Fatal Malfunction:Data from the flight recorder reveals that the pilots of Lion Air Flight 610, which crashed into the Java Sea last month, were fighting to keep the plane aloft almost from the moment of taking off.

“The pilots fought continuously until the end of the flight,” said Capt. Nurcahyo Utomo, the head of the air accident subcommittee of the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee.

The recorder shows that a sensor in the plane kept forcing down the nose and the pilots brought it back up more than two dozen times before the new Boeing 737 Max 8 hit the ocean at 450 mph, killing all 189 people on board.

The working theory of the malfunction is that a system installed on new 737s designed to sense attitude and prevent the nose from getting too high instead forced it too low. The pilots had the ability to turn off the system and didn’t.

Boeing says the proper steps for overcoming that malfunction are in the flight manuals, but some pilots have said they were unaware of the complexities of this new system — or that the instructions are in the manuals.

Season of the Witch:A lawyer for President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort briefed President Trump’s lawyers on his client’s discussions with the Special Counsel under a cooperation agreement, The NY Times reports. It might have been an attempt to win Manafort a presidential pardon.

It was not against the law, but it increased the friction between the Special Counsel and the White House.

Trump went on a Twitter rampage yesterday after Special Counsel Robert Mueller yanked his cooperation deal with Manafort, who is accused of lying even after promising to tell the truth.

“The Phony Witch Hunt continues,” Trump wrote of the investigation. “Mueller is a conflicted prosecutor gone rogue….The Fake News Media builds Bob Mueller up as a Saint, when in actuality he is the exact opposite. He is doing TREMENDOUS damage to our Criminal Justice System, where he is only looking at one side and not the other.”

Trump still wants Mueller to investigate Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, who likes to blow in Trump’s ear, tweeted, “Your feelings of inferiority, insecurity, vulnerability, and culpability are loud & clear. You remind me of how many corrupt authoritarian leaders abroad behaved before they were deposed. Bob Mueller’s name will be revered in the annals of U.S. history; your name will be scorned.”

No Soup for You!:President Trump is threatening to cut subsidies to general Motors in retaliation for the company’s plan to shut plants and fire 14,000 employees.

“Nothing being closed in Mexico & China,” he tweeted. “The U.S. saved General Motors, and this is the THANKS we get! We are now looking at cutting all @GMsubsidies, including for electric cars.”

The Invasion:Despite President Trump’s fear-mongering  about an immigrant “invasion,” there are fewer illegal immigrants in the country than 10 years ago, according to a study, by the Pew Research Center.  The study estimates that there were 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants living in the US in 2016. That’s down from a high of 12.2 million in 2007.

It’s Political:Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith successfully defended her seat, defeating Democrat Mike Espy in a racially charged race. In January, Republicans will control the Senate 53-47.

The Obit Page: Stephen Hillenburg, a former marine biology teacher who created the children’s’ cartoon show “SpongeBob SquarePants,” died  Monday at home in Southern California. He was 57.

Hillenburg died of the degenerative nerve condition known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

His show and SpongeBob have been an international hit. His character is a square kitchen sponge who lives in a pineapple in Bikini Bottom. He works as a fry cook and has a pet snail.

In 2001 Hillenburg told The Washington Post, “At first I drew a few natural sponges — amorphous shapes, blobs — which was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine science teacher. Then I drew a square sponge, and it looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking for — a somewhat nerdy, squeaky-clean oddball.”

High Intelligence:In an interview with The Washington Post President Trump basically said he’s too smart to believe in global warming and climate change. “One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers.” Trump said during an Oval Office interview. “As to whether or not it’s man-made and whether or not the effects that you’re talking about are there, I don’t see it.”

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