions of citizens will understand from their own core values that our country should shed this arrogant disgrace from our White House – through removal from office in the impeachment trial.

Another impeachment article should deal with Trump’s corruption in appointing henchmen to head health, safety and economic protection agencies with the objective of dismantling and disabling the laws enacted by Congress. Trump is bad for you when you breathe the air, drink the water, eat chicken, beef, pork, vegetables and fruit or work in hazardous places. Children are being exposed to dangerous pesticides, borrowers are being ripped off by financial companies and students are snagged by student loan traps and for-profit colleges. Trump sides with corporate criminals and fraudsters, and he expands crony capitalism with corporate welfare with your tax dollars. This is no mere de-regulation here and there. This is wholesale removal of the federal cops from the corporate crime beat and leaving you defenseless. Openly rejecting his constitutional duty to “faithfully” execute the laws is a major impeachable offense.

Then there is the loud desire to enrich himself by using the magnetic power of his office to attract patrons to his hotels and other properties in search of favors. Unlike past presidents, Trump defiantly retains direct profit seeking ownership of his businesses, leading to violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

These are continual impeachable violations that the House of Representatives can make graphic and persuasive to millions of Americans who believe in the rule of law.

Important as the crooked attempt to bribe Ukraine to enhance his re-election campaign is – something Trump will continue to pursue given his past requests that Russia and China help him against his electoral opponents, this gross behavior has not moved the needle of public opinion. It is viewed as remote from the “kitchen table” concerns of voters. This is not the case with other documented impeachable offenses.

Here are two examples: Appointing “acting” henchmen to head agencies who have not been confirmed by the Senate and spending money prohibited by Congress by shifting funds approved by Congress thereby violating two federal statutes, in addition to the Constitution.

He has also threatened unilateral wars, which can only be declared by Congress, not by him, under our Constitution. He illegally sends armed forces anywhere he wants to destroy anyone he wants – prosecutor, judge, jury and executor all in one. More and more Americans are turning against the bankrupting military policies that only create more enemies and quagmires. Even conservatives are upset by Trump’s imperialistic acts.

Of course the contempt of Congress is Trump’s marquee unconstitutional outrage. Our founding fathers would have had him impeached after a few defiances of Congressional subpoenas, not to mention dozens of such rejections for witnesses and documents starting soon after his inauguration in January 2017 and intensifying during this impeachment period. Trump thinks he can strip-mine the basic oversight and investigative authority of Congress with impunity.

Bruce Fein, a constitutional scholar and litigator, asserts that the impeachment power given to Congress must operate under a greater urgency in 2019 than in 1781 when the federal government’s main employees were postmen. Now the Executive Branch is immensely larger and more dangerous. Without regard for the Constitution and the separation of powers between Congress and the judicial branch, this White House has weaponry and might that can destroy the Earth, install dictators and retard the world’s response to deadly climate disruption. Domestically, the President can accelerate the emergence of a fascistic, corporate state.

Fein says the founder’s view of impeachment as a proactive deterrent heading off worse situations, is given more urgency by the towering size and power of the executive branch today.

Going with a full, strong impeachment case in the House will galvanize the affected constituencies to support this effort. It will put the Senate Republicans in a very tight spot of choosing between their political futures and Constitutional duties or the political fate of Donald Trump.

Failure by Congress to prevent devastating precedents from being invoked and followed by future presidents will create a legacy of disgrace for Congress. Above all, for Speaker Pelosi, a broad and compelling indictment of Trump will move the citizens otherwise described by Abraham Lincoln as the “public sentiment,” to sustain an impeachment verdict by the Senate.