Politics

Politics

There are 1,056 posts filed in Politics (this is page 75 of 106).

The Libya Investment Firm and the release of the Lockerbie bomber

The Telegraph has more dirt on the Libya-BP terrorist-for-oil deal. There’s certainly lots of smoke here. Could fire be far behind?

The name reads Dalia Advisory Limited, a company established by Libyan businessmen just a week after the country’s officials were told the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was being considered for release on compassionate grounds.

Dalia Advisory is in fact a “front” for the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), a sovereign wealth fund with £80 billion, to invest in Britain and beyond. The Georgian town house, bought for £6 million, is, ironically, only a few yards from the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

Senior business sources have told The Sunday Telegraph that had Megrahi died in a British jail, the LIA would have taken its vast sums elsewhere. “If Megrahi had perished in Scotland, we would have become a pariah state as far as the Libyans were concerned,” said one source.

via Special report: the Libya investment firm and the release of the Lockerbie bomber – Telegraph.

Shirley Sherrod, Thrown to the Wolves

Bob Herbert of the New York Times sums up the Shirley Sherrod episode. The Obama Administration is far too focused on perception and playing it safe. Where’s the bold leadership, Mr. Obama?

Why didn’t President Obama or Vice President Joe Biden or Rahm call me Rahmbo Emanuel, or somebody somewhere in the upper echelon say, “Hey, what the heck are you doing? You can’t fire a person without hearing her side of the story. This is not the Kremlin. Are you nuts?”

via Op-Ed Columnist – Shirley Sherrod, Thrown to the Wolves – NYTimes.com.

Highway patrol not getting ‘er done?

Photo by Ildar Sagdejev

After seeing this white utility van sitting the shoulder of NC540 near the Highway 55 exit for a week, I finally decided to call it in. Wednesday morning I made the call to the North Carolina State Highway Patrol (*47), tangling a bit with the dispatcher in an effort to make sure she knew where the van was. Now it’s true that earlier that morning there was an accident on I-40W near Wade that tied up traffic considerably, but that accident was almost cleared when I called and the van wasn’t going anywhere. And let’s face it: all the HP needs to do with an abandoned car is look it over and put a sticker on it for it to be towed. Takes 10 minutes at most, right?

This morning I rode by the van and it was still there, only now I noticed the driver’s side window was gone. It’s been two days and no one has taken the 10 minutes it takes to tag it and move on.

I called again this morning and spoke with a dispatcher who didn’t know NC540 had a mile marker 66.8. “What county is it in?” she asked me. While it’s true this is close to the Wake/Durham border, that information really shouldn’t have been necessary.

The patrol needs to get its act together. The leadership vacuum at the top is clearly affecting the whole organization and the cracks are beginning to show. Governor Perdue needs to show some leadership and step up efforts to stabilize this once-vaunted organization.

Dealing in blood and oil

A Pan Am Boeing 747

There has been speculation in the British press that last year’s release of the convicted bomber of Pan Am Flight 103 (the “Lockerbie Bombing”), Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, was done so to allow BP to sign an oil contract worth billions with Libya. The UK prime minister, David Cameron, got grilled today at the White House by the press (or should I say the British press. What passes for the American press was too busy mindlessly covering the two leaders’ favorite beer. I wish I was joking.)

According to the Times of London:
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Anti-competition broadband bill killed again

Enjoy retirement, Sen. Hoyle!

Good news: Senator Hoyle’s anti-competition broadband bill is dead!

Let me see if I can summarize what took place early this morning. S.1209 and H.1840 both languished in the Broadband Connectivity House committee and never made it back to the floor. That’s all good. Then last night the House added a broadband study provision to the S900 studies bill, a provision which did not require a moratorium or study report be issued. The senate approved this and all seemed good.

Then an hour later Sen. Clodfelter gutted H.455, which was a “Kidney Awareness” bill, and inserted the “study” portion of S.1209, among other things. Clodfelter’s changes differed from the S.900 changes by requiring a report or suggested legislation by March 2011. The House did not concur. Though a committee report, a provision in H.455 favorable to municipal broadband was salvaged and that’s what was passed in H.455. End result: no moratorium and no report or new legislation required!

A big thanks to Reps Hackney, Holliman, Luebke, Weiss, Faison and Bryant in the House and Senators Snow, Atwater, Vaughn, and Queen (among many others) in the Senate. Now there’s a little time to put some law around municipal Internet and better hold off these challenges.

Sen. Hoyle’s anti-competition broadband bill expected to die

Internet hero

It turns out that no news is good news for Sen. David Hoyle’s anti-competition broadband bill, H.1840 (and formerly S.1209). The bill, which would block North Carolina municipalities from offering a choice of Internet services to their citizens, is stuck in the Broadband Connectivity House committee.

This committee is chaired by Rep. Bill Faison, who appears to be none too keen on letting this bill see the light of day. Rep. Faison learned first-hand the dangers of this scheme when it was pitched last year as H.1252. Faison is also not happy that Hoyle tacked his municipal broadband moratorium language onto one of Faison’s bills.

So, what have I learned about this? It’s good to be the chair of the Senate Rules committee, but it isn’t necessarily successful in getting bad bills passed. Also, it’s good to have two houses of government. Thirdly, don’t let the media hear from only one side. And, finally, sometimes otherwise good people like Josh Stein wind up disappointing you, even after you’ve stood in the rain all afternoon helping to get them elected.

Email address bill winds through legislature

Looks like John Beimler’s email address stunt might result in a law that makes it harder to obtain email addresses from local governments in Wake County.

The bill, H.1921 reads in part:

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1. Notwithstanding Chapter 132 of the General Statutes, when a unit of local government maintains an electronic mail list of individual subscribers, Chapter 132 of the General Statutes does not require that unit of local government to provide a copy of the list. The list shall be available for public inspection in either printed or electronic format or both as the unit of local government elects.

The bill has been kicked back into committee after returning from the Senate, so it remains to be seen if it will become law. With only a day (or two, tops) left in this legislative session we’ll know soon enough.

Update: it was just moved to be placed on today’s calendar.

Bonner Gaylord: genius app developer?

The City of Raleigh sent out this breathless press release this week touting a new mobile application called SeeClickFix. People can use the service to report things around the city that need attention, such as a traffic light that needs replacing, graffiti that needs to be removed, etc. It’s a very useful service: one that I plan to use on a regular basis.

The only issue is the press release itself. It reads as if Bonner developed the whole thing himself:
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My LTE ran today

The N&O ran my letter to the editor today.

I don’t understand why some people (including certain reporters) don’t like Meeker. While there are lots of things I wish he would do differently, I think Meeker is an honest, hardworking mayor who cares about the city. Unlike many politicians, he doesn’t appear to be in it for ego or to treat it as a stepping stone to higher office. I think some people forget what a thankless job being mayor is; that it’s essentially an unpaid job. We’re lucky that people still choose to do it.

That being said, I see nothing wrong with disagreeing with a politician’s choices or decisions. In fast, that’s healthy. But I do not agree with hating someone personally for the decisions they make.

There are a lot of misguided political leaders out there and many have raised my hackles. Even so, I like knowing I could sit down with them and calmly discuss our differences without it becoming personal.