Libertarian Leanings

Nuclear option - the Dems respond

According to the Washington Times Democratic Senators will shut down the Senate except for essential operations and national defense if Republicans use the "nuclear option" to gain confirmation of Bush judicial nominees.  As a threat this may be a long shot for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

Absent from Mr. Reid's side yesterday were nine Democrats, several of whom have expressed reservations about Democratic strategies on judicial nominees. One missing Democrat was Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who has never supported a filibuster and faces re-election next year in a very conservative state...

Also missing from yesterday's press conference was Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat. Her office said she opposes the nuclear option, but also wasn't eager to endorse Mr. Reid's proposal...

Sean Rushton, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice, called the Reid press conference an elaborate ritual -- "kabuki theater for wealthy, liberal, Democratic financial supporters" who want to see Democrats stand up to Republicans. He said making good on their threat would be "political suicide."

I'd like to think it will be political suicide for Democrats to shut down Senate business over the filibuster rule, but more importantly I'd like to think we might actually abide by our Constitution.  It's going to depend on whether or not Bill Frist has the nerve to pull the trigger on this.  I'll believe it when I see it. 

As an afterthought, it seems the Democrats have always appeared to feel constrained by the Constitution.

Massachusetts Turnpike Slush Fund

The Big Dig has been in the news a lot these past few months.  After years and billions in project overruns the tunnels under Boston finally opened, but they were immediately plagued with water leaks, and recently deemed unsafe.  The Big Dig project has been under the control of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.  What's interesting to learn is that Governor Mitt Romney has to ask the Massachussetts Supreme Court if he has the authority to fire Massachussetts Turnpike Authority chairman Matt Amorello for his apparent failure to provide proper oversight.

BOSTON Mar 15, 2005 — Gov. Mitt Romney asked the state's highest court Tuesday if he has the power to fire the Massachusetts turnpike chairman after an engineer who led an investigation into leaks at the $14.6 billion Big Dig project says he can no longer vouch for the safety of its tunnels.

According to Yahoo, the Massachussetts Turnpike Authority is considered a company, complete with CEO, COO, and CFO.  In fiscal year 2003 the company of 1200 employees had revenues of $287.4 million.  Anybody who passes through the Sturbridge toll booths, as I do from time to time, might think that number is a bit low.

Chapter 81A of the General Laws of Massachusetts governs the Turnpike Authority, including its creation.

CHAPTER 81A. THE MASSACHUSETTS TURNPIKE AUTHORITY AND THE METROPOLITAN HIGHWAY SYSTEM

Chapter 81A: Section 1 Massachusetts Turnpike Authority; construction as public instrumentality

  Section 1. There is hereby created a body politic and corporate to be known as the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority which, while within the executive office of transportation and construction, shall not be subject to the supervision and regulation of said executive office or any other department, commission, board, bureau or agency except as specifically provided in any general or special law to the contrary. The authority is hereby authorized and empowered, subject to the provisions of this chapter, to own, construct, maintain, repair, reconstruct, improve, rehabilitate, finance, refinance, use, police, administer, control and operate (a) the turnpike as defined herein; and (b) the metropolitan highway system as defined herein.

  The authority is hereby constituted a public instrumentality. The exercise by the authority of the powers conferred by this chapter shall be deemed and held to be the performance of an essential governmental function.

Chapter 81A Section 2 describes who may be members of the Authority and gives them the power to hire employees.

(d) The authority shall have the power to appoint and employ officers, including an executive director, and to fix their compensation and conditions of employment. The authority may bind itself by contract to employ not more than 5 senior officers and no such contract shall be for a period of more than 5 years. The salary of the executive director shall not exceed the salary of the commissioner of highways. The authority shall annually, on or before January 1, submit to the secretary of administration and finance and the house and senate committees on ways and means a schedule of salaries of all its employees and any proposed increases therein. The secretary may make recommendations to the authority on the salary structure and shall advise the authority of the prevailing rates that the commonwealth pays for similar services.

Based on that I would guess Matt Amorello is an employee of the Authority, and not an appointee of the Governor.  That might put him beyond the Governor's reach.  In fact Mr. Amorello refuses to step down and he has support from Democratic leaders.

Declaring the Big Dig tunnels ``safe and structurally sound,'' Turnpike boss Matt Amorello vowed to stay on the job despite a renewed push by Gov. Mitt Romney to oust him over new safety concerns and cover-up charges.

Romney is seeking authority from the state's highest court to remove Amorello, but the Turnpike chairman said, ``I've committed to do a job. I'm going to finish that job to the best of my abilities.''

As the latest Big Dig controversy raged, Democratic leaders lined up behind Amorello.

U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch said, ``It's counter-productive to just keep plucking the top guy out of that seat. The easiest thing to do is fire the guy in charge, that looks like progress. But if you're honestly trying to make the whole project more accountable, that's not going to do it.''

Section 4 of Chapter 81A describes the powers that may be exercised by the Massachussetts Turnpike Authority

CHAPTER 81A. THE MASSACHUSETTS TURNPIKE AUTHORITY AND THE METROPOLITAN HIGHWAY SYSTEM

Chapter 81A: Section 4 Powers of authority

  Section 4. The authority is hereby authorized and empowered:

  (a) to adopt by-laws for the regulation of its affairs and the conduct of its business;

  (b) to adopt an official seal and alter the same at its pleasure;

  (c) to maintain offices at such places within the commonwealth as it may determine and to conduct meetings of the authority in accordance with the by-laws of the authority and the provisions of the second paragraph of section fifty-nine of chapter one hundred and fifty-six B;

  (d) to sue and be sued in its own name, plead and be impleaded;

  (e) to own, construct, maintain, repair, reconstruct, improve, rehabilitate, use, police, administer, control and operate the turnpike or any part thereof and, consistent with agreements entered into with the highway department to the extent applicable, the metropolitan highway system or any part thereof, as it may determine; provided, however, that the provisions of chapter ninety-one shall not apply to the authority, except for any parts or areas thereof subject to said chapter ninety-one on March first, nineteen hundred and ninety-seven...

(s) to employ consulting engineers, attorneys, accountants, construction and financial experts, superintendents, managers, toll collectors and such other employees and agents as may be necessary in its judgment, and to fix their compensation;

  (t) to receive and accept from any federal agency grants for or in aid of the ownership, construction, operation, maintenance, repair, reconstruction, improvement, rehabilitation, use, control, administration or policing of the turnpike or any part thereof and the metropolitan highway system or any part thereof and to receive and accept aid or contributions from any source of either money, property, labor or other things of value to be held, used and applied only for the purposes for which such grants and contributions may be made; and

  (u) to do all acts and things necessary, convenient or desirable to carry out the powers expressly granted in this chapter.

So here we have the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority collecting hundreds of millions of dollars annually.  In the Big Dig they have run the largest boondoggle and taxpayer scam in history.  They are answerable to no one.  Yet they enjoy the support of the Massachusetts Democratic leadership.  Sounds like a giant slush fund to me.

Times are tough

Ace of Spades ends his post on the pro democracy demonstrations in Lebanon with this little stab from the past.

As others have remarked: Not In Our Name? That's right, it's not in your name.

I almost forgot about them.  Things haven't been going all that well for the "Not in Our Name" crowd lately.  It's tough when the news doesn't break in your favor, and it hasn't for them in a quite a while.  Of course, it's not as if MSM hasn't been trying.  But a visit to the Not in Our Name website reveals,

Urgent appeal:  "We need to raise $10,000 by the end of March to keep our doors open"

Tough break, but listen to the wording that begins the appeal.

Greetings to those of you who have been by our sides since day one, and to those who have recently joined us.

It doesn't strike me as American Main Street idiom.  My guess is it's only the very hard core left that remain, and it's hard to imagine anybody has recently joined them.  In any case, for those of you who haven't forgotten about "Not in Our Name", there's still time.  So go ahead.  Forget about 'em.

Feeling influential today

Granite State Ruminator says,

I guess I'm leaning libertarian too.

Campaign Finance "Reform"

Scott Johnson of Power Line has an article in the Weekly Standard on campaign finance reform in which he considers the prospect that blogs will be subject to its idiosyncracies.  A key passage on motive:

Here Scalia hits the mother lode: He discovers that, in one sense, incumbent officeholders tend to have a profound disdain for politics. The ideal of incumbent officeholders promoting campaign-finance reform is freedom from criticism, especially at election time. Indeed, these incumbent officeholders seem to view elections as an inconvenience to their exercise of power.

March Snow Storms

Snow began on Friday, March 11th and lasted through the 12th, adding another foot of wet heavy stuff to a pretty significant snowfall total for the year.  In Nashua there was hardly any wind and temparatures were above freezing for most of the storm.  It was a gentle snowfall with big fluffy flakes.  When we get to March we've pretty much had it with winter, but we can almost always expect one or two more big storms before things start to warm up.  Our forecast says to expect more snow this Friday.

In 1888 snow began to fall on March 11th, but it continued until the 14th that year.  This is what it looked like in downtown Brattlboro, Vermont after the snow stopped and the sidewalks were cleared.

This picture, along with hundreds of others, can be found in Judd Caplovich's 1987 book, Blizzard! The Great Storm of '88.  I bought a copy when I worked in downtown Hartford in 1988, the 100th anniversary of the storm.  Chapter I begins,

From Washington, D.C., to New England on March 11, 1888, steady and chilling rain fell on churchgoers returning home to Sunday dinner...

When the precipitation stopped 72 hours later, an estimated 400 persons, including 200 in New York City alone, would be dead or dying, property damage would total an estimated $20,000,000 and stricken cities along the east coast of the United States would face the enormous problem of what to do with tons upon tons of snow, the largest amount to fall in two and a half centuries of habitation.

No one expected the Great Blizzard of 1888.

It's a fascinating book, one that I highly recommend.

The stabbee gets five

Alphecca found this BBC article article. It closes this way:

Alistair Edie, defending, said Ellison, of Strepton Road, Manchester, discharged the gun out of fear following a fracas in which he was stabbed in the back.

Ellison pleaded guilty to possessing the firearm.

The judge accepted Ellison had been stabbed, but said, although he had no firearms convictions, the minimum sentence of five years would be imposed.

I know they're our allies and all.  But... I wouldn't want to live there.

Hollywood Dreams

Back in the late 70's I couldn't watch war movies about Vietnam.  Seems they were always about some super hero going back to Vietnam to rescue prisoners of war, and the super hero invariably defeated North Vietnam in battle and saved the prisoners.  I couldn't watch would 'a, should 'a, could 'a movies about that tragedy.  But the business of Hollywood is to make dreams come true on the silver screen, and for some those dreams were about what should've happened in Vietnam. 

For others the dream is about who should've been President of the United States.  That's why we have Josiah Bartlet of West Wing. 

It is rumored that Bartlet is modeled on Vermont Governor Howard Dean, which is not unlikely. Several similarities exist: both are diminuitive in stature, hail from small northeastern states, are pugnacious in manner, and have wives who are doctors. However, even if Bartlet is not modeled on Dean, it is generally accepted that Aaron Sorkin created Bartlet as a statement about what an ideal President should be: someone with a towering intellect and a strong moral backbone. Naturally, Bartlet is a Democrat.

I'm sure there is quite a voting block, still, who wish Martin Sheen had gotten elected last year, and for them The West Wing is their alternate reality.  But it looks like ol' Josiah's going to get a run for his money. 

There's a new fantasy in store.  ABC is planning on a new pilot called Commander in Chief, about the first woman president, to be played by Geena Davis.  Bill Whalen wonders if the new show will be a good thing for Hillary's chances in 2008.

ONE COULD ARGUE that the weekly showcasing of an effective female president might be Hollywood showing favoritism toward a certain Democratic icon. Except, of course, that no one has seen a script. And therein lies the potential for trouble, from the senator's perspective. At a time when Sen. Clinton is trying to broaden her appeal by moderating her stances on abortion and cultural values, will her fictional equivalent show the same flair for triangulation, or will ABC's prime-time version of Hillary be more of a Lifetime heroine?

If last week's reports are any indication, the Clintons should start worrying. According to one wire story, "The show, in the early stages of development, is described by ABC officials as a drama about the nation's first woman president--but unlike The West Wing, Chief will focus more on the president's family life." Which would seem at odds with the realpolitik of Hillary '08, where one of the main challenges is to keep the focus on the candidate's policy views rather than her complicated marriage.

If there's one thing that's pretty clear, the roll model for this pilot is not Condoleezza Rice.

So how do we know that ABC is looking to score points with Sen. Clinton, presumably a presidential candidate in 2008? Look no further than the choice of Ms. Davis as the show's star.

The actress is not only younger than Mrs. Clinton (Geena turns 50 next January; Hillary turns 58 this fall), she's also leaner than the senator, is at least a half-foot taller, was a Victoria's Secret lingerie model before she got into acting, belongs to Mensa, won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress (The Accidental Tourist), once tried out for the U.S. Olympic archery team, and is fluent in Swedish (which would come in handy should Bill Clinton ever win that elusive Nobel Peace Prize).

My take:  If this show makes prime time it's the kiss of death for the Clinton candidacy.  Once Geena begins acting out her fantasies on a weekly basis, Clintonistas will have their alternate reality, and it'll be would 'a, should 'a, could 'a for Hillary, leaving the door wide open for a reality based woman President.  Condoleezza Rice.

Terrorists losing ground in Iraq

From Strategy Page:

March 10, 2005: While spectacular suicide car bombings continue, the overall level of attacks continues to decline, as it has since the January 30 elections. The terror attacks now are being done mostly for the benefit of the foreign media, for the killings are only making the population more hostile to the al Qaeda and Sunni Arab groups that are responsible for nearly all the violence. The terrorists are being hit as never before, with more police raids into neighborhoods known to be terrorist strongholds. Weapons and bomb making materials are seized and arrests made. Sometimes, the resistance is heavier than expected. A raid today in Baghdad resulted in 14 policemen and at least four terrorists getting killed, as well as 65 policemen, and over a hundred terrorists and civilians wounded. The resistance was so fierce because the terrorists are running out of places to hide. Many have already had to flee "friendly neighborhoods" several times in the last few months. Terrorists are having a harder time recruiting because of this, and many terrorist cells are down to the hard core. These guys will stand and fight, and get killed. Iraqi media is playing the battle between the terrorists and the security forces for what it is, gang-busters. Confessions of captured terrorists are televised, and camera crews increasingly accompany the Iraqi police on their raids, or to crime scenes where the bodies of terrorist victims have been discovered. The fact that the terrorists are now killing women and children is pointed out, as this is considered over-the-line behavior, and the mark of true outlaws.

Dan steps down

Last night Dan Rather signed off from CBS News for the last time.  I missed it.  Well, to be truthful about it, I've managed to miss watching Dan for about the last 20 years, unless I turned him on by accident.  No accidents last night.

I was  not alone in my sentiment, I guess.  The Washington Times carries the story of a CBS affiliate in northern Michigan, WWTV, that ran a viewer poll.  Should they air the CBS tribute, "Dan Rather: A Reporter Remembers."  The poll was discontinued after 1000 people voted with 63% answering, "No".

But William E. Kring, station general manager, said yesterday the poll had been discontinued because it had been "grossly misinterpreted."

"We were simply trying to maintain the great tradition of local viewer input," Mr. Kring said. "It was never our intent to embarrass Mr. Rather or the CBS network," Mr. Kring said.

In what way might 63% against be misinterpreted, I wonder. 

Michael Goodwin's column, "The Running of the Bull", has a pretty good assessment of Rather's career.

All that was missing were the facts. But that didn't stop Rather from plunging ahead. What do facts matter when you're Dan Rather, star reporter? Even now, he can't bring himself to admit the story should not have aired.

There is much talk that Rather has a liberal bias. The evidence is a long record of adversarial, even hostile incidents with Republicans and instances of fawning praise for Democrats, especially Bill Clinton.

Yet I don't think bias is Rather's greatest sin. There are lots of biased journalists, some of them good journalists otherwise.

No, what is really destructive, especially for young people, is the very notion that Rather is a journalist at all. He's a performer, a stunt man, a celebrity who makes $7 million a year for role-playing.

He's not a journalist, you see, he just plays one on TV.

I'm glad he's gone, but it's been too long in coming.  I regard him as a criminal for airing those forgeries in his effort to swing the election to John Kerry.  I'm glad he's gone but it's too bad he hasn't gone to jail.