Ralph welcomes back president of Public Citizen, Robert Weissman, for an update on the Trump agenda and what they are doing to fight it. Also, aviation expert William McGee tells us what’s really going on in the airplanes you fly with his book, “Attention All Passengers: The Airlines Dangerous Descent and What You Can Do To Reclaim Our Skies.”
Robert Weissman is a staunch public interest advocate and activist, as well as an expert on a wide variety of issues ranging from corporate accountability and government transparency, to trade and globalization, to economic and regulatory policy. As the President of Public Citizen, Weissman has spearheaded the effort to loosen the chokehold corporations and the wealthy have over our democracy. He has also has been a strong voice in the fight against Wall Street greed and recklessness and has expanded Public Citizen’s work to curb climate change and push for a single-payer, Medicare-for-all health care system. Recently, Public Citizen released a report on how Donald Trump’s U.S. businesses have raked in more than $15 million in profits since his run for office.
“You cannot understand what happened with the tax bill unless you understand it was created in part for Donald Trump, his businesses, and his family.”
Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
William McGee is an award-winning travel journalist for Consumer Reports and the former editor of Consumer Reports Travel Letter. Mr. McGee also spent nearly seven years in airline flight operations management; and in 2010 the U.S. secretary of transportation chose him as the lone consumer advocate on the Future of Aviation Advisory Committee. He writes a monthly travel column for USAToday.com and his expose on the airline industry is entitled “Attention All Passengers: The Airlines Dangerous Descent and What You Can Do To Reclaim Our Skies.”
“The FAA has this nickname by people in the industry, by some of its own employees… by others concerned about safety. It’s called the Tombstone Agency, meaning the FAA acts after there’s an accident, usually a fatal accident. And that’s exactly what we saw with the Southwest Airlines event that just recently occurred. In other words, we knew that there were problems with those engines two years ago. The FAA got complacent, allowed Southwest to work out its own fix and… well we saw how that went.”
William McGee, author of “Attention All Passengers: The Airlines Dangerous Descent and What You Can Do To Reclaim Our Skies”
Trump’s Corporate Presidency/The Truth About Airlines