brooklynite
brooklynite's JournalProblems Pile Up for Boeing as 737 Max Delays Continue
Source: New York Times
The return of Boeing’s 737 Max appears to be slipping. Again.
The plane has been grounded since March after two deadly crashes that killed 346 people. It has disrupted the global aviation industry and plunged Boeing into the biggest crisis the aerospace giant has ever faced.
Yet today, after more than eight months of intensive work by Boeing and aviation regulators, the timing of the return of the 737 Max appears more precarious than ever.
While Boeing has said publicly that it expects the Federal Aviation Administration to begin the process of ungrounding the plane this year, that now appears unlikely, according to a government official familiar with the process. Instead, it is increasingly likely that the grounding will continue into 2020, given the series of tests Boeing must complete before the regulator clears the plane to fly.
F.A.A. officials believe that it could take until late January for the agency to lift the grounding and approve training requirements for pilots. It would then take weeks for airlines to prepare Max jets to operate commercial routes.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/27/business/boeing-737-max-return-to-service.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
Inbreeding may have helped cause Neanderthals to go extinct, study says
CNNNeanderthals went extinct around 40,000 years ago -- about the same time that modern humans migrated out of Africa. This has led researchers to believe that modern humans won the competition for resources, leading to the demise of Neanderthals.
Other theories around the environmental pressure of climate change or even epidemics maintain those reasons could have helped Neanderthals to go extinct.
But a new study proposes that modern humans had nothing to do with it. Instead, the researchers suggest that inbreeding, small populations and fluctuations in birth, death and sex ratio would have been enough to lead the Neanderthals to their permanent end. The study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS.
Previous research suggested that Neanderthals had small populations before modern humans made their appearance. Neanderthals were also spread out in isolated, local areas.
Witness testimony and records raise questions about account of Trump's 'no quid pro quo' call
Source: Washington Post
President Trump was cranky when they spoke on the phone in September, Ambassador Gordon Sondland told members of Congress, but his words were clear: Trump wanted no quid pro quo with Ukraine.
“This is Ambassador Sondland speaking to me,” Trump said outside the White House last week, looking down to read notes he’d taken of Sondland’s testimony. “Here’s my response that he just gave: ‘I want nothing. .?.?. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo.’?”
Sondland’s recollection of a phone conversation that he said took place on Sept. 9 has emerged as a centerpiece of Trump’s defense as House Democrats argue in an impeachment inquiry that he abused his office to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrats.
However, no other witness testimony or documents have emerged that corroborate Sondland’s description of a call that day.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/witness-testimony-and-records-raise-questions-about-account-of-trumps-no-quid-pro-quo-call/2019/11/27/425545c2-0d49-11ea-8397-a955cd542d00_story.html
Russia Inquiry Review Is Expected to Undercut Trump Claim of F.B.I. Spying
Source: New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s inspector general found no evidence that the F.B.I. attempted to place undercover agents or informants inside Donald J. Trump’s campaign in 2016 as agents investigated whether his associates conspired with Russia's election interference operation, people familiar with a draft of the inspector general’s report said.
The determination by the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, is expected to be a key finding in his highly anticipated report due out on Dec. 9 examining aspects of the Russia investigation. The finding also contradicts some of the most inflammatory accusations hurled by Mr. Trump and his supporters, who alleged not only that F.B.I. officials spied on the Trump campaign but also at one point that former President Barack Obama had ordered Mr. Trump’s phones tapped. The startling accusation generated headlines but Mr. Trump never backed it up.
The finding is one of several by Mr. Horowitz that undercuts conservatives’ claims that the F.B.I. acted improperly in investigating several Trump associates starting in 2016. He also found that F.B.I. leaders did not take politically motivated actions in pursuing a secret wiretap on a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page — eavesdropping that Mr. Trump’s allies have long decried as politically motivated.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/27/us/politics/fbi-trump-campaign-inspector-general.html
Oops...
Anonymous' vows to unveil identity as 2020 heats up
Source: Politico
The anonymous Trump administration official who set Washington ablaze with an op-ed detailing an insider plot to restrain President Donald Trump has vowed to expose their identity as the 2020 election heats up.
“Trump will hear from me, in my own name, before the 2020 election,” the official declared in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session on Tuesday night. The anonymous official is promoting a new book, “A Warning,” which describes Trump as a threat to the country and dangerously unfit for the Oval Office.
“As far as anonymity is concerned, I will not keep my identity shrouded in secrecy forever,” the official added. “I am not afraid to use my own name to express concern about the current occupant of the Oval Office. Donald Trump has not heard the last of me.”
A potential revelation of the author’s identity would solve one of the more curious mysteries at the heart of this presidency — who wrote the 2018 New York Times op-ed that described administration officials working to undermine the president’s own wishes. The editorial arrived at the height of the dramatic leaks coming out of the White House and sparked a frenzied guessing game within the administration and sent amateur sleuths across the country digging for clues.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/27/anonymous-author-identity-074189
The Town Hall That Impeachment Blew Up
Politico“We sent you to Washington,” a woman began, “to get work done, for us and for our country, and it appears that for the last couple years all that has been going on is investigations.” Sitting in the front, I could almost feel people’s shoulders tense up. Everybody knew what was coming. The towheaded scouts had filed to the back. The adults had the floor now. And impeachment was in the air. “We honestly,” the woman continued, “can’t trust Adam Schiff …”
She was drowned out by a wall of noise. The space rippled with a mixture of boos and cheers and uncorked angst.
Here's why Bloomberg insists he's not crazy
PoliticoNo, these strategists insist, the billionaire media titan and philanthropist is not crazy, and neither are they.
The evidence for the alleged noncraziness is based on polling, an emphatically low regard for the current field of Democratic candidates, and an emphatically high regard for Bloomberg’s purported assets. These include a compelling life story, a record of accomplishment as mayor, credibility with activists on gun control and climate change, and an ability to nationalize the race this coming winter and early spring with a historic torrent of money and messaging.
What Bloomberg contemplates is not so much an exercise in threading the political needle as pulverizing that needle as it has existed for decades.
Elizabeth Warren loses her mojo in Iowa
PoliticoIn a state where fortunes can change on a dime, Pete Buttigieg has seized the momentum in recent weeks as Warren has slipped. Top Iowa Democrats attribute the shift to the scrutiny Warren is receiving as a frontrunner — including attacks from her rivals — as well as her struggles defending her plan to remake the nation's health care system.
And while Warren remained largely off the air until this month, Buttigieg has carpet-bombed the state with digital and TV ads, boosting his name ID. The South Bend mayor also delivered a standout speech to 13,500 Democrats at a marquee political event early this month.
“You have to wonder whether she peaked too soon,” former Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, co-chair of the advocacy group Focus on Rural Iowa, said of Warren. “In Iowa, she is wearing some — [it's] like she established her endorsers and her delegates and that’s all there is.”
Warren's Big Bet on Medicare for All Is Not Paying Off
Daily BeastThe senator’s decision to back single-payer health care has long been considered by establishment Democrats as a self-inflicted wound, one that would prove to be a massive weight on her in a general election should she get there. One senior Democratic Party member—who is philosophically supportive of Warren’s candidacy—said he was “dumbfounded” by her decision to align herself so closely with the proposal. “She’s completely boxed herself in,” the member said. “I just don’t see why she did it or how she gets out of it.”
Both Warren supporters and Medicare for All advocates have dismissed such prognostications as the bed-wetting cynicism of a timid—and corporate-influenced—consultant class. And through it all they’ve had an easy rejoinder to the collective freakout: Beyond the moral argument for Medicare for All, polling has continually showed it to be popular.
But that now appears to be changing. A new national Quinnipiac University poll of the Democratic primary field showed Warren slipping dramatically, down 14 percentage points from their survey one month prior. And tucked into the survey was a possible explanation as to why. The pollsters tested support for Medicare for All and found that only 36 percent of the public said it was a good idea (52 percent said it was bad) compared to March 2019, when 43 percent said good idea, while 45 percent said bad.
Profile Information
Name: Chris BastianGender: Male
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Home country: USA
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 94,729