Gordie Howe Bridge (US-Canada)

[hotdogPi]

"Mr. Trump, tear down these barricades!" - Ronald Reagan, probably

Canada is not the Soviet Union.

Canada is not the one being compared to the Soviet Union here.

Don't give the regime in Washington ideas by trying to compare them to the DDR.

The DDR actually had some good progressive ideas, such as gender equality in the workplace, to the point where some women preferred DDR immediately post-reunification. If we could keep those but not borrow the one-party rule or the authoritarianism, maybe it's not such a bad idea?

[74/171FAN]

Please keep the political discussions focused specifically on the Gordie Howe Bridge.  People in Germany and Russia probably have no idea the Gordie Howe Bridge exists.

[Beltway]

Open the damn bridge now! No one should have the right to delay its opening (especially anyone in the White House)!

When Texas had a bridge closed in the 30s and the governor of Oklahoma didn't like it, he showed up on site with a revolver. Miraculously the bridge was opened.
Just sayin'.

A revolver?? Seriously under armed.

[Plutonic Panda]

Another article on delay:

https://www.globalhighways.com/news/us-canada-bridge-delay-howe-much-longer

[Scott5114]

Open the damn bridge now! No one should have the right to delay its opening (especially anyone in the White House)!

When Texas had a bridge closed in the 30s and the governor of Oklahoma didn't like it, he showed up on site with a revolver. Miraculously the bridge was opened.
Just sayin'.

A revolver?? Seriously under armed.

Apparently not—it got the bridge open. (It helped that the state of Oklahoma's boundaries are drawn such that they include both shores of the Red River, and therefore Alfalfa Bill had actual legal authority over both ends of the bridge that Texas had closed.)

[The Ghostbuster]

Surely there are better ways to get a bridge open than that.

[Scott5114]

Surely there are better ways to get a bridge open than that.

Probably, but none of those were Alfalfa Bill's style.

[kalvado]

Open the damn bridge now! No one should have the right to delay its opening (especially anyone in the White House)!

When Texas had a bridge closed in the 30s and the governor of Oklahoma didn't like it, he showed up on site with a revolver. Miraculously the bridge was opened.
Just sayin'.

A revolver?? Seriously under armed.

Canada doesn't have anything resembling the second amendment

[Rothman]

Open the damn bridge now! No one should have the right to delay its opening (especially anyone in the White House)!

When Texas had a bridge closed in the 30s and the governor of Oklahoma didn't like it, he showed up on site with a revolver. Miraculously the bridge was opened.
Just sayin'.

A revolver?? Seriously under armed.

Canada doesn't have anything resembling the second amendment

Fighting fire with fire.

[LilianaUwU]

People in Germany and Russia probably have no idea the Gordie Howe Bridge exists.

I'm asking one of my friends who lives in Germany to see if this statement is true.

[LilianaUwU]

Open the damn bridge now! No one should have the right to delay its opening (especially anyone in the White House)!

When Texas had a bridge closed in the 30s and the governor of Oklahoma didn't like it, he showed up on site with a revolver. Miraculously the bridge was opened.
Just sayin'.

A revolver?? Seriously under armed.

Canada doesn't have anything resembling the second amendment

Tell that to Albertans.

[Beltway]

Open the damn bridge now! No one should have the right to delay its opening (especially anyone in the White House)!

When Texas had a bridge closed in the 30s and the governor of Oklahoma didn't like it, he showed up on site with a revolver. Miraculously the bridge was opened.
Just sayin'.

A revolver?? Seriously under armed.

Apparently not—it got the bridge open. (It helped that the state of Oklahoma's boundaries are drawn such that they include both shores of the Red River, and therefore Alfalfa Bill had actual legal authority over both ends of the bridge that Texas had closed.)

In those days you could buy a Thompson 45 submachine gun in a hardware store without a permit. It was Texas. A revolver would not be wise to pull in that situation.

[Scott5114]

Open the damn bridge now! No one should have the right to delay its opening (especially anyone in the White House)!

When Texas had a bridge closed in the 30s and the governor of Oklahoma didn't like it, he showed up on site with a revolver. Miraculously the bridge was opened.
Just sayin'.

A revolver?? Seriously under armed.

Apparently not—it got the bridge open. (It helped that the state of Oklahoma's boundaries are drawn such that they include both shores of the Red River, and therefore Alfalfa Bill had actual legal authority over both ends of the bridge that Texas had closed.)

In those days you could buy a Thompson 45 submachine gun in a hardware store without a permit. It was Texas. A revolver would not be wise to pull in that situation.

Assassinating a sitting governor of another state would also not be wise, even if he was armed and dangerous. I am guessing that nobody at TxDOT really cared about keeping the bridge closed that much. (It was another situation involving a private toll bridge and a public free bridge; the governor of Oklahoma wanted the free bridge open but Texas courts—which of course had no jurisdiction over Governor Murray—had an injunction on doing so while a suit from the toll bridge owner worked its way through the system.)

[ElishaGOtis]

That totally worked last time right? 

[Beltway]

Open the damn bridge now! No one should have the right to delay its opening (especially anyone in the White House)!

When Texas had a bridge closed in the 30s and the governor of Oklahoma didn't like it, he showed up on site with a revolver. Miraculously the bridge was opened.
Just sayin'.

A revolver?? Seriously under armed.

Apparently not—it got the bridge open. (It helped that the state of Oklahoma's boundaries are drawn such that they include both shores of the Red River, and therefore Alfalfa Bill had actual legal authority over both ends of the bridge that Texas had closed.)

In those days you could buy a Thompson 45 submachine gun in a hardware store without a permit. It was Texas. A revolver would not be wise to pull in that situation.

Assassinating a sitting governor of another state would also not be wise, even if he was armed and dangerous. I am guessing that nobody at TxDOT really cared about keeping the bridge closed that much. (It was another situation involving a private toll bridge and a public free bridge; the governor of Oklahoma wanted the free bridge open but Texas courts—which of course had no jurisdiction over Governor Murray—had an injunction on doing so while a suit from the toll bridge owner worked its way through the system.)

If he brandished the revolver, that alone could trigger a defensive‑force justification under Texas law.

[Scott5114]

Open the damn bridge now! No one should have the right to delay its opening (especially anyone in the White House)!

When Texas had a bridge closed in the 30s and the governor of Oklahoma didn't like it, he showed up on site with a revolver. Miraculously the bridge was opened.
Just sayin'.

A revolver?? Seriously under armed.

Apparently not—it got the bridge open. (It helped that the state of Oklahoma's boundaries are drawn such that they include both shores of the Red River, and therefore Alfalfa Bill had actual legal authority over both ends of the bridge that Texas had closed.)

In those days you could buy a Thompson 45 submachine gun in a hardware store without a permit. It was Texas. A revolver would not be wise to pull in that situation.

Assassinating a sitting governor of another state would also not be wise, even if he was armed and dangerous. I am guessing that nobody at TxDOT really cared about keeping the bridge closed that much. (It was another situation involving a private toll bridge and a public free bridge; the governor of Oklahoma wanted the free bridge open but Texas courts—which of course had no jurisdiction over Governor Murray—had an injunction on doing so while a suit from the toll bridge owner worked its way through the system.)

If he brandished the revolver, that alone could trigger a defensive‑force justification under Texas law.

But he was in Oklahoma all the time (despite crossing the river between Texas and Oklahoma, the entirety of both bridges were in Oklahoma), so Texas law never applied to him. The reason Texas issued an injunction on opening the bridge was because the corporation that operated the bridge was a Texas corporation, and the Texas legislature had specifically enacted legislation to allow that corporation to sue the state of Texas on matters regarding the bridge. My reading of the situation was that Texas was making extrajurisdictional decisions and Governor Murray, rather than doing something like sending a stern letter to Governor Sterling in Austin, decided to point this out in the most provocative way possible.

Complicating matters is that 1) Murray had also declared the bridge to be under martial law (which, of course, anyone familiar with Oklahoma history could pretty much assume that martial law will be declared at some point any time Alfalfa Bill Murray gets involved in anything) and 2) a court in Muskogee, Oklahoma issued its own injunction against opening the bridge, but it apparently arrived in Oklahoma City after Murray had already left to head down to Colbert, and since it was 1931 there was no way to inform him of it. As far as I know the Oklahoma injunction was never actually followed—when Murray left Colbert, both bridges were open and that was how things remained until the court case on the Texas side played out.

[MikeTheActuary]

Assassinating a sitting governor of another state would also not be wise, even if he was armed and dangerous.

However, it would have been an, um, interesting political stunt.

[SSOWorld]

Surely there are better ways to get a bridge open than that.

likely

...

[davewiecking]

Welp. Should've known someone in DC was going to throw a tantrum and stop it from opening. At this point, they'll have to just hold a "soft opening" and not tell anyone at the White House until traffic's already moving.

You can't do a full "soft opening" without help from the Homeland Security department, to among other things supply border agents on the U.S. side. The recently-confirmed DHS secretary, who gave up his U.S. Senate seat for that position, is unlikely to cooperate, whatever his personal views on the bridge.

Mullins indicated it was staffed and ready to go. That may have been a moment of honesty before he remembered to whom he is beholden.

[Sani]

Welp. Should've known someone in DC was going to throw a tantrum and stop it from opening. At this point, they'll have to just hold a "soft opening" and not tell anyone at the White House until traffic's already moving.

You can't do a full "soft opening" without help from the Homeland Security department, to among other things supply border agents on the U.S. side. The recently-confirmed DHS secretary, who gave up his U.S. Senate seat for that position, is unlikely to cooperate, whatever his personal views on the bridge.

Mullins indicated it was staffed and ready to go. That may have been a moment of honesty before he remembered to whom he is beholden.

I get that there's no practical way to do a "soft opening" for something like this. You can't tell thousands of DHS employees to go to work without someone in the chain of command mentioning it to their boss. But boy, it'd be nice to just get the damn thing open and worry about the tantrums of politicians later. It'd be a lot harder to close it once it's open than to keep it closed, I would think.

[vdeane]

You can't tell thousands of DHS employees to go to work without someone in the chain of command mentioning it to their boss.

Thousands?  I never knew an individual port of entry required nearly so many.

[kalvado]

You can't tell thousands of DHS employees to go to work without someone in the chain of command mentioning it to their boss.

Thousands?  I never knew an individual port of entry required nearly so many.

Did you take into account supervisors, second line supervisors, facility manager office, support team, office for regulatort compliance, department of redundancy department, and both actual inspectors?

[MikeTheActuary]

You can't tell thousands of DHS employees to go to work without someone in the chain of command mentioning it to their boss.

Thousands?  I never knew an individual port of entry required nearly so many.

Did you take into account supervisors, second line supervisors, facility manager office, support team, office for regulatort compliance, department of redundancy department, and both actual inspectors?

I think that for a single busy crossing that gets you to maybe "hundreds" rather than "thousands".

That of course depends on the staffing levels at the Department of Redundancy Department.

[PColumbus73]

Real question: How many people would be needed to staff the Gordie Howe?

[kphoger]

Real question: How many people would be needed to staff the Gordie Howe?

Changing one letter of a thread post

Real question: How many people would be needed to stuff the Gordie Howe?