From the crowd that brought us ‘shrink the government to a size where it can be drowned in a bathtub’ comes « a truly brilliant idea »:

‘The Bush administration is threatening to shut an airfield at Midway Atoll in the mid-Pacific that has been available as an emergency landing site for decades. The airlines say the closing would force many two-engine planes flying between North America and Asia to make a long detour to hug the coastline of Alaska and the Russian far east, and could force some flight cancellations. Three- and four-engine planes are not required to stay within a certain range of emergency fields. But safety experts say that these planes will still face increased risk in flying the mid-Pacific route, because they will be farther from land in case of fire, system failure or passenger illness, which are the main reasons for emergency landings.

’The airlines are furious. “It seems like the government has just lost sight of the importance of Midway,” said Gene Cameron, the manager of flight dispatching at United Airlines. Dispatchers plan aircraft routes based on prevailing winds and, especially in flights over water, availability of alternate landing spots. But the Transportation Department, which has paid $3.5 million to the Interior Department to keep the airfield open for the last few months, is determined to stop. “There is no other airport available to commercial interests that we pay to operate,” said Brian Turmail, a Transportation Department spokesman.’

As Duane Woerth, the president of the Air Line Pilots Association, said:

‘I’m really ripped about this ridiculous loss of safety … This is an inherently governmental function. They keep trying to outsource this inherently governmental responsibility.’

Well, that’s the Emperor’s M.O., Duane. The market is God. Worship the market. The market can do no wrong. Screw safety and everybody and everything else. The market must be appeased.

Ridiculous indeed.

Speaking of Ohio, « Johnny Reb Asscroft is up to his usual tricks »:

‘Bush administration lawyers argued in three closely contested states last week that only the Justice Department, and not voters themselves, may sue to enforce the voting rights set out in the Help America Vote Act, which was passed in the aftermath of the disputed 2000 election. Veteran voting-rights lawyers expressed surprise at the government’s action, saying that closing the courthouse door to aspiring voters would reverse decades of precedent.

‘Since the civil rights era of the 1960s, individuals have gone to federal court to enforce their right to vote, often with the support of groups such as the NAACP, the AFL–CIO, the League of Women Voters or the state parties. And until now, the Justice Department and the Supreme Court had taken the view that individual voters could sue to enforce federal election law. But in legal briefs filed in connection with cases in Ohio, Michigan and Florida, the administration’s lawyers argue that the new law gives Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft the exclusive power to bring lawsuits to enforce its provisions. These include a requirement that states provide “uniform and nondiscriminatory” voting systems, and give provisional ballots to those who say they have registered but whose names do not appear on the rolls.’

Like I said, Tuesday is gonna be a wonder to behold.