“Fire burn and caldron bubble … something wicked this way comes”—and it’s neither Shakespeare’s Macbeth nor his lady.
Ah, to be a public servant fulfilling the boast of Caesar Augustus: “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” For the incoming Federal Railroad Administrator, it is best to check ego at the door and accept the pithy guidance of Charles Dickens:
As United Airlines is learning, the grabbing by the arms of a fare-paying, law-abiding 69-year-old passenger, and forcibly dragging him through the aisle for removal from an aircraft for no reason other than United having overbooked the Chicago-Louisville flight and wishing to put a more favored fanny in the seat, is a public relations nightmare—and not to be treated as any less offensive than the preferred method of body-part grabbing by the current President of the United States.
The Mexicans are coming. The Mexicans are coming—and within verbal-indignities-hurling distance of President Donald J. Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., Mar-a-Lago “Winter White House.”
Two months into the Trump Administration, the Washington Post says his nomination process, leading to Senate confirmation, is moving more slowly than any in history. The New York Times describes “dust piling up in key offices … critical power centers in [Trump’s] government devoid of leadership.”
With collective bargaining between 13 labor unions and the nation’s Class I freight railroads (plus some regionals and short lines) over wages, benefits and work rules in its third fitful year, the National Mediation Board (NMB) could declare an impasse as early as late 2017.
Some three decades ago, the Association of American Railroads bestowed Rusty Spike Awards to recognize hypocritical posturing by those seeking legislative or regulatory advantage at the expense of railroads.
With early indications that the Trump Administration is a political version of the Jerry Springer show, expect an atypical legislative session, with the Republican majority sometimes in open conflict with a Republican President who is unpredictable, impetuous, lacking previous government experience and quick to take vengeance on those critical of him.
With early indications that the Trump Administration is a political version of the Jerry Springer show, expect an atypical legislative session, with the Republican majority sometimes in open conflict with a Republican President who is unpredictable, impetuous, lacking previous government experience and quick to take vengeance on those critical of him.
If Judge Neil Gorsuch is Senate-confirmed to the Supreme Court, federal regulatory agencies such as the Surface Transportation Board (STB) and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) could be closer to losing a handy, trusted and effective judicial ally in their interpretations of the statutes they administer.
