Boeing and Foolish Questions

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In a Wall Street Journal article on the tortuous path to criminal prosecution that prosecutors would have in bringing Boeing to criminal trial over its 737 MAX crashes, Andrew Tangel, Jacob Gershman, and Andy Pasztor asked what seems to me to be a very narrow, short-sighted question.

Should prosecutors weigh Boeing’s importance to the economy and national security when deciding how to proceed with a criminal case over the 737 MAX crashes?

Of course prosecutors should—must—not. What’s truly important is the concept of weighing the risks to liberty and to national security of criminals being too big to be punished. We can never allow such a thing to enter even the run-up to criminal prosecutions.

If criminal actions can be seriously alleged against Boeing—based on the company’s behaviors—the company must come to trial. Only if found guilty, so there’d be a criminal sanction phase, could Boeing’s importance to our economy and our national security legitimately be considered—and then, not on the magnitude of the penalty(s), which absolutely must fit the crime(s), but only on the penalty(s)’s schedules of application, with interest accruing on any fiscal penalties not paid “promptly.”

The question of criminal trials for various individuals of Boeing’s management (and its aircraft testing function?) is an entirely separate matter.  The company’s importance to anything is wholly irrelevant here; the company can easily survive any number of its managers being locked up in a Federal hoosegow.

Separating Blue and Red America

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A growing number of local television stations across the country are reviving an older practice of broadcasting our national anthem once a day, pairing it with all-American imagery that further celebrates our nation.

Gray and Nexstar executives [two of the companies whose stations have revived broadcasting our anthem] said the reason to bring back the anthem was simple: encouraging national unity at a time of deep division in the country[.]

The stations broadcast our anthem in the wee hours of the morning, reminiscent of how our stations used to sign off for the night around midnight, broadcasting our anthem and showing imagery as part of the sign-off.

The New York Times disagrees; it says this is a divisive thing to do; it divides Blue America from Red America.  That’s the message of their Julia Jacobs in her column last week.

The decision to revive the anthem tradition comes at a time when overt allegiance to “The Star-Spangled Banner” has become one of the lines that separate blue and red America[.]

The NYT isn’t alone.  Here’s a University of Michigan music professor, Mark Clague:

It is somewhat provocative to bring the anthem to the fore in a new way at a moment of tension in this country[.]

Divisive, provocative to play our national anthem, to celebrate our great nation.  Wow.

This piece was published a week ago, and still not a single Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential or Congressional candidate has objected to the NYT‘s, or to Jacobs’ (or Clague’s), claim that playing our national anthem is bad.

That’s highly instructive, and it should inform our voting decisions in a year.

Kamala Harris on Racism

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Julio Gonzalez makes an excellent point regarding Progressive-Democrat Party Presidential candidate and Senator (D, CA) Kamala Harris’ attitude about voters.

Kamala Harris says her campaign is failing because people aren’t ready for a woman of color to be president.
The funny part is, this is the primary, not the general election.
So the people she is accusing of racism are Democratic primary voters.

To which I add: Harris is projecting.

Some Economic Data

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From the October jobs report as summarized by The Wall Street Journal.

  • 131,000 new jobs
    • exceeded expectations
    • despite some 42,000 jobs lost to the union strike against General Motors
  • upward revisions of 95,000 jobs in August and September
  • job growth averaged 176,000 in the last three months, more than the 167,000/mo for all of 2019
  • overall labor force participation rate rose to 63.3%, which is rising despite baby boom retirements
  • employment ratio for prime-age workers, age 25 to 54, rose to 80.3%, highest since January 2007—since before the Panic of 2008
  • jobless rate for African-Americans fell again to 5.4%
    • new low since records have been kept
    • third successive month at 5.5% or lower so it’s not a statistical anomaly
  • labor participation rate for Hispanic-Americans reached 67.3%, best since September 2010
  • rise in average hourly earnings averaged 3% over last year
  • index of weekly payrolls rose more than 4% over last year, faster still for production and nonsupervisory workers

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), though, says these positive data

offer[] further evidence that the Republicans’ disastrous special interest agenda is hollowing out the middle class while enriching the wealthy and well-connected.

Do we really need someone so disconnected from reality in the people’s House?

Or is it that her impeachment hysteria is clouding her ability to interpret simple economic data?  In which case: do we really need someone whose judgment is so easily confused in the people’s House?

Love Me that Censorship

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That’s what that icon of the Left, Juan Williams, says.

The reality is that [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg doesn’t seem to understand, from my perspective, that he’s undermining his brand by allowing political lies to be put on his platform. That, to me, lessens the trust that the consumer has.

Because censoring speech—especially politically speech—is the way to win the hearts and minds and trust of the consumer.

Certainly, controlling speech and allowing only that which the Left approves—what Juan Williams personally approves—can be a tool for winning controlling the hearts and minds of citizens, but trust? No. Censorship destroys trust.

But, hey—the Left doesn’t approve.  Juan Williams doesn’t approve.  That makes it all OK.

Williams had this gem, too, accusing folks who disagree with him on this—Conservatives—of flip flopping:

I remember when the right was always on Facebook, “Oh, you’re trying to silence…conservatives.”  Now it’s like, “Oh, yeah, put Trump’s lies there, please.”

Because objecting to censorship is flip floppery.  And that last bit: the Right Reverend Juan Williams is the arbiter of lies, distortions, and facts because us ordinary Americans are just too grindingly stupid to make the discriminations for ourselves.

This is another example of the Left’s—the Progressives’—utter contempt for those who don’t agree with them.