According to Mike Pence, Mike Pence was seriously considering just dipping out on Jan 6 and not showing up to chair the Senate. Of course, in the end he did his job, but this isn’t just an innocuous “what if” as it may seem at first.
On Jan 5, Chuck Grassley was pretty damn certain that he would be chairing the Senate on Jan 6 in the expected absence of Pence. Now, he may also have been pretty certain that there are too many states, but it’s a thread worth pulling on, IMHO.
What did Grassley know and when did he know it? And where are his pants?
Limey with more lies than the Democrat Party. That’s a lot of lies. There may be a job for Limey with CNN since he is so good at making stuff up and not telling the truth.
The finding out being set up for next year is still looking very healthy.
They have the option of standing trial or pleading guilty without a deal.
Also…
The prosecutors on the Trump case appear convinced that they are close to gaining more cooperating witnesses. In recent weeks, one of the people said, prosecutors privately advised the judge to delay setting a trial date because some co-defendants may soon plead out, one of the people said.
So the actual trial may well just be the Big Three, plus maybe one or two other ride-or-die-ers, with everyone else having flipped and being witnesses for the prosecution.
I had a Pahoenix based flight attendant tell me out over the Pacific in the middle of a bathroom break in flight that in Maricopa County where she was volunteering for the recount, there were, “so many dead people who voted for Biden.”
She didn’t even know what Cyber Ninjas was.
I told her she was full of shit and went back to the flight deck.
I understand how Biden will have some challenges with Gen Z voters, but, now that you mention it, I can see why he’d do very well among the deceased. I hope their turnout is strong again next cycle.
Fun story for you @JohnS . Flying into Vegas Sunday night, we did a soft go around at about 5,000ft. Within flew out into the desert for a full 15 minutes at around 10,000 feet while the cockpit was clearly working on something. They came on the PA and said that they were “having a small problem with the flaps” and we’re going to turn around and do the approach again. My seat was just behind the wing and sure enough, the flaps were at what I would guess is 10%. The captain nonchalantly mentioned that we “might come in a little faster than normal” and not be alarmed if there are rescue vehicles lining the runway as they were there to help us “taxi to the gate“. Ha. As the descent started, I was watching the flaps the entire time. They never budged. Clearly they were frozen solid at that 10% position. The approach was fantastic. All throttling done by the engines and our attack angle, especially at the end, was probably +15%. I would guess the captain could not see any of the tarmac because the nose was up so high. His landing was softer and more gentle than 95% of typical landings although I’d guess we touched down at 200kias or faster and took the entire runway to stop. Really a fun and interesting experience. As I deplaned, I told the captain “see, this is why you pay attention in math class. Well done on the execution”. He laughed and said to the copilot standing next to him “see, this guy gets it”. Good times.
Touchy-feely landings are one of the hardest things a pilot will do.
While in training, I took off and climbed out straight ahead to about 2,500 feet, at which point the instructor closed the throttle to simulate an engine failure. I immediately went through the engine failure checks which include fully opening the throttle, which I did and received an eyeroll from the instructor as he closed it again (but I’d gained myself a extra bit of altitude). Engine failure confirmed.
The typical process here would be to pick a suitable, safe spot for an emergency landing - like a flat open field - and then simulate an approach that would be broken off at about 500 feet. We would be evaluated on our chosen spot - for example, if the field was plowed we had to be landing with the furrows - and whether or not we had a prayer in actually making the safe landing. However, we had been climbing into a pretty healthy headwind, so I figured I could do a one-eighty and ride the wind back to our home base.
I called in the fake emergency and swung around. I was given priority into the circuit, turned onto the base leg and then final, expecting the instructor to open the throttle at any moment. He could see my side-eying him and he smiled as he said “you picked this…take us all the way in.”
The reason this is relevant here is that in this fake emergency the electrics were deemed to have died with the engine so I had no flaps. So, having started from a number of miles away, I was making a glide approach into the runway with no flaps. My butthole was more puckered than Cameron Frye’s. I plonked us down nice and soft right on the runway threshold as should be the case. The instructor called me a “smart arse”, pushed open the throttle and off we went again.
Back to you-know-who, the NY Appeals Court has lifted its stay on the gag order in the civil fraud case. They haven’t upheld it, but they have acquiesced to Jack Smith’s request to lift the stay following Trump’s notably - even for him - unhinged ranting over the weekend.
This probably a bad portent as to the outcome of the appeal.
I was coming back from Mexico on United, and we did quite a late go-around on our approach into Houston. After a bit, the flight crew announced that we aborted the landing because they didn’t have “three greens” on the undercarriage, but they had now changed the bulb and the third green was lit.
The guy sitting next to me was clearly stressing out. English was his second language but he understood the pilot enough to know that something was wrong and that there was going to be emergency vehicles on the tarmac. He nervously looked at me and said “is everything OK?” And I just said “oh, it’s fine. They have procedures for stuff like this.” Not because it was particularly fine, but because I didn’t want him turning up the freak out meter to 10 for the next 20 minutes.
I can tell you the B-737 while being a 60 yr old workhorse, is prone to flap issues.
We practice asymmetric flap issues in the simulator and hopefully don’t have to deal with them in real life…
My first no-flap landing was at my old airline in '08 going into Tulsa- it was fast and we needed a bit more runway, but no big deal.
I’ll never forget how the Louisiana redneck I was flying with was so stoked to do the approach and landing.
