Jo Shultz, Eric Holder, House Republicans: 3 News Stories You Should Read Today – 4/19/2018
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How Veteran Fighter Pilot Tammie Jo Shults Saved Crippled Southwest Flight 1380
Capt. ‘Sully’ Sullenberger could rely on automated help to pull off the ‘Miracle on the Hudson.’ Ex-fighter pilot Tammie Jo Shults saved hundreds of lives all on her own.
Here it is striking to compare Captain Shults’ plight with that of Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger in his legendary “miracle on the Hudson”landing. Sullenberger lost both engines to a bird strike, but his airplane, the Airbus A320, had “fly-by-wire” controls that gave him an automatic safety margin by restricting the control movements to a computer-dictated “envelope.” In contrast, the flight controls of the Southwest 737, although monitored through computers, remain as they were in the analog age, with the pilot controlling directly through a “yoke.”
And this is where Captain Shults’ background came into play. She is an ex-Navy pilot and one of the first women to fly the “Top Gun” F-18 Hornet, eventually becoming an instructor. Landing supersonic jets on the decks of aircraft carriers is one of the most demanding skills in military aviation. Now, flying on the one engine called for her to use all of her “seat of the pants” instincts to nurse the jet to the runway.
Eric Holder Talks Like He’s Running for President
Eric Holder didn’t announce his candidacy for president in 2020 this morning, and he didn’t need to. His words at the National Action Network Convention in New York City pretty much suggest that he likely will.
The former U.S. attorney general had the audience captivated on Wednesday before he stepped to the podium to say even a single word. The Rev. Al Sharpton joked before Holder spoke that he “heard Eric Holder was running for president.” The audience cheered in approval, with one woman shouting out loud, “Run, Eric. Run!”
The authoritarianism is coming from inside the House.
The point here is almost certainly not to generate any actual prosecutions so much as it is to try to muddy the waters in the media — creating a two-sided battle between and his “deep state” enemies rather than the reality that the Trump investigation has been led almost entirely by Republicans and career civil servants.
But it’s also an important signpost of where we stand in terms of Trump’s relationship to the congressional Republican Party. On policy issues, Trump has largely adopted Paul Ryan’s views. In exchange, mainstream GOP leaders like Mitch McConnell are shutting down legislation that would stop Trump from firing Robert Mueller, while fringier figures like the signatories to Trump’s letter are urging him to go further and mount politically motivated prosecutions of the opposition party.
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