US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1641

Federal investigators have contacted officials at an airport in Columbia, S.C., its executive director said on Wednesday, as part of an investigation into whether a United Airlines flight route between Newark and Columbia was initiated to provide a former Port Authority chairman with a direct route to his weekend home.

Dan Mann, executive director of Columbia Metropolitan Airport, said in an interview that the twice-a-week Newark-Columbia flights — leaving on Thursdays and returning on Mondays — were unusual for a large carrier like United. He also said he was surprised that the route lasted as long as it did, 19 months, given the relatively low demand for it.

“It was not performing well, and it hadn’t performed well from the start,” Mann said.

He said he had no reason to believe there was any ulterior motive behind the flight route until he read recent news stories about the federal investigation.

Former Port Chairman David Samson often took the flight to spend weekends at a home in Aiken, S.C., about 50 miles from the airport, The Record reported last week. Samson, the co-founder of a powerful law firm in West Orange, a former state attorney general, and a key adviser to Governor Christie, referred to the route as “the chairman’s flight,” one source said. The flights were, on average, only half full. United stopped the flights in April of last year, just three days after Samson’s resignation.

As chairman of the Port Authority, which operates the region’s airports, Samson would have been a powerful ally for any airline, but he was particularly involved in negotiations with United. Samson and Christie met with United’s chief executive at least once to discuss the airline’s expansion of service to Atlantic City and its operations in Newark, a spokes­woman for the airline said previously. And Samson publicly supported the Port Authority’s decision to extend the PATH train system to Newark Liberty International, a $1.5 billion project that would provide a direct link between Manhattan and United’s hub.

Both the Port Authority and United have received federal subpoenas in the investigation.

Mann would not say whether federal authorities in New Jersey had issued a subpoena to officials of the South Carolina airport, saying only that they had made contact within the last month. The probe is one of several lines of inquiry arising out of an investigation that began last year into the George Washington Bridge lane closing scandal.

“We are cooperating,” Mann said.

On February 13 2015 04:10 hannahbelle wrote:


Are you really that naïve?

On February 13 2015 03:54 Gorsameth wrote:

So why does the rest of the world have none of these issues.
Is America special again?

On February 13 2015 04:55 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

A lot of the issues that the US faces are the same as in other countries (ex. rural broadband ain't cheap). Also note that a lot of people are complaining about market issues that are in no small part due to past regulations. There just isn't a magic regulatory wand that's going to make everything perfect.

WASHINGTON -- The director of the FBI said on Thursday that law enforcement officers may develop a cynicism that can lead them to treat minorities unfairly, and acknowledged the need for a debate about race and policing.

FBI Director James Comey, in a speech on race and law enforcement delivered at Georgetown University, said that throughout American history, law enforcement has often enforced "a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups." Citing the song "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist" from the Broadway musical "Avenue Q," he said that many in America's "white-majority culture have unconscious racial biases and react differently to a white face than a black face."

The speech appears be the first time that a director of the FBI has so directly addressed the way that race influences law enforcement. Comey said that decades ago, his Irish ancestors likely faced their own problems with discrimination, but said that "little compares to the experience on our soil of black Americans."

While Comey heaped praise upon the nation's law enforcement officers, he also said he was "not looking to let law enforcement off the hook" as he called for an “open and honest discussion” about the role that race can play in the justice system.

"We must better understand the people we serve and protect -- by trying to know, deep in our gut, what it feels like to be a law-abiding young black man walking on the street and encountering law enforcement," Comey said. "We must understand how that young man may see us. We must resist the lazy shortcuts of cynicism and approach him with respect and decency."

The FBI director also said that the federal government needed to to a better job tracking the number of deaths caused by law enforcement. Comey said his staff had been unable to determine the number of people shot by the police in the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, that followed the death of Michael Brown in August. Having more information about what is happening in law enforcement across the country, Comey said, is the first step towards addressing the problems.

On February 13 2015 03:54 Gorsameth wrote:

So why does the rest of the world have none of these issues.
Is America special again?

On February 13 2015 05:10 Millitron wrote:

Really we don't need new regulations, we need current ones to be enforced. We need anti-trust laws to actually be applied. ISP's are practically monopolies in many places. In my hometown, the only real broadband option is Time Warner Cable. In theory, Verizon is a competitor, but their services are so vastly different they aren't really competing for the same customers. Many other communities are in similar situations. If there was a crackdown on monopolies, ISP's wouldn't be able to pull that fast-lane bullshit because their customers would just go to a competitor.

On February 13 2015 02:41 Millitron wrote:

Do you really believe they'd stop there though? I don't. Not with the NSA wiretapping still going on, and how many FCC officials had or even still have ties to ISP's.

On February 13 2015 07:10 oneofthem wrote:
on the cable as utility thing, the argument is rather detached from the reality of local politics, and this is companies have local territories that are not disrupted by new technology.

add this fact to the mix and it's easy to see cable companies as local monopolies and this is supported by empirical history. cablevision for example will always run certain areas of new york, similarly for comcast etc. when a new technology emerges, they don't even get the power to lay the cables in certain areas due to local politicians and permits.


if these cable companies are locally entrenched then they won't be dislodged by new technology and it's extremely hard to argue for non-utility treatment.

On February 13 2015 07:10 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
8 page order released:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/255598034/1-14-cv-00424-55-Order

Now the ball is back in Roy Moore's court once more. What does he do?

On February 13 2015 07:46 xDaunt wrote:

Doesn't really matter. The probate judge below doesn't have a choice but to allow the marriage. Moore will end up getting removed office and possibly disbarred if he presses this any further.

On February 13 2015 05:10 Millitron wrote:

Really we don't need new regulations, we need current ones to be enforced. We need anti-trust laws to actually be applied. ISP's are practically monopolies in many places. In my hometown, the only real broadband option is Time Warner Cable. In theory, Verizon is a competitor, but their services are so vastly different they aren't really competing for the same customers. Many other communities are in similar situations. If there was a crackdown on monopolies, ISP's wouldn't be able to pull that fast-lane bullshit because their customers would just go to a competitor.

On February 13 2015 04:10 hannahbelle wrote:

Are you really that naïve?