Tuesday, January 30, 2018
LEGENDS IN THEIR OWN MINDS ...
Hamas founder dies after 'accidentally' shooting himself ... Hamas 'founding father' responsible for alliance with Iran dies weeks after 'accidental' self-inflicted gunshot wound (to the back of his head)!
A senior member of the Hamas terrorist organization has died, a Hamas spokesman said Tuesday, three weeks after he suffered what the terror organization claimed was an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound in the head.
On January 9th, Fawzy Barhoum, spokesman for the Gaza-based Islamist terror group, said that Imad al-Alami, one of the movement’s most senior officials, was critically wounded when his personal firearm accidentally discharged.
Al-Alami, 61, was "inspecting his personal weapon in his home and is in critical condition,” Barhoum said at the time.
The Hamas leader was rushed to a Gaza City hospital.
On Tuesday, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem reported that Al-Alami had succumbed to his wounds, dying in Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.
In recent years, al-Alami operated out of Turkey, where he received medical treatment.
A founding father of the Hamas terror group, al-Alami returned to the Gaza Strip in 2012, where he previously served as deputy chief of Hamas’ Political Bureau, and once chaired its “Intifada Committee”.
In November, 2016, al-Alami was reportedly selected as Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh’s designated successor.
The shooting incident fueled a variety of conspiracy theories within the Palestinian Authority, ranging from claims al-Alami was assassinated, to suggestions he may have committed suicide following years of serious health problems.
A senior member of the Hamas terrorist organization has died, a Hamas spokesman said Tuesday, three weeks after he suffered what the terror organization claimed was an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound in the head.
On January 9th, Fawzy Barhoum, spokesman for the Gaza-based Islamist terror group, said that Imad al-Alami, one of the movement’s most senior officials, was critically wounded when his personal firearm accidentally discharged.
Al-Alami, 61, was "inspecting his personal weapon in his home and is in critical condition,” Barhoum said at the time.
The Hamas leader was rushed to a Gaza City hospital.
On Tuesday, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem reported that Al-Alami had succumbed to his wounds, dying in Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.
Outlawed by the US in 2003 for his position in Hamas, al-Alami was considered one of the Gaza terror group’s most important assets, due to his extensive ties with the Iranian government – a major sponsor of Hamas – and his personal relationship with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, himself a client of the Tehran regime.
 |
| I'M SEARCHING THE DEPTHS OF MY REGRET TO HOPEFULLY FIND THE RIGHT WORDS TO EXPRESS MY FEELING THAT AL-ALAMI HAS BEEN REWARDED WITH HIS 72 VIRGINS ... "NOW THERE'S A STIFF THAT DOESN'T NEED VIAGRA." |
A founding father of the Hamas terror group, al-Alami returned to the Gaza Strip in 2012, where he previously served as deputy chief of Hamas’ Political Bureau, and once chaired its “Intifada Committee”.
In November, 2016, al-Alami was reportedly selected as Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh’s designated successor.
The shooting incident fueled a variety of conspiracy theories within the Palestinian Authority, ranging from claims al-Alami was assassinated, to suggestions he may have committed suicide following years of serious health problems.
In 2014, al-Alami’s residence was hit during the conflict between Hamas and Israel, leading to the amputation of one of his legs. He has received numerous treatments in Turkey for injuries resulting from the bombing.
Friday, January 26, 2018
Sunday, January 21, 2018
CALIFORNICATION ... WELL THAT SUMS UP THE STATE A MARGINAL PLACE TO LIVE
GO WEST YOUNG MAN GO WEST ... DUH ... California to register illegal aliens to vote – automatically
Court orders government to do so for all driver's licenses issued
WASHINGTON – California will take the next step in (BECOMING A SHITHOLE OF A STATE) blurring the lines between citizens and non-citizens beginning April Fool’s Day when the state complies with a court order to begin automatically registering to vote all those who are granted driver’s licenses.
The state has long provided driver’s licenses to all who simply claimed, without proof, that they were citizens of in the country legally. There were no checks made or documentation required.
But beginning April 1 every person who gets a California driver’s license will be automatically entitled to vote.
ASSHOLES COME IN EVERY SHAPE AND SIZE ... AND THEY GET ELECTED!
“We are very pleased that Californians will have easier access to voter registration,” said Jeremiah Levine, an attorney with Morrison Foerster who represented the voting-rights groups. “We are especially satisfied that changes will be made before California’s statewide and federal primary elections.”
The state complied with the order under a program dubbed the California New Motor Voter Act. Signed into law in October 2015, the new statute requires the DMV to forward records for all eligible applicants to the Secretary of State’s Office for registration unless those applicants elect not to register to vote.
The League of Women Voters and three other groups sued the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and Secretary of State’s Office in May 2017, claiming the state burdens would-be voters by making them fill out the same information on two separate forms to register to vote.
According to the lawsuit filed last May, California ranks “a dismal 46th in the nation” in its rate of registered voters. More than 5.5 million eligible voters were unregistered as of February 2017, according to state data.
Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the ACCE Institute, California Common Cause and the National Council of La Raza.
California Has Highest Rate Of Poverty In The Nation, According To U.S. Census Bureau
An alternative method of looking at poverty has found that California has the highest rate of impoverished people in the nation, according to figures released Wednesday by the U.S. government.
While more than a dozen states had a larger share of poor people than California did under the official rate, the alternate rate put California at the top of the list, followed by the District of Columbia. Under the official rate, California was tied for 14th place, with Louisiana topping the list, followed by Mississippi.
In addition to housing, the alternate measure also considers expenses for work, medical, clothing and utilities. It also factors in noncash government benefits such as those provided by nutrition assistance programs as well as housing and energy assistance.
Nationwide, the alternate measure found that the poverty rate was 16 percent in 2012, up from the official rate of 15 percent. While that may not be a dramatic increase, certain demographic groups were significantly affected. Under the official rate, about 22 percent of children under 18 in the U.S. are living in poverty, while the alternate measure found that 18 percent are impoverished.
Using the alternate measure, the U.S. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found Wednesday that safety net programs cut poverty nearly in half in 2012.
Under that measure, about 22 percent of California residents were living in poor families in 2011, compared to the official poverty rate of 16 percent.
Poverty has been tracked since the 1960s to help distribute government resources and determine eligibility for programs like school lunches and food stamps, she said. But it’s also useful to know whether parts of the population are not able to make ends meet, she said.
“The official poverty statistics do the first well but they don’t do the second very well and so, that’s what our measures are designed to do, provide us a better sense of the material well-being, the ability economically of a family to have a budget that stretches to meet their basic needs month to month,” she said.
That’s valuable information for policymakers to determine how effective is the nation’s safety net and where perhaps it could be strengthened, she said.
Court orders government to do so for all driver's licenses issued
WASHINGTON – California will take the next step in (BECOMING A SHITHOLE OF A STATE) blurring the lines between citizens and non-citizens beginning April Fool’s Day when the state complies with a court order to begin automatically registering to vote all those who are granted driver’s licenses.
 |
| PELOSI IS READY TO TELL EVERYONE ELSE HOW TO LIVE BUT LOOK AT THE STATE THAT SHE REPRESENTS! |
ASSHOLES COME IN EVERY SHAPE AND SIZE ... AND THEY GET ELECTED!
“We are very pleased that Californians will have easier access to voter registration,” said Jeremiah Levine, an attorney with Morrison Foerster who represented the voting-rights groups. “We are especially satisfied that changes will be made before California’s statewide and federal primary elections.”
The state complied with the order under a program dubbed the California New Motor Voter Act. Signed into law in October 2015, the new statute requires the DMV to forward records for all eligible applicants to the Secretary of State’s Office for registration unless those applicants elect not to register to vote.
The League of Women Voters and three other groups sued the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and Secretary of State’s Office in May 2017, claiming the state burdens would-be voters by making them fill out the same information on two separate forms to register to vote.
According to the lawsuit filed last May, California ranks “a dismal 46th in the nation” in its rate of registered voters. More than 5.5 million eligible voters were unregistered as of February 2017, according to state data.
Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the ACCE Institute, California Common Cause and the National Council of La Raza.
California Has Highest Rate Of Poverty In The Nation, According To U.S. Census Bureau
An alternative method of looking at poverty has found that California has the highest rate of impoverished people in the nation, according to figures released Wednesday by the U.S. government.
- The alternate calculation, which factors in taxes, noncash benefits and day-to-day costs such as child care, means that California has nearly 2.8 million more poor people than the official poverty rate shows, with nearly one in four state residents being considered poor.
- The official rate released by the U.S. Census Bureau in September determined that California had some 6.2 million poor people when using a three-year average that ended in 2012. However, the bureau’s alternate or supplemental poverty measure, which takes into account more factors like cost of living and public benefits, found the Golden State had nearly 9 million people living in poverty in the same period.
While more than a dozen states had a larger share of poor people than California did under the official rate, the alternate rate put California at the top of the list, followed by the District of Columbia. Under the official rate, California was tied for 14th place, with Louisiana topping the list, followed by Mississippi.
“It increases California’s poverty rate by a fairly substantial amount, from 16.5 percent to 23.8 percent,” said Jonathan Buttle, a research program specialist with the California Department of Finance. “It simply presents an alternative snapshot to the official number.”Not only do Californians pay one of the highest median rents in the country, the state also has a high proportion of people who are renting or own homes with mortgages, which is accounted for in the alternate measure but not in the official measure, said Kathleen Short, a U.S. Census Bureau economist.
In addition to housing, the alternate measure also considers expenses for work, medical, clothing and utilities. It also factors in noncash government benefits such as those provided by nutrition assistance programs as well as housing and energy assistance.
Nationwide, the alternate measure found that the poverty rate was 16 percent in 2012, up from the official rate of 15 percent. While that may not be a dramatic increase, certain demographic groups were significantly affected. Under the official rate, about 22 percent of children under 18 in the U.S. are living in poverty, while the alternate measure found that 18 percent are impoverished.
That’s because many of the benefits that exist are targeted to families with children, such as school lunch programs and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program — and those are not considered in the official poverty calculation because they are not cash benefits, Short said.In fact, the main purpose of the alternate measure, is “to include many of the benefits that are available now to meet the needs of low-income families that weren’t as important or even a part of the anti-poverty programs in the 1960s, when the official measure was designed,” Short said.
Using the alternate measure, the U.S. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found Wednesday that safety net programs cut poverty nearly in half in 2012.
But for seniors 65 years and older, the poverty rate jumped from 9 percent to 15 percent under the alternate measure. That’s largely because the alternate rate considers out of pocket medical expenses, which are quite high for seniors, Short said.The U.S. Census Bureau isn’t the only agency to have created a new way to measure poverty. In October, the Public Policy Institute of California and the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality released the “California Poverty Measure: A New Look at the Social Safety Net,” which is “very similar in spirit” to the Census Bureau’s supplemental poverty measure, said Caroline Danielson, a co-author of the report and a research fellow at the institute. While the California Poverty Measure also accounts for regional variation in the cost of living and the impact of social programs, it uses a much larger sample and uses one year instead of three years of data, Danielson said.
Under that measure, about 22 percent of California residents were living in poor families in 2011, compared to the official poverty rate of 16 percent.
Poverty has been tracked since the 1960s to help distribute government resources and determine eligibility for programs like school lunches and food stamps, she said. But it’s also useful to know whether parts of the population are not able to make ends meet, she said.
“The official poverty statistics do the first well but they don’t do the second very well and so, that’s what our measures are designed to do, provide us a better sense of the material well-being, the ability economically of a family to have a budget that stretches to meet their basic needs month to month,” she said.
That’s valuable information for policymakers to determine how effective is the nation’s safety net and where perhaps it could be strengthened, she said.
WELL ... FISA SECTION 702 SHOULD BE ALL THAT'S NEEDED TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM
More texts turned over from FBI agent taken off Mueller team
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has turned over to Congress additional text messages involving an FBI agent who was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigative team following the discovery of derogatory comments about President Donald Trump.
The FBI declined to comment Sunday.
Strzok, a veteran counterintelligence agent who also worked the Clinton email case, was reassigned last summer from the team investigating ties between Russia and Trump's Republican presidential campaign after Mueller learned he had exchanged politically charged text messages — many anti-Trump in nature — with an FBI lawyer also detailed to the group. The lawyer, Lisa Page, left Mueller's team before the text messages were discovered.
The Justice Department last month produced for reporters and Congress hundreds of text messages that the two had traded before becoming part of the Mueller investigation. Many focused on their observations of the 2016 election and included discussions in often colorful language of their personal feelings about Trump, Clinton and other public figures. Some Republican lawmakers have contended the communication reveals the FBI and the Mueller team to be politically tainted and biased against Trump — assertions Wray has flatly rejected.
In addition to the communications already made public, the Justice Department on Friday provided Johnson's committee with 384 pages of text messages, according to a letter from the Wisconsin lawmaker that was obtained by The Associated Press.
But, according to the letter, the FBI told the department that its system for retaining text messages sent and received on bureau phones had failed to preserve communications between Strzok and Page over a five-month period between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017. May 17 was the date that Mueller was appointed as special counsel to oversee the Russia investigation.
The explanation for the gap was "misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI's collection capabilities."
In Johnson's letter to Wray, he asks whether the FBI has any records of communications between Strzok and Page during that five-month window and whether the FBI had searched their non-FBI phones for additional messages. He also asks for the "scope and scale" of any other records from the Clinton investigation that have been lost.
One of the messages references a change in language to Comey's statement closing out the email case involving Clinton, Trump's Democratic opponent in the 2016 presidential election. While an earlier draft of the statement said Clinton and President Barack Obama had an email exchange while Clinton was "on the territory" of a hostile adversary, the reference to Obama was at first changed to "senior government official" and then omitted entirely in the final version.
In another exchange, the two express displeasure about the timing of Lynch's announcement that she would defer to the FBI's judgment on the Clinton investigation. That announcement came days after it was revealed that the attorney general and former President Bill Clinton had an impromptu meeting aboard her plane in Phoenix, though both sides said the email investigation was never discussed.
Strzok said in a July 1 text message that the timing of Lynch's announcement "looks like hell." And Page appears to mockingly refer to Lynch's decision to accept the FBI's conclusion in the case as a "real profile in courag(e) since she knows no charges will be brought."
Days later, on July 5, Comey announced the FBI's recommendation that no criminal charges were merited.
___
Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
___
This story has been corrected to show that the five-month period in which communications were not preserved ended May 17, 2017, not May 7, 2017.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has turned over to Congress additional text messages involving an FBI agent who was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigative team following the discovery of derogatory comments about President Donald Trump.
But the department also said in a letter to lawmakers that its record of messages sent to and from the agent, Peter Strzok, was incomplete because the FBI, for technical reasons, had been unable to preserve and retrieve about five months' worth of communications.New text messages highlighted in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray by Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican chairman of the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, are from the spring and summer of 2016 and involve discussion of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. They reference Attorney General Loretta Lynch's decision to accept the FBI's conclusion in that case and a draft statement that former FBI Director James Comey had prepared in anticipation of closing out the Clinton investigation without criminal charges.
The FBI declined to comment Sunday.
Strzok, a veteran counterintelligence agent who also worked the Clinton email case, was reassigned last summer from the team investigating ties between Russia and Trump's Republican presidential campaign after Mueller learned he had exchanged politically charged text messages — many anti-Trump in nature — with an FBI lawyer also detailed to the group. The lawyer, Lisa Page, left Mueller's team before the text messages were discovered.
 |
| I'M JUST BEGINNING ... CAN'T WAIT TIL I'M FINISHED ... ORANGE IS GOING TO BE THE NEW FBI COLOR |
But, according to the letter, the FBI told the department that its system for retaining text messages sent and received on bureau phones had failed to preserve communications between Strzok and Page over a five-month period between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017. May 17 was the date that Mueller was appointed as special counsel to oversee the Russia investigation.
The explanation for the gap was "misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI's collection capabilities."
In Johnson's letter to Wray, he asks whether the FBI has any records of communications between Strzok and Page during that five-month window and whether the FBI had searched their non-FBI phones for additional messages. He also asks for the "scope and scale" of any other records from the Clinton investigation that have been lost.
One of the messages references a change in language to Comey's statement closing out the email case involving Clinton, Trump's Democratic opponent in the 2016 presidential election. While an earlier draft of the statement said Clinton and President Barack Obama had an email exchange while Clinton was "on the territory" of a hostile adversary, the reference to Obama was at first changed to "senior government official" and then omitted entirely in the final version.
In another exchange, the two express displeasure about the timing of Lynch's announcement that she would defer to the FBI's judgment on the Clinton investigation. That announcement came days after it was revealed that the attorney general and former President Bill Clinton had an impromptu meeting aboard her plane in Phoenix, though both sides said the email investigation was never discussed.
Strzok said in a July 1 text message that the timing of Lynch's announcement "looks like hell." And Page appears to mockingly refer to Lynch's decision to accept the FBI's conclusion in the case as a "real profile in courag(e) since she knows no charges will be brought."
Days later, on July 5, Comey announced the FBI's recommendation that no criminal charges were merited.
___
Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
___
This story has been corrected to show that the five-month period in which communications were not preserved ended May 17, 2017, not May 7, 2017.
POGO SAID IT BEST, "WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US!"
Democrats, GOP try to dodge blame for shuttered government. ... WELL DONALD J. TRUMP HAS FINALLY COME FACE-TO-FACE IS THE REASON HE WAS ELECTED! WASHINGTON D.C. AND THEIR INABILITY TO GET ANYTHING DONE!
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hours after shuttering much of the federal government, feuding Democrats and Republicans in Congress spent Saturday dodging blame for a paralyzing standoff over immigration and showed few signs of progress on negotiations needed to end it.
The finger-pointing played out in rare weekend proceedings in both the House and Senate, where lawmakers were eager to show voters they were actively working for a solution — or at least actively making their case why the other party was at fault. The scene highlighted the high political stakes for both parties in an election-year shutdown whose consequences were far from clear.
“The American people cannot begin to understand why the Senate Democratic leader thinks the entire government should be shut down until he gets his way on illegal immigration,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., hours after a last-chance Senate vote failed.
Democrats refused to provide the votes needed to reopen the government until they strike a deal with President Donald Trump protecting young immigrants from deportation, providing disaster relief and boosting spending for opioid treatment and other domestic programs.
Democrats feel “very, very strongly about the issues” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, adding that he believes “the American people are on our side.”
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan says the partial government shutdown is “inflicting needless uncertainty on our country” and he is blaming it all on Senate Democrats. (Jan. 20)
The fighting followed a late-night vote in which Senate Democrats blocked a House-passed measure that would have kept agencies functioning for four weeks.
Republicans began the day hopeful they might pick off Democratic support for a three-week version and bring the episode to a quick end. Democrats are insisting on an alternative lasting only several days — which they think would pressure Republicans to cut an immigration deal — and say they’ll kill the three-week version when the Senate votes on it by early Monday.
The shutdown came on the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration. As lawmakers bickered in the Capitol, protesters marched outside in a reprise of the women’s march from a year ago. The president remained out of sight and canceled plans to travel to his resort in Florida for the weekend. He did tweet, making light of the timing by saying Democrats “wanted to give me a nice present” to mark the start of his second year in office.
Trump worked the phones, staying in touch with McConnell, while White House legislative affairs director Marc Short and budget chief Mick Mulvaney met at the Capitol with House Republicans. GOP lawmakers voiced support for the White House stance of not negotiating while the government was shuttered.
Tempers were short and theatrics high. Lawmakers bickered over blame, hypocrisy and even the posters brought to the House floor. While neither chamber voted on a measure to open the government, the House did vote on whether a poster displayed by Republican Rep. Bradley Byrne of Alabama violated the House rules on decorum. The House voted to allow the poster, which bore a photo of Schumer and the quote “the politics of idiocy.”
While Republicans blamed the breakdown on Schumer, Democrats increasingly focused their messaging on criticizing Trump, whose popularity is dismal. Democrats were using his zigzagging stance in immigration talks — first encouraging deals, then rejecting them — to underscore his first, chaotic year in office.
Short compared Democrats’ actions to “a 2-year-old temper tantrum.”
Republicans seemed content to hope additional Democrats will break as pressure builds and the impact of the shutdown becomes clearer.
In the late-night vote blocking the bill preventing a shutdown, five Democrats from states Trump won in the 2016 election voted to keep government functioning. In a sign that moderates are feeling pressure, more than a dozen centrist senators from both parties have been trying to craft an immigration and spending compromise that party leaders would embrace, but they’ve fallen short so far.
Republicans argued that Democrats were blocking extra Pentagon funds by keeping government closed and thwarting a long-term budget deal.
“I question if Senate Democrats are really united,” Short told reporters. “We think there’ll be more today and hopefully they’ll continue to see that it’s not wise to hold our troops hostage.”
But pressure on Republicans could mount with the new workweek Monday and the impact of the federal shutdown becomes more apparent to people.
While the Statue of Liberty — the nation’s emblem of its immigrant past — and Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell were closed Saturday, visitors had access to other iconic national parks like Yellowstone. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke tweeted a photo of himself talking to students at the World War II Memorial in Washington, blocks from White House.
Social Security and most other safety-net programs were unaffected by the lapse in federal spending authority. Critical government functions continued, with uniformed service members, health inspectors and law enforcement officers set to work without pay. But if no deal is reached before Monday, hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be furloughed.
For leverage, Democrats were banking on Trump’s wobbly presidency and the GOP’s control of the White House, the House and Senate — a triumvirate that until now had never allowed a government closure to occur.
“Republicans in Congress plunged head-first into the Trump shutdown,” Schumer told reporters. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Republicans “so incompetent and negligent that they couldn’t get it together to keep the government open.”
Which party’s strategy would succeed remained open to debate.
Retired Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., a veteran of shutdown wars, said he believed Democrats believe “the more chaos they can create the better.” He said Schumer’s tough strategy was “a gross overplaying of his hand” and predicted Democrats would eventually relent.
Former Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said both parties needed to be cautious.
“It’s obvious that Democrats are playing to their base and Republicans are playing to their base,” he said. “Everybody loses. It just feeds into the fed-up atmosphere of the American people.”
Democrats have been seeking a deal to protect so-called Dreamers. Around 700,000 of them have been shielded against deportation by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which Trump halted last year. He’s given lawmakers until early March to pass legislation restoring the protections, but he’s demanded added money for his proposed border wall with Mexico as a price.
IS TRUMP THE UMPIRE OR THE PRESIDENT?
The finger-pointing played out in rare weekend proceedings in both the House and Senate, where lawmakers were eager to show voters they were actively working for a solution — or at least actively making their case why the other party was at fault. The scene highlighted the high political stakes for both parties in an election-year shutdown whose consequences were far from clear.
 |
| I'M HAVING LUNCH AT MY FAVORITE RESTURANT WITH THE DEMS BECAUSE THERE ARE NO SHARP IMPLEMENTS AND HARD DISHES ... IT COULD GET MESSY AND I EXPECT IT BUT WE HAVE THE ROMPER ROOM FOR THEM AFTERWARD |
Democrats refused to provide the votes needed to reopen the government until they strike a deal with President Donald Trump protecting young immigrants from deportation, providing disaster relief and boosting spending for opioid treatment and other domestic programs.
Democrats feel “very, very strongly about the issues” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, adding that he believes “the American people are on our side.”
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan says the partial government shutdown is “inflicting needless uncertainty on our country” and he is blaming it all on Senate Democrats. (Jan. 20)
The fighting followed a late-night vote in which Senate Democrats blocked a House-passed measure that would have kept agencies functioning for four weeks.
Republicans began the day hopeful they might pick off Democratic support for a three-week version and bring the episode to a quick end. Democrats are insisting on an alternative lasting only several days — which they think would pressure Republicans to cut an immigration deal — and say they’ll kill the three-week version when the Senate votes on it by early Monday.
The shutdown came on the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration. As lawmakers bickered in the Capitol, protesters marched outside in a reprise of the women’s march from a year ago. The president remained out of sight and canceled plans to travel to his resort in Florida for the weekend. He did tweet, making light of the timing by saying Democrats “wanted to give me a nice present” to mark the start of his second year in office.
Trump worked the phones, staying in touch with McConnell, while White House legislative affairs director Marc Short and budget chief Mick Mulvaney met at the Capitol with House Republicans. GOP lawmakers voiced support for the White House stance of not negotiating while the government was shuttered.
Tempers were short and theatrics high. Lawmakers bickered over blame, hypocrisy and even the posters brought to the House floor. While neither chamber voted on a measure to open the government, the House did vote on whether a poster displayed by Republican Rep. Bradley Byrne of Alabama violated the House rules on decorum. The House voted to allow the poster, which bore a photo of Schumer and the quote “the politics of idiocy.”
While Republicans blamed the breakdown on Schumer, Democrats increasingly focused their messaging on criticizing Trump, whose popularity is dismal. Democrats were using his zigzagging stance in immigration talks — first encouraging deals, then rejecting them — to underscore his first, chaotic year in office.
 |
| “Negotiating with President Trump is like negotiating with Jell-O,” Schumer said. |
Republicans seemed content to hope additional Democrats will break as pressure builds and the impact of the shutdown becomes clearer.
In the late-night vote blocking the bill preventing a shutdown, five Democrats from states Trump won in the 2016 election voted to keep government functioning. In a sign that moderates are feeling pressure, more than a dozen centrist senators from both parties have been trying to craft an immigration and spending compromise that party leaders would embrace, but they’ve fallen short so far.
Republicans argued that Democrats were blocking extra Pentagon funds by keeping government closed and thwarting a long-term budget deal.
“I question if Senate Democrats are really united,” Short told reporters. “We think there’ll be more today and hopefully they’ll continue to see that it’s not wise to hold our troops hostage.”
But pressure on Republicans could mount with the new workweek Monday and the impact of the federal shutdown becomes more apparent to people.
While the Statue of Liberty — the nation’s emblem of its immigrant past — and Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell were closed Saturday, visitors had access to other iconic national parks like Yellowstone. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke tweeted a photo of himself talking to students at the World War II Memorial in Washington, blocks from White House.
Social Security and most other safety-net programs were unaffected by the lapse in federal spending authority. Critical government functions continued, with uniformed service members, health inspectors and law enforcement officers set to work without pay. But if no deal is reached before Monday, hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be furloughed.
For leverage, Democrats were banking on Trump’s wobbly presidency and the GOP’s control of the White House, the House and Senate — a triumvirate that until now had never allowed a government closure to occur.
“Republicans in Congress plunged head-first into the Trump shutdown,” Schumer told reporters. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Republicans “so incompetent and negligent that they couldn’t get it together to keep the government open.”
Which party’s strategy would succeed remained open to debate.
Retired Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., a veteran of shutdown wars, said he believed Democrats believe “the more chaos they can create the better.” He said Schumer’s tough strategy was “a gross overplaying of his hand” and predicted Democrats would eventually relent.
Former Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said both parties needed to be cautious.
“It’s obvious that Democrats are playing to their base and Republicans are playing to their base,” he said. “Everybody loses. It just feeds into the fed-up atmosphere of the American people.”
Democrats have been seeking a deal to protect so-called Dreamers. Around 700,000 of them have been shielded against deportation by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which Trump halted last year. He’s given lawmakers until early March to pass legislation restoring the protections, but he’s demanded added money for his proposed border wall with Mexico as a price.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
YOSSARIAN. "THERE REALLY IS NO CERTAINTY IN THE FACE OF UNCERTAINTY!"
CATCH 22
California AG: Employers who Cooperate With Federal Immigration Raids Will be Prosecuted ... "We will prosecute those who violate [California] law,” Becerra responded.California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D-CA) said during a press conference Thursday that employers in California who cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in their rumored upcoming immigration raids would be prosecuted if they cooperate in a manner that violates California law.
Yossarian discovers that it is possible to be discharged from military service because of insanity. Always looking for a way out, Yossarian claims that he is insane, only to find out that by claiming that he is insane he has proved that he is obviously sane—since any sane person would claim that he or she is insane in order to avoid flying bombing missions. Elsewhere, Catch-22 is defined as a law that is illegal to read. Ironically, the place where it is written that it is illegal is in Catch-22 itself. It is yet again defined as the law that the enemy is allowed to do anything that one can’t keep him from doing. In short, then, Catch-22 is any paradoxical, circular reasoning that catches its victim in its illogic and serves those who have made the law; which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he would have to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. “That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed. “It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle:
“U.S. immigration officials have begun preparing for a major sweep in San Francisco and other Northern California cities in which federal officers would look to arrest more than 1,500 undocumented people while sending a message that immigration policy will be enforced in the sanctuary state, according to a source familiar with the operation.”
The Sacramento Bee’s Angela Hart asked Becerra if the attorney general’s office would take legal action against employers who cooperate with ICE officials.
“There are new laws in place in California now in 2018 with the advent of 2018. I mentioned two of them specifically, AB 450 and SB 54. AB 450 in particular deals with the workplace in particular and how we go about treating the information about the workplace and employees at the workplace by employers,” Becerra explained. “What we’re trying to make sure is that employers are aware that in 2018, there is a new law in place.”
Becerra then told the reporters gathered that ignorance of the new laws is not a defense.
The reporter followed up by asking if Becerra’s office would prosecute employers found to be in violation of AB 450.
“We will prosecute those who violate [California] law,” the attorney general responded.
The law Becerra is referring to, AB 450, is a complicated law that “puts employers in a difficult situation of having to comply with federal immigration law obligations on one hand and state law requirements on the other.”
Under AB 450, employers are prohibited from “providing voluntary consent to an immigration enforcement agent to enter nonpublic areas of a place of labor unless the agent provides a judicial warrant, except as specified.”
.@AGBecerra in warning to California employers cites new state law (AB 450 by @DavidChiu SB 54 by @kdeleon ) that seems to restrict ability of law enforcement, employers to cooperate with federal #immigration agents. “There’s some new laws in this state…don’t be ignorant.”
— Angela Hart (@ahartreports) January 18, 2018
Employers in California are also prohibited under AB 450 from “reverify[ing] the employment eligibility of a current employee at a time or in a manner not required by federal law.”
California employers who violate the law face fines ranging from “$2,000 up to $5,000 for a first violation and $5,000 up to $10,000 for each subsequent violation.”
.@AGBecerra to employers helping federal immigration authorities re: rumors of immigration raids across Northern California “We will prosecute those who violate (California) law.”
HOLY SHIT LOOK WHO'S HELPING ISIS ... UGH!
Al-Qaeda Bomb Instructions are a Free Download at Barnes & Noble
Key propaganda texts from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are posted for free download on the Barnes & Noble website, including the inaugural issue of a magazine linked to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
Reviews posted on the e-books indicate that they've remained on the bookseller's website for years, despite clearly indicating in the titles that al-Qaeda materials are being offered.
There are two listings for "Al-Malahem Media Foundation presents A Special Gift to the Islamic Nation The first Magazine issued by al-Qaida in the English language." That refers to the 2010 debut of AQAP's English-language Inspire magazine; the site notes that the free Nook book is "digitized from 2010 volume."
(Barnes & Noble website screenshot)
HOLD THE PICKLES, HOLD THE LETTICE ... SPECAIL ORDERS DON'T UNSET US!!!
 |
| I'M WATCHING YOU ... REMEMBER I DON'T READ ... SO YOU'RE IN TROUBLE!!! |
Reviews posted on the e-books indicate that they've remained on the bookseller's website for years, despite clearly indicating in the titles that al-Qaeda materials are being offered.
There are two listings for "Al-Malahem Media Foundation presents A Special Gift to the Islamic Nation The first Magazine issued by al-Qaida in the English language." That refers to the 2010 debut of AQAP's English-language Inspire magazine; the site notes that the free Nook book is "digitized from 2010 volume."
(Barnes & Noble website screenshot)HOLD THE PICKLES, HOLD THE LETTICE ... SPECAIL ORDERS DON'T UNSET US!!!
The first issue of Inspire includes the infamous "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" article from "The AQ Chef" that sparked the trend of publishing detailed, open-source instructions to jihadists on constructing explosive devices. "We are conveying to you our military training right into your kitchen to relieve you of the difficulty of traveling to us," states the article. "... In one or two days the bomb could be ready to kill at least ten people. In a month you may make a bigger and more lethal bomb that could kill tens of people."
The step-by-step picture instructions walk would-be jihadists through constructing an explosive device with ingredients including matchstick heads and sugar, details how to fill it with projectile shrapnel, and shows how to wire it up with a timer.
WILLIAMS SONOMA ... ON SPECIAL THIS WEEK ... PERHAPS TARGET IS A BETTER BET!
The step-by-step picture instructions walk would-be jihadists through constructing an explosive device with ingredients including matchstick heads and sugar, details how to fill it with projectile shrapnel, and shows how to wire it up with a timer.
WILLIAMS SONOMA ... ON SPECIAL THIS WEEK ... PERHAPS TARGET IS A BETTER BET!
Using a pressure cooker instead of a pipe "is the most effective method," al-Qaeda advises.
During the trial of Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who along with his brother used pressure-cooker bombs, an FBI agent testified that three copies of Inspire magazine were found on the bomber's laptop -- including the "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" issue.
COOKING WITH A FRIEND
During the trial of Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who along with his brother used pressure-cooker bombs, an FBI agent testified that three copies of Inspire magazine were found on the bomber's laptop -- including the "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" issue.
COOKING WITH A FRIEND
The 65-page magazine also includes articles on what to expect in jihad -- "having a friend makes a difference" -- and a message from deceased American al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki to Muslims in his home country.
The Inspire issue appears to have been a free download on the bookseller's site for some time. One Barnes & Noble posting for the e-book included a review from nearly three and a half years ago, while the other product posting includes two reviews that are about six years old. One of the two postings lists the Al-Malahem Media Foundation, AQAP's media arm, as the author.
The other Al-Malahem offering on the Barnes & Noble site is "An English Translation of Al-Malahem Media's Audio Release And If You Must ... by the Mujahid Sheikh Ibrahim al-Rubaish May Allah Protect Him."
(Barnes & Noble website screenshot)
The Inspire issue appears to have been a free download on the bookseller's site for some time. One Barnes & Noble posting for the e-book included a review from nearly three and a half years ago, while the other product posting includes two reviews that are about six years old. One of the two postings lists the Al-Malahem Media Foundation, AQAP's media arm, as the author.
The other Al-Malahem offering on the Barnes & Noble site is "An English Translation of Al-Malahem Media's Audio Release And If You Must ... by the Mujahid Sheikh Ibrahim al-Rubaish May Allah Protect Him."
(Barnes & Noble website screenshot)
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
NOT ALL JOBS ARE CREATED EQUAL ... THEN AGAIN BEATS FLIPPING HAMBURGERS!
The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth ...
How excessive staffing, little competition, generous contracts and archaic rules dramatically inflate capital costs for transit in New York.
By BRIAN M. ROSENTHALDEC. 28, 2017
Workers in the East Side Access tunnel, which will connect Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan with the Long Island Rail Road. The project’s costs have ballooned to nearly $3.5 billion for each new mile of track. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
An accountant discovered the discrepancy while reviewing the budget for new train platforms under Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.
The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as part of a 3.5-mile tunnel connecting the historic station to the Long Island Rail Road. But the accountant could only identify about 700 jobs that needed to be done, according to three project supervisors. Officials could not find any reason for the other 200 people to be there.
“Nobody knew what those people were doing, if they were doing anything,” said Michael Horodniceanu, who was then the head of construction at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs transit in New York. The workers were laid off, Mr. Horodniceanu said, but no one figured out how long they had been employed. “All we knew is they were each being paid about $1,000 every day.”
The discovery, which occurred in 2010 and was not disclosed to the public, illustrates one of the main issues that has helped lead to the increasing delays now tormenting millions of subway riders every day: The leaders entrusted to expand New York’s regional transit network have paid the highest construction costs in the world, spending billions of dollars that could have been used to fix existing subway tunnels, tracks, trains and signals.
The estimated cost of the Long Island Rail Road project, known as “East Side Access,” has ballooned to $12 billion, or nearly $3.5 billion for each new mile of track — seven times the average elsewhere in the world. The recently completed Second Avenue subway on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and the 2015 extension of the No. 7 line to Hudson Yards also cost far above average, at $2.5 billion and $1.5 billion per mile, respectively.
The spending has taken place even as the M.T.A. has cut back on core subway maintenance because, as The New York Times has documented, generations of politicians have diverted money from the transit authority and saddled it with debt.
The Times found that a host of factors have contributed to the transit authority’s exorbitant capital costs.
For years, The Times found, public officials have stood by as a small group of politically connected labor unions, construction companies and consulting firms have amassed large profits.
Trade unions, which have closely aligned themselves with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other politicians, have secured deals requiring underground construction work to be staffed by as many as four times more laborers than elsewhere in the world, documents show.
Construction companies, which have given millions of dollars in campaign donations in recent years, have increased their projected costs by up to 50 percent when bidding for work from the M.T.A., contractors say.
Consulting firms, which have hired away scores of M.T.A. employees, have persuaded the authority to spend an unusual amount on design and management, statistics indicate.
Public officials, mired in bureaucracy, have not acted to curb the costs. The M.T.A. has not adopted best practices nor worked to increase competition in contracting, and it almost never punishes vendors for spending too much or taking too long, according to inspector general reports.
At the heart of the issue is the obscure way that construction costs are set in New York. Worker wages and labor conditions are determined through negotiations between the unions and the companies, none of whom have any incentive to control costs. The transit authority has made no attempt to intervene to contain the spending.
“It’s sad, really,” said Lok Home, owner of the Robbins Company, which manufactured much of the tunneling equipment used for East Side Access. “Because if they controlled the costs, they could do twice as many expansion projects and still have more money for maintenance.”
Asked about The Times’s findings, union leaders and construction executives insisted that no money had been wasted. They said tunneling was difficult and dangerous work that must be well funded.
The M.T.A., for its part, did not dispute the findings.
Joseph J. Lhota, who was chairman of the authority in 2012 and returned to the job in June, said he had recently appointed working groups to study costs and the procurement process.
“We recognize this has been a problem. We’re never going to deny history,” Mr. Lhota said. “This is an issue that needs to be addressed. It needs to be attacked.”
Supervisors discovered several hundred extra workers on East Side Access, an example of rampant overstaffing on Metropolitan Transportation Authority projects. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Why Is New York Different?
New York’s struggles come as transit construction is booming around the world. At least 150 projects have been initiated since 1990, according to a recent study by Yale University researcher David Schleicher.
The approximate average cost of the projects — both in the U.S. and abroad — has been less than $500 million per track mile, the study concluded.
“There was one glaring exception,” Mr. Schleicher said. “New York.”
That exception has not gone unnoticed. The independent online journalist Alon Levy first noted the M.T.A’s high construction costs, and 28 City Council members urged officials to research the issue in October.
Mr. Lhota responded by defending the costs. He said in a letter, “There are unique challenges that contribute to high construction costs in New York City in general, and for M.T.A. projects in particular.”
Mr. Lhota listed 10 explanations, including aging utilities, expensive land, high density, strict regulations and large ridership requiring big stations.
To evaluate those arguments, The Times brought the list to more than 50 contractors, many of whom had worked in New York as well as in other cities. The Times also interviewed nearly 100 current and former M.T.A. employees, reviewed internal project records, consulted industry price indexes and built a database to compare spending on specific items. And The Times observed construction on site in Paris, which is building a project similar to the Second Avenue subway at one-sixth the cost.
The review found evidence for one of the issues cited by the M.T.A.: Because most countries have nationalized health care, projects abroad do not have to fund worker health insurance. That might explain a tenth of the cost differences, contractors said.
But the contractors said the other issues cited by the M.T.A. were challenges that all transit systems face. Density is the norm in cities where subway projects occur. Regulations are similar everywhere. All projects use the same equipment at the same prices. Land and other types of construction do not cost dramatically more in New York. Insurance costs more but is only a fraction of the budget. The M.T.A.’s stations have not been bigger (nor deeper) than is typical.
“Those sound like cop-outs,” said Rob Muley, an executive at the John Holland engineering firm who has worked in Hong Kong and Singapore and visited the East Side Access project, after hearing Mr. Lhota’s reasons.
In Paris, which has famously powerful unions, the review found the lower costs were the result of efficient staffing, fierce vendor competition and scant use of consultants.
In some ways, M.T.A. projects have been easier than work elsewhere. East Side Access uses an existing tunnel for nearly half its route. The hard rock under the city also is easy to blast through, and workers do not encounter ancient sites that need to be protected.
“They’re claiming the age of the city is to blame?” asked Andy Mitchell, the former head of Crossrail, a project to build 13 miles of subway under the center of London, a city built 2,000 years ago. “Really?”
A tunnel-boring machine being used on the Second Avenue subway project in 2010. As many as 25 workers are required to run the machines in New York, while the number is roughly a dozen in other cities. Richard Perry/The New York Times
A Dizzying Maze of Jobs
The reasons for the M.T.A.’s high costs start with the sheer number of people employed.
Mike Roach noticed it immediately upon entering the No. 7 line work site a few years ago. Mr. Roach, a California-based tunneling contractor, was not involved in the project but was invited to see it. He was stunned by how many people were operating the machine churning through soil to create the tunnel.
“I actually started counting because I was so surprised, and I counted 25 or 26 people,” he said. “That’s three times what I’m used to.”
The staffing of tunnel-boring machines came up repeatedly in interviews with contractors. The so-called T.B.M.s are massive contraptions, weighing over 1,000 tons and stretching up to 500 feet from cutting wheel to thrust system, but they largely run automatically. Other cities typically man the machine with fewer than 10 people.
It is not just tunneling machines that are overstaffed, though. A dozen New York unions work on tunnel creation, station erection and system setup. Each negotiates with the construction companies over labor conditions, without the M.T.A.’s involvement. And each has secured rules that contractors say require more workers than necessary.
The unions and vendors declined to release the labor deals, but The Times obtained them. Along with interviews with contractors, the documents reveal a dizzying maze of jobs, many of which do not exist on projects elsewhere.
There are “nippers” to watch material being moved around and “hog house tenders” to supervise the break room. Each crane must have an “oiler,” a relic of a time when they needed frequent lubrication. Standby electricians and plumbers are to be on hand at all times, as is at least one “master mechanic.” Generators and elevators must have their own operators, even though they are automatic. An extra person is required to be present for all concrete pumping, steam fitting, sheet metal work and other tasks.
In New York, “underground construction employs approximately four times the number of personnel as in similar jobs in Asia, Australia, or Europe,” according to an internal report by Arup, a consulting firm that worked on the Second Avenue subway and many similar projects around the world.
That ratio does not include people who get lost in the sea of workers and get paid even though they have no apparent responsibility, as happened on East Side Access. The construction company running that project declined to comment.
Costs for the East Side Access project are seven times higher than the average elsewhere, in part because New York has stood by a small group of politically connected labor unions, construction companies and consulting firms. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
The labor deals negotiated between the unions and construction companies also ensure that workers are well paid. The agreement for Local 147, the union for the famed “sandhogs” who dig the tunnels, includes a pay rate for most members of $111 per hour in salary and benefits. The pay doubles for overtime or Sunday work, which is common in transit construction. Weekend overtime pays quadruple — more than $400 per hour.
Other trades are not paid as much but get overtime more frequently on M.T.A. projects, driving up costs.
Union officials pushed back against the idea that their members are overpaid. The construction unions, after all, arose in response to exploitative bosses who underpaid and endangered workers. More than a dozen people died building New York’s subway, and many more have perished since. Even today, workers labor in dirty and uncomfortable conditions to build marvels.
“Construction workers deserve every penny they make, and more,” said Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. “We live in New York. It’s very expensive to live here. We take great pride in the work that we do. And the work rules are there to make sure we stay alive.”
But statistics suggest that the labor deals multiply costs while doing little to boost safety. During the Second Avenue subway project, for example, there were 5.5 safety incidents for every 200,000 work hours, according to federal data. The national average is 3.2. The Silver Line in Washington, which cost just $300 million per mile, had an even lower rate of incidents.
There also is no evidence that the deals spur faster construction. M.T.A. projects usually take longer than similar work elsewhere.
Some labor leaders said they were willing to negotiate the work rules to increase efficiency.
“We can figure out a way,” said Richard Fitzsimmons, business manager for Local 147, who said that he often sees the construction companies insisting on workers that are not needed. “I’m the union, and sometimes I’m saying to myself, ‘What the hell are they even doing?’”
But, Mr. Fitzsimmons added, “we will never negotiate with the safety of our members.”
Several contractors said the unions are able to maintain the deals because everybody knows they are politically powerful. The unions working on M.T.A. projects have donated more than $1 million combined to Mr. Cuomo during his administration, records show.
Peter Ajemian, a spokesman for the governor, referred inquiries to the M.T.A. on Thursday.
“Contracting is handled by the M.T.A.,” Mr. Ajemian said, “so questions related to contracting should be directed to the authority.”
The critics pointed to several unusual provisions in the labor agreements. One part of Local 147’s deal entitles the union to $450,000 for each tunnel-boring machine used. That is to make up for job losses from “technological advancement,” even though the equipment has been standard for decades.
“I’m not anti-union at all, but it’s amazing how much they dictate everything that happens on a job in New York,” said Jim Peregoy, a Missouri-based cost estimator who has worked on 240 projects in 27 states, including the Second Avenue subway. Mr. Peregoy said labor was a far bigger part of his estimates in New York than elsewhere. “You have to account for it, because it’s huge.”
The agreement for Local 147, the union for the famed “sandhogs” who dig the tunnels, includes a pay rate for most members of $111 per hour in salary and benefits. Overtime on the weekend pays more than $400 per hour. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Driving Up Expenses
Even though the M.T.A. is paying for its capital construction with taxpayer dollars, the government does not get a seat at the table when labor conditions are determined. Instead, the task of reining in the unions falls to the construction companies — which often try to drive up costs themselves.
Typically, construction companies meet with each trade union every three years to hammer out the labor deals. The resulting agreements apply to all companies, preventing contractors from lowering their bids by proposing less generous wages or work rules.
That is not a problem in the private sector, where the possibility of nonunion labor can force unions to be more competitive, or in parts of the public sector that involve more potential bidders. But in the small world of underground construction, experts say there is little cost containment.
Tim Gilchrist, a transportation adviser to Govs. Eliot L. Spitzer and David A. Paterson, noted all costs are passed on to the M.T.A. “Nobody at the negotiating table is footing the bill,” he said.
Critics pointed out that construction companies actually have an incentive to maximize costs — they earn a percentage of the project’s costs as profit, so the higher the cost, the bigger their profit.
Mr. Lhota, the M.T.A. chairman, agreed that leaving negotiations to unions and vendors may be problematic. “You’re right; in many ways, there’s this level of connection between the two,” he said.
But the chairman said he did not know what could be done about it. Hiring nonunion labor is legal but not politically realistic for the M.T.A. The transit authority could get unions to agree to project-specific labor deals, but it has not.
The profit percentage taken by vendors also is itself a factor in the M.T.A.’s high costs.
In other parts of the world, companies bidding on transit projects typically add 10 percent to their estimated costs to account for profit, overhead and change orders, contractors in five continents said. Final profit is usually less than 5 percent of the total project cost, which is sufficient given the size of the projects, the contractors said.
Things are much different in New York. In a series of interviews, dozens of M.T.A. contractors described how vendors routinely increase their estimated costs when bidding for work.
First, the contractors said, the vendors add between 15 and 25 percent as an “M.T.A. Factor” because of how hard it can be to work within the bureaucracy of the transit authority. Then they add 10 percent as a contingency for possible changes. And then they add another 10-12 percent on top of all that for profit and overhead.
“It adds up,” said Mysore L. Nagaraja, a former head of M.T.A. construction now working as a consultant, who called the surcharges standard for most vendors. “Everybody is looking out for their own interests.”
Denise Richardson, the executive director of the General Contractors Association, which represents construction companies on M.T.A. projects, said the surcharges are needed because the vendors assume huge risks on transit projects and often are forced to pay for mistakes made by the authority. At the end of the day, she said, the companies make a relatively small profit.
“It is profit, not covering costs, that allows a firm to hire more people, expand their administrative space and buy new equipment,” Ms. Richardson said. “Firms that only cover their costs do not stay in business.”
When companies prepare bids for M.T.A. projects, they start by estimating the cost of the work. Then they add between 15 and 25 percent as an “M.T.A. Factor,” to account for the difficulty of working with the authority. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Lack of competition is also problem for the M.T.A. A Times analysis of roughly 150 contracts worth more than $10 million that the authority has signed in the past five years found the average project received just 3.5 bids.
“In other cities, you get eight bids for projects,” said Gary Brierley, a consultant who has worked on hundreds of projects in the last 50 years, including the No. 7 line extension and the Second Avenue subway. “In New York, you get two or three, and they know that, so they’ll inflate their bids if they think they can get away with it.”
One of the most important contracts in recent years, for the construction of the Second Avenue tunnel, got just two bids. M.T.A. engineers had estimated the contract would cost $290 million, but both bids came in well above $300 million, and the authority did not have much leverage. Ultimately, it awarded the deal for about $350 million — 20 percent above its estimate.
And then there are the political connections. The vendors that worked on the East Side Access, Second Avenue subway and No. 7 line projects have given a combined $5 million to New York politicians since the projects began in 2000, a Times analysis found.
More than a dozen M.T.A. workers were fined for accepting gifts from contractors during that time, records show. One was Anil Parikh, the director of the Second Avenue subway project. He got a $2,500 ticket to a gala, a round of golf and dinner from a contractor in 2002. Years later, shortly after the line opened, he went to work for the contractor’s parent company, AECOM. Mr. Parikh and AECOM declined to comment.
A Times analysis of the 25 M.T.A. agency presidents who have left over the past two decades found that at least 18 of them became consultants or went to work for authority contractors, including many who have worked on expansion projects.
“Is it rigged? Yes,” said Charles G. Moerdler, who has served on the M.T.A. board since 2010. “I don’t think it’s corrupt. But I think people like doing business with people they know, and so a few companies get all the work, and they can charge whatever they want.”
A priest blessed a new phase of the construction of the Second Avenue subway in 2012. The line also cost far more than the average transit project — $2.5 billion per mile. Ángel Franco/The New York Times
Swelling ‘Soft’ Costs
The M.T.A.’s high costs are not limited to the companies that build the tunnels. Projects start burning through cash long before construction begins.
On average, “soft costs” — preliminary design and engineering, plus management while construction is underway — make up about 20 percent of the cost of transit projects in America, according to a 2010 report by the Transportation Research Board. The average is similar in other countries, contractors said.
Not in New York.
The latest federal oversight report for the Second Avenue subway projected soft cost spending at $1.4 billion — one-third of the budget, not including financing expenses. M.T.A. officials said that number was high because it included some costs for design of later phases of the line. But experts said it was still shocking.
“The crazy thing is it’s so high even with everything else,” said Larry Gould, a transit consultant and former M.T.A. subway planner. “If we have three or four times as many workers, how can the percentage for soft costs be so high?”
Soft costs for East Side Access are expected to exceed $2 billion. The project plan called for the hiring of 500 consultants from a dozen different companies, according to a 2009 federal oversight report.
Both the Second Avenue subway and East Side Access projects hired the same main engineering firm: WSP USA, formerly known as Parsons Brinckerhoff. The firm, which designed some of New York’s original subway, has donated hundreds of thousands to politicians in recent years, and has hired so many transit officials that some in the system refer to it as “the M.T.A. retirement home.”
The firm was the only vendor to bid on the engineering contract for the Second Avenue subway, records show. On East Side Access, it is sharing the contract with STV Inc., which recently hired the former M.T.A. chairman Thomas F. Prendergast. The contract was initially for $140 million, but it has grown to $481 million.
WSP USA declined to answer questions. “WSP has undertaken complex and enduring infrastructure projects across the U.S., and the New York region presents unique needs and challenges,” the firm said in a statement.
The M.T.A. is partly to blame. Officials have added to the soft costs by struggling to coordinate between vendors, taking a long time to approve plans, insisting on extravagant station designs and changing their minds midway through projects. In 2010, they hired a team of three consultants to work full time on East Side Access “operational readiness” — getting the tunnel ready to open — even though contractors knew construction would not end for another decade.
Janno Lieber, who joined the M.T.A. as chief development officer in April, acknowledged there were parts of the authority’s project management approach that have been “broken” and “self-defeating.” Changing plans midway through projects is a “huge issue,” as is over-customization of designs and poor management of consultants, he said.
“We just have to do a much better job,” Mr. Lieber said. “We’re relying on these consultants to run our projects, and we’re not getting good results out of them.”
Others have a more skeptical perspective about the soft costs.
Jack Brockway, an executive at Herrenknecht, a German manufacturer of tunnel-boring machines, said he got “stacks and stacks and stacks” of instructions from consultants for his work on the Second Avenue subway, down to details that barely made sense.
“It makes you wonder if it’s really necessary, or if they’re just trying to do something to justify how much they’re getting paid,” Mr. Brockway said.
Workers at a new Metro station in Paris in December. Despite France’s strong unions, Paris has lower subway construction costs than New York City because of more efficient staffing, fierce vendor competition and scant use of consultants. Pete Kiehart for The New York Times
The View From Paris
Across the Atlantic Ocean, Paris is working on a project that brings the inefficiency of New York into stark relief.
The project, called the Line 14 extension, is similar to the Second Avenue subway. Both projects extend decades-old lines in the hopes of reducing systemwide overcrowding. Both involved digging through moderately hard soil just north of the city center to make a few miles of tunnel and a few stations about 80 feet underground. Both used tunnel-boring machines made by Herrenknecht. Both faced strict regulations, high density and demands from neighbors, which limited some construction to 12 hours per day.
But while the Second Avenue Subway cost $2.5 billion a mile, the Line 14 extension is on track to cost $450 million a mile.
On a recent afternoon at a Line 14 construction site, an official expressed disbelief that New York was spending so much.
“We thought ours was expensive,” said Laurent Probst, managing director of Île-de-France Mobilités, which controls transit in the French capital.
As he descended into the hole carved for the future Pont Cardinet station, it became clear how the costs could be so different. Scattered around the cavern were a couple dozen workers, running drills, smoothing over soil and checking electrical systems. Mostly, they worked by themselves.
Mr. Probst, 39, wearing a suit and blue tie under his orange safety jacket, pushed the button to operate the elevator himself.
France’s unions are powerful, but Mr. Probst said they did not control project staffing. Isabelle Brochard of RATP, a state-owned company that operates the Paris Metro and is coordinating the Line 14 project, estimated there were 200 total workers on the job, each earning $60 per hour. The Second Avenue subway project employed about 700 workers, many making double that (although that included health insurance).
The tunnel-boring machine chewing through dirt north of Pont Cardinet — a secondhand machine, Ms. Brochard noted — was staffed by a dozen laborers who bounced between the control room, the cutting wheel and the sides of the machine.
Inside the control room of a tunnel-boring machine in Paris, where a crew half the size of those in New York operated the 1,000-ton contraption. Pete Kiehart for The New York Times
The small number of workers has not slowed the Paris project. The line, which will run driverless trains every 85 seconds, is set to open by 2020, six years after groundbreaking. The Second Avenue subway, by contrast, took a decade to build.
M.T.A. officials declined to comment on the Paris project.
RATP handled all the contracting, Mr. Probst said. But the government worked closely with vendors, trying to build the type of collaborative relationships that are rare in New York.
The management contractor — Systra, which also worked on the Second Avenue subway — got a relatively small contract, Mr. Probst said. Soft costs totaled 20 percent of the project budget.
Officials awarded dozens of contracts, and most garnered at least a half dozen bids, driving down costs.
“Our first cost estimate was 260 million euros,” said Patrick Ramond, underground construction director at Razel-Bec, which beat five competitors to win a contract for half the tunneling. “We had to drop that by 40 million to get the job.”
Because of that and some technical issues, Mr. Ramond said Razel-Bec was losing money on the job. Usually, he said, the firm makes a profit of about 5 percent.
“We do fine. I make a good living,” Mr. Ramond said with a laugh. “We’re not trying to rip anybody off.”
The Saint-Lazare station in Paris serves the new Line 14 extension, a major transit project that cost $450 million a mile. Below, a departing Line 14 train and a mosaic in the station. Pete Kiehart for The New York Times
Pete Kiehart for The New York Times
Pete Kiehart for The New York Times
How excessive staffing, little competition, generous contracts and archaic rules dramatically inflate capital costs for transit in New York.
By BRIAN M. ROSENTHALDEC. 28, 2017
Workers in the East Side Access tunnel, which will connect Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan with the Long Island Rail Road. The project’s costs have ballooned to nearly $3.5 billion for each new mile of track. Todd Heisler/The New York Times An accountant discovered the discrepancy while reviewing the budget for new train platforms under Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.
The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as part of a 3.5-mile tunnel connecting the historic station to the Long Island Rail Road. But the accountant could only identify about 700 jobs that needed to be done, according to three project supervisors. Officials could not find any reason for the other 200 people to be there.
“Nobody knew what those people were doing, if they were doing anything,” said Michael Horodniceanu, who was then the head of construction at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs transit in New York. The workers were laid off, Mr. Horodniceanu said, but no one figured out how long they had been employed. “All we knew is they were each being paid about $1,000 every day.”
The discovery, which occurred in 2010 and was not disclosed to the public, illustrates one of the main issues that has helped lead to the increasing delays now tormenting millions of subway riders every day: The leaders entrusted to expand New York’s regional transit network have paid the highest construction costs in the world, spending billions of dollars that could have been used to fix existing subway tunnels, tracks, trains and signals.
The estimated cost of the Long Island Rail Road project, known as “East Side Access,” has ballooned to $12 billion, or nearly $3.5 billion for each new mile of track — seven times the average elsewhere in the world. The recently completed Second Avenue subway on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and the 2015 extension of the No. 7 line to Hudson Yards also cost far above average, at $2.5 billion and $1.5 billion per mile, respectively.
The spending has taken place even as the M.T.A. has cut back on core subway maintenance because, as The New York Times has documented, generations of politicians have diverted money from the transit authority and saddled it with debt.
The Times found that a host of factors have contributed to the transit authority’s exorbitant capital costs.
For years, The Times found, public officials have stood by as a small group of politically connected labor unions, construction companies and consulting firms have amassed large profits.
Trade unions, which have closely aligned themselves with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other politicians, have secured deals requiring underground construction work to be staffed by as many as four times more laborers than elsewhere in the world, documents show.
Construction companies, which have given millions of dollars in campaign donations in recent years, have increased their projected costs by up to 50 percent when bidding for work from the M.T.A., contractors say.
Consulting firms, which have hired away scores of M.T.A. employees, have persuaded the authority to spend an unusual amount on design and management, statistics indicate.
Public officials, mired in bureaucracy, have not acted to curb the costs. The M.T.A. has not adopted best practices nor worked to increase competition in contracting, and it almost never punishes vendors for spending too much or taking too long, according to inspector general reports.
At the heart of the issue is the obscure way that construction costs are set in New York. Worker wages and labor conditions are determined through negotiations between the unions and the companies, none of whom have any incentive to control costs. The transit authority has made no attempt to intervene to contain the spending.
“It’s sad, really,” said Lok Home, owner of the Robbins Company, which manufactured much of the tunneling equipment used for East Side Access. “Because if they controlled the costs, they could do twice as many expansion projects and still have more money for maintenance.”
Asked about The Times’s findings, union leaders and construction executives insisted that no money had been wasted. They said tunneling was difficult and dangerous work that must be well funded.
The M.T.A., for its part, did not dispute the findings.
Joseph J. Lhota, who was chairman of the authority in 2012 and returned to the job in June, said he had recently appointed working groups to study costs and the procurement process.
“We recognize this has been a problem. We’re never going to deny history,” Mr. Lhota said. “This is an issue that needs to be addressed. It needs to be attacked.”
Supervisors discovered several hundred extra workers on East Side Access, an example of rampant overstaffing on Metropolitan Transportation Authority projects. Todd Heisler/The New York Times Why Is New York Different?
New York’s struggles come as transit construction is booming around the world. At least 150 projects have been initiated since 1990, according to a recent study by Yale University researcher David Schleicher.
The approximate average cost of the projects — both in the U.S. and abroad — has been less than $500 million per track mile, the study concluded.
“There was one glaring exception,” Mr. Schleicher said. “New York.”
That exception has not gone unnoticed. The independent online journalist Alon Levy first noted the M.T.A’s high construction costs, and 28 City Council members urged officials to research the issue in October.
Mr. Lhota responded by defending the costs. He said in a letter, “There are unique challenges that contribute to high construction costs in New York City in general, and for M.T.A. projects in particular.”
Mr. Lhota listed 10 explanations, including aging utilities, expensive land, high density, strict regulations and large ridership requiring big stations.
To evaluate those arguments, The Times brought the list to more than 50 contractors, many of whom had worked in New York as well as in other cities. The Times also interviewed nearly 100 current and former M.T.A. employees, reviewed internal project records, consulted industry price indexes and built a database to compare spending on specific items. And The Times observed construction on site in Paris, which is building a project similar to the Second Avenue subway at one-sixth the cost.
The review found evidence for one of the issues cited by the M.T.A.: Because most countries have nationalized health care, projects abroad do not have to fund worker health insurance. That might explain a tenth of the cost differences, contractors said.
But the contractors said the other issues cited by the M.T.A. were challenges that all transit systems face. Density is the norm in cities where subway projects occur. Regulations are similar everywhere. All projects use the same equipment at the same prices. Land and other types of construction do not cost dramatically more in New York. Insurance costs more but is only a fraction of the budget. The M.T.A.’s stations have not been bigger (nor deeper) than is typical.
“Those sound like cop-outs,” said Rob Muley, an executive at the John Holland engineering firm who has worked in Hong Kong and Singapore and visited the East Side Access project, after hearing Mr. Lhota’s reasons.
In Paris, which has famously powerful unions, the review found the lower costs were the result of efficient staffing, fierce vendor competition and scant use of consultants.
In some ways, M.T.A. projects have been easier than work elsewhere. East Side Access uses an existing tunnel for nearly half its route. The hard rock under the city also is easy to blast through, and workers do not encounter ancient sites that need to be protected.
“They’re claiming the age of the city is to blame?” asked Andy Mitchell, the former head of Crossrail, a project to build 13 miles of subway under the center of London, a city built 2,000 years ago. “Really?”
A tunnel-boring machine being used on the Second Avenue subway project in 2010. As many as 25 workers are required to run the machines in New York, while the number is roughly a dozen in other cities. Richard Perry/The New York Times A Dizzying Maze of Jobs
The reasons for the M.T.A.’s high costs start with the sheer number of people employed.
Mike Roach noticed it immediately upon entering the No. 7 line work site a few years ago. Mr. Roach, a California-based tunneling contractor, was not involved in the project but was invited to see it. He was stunned by how many people were operating the machine churning through soil to create the tunnel.
“I actually started counting because I was so surprised, and I counted 25 or 26 people,” he said. “That’s three times what I’m used to.”
The staffing of tunnel-boring machines came up repeatedly in interviews with contractors. The so-called T.B.M.s are massive contraptions, weighing over 1,000 tons and stretching up to 500 feet from cutting wheel to thrust system, but they largely run automatically. Other cities typically man the machine with fewer than 10 people.
It is not just tunneling machines that are overstaffed, though. A dozen New York unions work on tunnel creation, station erection and system setup. Each negotiates with the construction companies over labor conditions, without the M.T.A.’s involvement. And each has secured rules that contractors say require more workers than necessary.
The unions and vendors declined to release the labor deals, but The Times obtained them. Along with interviews with contractors, the documents reveal a dizzying maze of jobs, many of which do not exist on projects elsewhere.
There are “nippers” to watch material being moved around and “hog house tenders” to supervise the break room. Each crane must have an “oiler,” a relic of a time when they needed frequent lubrication. Standby electricians and plumbers are to be on hand at all times, as is at least one “master mechanic.” Generators and elevators must have their own operators, even though they are automatic. An extra person is required to be present for all concrete pumping, steam fitting, sheet metal work and other tasks.
In New York, “underground construction employs approximately four times the number of personnel as in similar jobs in Asia, Australia, or Europe,” according to an internal report by Arup, a consulting firm that worked on the Second Avenue subway and many similar projects around the world.
That ratio does not include people who get lost in the sea of workers and get paid even though they have no apparent responsibility, as happened on East Side Access. The construction company running that project declined to comment.
Costs for the East Side Access project are seven times higher than the average elsewhere, in part because New York has stood by a small group of politically connected labor unions, construction companies and consulting firms. Todd Heisler/The New York Times The labor deals negotiated between the unions and construction companies also ensure that workers are well paid. The agreement for Local 147, the union for the famed “sandhogs” who dig the tunnels, includes a pay rate for most members of $111 per hour in salary and benefits. The pay doubles for overtime or Sunday work, which is common in transit construction. Weekend overtime pays quadruple — more than $400 per hour.
Other trades are not paid as much but get overtime more frequently on M.T.A. projects, driving up costs.
Union officials pushed back against the idea that their members are overpaid. The construction unions, after all, arose in response to exploitative bosses who underpaid and endangered workers. More than a dozen people died building New York’s subway, and many more have perished since. Even today, workers labor in dirty and uncomfortable conditions to build marvels.
“Construction workers deserve every penny they make, and more,” said Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. “We live in New York. It’s very expensive to live here. We take great pride in the work that we do. And the work rules are there to make sure we stay alive.”
But statistics suggest that the labor deals multiply costs while doing little to boost safety. During the Second Avenue subway project, for example, there were 5.5 safety incidents for every 200,000 work hours, according to federal data. The national average is 3.2. The Silver Line in Washington, which cost just $300 million per mile, had an even lower rate of incidents.
There also is no evidence that the deals spur faster construction. M.T.A. projects usually take longer than similar work elsewhere.
Some labor leaders said they were willing to negotiate the work rules to increase efficiency.
“We can figure out a way,” said Richard Fitzsimmons, business manager for Local 147, who said that he often sees the construction companies insisting on workers that are not needed. “I’m the union, and sometimes I’m saying to myself, ‘What the hell are they even doing?’”
But, Mr. Fitzsimmons added, “we will never negotiate with the safety of our members.”
Several contractors said the unions are able to maintain the deals because everybody knows they are politically powerful. The unions working on M.T.A. projects have donated more than $1 million combined to Mr. Cuomo during his administration, records show.
Peter Ajemian, a spokesman for the governor, referred inquiries to the M.T.A. on Thursday.
“Contracting is handled by the M.T.A.,” Mr. Ajemian said, “so questions related to contracting should be directed to the authority.”
The critics pointed to several unusual provisions in the labor agreements. One part of Local 147’s deal entitles the union to $450,000 for each tunnel-boring machine used. That is to make up for job losses from “technological advancement,” even though the equipment has been standard for decades.
“I’m not anti-union at all, but it’s amazing how much they dictate everything that happens on a job in New York,” said Jim Peregoy, a Missouri-based cost estimator who has worked on 240 projects in 27 states, including the Second Avenue subway. Mr. Peregoy said labor was a far bigger part of his estimates in New York than elsewhere. “You have to account for it, because it’s huge.”
The agreement for Local 147, the union for the famed “sandhogs” who dig the tunnels, includes a pay rate for most members of $111 per hour in salary and benefits. Overtime on the weekend pays more than $400 per hour. Todd Heisler/The New York Times Driving Up Expenses
Even though the M.T.A. is paying for its capital construction with taxpayer dollars, the government does not get a seat at the table when labor conditions are determined. Instead, the task of reining in the unions falls to the construction companies — which often try to drive up costs themselves.
Typically, construction companies meet with each trade union every three years to hammer out the labor deals. The resulting agreements apply to all companies, preventing contractors from lowering their bids by proposing less generous wages or work rules.
That is not a problem in the private sector, where the possibility of nonunion labor can force unions to be more competitive, or in parts of the public sector that involve more potential bidders. But in the small world of underground construction, experts say there is little cost containment.
Tim Gilchrist, a transportation adviser to Govs. Eliot L. Spitzer and David A. Paterson, noted all costs are passed on to the M.T.A. “Nobody at the negotiating table is footing the bill,” he said.
Critics pointed out that construction companies actually have an incentive to maximize costs — they earn a percentage of the project’s costs as profit, so the higher the cost, the bigger their profit.
Mr. Lhota, the M.T.A. chairman, agreed that leaving negotiations to unions and vendors may be problematic. “You’re right; in many ways, there’s this level of connection between the two,” he said.
But the chairman said he did not know what could be done about it. Hiring nonunion labor is legal but not politically realistic for the M.T.A. The transit authority could get unions to agree to project-specific labor deals, but it has not.
The profit percentage taken by vendors also is itself a factor in the M.T.A.’s high costs.
In other parts of the world, companies bidding on transit projects typically add 10 percent to their estimated costs to account for profit, overhead and change orders, contractors in five continents said. Final profit is usually less than 5 percent of the total project cost, which is sufficient given the size of the projects, the contractors said.
Things are much different in New York. In a series of interviews, dozens of M.T.A. contractors described how vendors routinely increase their estimated costs when bidding for work.
First, the contractors said, the vendors add between 15 and 25 percent as an “M.T.A. Factor” because of how hard it can be to work within the bureaucracy of the transit authority. Then they add 10 percent as a contingency for possible changes. And then they add another 10-12 percent on top of all that for profit and overhead.
“It adds up,” said Mysore L. Nagaraja, a former head of M.T.A. construction now working as a consultant, who called the surcharges standard for most vendors. “Everybody is looking out for their own interests.”
Denise Richardson, the executive director of the General Contractors Association, which represents construction companies on M.T.A. projects, said the surcharges are needed because the vendors assume huge risks on transit projects and often are forced to pay for mistakes made by the authority. At the end of the day, she said, the companies make a relatively small profit.
“It is profit, not covering costs, that allows a firm to hire more people, expand their administrative space and buy new equipment,” Ms. Richardson said. “Firms that only cover their costs do not stay in business.”
When companies prepare bids for M.T.A. projects, they start by estimating the cost of the work. Then they add between 15 and 25 percent as an “M.T.A. Factor,” to account for the difficulty of working with the authority. Todd Heisler/The New York Times Lack of competition is also problem for the M.T.A. A Times analysis of roughly 150 contracts worth more than $10 million that the authority has signed in the past five years found the average project received just 3.5 bids.
“In other cities, you get eight bids for projects,” said Gary Brierley, a consultant who has worked on hundreds of projects in the last 50 years, including the No. 7 line extension and the Second Avenue subway. “In New York, you get two or three, and they know that, so they’ll inflate their bids if they think they can get away with it.”
One of the most important contracts in recent years, for the construction of the Second Avenue tunnel, got just two bids. M.T.A. engineers had estimated the contract would cost $290 million, but both bids came in well above $300 million, and the authority did not have much leverage. Ultimately, it awarded the deal for about $350 million — 20 percent above its estimate.
And then there are the political connections. The vendors that worked on the East Side Access, Second Avenue subway and No. 7 line projects have given a combined $5 million to New York politicians since the projects began in 2000, a Times analysis found.
More than a dozen M.T.A. workers were fined for accepting gifts from contractors during that time, records show. One was Anil Parikh, the director of the Second Avenue subway project. He got a $2,500 ticket to a gala, a round of golf and dinner from a contractor in 2002. Years later, shortly after the line opened, he went to work for the contractor’s parent company, AECOM. Mr. Parikh and AECOM declined to comment.
A Times analysis of the 25 M.T.A. agency presidents who have left over the past two decades found that at least 18 of them became consultants or went to work for authority contractors, including many who have worked on expansion projects.
“Is it rigged? Yes,” said Charles G. Moerdler, who has served on the M.T.A. board since 2010. “I don’t think it’s corrupt. But I think people like doing business with people they know, and so a few companies get all the work, and they can charge whatever they want.”
A priest blessed a new phase of the construction of the Second Avenue subway in 2012. The line also cost far more than the average transit project — $2.5 billion per mile. Ángel Franco/The New York Times Swelling ‘Soft’ Costs
The M.T.A.’s high costs are not limited to the companies that build the tunnels. Projects start burning through cash long before construction begins.
On average, “soft costs” — preliminary design and engineering, plus management while construction is underway — make up about 20 percent of the cost of transit projects in America, according to a 2010 report by the Transportation Research Board. The average is similar in other countries, contractors said.
Not in New York.
The latest federal oversight report for the Second Avenue subway projected soft cost spending at $1.4 billion — one-third of the budget, not including financing expenses. M.T.A. officials said that number was high because it included some costs for design of later phases of the line. But experts said it was still shocking.
“The crazy thing is it’s so high even with everything else,” said Larry Gould, a transit consultant and former M.T.A. subway planner. “If we have three or four times as many workers, how can the percentage for soft costs be so high?”
Soft costs for East Side Access are expected to exceed $2 billion. The project plan called for the hiring of 500 consultants from a dozen different companies, according to a 2009 federal oversight report.
Both the Second Avenue subway and East Side Access projects hired the same main engineering firm: WSP USA, formerly known as Parsons Brinckerhoff. The firm, which designed some of New York’s original subway, has donated hundreds of thousands to politicians in recent years, and has hired so many transit officials that some in the system refer to it as “the M.T.A. retirement home.”
The firm was the only vendor to bid on the engineering contract for the Second Avenue subway, records show. On East Side Access, it is sharing the contract with STV Inc., which recently hired the former M.T.A. chairman Thomas F. Prendergast. The contract was initially for $140 million, but it has grown to $481 million.
WSP USA declined to answer questions. “WSP has undertaken complex and enduring infrastructure projects across the U.S., and the New York region presents unique needs and challenges,” the firm said in a statement.
The M.T.A. is partly to blame. Officials have added to the soft costs by struggling to coordinate between vendors, taking a long time to approve plans, insisting on extravagant station designs and changing their minds midway through projects. In 2010, they hired a team of three consultants to work full time on East Side Access “operational readiness” — getting the tunnel ready to open — even though contractors knew construction would not end for another decade.
Janno Lieber, who joined the M.T.A. as chief development officer in April, acknowledged there were parts of the authority’s project management approach that have been “broken” and “self-defeating.” Changing plans midway through projects is a “huge issue,” as is over-customization of designs and poor management of consultants, he said.
“We just have to do a much better job,” Mr. Lieber said. “We’re relying on these consultants to run our projects, and we’re not getting good results out of them.”
Others have a more skeptical perspective about the soft costs.
Jack Brockway, an executive at Herrenknecht, a German manufacturer of tunnel-boring machines, said he got “stacks and stacks and stacks” of instructions from consultants for his work on the Second Avenue subway, down to details that barely made sense.
“It makes you wonder if it’s really necessary, or if they’re just trying to do something to justify how much they’re getting paid,” Mr. Brockway said.
Workers at a new Metro station in Paris in December. Despite France’s strong unions, Paris has lower subway construction costs than New York City because of more efficient staffing, fierce vendor competition and scant use of consultants. Pete Kiehart for The New York Times The View From Paris
Across the Atlantic Ocean, Paris is working on a project that brings the inefficiency of New York into stark relief.
The project, called the Line 14 extension, is similar to the Second Avenue subway. Both projects extend decades-old lines in the hopes of reducing systemwide overcrowding. Both involved digging through moderately hard soil just north of the city center to make a few miles of tunnel and a few stations about 80 feet underground. Both used tunnel-boring machines made by Herrenknecht. Both faced strict regulations, high density and demands from neighbors, which limited some construction to 12 hours per day.
But while the Second Avenue Subway cost $2.5 billion a mile, the Line 14 extension is on track to cost $450 million a mile.
On a recent afternoon at a Line 14 construction site, an official expressed disbelief that New York was spending so much.
“We thought ours was expensive,” said Laurent Probst, managing director of Île-de-France Mobilités, which controls transit in the French capital.
As he descended into the hole carved for the future Pont Cardinet station, it became clear how the costs could be so different. Scattered around the cavern were a couple dozen workers, running drills, smoothing over soil and checking electrical systems. Mostly, they worked by themselves.
Mr. Probst, 39, wearing a suit and blue tie under his orange safety jacket, pushed the button to operate the elevator himself.
France’s unions are powerful, but Mr. Probst said they did not control project staffing. Isabelle Brochard of RATP, a state-owned company that operates the Paris Metro and is coordinating the Line 14 project, estimated there were 200 total workers on the job, each earning $60 per hour. The Second Avenue subway project employed about 700 workers, many making double that (although that included health insurance).
The tunnel-boring machine chewing through dirt north of Pont Cardinet — a secondhand machine, Ms. Brochard noted — was staffed by a dozen laborers who bounced between the control room, the cutting wheel and the sides of the machine.
Inside the control room of a tunnel-boring machine in Paris, where a crew half the size of those in New York operated the 1,000-ton contraption. Pete Kiehart for The New York Times The small number of workers has not slowed the Paris project. The line, which will run driverless trains every 85 seconds, is set to open by 2020, six years after groundbreaking. The Second Avenue subway, by contrast, took a decade to build.
M.T.A. officials declined to comment on the Paris project.
RATP handled all the contracting, Mr. Probst said. But the government worked closely with vendors, trying to build the type of collaborative relationships that are rare in New York.
The management contractor — Systra, which also worked on the Second Avenue subway — got a relatively small contract, Mr. Probst said. Soft costs totaled 20 percent of the project budget.
Officials awarded dozens of contracts, and most garnered at least a half dozen bids, driving down costs.
“Our first cost estimate was 260 million euros,” said Patrick Ramond, underground construction director at Razel-Bec, which beat five competitors to win a contract for half the tunneling. “We had to drop that by 40 million to get the job.”
Because of that and some technical issues, Mr. Ramond said Razel-Bec was losing money on the job. Usually, he said, the firm makes a profit of about 5 percent.
“We do fine. I make a good living,” Mr. Ramond said with a laugh. “We’re not trying to rip anybody off.”
The Saint-Lazare station in Paris serves the new Line 14 extension, a major transit project that cost $450 million a mile. Below, a departing Line 14 train and a mosaic in the station. Pete Kiehart for The New York Times Pete Kiehart for The New York Times Pete Kiehart for The New York Times
WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE CONSTITUTION OUR ELECTED DEMS DON'T UNDERSTAND?
St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries 1:App. 301--4
1803
JAN. 5, 2018
President Trump spoke to reporters on Friday, then headed for Camp David to meet with Republican leaders. He seemed to take a hard line on immigration. Tom Brenner/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday presented Congress with an expansive list of hard-line immigration measures, including an $18 billion request to build a wall at the Mexican border, that President Trump is demanding in exchange for protecting young undocumented immigrants.
The request, which totals $33 billion over a period of 10 years for border security measures including the wall, could jeopardize bipartisan talks aimed at getting an immigration deal. Among the items on Mr. Trump’s immigration wish-list: money to hire 10,000 additional immigration officers, tougher laws for those seeking asylum, and denial of federal grants to so-called “sanctuary cities.”
The list, delivered to Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who has been leading the talks related to young immigrants without documentation, is identical to one Democrats declared a nonstarter when the White House issued it in October.
“President Trump has said he may need a good government shutdown to get his wall,” a furious Mr. Durbin said in an emailed statement Friday afternoon. “With this demand, he seems to be heading in that direction.”
The senator went on: “It’s outrageous that the White House would undercut months of bipartisan efforts by again trying to put its entire wish-list of hard-line anti-immigrant bills — plus an additional $18 billion in wall funding — on the backs of these young people.”
An estimated 780,000 young people brought to this country illegally were shielded from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, a program instituted by former President Barack Obama in 2012. But in September, Mr. Trump rescinded the program, known by its acronym, DACA, and gave Congress six months to come up with a replacement.
Since then, immigration advocates say, 14,000 young people have lost their protected status because they could not renew two-year work permits issued under the program.
Mr. Durbin and four other senators — including three Republicans — have been meeting nearly every day for the past two months to negotiate a deal that would protect the DACA recipients while beefing up border security, a key Republican demand. Senators said they were making progress but were stalled while awaiting a “punch list” from the White House that would set forth the president’s conditions.
The White House documents include a list of “critical physical border security requirements,” including the $18 billion for a “border wall system,” first reported Friday by The Wall Street Journal. The money would be used to construct more than 2,000 miles of new or replacement barriers along the border with Mexico.
Mr. Durbin, who said he would continue the bipartisan talks with his Senate colleagues “in good faith,” made the documents public late Friday afternoon, setting off an intense reaction from his fellow Democrats. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic House leader, wrote on Twitter, “@realDonald Trump, that border wall funding you are asking for (again) could do so much more good in other places .... #NoWall”
The White House issued the demands as Mr. Trump departed for Camp David, where he was meeting with Republican congressional leaders to address a series of issues — including keeping the government open past Jan. 19.
But part of the discussions were also expected to center on how to reach an accord with Democrats over protections for the undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, those known as Dreamers, as well as how to fund a major children’s health care program that is in danger of running out of funds. The president met with Republicans at the White House on Wednesday, but the meetings at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, are designed to come up with a clearer strategic approach.
The administration and Congress must also strike a deal to raise statutory limits on military and domestic spending before Jan. 19, when the current stopgap spending bill expires.
If they cannot reach a deal, the government could be forced into a partial shutdown almost a year to the day after Mr. Trump was sworn into office.
How Mr. Trump works with Congress over these critical domestic issues will set a tone for his second year in office, and could shape the 2018 midterm election landscape. Republicans are deeply concerned that their majorities in the House and Senate may be in jeopardy.
Before leaving for Camp David, the president continued to play head economic cheerleader. “The stock market is up very, very big today,” he told reporters. “We’ve set new records, and I think they’ll be continued to set.” The Dow Jones industrial average broke the 25,000 barrier for the first time on Thursday.
“The tax cuts are really kicking in far beyond what anyone thought. Numerous companies have today come out and announced that they’re going to make big payments to their employees — something that nobody really had in mind,” Mr. Trump said.
After the Friday meeting, the White House described the session as “productive” about matters of economic and national security.
This week, the president expressed some hope that he could reach a deal with Democrats over the Obama-era immigration initiative, which allowed immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children to be shielded from deportation and to receive temporary, renewable work permits.
Mr. Trump said then that, in addition to the wall, he wanted to limit family-based migration, which critics call “chain migration,” that allows relatives to sponsor family members to come to the United States. And he wants to do away with the diversity visa lottery, a State Department program that admits immigrants from countries that do not send many people to the United States.
“We’d love to take care of DACA,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday, “but we’re only going to do it under these conditions.”
In a Twitter message on Tuesday, the president accused Democrats of “doing nothing for DACA” and being interested only in politics.
Democrats are doing nothing for DACA - just interested in politics. DACA activists and Hispanics will go hard against Dems, will start “falling in love” with Republicans and their President! We are about RESULTS. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Jan. 2, 2018
Whether that approach will bring along dubious Democrats is not certain, but it is clear that DACA is only one piece of a larger puzzle.
While many Democrats support ending the visa program and stiffening border and interior enforcement, it is not clear whether they will back the measures that Republicans demand to limit what they call “chain migration,” allowing immigrants to sponsor family members once they gain legal status.
“Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to,” Ms. Pelosi said in an interview on Tuesday.
1803
"Among the reasons alledged [sic] by a committee of congress, in support of the constitutionality of the alien law, one was; 'that the constitution was made for citizens, not for aliens, who of consequence have no rights under it, but remain in the country, and enjoy the benefit of the laws, not as matter of right, but merely as matter of favour [sic] and permission; which may be withdrawn whenever the government may judge their further continuance dangerous.'
White House Immigration Demands Imperil Bipartisan Talks
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and MICHAEL TACKETTJAN. 5, 2018
President Trump spoke to reporters on Friday, then headed for Camp David to meet with Republican leaders. He seemed to take a hard line on immigration. Tom Brenner/The New York Times WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday presented Congress with an expansive list of hard-line immigration measures, including an $18 billion request to build a wall at the Mexican border, that President Trump is demanding in exchange for protecting young undocumented immigrants.
The request, which totals $33 billion over a period of 10 years for border security measures including the wall, could jeopardize bipartisan talks aimed at getting an immigration deal. Among the items on Mr. Trump’s immigration wish-list: money to hire 10,000 additional immigration officers, tougher laws for those seeking asylum, and denial of federal grants to so-called “sanctuary cities.”
The list, delivered to Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who has been leading the talks related to young immigrants without documentation, is identical to one Democrats declared a nonstarter when the White House issued it in October.
“President Trump has said he may need a good government shutdown to get his wall,” a furious Mr. Durbin said in an emailed statement Friday afternoon. “With this demand, he seems to be heading in that direction.”
The senator went on: “It’s outrageous that the White House would undercut months of bipartisan efforts by again trying to put its entire wish-list of hard-line anti-immigrant bills — plus an additional $18 billion in wall funding — on the backs of these young people.”
An estimated 780,000 young people brought to this country illegally were shielded from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, a program instituted by former President Barack Obama in 2012. But in September, Mr. Trump rescinded the program, known by its acronym, DACA, and gave Congress six months to come up with a replacement.
Since then, immigration advocates say, 14,000 young people have lost their protected status because they could not renew two-year work permits issued under the program.
Mr. Durbin and four other senators — including three Republicans — have been meeting nearly every day for the past two months to negotiate a deal that would protect the DACA recipients while beefing up border security, a key Republican demand. Senators said they were making progress but were stalled while awaiting a “punch list” from the White House that would set forth the president’s conditions.
The White House documents include a list of “critical physical border security requirements,” including the $18 billion for a “border wall system,” first reported Friday by The Wall Street Journal. The money would be used to construct more than 2,000 miles of new or replacement barriers along the border with Mexico.
Mr. Durbin, who said he would continue the bipartisan talks with his Senate colleagues “in good faith,” made the documents public late Friday afternoon, setting off an intense reaction from his fellow Democrats. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic House leader, wrote on Twitter, “@realDonald Trump, that border wall funding you are asking for (again) could do so much more good in other places .... #NoWall”
The White House issued the demands as Mr. Trump departed for Camp David, where he was meeting with Republican congressional leaders to address a series of issues — including keeping the government open past Jan. 19.
But part of the discussions were also expected to center on how to reach an accord with Democrats over protections for the undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, those known as Dreamers, as well as how to fund a major children’s health care program that is in danger of running out of funds. The president met with Republicans at the White House on Wednesday, but the meetings at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, are designed to come up with a clearer strategic approach.
The administration and Congress must also strike a deal to raise statutory limits on military and domestic spending before Jan. 19, when the current stopgap spending bill expires.
If they cannot reach a deal, the government could be forced into a partial shutdown almost a year to the day after Mr. Trump was sworn into office.
How Mr. Trump works with Congress over these critical domestic issues will set a tone for his second year in office, and could shape the 2018 midterm election landscape. Republicans are deeply concerned that their majorities in the House and Senate may be in jeopardy.
Before leaving for Camp David, the president continued to play head economic cheerleader. “The stock market is up very, very big today,” he told reporters. “We’ve set new records, and I think they’ll be continued to set.” The Dow Jones industrial average broke the 25,000 barrier for the first time on Thursday.
“The tax cuts are really kicking in far beyond what anyone thought. Numerous companies have today come out and announced that they’re going to make big payments to their employees — something that nobody really had in mind,” Mr. Trump said.
After the Friday meeting, the White House described the session as “productive” about matters of economic and national security.
This week, the president expressed some hope that he could reach a deal with Democrats over the Obama-era immigration initiative, which allowed immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children to be shielded from deportation and to receive temporary, renewable work permits.
Mr. Trump said then that, in addition to the wall, he wanted to limit family-based migration, which critics call “chain migration,” that allows relatives to sponsor family members to come to the United States. And he wants to do away with the diversity visa lottery, a State Department program that admits immigrants from countries that do not send many people to the United States.
“We’d love to take care of DACA,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday, “but we’re only going to do it under these conditions.”
In a Twitter message on Tuesday, the president accused Democrats of “doing nothing for DACA” and being interested only in politics.
Democrats are doing nothing for DACA - just interested in politics. DACA activists and Hispanics will go hard against Dems, will start “falling in love” with Republicans and their President! We are about RESULTS. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Jan. 2, 2018
Whether that approach will bring along dubious Democrats is not certain, but it is clear that DACA is only one piece of a larger puzzle.
While many Democrats support ending the visa program and stiffening border and interior enforcement, it is not clear whether they will back the measures that Republicans demand to limit what they call “chain migration,” allowing immigrants to sponsor family members once they gain legal status.
“Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to,” Ms. Pelosi said in an interview on Tuesday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)