First, welcome to the party, Senator. I love what you have to say.
Second, I hope your political body armor is strong, because the last thing your former colleagues in the Democratic party will tolerate is a minority politician wandering off the reservation. Especially as you’re the first Black Republican in the Louisiana legislature since Reconstruction. Just ask Allen West or Tim Scott or Susanna Martinez or… You get the idea.
BTW, I hear US Senator Mary Landrieu might need a challenger.
One of the things about the environmental Left that drives me most nuts is its resistance to reason and empirical fact. Global warming is a good example: what started as a theory many years ago, that the Earth is warming dangerously and the climate heading for disastrous changes because of the carbon dioxide Man has been adding to the air, has been shown time and again in recent years by empirical observation to be false. There has been no statistically significant warming since the mid-90s, the polar bears are not dying out, and prediction after prediction made by the warming alarmists has failed to pan out. But, in the face of overwhelming evidence that should at least cause strong skepticism, they cling bitterly to their computer models — which haven’t been right, yet.
Similarly with radical environmentalists who oppose any and all development of hydrocarbon resources (coal, oil, natural gas), no matter what the actual research shows of its safety, no matter the reasonable measures taken to protect the environment, and no matter –perhaps especially regardless of– the economic benefits to people.
Take hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) for example. That’s the extraction of natural gas and oil by forcing water into cracks in underground rock formations and widening them to release the resources. New York State is one of the states sitting atop the Marcellus Shale formation, which has been estimated to hold immense reserves of natural gas. In an article in the June 17th print edition of National Review (1), Ian Tuttle talks about Governor Andrew Cuomo’s (D) Hamlet-like coy reticence (2) to develop the shale, in spite of the evident economic benefits from fracking for counties that have been hit hard by the “recovery” from the Great Recession and in spite of his own Health Department’s certification that fracking is safe. The article overall is worth reading, but one fact jumps out and that I want to share:
“Twenty-eight New York counties sit atop the Marcellus Shale, a natural gas bearing subterranean rock formation that also stretches across part of Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Geologists estimate that the entire region contains 489 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Given that a third of the Shale’s 55,000 square miles is in New York, the Empire State has access to a sizeable portion of that — certainly enough to supply much of its own in-state natural gas demand: a mere 1.1 trillion cubic feet each year.”
Think about that for a moment and let the implications sink in. Assuming for a moment that the natural gas is evenly spread throughout the Shale (I’m sure it isn’t, but what is there is substantial), there are roughly 163 trillion cubic feet of natural gas under New York, enough to meet the state’s needs for 140-150 years. Natural gas is cheap, clean fuel that could replace coal and oil in homes and businesses. Even if New York’s consumption suddenly doubled, there’s enough for decades, at least. And let’s not forget the the jobs created: in counties where fracking is underway, guys driving water trucks make $60,000 per year. I imagine New Yorkers would like to enjoy the cheap, safe fuel and the good-paying jobs, but their governor and their legislature have more important things in mind, like keeping the Green lobby happy.
New York isn’t the only state where this environmentalist madness has taken hold: my beloved California is sitting atop its own fracking pot of gold, but the Cult of Gaea is spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt (as well as campaign cash) to fight it here, too.
I can’t tell you how frustrating it is: the United States and many of her 50 states are in an economic mess, and yet radical environmentalists fight tooth and nail against one very powerful tool that can help rebuild prosperity, and they do it in the face of all evidence that the process is safe.
How much do you have to hate humanity to do that?
Footnotes:
(1) Sorry, no direct link is available. The issue has a five-article section on resource development. I highly recommend buying it or hunting it up at your local library.
(2) Meaning he’s afraid to go against a legislature largely owned by the enviro-lobby, and he wants the lobby’s cash and campaign work for when he runs for president in 2016, what’s right for his state be damned.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson’s strong suspicions that her home and work computers had been accessed by unknown persons. Coming in the wake of revelations about the government’s seizure of phone records for journalists and editors at the Associated Press and a secret warrant for phone records and email belonging to Fox reporter James Rosen charging him with being an unindicted co-conspirator under the Espionage Act of 1917, Attkisson’s accusations couldn’t be dismissed as paranoia or mere attention-seeking.
“A cyber security firm hired by CBS News has determined through forensic analysis that Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012. Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data.
This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.
CBS News is taking steps to identify the responsible party and their method of access.”
Now, as an expert contacted by the Post’s Erik Wemple points out, this doesn’t necessarily mean it was the government:
Eugene H. Spafford, a Purdue University professor and specialist in computer security, said that Attkisson’s initial statements about computer intrusions left open a wide field of possibilities, from viruses to botnet activity to acquaintances to criminal gangs to the government.
And an investigative reporter as determined as Attkisson, who’s looked into many sensitive topics –such as Fast and Furious… hmmm…– could well have alarmed many different types of people who might want to find out what she knows, who she’s talking to, etc.
But, in late 2012, Attkisson was writing a series of articles on the Benghazi massacre that weren’t toeing the government line. Indeed, she was asking some tough questions, especially about the lack of a military rescue mission:
CBS News has been told that, hours after the attack began, an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Benghazi, and that the drone and other reconnaissance aircraft apparently observed the final hours of the protracted battle.
The State Department, White House and Pentagon declined to say what military options were available. A White House official told CBS News that, at the start of the attack, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “looked at available options, and the ones we exercised had our military forces arrive in less than 24 hours, well ahead of timelines laid out in established policies.”
But it was too late to help the Americans in Benghazi. The ambassador and three others were dead.
That highlighted paragraph indicates anonymous sources. And if the government was forcing access to James Rosen’s phone records and emails (and his parents’ emails), and CBS was talking to anonymous sources giving out information embarrassing to the Obama administration, then it’s not at all hard to look at the break-in into Attkisson’s computers and wonder if something similar happened here.
It will be interesting to see what CBS discovers, and I suspect the relevant committee’s of Congress will have even more work when they do find out who was behind it.
Right there on the White House web site as of 18:15 PST — the papers of the “Founding Founders?”
“Dude?”
As opposed to “Unfounding Founders?” You guys slept through every American History class, didn’t you? I mean, come on. Even a Warner Brothers cartoon would have gotten that right.
It is certainly schadenfreudelicious to see Al Gore and assorted Democratic tools going bonkers over news of President Obama's radically expanded phone call data collection program -- which he, ahem, inherited from the Bush administration and has apparently now widened far beyond anything Bush ever enacted or proposed.
But unlike Gore and company, I am not going to engage in a full, NSA-bashing freakout.
Excellent column by Michelle Malkin on the differences between the Bush-era warrantless wiretap program and the Obama administration's tracking of *all* domestic calls on the Verizon network. This should be read by everyone, especially knee-jerk civil liberties absolutists on the Left and reactionary Libertarians on the Right. I only differ with her in being a little more open to the idea that the Obama effort *may* be legal/justified/needed, etc., but we need much more information in order to judge. Also, she makes an excellent point about the administration's loss of credibility with the public on national security and constitutional issues, compared to the wide public support for the Bush-era program.
You might recall a bizarre federal raid on legendary guitar manufacturer Gibson Guitar back in 2011: they were accused of importing illegally harvested wood from India and Madagascar under a century-old law. The feds showed up with automatic weapons, seized “evidence,” and generally disrupted operations to Gibson’s great cost. After all that, no criminal charges were filed, but Gibson had to agree to pay a $300,000 fine and toss $50,000 to an environmental group as penance for being “careless.”
Weird, right? Why all this attention to Gibson, when rival Martin & Co. used the very same “illegal” wood, yet wasn’t raided?
Grossly underreported at the time was the fact that Gibson’s chief executive, Henry Juszkiewicz, contributed to Republican politicians. Recent donations have included $2,000 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and $1,500 to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.
By contrast, Chris Martin IV, the Martin & Co. CEO, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the Democratic National Committee over the past couple of election cycles.
What would have seemed like a crazy conspiracy theory straight out of the fever swamps just a year ago now looks all too plausible, after the IRS scandal and the news that the Obama people had been targeting conservatives since 2008.
The message here to Mr. Juszkiewicz and people like him is crystal clear: “Thinking about making a political donation? Maybe you should think again.“
Who does this guy think he is, Mike Bloomberg? Angered by county sheriffs opposed to the draconian gun law the Governor recently rammed through the legislature, Andrew Cuomo has evidently threatened to use a rarely invoked power to remove dissident sheriffs from office:
Opposition to the new law has simmered in upstate areas since Cuomo signed the law in January. Many county sheriffs oppose it, particularly its expanded definition of banned assault weapons, and have spoken out around the state. In January, the New York State Sheriffs’ Association wrote Cuomo with an analysis, and later suggested tweaks.
Cuomo invited its leaders to the Capitol last month, people briefed on the meeting said. The group included Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director Peter Kehoe and Chemung County Sheriff Christopher Moss. “We didn’t get a response (to the analysis) from him, but we could tell after the budget was passed that none of those recommendations were taken into consideration,” Moss said. “When we got there, we never got to the contents of the letter.”
Instead, Cuomo pushed the sheriffs to stop publicly speaking out against the act, Moss said.
“The governor was of the opinion that the sheriffs around the state should not be interjecting their personal opinions in reference to the law,” Moss said, adding that Cuomo said sheriffs can’t do that and enforce the law.
One person briefed on the meeting said Cuomo threatened to remove sheriffs from office, a little-used power afforded the state’s chief executive under the state constitution. Moss would not confirm this. He did say the meeting was heated at times, but overall he described it as “cordial.”
It’s one thing to use this power to remove a corrupt sheriff, or one unable to continue in his job because of health. But, to use it to bludgeon into silence men sworn to uphold the law and the state and federal constitutions, and who themselves have the right of free speech? I think that’s called “tyranny.” Somewhere, Hugo Chavez nods in approval.
Via Bryan Preston, who’s right: this has a lot in common with the scandals coming out of the Obama administration, for both represent abuses of power and the authoritarian heart of progressivism.
Per Bob Owens, the effect Obama and the progressive agenda has had on firearms sales has been nothing short of phenomenal:
The United States is the most heavily armed nation in world history, and it seems we have President Barack Obama to thank for it.
Before you ask: we’re not talking about the U.S. military, we’re talking about the firearms owned by the general population. The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) estimates that there are roughly 300 million firearms in the United States — and of those, nearly 40 million new firearms have been sold just since Barack Obama came into office in 2009.
This is a staggering jump of more than 15 percent in just over four years, in a nation 237 years old.
Other estimates put the number of firearms in this nation much higher, such as the 310 million figure cited by the Congressional Research Service. An estimated 10 million firearms now enter the domestic market each year, and the majority of them are semi-automatics designed for personal defense.
To put these forty million new guns sold (along with up to 30 million used guns sold) in just over four years into context: the M1 Garand — the primary rifle of the U.S. military through the full mobilization of the country during World War II and the Korean War — saw just 6.25 million produced in its 21-year production run from 1936-1957.
Under Obama, Americans have purchased nearly seven times that number of new firearms — in just over four years.
There’s more: the numbers on ammunition sales are simply stunning. It seems people are stockpiling in fear of a ban.
The next time the firearms industry has their national convention, they should name Obama “salesman of the year.”
But, really, this is all just some wingnut fantasy aiming to destroy the fourth-greatest president ever.
Which is why Lois Lerner is invoking her right not to incriminate herself:
A top IRS official in the division that reviews nonprofit groups will invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions before a House committee investigating the agency’s improper screening of conservative nonprofit groups.
Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division of the IRS, won’t answer questions about what she knew about the improper screening – or why she didn’t reveal it to Congress, according to a letter from her defense lawyer, William W. Taylor 3rd.
“She has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course,” said a letter by Taylor to committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, R-Calif. The letter, sent Monday, was obtained Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times.
Taylor, a criminal defense attorney from the Washington firm of Zuckerman Spaeder, said that the Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation, and that the House committee has asked Lerner to explain why she provided “false or misleading information” to the committee four times last year.
You see? Just a bunch of nothing. In fact, all these questions about all these cooked-up “scandals” are nothing more than the new birtherism.
Between this and Roger Simon teasing us with the prospect of new Benghazi whistleblowers, I may have to double my reserves of popcorn for all the hearings.
Hmmm… Maybe FOX’s James Rosen and the AP aren’t the only targets of the White House’s ire? Here’s a radio interview CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson did with WPHT’s Chris Stigall in which she mentions unknown parties have accessed her home and work computers since February, 2011:
You’ll recall that both my blog-buddy ST and I have mentioned Attkisson several times on our blogs for being one of the few remaining MSM reporters actually willing to hold the administration to account for their actions, Fast & Furious and Benghazi being the most notable. She so got under their skin that, as Allahpundit reminds us, a DoJ official screamed and cursed at her over the phone. Attkisson herself has recently said that she has been shut out by her White House sources. There have been rumors (1) that David Rhodes, president of CBS News and brother of Ben Rhodes, a would-be fiction writer and now an Obama national security deeply involved in Benghazi, might fire Attkisson for being too aggressive in her coverage of the White House… where his brother works.
Keep in mind that the DoJ got access to James Rosen’s GMail account by affirming to a judge that they believed he was engaged in a criminal conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act, and then got a court order forbidding Google from telling Rosen of the access. And now we hear that somebody has been accessing Attkisson’s computers.
What was going on in February 2011? The Fast and Furious scandal, having been rumored for months, was finally breaking into the mainstream news, and Attkisson was filing stories that weren’t settling for administration spin.
And about that same time, she gets hacked.
What. A. Coincidence.
Footnote:
(1) Attkisson has said there has been no pressure from any CBS News executive regarding her Benghazi reporting.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a resolution condemning the Internal Revenue Service for trampling the Constitutional rights of Americans. (For example) It didn’t get very far:
Today, Senate Democrats placed a hold on Sen. Rand Paul’s recent resolutionthat condemns the targeting of Tea Party groups by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and calls for an investigation into this practice.
“This resolution is not about Republican vs. Democrat or conservative vs. liberal. It is about arrogant and unrestrained government vs. the rule of law. The First Amendment cannot and should not be renegotiated depending on which party holds power,” Sen. Paul said. ”Each senator took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, yet Senate Democrats chose to block my resolution and thus refused to condemn the IRS for trampling on our First Amendment rights. I am incredibly disappointed in Washington’s party politics and I am determined to hold the IRS accountable for these unjust acts.”
But they’re absolutely, totally, without a doubt non-political. And don’t you dare say otherwise, wingnut!
IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election.
“In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board’s signatures stating that, under perjury of the law, they do not picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood,” the Thomas More Society announced today. “Once the IRS received this letter, their application would be approved.”
Planned Parenthood endorsed Obama in 2008 and 2012.
The article also mentions a Texas pro-life group that had its free speech rights roughed up, too.
With new revelations of IRS abuse coming out seemingly hourly, this would be almost comical if it weren’t for the serious constitutional, legal, and political implications. Granting tax-exempt status only if they promise not to exercise their First Amendment rights?? Can these morons in IRS really have been so blind as to not see what a bright red line they were crossing? (Or did they think it was an “Obama red line,” and therefore meaningless?)
And let’s not even start with why the press wasn’t asking about these rumors in 2010-2012…
The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.
According to a reportby Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.
“This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents,” the complaint reads. “No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records,” it continued.
You know, we may just be a lowly state, and they may be a mighty federal agency, but it would take only a few angry superior court judges to make life miserable for the regional IRS office…
Meanwhile, what are we up to? Five scandals in the last two weeks? Six? Am I bid seven?
UPDATE: Lawyer Gabriel Malor is “calling BS” on the Healthcare IT News story, describing the suit as “vague” and “lurid.” See his tweets beginning at 3/15/13 at 10:12 AM.
I've said electric cars get subsidized too much. Turns out I was wrong.
In California, they are subsidized ridiculously too much.
Tesla gets $45,000 for each car it sells in state and federal subsidies. The Tesla S starts at $69,000, so about 40% of its total cost is subsidies (Tesla isn’t making any big profits).
Yet another "Green scam." Makers of fossil-fueled cars are forced to buy, in essence, "carbon credits" from Tesla to meet California's "zero emission" standards. You can bet those costs are passed along to the consumer.
The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.
Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.
Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.
This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.
Emphasis added.
Nah, there are no 4th Amendment illegal search and privacy concerns here. Nothing to see, carry on. After all, wingnuts, you demanded greater security in the immigration bill and, well, here ya go! The government will make sure only bona fide Americans get jobs by keeping track of each and every one of us. And if they should find other uses for the information, well, that will be for the public good, too.
Instructions for making The Liberator, a plastic handgun that could escape detection by conventional airport security, were today made freely available to download from the internet by anti-government activists in the US.
It was created by a group in Texas that aims to make “WikiWeapons” that can be reproduced with a home computer and a $1,000 (£644) 3D printer that uses heated plastics instead of ink.
“It’s a demonstration that technology will allow access to things that governments would otherwise say that you shouldn’t have access to,” Cody Wilson, the leader of Defense Distributed, told The Daily Telegraph.
Emphasis added. And that scares statists like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who’s first, knee-jerk reaction is to ban it:
The Liberator may look like a toy, but “this gun can fire regular bullets,” Schumer said, calling for legislation outlawing the technology’s weapons potential.
The bill was drafted by Rep. Steve Israel (D-L.I.).
“Security checkpoints, background checks and gun regulations will do little good if criminals can print their own plastic firearms at home and bring those firearms through metal detectors with no one the wiser,” Israel said in a statement.
To Schumer, the ramifications of make-your-own untraceable and undetectable weapons are “stomach-churning.”
“Now anyone, a terrorist, someone who is mentally ill, a spousal abuser, a felon, can essentially open a gun factory in their garage,” Schumer said. “It must be stopped.”
Apparently Chuck (and Rep. Israel) have never heard of improvised firearms, before, such as the Sten gun, meant to be made in home workshops. And Loyalist militias in Northern Ireland practically made a hobby out of homemade submachine guns. (So did the I.R.A., from what I’m told.)
But it’s not what the terrorist or criminal might do with the weapon that truly scares progressives, though I doubt even Schumer realizes this. Look again at the bolded quote above — Wilson nails it. What truly scares the progressive statist is the loss of control. The ideal, for Schumer and those like him, is the administrative state run by bureaucratic experts who decide what’s best for everyone. Life is too complicated for the “average Joe,” so we need ever more legislation and regulation to keep everyone safe and prosperous in line. That includes access to firearms, which have advanced beyond anything the writers of that dear, but now obsolete Constitution could imagine.
What frightens them is that it makes their precious regulations powerless. Like I wrote before on this issue:
But now think about the effect on gun control: this (3D priting) is the discontinuous innovation. Statists and gun-banners and those standing on the graves of children can scream as loud as they want for ever more laws controlling firearms, maybe even get them, but, as long as you can download the plans and have access to a printer… All those laws are useless. They’re the modern buggy-whips.
An idea once conceived cannot be un-thought, and technology once discovered cannot be undiscovered. Even the secret of making an atomic bomb is out there, in spite of all our efforts to keep it classified; only the difficulty of obtaining the materials and constructing it have slowed its spread.
But combine 3D printers (which are only going to get smaller, cheaper, and more portable) with easy information distribution — hello, torrent sites! – and, well, Schumer and his wise, progressive control-freak buddies can write all the laws and regulations they want; it just won’t do any good. People will ignore them.
And that’s what scares the pants off progressives.
PS: I can see one potentially big benefit to the advent of 3D firearms: by showing how useless gun-control regulations are, it might actually spur us to deal with the real problem behind mass shootings, such as at Aurora and Newtown — mental illness and the lousy state of mental health care in the US.
Looks like Texas has poached at least one California-based company out of the Golden State.
Raytheon, a major defense contractor and manufacturer, announced Thursday that it is moving one of its businesses' headquarters, currently located in El Segundo, California, to McKinney, Texas.
The business, Raytheon's Space and Airborne Systems, is worth $6 billion, and is reportedly bringing about 170 jobs to the Lone Star State.
And California, one of the most self-destructively governed states in the Union, loses another company, its jobs, and its tax revenues. Really, if I didn't live here, it would be fascinating to watch an "economic super-power state" drive itself off the cliff chasing Thelma and Louise. Thank you, Jerry Brown and the legislative Democrats.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was denied a second slice of pizza today at an Italian eatery in Brooklyn.
The owners of Collegno’s Pizzeria say they refused to serve him more than one piece to protest Bloomberg’s proposed soda ban,which would limit the portions of soda sold in the city.
Bloomberg was having an informal working lunch with city comptroller John Liu at the time and was enraged by the embarrassing prohibition. The owners would not relent, however, and the pair were forced to decamp to another restaurant to finish their meal.
Witnesses say the situation unfolded when as the two were looking over budget documents, they realized they needed more food than originally ordered.
“Hey, could I get another pepperoni over here?” Bloomberg asked owner Antonio Benito.
“I’m sorry sir,” he replied, “we can’t do that. You’ve reached your personal slice limit.”
Hey, Mikey! How does it feel to have someone telling what you can and can’t eat, you pint-sized statist tyrant?
Read the rest, with a language warning: Hizzoner doesn’t like being told “no.”
Makes me want to go to New York, just to give Collegno’s some thank-you business.
Out of the entire universe of those who could have won the first phase construction contract for California’s high speed rail boondoggle, who would stand out as the last person who would win it if there were no political patronage.
Put another way, who is the most likely person to win it if there is political patronage?
Both questions have the same answer: Richard Blum, the husband of California senator Diane Feinstein.
So, who won the contract? Blum, of course, as the principle owner of Tutor Perini, the lead firm in the three-firm consortium selected by the California High Speed Rail Authority.
Yes, Diane, it really does look that bad to us little people.
The group lead by Tutor Perini bid $985,000,000 to build the initial 29-mile stretch, roughly from Fresno to Madera, which doesn’t include the costs for electrification and land purchase. And, as Laer points out at Crazifornia, they started with this section because it’s the cheapest. (I can’t wait to see what the bids are to lay track through the mountain passes…)
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the principle owner of the company is husband to a powerful United States senator, who happens to be from the state building said rail system. I mean, it’s not as if there have been any allegations of self-dealing before.
RT @ExurbanKevin: Just got back from a midweek Tactical shotgun match at PRGC. Despite 100°+ heat, there was10x more people than an OFA ant… 5 hours ago
RT @EWErickson: Had to give her a $5 bill because I drew on all the $1 bills and told her if she got one it'd prove mom and dad were the to… 6 hours ago
Posted by Phineas Fahrquar 
Read them on the 
Buy 
Buy 
