78 Comments

Sure, let's blame DEI rather than addressing issues of shitty design, poor quality control, overstressed workers, rushed schedules and an FAA totally controlled by the airlines and the manufacturers.

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Greed vs “woke” is the new battleground😒

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Yes, yes and yes!

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Of course. It's the RW way! Let's make up a boogey-man to be scared of and then drive everyone we meet CRAZY with it! The FEAR that is!

In this manner, we protect investor's ROI which is the LIFEBLOOD of this country just as much as the dreaded "S" word that all this diversity talk stems from.

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In some places he calls himself ‘right wing’ in others like X, he is more blunt: theocratic fascist.

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More than that what about a culture of $$$ vs quality and safety driven from the top

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Wouildn't that be nice?

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Oh yes those darn incompetent diverse people. Give us our own airlines and let’s see who falls out of the sky 🙃. Seriously though, I’m so sick of these people and even more disgusted that main stream media is complicit in all of it. Thank you all for calling out the actions and behavior of these barely human beings.

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Thank you as always, Judd, for exposing this charade of right-wing chicanery. We must be better trained as citizens to recognize the evil before us.

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*Tesnim

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founding

Wow Tesnim, you answered every question that came up as I read through this intensively researched article. I can easily visualize a Congressional committee investigating all of the C-suite characters of every aircraft company that has put money and power ahead of safety and honesty. How dare they blame the unknown workers of unknown colors and skills! So glad you could target the ones who threatened these corps with valid warnings and were either demoted or outright fired (cf Joshua Dean). Will these right wing voices blame BLM if someone they love is killed in one of these avoidable disasters? Thank you--I haven't seen a trace of this information in any other source.

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These profit based cuts are what the USA faces with the Supreme Court about to destroy the authority of Federal regulators. This Koch brothers lnstituted plot to unleash corporations from rules and regulations designed to protect workers and cosumers will destroy any trust remaining in American made products or services. And their puppet Trump will accelerate this destruction.

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Exactly! And how would this cynical maneuver be countered? I hear that expanding SCOTUS would help dilute the members of the SCOTUS controlled/influenced by dark monied interests?

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For a while. Until another president changed the number for instance. Congress can also change the number of federal courts.

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Jan 18·edited Jan 18

That is the salient factor that prevents president Biden from doing so, in my opinion.

The other side is not only unreasonable but cheats as soon as an opportunity presents itself, as we've seen with impeachment.

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His aides think so too. I’ve read it other places. This sample of the flack he took on this issue is from Politico, 7/7/2022:

“If you’re in a kind of theoretical game situation with an opponent who begins acting in bad faith, what do you do? Do you continue to play by the rules and hope that will incentivize them to return to the norms? Or do you retaliate in a tit for tat way and thus hopefully incentivize [them] to go back to the traditional norms?” Michael Klarman, a Harvard law professor who testified to Biden’s court commission, said in an interview.

“I think you’re a fool for not doing what’s in your power to try to protect the system,” Klarman added, calling Biden “hopelessly naïve” for opposing court expansion.

“White House aides acknowledge that Biden’s belief in the need for enduring institutions comes at the cost of embracing more aggressive reforms. … Aides say Biden also doesn’t want to start a different type of tit for tat with Republicans that leads to each side adding more seats.”

It is a long article and also includes this perspective:

“If you put all the rhetorical and political pressure behind something that you know is not going to pass this Congress, such as court expansion then you’ve passed on the opportunity to do all of the things that that can and must be done now,” said Ben LaBolt, a longtime Democratic strategist who was brought in to help shepherd the Supreme Court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson.

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Jan 18·edited Jan 18

Putting things in perspective, I have to agree with the last perspective. Like my old Drill Instructor Staff Sgt Pachowski would say, "If you ain't cheatin, you ain't winnin!" He was referring of course, to hand-to-hand combat.

But, perhaps this time is a time when one must consider breaking the rules temporarily to ensure that rules to follow even exist in the days to come.

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Was thinking the same thing. Excellent article.

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How much oxygen to give a self-described theocratic fascist unknown to the general public is always a question. But I did briefly hear the ‘theory’ mocked (no name) on MSNBC a while ago. (Unknown to most of us but he also claims to be a best selling children’s author.)

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My father worked for Boeing from the 50’s until he retired in the 90’s. It used to be run by aerospace engineers. Now it is run by MBA’s and all they care about is profit, completely ignoring what made them money in the first place, building a quality airplane.

They’ve shifted production to the shitty company they set up which cuts corners like crazy.

MBA’s ruin everything.

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Be careful about broadbrushing the degree rather than the greed that creates this.

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Let me know when the guys handing out business degrees emphasize ethics as much as profit.

We have gone from an economy where companies cared first about their product, then their employees, then creating value for shareholders.

Now it’s all about executive compensation, golden parachutes and shareholder returns no matter how short term.

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Indeed, that is a apt observation.

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Jan 18·edited Jan 18

That same principle could be applied just about anyway in the investor-driven economy. Many a company on the NASDAQ or whatever platform, seems to forget what the company before they got big, that made them grow large enough to be traded.

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Clearly there was something wrong. Leave it to racists to blame an entire race rather than the lax inspection rules sought by Boeing and approved by the Trump administration. After all as we remember by earlier disasters from the same laxity costing lives, millions in fines, and business lost to Airbus, a fall guy must be found, and as usual it must be racist or exist, anything but where the core issue is found: the corporate headquarters and top government official who pur safety last and profits first. For comparison, consider how it is that American submarines don't sink; government/navy inspectors.

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Think of how bad it could be if the compromised SCOTUS members have their way.

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Oh how conservatives rail against regulations, even when it's clear that diluting or deleting them results in bad outcomes. Can't allow themselves to be held accountable, so must find a scapegoat...must have been those pesky "others" that are responsible.

How about we send all conservatives to TX and FL and let them manage on their own there. We could even put up a fence to protect them from the rest of us.

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Oh that would be divine!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I feel like there is an alternative universe beyond my own, where racist misogynists feed fat boys their daily diet of hate. I do not live there and I do not see it, read it or hear it. Then a story like this rips open the curtain and the stench of hatred and stupidity rolls over me. I applaud you, Tesnim, for holding your nose all day to report on these creeps.

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This is infuriating. It has been very clear (empirically clear) since Boeing "acquired" McDonnell Douglas in the 80s that the company's focus became one of profit over product. Before that acquisition, Boeing was lead by its engineers - you know, the people actually qualified to design and build airplanes? Afterward, though, McDonnell Douglas executives, who were NOT engineers and had no training in that field, took over. They moved "leadership" physically away from the engineers (who were in Seattle) to Chicago.

A plethora of analysis demonstrates that safety has been deprioritized at that company for DECADES, including a solid decade before companies began truly adopting DEI practices. When the company's leadership decided to stop listening to its engineers and instead started listening to shareholders and Wall Street, it was utterly foreseeable that product safety would suffer as a result. Coincidentally (and perhaps ironically), I recently completed a business ethics class where the Boeing/McDonnell relationship and subsequent product safety lapses were a CASE STUDY in ethical culture failures.

I am so tired of post-hoc BS from pundits wholly unqualified to analyze cause/effect or correlative contributions to product safety failures getting oxygen. Why Matt Walsh is a "thing" I continue to struggle to understand on ANY topic let alone something as complex as this.

I hate that we even have to mention them (and inadvertently bring them more attention), but I am thankful that at least SOMEONE is ensuring that these "sources" do not go unchallenged and unchecked.

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Would someone please kindly explain to me how ANY voter of color and how ANY female voter can possibly conclude that voting for Republicans is in their best interest?

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Jan 18·edited Jan 18

I see them on those crowds and wonder, are they paid shil;;s? Do they not see the true face of their "compatriots?" Are they just that GD'd naive or... are they so cynical that nothing means anything anymore, there are no rules, no ethics or morals.

Absolutely nothing is meaningful except the size of the paycheck. Ya see, in that, size DOES matter!

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Thank you for this. The GOP's continued efforts to dismantle the power of agencies to do their jobs should have Americans alarmed--no matter what their party--because everything from the safety of our water to our air/train travel are at risk. (Witness the current Koch-backed Supreme Court case about fisheries, a cover for Koch's continued efforts to undo regulation of its own industry and further attack the Chevron doctrine).

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The want to send us all on a guided tour through a modern version of Upton Sinclaire's "The Jungle."

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Interestingly, the roles in an engineering company like Boeing which are most responsible when there is sloppy engineering work to investigate happen to be overwhelmingly filled by men. Think about the imbalance in STEM careers and in construction, where women are embarrassingly underrepresented. Women who are in influential roles that make the most impactful and substantive engineering decisions usually land in the 1 digit percentage (usually 5-8%, at best in the low teens). Lower if you look at how many are women of color.

Republicans can do all they can to find themselves a 'boogey woman' to blame at Boeing, but the reality is there are a whole lot more boogey men to pick from. At the Congressional 'investigations' of DEI incompetence all the Democrats have to do is provide an accounting of how many diverse folks are actually in charge of the key decisions.

Women in these disciplines have seen it all--their performance reviews are riddled with this type of preemptive judgment, otherwise known as meritocracy. Somehow when something goes wrong, often due to a mediocre man's performance, the one woman on the team is to blame. If it goes right, the men take the credit and she better not protest.

So, the misogyny is finally fully outed. Not sure what Republicans are going to accomplish with this gambit, because professional women sure aren't going to vote for any men Musk wants in power.

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Matt Walsh and those of his ilk need a daily viewing of “Hidden Figures”.

For Matt, the term “far right extremist” is a more polite term than how he describes himself on X as a “theocratic fascist”. He also frighteningly claims to be a best selling author of children’s books. We know where he wants the country to go because “theocratic fascist” says it all.

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The Republican Party, which I call the New American Nazi Party, blames DEI for about everything, when mostly it is because of their corrupt policies that things are going wrong. They are the party that has more forcefully backed the policies, that got rid of oversight, allows corporations to police themselves etc... Matt Stoller in his Substack Big talks about the same things. He points out that the problem is the monopolization in the industry, and that the company has only one engineer on its board, and the rest are not! https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/its-time-to-nationalize-and-then/comments

Right when this happened I was flying roundtrip Germany-USA on Lufthansa, as was my daughter from a different German city. On her return trip she had to fly in a Boeing plane, which was not the exact model that fell apart, but still, I was not happy about it. Lufthansa had made us both unhappy for other reasons, like every flight delayed, meaning missed connections, which if you tried to be proactive about they said they had to charge you a lot of money, like more than our entire trips were worth, and they did not live up to what their website promises. However, all of my legs were on Airbus' and I have to say, I just felt safer, because I felt like while they were nickel and diming us in every way possible, that their unions would not let them fly unsafe aircraft. On my return trip to Germany from O'Hare, my rebooked flight was delayed 2.5 hours, because a United Flight going to the same city as we were on Lufthansa, but on a Boeing, started off and then aborted their flight and came back to the gate because the pilots did not feel that the plane was de-iced enough. Bravo pilots! We really need people who work in the industry to exercise their union rights to protest the safety issues, because they know what they are. It is difficult to not compromise, particularly for those of us with family on both sides of the ocean. It is diversity and the desire to visit diverse destinations that keeps airlines in business, so once again, the Republican racists, are making a case against the purpose of the business, just as they rely in so many ways on immigrants, but claim to need to keep them out.

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founding

Thank you, Linda. I'm now printing this amazing article. Although I always gain a great deal from reading Matt Stoller's important writing, at this time I don't have enough "disposable" income to pay for a subscription. He obviously knows the history and overall disastrous economic situation that our nation has created for us by allowing Boeing , the FAA, et. al. to be unscrupulous purveyors of the vehicles we need for air travel.

Stoller reports that in Boeing "there is just one board member with any aerospace design experience, the rest are accountants and CEOs of various large firms like Aetna, Amgen, Duke Energy, and so forth, as well as a few ex-military leaders".

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That is why it is good that one can subscribe for free. I have to limit my paid subscriptions as well. I send Stoller's article link to President Biden and asked him to follow Stoller's advice. Later today, The Lever is going to feature Stoller talking about the Boeing event. I have copied their text here and there is a link to the zoom meeting. I am not sure if it will work. It might just be for paid subscribers. "After Boeing’s mid-flight aircraft failure that nearly ended in tragedy, what is happening at the airplane manufacturer? Are federal regulators on top of the emergency? Is it safe to fly? Is Boeing fixing anything?

In an online live event later today, we’ll discuss these questions and more, plus take questions directly from readers, with the help of two relevant experts: Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, and William McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economics Liberty Project.

Join us TODAY at 4:30pm ET (1:30pm PT) on Zoom.

CLICK HERE AT 4:30PM ET TO JOIN

We will send a reminder email shortly before the event with the meeting link.

Rock the boat.

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This exposes the cancer of racism & right wing divisiveness that runs deep into our culture. The fact that ANY company that transports millions of people, at unsurvivable altitudes, asks for lax regs should result in removal of those people from the industry.

We need to pressure companies that support news sources that print this to remove their support. Otherwise they are supporting excuses for the very people who endangered lives by requesting lax regulations.

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The problem, as with all issues in the business sphere, is the ugly spread of the disastrous philosophy of the no principals Jack Welch.

The CEO in charge of the descent to the bottom of a once great company (as in all companies and industries since the early 1980s) is a believer and practitioner of Jack Welch's rapacious appetite for taking companies and tearing them apart for every last ill gotten penny and leaving a smoking wretched husk with dead bodies in its place.

The Jack Welch America of diseased Wall Street industry, the philosophy that takes and takes and takes until there are only wraiths to witness a once healthy Main Street is what runs this country and the world today.

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