Damning headline: Boeing follows Trump’s Lead

Leading from behind, the US is the last to stop flights.

Obsolete technology?

Would you take a flight on one of these planes

Medicynical note: I think I’d wait, or take another flight. They have created a monster problem for themselves

Trump decreases Medicare by a trillion dollars

Last year Trump cut taxes to the 1% (himself included) and corporations (those “citizens” in Citizens United) and now claims there is a terrible funding deficit. So he is now proposing severe cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, scientific, cancer research and other domestic programs.

You get the idea.

Medicynical note: his tax cuts were supposed to fire up the economy and increase tax revenues to the point that they cut the deficit. THEY DIDN’T

And the wall that he promised that Mexico was going to pay for. THEY DIDN’T.

He brings new meaning to running the government like a business. He’s failed numerous times and gone bankrupt six times.

Ethiopian airlines crash, another new 737

Something terribly wrong here.

“An Ethiopian Airlines flight carrying 149 passengers and eight crew members crashed Sunday shortly after taking off from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital en route to Nairobi, Kenya. The airline has confirmed there are no survivors. The flight departed Bole airport in Addis Ababa at 8:38 a.m. and had lost contact with the control tower by 8:44 a.m., when it crashed some 30 miles south of the country’s capital.”

Medicynical note: Reminds me of the flawed Lockheed Electra crashes of the fifties in Elizabeth N.J.

“After an extensive investigation, two of the crashes (in September 1959 and March 1960) were found to be caused by an engine mount problem. The mounts were not strong enough to damp a phenomenon called “whirl mode flutter” (analogous to the precession of a child’s top as it slows down) that affected the outboard engine nacelles. When the oscillation was transmitted to the wings and the flutter frequency decreased to a point where it was resonant with the outer wing panels (at the same frequency, or harmonically related ones), violent up-and-down oscillation increased until the wings would tear off”

Hoof in mouth disease strikes White House Resident

A total disaster

“Candidate Trump campaigned on wiping out the yearly federal deficit, the governments $19 trillion in total debt and reducing the trade deficit. Reality is harsher than campaigning, especially when President Trump signed a huge corporate tax cut (which contained a minor cut for individuals). This has led to the federal deficit on track to reach $1 trillion per year.”

“Trump has talked loudly but delivered little real results when it comes to impacting trade. Under his watch the trade deficit has grown over $100 billion, going from $502 billion in 2016 to $621 billion in 2018, an increase of 19%. The deficit for Goods has increased $140 billion from $751 billion to $891 billion. At its current pace, the Goods deficit could also hit $1 trillion in 2020“

Medicynical note: He’s bankrupted six of his businesses, why change now.

Robot gives patient fatal diagnosis……a new low

Hard to believe

Man told he’s going to die on video link robot….really!

More here

Medicynical note: I’m speechless.

United Healthcare…..in it for the money

Not a big surprise

For those who thought insurance companies are in it to provide excellent healthcare……you were wrong.

“US Chief Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero issued his decision Tuesday against United Behavioral Health, a unit of UnitedHealthcare, saying the insurer created internal policies that effectively discriminated against those seeking mental health and substance abuse treatment.”

“”It is well-established that effective treatment of mental health and substance use disorders includes treatment aimed at preventing relapse or deterioration of the patient’s condition and maintaining the patient’s level of functioning. UBH Guidelines deviate from that standard,” Spero said”

Medicynical notes: Given a choice between enhanced profits or funding excellent care, the private insurer’s policy was programmed to choose the former. After all it’s their their fiduciary responsibility.

Chaos Serves Putin well.

Thoughtful discussion be the former Ambassador to Russia William Burns. Read it,

“But in making that argument that everybody has been screwing us, the current president is just about punching back against people bilaterally and unilaterally. And not recognizing that what sets us apart from lonelier powers like China and Russia is our alliances, and our capacity to build coalitions. It’s our capacity to adapt the rules of existing institutions and develop rules of the road. It’s understanding that set of strengths.”

“I think this administration, and this president, have demonstrated almost willful ignorance of that set of strengths for the United States. Especially at this moment on the international landscape, that matters more than ever.”

Government for sale

Money corrupts every level of government.

“The answers became a bit clearer on Thursday as the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.”

Medicynical note: a little like campaign contributions whose purpose is to gain access and influence on a congressperson’s vote. Come to think about it, it’s a lot like that!

Private for profit colleges–education not the first priority

“Led by Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Education Department has reversed an Obama-era crackdown on troubled vocational and career schools and allowed new and less experienced entrants into the field.”

And

“Ms. DeVos, who invested in companies with ties to for-profit collegesbefore taking office, has made it an agency priority to unfetter for-profit schools by eliminating restrictions on them. She also allowed several for-profit schools to evade even those loosened rules by converting to nonprofits.”

Medicynical note: It’s a crap game for students. They assume that schools mean educational opportunity, when in reality to the school the student simply represents revenue. The first priority of these schools is anything but education.