RUTHFULLY YOURS

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Debt, including unfunded liabilities, threatens to bankrupt us. The southern border has become a porous venue for a record number of illegals and the drugs many bring into this country. An epidemic of crime has transformed our cities. Democrats have weaponized the criminal justice department to go after political opponents. Republicans, in a rush to isolationism, have abandoned global responsibilities – underestimating threats to democratic institutions posed by Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and Iran’s Mullahs. Color-blind meritocracy and biological sex have given way to harmful fantasies, with preferential treatment for some groups and favored pronouns for others. A desire for clean energy is countered by demand for clean-technology factories and electricity-hungry data centers, “leaving,” as Evan Halper wrote last week in The Washington Post, “utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.” Biden’s mandate that two thirds of all new cars be electric by 2032 will increase the demand for electricity. One asks: is the country witnessing the death of common sense and entering a death spiral?

I suspect everyone, no matter their political preferences, agrees that we live in contentious times – politically, technologically, and culturally. Of the two Presidential candidates, one is visibly senescent and the other is “the crudest trash-talker in politics,” as Barton Swaim wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. AI threatens to disrupt our lives in unknown ways. DEI, CRT, gender neutral bathrooms and gendered-altered athletes have turned high schools and universities into places alien to parents and alumni.

Perhaps we should step back. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” is an aphorism usually attributed to Mark Twain. It suggests that while each era is different, there are recurring themes.

https://www.jns.org/words-matter-as-much-as-weapons/

U.S. President Joe Biden devoted his Ramadan greeting this year to the “terrible suffering” of the Palestinians and the “appalling resurgence” of Islamophobia in the United States.  

He began by citing as fact the fake data of the Gaza Health Ministry, claiming: “More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians, including thousands of children.”

Before going on to refer to those displaced by the war and “in urgent need of food, water, medicine and shelter,” he expressed sympathy for the American Muslims mourning the loss of loved ones in Gaza.

Not a word about Hamas. Not a single reference to the Oct. 7 rape, torture, immolation and abduction of innocent Israeli men, women and children—including Arab citizens and foreign nationals—that sparked the war.

No naming of the American citizens who are among the 134 out of 253 remaining captives. No blame placed on the terrorists responsible for the massacre and its aftermath.

When he did get around to mentioning the hostages, it was in the context of efforts “to establish an immediate and sustained ceasefire for at least six weeks as part of a deal that releases hostages.”

This was his segue into an old la-la-land fantasy: the failed paradigm of working towards a “two-state solution to ensure Palestinians and Israelis share equal measures of freedom, dignity, security and prosperity.”

If the moral equivalence between a genocidal terrorist organization and the only democracy in the Middle East weren’t sufficiently egregious, Biden quickly shifted gears to highlight another falsehood: the “appalling resurgence of hate and violence toward Muslim Americans.”

https://nypost.com/2024/03/12/us-news/faa-audit-of-boeings-737-production-found-mechanics-using-hotel-card-and-dish-soap-as-makeshift-tools-report/

The Federal Aviation Administration found dozens of issues throughout Boeing’s 737 Max jet production process, including mechanics at one of its key suppliers using a hotel key card and dish soap as makeshift tools to test compliance, according to a report.

The FAA discovered “unacceptable” quality control issues during an audit into Boeing and supplier Spirit AeroSystems that was launched after a door plug flew off a 737 Max 9 mid-air at 16,000 feet on Jan. 5.

The agency did not release its findings to the public, but a presentation detailing the results reviewed by the New York Times reveals a troubling and inconsistent manufacturing process.

Boeing failed 33 out of 89 product audits — a review of specific aspects in the production line — with a total of 97 counts of alleged noncompliance, the auditors found, according to the newspaper.

Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the body of the 737 Max jets, failed seven out of 13 product audits conducted by the FAA, the publication reported. One of its failures dealt with the installation of the plane’s door plug.

https://nypost.com/2024/03/11/us-news/boeing-whistleblower-john-barnett-found-dead-after-testifying-against-company/

A Boeing whistleblower was found dead in his truck in the parking lot of his South Carolina hotel after he failed to show up for the second part of his testimony for a bombshell lawsuit against the company, a report said Monday.

John Barnett, 62, had raised safety concerns at the airline’s factories and provided his first testimony just days before he was found dead from an apparent “self-inflicted” gunshot wound, the Charleston County coroner told the BBC.

Barnett’s attorney, Brian Knowles, told TMZ that he had explicit doubt about the circumstances of his death, and called the self-inflicted gunshot “alleged.”

“Today is a tragic day,” Knowles told Corporate Crime Reporter. “John had been back and forth for quite some time getting prepared. The defense examined him for their allowed seven hours under the rules on Thursday.”

The whistleblower had been staying at the hotel to provide a deposition in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.