District of Calamity

Thursday, April 6, 2017

On the Application of the Nuclear Option

Senator Jeff Merkley on the Nuclear Option and the Confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court

As if more than a handful of vulnerable Senate Democrats would allow for a confirmation vote of Neil Gorsuch. In the end, three Democrats (Sen. Manchin (D-WV), Sen. Heitkamp (D-ND) and Sen. Donnelly (D-IN)) crossed party lines to vote for cloture.

It is dubious that the public applies this legitimacy standard to the packed DC Circuit, which then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid first used the nuclear option. Hence it is not as much the "nuclear option" as the clarification of the Reid Rule.

Some may justly argue that it is the Constitutional Option, as cloture is nowhere in America's organic organizational documents, but merely a modern Senate innovation (first implemented in 1917 and modified in 1975).

Once again, thank you Dirty Harry Reid. Now it will be easier for President Trump (and future Chief Executives) to nominate and confirm Justices who are not mysteries nor necessarily amenable to the political Senate minority of the time.

Honoring John Glenn

Friendship 7 orbiting capsule

The United States was behind in the Space Race against the Soviet Union. Three of the four Atlas rockets test rockets blew up before achieving orbit. The orbiting vehicle was space capsule which had the leg room of a Volkswagon Beetle with the aesthetic of a garbage can.

Still NASA astronaut John Glenn braved the dangers of flying an prototype space vehicle in Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962 and orbited the Earth three times.

Mission Control believed that there was a problem with the heat shield which might cause Glenn to burn up on re-entry. Thus the flight protocol was changed on the fly and Glenn would have to make a manual splashdown. As it turned out, it was merely a malfunctioning gauge. The only harm to Glenn was that the pressure from blowing the hatch slightly cut the astronaut's knuckles through his gloves.

Despite the harried re-entry, the experienced NASA test pilot was poetic in recalling his time in space, harkening to the joy of seeing four sunsets in one day. Later, Glenn was received as a hero in Wall Street with a massive ticker-tape parade, larger than the celebration for Charles Lindberg's flight across the Atlantic.

Glenn had intended to run for the US Senate in 1964 but had a withdraw due to a concussion. Glenn served as a Senator from Ohio from 1974 to 1999.

In 1998, Glenn again flew into space on the Discovery Space Shuttle at age 77 to serve as a human guinea pig on geriatrics in space. Glenn is the oldest person to go into space.

Senator John Glenn died at age 95 on December 8, 2016 at Ohio State University's James Cancer Center. Glenn was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on April 6, 2017.