[EEnews] After years of planning by city officials, New Yorkers got a close-up glimpse of the trade-offs inherent in the fight against climate change when crews this month began cutting down the first of a thousand trees targeted for removal in John V. Lindsay East River Park.
Since the chain saws arrived two weeks ago, workers have moved quickly to get rid of more than 70 species of mature trees at the popular 46-acre park on the Lower East Side, including 419 oaks, 284 London planes, 89 honey locusts and 81 cherry trees; along with eventually demolishing a running track, ball fields, lawns, picnic areas, an amphitheater and a composting center...
The park overhaul, spurred by the destruction of Superstorm Sandy in lower Manhattan nearly a decade ago, is all part of a $1.45 billion flood protection project that backers say befits the nation's largest city, a massive project that will include the construction of a 2.4-mile system of walls and gates along the East River.
We did something like that in Cincinnati a decade ago. Riverfront Park was built as a series of terraces that accommodate seasonal flooding, containing gardens, playgrounds, open air performance spaces, and an underground parking garage. We love it as much as New Yorkers love their Central Park.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/27/2021 00:00 ||
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one person who benefited was a NYC employee in charge of the program who got a cushy job in the Biden Admin
obviously a lot of contractors, a lot of trade unions, etc. will benefit
the people living behind the storm walls will benefit someday when the walls prevent flooding
eventually, the new part will be years and it will be a mess during construction and in the meantime the park will be unusable by the public
the existing park is somewhat archaic by modern standards and IMO it should be improved but the price tag seems more than an order of magnitude too high - Flood walls shouldn't cost more than $15M.
Terracing the park shouldn't cost more than $100k-$200k per acre. Putting modern benches and play areas would be another $50k per acre at the most.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/27/2021 13:28 Comments ||
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the people living behind the storm walls will benefit someday when the walls prevent flooding
[WASHINGTONTIMES] The Public Interest Legal Foundation went to Pennsylvania with a list of tens of thousands of people who were likely dead, but still on the state’s voter rolls in the weeks before the 2020 election.
The state was totally uninterested, according to Christian Adams, the organization’s founder. But once the election was over, Mr. Adams says, the state changed its tune.
It went into mediation with PILF, agreed to look into the list and even agreed to a settlement paying some of the group’s lawyers’ fees.
The kicker, though, was that Pennsylvania prosecutors even brought charges against a man who, according to PILF’s data, had registered his dead wife to vote, then requested her ballot in the 2020 election.
"All of the sudden they’re happy to settle, and to clean up their rolls," Mr. Adams told The Washington Times.
He said it’s not a fluke. The aftermath of the 2020 elections have opened new opportunities for election-integrity advocates, who say they’re seeing signs of better cooperation from at least some jurisdictions.
Good.
Last year’s contest exposed what those involved in voter administration have known for years — national elections are not an exact science, but rather an approximation of the will of voters in the weeks surrounding early November.
How close an approximation is still heatedly debated.
But it’s become clear to many that dirty voter rolls, lost or miscounted votes and mishandled ballots are more common than one might have imagined.
The difference in 2020 is that one of the candidates, then-President Trump, argued those usual flaws, combined with more preposterous speculation about machines switching votes and dumping ballots, "stole" the White House.
While the outlandish claims still have traction among some Trump supporters, the more complicated work of cleaning up the very real problems with dead people, noncitizens and other bogus voters remains.
Mr. Adams said his experience with Pennsylvania shows that in some states, the new attention from 2020 has helped.
"A virtual army has arisen of the grass roots, who are not worried about magic voting machines, and recognize the real work of election administration. These people are pressuring states to follow the law and remove dead voters," Mr. Adams said.
[FRONTPAGEMAG] "All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management."
The above caveat about government unions — usually known by the kinder and gentler "public employee unions" — was not issued by the Koch Brothers or Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... . The statement was made by none other than progressive icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Additionally, George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO for 24 years, once stated, "It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government." Both men understood that the very nature of government makes it wrong for its leaders to enter into negotiations with any union. When government unions negotiate, they often sit across the table from people they helped put in office with generous campaign contributions. And when these unions go on strike, they walk out on the taxpayer.
In the private sector, if a business is forced to pay its workers more money, those costs are passed on to the consumer. If the cost of a product is raised too high, the purchaser can choose to go elsewhere. Most unions get this and realize they can’t bargain for excessive salaries and perks. But some unions push things too far and ultimately price their members out of a job. An example of the latter is the United Auto Workers, whose exorbitant demands drove car buyers to Japanese models and automakers to produce cars elsewhere, thus sending bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit ... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang... down the road to ruin.
But the government unions are always a nightmare for consumers, as they can’t shop elsewhere for services provided by the state, because the government has a monopoly on them. When union negotiators and elected officials agree on exorbitant pay packages and protections for cops, prison guards, firemen and teachers, what can the public do? Call a different fire department if their house is burning down?
There is an exception here with schools, but unless there is a parental choice system in place, where public tax money follows the child, only the well-to-do really have a choice. In exercising that option, they must pay twice, however — in state and local taxes which go to their local public school and tuition payments for the private one.
It's worth noting that many government union leaders fully understand the conflict of interest. In 1975, Victor Gotbaum, leader of District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in New York City, bragged, "We have the ability, in a sense, to elect our own boss." Forty-five years later, in 2020, Los Angeles teacher union boss Alex Caputo-Pearl admitted, "We have a unique power — we elect our bosses. It would be difficult to think of workers anywhere else who elect their bosses. We do. We must take advantage of it."
While all government unions do damage, none is more noxious than the teachers unions because their collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) have been a disaster for students and good teachers alike. The unions don’t treat teachers as professionals, but rather as interchangeable widgets, all of whom are of equal value and competence. To differentiate between effective and ineffective educators as a result of what their students actually learn would necessitate doing away with their fossilized, industrial-style work rules like one-size-fits-all salary scales, not to mention tenure, contractually known as "permanence" and seniority — perennial union mainstays. Many studies have borne out the harm of CBAs to America’s children.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2021 00:00 ||
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Public employees have a right of free assembly, free association, and the right of petition. Those are Constitutional rights. They do not have an equal standing to the state. The state is sovereign. If you don't want to work for the state, take your labor elsewhere.
#3
There is an exception here with schools, but unless there is a parental choice system in place, where public tax money follows the child, only the well-to-do really have a choice.
False. Very rarely do parents have a choice to go to a charter or private school and have their tax dollars go with them.
Democrats cite that giving parents a choice will decimate public schools - as if that is a bad thing - never mentioning that $800/month which get routed to a charter school for a student which has moved there is $800 less the school has to pay to educate that student. Or that, of that $800/month only about half is spent on actually educating the student (which they are doing less and less), the other half is spent on the huge overhead, union contracts (which are completely unrelated to actual education) and non-essential staff.
#4
If the public schools are Zoom-bombing the kids instead of teaching face to face, then the only potential reason for any parent not to homeschool her or his kid is financial: the cost of tutoring.
But for many, that cost is looking bearable: 4-5 tutors @ $50/hour i.e. maybe $300 per week , 35+ weeks a year, is doable.
This is the beginning of the financial death spiral of the public schools. Those lazy idiots have only themselves and their greedy bosses to blame.
[PJMEDIA] “Throughout the last three months I have been straightforward about my concerns, that I will not support a reconciliation package that expands social programs and irresponsibly adds to our $29 trillion in national debt that no one seems to really care about,” Manchin said on Nov. 1.
Four days later, Seattle socialist Rep. Pramila Jayapal told her caucus they had taken their petulant protest as far as they could. Biden asked Democrats to trust him on Manchin’s commitment to passing the legislation, and though five Marxist representatives — Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush ...a member of the progressive Squad. Born in St. Louis, Bush represents Missouri's 1st congressional district that includes all of the city of St. Louis and a large part of northern St. Louis County. Cori sez America is Racist AF... , Alexandria Sandy Ocasio-Cortez Dem Congressgirl from da Bronx in Noo Yawk and leader of the Mean Girl Caucus in Congress. One of the Great Minds of the 21st Century, she is known as much for her innaleck as for her dance moves. She is all in favor of socialism, even though she's fuzzy on the details. She was the inventor of the Green New Deal, though she doesn't talk about it much anymore... , Ilhan Omar ...Somali-American Dem representative from Minnesota. She was apparently married to her brother and may be her own grandmaw on her mother's side... , and Rashida Tlaib — disagreed, the legislation passed.
It was a disastrous maneuver by Democrats.
The far-left goons created fake expectations that they would use their leverage on infrastructure to pass all of Build Back Better; needless to add, they failed to deliver.
Her infrastructure bill’s passage also came too late for the ballot box.
Just days earlier, Republican Glenn Youngkin shocked Democrat Terry McAuliffe ...If you constructed what a political boss looks like, it would be him.... in the Virginia gubernatorial election. Democrats from the Commonwealth blame Jayapal and her hard boy colleagues.
"I think congressional Democrats blew the timing," Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine Hillary's running mate in 2016. Remember him? said. "We should’ve passed these bills in early October. If we had, it would’ve helped Terry McAuliffe probably win the governor’s race."
Finally, Jayapal’s agenda and plan was rendered pointless when Manchin told Bret Baier on Fox News last week he won’t support the boondoggle.
The political stunts orchestrated by Jayapal proved again that Democrats are incapable of governing. If the party simply passed infrastructure after the U.S. Senate did earlier this year, they could have avoided the congresswoman’s preposterous charade.
People living in left-wing bubbles like Jayapal don’t care about the overall picture, however, nor do they value colleagues in real districts where elections are not guaranteed.
Jayapal, as expected, has taken zero responsibility for the embarrassment she created; like other socialists, she instead blames Manchin for "betrayal" and also told news hounds he lacks integrity.
This is rather rich coming from a bully who had more than a dozen former staff members recently accuse her of abuse.
And with all those horrors and failures, I congratulate Washington state’s third-term congresswoman on earning the dubious title of biggest loser in 2021.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2021 00:00 ||
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I know that CB's mug is the least repulsive of these five harpies', but it was PJ from WA who won the award. Still, thx for sparing us that ugly reptilian's visage
[DETROITNEWS] The indictment against five men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ...Her Excellency, the dictator of Michigan, 2020 Dem VP contender who never got off the ground... should be dismissed due to "egregious overreaching" by federal agents and informants, defense lawyers wrote in a coordinated attempt to scuttle the high-profile case three months before trial.
Here’s hoping.
According to the filing, FBI ...Formerly one of the world's premier criminal investigation organizations, something for a nation to be proud of. Now it's a political arm of the Deep State oligarchy that is willing to trump up charges, suppress evidence, or take out insurance policies come election time... agents and federal prosecutors capitalized on discontent with Whitmer's handling of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, invented a conspiracy and entrapped five people who face up to life in prison if convicted of kidnapping conspiracy in a case that has shed light on violent mostly peaceful extremism in Michigan.
The 20-page motion, filed Christmas night by all five defense lawyers, asks U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker to dismiss the conspiracy charge. The move would effectively dismantle the government's case and remaining charges, which are intertwined and based on the conspiracy charge, the lawyers wrote.
The request follows a stream of allegations and developments about the government's team involved in the case. That included the convictions of FBI Special Agent Richard Trask, the government's public face of the investigation who was arrested on a domestic violence charge and later fired and convicted of a misdemeanor; and informant Stephen Robeson, who was dropped by the FBI after being caught illegally possessing a sniper rifle.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2021 00:00 ||
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Last I looked, of the 12 or so people involved in the alleged plot, half of them were either Feds or paid informants, including one of the leaders who provided plans, money and hotel reservations.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[EEnews] After years of planning by city officials, New Yorkers got a close-up glimpse of the trade-offs inherent in the fight against climate change when crews this month began cutting down the first of a thousand trees targeted for removal in John V. Lindsay East River Park.
...Oh, noze! Not him!...
...a member of the progressive 
...Formerly one of the world's premier criminal investigation organizations, something for a nation to be proud of. Now it's a political arm of the Deep State oligarchy that is willing to trump up charges, suppress evidence, or take out insurance policies come election time...
