WATCH THIS SPACE.

The peak model railroad show season is past for this spring, although model railroad construction season never ends and there's always a swap meet somewhere.

For this year's showing of the Gloucester Branch the recently-configured locomotives with onboard power and radio control did most of the work.  They'll go through their paces for you to close April out.

The steam locomotive might be eighty years old; it has a 21st century motor in it, and the battery and control module are in the tender.  The road-switcher is an extensively reworked Lionel "Train Master" that is more accurate as an H16-66.  The cab unit is from an Atlas starter set of the early 1970s that I bought with some food service job money and brought home on my bicycle.  It has new trucks, a new drive train, and a beefier motor.  The booster is the battery car, just like the big railroads are experimenting with.  As these units go through their paces you might see some of the Atlas mill gondolas of that era that have been going through upgrades.  You'll also see a few of the cars lettered for model railroads.

THE INSTABILITY IS IN THE TECHNOLOGY.

On Monday, the Iberian power grid crashed.

An unprecedented blackout brought much of Spain and Portugal to a standstill Monday, stranding thousands of train passengers and leaving millions of people without phone and internet coverage and access to cash from ATMs across the Iberian Peninsula.

The sudden crash of the power grid also left authorities searching for its cause. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addressed the nation and said that almost 11 hours after the nation ground to a halt, government experts were still trying to determine what happened.

“We have never had a complete collapse of the system,” Sánchez said, before detailing that at 12:33 p.m. on Monday Spain’s power grid lost 15 gigawatts, the equivalent of 60% of its national demand, in a matter of five seconds.

Spanish power distributor Red Eléctrica’s head of operations Eduardo Prieto said the event was “exceptional and extraordinary.”

Not terrorism.  Not hacking.  Not a squirrel that got into the wrong transformer.

WHY COMPARE YOURSELF WITH THE WORST?

Reason's Christian Britschgi notes, "DOGE Has Been a Smashing Success."  When someone notes that politics is the art of the possible, sometimes it's useful to take note of how little is possible.  "When compared to the most likely alternatives, DOGE has cut as much government as one could hope for."

FOOTBALL IS BLOCKING AND TACKLING.

Mark Oldacre takes stock of the Packers' draft choices.

How do you control the game? By physically exerting your will on your opponent. The Packers seem to be undergoing something of a philosophical change on the offensive line, specifically by beefing up the interior, seeking to play bully ball with Josh Jacobs at running back.

Green Bay’s offensive line was overwhelmed by the likes of Detroit and Philadelphia in the passing game in 2024, and they appear to want to start dictating things up front.

In [receiver Matthew] Golden, the Packers may have an answer to the issues they faced whereby opponents essentially did not respect their receivers’ ability to get open versus physical man coverage and burn them downfield. Golden is a presence defenses will have to plan for and be aware of on every snap.

With him in tow, Green Bay can get back to dictating to defenses in the passing game, and his ability to make big catches in key moments should also help them convert more third downs and stay on the field, accomplishing the goal of controlling the game offensively.

After the offense scores, though, comes the kickoff, and the surprise onside kick is no longer an option.

Collin Oliver, Green Bay’s fifth-round pick, is a hybrid defensive end/off-ball linebacker who is explosive and was productive at Oklahoma State. He is unlikely to ever be a starter but is an exciting sub-rusher who could be moved around by defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley to create chaos.

The first three rounds of this draft were reminiscent of 2020, with the Packers going offense with their first three picks for the first time since then, including a big perceived "reach" in round two, much like A.J. Dillon was, and an interesting offensive utility player in round three, similar to Josaiah Deguara.

Green Bay has done serious work in recent years to turn this roster over, make it younger and get them back to competing in a hurry. This weekend they rewarded themselves with some fun picks which could be impactful specific role players.

Draft Days in Titletown were a lot of fun to watch, complete with trash talking from the other Black and Blue Division teams as they made their hires.  It's a few weeks until the first organized team activities.  "Green Bay can now play any style of football they want on offense, and the coaching staff cannot say they are lacking an ingredient they need."  We'll see if the resources are on hand on defense.  "Hafley made the most of what he had on defense a year ago, and the Packers will be relying on him, along with new defensive line coach DeMarcus Covington, to do the same again."

CONFRONTING GENUINE FASCISM IN MILWAUKEE.

Last week, Federal marshals arrested a Milwaukee County judge who might have interfered with Federal immigration authorities arresting an illegal alien.

Chief Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Carl Ashley said he and his colleagues are "all concerned" about the arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan.

Dugan, 65, was charged April 25 with one felony and one misdemeanor linked to allegations that she tried to help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest after he appeared in her courtroom. Dugan was led out of the courthouse in handcuffs.

I write "might have interfered" because although it is common practice for state or federal law enforcement personnel to arrest people in the county courthouse, as everyone entering the courthouse is screened for weapons, thus reducing the likelihood of an arrest going sideways, most such arrests take place outside the courtroom.

WELL, WHY NOT?

Straight from the horse's mouth, er, sorry, Wilbur, Minding the Campus contributor Dr. Ed.  "In its infinite wisdom, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has decreed that individuals with 'severe intellectual disability' can now attend all state colleges and universities, including UMass Amherst."  That's "severe intellectual disability" as a term that the less-politically-correct editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual used to refer to less euphemistically.

Call the people in charge of ZooMass surrendering with another shrug.  "For a long time, Cold Spring Shops has called attention to the folly of admitting unprepared students and calling it access."

TODAY'S UNUSUAL OCCURRENCE REPORT.

It's not cheerful.  "We can confirm our Boilermaker Special was involved in a serious multi-vehicle accident in Tippecanoe County on April 24. The two students who were on the Special have been treated and released from the hospital. Our thoughts are with all those impacted by the incident."

Purdue University's "Boilermaker Special" is a self-propelled float.  Think good-sized truck with a mockup of a steam locomotive above the chassis.  Something went wrong as the float was in transit, with deadly consequences.

The Boilermaker Special vehicle was traveling north on the highway when it had a "possible tire malfunction" that caused it to cross the median, colliding with a passenger car traveling south, according to the Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Office.

The driver of the passenger vehicle died, the sheriff's office said. The person's identity has not yet been released pending family notification, authorities said. No one else was in the vehicle.

Two Purdue students -- the 20-year-old driver of the Boilermaker Special and a 22-year-old passenger -- were transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.

We extend our condolences to the family of the driver, and wish the students on the float a full recovery and nights free of nightmares.

WHAT RESEARCH HAS THE GOVERNMENT SPONSORED?

I put that marker down while Ron DeSantis was still the putative Republican nominee.  "The corona tyranny offers arguments for separating science and state, and school and state."  It wasn't only the corona tyranny that bothered others as well as me.  "Glenn 'Insta Pundit' Reynolds introduces a lament about what sponsored research has become with 'Given that the purpose of a system is what it does, the purpose of the NIH is to centralize control of scientific research under a federal bureaucracy, not to produce the best or most innovative science.'"  That post continued,

[B]efore the corona tyranny descended, there were people you might have since heard of characterizing the grant-getting as a glass bead game with indirect cost returns attached.

In keeping with the quest for indirect cost returns paralleling the quest for minimal publishable units, what gets funded and subsequently published is risk-averse and unimaginative.

Our President has since unilaterally trimmed the indirect cost return rate and rescinded grants from selected universities.  I'd prefer that such actions be codified by an Act of Congress.

EMERGENCE CANNOT BE NUDGED.

There's an interesting planned use development called Culdesac, which is itself an ironic choice for a development that has none, in the midst of an Arizonan transit desert.

We’re building the first car-free city in the U.S., starting with our first neighborhood - Culdesac Tempe. Located 2 miles away at 2025 E. Apache, it’s a 1000 resident car-free neighborhood that is the first of its kind.

We’re dedicated to building people-first cities by combining technology, real estate, and human connection to improve our quality of life. By removing parking and shifting towards micro-mobility, we create ample space for people to experience life at their front door and live in a vibrant community designed specifically for them, not cars.

The "first of its kind" refers to the car-free by design, such as it is.  It's possible to live car-free in a major city, and to some extent in the right kind of smaller town.  Strong Towns contributor Edward Erfurt notes that point, as well as several other objections.

Culdesac has drawn disproportionate criticism from two groups: those who can't imagine a car-free community in a city like Phoenix, and those who dismiss the project as more of a playground than a practical, scalable model.

It’s easy for those accustomed to car dependency to question a development that intentionally removes cars from the equation. What happens when you leave Culdesac? How do you get around then? But these questions aren’t unique to Culdesac; they’re asked in cities like New York, Boston and Philadelphia, where many people navigate daily life without a personal vehicle.

As for those who think Culdesac is just a flashy experiment, there’s a good reason Culdesac is in a league of its own: Developments like it are nearly impossible to replicate. Creating something like Culdesac requires reforming parking mandates, relaxing zoning restrictions to be more permissive, and challenging the entrenched systems that prioritize stroads, strip malls and parking lots. Without those changes, the process would be prohibitively expensive. Those added costs don't just burden developers — they are ultimately passed on to future residents, who pay the price for restrictive policies.

Well, yes, the best thing for government to do in many allegedly collective action situations is to do less, as Mr Erfurt noted to begin his story.

For the past 80 years, development in North America has been shaped by a suburban experiment so pervasive that it now feels like the only way to build. But this approach — dictated by rigid zoning laws, parking mandates and car-centric infrastructure — is a radical departure from the traditional, incremental growth that shaped cities for centuries.

Instead of interconnected neighborhoods, we've built isolated subdivisions, oversized roadways, and commercial districts that separate daily needs from where people live. This pattern has strained local economies, made car dependency unavoidable, and eroded the social fabric of our communities. Now, as cities struggle with mounting infrastructure costs, failing retail corridors and housing shortages, more and more people are questioning whether this approach is sustainable. The signs of failure are hard to ignore.

Those rigidities might have followed from mistaken thinking.  The Levittowns that took shape on farmland at some distance from the major rail or rapid transit routes made use of Fordist manufacturing techniques applied to building houses at scale.

Purchasing mass acreage, “subdividing” lots, and contracted crews to build countless homes at economies of scale, Levitt offered affordable suburban housing to veterans and their families. Levitt became the prophet of the new suburbs, heralding a massive internal migration. The country’s suburban share of the population rose from 19.5% in 1940 to 30.7% by 1960. Homeownership rates rose from 44% in 1940 to almost 62% in 1960. Between 1940 and 1950, suburban communities of greater than 10,000 people grew 22.1%, and planned communities grew at an astonishing rate of 126.1%.

Technocracy allegedly tamed the Great Depression, technocracy produced the implements of winning the war, so why not try technocracy to plan land use?

And thus the conditions that make the likes of Culdesac so intriguing, and perhaps so quixotic, began.  There were all those look-alike houses on those slightly larger than urban lots with a driveway and space for at least a car-port because it was cheaper to build them that way.  "Construction workers were trained to do one step at each house (which were spaced 60 feet apart) instead of building each house up from scratch individually."  One man sets the stud on the sole-plate, another toe-nails it, a third sets the door-frame ... 

THE LETTER OF PAUL TO KARL.

Pope Francis recently departed this life, leading my Chicago Boyz colleague Mike to suggest his papacy unmoored the Roman Catholic Church.

[I]nstitutions work best when they remain “tethered” to their founding principles. A balloon that is connected by a tether to the ground may rise or fall, but it isn’t going to go floating off into the wild blue yonder.

One of the problems we have in this country is that our political institutions and culture, while superficially remaining the same, have become untethered from the founding principles of natural rights and social contract.

A problem with many Christian churches is that they have become untethered from their core doctrines whether those are rooted in biblical interpretation or a form of dogma. That is not to say that there aren’t debatable issues within either, but those debates become unduly influenced by social factors.

While we like to think we are defined by what we claim to be, we are better rooted in what we claim that we are not, which provides the boundaries necessary within our inherent human frailties (especially the limits of human reason) to function.

There have been many battles within the Catholic Church over the centuries. The most recent is centered on the issue of “modernization” that was accelerated by Vatican II. As one can expect, Francis’s embrace of this process is celebrated by the Left.

Francis was not only a Jesuit but from Argentina and the more “liberal” precincts of the Church. While his ascension to the papacy was seen as a way to spur needed reform after various scandals involving clerical sexual abuse and money, it also marked a radical turn from the conservative theology espoused by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

In this Francis did not disappoint. He suppressed the recent re-introduction of the traditional Latin Mass. His various pronouncements, using his traditional authority to promote liberal goals — such as seeming to endorse gay clergy, the blessing of same sex couples, and artificial birth control — ran contrary to established church doctrine, in favor of a more libertine culture for no more reason than “modernization.”

More depressingly, for an office that rests its legitimacy on its being the descendant of Peter, the rock on which Christ built his church, he seemed to endorse the idea that other religions offered other pathways to God.

[Ross] Douthat states that such actions as the above have led to the Church suffering the same fate of other untethered institutions

Another regular Chicago Boyz contributor, Sgt. Mom, quips, "All I got is that after his term as Pope, I’m really wondering if bears really do poop in the woods."  The Babylon Bee riffs,  "Catholic Church To Consider Electing Pope Who's A Catholic This Time."

VACATION SEASON APPROACHES.

Traveller's Elixir, "The Ultimate Illinois Bucket List: 40 Things to Do in Illinois Before You Die."

Yes, there's more than enough Chicago pizza and Cub games.  The Great River Road is worth a trip, with stopovers.  Did you know Nauvoo was a settlement for two different religious movements?

Several destinations in the State Line and North West Frontier also rate the list.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

The left made it easy.  "The left really did purge conservatives from universities and other cultural power centers. The left really did valorize a 'meritocratic' caste system that privileged the children of the affluent and screwed the working class. The left really did pontificate to their unenlightened moral inferiors on everything from gender to the environment. The left really did create a stifling orthodoxy that stamped out dissent. If you tell half the country that their voices don’t matter, then the voiceless are going to flip over the table."

The political bundles are too big.  "Democrats have had conflicting messages. On the one hand, Trump is an existential threat to American democracy and it is everyone’s duty to rally against him. On the other hand, much of the leadership remains committed to pushing the envelope on progressive policies that make it harder to attract the support of the sort of people who voted for John McCain and Mitt Romney but find Trump repugnant. It would seem intuitive that the mere existence of Trump, the most unpopular President ever, as the leader of the opposition would render the only viable alternative—the Democratic Party—popular. But it hasn’t worked out that way."  Well, no, after the way the vanguardists of Hope and Change treated candidates McCain and Romney, there are tables that should be flipped over.

Vacuous pejoratives.  “'Globalism' (a.k.a., free trade) is to those on the political right what 'trickle-down economics' (a.k.a., free markets) is to those on the political left.”  Loose translation: “Somewhere on Earth, buyers and sellers are engaging in voluntary trade and minding their own business AND WE HAVE TO STOP THEM.”

Tear down all the walls to get at the Devil.  "Governmental authority, once unleashed, recognizes no ideological master."  The Devil turns upon you.  "The left, fixated upon uniform outcomes, consistently undervalues the power of voluntary cooperation and cultural persuasion.  Their shortsightedness has delivered into the hands of their opponents the very instruments of coercion they forged, vividly confirming an enduring truth: the power you grant government today will inevitably be wielded tomorrow by your adversaries."

That power was not wielded well during the corona tyranny, was it?  Evergreen.  "The so-called expert class was not particularly expert in this instance, which is to say that the damage it did was predictable and therefore preventable."  Illusions shattered.  "I’m not interested in handing the reins of government over to supposed experts because, well, we saw how that went in 2020. I’m not up for a replay of that particular flavor of stupid."  Stupid leavened by groupthink.  "U.S. policy didn't reflect the scientific evidence."

The semiquincentennial has not been all seashells and balloons.  "Americans who fear a rancorous plod toward America’s 250th birthday should remember: 250 years ago, the nation knew much worse. Then it healed, passed through the furnace of another civil war, then resumed its zigzag but upward path toward a more perfect union. Atkinson’s reminder is that the birth of this nation, like that of a baby, was painful but worth it."

My fellow Americans, the Bears still suck.

The weekly round-up of mostly pithy elaborations of traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

STEREOTYPE THREAT.

You'd think culture-studies types might be clear on the concept, but when it comes to slagging on (checks notes) white guys, they show no understanding.

Why are young men so right-wing? Because they’ve been treated like crap. Imagine yourself as a normal young man. When, throughout your whole life, have you ever been told you were anything besides dirt? When have you ever been in an institution that masculine males ran? It’s almost certain that you never have been. Your whole life has been organized, supervised, and surveilled by scolding feminist harridans and their insipid femboy sidekicks who hold you in contempt.

You went to preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and high school, and who ran it? Primarily leftist women and women–adjacent men. You were told to sit and be still four hours a day when every instinct in your body told you to run and jump. When you were active, they drugged you. They hovered over you, micromanaging your childhood. You were told how you could play. No toy guns, no toy weapons. Oh gosh, no toxic masculinity. Here, have a doll, explore your feminine side. No wonder a portion of boys just gave in and became the (fake) girls they had been told society really wanted them to be.

Men build and men destroy. But you can’t do either in these institutions. What do you build in school? Shop classes are gone. You’re not going to be able to learn to fix a car in auto class. No, you sit there all day and read books about how you’re terrible because your grandfather came from Glasgow. It’s all your fault, you know. All the world‘s problems are on you because of who you are. And if you complain, they tell you to stop trying to center the narrative on yourself by expecting to be treated equally.

That's Kurt Schlichter, doing what he does so well.  In The Washington Stand, though, note one S. A. McCarthy arguing along similar lines.  Democrats' support for abortion and the wackiest alphabet people had something to do with it, but those insipid femboy sidekicks play a role.

But aside from the political fumbles of the Democrats themselves, the very fact that young men are men has likely contributed to their rightward shift. There is a theory that suggests that women and low-testosterone men will tend to follow whatever the socially-accepted, socially-prevalent norm is in almost any given circumstance. Of course, since progressivism has been enforced by schools, corporations, human resource culture, and practically every facet of media for generations, progressivism has been widely accepted as the norm, especially among young adults. Since women and low-testosterone men cannot exactly fend for themselves — and by this I do not mean that they cannot get high-paying jobs or do their own laundry or change a flat tire: I mean that they generally cannot physically defend themselves against a violent mob — they attach themselves to the “herd” for protection, accepting whatever the “herd’s” socially-accepted, socially-prevalent norm is — in the case of American young adults, progressivism.

Men with normal or high testosterone, however, have more freedom to challenge the socially-accepted, socially-prevalent norm, since they have the force to follow through on that challenge. A young woman may be less inclined than a healthy young man to appear in public wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap or to defend Trump’s policies at a party with friends because she faces social ostracization and, at worst, assault, against which she will be far less able to defend herself than the healthy young man. Whereas men, especially those with normal or high testosterone, are more likely to assert what they know or believe to be right and true, despite the consequences.

Some of that might say more about Mr McCarthy than it does about the testosterone levels of nebbishy men; although in his analysis the groupthinky cancel culture of the culture studies types doesn't come off so well, does it?

EXPECT EXCELLENCE, YOU JUST MIGHT GET IT.

That's been the Cold Spring Shops position, if perhaps not phrased that pungently.  "Put another way, view undergraduates at South Carolina State or Northern Illinois or what have you as strivers who deserve the same challenges as their counterparts elsewhere. It begins, though, with faculty who view their work, wherever that might be, as a calling worthy of their best efforts, and with the privilege and high honor of upholding standards, and saying No when that is the proper response."

TIME TO SWEAR OFF THE ROAD SOCIALISM?

Transportation secretary Sean Duffy, formerly a Member of Congress from Wisconsin, threatens to take all of New York's matching transportation funds away.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the federal government could block federal approval for highway projects if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority does not end the tolling program.

In a letter today to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul — which opens with the phrase “I write to warn you …” — Duffy says the state has until May 21 to show that it has either halted the tolling program or can show why it does not violate a federal statute prohibiting tolls on roads built with federal funds, unless given an exception. The Biden administration issued that exception last year, but Duffy announced it was being rescinded in February [see “New York MTA sues …,” Trains News Wire, Feb. 19, 2025].

Otherwise, Duffy said, the federal government will not authorize any highway construction projects or provide environmental approvals for projects in Manhattan, and could expand that policy statewide if the state does not comply. Only “safety projects” would be excepted.

Duffy saved his most pointed comments for the press release publicizing the move, repeatedly calling the tolling program “illegal” and saying it “engages in class warfare and prices working-class Americans out of accessing New York City.

Don't you love it when a departmental secretary serving a president who pledges the United States will not be a socialist nation uses socialist tropes incorrectly?

In part, we have road rage because travellers with a low opportunity cost of their time are contributing to the congestion holding up the Master of the Universe and the functionary who is in a bad mood because the alarm clock didn't work.  (That's why "Lexus lanes" doesn't quite work as a description of a high-occupancy toll lane.  The latter two personalities will pay to cut the line while the low opportunity cost drivers will not.)

Perhaps the winning move for New York might be to say no to those federal funds, and the strings, including the denial of pricing fundamentals, that are attached thereto.

In many cases, it was those federal matching funds (or constituent-favoring earmarks in continuing resolutions) that got those roads built.  Streetsblog's Kea Wilson elaborates. "Highways, of course, already get 67 percent of total transportation dollars, and are already deeply subsidized by the federal government (but operating budgets and maintenance are left to the states, which is a little like giving someone a puppy that they can’t afford to feed.)"  In the case of a puppy, that's a problem, unless you're a rancher and the puppy is a sheepdog.  In the case of the roads, though, well, the purpose of transportation is to move resources toward places that are productive in some way, and that makes the roads assets, if only somebody would think about pricing the use of them.

Now might be the time for somebody in Official Washington to notice that the so-called Highway Trust Fund is little sounder than the "Social" "Security" and Medicare trust funds.

ALL THE STUDENTS ARE BELOW AVERAGE.

Hilarius "Scriptum Philosophia" Bookbinder takes stock of his students.

First, some context. I teach at a regional public university in the US. Our students are average on just about any dimension you care to name—aspirations, intellect, socio-economic status, physical fitness. They wear hoodies and yoga pants and like Buffalo wings. They listen to Zach Bryan and Taylor Swift. That’s in no way a put-down: I firmly believe that the average citizen deserves a shot at a good education and even more importantly a shot at a good life. All I mean is that our students are representative; they’re neither the bottom of the academic barrel nor the cream off the top.

What follows is not for the faint of heart.

THE SHOT HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD.

Donald "Cafe Hayek" Boudreaux offers "Some Revolutionary Links."  Recommended.

EASTER MONDAY ON THE UNUSUAL OCCURRENCE REPORT.

Maybe this bunny was running from the Easter Beagle.

If you’re missing your Easter Bunny, you apparently left it on a train in Germany.

Passenger rail operator Arverio reported a rabbit was found in a transport box on [Maundy] Thursday at the end of its morning trip from Treuchtligen to Würzberg.

“It was not possible to determine who had brought it onto the train,” the company said in a press release. “Since it is also unknown whether the Easter Bunny even has an owner, this fact, combined with the timing, strongly suggests that it was the Easter Bunny on its way to work.”

Arverio are a subsidiary of Austrian Federal, with a regional rail contract in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. “Arverio assumes that the Easter Bunny has now arrived at his workplace and still has enough time until Sunday to complete his tasks.”

WE'RE STILL HERE.

Another Earth Day is upon us, and I have no doubt that somewhere the doom-sayers are doing their thing.

Insta Pundit contributor Ed Driscoll offers "Contain your excitement" should you wish to wallow in the discomfiture of the doomsayers.

DAVID BROOKS IS RIPE FOR THE MAD-HOUSE.

Last week he wrote a column that triggered Pajamas Media columnist Scott Pinsker.  "In an absolutely cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs column today, David Brooks of The New York Times openly and explicitly called for a mass uprising — and capped it with a coded plea for a communist revolution."

WHO SETS BAIL AT BAR-TIME?

Yesterday's "Straight Talk about Due Process" concluded with an invocation of the Babylon Bee.  "Sometimes all you can do is crack wise."

Later that night Power Line's John Hinderaker used that wisecrack to clarify the distinction that might exist between the due process a citizen or lawful resident receives and that awaiting a detained illegal alien.

Joe Biden encouraged 10 million or more illegals to cross our borders. It was the worst violation of the rule of law in American history. And now every one of the 10 million is supposed to get a trial before being deported?

How about if we do it this way: instead of the federal courts micromanaging the executive branch in real time, if the administration inadvertently deports an American citizen or legal resident, he can raise his hand and complain. He will have no trouble finding a lawyer who will sue on his behalf, and he will become a millionaire. But so far there is not a single reported instance of a citizen or legal resident being deported. This procedure will provide ample due process to all who followed due process on their way in.

Apparently there are citizens and lawful residents getting caught up in the deportation dragnets (the disadvantage of having a common name?) and yet most of the energy from the opposition party and the willing accomplices in the media is on a few people being shipped to El Salvador, perhaps without the fig leaf of due process.

And there, dear reader, is the genesis of the question in my post title.  There is such a thing as the drunk tank, perhaps referred to these days by more inclusive terminology.  Perhaps there is no magistrate on call at bar-time as everybody brought in at bar time, or during what passes for celebrating a sports championship these days, gets a few hours to sleep it off.  Eventually, though, the occupants of the drunk tank see the magistrate, perhaps some are held without bail, some are given the opportunity to post bail, and some might be released on their own recognizance.

That suggests the possibility that rendering due process to illegal aliens need not burden law enforcement.  Proof of citizenship?  No.  Held without bail pending a relative or counsel proffering that proof; without proof, your flight home is waiting.  At Power Line, some wise guys in the bull session are proposing building detention centers on Martha's Vineyard or in Edina or similar suburbs full of limousine liberals.

IT'S THE EASTER BREWERS, CHARLIE BROWN.

Easter Sunday sometimes finds the Brewers playing well.

Yesterday, we made history on the mound AND on the base paths #ThisIsMyCrew x @MillerLite pic.twitter.com/kZPEhNFCZM

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) April 21, 2025

Six stolen bases in the first inning alone, which is an "expansion era" (meaning since 1961) record, nine stolen bases, and an excellent debut for pitcher Logan Henderson.  Give manager Pat Murphy credit, as well, for bringing in a long reliever in the seventh with an opportunity to record a nine out save.

It's a long season, you don't give up on it after a week.

That brings back memories of Easter Sunday, 1987, my first baseball season back in radio range of WTMJ's baseball broadcasts, and the team had already recorded a no-hitter by Juan Nieves and was in a position to win those twelve straight games and unleash the George Webb hamburgers.  The Rangers were leading going into the ninth.  Do you believe it?

The Brewers ran that winning streak to 15, but were otherwise inconsistent and finished out of the playoffs.  More recently, George Webb had to make good on the hamburgers in 2018, when the Brewers won their twelfth straight in a Game 163 at Chicago.

STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT DUE PROCESS.

Outside the Beltway's Matt Bernius gets off what could be a Friday short take, but for Cold Spring Shops generally staying away from the niceties of the law.  "EVERYONE should get due process. Full stop. And that includes criminals or people who do things we don’t like."  That column opens with a qualification.  "While undocumented folks don’t get the same level of due process as citizens, they still are entitled to due process as spelled out by our laws."

THE CHALLENGES OF RAILWAY PRESERVATION.

The Chicago Aurora and Elgin electric railway might have quit business in an unusual way, the day before Independence Day in 1957; it never had the money to completely replace its wood interurban cars, buying a few from the North Shore Line after the War to cover the slowest trains; and it lasted long enough for railway preservation to become a pastime.  There wasn't as much scrap value in those wood cars as in the steel cars, which could be had relatively cheaply.  (As opposed to the steel cars: one Pullman in preservation, two Cincinnatis, and four of the ten St. Louis cars built after the War.)  There are still a dozen wooden cars in preservation, in varying stages of operability.

TOM CLANCY COULDN'T IMAGINE DEMENTIA JOE.

I've been re-reading his The Bear and the Dragon, in part to refresh my memory about how the Chinese balance of payments went sideways in a hurry (not because of any special tariffs, mind you) and came across accidental president Jack Ryan musing, at page 540, about a press conference.

His eyes were scanning his briefing sheets for the mini-press conference.  The likely questions and the better sorts of answers to give to them.  It seemed very dishonest to do it this way, but some foreign heads of government had the questions prescreened so that the answers could be properly canned.  Not a bad idea in the abstract, Jack thought, but the American media would spring for that about as quickly as a coyote would chase after a whale.

Tom Clancy was seriously skeptical of the press, and of Democrats.  But the idea of the Easter Bunny serving as impromptu press secretary was too much even for him.

Members of the press behaving like Democrat operative with bylines, though?  Yes, from the very beginning of the Ryan presidency.  And Jack Ryan could talk smack to the journos way better than either Donald Trump or Karoline Leavitt.

ONE IF BY LAND, AND TWO IF BY SEA.

The semiquincentennial of Paul Revere's Ride and The Shot Heard 'Round the World is upon us.

The Deep Thinkers, including Rick Atkinson, Rick Moran, and George Will, are offering their Deep Thoughts.  Make of it what you will that Latin grammar admits of the possibility of fractions with that "semiquincentennial" whilst its arithmetic had no way to form the expression D ÷ II.

Freedom is ever a work in progress, and by fits and starts that work continues.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

None dare call it censorship?  "Massive federal subsidies for America’s bloated and wasteful higher-education sector have proven to be a mistake. Taxpayers are getting nowhere near their money’s worth—and in many cases, are subsidizing institutions that actively undermine Western civilization. University leaders now routinely highlight scientific advances to justify continued public funding, but these achievements cannot obscure the broader failure."

Why not reject the money, and the censorship?  "Harvard has no problem with an activist federal government, as long as it is a liberal one forcing all sorts of Title IX or DEI initiatives on private and Christian colleges that apparently lost their autonomy by accepting federal money. It has said nothing when state and federal governments in the past gratuitously hounded Hillsdale.  So, Harvard loudly can set itself free by permanently pursuing its agenda on its own $50 billion, in the same manner Hillsdale does quietly with its $1 billion"

Recognize who has broken the social compact.  "The right honors the compact; universities have bailed on their role as stewards of intellectual and moral order—including the implicit contract to uphold civil rights law in exchange for public monies."

The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

STILL MAKING THE GRADE.

The conference academic performance results have come in.  "Six Huskies Named To Women’s Basketball Academic All-MAC Team."  Last year, the team had nine players so named: three graduated, and five of the six honorees from a year ago repeated.  Four of this year's six students have graduated, and a fifth, new to the list, has gone through the transfer portal.

The university has swapped out head coaches.  The observation I made from a year ago is still relevant.

[T]he team has a long tradition of suiting up to play and robing up for graduation.  That noted, I conclude this year's post the same as last year's:  "Enjoy the academic accolades.  Perhaps additional success on the court will provide the value proposition I think sports marketing types would like to have."

The kids can play with the best of the Mid-American, for whatever that's worth, but they're inconsistent.

The season recently concluded was more of the same.

PANAMA CITY BEACH CAN NO LONGER BE A SPRING BREAK DESTINATION.

"That time is over," notes police chief J. R. Talamantez.  "Every year we try to manage it, and every year it brings more challenges. I’m not willing to risk the safety of our city to hold onto something that no longer works."  Implementation of that policy is going to be challenging: after the corona tyranny, people in the entertainment business might be less disposed to close their doors early or not take reservations from youngsters or however else one goes about repositioning one's businesses?  (Well, if a Panama City hotellier offered ancient me an all-expenses paid vacation during spring break season as a way of filling the rooms the youngsters would otherwise be occupying ...)

Reality has been dawning on Panama City commercial and political interests for a long time.  Ten years ago, Margaret "University Diaries" Soltan observed, "Allow certain ingredients to be put together in a concentrated way in a specific location, and you can actually destroy civilized life."

REDISCOVERING THE SCRATCHBUILDER'S ART.

A few days ago, Milwaukee radio station WTMJ asked a few local business owners about the consequences of tariffs.  One of the people interviewed is in a business of more than passing interest to Cold Spring Shops.

One company that is most impacted would be Williams K. Walthers Inc. which is responsible for designing and selling model trains. Stacey Walthers is the company’s current president and says that she relies heavily on companies such as China, Vietnam and Taiwan to create and paint the model trains that are sold back here in America.

“I have a container that is in transit right now cross the sea,” said Walthers on Wisconsin’s Afternoon News. “We thought that shipment would only be impacted by a 20% tariff, because when it left, it left on March 25th. But it was hitting Canada first. So now that it’s hitting Canada, I’m going to have to pay close to $400,000 in tariffs for my trains.”

The typical cost of a Williams K. Walthers boxcar was $34.98 has now been increased to $61.98. Walthers says that customers who are paying for a hobby will most likely not pay that cost for an item such as that.

The boxcar in question is an HO scale ready-to-run item of some kind.  There are more details in her interview.

Listen to the Wisconsin's Afternoon News podcast Tiny Trains, Big Impact: Tariffs and Model Railroads episode at https://t.co/FdhyJSyLMa

— Stephen Karlson (@StephenKarlson) April 18, 2025

Those tariffs might push Walthers back to their roots, and modellers back to their workbenches.

COMBAT THE TYRANNY OF THE BMI.

It's all part of that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.

A critical component of feminist theory, engagement, and activism, embodiment has long been at the center of feminist inquiry. The body can be a site of liberation and control, a source of knowledge production and reimagination, and has been imbued with symbolic meanings throughout history and across cultures. This year, we dive into the concrete, physical ways we interact with the world and each other, how our lives are impacted by how we feel and move through spaces, and strategies to embody feminist ideals. What external and internal forces shape embodied experiences? What does it mean to embody feminism when we place accessibility at the center of our work? What does it mean to embody feminism when differing forms of accessibility and inclusivity conflict? The theme of embodying feminism acknowledges that feminism is an ongoing lived and intellectual movement, always in the process of achieving some objectives while simultaneously missing the mark on others. It is a space of contestation and a site for envisioning not just relations of power but also futures of possibility.

In the spirit of this theme, we invite proposals that examine feminist embodiment through various lenses, including transnational, legal, political, reproductive, anti-carceral, digital, artistic, and pedagogical. We encourage proposals that explore transfeminism, queer theory, disability studies, and fat studies, especially those which explicitly bring focus to embodiment. We seek examinations of how law, education, medicine, historical context, and the built world around us impact the human body, its conditions and experiences. We welcome participation from community organizations and feminist activists engaged in cross-movement organizing and coalition-building centered on networks of care. We also invite proposals that directly engage with trauma, embodied vulnerabilities, and the precarity of the current geo-political and socio-political moment. Panels and workshops offering strategies for moving from feminist theory to action are strongly encouraged. This year’s theme challenges us to put our ideas into action to create a better, more just world for every body.

That's a long-winded affirmation of Rush Limbaugh's XXIV Undeniable Truth of Life, isn't it?

CLEAVAGE IN THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM.

Didn't the first iteration of Star Trek crew Enterprise with some skimpily-clad yeomen?

Elle cover retrieved from Sasha Stone.

AMTRAK CAN'T CATCH A BREAK.

Last week's Unusual Occurrence Report contained a few doozies.

A fatal private plane crash Friday, April 11, on tracks used by Tri-Rail and Amtrak trains caused cancellation of the day’s northbound Floridian and its counterpart east from Chicago today (Sunday, April 13). Three members of a South Florida family were killed in the crash of the six-seat Cessna aircraft, the Palm Beach Post reports. The driver of a vehicle on an adjacent street was injured. The NTSB is investigating.

In addition, the eastbound Sunset Limited, Texas Eagle, and Empire Builder sustained long delays on their cross-country routes over the weekend, adding to other national network disruptions.

Although Amtrak, Brightline, and two Commuter Rail operators serve Florida southeast of Orlando, rerouting around line blockages is not straightforward.

Florida East Coast tracks can only be accessed through a slow-speed, circuitous industrial connection north of downtown West Palm Beach. Rejoining the Tri-Rail route south of Amtrak’s Hialeah station (used by Tri-Rail express trains to and from Brightline’s MiamiCentral terminal) is also problematic; qualified host railroad pilots would have been necessary to facilitate such complicated moves.

In addition, using one train formation to serve both Tampa and Miami makes maintaining service challenging.

The need for equipment servicing after a two-night trip, normally done overnight at Hialeah, was likely why Friday’s southbound Floridian didn’t assume the day’s northbound schedule. Trains arriving into Tampa must wye east of the stub-end station so they can be backed in.

Thus, although the southbound Floridian arrived at 1:06 p.m. on April 11 and the northbound was scheduled out at 4:45 p.m., Friday’s Chicago-bound train was cancelled. Without equipment, passengers were notified that Sunday’s eastbound Floridian was also cancelled over its entire route. Both the Silver Meteor and Floridian originated at Jacksonville, Fla., northbound through Sunday, April 13, but the day’s southbound arrivals went all the way to Miami.

It was the second major disruption for Floridian service in a week. On April 4, the Chicago-bound Floridian incurred a seven-hour delay after it struck a vehicle between Lakeland, Fla., and Tampa. Running 13 hours late after departing Washington, D.C. at 5:36 a.m. on April 6, the westbound was terminated at Toledo, Ohio. Passengers were bused to Chicago from Toledo and back from the Windy City to the eastbound Floridian as a result.

Elsewhere, the self-DOGEing of the carrier goes on.

Another series of events impacted the Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited, whose on-time performance is joined at the hip. The reason for the westbound Eagle’s nine-hour delay on Union Pacific tracks east of Mineola, Tex., on Wednesday, April 9, has not been reported, but it lost another three hours at Dallas, perhaps waiting for a recrew. Because this was one of the three weekly trains that passes a coach and sleeping car to the Sunset Limited at San Antonio, passengers aboard the Los Angeles-bound train from New Orleans waited more than 12 hours, from midnight Wednesday to 12:17 p.m. Thursday, for the connection from Chicago.

The saga didn’t end there. After the train arrived in Los Angeles on Friday at 6:59 p.m. instead of 4:39 a.m., equipment servicing delayed the eastbound Sunset’s departure that evening by more than an hour and a half. The train lost another four hours between Sanderson and Del Rio, Tex. So  the Sunset and eastbound Texas Eagle both departed San Antonio more than five hours late, severely inconveniencing passengers waiting on both routes.

These were not the only setbacks during the past week. It also included an eight-hour eastbound Empire Builder pause west of Williston, N.D., on Saturday, April 12, and the cancellation of the northbound Palmetto out of Savannah, Ga., on April 6, reportedly because of a Charger locomotive failure. The reasons for the other delays were not immediately available, but they all required Amtrak to compensate impacted travelers and could discourage future business.

There's an understatement.  Against all that, there was one restoration of service.  "[W]ith flooding in western Tennessee subsiding, the City of New Orleans is set to resume its full route in both directions south of Carbondale, Ill., on Tuesday, April 15, after being sidelined for more than a week."

Amtrak timekeeping being what it is, it's probably wise for any passengers boarding today to put their tax returns in the mail before boarding, rather than hoping to be able to file upon arrival.

ANYBODY CAN AFFECT MONETARY POLICY.

The real debt ceiling is creaking and groaning, and Common Dreams contributor Les Leopold sees oligarchy at work.  (No, I don't know if he pronounces it "awl-uh-gawky.")

Are you up in arms about the existential threat Trump poses to democracy—about how he stomps on the courts, usurps the congressional power of the purse, recklessly fires government workers, kisses up to autocrats, attacks free speech, and deports immigrants on trumped-up charges? Isn't Trump the new face of fascism?

Maybe, but the bond market vigilantes showed us what undemocratic power really looks like.

The bond market is gigantic, $140 trillion worth of interest-bearing IOUs. Every nation and every large institution holds government bonds. And the most sought-after bonds come from the U.S. Treasury, especially the 10-year Treasury note, which has for a long time been considered as risk-free as any investment can be.

The joy of being the world's reserve currency, and even with over thirty years of unserious people serving as president, I have trouble identifying any other ten-year bond with a better risk profile than a Treasury. You can't believe Chinese accounting, and a European Union offering a convex combination of the Reichsmark and the Greek drachma, not to mention whatever residual noise there is in the franc and the lire doesn't inspire confidence.

THE SIMPLER, THE BETTER.

A British regimental commander of tanks, Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, repeats an old lesson.  "German tanks are failing in Ukraine for the same reasons they lost the Second World War."  It's the same lesson a sedan driver learns the first time he goes off-roading.

The leaked report from the German Defence Ministry about the shortcomings of the Leopard 2 tank in the Ukraine should come as no surprise to anybody who even has a cursory understanding of German tank history, or even western tank history in general.

It is certainly no surprise to me. I spent thousands of hours in the ancient British Chieftain tank as well as the current Challenger 2 (CR2). The uninitiated may think that we’re seeing the end of the rule of tanks after 110 years as the kings of the battlefield, but this would be a failed assumption. Nonetheless, with the new British tank – imaginatively called Challenger 3 – about to arrive, its designers must take on board the identified shortcomings of Leopard 2 or it too will fail.

The Leopard 2 is a technical marvel, with echoes of the German Tiger tank in WW2: perhaps the most dangerous tank of the war. Leopard 2 has a very complex fire control system, an outstandingly powerful MTU power pack (the engine to the “non tankies”), and an excellent 120mm smoothbore gun. However it is very susceptible to drone and “top” attack and very difficult to fix if damaged or broken down. Worse still, like the Tiger of WW2, it is very few in numbers. The Russians have lost thousands of T-72s, T-80s and T-90 tanks. Just 18 Leopard 2s have been supplied to Ukraine!

The first issue identified is how difficult it is for Ukraine soldiers to mend these tanks and keep them battle worthy. If the engine breaks down it must be taken hundreds of miles for repair in a specialist facility, whereas the old, simple engines of the Russian tanks can be easily fixed by any automotive mechanic, in situ if necessary. The first tank I commanded was a Chieftain, designed in the 1950s, which had a “London bus” engine to power it. The engine frequently stopped when the fuel injection solenoid got stuck shut.  This was simply remedied using a clothes peg to keep it open! A similar problem with a Leopard 2 or CR2 would require a new engine.

The fortunes of war might not be on the side of the resilient, but that is the way to bet.

Would you rather go to war, dear reader, with tanks that epitomized Platonic perfection and precision engineering, or would you take your chances with tanks machined to something less than precise tolerances, and where it would be wise to drop the oil pan 50 kilometers out of the works, to drain the metal shavings from the oil sump?

Those of you who are familiar with the War will recognize in the former the imposing looking German super-tanks that had an annoying habit of throwing a sprocket when the tread was digging into snow, and in the latter the Soviet T-34s that shrugged off tundra and steppe and mud all the way to the Elbe.

Leave aside the vulnerability of tanks of any kind to drone attack (or Smart Pigs?) and consider how resilience at scale pays off.

The Germans lost WW2 because they could not match the mass the Allies could generate. For instance, in the later stages of the war the Allies produced around 60,000 Sherman tanks, which eventually overwhelmed the more sophisticated and capable Tiger and Panther tanks because the Germans only had a few thousand of these. Likewise the 18 Leopard 2s and the 14 CR2s we have sent barely scratch the surface in Ukraine today. The report does state that the much more numerous, older and simpler Leopard 1s are highly effective.

Those who do not remember the past! "We must avoid the same old German tank story from WW2. We must avoid the temptation to make our tanks too complex, too easy to hit, too difficult to maintain and too few."

ALL FINANCIAL CRISES ARE CRISES OF SHORT TERM DEBT.

John "Grumpy Economist" Cochrane opens an essay on tariffs, saving, and investment with a candidate Friday short take:  "I haven’t written much about tariffs, because so many other economists are doing such a great job. Tariffs are easy: The right answer is unilateral free trade. Tariffs are hard: The rest is explaining why 100 objections are wrong."

BOOLA BOONDOGGLE.

Ten years ago, Hallowe'en at Yale University got caught up in the Culture Wars.

[I]n John Hinderaker suggesting at Power Line that parents not let their children go to Yale is the strongest argument for rescuing the universities that are not hothouses.  It's simple, perhaps at the likes of Yale, and Wesleyan, and Oberlin, you find critical masses of coddled freakazoid spawn.  How dare that mean housemother Erika Christakis write "Toughen Up, Buttercup" in more words.

The hothouses have not distinguished themselves since, and twice Donald Trump has taken the presidency, and this time around he's taking the federal moneys away.

FOUR-FOURTEEN.

Milwaukee's historic area code is 414.

Yes, in common with everyplace else, inhabitants now have to dial ten digits, and that 414 has been reserved for Milwaukee County only, other locations either given to 262 or reassigned to 920.

Machine shop for the world?  To some extent, that's still true.

THE GROWTH PONZI SCHEME, AUF DEUTSCH.

Instapundit contributor Sarah Hoyt recommends "The Erosion of my Home Town."  The author sells it as "The circular business model that is socialism," although it's also understood as the use of public money to run the Suburban Experiment, only in Germany.

Today, during our weekly calls, my father said the village has big plans. Big construction plans. Ever since I was a kid, the population had already doubled. With that came many new houses built. Gone are a lot of the surrounding fields replaced by one-family houses. The village has sprawled out. No longer tugged away. But a bigger spot on the map.

My father said the local soccer fields including the club house and the only restaurant left are being torn down; the private owner of this property whose family had owned the land since 200 years ago had sold the land to the government. The community plan is to replace the old houses with a new school building. The old school building will also be torn down. I asked why? And then he said this:

“The old buildings are no longer up to code and it would be too expensive to renovate. New buildings are needed.”

And then he added that there are so many regulations these days. They said the construction would start in 2028. But he then pointed out that the supermarket that was torn down in 2020 to be replaced has taken forever to get all the permits in place that it is still not complete and even further away from being open. So many permits are needed. He is questioning if the timing would actually be realistic. Everything is indeed very bureaucratic in Germany.

Regulations. Regulations. Regulations.

So much construction in my little village. The school is moving to where the local soccer fields are currently located. The school land is then going to be used to build new buildings to allow for more people to stay longer — the new housing will be senior living; likely the assisted kind. New soccer fields with fitness and sport house need to be built; somewhere South of the village where we currently have the free range cow and chicken farms. (Side note: you can actually go there and buy your eggs, dairy products, and bread from a farm stand on an honorary basis by putting your money in a box. The best products you will ever eat.) And then also a building for refugees is in the plan. Also “needed”.

Sigh.

So far, $3.5M was spent by the local government to acquire all the lands; purchased from local residents, farmers, and business owners. The construction company hired in all cases? Is an affiliate of the local government — 100% owned by the “community” — founded in 2020. Not joking.

So… We now have a government setting increasingly stricter regulations and requirements that force communities and residents to upgrade their housing to the newest codes. All community projects are being executed by a governmental owned construction company. More and more private property is converted into governmental projects and buildings. Senior homes and refugee housing will remain in the hand of the government. Additionally refugee housing allows to draw from more taxpayer funded resources via subsidies because “charity”.

It feels all like a circular reference. Money flows from taxpayer in a very orchestrated way into the pockets of politicians and charity organizations. A sneaky way of promising betterment for the residents of the community but in the long run just getting more land and buildings under government control.

Yes, and all those newly-built schools and housing projects and for all I know improved streets and water mains turn into future liabilities.  "The amount of money a city can possibly raise from its development pattern is less than what it costs to sustain that pattern. The difference is made up with gimmicks, debt, interfund transfers, and bailouts."  So, too, will it be with this North German Dorf.

Every mile of road, every pipe in the ground, every pump or sewer or sidewalk—these are all promises. They’re not just infrastructure. They’re obligations. Residents pay their taxes with the reasonable expectation that the city will maintain all the infrastructure it has built—keep the roads drivable, the pipes functioning, the parks open and safe. But over and over again, I’ve found that few cities have even a rough estimate of how big those promises actually are, let alone a plan to fulfill them.

Cities are required to track their tangible capital assets. That means documenting (or calculating) the cost of everything they’ve built—the roads, pipes, water treatment facilities, parks, city buildings, and so on. And they’re also supposed to estimate how much life is left in each of those assets. In theory, this gives you a sense of the city's long-term obligations.

Accountants treat these assets like they depreciate in a straight line—25 years for a road, let’s say—and calculate a “book value” based on how much of that life is left. But that’s not how infrastructure works. Some things fall apart faster than expected. Some assets are never properly maintained. Others were never built to a durable standard in the first place. And so the real cost of maintenance and replacement—the actual burden cities face—is never reflected in these numbers.

My sense is that this kind of analysis, while the best available to us, still significantly overestimates a city's capacity to meet its infrastructure maintenance obligations. The assumptions baked into the accounting—about lifespan, about build quality, about upkeep—are overly optimistic.

The current Burgomeister gets to smile at the ground-breaking or the ribbon-cutting; citizens not yet born will be on the hook for the next round of infrastructure pork.

THE COLLISION WAS PREVENTABLE.

In January, we called attention to in-cab video released by Florida's Brightline of a fire truck (!?) starting to cross the tracks as a fast passenger train approached.

The collision is the most easily preventable, as the driver of the fire truck has an unobstructed view of the approaching train.  Many crossing collisions involving a second train involve someone darting out from behind the first train to clear the crossing: in this instance, from the right, and the driver or pedestrian has no opportunity to see the second train.  I do not want to get into a third possibility, where somebody attempts to beat a train to the crossing, not aware of a second train coming the other way.  When that happens the collision can affect both trains as well as the driver or pedestrian who took a long chance.

The investigators have completed their work, and there were consequences for the driver.

The city of Delray Beach has dismissed the firefighter who was driving the fire truck struck by a Brightline train in December.

City Manager Terrence Moore announced the firing of firefighter David Wyatt in a press release today (April 10), WPBF-TV reports. Moore said the incident “revealed a pattern of carelessness and poor judgment that went beyond an isolated error.

“These actions — taken by an individual in a public safety position — placed lives at risk, compromised our operational readiness, and violated the principles of professionalism that our residents expect and deserve from public servants.”

Fifteen people — Wyatt and two other firefighters, and 12 people on board the train — were injured in the Dec. 28 collision in downtown Delray Beach [see “Fifteen injured …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 28, 2024]. The fire truck, responding to a report of a fire in a high-rise apartment building, had been stopped at the First Street grade crossing by a Florida East Coast Railway freight train. When the freight train cleared the crossing, Wyatt drove the truck around the lowered crossing gates and was struck by the Brightline train approaching on the second main track.

“This is not a decision I take lightly,” Moore said. “However, when the conduct of employees fundamentally conflicts with our mission to protect life and property, termination is the appropriate course of action. Our residents must know that Delray Beach will always put public safety first and that we will act decisively when that standard is not met.”

Wyatt was one of four firefighters placed on administrative leave while the incident was investigated; no disciplinary action was taken against the other three at the conclusion of that investigation.

Put another way, there were other entries in Driver Engineer Wyatt's docket that merited more than an informal talking-to in the office of a white shirt.  Firefighters Local 1842 representatives noted that Mr Wyatt has not yet had his formal hearing.

Driver Engineer David Wyatt has not received any official notice of termination. The only communication the Union has received from the City is a notice to schedule a Loudermill hearing—a critical step in the due process that must take place before any disciplinary action, including termination, can occur.

Our member has not been formally notified by the City. For the City to issue a public statement announcing his termination before this hearing has been conducted is not only premature, but also reflects a troubling disregard for the employee’s rights and the basic tenets of due process.

Expect train movements at any time, on any track, in either direction.  Perhaps first responders might partner with Operation Lifesaver railroaders on school visits.

TAKE A SEAT, ALPHABET PEOPLE.

Common Dreams contributor Sam Rosenthal offers comic relief the day before tax returns are due.  "2028 Will Be Our Last, Best Hope to Propel a Real Leftist to the Top of the Ticket."  Fakery failed, just as I thought.

Democrats papered over those divisions selling Mr Biden as some sort of centrist, which proved to be nonsense within a month of his taking office; and they will point to the money printing and legislation passed by the margin of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema as Great Accomplishments, never mind that there will be more crumbled infrastructure at the end of the fiscal year than there was at its beginning; and Ms Harris is unable to credibly offer the corporatist wing of her coalition anything without the communist wing raising hell.

The communist wing is at least funny.

Imagine, if you will, the United States on January 1, 2028. President Donald Trump and his gang of MAGA goons have been drawing from the well of right-wing nativism for the past three years, generating spectacle after spectacle without managing to improve material circumstances for any but the wealthiest Americans. That well has now run dry, and the American public is getting restless. The United States has repeatedly skirted the edge of an economic recession; inflation remains high and unemployment is ticking up. The malaise of stagflation pervades every aspect of American life. Eggs and milk prices remain high, the stock market hasn’t really rallied again since the GOP pushed through its latest cut on taxes for the wealthy, and the big ticket items—homes, vehicles, education—are all more expensive than when Trump first took office, for the second time.

Amidst the chaos, Democrats have kicked their campaigning into high gear, with primary season nearly upon them. This is a primary without an heir apparent, and every Democrat within arm’s reach of a well-funded PAC has thrown their hat into the ring.

Yes, dear reader, there are a few predictions to put a pin in, and take stock as primary season gets going.  For now, let us focus on the troubles building a coalition of the professional-managerial class types with the destitutes dependent on the largesse those managerial types bestow.

Over the last few election cycles, the Democratic Party has struggled to present a cohesive vision of what it stands for in the 21st century. This is partly due to Donald Trump; the party has, in some sense, overdeveloped its anti-Trump messaging while neglecting the rest of its platform, like a tennis player with an oversized racket arm. Democrats have been saved from having to more carefully cultivate policy messaging because, for the last three cycles, they have simply run as the opposition to Donald Trump. This strategy has a 33% success rate.

The platform problems go much deeper than this, though. The party’s multi-decade pivot away from working class voters toward suburban, college-educated ones has failed to grow a winning coalition for the Democrats. It has, though, paralyzed the party on policy questions relating to income inequality and redistribution of wealth, arguably the most pressing of our present moment. The party cannot serve the interests of wealthy and upper-middle income suburbanites and the working class, simultaneously. Instead of striving to resolve this tension, the party has grasped at social issues in an attempt to trail the prevailing popular opinion of the moment. Where the party was “woke” and all in on ameliorating issues of racial injustice in 2020, just a few years later, some of the most prominent Democrats have joined right-wing Republicans in attacking trans people and migrants.

All this vacillation has run the party aground. Recent polling reveals that the party has reached its lowest point in popularity in at least the last three decades. Constituents do not trust congressional Democrats to stand up to Donald Trump and the GOP. We are only a few months into Donald Trump’s second term, and the Democratic Party already appears to be out of ideas.

Open borders, money printing, buying off preferred constituencies, and enabling the delusions of mentally ill adolescents didn't work out so well, did they?  But if you're Sammy, there are a few people who like those ideas.

Against this backdrop, left electeds and candidates are once again garnering attention and enthusiasm. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have drawn crowds of tens of thousands for their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, an astounding turnout in an off-election year for two politicians already firmly entrenched in their respective seats. Elsewhere, Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist running for mayor of New York City, has surged to take second place in recent polling, trailing only the disgraced, but universally known, Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani’s fundraising has been so robust that he recently implored would-be donors to canvass for him instead, becoming likely the only U.S. candidate for office ever to ask people to stop sending money.

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are the most well-known representatives of the left within the sphere of electoral politics. That they are driving massive turnout to their rallies amidst Democrats’ cratering popularity is a testament not just to the durability of their individual fandoms but to the appeal of left policy as well. (It’s also worth recalling that Sanders has long enjoyed some of the highest favorability ratings of any living U.S. politician.) Since the resurgence of the New New Left in the last decade, there has never been a wider gulf between the appeal of left-wing politicians and distaste for the Democratic Party establishment. This is why it’s critical for the left to seize on this imbalance well ahead of 2028.

Which means the Donks' presidential sweepstakes ought identify the tribune of the communist wing, and fast.

So, who would be part of this group? To be vague and a bit cowardly, I’d say that any person or group who supports the above-described platform should be part of this coalition. More specifically though, this coalition would have to draw together grassroots activists; significant parts of organized labor; and left-leaning, party-adjacent groups who lobby the party on matters of strategy and policy. These different groups would have to set aside interpersonal differences and agree to support whomever the coalition is eventually able to recruit to run, regardless of their personal affinity for, or proximity to, this person. This is a tall order, but members wanting to be part of this network should keep in mind lessons from the past: The left best serves corporatist Democrats when we descend into internecine squabbles and leave the door open for multiple entrants to claim the “progressive” mantle. If we want this effort to be successful, we must be resolute and unambiguous in our promotion of a single person.

The platform? Standard silliness, different demagogue.

[T]here are some established, bedrock policies that should form the basis of any left campaign. These include support for single-payer, universal healthcare; acknowledgment that climate change is a real, existential threat; and efforts to massively expand union membership, including installing a radically pro-worker National Labor Relations Board. Also critical will be an immigration approach that ends mass deportations, a policy that is quickly coming to define the second Trump administration. In the realm of foreign policy, a left candidate for president would commit to ending arms sales to Israel and putting the U.S.’ diplomatic weight behind an immediate end to any military action against the Palestinian people. The left flank of the party should be prepared to line up behind the candidate who best represents this platform in 2028.

Read the column, dear reader, and note the absence of the usual sort of "underserved" and "underrepresented" and "people of color" and "LGBTQIA+" and whatever else passes for Student Affairs boilerplate these days.  Does it even matter if those constituencies light up Sammy on his social media for invisibling them?  Pajamas Media's Stephen Kruiser doubts it.

The cranky old fart and America's Dumbest Bartender aren't reaching anyone who wasn't already voting for Democrats, or at least thinking about it. The swooning Coachella hordes weren't just flown in from Neptune — most were a part of the 2024 electorate. Let them keep preaching to the communist choir.

No matter how much they practice, regular Americans aren't going to want to hear the song.

It's still going to be on either corporatist Democrats or some sort of Republicans or perhaps libertarian-minded populists to come up with a song the Militant Normals are going to want to hear.