JP II--Quasi Santo Subito

Six years ago, at the 264^th Pontiffs funeral, there were spontaneous calls from the crowd for “Santo Subito” (Sainthood Now!).  Today, the Vatican celebrated the beatification of the Blessed Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła) in St. Peter’s Square in Rome.

Some Protestants bristle at the notion that the Church “makes” saints, as nobody (but Christ) is perfect and that we are all supposed to be called to sainthood in our Christian identity.  Certainly our baptism marks us as part of the Lord’s people and calls us to holiness.  The Catholic Church can recognize, based on investigation and guidance from the Holy Spirit,  that a person is already a saint, definitely in heaven and having led a life of great holiness is worthy of veneration by the faithful.  Canonized saints are important examples to the faithful of how to live a heroic (not perfect) Christian life.

Pope John Paul II was a remarkable man who wore many hats in his life, including Laborer, Thespian, Playwright, Patriot, Priest,  Philologist, Philosopher, Pilgrim, Bishop, Theologian, Sportsman, Scholar, Statesman and Vicar of Christ, but the cause for canonization is not premised on doctrinal dissertations, academic accolades or even geopolitical accomplishments.  It is about how John Paul II lived his life to reflect the Christian virtue which still touches the faithful today.

After several years of investigation led by postulator Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints recommended Servant of God John Paul II’s heroic virtue to the Pope. On December 19, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed John Paul II as “Venerable”.  The Church normally requires that one miracle is attributable to intercessions of a Venerable, but the Vatican only investigates possible miracles after a candidate is declared Venerable. These miracles are almost always miraculous medical cures as these are the easiest to verify.

Sister Marie Simon Pierre, a nun from the order of Little Sisters of the Catholic Motherhood in Aix au Province, France, had suffered with Parkinson’s Disease, like John Paul II, for four years. She intensely prayed along with her community for healing through the intercession of John Paul II only two months after John Paul II’s death.  Doctors determined that Sr. Simon Pierre’s neurological symptoms had disappeared inexplicably. 

After the Congregation for the Causes of Saints scrutinized the medical evidence that the healing was rapid, lasting and inexplicable and that is was the result of praying for the Venerable’s intercessions to God, they made their recommendations to the Pope.  On January 14, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI determined that the criteria were met to refer to John Paul II as “Blessed”. Such a beatification is a formal statement from the church that it is “worthy of belief” that a person has some to salvation but is not to be taken as a sign that canonization is certain.  The Vatican looks to authenticate another miracle occurring after the Blessed’s beatification. Based upon testimony at the John Paul II Cultural Center of Chester Lobrow of his wife Jadwiga’s miraculous healing through the intercession of John Paul II, such signs would not be surprising in the near future.

The date of the beatification was chosen because it was the 2^nd Sunday of Easter, which Pope John Paul II instituted during his Papacy as “Divine Mercy Sunday”, due to his Devotion to St. Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938).  The vigil mass of the feast of Divine Mercy had just been celebrated at John Paul II’s bedside when he fell into a coma and soon after died.  It is also the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, or May Day for secular socialists.  After the Nazi’s invaded Poland, Jagiellonian University was closed and all able bodied males were conscribed to labor to avoid deportation to Germany.  So the young  Karol Wojtyła worked as a limestone quarryman and in a chemical plant. 

The date of John Paul II’s beatification also coincides with the March of the Living, as participants gather in Krakow,  Wojtyła’s home for 40 years, to march between the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz to Birkenau to remember the Holocaust.  John Paul II had strong connections with the Jewish community in his childhood home off Wadowice, where ¼  of the town’s 8,000 residents were eradicated for anti-Semitic aspirations of Nazi racial purity.  These events strongly influenced John Paul II’s weltanschauung, since during his pontificate, John Paul II made great strives to acknowledge the sin of anti-semitism, especially in the Holocaust, and to strengthen the Church’s relations with the Jewish Community. 

As a Pole, Karol Wojtyła was shaped by victimization by totalitarian domination, first by the Nazi’s then by the Communists.  We rightly remember the suffering of several million Jews being interned and murdered as part of the Holocaust of World War II, but Nazi Germany intended to eradicate any ‘deviant” culture, which also included non-Aryan intellectuals, Slavs, Catholics, gypsies and homosexuals.  The Nazi closing of Polish Universities came as Polish intellectuals were being slaughtered.  During the Nazi occupation, Polish culture was systematically being eradicated and the Slavs being treated as slaves for the Reich. 

The way that Karol Wojtyła reacted to these events was answering the call to the priesthood clandestinely and by participating in Rhapsodic Theater, a clandestine company dedicated to preserve some measure of Polish culture. The group’s concentration on the interplay of personal relationships and the power of the human word had a profound impact on how Karol Wojtyła lived his faith under the domination of the communists and as Pope. John Paul II  fought against his ideological adversaries with the power of the word, sublime yet suggestive symbolism and fostering a sense of connection and community.

After the Second World War, Poland suffered under the domination of Stalinist inspired Communism, which sought to reshape humanity into a Godless existence where the average worker was no more than a cog in the machine.  The communists built Nowa Huta (“New Steel Mill”) on the eastern outskirts of Krakow in 1947 as a Socialist Realist worker’s paradise with everything but a church. The faithful kept erecting crosses which communist officials would tear down.  Eventually the piety of Poles caused the people to want a church to be built, but the atheistic state first refused, then reluctantly agreed to quell unrest only to renege on the understanding  and then crush any dissent.

Karol Wojtyła was then Auxilliary Bishop of Krakow who defended the faithfuls’ spiritual cri-de-coeur but who shepherded a compromise with unwilling authorities.  When the Arka Pana (“Ark of God”) Church was eventually built in 1977, prominent features include a 70 meter mast shaped cross and triumphant pose of the crucified Jesus Christ, made from 10 kilos of shrapnel taken from the wounds from Polish soldiers. These elements show the influence of Karol Wojtyła  by fusing symbolism with Christian faithfulness, the prominence of the Cross, converting suffering into constructiveness and fidelity to Polish patriotism.

Then Cardinal Karol Wojtyła was elected Pontiff in October 1977 during the Year of Three Popes.  While Pope John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in 454 years and was from a nation behind the Iron Curtain, he was chosen because of his theology.  John Paul II chose as his papal motto “Totus Tuus”, which reflected his Reflected his personal consecration to Mary which was based on the spiritual approach of St. Louis de Montfort (1673-1716)—“Totus tuus ego sum, et omnia mea tua sunt" ("I am all yours, and all that I have is yours").  In Crossing the Threshold of Hope,  he explained that the “Totus Tuus” motto expressed the understanding that he “[c]ould not exclude the Lord's Mother from my life without neglecting the will of God-Trinity”.  Polish born composer Henryk Gorecki (1933-2010) wrote the choral piece “Totus Tuus” in honor of Pope John Paul II’s 3^rd visit to Poland in 1987.

From the start of his Petrine ministry until his eventual death from Parkinson’s Disease 26 ½ years later, John Paul II’s message to the faithful was the Lucan exhortation “Be not afraid”.   In fact, John Paul II uttered the phrase three times during his homily at the Papal Inauguration.  This message “Be not afraid… open the door wide to Christ” was chosen as the slogan for his beatification.  It was the same message that he brought when he first visited his homeland of Poland in June 1979.  The documentary Nine Days That Changed the World showed the power that John Paul II message of “Be not afraid” had with the Polish people to instill the dignity of the individual to live out their faith and, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, renew the face of the Earth and their land.

The  millions of Poles who flocked to their favorite son's first pilgrimage back to his homeland showed that the faithful were not alone in that officially atheistic state and served as a real retort to Stalin’s taunt of “The Pope! How man divisions does he got?"  Both Lech Walesa, the piously Catholic worker who lead the Solidarity movement (and eventually became Poland’s President), and Vaclav Havel, the less spiritual leader of a free Czechoslovakia, credit the fall of the Iron Curtain to the message “Be not afraid” embodied in John Paul II’s 1^st visit to Poland.

On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot three times at close range and critically wounded in St. Peter’s Square by a trained gunman Metmed Ali Agca. Many belief that this assassination attempt was a hit job coordinated by the Bulgarian Secret Police with the complicity of the Kremlin.  Yet less than two years later, John Paul II met with and forgave the gunman.  The Pope was convinced that Our Lady of Fatima kept him alive during the ordeal where he lost 3/4ths of his blood.  The Third Secret of our Lady of Fatima can be seen as predicting the assassination attempt on the Pope. The John Paul II’s faith filled connection between his assassination attempt and the visions of Fatima that a bullet from his wounds now tops the golden finery of the Our Lady of Fatima processional statue.

One of the hallmarks of John Paul II’s reign was being a Pilgrim as Vicar of Christ to proclaim Jesus as the Redeemer of Humanity to all the Earth. Frankly, he came pretty close to covering it all.  It is speculated that the curia spent about a fourth of their time planning for and executing his 104 foreign trips to 125 countries which totaled 725,000 miles.  While John Paul certainly visited countries with large Catholic populations many times, he also visited places which had no discernable Christian populations.  John Paul II not only sought to evangelize for Christ, he wanted to foster interfaith dialog. For example, in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks on America, John Paul II kept his planned itinerary to Kazahkstan, which is mostly Muslim nation.

At the behest of Pope John Paul II, World Youth Days were held every couple of years at rotating international locations. Skeptics certainly questioned in disengaged youth would care about such events, but the youth loved to rally around the Pope and open themselves to the new evangelization.  The vitality of  World Youth Day tradition has not subsided in the loss of John Paul II.  These large conclaves of young people meeting to renew their faithful inclinations echoes how John Paul II loved to channel the energy of crowds in a positive manner to allow people to feel connected in a vibrant and visceral way.

The message of “Be not afraid” was epitomized by Pope John Paul II’s reaction to a musical gift when he visited Los Angeles in 1987.  To demonstrate courage, Tony Melendez, a musician without hands played a guitar song with his feet.  John Paul II was so moved by the performance that he leaped off the main stage to embrace Melendez on the satellite stage.  John Paul II’s spontaneous and evocative human gesture along with his message of how courage gives hope to all continues to touch the faithful.

While Pope Benedict XVI did not formally recognize John Paul II as a martyr in his beatification mass, many feel that the manner in which John Paul II lived with his debilitating disease and how he died with dignity in the Vatican was exemplary.  John Paul II had run the good race and was not afraid to go home to the Father by extending his life through extraordinary medical procedures for terminal illness.

The liturgical feast day for Blessed John Paul II will be October 22nd. In the Liturgy of the Hours for that day is part of the Papal Inauguration "Do not be afraid" homily.  The prayer for that day in the Office of Readings is:

O God, who are rich in mercy and who willed that the blessed John Paul the Second should preside as Pope over your universal Church, grant, we pray, that instructed by his teaching, we may open our hearts to the saving grace of Christ, the sole Redeemer of mankind. Who lives and reigns.

Although another miracle is required for canonization, this has not stopped Catholic institutions from dedicating themselves to “John Paul the Great”. The new seminary in Washington DC is being dedicated to the Blessed John Paul II.

 So for now it is quasi Santo Subito. But the Blessed Pope John Paul II continues to touch our lives and is a model to “Be Not Afraid” in our own paths toward being part of the Community of Saints.

Two Wheeled Revenue Enhancement?

Tracy Morgan in Cop Out (2010)

Blue states like California and New York are suffering from severe budgetary deficits due to profligate governmental spending.  So it should be no surprise that the Police seemed to be employed to enforce any ordinance to generate revenue for the jurisdiction.

Since the start of the year, the New York City Police Department started cracking down on bicyclists violating traffic laws.  But instead of pulling over the offending cyclists, the cops can use photos tagged on social media sites to contrast with pictures of the alleged violation and then mail them the ticket.   For many, it may be more prudent to pay the fine for an alleged offense rather than waste half a day trying to disprove the negative or having a bench warrant out for ignoring a seemingly bogus citation.

The NYC crackdown on cyclists seems capricious.  The running a red light rap ignores years of custom and convention (and possibly the law) of not enforcing the rule on cyclists. A public safety argument seems silly since enforcement mainly consisted of squad cars cruising around Central Park (which is closed to civilian vehicular traffic) and fining cyclists.  Another example of how arbitrary enforcement is stems from speeding tickets issued to cyclists.  NYC police used radar guns to cite ten cyclists for exceeding the 15 mile an hour speed limit in Central Park. The problem is that for cyclists, the speed limit is 25/mph.

While the New York City Police must be commended for cleaning up the crime ridden streets of the 1970s, it is reasonable to wonder why they are cracking down on minor if not imaginary offenses.  Recently, there was a viral video of police in Brooklyn who had stopped a cyclist but then went after another New York pedestrian for being a New Yorker while the police ignored a drunk stagger across the middle of the street.  Even though they may be some leitmotifs of lawlessness amongst some law enforcers, the problem goes beyond the bad cop paradigm.  This high tech sleuthing for offenses of running red lights certainly is creepy.  But to pin it on acrimony between cyclists and cops from the 2004 Republican Convention seems spurious.  The key may be that it is a $270 fine.

On the left coast, San Francisco is a hub for urban cyclists and thousands pedal across the bay bridges each day.  Well, now San Francisco wants to impose a 5/mph speed limit on cyclists over the iron tower segments and 10/mph elsewhere.  Of course safety concerns are cited.  But pedestrians who are sleepwalking as they gawk, tourists who try to photo and bike and fog creating slippery conditions may explain the accidents involving cyclists.  My visceral reaction is that the rule is less about safety and more about revenue generation. And the $100 fine seems capricious since cyclists do not have speedometers as standard equipment on their bikes.

John Fund wrote a seminal article in the Wall Street Journal about how California is losing businesses in droves to other states. To paraphrase a failed NY gubernatorial candidate, the taxes are too damn high for businesses. But over-regulation makes it confusing and costly to do anything in the once Golden State. The same is true for citizens.  Such a revenue enhancement municipal mentality definitely extends to other issues.

It seems dubious to rigidly enforce such niggling ordinances on citizen cyclists who are doing the right thing using transportation alternatives and can not know with surety if they are in speeding compliance.  If traffic ordinance citations are to be issued, do so immediately by confronting the alleged offender so they can immediately correct their action. Do not use policing powers to be Big Brother for such minor offenses or just to generate revenue.

Sound the Strepitus

An Obituary and Eulogistic Meditation of Yeshua bar Yahosef bar Yaqub

The Strepitus is the sudden loud clatter that symbolizes how the Earth convulsed at the physical death of the only begotten Son of our Lord.   In Matthew 27:46-53, when Christ gave up His spirit on the Crucifix, there was a tumultuous earthquake.   It is the jarring closing of a Tenebae Service, which is done in preparation for the Paschal Triduum.

Some churches have the Tenebrae on Spy Wednesday.  Others choose to extinguish the lights after celebrating the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday or even Great and Holy Friday.  Regardless of the time, it is a ritual that reminds us of how the Light of the World was briefly extinguished to fulfill scripture as an expiation for mankind’s sinfulness.

While it is difficult to watch Mel Gibson’s cinematic masterpiece The Passion of the Christ (2004) for its depiction of the savage brutality inflicted by the Roman overlords on a political prisoner who challenged the religious practices and expectations of the Jewish hierachy.   The teardrop from heaven is incredibly moving.




When Salvador Dali painted Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951), Jesus was depicted without wounds on a Cross that floated above the Earth. Dali listened to the color of his dream that indicated that depicting the nails, blood and crown of thorns would mar the image.  Dali wanted the emphasize the Trinity with the positioning of Jesus hanging on the Cross to represent the nucleus of the atom.  Clearly, the cross hovering over the Earth shows the cosmic significance of the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. In a modern manner, Dali celebrates Eastern Christian Church's emphasis mystagogy of Jesus' Divine Sacrifice by death on the cross.

But during a Tenebrae service, the faithful were reminded that unlike even in classical depictions of Golgatha (the place of the skull) where Jesus was crucified, the crosses of Calvary were not necessarily hung that high in the air.  Since those being executed had their feet nailed bound to prevent them from moving as they slowly suffocated on their crosses, they may have been only a couple of feet above the ground.

Such crosses would serve the Roman overlords as tangible examples of what happens to brigands, rabble rousers and revolutionaries. The low positioning would allow most passers-by to look into the eyes of the executed. This makes the taunts from the crowd and Jesus’ words of forgiveness all the more remarkable.

It is easy to gloss over how the expiation of mans’ sins required a blood sacrifice to seal the New Covenant. By cognitively sounding the Strepitus over Christ's crucifixion, we may "Ecce homo".

While some ears may find it as painful as the Stepitus, the Christ’s Passion has been told by Glenn Beck using a motif of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon  (1973).  Whether we use pop parables, cinematic accounts, scriptural studies, communal worship or prayerful personal reflections, it is worthy to reflect on how God's only begotten Son chose to be the suffering servant to right the relationship between God and mankind.

Poetry in Motion Celebrating Earth Day

After being Blinded with Science from the East Anglia hockey stick fixed data about the Climategate anthropogenic Global Warming, it is apropos  to celebrate this years Earth Day with sardonic skepticism.

With this in mind, here is a  poetic gem dedicated to Gaia that was penned by Nobel Peace Prize Winner (2007), subject of the Oscar Winning Documentary (2007) , Grammy Winner (2009), Emmy Winner (2007), Webby Winner (2005) and the 2000 Presidential Election Popular Vote Winner former Vice President Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. as recited by Glenn Beck and cohorts on Beck’s “Elegant Eliminations” Tour.


Truly, it was poetry in motion worth coverage by Keith Olbermann on CurrentTV.  Of course, that’s Al Gore’s cable channel with his star anchor who was previously banished from MSNBC.

Barack Obama Taxman

When President Barack Obama gave his Deficit reduction speech, which scathingly condemned Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI 1st) blueprint to fiscal sanity through some budgetary belt tightening, one can only conclude that Obama’s answer is to tax the rich.

Since it is April 15th, the traditional tax filing deadline date, it is fitting to serenade the occasion with an apropos tune.




The original version of this George Harrison song was on Revolver, the Beatle’s 7th album, released in 1966.  The song attacked the high level of progressive taxation in the United Kingdom under the leadership of Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

Back to the VA Redistricting Drawing Board

Governor Bob McDonnell (R-VA) vetoed the Virginia Redistricting legislation which was required after the 2010 Census. Virginia is one of the states which has a divided decision-making process, as the Governorship and State House of Delegates is controlled by Republicans and the State Senate is dominated by Democrats.  Attempts to avoid acrimony when redrawing the district lines were stillborn as the Governor’s so called independent non-partisan redistricting commission offered a liberal hack job which eliminated three Republicans’ Congressional districts, this in a Commonwealth that did not lose any representation in the 2010 Census and elected a Republican governor with an 18% margin.

The Virginia State Senate redistricting plan was committed to creating a second minority seat in Virginia.  This was accomplished by making Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA 3rd) into a 42% African American plurality district and sharing the black voters with a proposed district extending to Richmond.  It is an effort that Rep. Scott claims to have supported for 20 years.  It also strengthens Democrat power in three State Senate districts, which would help the Democrats retain their narrow majority in the Commonwealth’s upper chamber.

The Virginia Senate plan would separate  Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-VA 4th) in Chesapeake from his district that he is currently representing. It also shrank Rep. Frank Wolf’s  (R-VA 10th) district, due to the population gains in Northern Virginia, but it also may make Republicans retaining the seat more challenging when the 72 year old lawmaker retires. Virginia Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw (D-VA 35th, Alexandria) insists that Democrats ceded to every Republican demand except having two state Senators based in Republican oriented Virginia Beach.

 The Republican led Virginia House drew up a plan authored by Virginia House Majority Whip Rep. Bill Janis (R-VA 35th, Glen Allen)  guided by the advice from incumbents to reflect the results from the 2010 elections that sent eight Republicans and three Democrats to Washington.  Republican House used a crack and pack methodology to increase the VA-3rd into a minority led district from 53% to 57%.  This move strengthens Republican power on the Peninsula while eliminating a Democrat district in Norfolk and displacing a few Democrats, including Virginia House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong (D-VA 10th, Martinsville).

The Virginia General Assembly Redistricting Bill HB 5001 was approved on a bipartisan 86-8 vote.  The Virginia Senate bill passed on a party line 22-18 vote majority.

Gov. McDonnell vetoed the redistricting indicating that the House-Senate redistricting legislation did not receive enough bi-partisan support.  Additionally, the Governor indicated that the plan did not have a Voters Right Act pre-clearance which could be costly and not ensured.   Moreover, McDonnell explained that the redistricting bill did not preserve communities of interest, ensure compact districts or maintain populations of the districts.

Lawmakers are scheduled to return to Richmond on April 25th.  Since the Senate bill received no Republican support, it will not garner enough votes to override the veto. Virginia Senate Majority Leader Saslaw has vowed not to change a jot or tittle and pass the Senate bill again. If that is the case, then the redistricting will be thrown to the courts.  Unfortunately, with the August 23rd primary pending, this could throw the election into chaos.

Politics can be as unappetizing as making sausage but it is better than having fleebagging lawmakers who stall the normal messy political process or by blithely enlisting the men in black to make political choices.

Going Above NASA's Head

NASA will be decommissioning the Space Shuttle fleet after 30 years of service later this year.  There were competitive bids from 21 different organizations to house the retired Space Shuttles.  After three years of deliberation, NASA Chief Charles Bolton announced that the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Space Center, Los Angeles and New York City would receive Space Shuttles. Perhaps Bolton spent more time helping Muslims feel better about their contributions to math and science than considering the Space Shuttle relocations.

The Kennedy Space Center in Florida was a natural choice, as it has been the home of the American Manned Space program since its inception in the early 1960s.  The Kennedy Space Center is planning a $100 million display where the Atlantis will be suspended in mid-air behind a multi storied digital projection of the Earth.

Washington, DC is the Nation’s Capitol and was the driver and financer of the Manned Space Program so it was fitting that it received a retired Space Shuttle.  Besides, the Smithsonian Institution’s network of museums have been likened to America’s attic so it is an apt curator for this cosmic piece of Americana.  The National Air & Space Museum Udvar-Hazy complex near Dulles Washington International Airport will house the Discovery in the James McDonnell Space Hanger.

I can appreciate arguments for some geographic distribution of these treasured pieces of space lore. Thus the award of the Endeavour to the California Science Center in Los Angeles seems alright.  The California Science Center already houses Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft. The Space Shuttles were built by Rockwell in nearby Palmdale, California. And Space Shuttles often landed at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California.

But the latter award is truly puzzling.  New York City is getting a hand me down prototype Shuttle Enterprise from the Smithsonian’s collection.  The only rationales that come to mind with this decision are political and economic.  Supporters of awarding the Enterprise to the Intrepid Space-Air-Sea Museum on Pier 86 in New York City note that they are lucky to land a space shuttle, even if it is only an engineless prototype.

The Enterprise is too large to be displayed on the Intrepid Aircraft Carrier, so the shuttle will require a new glass-enclosed hanger to be built where the Concorde is currently stowed. The Intrepid Museum’s Executive Director Susan Marenoff, expects 300,000 additional visitors to generate $106 Million in economic benefits to a politically solidly blue New York.

As for Mission Control deep in Texas, the response was “Houston, we have a problem”.  The Johnson Space Center in Houston, which has managed America’s manned space flights won a booby prize of the flight deck’s pilot and commander seats.  The Houston Chronicle’s memorable headline was “One Giant Snub For Houston”.

As the news descended to Earth, Texas lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were outraged.  As Rep. John Culberson (R-TX 7th), this is like “Detroit without a Model T, Florence without Leonardo Da Vinci”.  Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) vented that “pure political favors trumped common sense and fairness” when awarding the shuttles to New York City and Los Angeles.  Even Obama Administration stalwart Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX 18th) did not have Mars on her mind when she Tweeted her disappointment that the home of human space flight in Houston was not awarded a space shuttle.

Although there is a chance that LA or NYC might not raise the initial $28.8 Million to transport the shuttles to there new homes and the allocation process would be open again, some Congressman are not leaving it to chance.  Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT 3rd), the Chairman of the House subcommitte on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, has filed a bill to ensure that Houston receives a decommissioned Space Shuttle.   Chaffetz claims to want to rely on history and logic rather than political guidance when making these monumental decisions.  His bill certainly will receive strong support from the Texas delegation and would be a worthy earmark in future federal budgets.

While there are only so many Space Shuttles to go around, it seems unjust to snub the Houston, the heart of manned space flights.  This is the danger of a feeding more money and power to a federal government, which tends to usurp the power of the people as bestowed in the legislature in favor of partisans dressed up as bureaucrats bestowing political favors.   As P.J. O’Rourke caustically put it in Parliament of Whores: “Giving more money and power to the Federal Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenaged boys.”

Burying Expensive Dulles Metro Decisions

The Washington DC Metro System has long lacked an important element, the connection to an International Airport.   There has been a decade long process to construct a 23.1 mile extension of the Metro to connect with the rapidly growing Dulles corridor as well as Dulles International Airport.  Phase I of the project which goes from East Falls Church to Reston grew from $5.25 Billion to $6.8 Billion, funded by a $0.50 increase in Dulles Access Toll fees and should be complete by 2013.  The new Silver Line is scheduled to complete the phase II extension to IAD in mid-2017 phase II $4.1 billion (originally estimated $3.44 B).

Last week, the Washington Metropolitan Airport Authority unilaterally determined that an above ground station at Dulles was unacceptable.  The MWAA contended that it would be burdensome for passengers to be shuttled 1,150 feet to the planned above ground station next to the North Garage.  Instead, the MWAA wants to make the Dulles station user friendly as it insists that an underground station be built that is 550 feet from the terminal.  This would have the serendipity of preserving the aesthetic of the renowned Eero Saarinen designed terminal.   This modest proposal merely adds an extra $330 Million and extends construction for over a year.

In response to the Airport Authority whim, the Virginia Department of Transportation determined that tolls would necessary have to increase due to the decision and that was intolerable. So much so that Commonwealth Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton has said: "This project is moving in a direction that is going to be financially unsustainable.”  Leaders in Fairfax and Loudoun County discerned that the decision to tunnel to Dulles may be deemed a “betterment” which would mean that the costs would be fully borne by the MWAA.

Fairfax and Loudoun County officials used prior studies of the Dulles expansion to dismiss the sob stories about the burdens of a distant Dulles station on international travelers.  They note that the bulk of ridership will be airport employees who will not be burdened by a tunnel.

The MWAA insists that modification made to a tunnel station, such as revising the design, using a different method of excavation and reducing the length and depth and other infrastructure optimizations will make the costs less than the original 2005 underground station proposal. Besides the underground station is only an additional 5% to the cost of the total project. Sure. And Obamacare will save money.

The financial burdens on Phase II of the Dulles Expansion will not be mitigated by the Federal Government.  Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA 10th) called the insistence on the underground Dulles station a bad decision.  Wolf lamented: “I am disappointed and share the concerns of state and the local partners. Everything possible needs to be done to keep costs down on this project.”  Fairfax County Supervisors are rightly concerned as they will face the voters this year.

It is dangerous to have unaccountable appointed officials so grandiosely burying expensive decisions on taxpayers.    Unfortunately, the decision making process is Byzantine as state and local governments have the responsibility to help finance the project but the Airport Authority has the final say on the project.

Via: TBD.com
Vial Washington Post

Fudge Budget

I was cautiously optimistic when the 11th hour deal that prevented the governmental shutdown was announced, but I noted that the devil was in the details.  The agreement used the imaginary Obama FY2011 budget as a baseline, so it baked in marked increases in departmental budgets over the past two years.  It promised to cut $38.5 Billion which when paired with the $10 Billion in prior savings looked like it was 60% of what Republicans pledged to cut.

Now that the details of the budgetary deal are more evident, it was clear that the savings from the shutdown settlement were a chimera. It seems that the prior $10 Billion in savings from earlier C.R.s was counted as part of that the “historic” $38 Billion cut.  Republicans gave up cuts at the Agriculture Department, antagonized the social conservative base by de-linking Planned Parenthood cuts from the budget, as well as abandoning cuts of federal spending to the liberally skewed National Public Radio to avoid the governmental shutdown

In the light of day, it seems that account tricks and slights of hand accounted for much of the so called “savings” from the Democrats.  Counting line items like  unspent Census funds as a cut, allowed President Obama to preserve favorite programs like College Pell Grants, “Race for the Top”.  After removing rescissions, cuts to reserve funds and reductions in mandatory spending programs, the National Journal estimates that the budget will only be reduced by $14.8 Billion.

The conservative base might have felt content about changing the direction of the budgetary debate if Speaker John Boehner (R-OH 8th) had actually gotten the cuts that were originally billed, as well as the promised up or down votes on the EPA and Planned Parenthood Federal funding. They would have been resigned that it was the best that they could do and that it set the table for real reductions in the immediate future concerning the Debt Ceiling vote in mid-May and the regular FY 2012 budget that was highlighted by Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s  (R-WI 1st) ambitious roadmap.

But the Tea Party and the conservative base feels hoodwinked by the leadership over a fudge budget. The cuts were minuscule to begin with (less than a week’s funding of the budget), but they were a start.  Now the so called cuts seem more like a Congressional accountant’s rounding error.  What sticks in the craw is the way that the leadership lied.  They were trying to make it seem like cuts were more like $78 Billion when in all actuality the deal really only reduced discretionary spending by $15 Billion. In the eight days prior to the latest Credence C.R., the Federal debt jumped $54.8 Billion.

The Budgetary Smoke and Mirrors Agreement reinforces the meme that GOP leadership are Between the Beltways  elitists that go along to get along with Democrats and so as to keep their positions of power.  That sort of political accommodation combined with out of control spending caused the Republicans being thrown out of power in 2006.

Prominent Tea Party Republican sympathizers like Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN 6th) and prominent freshman Rep. Alan West (R-FL 22nd) had already indicated that they could not support the deal in good conscience. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA 7th) expects the budget deal to pass with strong Republican support.  The GOP has a 24 seat advantage in the House. They can probably count on the votes of 15 Conservative Democrats.  So House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA 22nd) needs to retain 39 reluctant Republicans.  But there were 62 Freshman Congressmen who took office after the Teanami.  So passage of the Fudge Budget is not a sure thing.

While the Debt Ceiling debate and the FY 2012 Budget are more fertile ground for fostering fiscal prudence for the federal government.  But if the current House Leadership are seen as pushovers or establishment elitists, those opportunities will be moot and their continued leadership in peril.