It’s beginning to look like the Republicans have absolutely no intention of holding hearings or ever letting Scalia’s seat go to anyone other than a Scalia clone. I don’t see that Obama has any choice but to name a very high profile, highly regarded nominee for the Supreme Court seat, so it will be difficult to filibuster the selection. The only person who fits that bill is Vice President Joe Biden. Biden spent 36 years in the U.S. Senate and was first elected at age 30. For eight of those years, he was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and for two years, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He may still have a few friends on the other side of the aisle and, best of all, in case of a tie in the Senate, he could cast the tie-breaker for himself.
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There was a very interesting column in today’s Washington Post by Chris Cillizza who did the numbers on the Trump race for the Republican nomination, and the conclusion is that he’s on track to take it. Trump is consistently getting 30-plus percent of the Republican vote, which, if it continues — and there is no evidence that it’s abating — he’s probably the nominee, unless all the others can get behind one other candidate or, alternatively, if Trump decides to give it up and run for Pope instead.
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This past week we hosted the 26th annual Dolphin Awards to a packed house at the Malibu West Beach Club, which has to be one of the more glorious venues in Malibu. We as a city have been blessed with many people who give their time, their money and their energy to help others. In a world that seems to daily become more selfish, the community of Malibu is truly a wonderful exception.
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There is an enormous battle brewing between U.S. government agencies and Apple over the encryption on phones. Apparently, according to the FBI, they are unable to get into the iPhone owned by the San Bernardino shooters, and they want Apple to write a program that gives them access to get around the encryption.
I’m not sure what upsets me more: On one hand, there is the loss of privacy if any government agency can get into anyone’s phone via a back door. Yet, the reality is that there are a lot of people out there who really want to kill us just because we’re us, and we have to be able to track them. I consider myself a civil Libertarian, but I think I could live with some additional limitations on privacy, not because I like it, but because we don’t seem to have much choice.
What really scares me is that the FBI appears to not have the technical capacity to unlock that phone, which, if it’s true, means we need some serious revamping of the agency for the modern era. The techy geeks are perhaps at the National Security Agency (NSA), and I don’t understand why the FBI can’t call on them for help. Or maybe it’s true — the various security agencies don’t trust each other and refuse to call on each other for help. Another hypothesis is that the FBI can break it open, but it wants to use the issue to get authority to expand its surveillance powers. It’s all very legally complicated, especially because of the all the national security impacts.
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The California Coastal Commission (CCC) battle appears to be over for now, and everyone is just licking their wounds and sulking a bit. Some enviro-driven legislators threw a bill into the Assembly hopper, kind of a “get back at the CCC” piece of proposed legislation for dissing the environmental community, but I suspect it’s going no place. Perhaps after everything dies down, the legislature will begin to take a look at the CCC — after all, it’s been 40 years and maybe it’s time for another look. One of things about our government is that we are great at solving problems by passing legislation and then moving on without ever looking back to see if what we did is working or is what we intended.
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Locally, Malibu is 25 years old, with an anniversary and a big party coming up in March. As you would expect, we’re beginning to get some turnover: some retirements, City Manager Jim Thorsen is leaving after 10 years and Building Official Vic Peterson just left after 20 years. The city, I understand, is doing a search for replacements. Assistant City Manager Reva Feldman, with 11 years at the city, has thrown her hat into the ring for the city manager job and Deputy Building Official Craig George, with 20 years at the city, for the Building Official position.