Anyway they’ve premiered a blog with several of their correspondents. Of note is a piece by Richard Florida analyzing high-speed rail projects across the country, looking at likely stimulus funding recipients based on the economic output of the regions where rail is proposed.

He has a lot of interesting things to say about the concept of the “mega-region” and it should be pretty obvious to folks who live out here that desert communities like Barstow and the Palm Desert areas to the south represent the eastern edge of the Los Angeles “mega-region.”

More importantly, if the portioning of the money for high-speed rail is done in a fashion anywhere near as logical as his analysis, there’s absolutely no chance that the Maglev project from Anaheim to Las Vegas will see a cent of federal funding.

In fact, even when politics get involved, as it inevitably does in any major government project does, it still won’t see a cent. It doesn’t pay political dividends to use federal money to pay for a project (which will cost more than the entire sum President Obama is setting aside for high-speed rail) to serve primarily tourists in one particular travel corridor. It’s not even included in Florida’s map.

(Aside to fomer mayor Lawrence Dale: Your assistance in the organization of Barstow’s Tea Party might have been treated more seriously if you didn’t continue endorsing wasteful federal pork projects like this one.)

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So I was a little bit shocked and disappointed to see Robert Frommer, a staff lawyer for the organization, write a commentary for Freedom Politics promoting the idea that campaign donations should not be subjected to automatic disclosure.

I penned a response to his commentary that has been posted today. You can read my rationalizations here.

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Thank you.

Post from: The Editor's Desk

They’re probably relying on the operators to not have the money to sue over this, but good lord. Due process? Anybody heard of it? Anybody?

Maybe next they’ll replace the impound lot with a used car dealership and not even wait for the verdicts.

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Post from: The Editor's Desk

The house at the center of the case has been moved. And the project that the city used to justify taking it under eminent domain practices … is pretty much dead.

You know, that’s another argument against eminent domain abuse that didn’t even occur to me. Private projects and developments change all the time. Sometimes they die entirely. Keeping eminent domain confined to an identifiable public need — like a courthouse or school — doesn’t guarantee a project’s completion, but it is certainly more likely than a huge complicated private development.

Imagine if the City of Barstow had used eminent domain to get the land for one of these proposed housing developments that haven’t and maybe won’t come to pass. People forced to move and buildings bulldozed. And then, the developers don’t have enough money or can’t actually complete the project.

That’s something to keep in mind when a municipality defends its eminent domain abuse for economic development projects. There’s absolutely no way of truly knowing whether the project will ever come to fruition.

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Post from: The Editor's Desk

In short, a gentleman named Steve Hatfill was identified (through anonymous government sources) as the man behind the anthrax mailings following the Sept. 11 attacks. He was completely innocent and was never so much as even charged in the case.

A judge has ordered a former USA Today reporter to disclose her sources or else face fines for contempt. News organizations are defending her right to keep the information a secret.

The media, in general, does have an ethical right to keep sources a secret in a number of circumstances. In its role as a government watchdog, the media sometimes needs to depend on whistle-blowers providing them information about wrongdoing. Whistle-blowers, of course, may face retribution for revealing inappropriate activity and the media has the ability to reduce the risks by providing secrecy. The government, with its ability to create laws, has a tendency to abuse this authority to protect itself.

However, obviously some people in the media have forgotten exactly why it is we protect sources. In this case, the media is trying to protect the identity of government agents who, either out of incompetence or maliciousness, damaged the reputation of an innocent person. This entire case turns the whole point of protecting sources on its head. We’re supposed to be protecting the innocent from the government, not the other way around.

To me, as an editor, the larger question is, why on earth would a newspaper allow government officials to anonymously name a suspect in a crime in the first place? The legal and ethical risks are obviously high, as we’re seeing here with Hatfill proving to be completely innocent. If a reporter came to me and said we were given the name of a suspect in a crime but couldn’t reveal the source, I absolutely wouldn’t allow the name to be printed. If law enforcement officials don’t have the confidence to publicly state their suspicions, it’s completely irresponsible for a newspaper to risk its own reputation by putting the name out there. Why is it that I can immediately see this problem, but the larger media companies cannot?

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Balko’s own blog is here, if you’re interested in following these issues. I got more interesting responses from my SWAT editorial than I expected. I’m just horrible at predicting people’s responses to the things I write about.

Oh, and I’m not promoting Balko’s blog simply because he recently complimented my SWAT editorial in it. I had totally planned to mention him a week ago here in my blog. Totally. Really.

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My family isn’t directly involved in city politics, so I was fairly confident they wouldn’t have been there. However, my dad is involved with the Lion’s Club there and knows many of the community leaders. He is acquainted with some of these people who were shot, and even knew more about the shooter than the AP report indicated at the time. He filled me in on the man’s history when I called him at home to make sure they were all okay.

Fortunately, my family is safe. For that moment, and for the first time in my life, I felt what it must be like for anybody out there who hears a report of a tragedy on the news and not know whether or not it has affected their loved ones.

Post from: The Editor's Desk