
The desperate need by Republicans to suck up to Trump means they're even willing to give him credit for laws passed by President Obama.

A second act was added to the White House's preposterous production Tuesday, where Donald Trump took credit for the fact that no commercial passenger planes crashing in 2017. The additional absurdity came when a Republican congressman thanked Trump for safety regulations that President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats actually passed into law.

Worse, these are regulations that Republicans now want to scrub from the books.

It all reflects today's delusional Republican Party, where Trump ludicrously claims credit for good news events he has nothing to do with, and GOP sycophants rush in to cheer him on.


The whole farce began when needy Trump claimed credit, via Twitter, for news that 2017 was historically safe for air travel around the world. (Hint: He had nothing to do with the safe air travel in 2017.)

Then Trump loyalist Rep. Chris Collin (R-NY) tweeted out his gratitude for Trump's alleged leadership on aviation safety:

The Aviation Safety Network cited 2017 as the safest year ever - the last fatal crash was Flight 3407 in Clarence in 2009. We owe a debt of gratitude to the families who last loved ones in the crash for their tireless efforts to prevent future tragedies. https://t.co/04CUvMXqpo — Rep. Chris Collins (@RepChrisCollins) January 2, 2018

Here's the background: Collins represents western New York where the last U.S. commercial passenger crash, Continental flight 3407, took place in February, 2009. "When an indicator alerted the pilots the aircraft was going into an aerodynamic stall as it approached Buffalo Niagara International Airport, they didn't know how to respond," USA Today reported.

All 49 people on board and one person on the ground died when the plane crashed in a Buffalo suburb. Families who lost friends and relatives in the crash lobbied Congress to mandate rule changes in the 2010 FAA reauthorization bill. Specifically, they wanted the government to require new pilots to achieve more flight-training hours.

Passed by a Democratic-controlled Congress, the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010 was signed into law by Obama in August of that year. Among other measures, the bill instructed the Federal Aviation Administration to increase the minimum number of flight-training hours for commercial pilots from 250 hours to 1,500 hours.

But Republicans are now actively trying to repeal the 1,500 hours regulation.

Senate transportation committee chairman John Thune (R-SD) last year introduced an amendment that would allow more pilots to become licensed without logging 1,500 hours of training. And Trump has lobbied for the dismantling of the FAA, and for air safety to be overseen by a private entity partly managed by the airline industry.

So no, Trump doesn't deserve any credit or thanks for making the skies safer in 2017.

President Obama does.