Washington Wins, Bolton on Deck

The Series: The Washington Nationals came from behind last night in Houston to win game seven and their first World Series in franchise history. Final score, 6-2. The last time a team won the series in Washington, Calvin Coolidge was President. It is the first World Series in which neither team won a home game.

Climbing the Ladder: House investigators have summoned former National Security Adviser John Bolton to testify in the impeachment hearings. He is potentially a pivotal witness.

  Other witnesses have said that Bolton was alarmed about the machinations of President Trump’s private lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and other administration officials conducting a side-channel foreign policy with Ukraine. 

  It’s unknown as yet whether Bolton will obey a White House edict for current and former members of the administration to refuse cooperation with the investigation. He has been “invited” to testify and may require a subpoena to get him to come in.

  Bolton would be the most senior official to testify and would certainly know everything about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine and what was said in his conversation with the president of Ukraine when he demanded an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

Fasten Seatbelts: Testimony before Congress yesterday revealed that Boeing knew about problems with its automatic control system known as MCAS on the 737 Max before the crash of two jets that killed 346 people.

  In a 2015 email sent years before the plane was certified, a Boeing employee questioned whether the whole system would fail if a single sensor went bad. Investigators believe that is what happened when a Lion Air flight crashed off Indonesia another Max went down in Ethiopia. 

  Boeing didn’t even tell pilots about the anti-stall system until after the crash of the first jet. Most pilots didn’t know enough to turn it off when it went haywire.

  Having two sensors was optional, and some foreign airlines chose not to pay for it. It’s generally a standard in the building of airplanes that they should not crash as the result of failure in a single device. Boeing violated that maxim.

  Oregon’s Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio said Boeing’s actions were “inexplicable, inexcusable and as far as I know unprecedented in the history of passenger aviation.” 

Impeachment: The full House is expected to vote today on formal rules for proceeding with the impeachment of President Trump.  The House Rules Committee measure allows for public impeachment hearings, the release of deposition transcripts, and it outlines the Judiciary Committee’s role in considering articles of impeachment. It will be the first vote the full House has taken on the impeachment inquiry.

Go to the Video: The Pentagon released video of the raid in which ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in Syria. You can see the tiny figures of American troops approaching the Baghdadi compound in the dark. Video also showed the compound being levelled with bombs after the commandos pulled out.

  Significantly, Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command, said he could not confirm President Trump’s claim that Baghdadi died “whimpering and crying and screaming” like a coward.

The Bulletin Board: The average eighth-grade reading score on a national test declined among public school students in more than half of the states, according to the Education Department. — The financially lagging campaign of presidential candidate Kamala Harris has cut staff to save money, a bad sign for her future. — New York City has banned the sale and serving of fois gras, the French delicacy made from the livers of force-fed ducks and geese. — As expected, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the third time since July in an attempt to head off an economic slowdown. — Fire caused by a gas stove on a moving train in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province killed at least 65 passengers.

True Tweet: Twitter announced that it will no longer allow political ads, a move that’s a thumb in the eye to Facebook, which is standing by a policy to allow ads even when they contain lies.

  Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in a series of messages that paid ads skew the influence of Twitter. He wrote, “A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money.”

  In a hearing before Congress, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg defended his non-censorship policy saying it isn’t his job to police free speech. Members of Congress, of all people, expressed shock that Facebook would tolerate untruths and lies.

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Saturday, May 11, 2024

Page Two

The Most Corrupt Justice

Monday, October 2, 2023

Democracy and Video in the Dark

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Page Two: Do the Right Thing

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Page Two: Sound Recall

Monday, September 13, 2021

Page Two: Cuomo Must Go

Friday, August 13, 2021

Trump and the Truth

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The “Great” President

Monday, March 30, 2020

The Wright Stuff

Saturday, February 29, 2020

It's Been Said

"In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have, no excuses."

-Andrew Cuomo, resigning as governor of New York after accusations of sexual harassment

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