M.T.A.'s Lack Of Leadership Delays 2nd Ave. Subway Yet Again

As of late much of the blame for the M.T.A.'s woes have been directed at the State Senate, and rightly so. However, when it comes to the completion of the Second Avenue subway line the fingers are being pointed squarely in the direction of the transit authority's management. It appears that division that oversees capital projects can't get their act together on a subway line that was originally planned for eighty years ago.

From The NY Daily News:

The MTA, which has pushed back the completion date several times over the last decade, recently predicted additional construction and design delays totaling 18 months, an internal document drafted in February reveals.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's handling of some aspects of its major construction projects has frustrated the Federal Transit Administration, The News has learned.

After extending the Second Ave. subway schedule in March 2008, citing higher than anticipated construction costs, the MTA was required to give the feds a recovery plan with options to make up some lost time and fill budget gaps.

The feds have "provided the MTA with a time period that is more than reasonable" regional administrator Brigid Hynes-Cherin wrote to the MTA in November. "Unfortunately, the MTA appears to have been caught up in a never-ending process of evaluating and reevaluating each program. The time for evaluation has taken far too long, and the time for presenting a recovery plan is now long overdue."

Supposedly this plan will be done in a couple weeks, but who knows if it will be comprehensive or meet the federal government's standards. The only thing about this project the authority has been good at is to promote the T line, though their ads about the first segment being done in 2015 have not-unexpectantly disappeared.

It really is sad to see that in the preeminent city in the United States, it takes a century (probably more though) to build a subway line, where in other countries entire systems are completed within a few years and with much higher quality.

Obama Calls For Fiscal Discipline In Weekly Address

Two trillion in deficit reductions, overhauling the government to eliminate wasteful spending, that is what the President is calling for and he is ready to make it happen. Republicans can cry all they want about smart, stimulating spending for our nation's infrastructure. Let's see them complain about cutting the bloated government waste and inefficiency they helped grow when they were in power.

Bloomberg Mocks FOIA Request For Term Limit Extension Emails

In an open and transparent democracy, it is the representatives of the people who are beholden to those that elect them. For Mayor Bloomberg though, he does not believe that principle applies to himself. Going around the backs of New Yorkers who voted for term limits, he had the city council reverse the will of the people and extend term limits so that he and other two-termers could run for another four years.

What the Mayor engineered was an outrage to say the least. In response, at least one person at the NY Times (not to mention outside groups) file a Freedom of Information request to see how it all went down. Sadly though, in the same spirit that Bloomberg spit on the will of the voters who enacted term limits, he did the same to that request for information.

From The NY Times:

“Many thanks.”

In the middle of the pitched battle over Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to re-engineer the city’s term-limits laws, those are the only two words that the first deputy mayor, Patricia E. Harris, wrote about the topic.

Or at least those are the only two words that City Hall will allow the public to see.

On Friday, six months after The New York Times requested copies of all e-mail messages about term limits sent or received by six top aides to the mayor under the Freedom of Information Act, the Bloomberg administration released 66 pages of correspondence. (Also available as PDF.)

Much of what the city released amounted to fan mail for the mayor, from businesspeople, friends of his aides or ordinary citizens.

There was absolutely nothing in there that had any of what the principle architects of this political maneuver had written to each other. Nothing about the logistics and nothing about anything of importance was included. Of course, the information is there, somewhere. Bloomberg and his aides however, do not respect the public enough to let them see what or how things went down. Instead, their fear of the public keeps them from disseminating the information that would expose them for the power-hungry politicos that they are.

David Gregory Covers For Bush On Torture, Forgets The Facts In The Process

We know David Gregory hates bloggers. We know he likes to throw soft ball questions for guests that deserve to tell the American people the truth. So I'm still looking for qualities of a credible journalist within the man who's feet are far too small for Tim Russert's shoes. To add insult to injury, as yet another media hack, he is happy to provide a platform for right-wing liars to stand on when it comes to torture and ex-President Bush.

From RawStory:

In a puzzling remark that seems to demonstrate the extent to which the mainstream media tries to "balance" discussions of controversial issues, NBC's David Gregory suggested Thursday that the Bush Administration issued memorandums outlining the torture of detainees out of great respect for the law.

"...Did the Bush administration go out of its way to make sure they were adhering to the law and not crossing over that bridge when it came to getting into torture?" he asked rhetorically.

"At a time when the administration and the President will already be under scrutiny for being tough enough, is this a fight they really want to have?" he remarked earlier. "I would also point you to, if you haven't see this already, the Wall Street Journal editorial page today, which I think raises some really tough points about not only what signal you're sending to the rest of the world, but also to potential terrorists out there, about just what it is that U.S. interrogators would do and not do."

Why he reads the editorial pages of the Journal, I don't know. It would be like turning on Rush Limbaugh and Hannity simultaneously for unbiased news coverage. Gregory reads the wingnut talking points as if it were some sort of truth, when all Bush's people are trying to do is make excuses for breaking the law. Perhaps Gregory should start by reading the reports coming out of the Senate and the Red Cross if he wanted to learn how to expel truth instead of spin for the Republican party.

DNC Rubs NY-20 Victory In Michael Steele's Face

When you win, like the way Scott Murphy won the 20th district in New York; the Democratic National Committee can put ads like this one out to show just how badly the Republicans blew the special election between Tedisco and Murphy.

Oysters Good To Eat, Good For The Environment

Not to sound like a sponsored post (because it isn't) but being the tail end of Earth Day-Week, I thought to reiterate what CNN was saying about how great oysters are. Not only are they great to eat, but when you farm them instead of just overfishing their natural habitat, they work as filters for pollution in the river. The cable news network highlighted a fisherman by the name of Tommy Leggett from the Chesapeake Bay who does exactly that.

From CNN:

"I've been a waterman for over 20 years," he says.

The difference now is Leggett doesn't fish anymore. He's an eco-conscious farmer and advocate who works on his sustainable oyster farm in the James River. He uses the term "aquaculture" to describe what he's doing here. "It refers to the husbandry, or farming, of aquatic species."

Leggett sells the oysters he harvests to local restaurants, growing about 100,000 a year as a part-time business.

He makes sure he always has a product to replace the ones that he sells. He shares his expertise with other watermen, educating them about oyster aquaculture and the importance of sustainability.

Leggett also sells his fresh products to the area market. "Customers want to know if the oysters they are buying are local, which means they're fresher and taste better."

It's a winning situation all around. Restaurants get the best product, Leggett is able to farm the river with consistency and the ecosystem improves from the restoration of oysters in the river. While this may be a success story in Virginia, it is also happening here in New York City. Restoration projects are under way, and who knows, one day the water in the harbor may once again be considered safe as it was 400 years ago.

Tedisco Might Call It Quits Today

As much as some election lawyers would like the special election between Tedisco and Murphy to go on forever, the fact is the 20th district needs a Congressman fighting for them down in D.C. The election was nearly a month ago but the counting has continued. At first the two candidates were close, one ahead of the other and then behind depending on which counties had recanvassed. Yet as the absentee ballots were counted, it became clear that Murphy was winning a majority of them. With less than a thousand to go and Murphy up by 400, the end of the road is becoming increasingly clear for the candidate that was supposed to win this race in a landslide.

From Capital News 9:

A finish line could be in sight in the race for the 20th Congressional District. With the numbers not looking good for Republican Jim Tedisco, sources tell Capital News 9 that Tedisco could concede to Democrat Scott Murphy as soon as Friday afternoon.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Election Board workers open up ballots. Lawyers look for invalid marks that could void the vote. Commissioners from as far away as Essex and Delaware County are here as the campaigns review about 200 challenged ballots. "We will see what the numbers are. We have been charged with opening the valid ballots and that is what we are doing, opening the valid ballots," said James Walsh, Tedisco Campaign Lawyer.

The valid ballots are mostly opened and with so few left and Murphy's lead bigger than ever, Tedisco would need to win three out of every four from now on to come back. The Republican has reportedly lost all hope yesterday and for some odd reason is waiting for the the judge to rule on residency requirements for voters (supposedly for future races) even though he isn't even an official resident of the district either.

Here's to the end of the line of this saga and the beginning of Murphy's term as Congressman of the 20th district!

Col. Rick Reyes Tells Congress Why We Should Leave Afghanistan

It is one thing for pundits and politicians to argue for and against about our presence in Afghanistan. It is quite another to hear how a soldier speaks from his experience on the ground in the war-torn country and how he came to believe that our military mission was not the answer to the Afghani people's problems.

Even Boehner Admits Bush Administration Tortured

While John Boehner came out to trash the Obama Administration for disclosing the Bush memos outlining how authorities should torture alleged terrorists, he let his personal views on the "techniques" slip. Being a member of the GOP, most of his statements today were seriously misguided and harmful to having an open government in our country. Nevertheless, at least he affirmed that what Bush and his cronies did was torture.

From The Huffington Post:

While cable news outlets and major newspapers continue to use euphemisms such as "harsh interrogation tactics" to describe the Bush administration's approach to intelligence gathering, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) used a more succinct term Thursday: "torture."

"Last week, they released these memos outlining torture techniques. That was clearly a political decision and ignored the advice of their Director of National Intelligence and their CIA director," Boehner said at a press conference in the Capitol.

Of course the press on hand had to follow up and Boehner's spokesman tried to walk back the comments:

Regarding the Boehner's use of the T-word, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel writes, "It is clear from the context that Boehner was simply using liberals' verbiage to describe these interrogation techniques. The United States does not torture.

Nice try Michael. Someone in a position like Boehner's should know the difference between the truth and a GOP talking point. Perhaps it was a subconscious slip but at least it was evidence that Boehner could tell at least one truth among the empty partisan rhetoric that came out of his mouth today.

Advocates For The Homeless Point Out Bloomberg's Disastrous Policies

Bloomberg claims on his campaign website he wants to use his "honest, independent leadership" to keep New York moving. There should be an asterisk next to that statement, so that it honestly leaves out help for the homeless. While the Mayor has no problem getting behind the ethically challenged (and very rich) car czar Steven Ratner, getting behind programs that give the homeless a leg up is something he cannot be bothered with.

From The NY Times:

The Bloomberg administration’s four-year-old policy of denying federal housing vouchers to the homeless has helped push the number of families in New York City shelters to record levels, an advocacy group for the homeless said in a report released on Wednesday.

The group, the Coalition for the Homeless, which is frequently at odds with the Bloomberg administration, predicted that the city’s policy, coupled with the economic recession, would worsen homelessness significantly in the coming months.

“We felt that it was a mistake in policy four years ago when they did it, and it’s even more mistaken now, given the recession and the rising numbers of homeless families,” said Patrick Markee, a senior policy analyst with the coalition.

According to data analyzed by the coalition, the economic downturn helped drive nearly 110,000 people into city shelters in 2008.

Tell me how exactly is that leadership that New York wants to see continued? The Mayor on the other hand tries to point out that the homeless rolls are decreasing. Why the discrepancy you ask? Well, I guess it matters how exactly one goes about counting the thousands of New Yorkers who can't afford a place to live anymore.

Bush Catches Rove Lying About "Benefits" Of Torture

It may not have been on purpose but even the ex-President can disprove the pathological liar that is Karl Rove.

From DailyKos:

Over the past couple of days, Karl Rove and Fox News have offered a new argument in defense of the Bush administration’s torture policies.

Now, they say, waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) yielded intelligence that led to the disruption of an al Qaeda plot to attack the tallest building in Los Angeles, the Library Tower (which both Bush and Rove called the Liberty Tower, for some reason). There’s just one problem with Rove’s new story: it couldn’t possibly be true.

As Timothy Noah pointed out in Slate, the Los Angeles attack was foiled in February of 2002. KSM was not captured until March of 2003, however — more than a year later.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that timeline is impossible. Perhaps appropriately, then, here’s a video of George W. Bush — in his own words — proving that Karl Rove and Fox News are lying about torture:

I know, Karl Rove, blatant lying about the Bush White House, who da thunk?

Brooklyn Paper Makes Excuses For Superfund Cleanup Of Gowanus

I know the buyout of the Brooklyn Paper to NewsCorp was bad news, but for them to subtly side with the city over whether the EPA should come in and make Gowanus a Superfund site is just a little too unseemly. Although they do not specifically advocate for letting the city do what it wants (letting Toll Bros. develop 460 condo units and a not-so-thorough cleanup of the canal), reading between the lines in the "City could be holding bag for feds’ Gowanus clean-up" article isn't too hard to do.

From The Brooklyn Paper:

Despite its name, the Superfund is not a pool of money that federal officials tap into for environmental remediation. In fact, one goal of Superfund designation is to identify guilty polluters and get them to pay to clean up toxic sites.

But there is a long history of towns and municipalities being forced by the EPA to open up their checkbooks to pay for decontaminating polluted land. In February, for example, the upstate cities of Poughkeepsie and Newburgh were held responsible for hazardous material on a car and metal processing plant, and had to cough up $12 million.

Well since the city has pretty much neglected any kind of cleaning of the canal for decades, the city does share some of the blame here. Just because there is some concern now that developers show interest in the area doesn't mean NYC has made a good-faith effort on its own.

Cleaning up the Gowanus, with its dioxins, PCBs, coal tar — and, more important, tens of millions of gallons of raw sewage that spills into it on rainy days — would be considerably more expensive.

The EPA says local governments are usually minor defendants in their suits, but industrial companies have sought big bucks from cities to defray the costs they have to pay to the EPA. In a case from 1989, companies joined together to sue 29 California cities for $500 million as part of a Superfund battle.

The EPA says it does not yet know who would be targeted if the Gowanus Canal is added to the national priority list of Superfund sites, a controversial proposal first floated earlier this month.

Amid this new debate, a clearer picture began to emerge this week about why Gov. Paterson secretly appealed in December for federal assistance with the cleanup of Brooklyn’s infamous channel. It turns out, state officials now believe that their highly touted efforts are neither adequate to clean the area, nor powerful enough to identify parties responsible for the pollution.

Of course it is expensive! Good for Paterson for realizing what a serious job this for enlisting help from the Feds. Whoever they find liable for the damage to the area should pay for it, from the oil and chemical companies to the City of New York. Putting the area back together again should be concern #1, not giving into the Toll Brothers who do not want the stigma of a Superfund site attached to the area. The Gowanus is already toxic, the label from the feds won't change that. If anything, long-term rehab of the canal will improve lives and any living conditions that eventually take place there.

Some environmentalists say the Superfund designation is the only way to get a comprehensive clean-up of the so-called Lavender Lake. But other do-greeners point out that remediation can take decades, cost far more than anticipated, and not always work.

"Some environmentalists" links to another Brooklyn Paper article that highlights three toxic cleanup projects in New Yorkthat took years and millions upon millions of dollars to undertake. What do they expect, that the EPA can just go to an area that was polluted for decades with a magic vacuum cleaner that will suck up all the bad chemicals? Developers might like the sound of that, but it doesn't work that way in the reality-based world. The awful truth of the matter is that Gowanus is a filthy canal that needs a serious rehabilitation that will take years if not longer. Putting the wishes of developers and the politicians that love them ahead of the safety of the area is simply unacceptable.