Westmoreland Appointment to Amtrak Board

[Green Maned Lion]

Why would you expect it when a website needs a team of moderators to keep things on here down to a vague sense of civility?

 

[jebr]

Let's bring this back into direct discussion about Westmoreland's appointment. Further conversations about the health of political discourse (or other off-topic discussion) should be brought to The AU Lounge.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Could you explain how talking about the nature of politics in the United States is in fact off topic in a thread describing a direct result of it?

 

[jis]

Starting a new thread focused on a topic is actually completely free here. [emoji57]There should be no reason to hijack a thread focused on a specific appointment into discussing other random things which can be connected to it somehow [emoji16]

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[neroden]

Lynn Westmoreland has a history and this is very far from the only thing I know about him. That's all I have to say about that.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

That may be so, but even when demonizing somebody, it is wise to do it in light and indirect ways, allowing the target of your influence demonize them in their own mind without drawing diagrams. If somebody thinks you hate somebody or something, they will discredit and disregard your opinion as one of somebody who hates- and is therefore blinded to the whole picture.

But if you do it subtly, you will actually get them to listen to you. And possibly believe you. Its all marketing- and you have to market your hatred behind a veil of being fair and balanced. Which should give you a good clue to a fine example to observe.

 

[neroden]

True. I was not being politic. To be more fair to him, Westmoreland is most famous for:

-- calling President Obama "uppity"

-- trying to put the 10 commandments all over government property, but only actually knowing 3 of them

-- retiring from politics because, and I quote

“Everybody’s got a camera, everybody’s got a recorder, and what you say in a small group that’s terribly funny, that y’all are just going to roll around on the floor and laugh and clink glasses and high-five …. that on the front of a newspaper is not funny,”

He's referring to bigoted remarks which he's made throughout his career. He's also a huge fan of the flag of treason and secession.

This is what he's actually *famous* for. Sure, in policy terms these are trivialities....

But he also has a long record of voting to prevent the government from functioning, attempting to sabotage pretty much every agency with no thought whatsoever. As a minor example he has a long record of voting to make sure polluters can poison people scot-free, for example.

But despite his long record in Congress, he's never successfully written or sponsored a bill which did anything much.

Back in the Georgia legislature, his main claim to fame was fighting to keep taxes on tobacco and alcohol low. Of course he didn't care that this meant the state ran a deficit. (He lost.)

In his last couple of years, he wasted our time and money on the ridiculous Benghazi "investigation", which found nothing.

The thing he personally claimed to be "proudest" of was a bill requiring the government to "study bank failures" without actually *doing* anything about them, a successful attempt to waste government money on studies without actually fixing anything! (Of course he opposed all bank regulations.)

I suppose that last "accomplishment" spending money on studies with the intention of having them ignored makes him a good fit for Amtrak. :help:

 

[jis]

If one were serious about the well being of Amtrak, one could have done much better than selecting Westmoreland. The choice suggests that the chooser either has an anti-Amtrak (and possibly anti-passenger train) agenda or is not very bright. I tend to lean towards the former. That is why this appointment concerns me, though the latter would also be a matter of great concern, but for different domain of discourse. In any case, I am not saying the latter is the case, and any concern about that would be out of scope of this thread.

 

[Carolina Special]

There is a July, 2008 article from the Clayton News-Daily stating that Westmoreland voted for Amtrak funding for six years, with higher fuel prices apparently being a factor. GDOT evidently had a commuter rail plan at the time that the governor was onboard with.

His deputy chief of staff even said Westmoreland would like to see an Amtrak line running between Washington and Atlanta, a first class Amtrak system, and Amtrak playing a "important role in Georgia".

So what caused him to flip and become corridor supporter only? Lower gas prices? Local rail plan falling through? Amtrak laughed at D.C.-Atlanta train idea? Other party taking over the White House? Cato Institute convinced him?

And why is this flip not being discussed in the current articles bashing him for his defunding votes? I'd like the rest of the story.

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[Bob Dylan]

Not to be overly political (Moi?)but the 2008 Election which brought a Democratic Administration to power, including Amtrak Joe Biden as Veep, caused the Republican Congressional Leaders to oppose ALL Presidential initiatives in Congress, including voting to defund Amtrak as Gospel preached by the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Out of respect for the forums wishes, Ive sent you an email, Nate.

 

[PaulM]

Starting a new thread focused on a topic is actually completely free here. [emoji57]There should be no reason to hijack a thread focused on a specific appointment into discussing other random things which can be connected to it somehow [emoji16]

I agree with you. But the predominant opinion here seems to be that tricking someone to click on a thread only to find their time wasted is part of the charm of AU. It's that other big, bad site that tries to keep things on track.

 

[Carolina Special]

I've always found it interesting that when a mod shows up to (rightly) request that the off topic stuff be moved to what is now the AU Lounge, nobody ever seems to go over there to continue the off topic discussion.

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[cirdan]

His deputy chief of staff even said Westmoreland would like to see an Amtrak line running between Washington and Atlanta, ...

Now that would be a remarkable idea indeed. Such a train could even continue to New York in one direction and to New Orleans in the other.

I wonder why nobody thought of it?

 

[Ziv]

How about we tempt the mouse from Georgia with some cheese? I wonder how much it would cost to extend the catenary system all the way from DC to Atlanta. Refurb 9 of the Acela trainsets to extend their life by 8 to 10 years. 630'some miles each way, so it would be a 7 or 8 hour trip. Not sure where you would find room or staffing to service 4 trainsets in Atlanta, though. Maybe store them all in DC and have a couple late trains from Atlanta to DC.

The advantages of more long straightaways (south of DC vs. the NEC) are offset by older, less well maintained track combined with level crossings, I would guess. Westmoreland may not be a politician any longer, but I would bet he would like to deliver one more chunk of cheese to his old constituency.

Yeah, I know it won't happen, but given the fact that the POTUS is a populist, not a conservative, you never know what he will back or oppose. Appropriations come from the House though... The senate is possible, the POTUS is possible, but the house would be a tough row to hoe.

His deputy chief of staff even said Westmoreland would like to see an Amtrak line running between Washington and Atlanta, ...

 

[jis]

What long straightways south of DC do you speak of? Inquiring minds want to know. Or was this all just in jest?

 

[Ziv]

When I rode the Crescent it seemed like most of the trackage between DC and Atlanta was straighter than the NE Regional from DC to Boston. More so in VA than in the Carolinas, but it seemed like there were more straightaways on the Crescent. There were tight spots between DC and Atlanta, but they seemed to be less frequent than on the NE Regional. I could be way wrong, I only rode them once each, but that is what I remember.

 

[Ziv]

To move even further into "it will never happen" territory, if you had to buy/trade land to straighten the track, it would cost a lost less to do so south of Richmond, as opposed to trying to do it on the NEC. LOL!

Yeah, I know, never gonna happen.

It would be cool if it could though, because it gets you two birds with one stone. You could possibly extend the life of the healthiest/least worn out half of the Acela fleet AND you could extend the relatively high speed section of the Amtrak network by 600+ miles.

On edit: And I am not sure if the stations between DC and Atlanta have level boarding. Probably not, if memory serves. So that is one more problem I didn't think about.

 

[dlagrua]

Getting back to the appointment of Westmoreland, I don't think that the sky is falling or that Amtrak will be out of business anytime soon. Westmoreland is just another political shill that uses the system. Point is that if Amtrak goes down, he's out of the Ivory Tower. How good or bad for the system he will be remains to be seen.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Given the fact that the POTUS is a populist, not a conservative, you never know what he will back or oppose.

It's true you never know what Trump will say next, but most of what he has actually done is easily predicted with a simple concept called Inverse Obama. All that fleeting populist talk about big government spending on modernized infrastructure and high speed rail has gone absolutely nowhere. Instead he's advocated reducing revenue and draining civilian funding in order to dump even more money on the world's most expensive military.

Getting back to the appointment of Westmoreland, I don't think that the sky is falling or that Amtrak will be out of business anytime soon. Westmoreland is just another political shill that uses the system. Point is that if Amtrak goes down, he's out of the Ivory Tower. How good or bad for the system he will be remains to be seen.

Who said the sky was falling or that Amtrak would be out of business? My concern is that with executives like this Amtrak service will continue to deteriorate and eventually turn away all but the most ardent supporters.

 

[A Voice]

Who said the sky was falling or that Amtrak would be out of business? My concern is that with executives like this Amtrak service will continue to deteriorate and eventually turn away all but the most ardent supporters.

So, with few exceptions, that makes it pretty much business as usual for Amtrak since 1971.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Who said the sky was falling or that Amtrak would be out of business? My concern is that with executives like this Amtrak service will continue to deteriorate and eventually turn away all but the most ardent supporters.

So, with few exceptions, that makes it pretty much business as usual for Amtrak since 1971.

Yes, I'm concerned that Amtrak will continue to limp on down the tracks like a blind hobo on crutches. I've never fully understood why pointing out Amtrak's history of operational impotence was considered some sort of profound insight. Just because it's always been on life support doesn't mean I don't want it to improve (or reinvent itself or make way for something better).

 

[tricia]

Yes, I'm concerned that Amtrak will continue to limp on down the tracks like a blind hobo on crutches. I've never fully understood why pointing out Amtrak's history of operational impotence was considered some sort of profound insight.

Love that image. Sad it's so apt.

 

[west point]

Level boarding south of WASH ? Even the platforms for going south at WASH are low. Now south of WASH ? Do not remember if the interior platforms at Richmond main street (RVM) were high level or not ? The new Raleigh station high level or future HSR platforms high level ? Roanoke starting Oct 31 are high level. New Charlotte station planned do not know if high level ? The new Miami (MIC) station high level ?

 

[jis]

You know, this whole discussion about South of Washington has nothing to do with Westmoreland. Why are you carrying on with it here?

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