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Democrats close to one-party rule in Washington
I'm reading a story in the Los Angeles Times about how close Al Franken (the former Saturday Night Live writer and performer, and author of Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot) is close to unseating the Republican incumbent senator, Norm Coleman, in Minnesota, and I hit a paragraph that just stops me cold.
All this comes at a time when Democrats, who have a bare majority in the Senate, hope to pick up enough seats Nov. 4 to be able to prevent Republican filibusters. Thirty-five seats are up for grabs -- 23 of them held by Republicans -- and Democrats need to gain nine to reach a filibuster-proof majority of 60.
Imagine what it would mean for one party to have that kind of unchecked power. It should scare even loyal Democrats.
That's assuming, of course, Obama wins the White House and the Democrats maintain majority in the House. That's a pretty safe assumption.
Regular readers know I'm no fan of either political party, and that I often make noise about the Republocrat Plutocracy.
That's more a matter of neither party not caring much about pursuing the interests of the people they're sworn to represent, and that on many issues, the differences are nuance rather substantive.
But in either party, there are extremes. For the Republicans, its the extreme social conservative agenda that tends to tamp down moderates (hence, an unqualified Sarah Palin picked to run with McCain because McCain has about zero appeal to the base). For the Democrats, the extreme is a mix of anti-business, anti-wealth, pro-government solutions to societal problems almost socialism.
There are two things that keep extreme agendas in check under our current system -- the other party, and just enough wiggle room in each party for moderates to buck the party line.
You've got to ask yourself -- if the Democrats have unchecked power, will the moderates in the party be able to move freely to oppose the more extreme measures the Nancy Pelosis of the world might want to pursue? What kind of traitorous bastard would you be as a Democratic senator if you launched a filibuster in against your own party?
How many times do you think Obama will use the veto pen against a Democrat-dominated Legislature?
If we did not allow the Republicans and the Democrats so much power to prevent third parties from becoming contending alternatives, we wouldn't be facing this situation today. It would be much harder for either party to achieve a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. The House would be much more divided. We would be much closer to the republic the Founders intended that essentially one-party rule system (which is about to become the one-party tyranny system) we have today.
Right now, we can only hope that Barack Obama is sensible enough not to take advantage of the level of unchecked power he's going to have as president.
HOLM: Dean Richmond helped make Genesee County Famous
Checking in at number 10 on the Holland Land Office Museum's ongoing list of 25 Things that Made Genesee County Famous is Dean Richmond.
The name Richmond still plays a prominent role in Batavia. There is the library, of course, but there is also the impressive looking family tomb in the Batavia Cemetary on Harvester Avenue.
Too bad his grand old mansion was torn down by the school board (the school board!?) after the board purchased the building in 1966 and the failed in an attempt to annex the Richmond Library. Where the Greek Revival structure once stood (311 East Main St.) is ... a parking lot. (I think they call that progress.)
But back to dear old Dean.
Mr. Richmond, according to HOLM, was born in 1804 in Barnard, Vermont. He was the son of an entrepreneur, but was forced to make his own way in life at age 14, when his father died. He turned his father's money-losing business into a profitable one, and eventually used his growing wealth to invest in the emerging railroad business.
Dean Richmond is best known in railroad circles as the first person in America to advocate the use of steel rails for the construction of railroads. An order was placed in England for the steel rails for a test run, but the tests were completed after Richmond died. The tests were successful and the steel industry grew out of the demand for the product by the railroad.
While Richmond was president of the New York Central, he demanded that all trains stop in Batavia. In 1866, the year of Richmond’s death, more than 3.7 million travelers rode on the train line. Not all of those people stopped in Batavia, but a fair share did, and because of Richmond, Batavia became a terminal and a gateway to the west.
Among the passengers who road through Batavia, according to Patrick Weissend, was Abraham Lincoln -- both on his way to assume the presidency in Washington, D.C., and his casket was carried through Genesee County when his body was returned to Springfield, Ill. In both cases, the name of the engine that transported Mr. Lincoln was the Dean Richmond.
The Buffalo History Works site quotes this passage about the train's pass through Batavia from the Buffalo Morning Express:
The funeral train was met at Batavia yesterday morning by the Committee from this city which included Honorable Millard Fillmore. The Committee left here at 6:00 o'clock Wednesday evening by a special car provided for their accommodation, passing the night at Batavia. At 5:00 o'clock yesterday morning, the funeral train arrived at that point, where it was received, as at every halting point along the line of its long, sad journey, by an immense concourse of people. The assemblage had begun with the very dawn, when the firing of the minute guns awoke the village from its slumbers and hastened the steps of pilgrims from the surrounding country flocking in. Before the train appeared, it had grown to the proportions of a city throng.
The multitude stood with their heads bowed, silent, sorrowful and reverent, paying that sincere homage to the dead which had everywhere been so memorable and remarkable. The pause of the train was but for ten minutes, during which the committee from Buffalo took their places in the car reserved for them. From thence to this city no halt on the journey was made but at every station and almost continuously the train passed between long lines of people, who had come to catch but a floating glimpse of what bore the remains of their beloved President; and everywhere they bowed, with uncovered heads, in afflicting bestowment of their little passing tribute of solemn reverence.
Here's something additional I just found: The wreckage of the Dean Richmond, a freighter on the Lake Erie that went down in a storm in 1893. Here's a 1872 article from the New York Times about a fire aboard the very same steamer. Actually, maybe those are not the same boats. This article says there were for Great Lakes steamers named the Dean Richmond -- all met similar fates. The link contains a picture of the fourth one.
Genesee County DA called on to investigate campaign contributions
A Republican elections commissioner in Erie County has sent a letter to the Genesee County district attorney asking for a local investigation into Citizens for Fiscal Integrity.
Ralph M. Mohr alleges that:
G. Steven Pigeon laundered thousands of dollars from Buffalo Sabres owner B. Thomas Golisano’s political committee and others in an attempt to conceal the origin and circumvent contribution limits, in violation of state election law.
...
“It has become apparent that the committee operating under the name Citizens for Fiscal Integrity may be participating in a nefarious and deliberate scheme to circumvent the financial reporting requirements of the election law,” Mohr wrote.
Any resulting probe could affect the Democratic campaign of State Senate candidate Joe Mesi, who benefited from Pigeon’s committee. Mohr produced a Responsible New York check signed by Golisano and designated on the memo line for “consulting” in the 61st District primary, in which Golisano supported Mesi.
GOP just trying to survive in NY congressional races
According to Associated Press writer Devlin Barrett, New York's GOP leaders are girding for a slaughter on election day.
Several GOP congressional seats in the state could be lost.
"We are going to see a loss of House seats," said Rep. Tom Reynolds, a western New York Republican and power-broker who decided not to seek re-election this year. "The pendulum is coming and it's knocking a lot of people off their horses."
...
When Reynolds came to Congress in 1998, he was one of 13 New York Republicans. This year, he is one of six. In a few months, it could be four, three, or even two. The only truly safe GOP House seats in New York are held by John McHugh in the North Country and Peter King on Long Island.
There are many reasons for the fall: increasing Democratic registration, an unpopular Republican president, and a weakening of the state's conservative organization.
A Rasmussen poll shows that across the country, Democrats are leading Republicans in generic congressional races.
UPDATE: Rasmussen is calling the 26th district, where Republicans enjoy a registration advantage, a "toss up."
Palin going rogue, off message with McCain team
Politico reports that Sarah Palin, and some of her long-time advisers, are frustrated with the way she's been handled by the former Bush aides assigned to run her VP campaign.
Palin has been increasingly off message and talking with reporters without consulting the aides tasked with keeping her away from the media. She blames the Bush aides for damaging her image by not letting her be herself and trying to too tightly script her interview with Katie Couric.
"She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.
"I think she'd like to go more rogue," he said.
The emergence of a Palin faction comes as Republicans gird for a battle over the future of their party: Some see her as a charismatic, hawkish conservative leader with the potential, still unrealized, to cross over to attract moderate voters. Anger among Republicans who see Palin as a star and as a potential future leader has boiled over because, they say, they see other senior McCain aides preparing to blame her in the event he is defeated.
"These people are going to try and shred her after the campaign to divert blame from themselves," a McCain insider said, referring to McCain's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, and to Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush aide who has taken a lead role in Palin's campaign. Palin's partisans blame Wallace, in particular, for Palin's avoiding of the media for days and then giving a high-stakes interview to CBS News' Katie Couric, whose sometimes painful content the campaign allowed to be parceled out over a week.
With McCain's chances of winning the election dwindling, Palin could do herself a big favor by breaking with the campaign. Palin's best chance for rehabilitating her political career is to lay the ground work for her future. She needs to show the country who she really is over the next 11 days and then go back to Alaska and be a great governor. That's assuming who she really is isn't what we've seen of her so far.
Catching up: Three links of Bill Kauffman
Here's an MP3 of a radio station interview with Bill Kauffman about his book on Luther Martin.
A little outdated, but I just found this article by Bill in The American Conservative on last month's "Bill Kauffman Day" at Dwyer Stadium.
Then there is the more recent TAC column about Lucine Kauffman, town supervisor of Elba. (to follow that link, you need to sign up or a temporary free account -- pretty painless -- and then be able to download the PDF).
The Republicans are indulgent of Lucine’s non-Republican husband, but then in a healthy society politics plays so small a role in our lives that who really gives a damn how others vote? Cold ideologies melt in the warmth of daily communal life.
I think of the local civic organizations in which, say, Assembly of God churchgoers and gays work side by side in the cheerful labor of neighbors. They can be friends because they are, to each other, rounded and fully dimensional. They are people, not cartoons.
This is nigh impossible in larger places, where such disparate folk would never meet and would exist to each other only on the flat screen of the TV set. Instead of Kate and Dave they would be “Religious Nut!” and “Fag!” How dreary. How lifeless. How very Red and Blue.
If you can, read the whole thing -- it's full of Bill's usual wit and fine writing.
Jon Powers to start campaigning for Alice Kryzan
I hate robocalls. I hate any unsolicited call from people, organizations or businesses I don't know -- political, telemarketing or otherwise.
For voters of Genesee County, they're about to get one more caller: Jon Powers.
The D&C reports that Powers is going to record a robo call for Alice Kryzan, the 26th district congressional nominee for the Democratic party.
Powers lost to Kryzan in the primary and recently endorsed his former opponent.
Powers will also be in the district between now and election day making public appearances on behalf of Kryzan.
Obama's 'unconstrained vision' dangerous political philosopher says
In his 1987 book, A Conflict of Visions, Thomas Sowell, an African-American writer and political philosopher, identifies two competing world views that can be traced back to Aristotle and Plato.
The "constrained view," which basically states that some people believe humans are basically flawed, or limited, and society much be constructed in such a way as to provide checks and balances against those limitations.
The other outlook is the "unconstrained view," which sees no limitations for the human race.
According to this piece in Forbes, Sowell says McCain represents the constrained view, and Obama, the unconstrained view -- and he predicts an Obama presidency coupled with large Democratic majorities in both houses will be disastrous for the country.
McCain promises to prosecute the war unapologetically. Obama? "In the first 100 days of my administration," he has declared, "I will travel to a major Islamic forum and deliver an address to redefine our struggle. I will make clear that we are willing to stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future."
"Barack Obama," Sowell says, "has a lot more faith in verbal interactions than I would. What he is proposing under the guise of change is what was tried between the two world wars and failed disastrously." Accommodation, diplomatic overtures, talk. It failed seven decades ago. It would fail today.
...
Take it all together, Sowell believes, and this election will prove decisive.
"There is such a thing as a point of no return," he says. If Obama wins the White House and Democrats expand their majorities in the House and Senate, they will intervene in the economy and redistribute wealth. Yet their economic policies "will pale by comparison to what they will do in permitting countries to acquire nuclear weapons and turn them over to terrorists. Once that happens, we're at the point of no return. The next generation will live under that threat as far out as the eye can see."
"The unconstrained vision is really an elitist vision," Sowell explains. "This man [Obama] really does believe that he can change the world. And people like that are infinitely more dangerous than mere crooked politicians."
Obama has said he will take any measure necessary -- not rulling out the military option -- to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Can we trust him on that?
UDPATED: Story is false (Obama-supporting assailant cuts "B" in robbery victim's face)
UPDATE: It turns out this story is completely bogus. The young woman made it all up.
This is a disturbing bit of news -- the kind of thing that should never happen in the United States:
Police spokeswoman Diane Richard said the robber took $60 from Todd, then became angry when he saw a McCain bumper sticker on the victim's car. The attacker then punched and kicked the victim, before using the knife to scratch the letter "B" into her face, Richard said.
...
The Obama-Biden campaign released a statement, commenting on the attack. The statement said, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the young woman for her to make a speedy recovery, and we hope that the person who perpetrated this crime is swiftly apprehended and brought to justice."
The McCain-Palin campaign also released a statement saying, "The McCain campaign is aware of the incident involving one of its volunteers. Out of respect, the campaign won't be commenting. The campaign also confirms that Senator McCain and Governor Palin have both spoken to the woman."
School bus accident in North Byron (Update)
We have few details about the accident at this time. No bus passengers were hurt. A person in one of the other two vehicles was reportedly injuried. We'll update this post either later this evening or tomorrow morning.
(UPDATE 5:59pm): Genesee County sheriff's deputies are still investigating the crash and have not yet put together a report. We have been told that no information will be available until that happens. We will be sure to pass along that info once it comes our way, hopefully by morning.
(UPDATE 7:59am): Genesee County sheriff's deputies released a report on the crash early this morning. The Byron-Bergen school bus was stopped on Route 237 in Byron. Its red lights were flashing, and a student was getting off the bus. Kathleen A. Miller, 44, of Byron, was stopped in her SUV behind the bus. James A. Wright, 51, of Le Roy, had been unable to stop in time and crashed into the back of the SUV, pushing that vehicle into the back of the bus. No students were injured on or off the bus. Miller was taken to the hospital for treatment of a minor head injury.
Check out Bea's recipes
In response to our request, Bea McManis has posted some of her recipes.
If you have recipes you want to share, post them as a blog post and tag them "recipes" and we'll highlight that as a category on The Batavian.
What I'm thinking -- if we could come up with some other "special interest" categories, I'll create a block some where on the left rail to link to these categories. It might be fishing, or photography, or travel -- if you have a special interest and want to get a category going on that topic ... get it started and we'll create a way to highlight it.
UPDATE: Here's Katie Elia's Cake Cookies.
Advertise to reach Batavia and Genesee County customers
Genesee County's Most Talked About News Site
It’s something we hear all the time -- “I’m addicted to your site!” or, “Everybody in town reads The Batavian.” In the past two-and-a-half years of The Batavian’s existence, it’s grown into a must-visit site for a tremendous number of people in Genesee County.
And local businesses are finding, it’s a must-be place to advertise, as well.
WNY's high gas prices
The Buffalo News reports this morning that gas prices in Western New York are the highest in the state.
The average price in Buffalo is $3.38 per gallon, or 12.7 percent lower than a month ago. Rochester is paying an average of $3.28 per gallon, which is down 14 percent.
Meanwhile, the national average has fallen 23 percent.
A month ago, Cleveland's price was nearly identical to Buffalo's. But its price has fallen 31 percent since then, to $2.66. In Erie, Pa., the price over the past month is down 18 percent, to $2.96.
Lawrence Southwick Jr., professor emeritus at the University at Buffalo, said prices in New York State are routinely higher than many other states because of taxes and the cost of related regulations.
The News says that Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, has asked the Federal Trade Commissioner chairman to investigate the price discrepancy.
"Your investigation into exactly why gasoline costs significantly more in the Buffalo area than it does in other upstate communities will assist me and my colleagues as Congress takes further action on gasoline prices next year and may uncover cause for the Federal Trade Commission to take enforcement action in the meantime," Higgins wrote in a letter to William Kovacic.
In his letter, Higgins mentioned a few theories arising from previous discussions about why Buffalo's gas prices are higher: the region's distance from oil refineries; differing local taxes and fees; and the amount of retail competition.
High gas prices and high taxes are both job killers.
WBTA Reporting: Leaf pick up to commence
Among WBTA's top stories this morning:
The city begins its annual leaf pick up Monday, Oct. 27. The pick up will end Dec. 5. The city asks that piles be free of sticks and foreign objects, and that cars be parked in a manner not to block access to the pile.
The County Legislature meets tonight, and besides the proposed tax increase of 4.2 percent from County Manager Jay Gsell, also on the agenda: State Senator Mary Lou Rath will honor Ricky Palermo for working to raise awarness of spinal cord injuries.
Be sure to tune into WBTA throughout the day for news updates.
