Nothing.
As emergency workers continue to look for the 8 missing victims from the Minnesota bridge collapse, the Left has the surged on the disaster to attack President Bush.
Heidi Sheen, left, and Brenda Asmus put down a sign to protest war as President Bush's helicopter flew over head to view the destroyed Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, Saturday, Aug. 4, 2007. The sign reads 'Support Bridges Not War.' (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Even the democratic senator from Minnesota played politics with the bridge disaster.
But, as Captain's Quarters noted:
Senator Amy Klobuchar blamed the collapse of the I-35W bridge on a lack of highway funds -- even though the 2005 highway bill increased federal funding to Minnesota by 46% over its five-year span.Democrats couldn't even wait for the bodies to be pulled from the river before they started their bogus Bush attacks. Sad.
Well whats rather funny (not in a humorous way) is that if one does a little looking around one can see that even though Minnesotan politicos and people knew there were problems with the bridge since at least 1990 they chose to little about apparently...
ReplyDeleteYet the same folks did find money for bike trails and some road construction...
The Taxpayers League of Minnesota noted in their 2006 Piglet Book the people and the politicos found money for the followig: * The state bailout of the Minneapolis Teacher’s Retirement Fund, which puts state taxpayers on the hook for $972 million in unfunded liabilities;
* A new $776 million Twins Stadium to be paid for with a Hennepin County sales tax increase (approved by state legislators with no voter referendum)
* $97.5 million for the Northstar Commuter Rail line;
* $34 million in subsidies to ethanol producers that have seen a 300 percent increase in profits in the last year;
* $30 million for bear exhibits at the Minnesota and Como Zoos;
* $12 million to renovate the Shubert Theater in downtown Minneapolis;
* $1 million for a replica Vikings ship in Moorhead;
* $500,000 for a skating rink in Roseville;
* $310,000 for a Shakespeare festival in Winona; and
* $129,000 for state art grants for North Dakota museums and theaters
The same Taxpayers League also noted that the local politicos had as they phrased it, a taste for Taj Mahals...
Do you all think Minnesotans could've diverted some of this money to fix a 17 year old problem?
Then again maybe not... A state that seemingling taking pride in sending people like Paul Wellstone, Walter Mondale and Keith Ellison to Washington D.C. might just have a problem getting their collective heads around reality...
As I point out here, this has more to do with politicians wanting to take credit for building new roads than they're interested in maintaining critical infrastructure. I predict that debate will shift in the next 1-2 months.
ReplyDeleteThis is Brenda Asmus, one of the people in the photograph. First of all, my thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families of this tragedy, especially those who are still awaiting recovery. I cannot imagine how difficult this time must be for them. I am writing this response because I am disappointed and personally insulted that this photograph was associated with this headline. This was carelessly placed in the wrong context and has been associated with a memorial service (not at this time or place—3 hours later in the day) and the halting of the search efforts yesterday (2 hours after this sign was placed). My reason for the sign (9:00 a.m.) was that our president came to MPLS yesterday and was flying overhead at 9:00 a.m. He visited MPLS to not only pay condolence to the victim’s and families involved in this tragedy, but also vowed to see this bridge would get rebuilt and Minnesota is receiving federal emergency support--$250 million. This is only one bridge of countless others that should also receive immediate local and national attention—before another tragedy of this nature occurs. [This sign reads “Support bridges—not war” not “Support bridges, not THE war.”] Yesterday, at midnight, the House approved an unprecedented 460 billion dollar Pentagon budget (This does NOT include funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for 2008; the cost to continue this war will be addressed separately in the near future). The Pentagon bill DOES include a lot of wartime bells and whistles—including an arsenal of bombs, missiles, and technologically savvy fighter jets. I, as well as many other people on the hill yesterday, think that we need to re-prioritize our federal funding and devote less on wartime “effects” and more on our aging, domestic infrastructure. And yes, state funding priorities need also to be re-prioritized, and so I hope that this sign will also bring this message to them as well. This bridge failure should be a canary in the coal mine to our President, elected congress men and women, and state officials that maintenance and replacement of our aging and ailing infrastructure requires our immediate attention—and is crucial to our national safety. This is something that I think all of us need to be concerned about—no matter what side of the political fence you stand on.
ReplyDeleteBrenda- Thank you for your comment.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad that you chose to make a bogus political statement from this tragedy.
They haven't even found all of the bodies and you are making bogus accusations and trying to score political points.
Shame on you.
Shame on Brenda. She had the opportunity to do something constructive, and sacrificed it so she could make the bodies of the dead into a soap box for her extremist views. Shame indeed.
ReplyDelete++
ReplyDeleteShame on you.
i concur, but will refrain from telling you what i really "feel" about your treasured BDS "victimization" mantra..
btw, that canary was in critical condition long before Bush was elected.. where were you, were you calling out to those who were responsible pre catastrophe?? get real, blaming this on Bush and/or the wars in Afhganistan and/or Iraqi is just another 'convenient lie'..
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Well there's no doubt about it in my mind at least...
ReplyDeleteBrenda the oxygen bandit is just a pathetic excuse for what passes as a fellow citizen if not outright criminal...
I note that Brenda didn't have anything to say about the money wasted on the lunatics projects these fools put together while their bridges (a problem 17 years in the making) were decaying away...
Brenda's idiotic comment: "This is something that I think all of us need to be concerned about—no matter what side of the political fence you stand on"...
What utter drivel! Where does someone dig up this sort of asinine rhetoric?
The fact that taxpayers have their priorities screwed is the problem here but that barking moonbat either refuses to acknowledge that or isn't smart enough to understand it...
Hey, when are all you smart guys going to sign up and go fight Bushy's war for him. Maybe by then his kids will have sign up too.
ReplyDeleteIt comes so easily to a chickenhawk to speak of shame. Here you are pumping up the war for the 101st keyboarders, scoring political points at will over the tragedies of Muslim families safely in your home on your me-too blog because you have far too many excuses to join the "battle of our generation" and discover how false it all is.
ReplyDeleteWhy quibble over cents when the war has cost us trillions? You won't see us waving signs supporting stadiums, but it's simply your latest myopic excuse for imperialist excess. Just twenty days worth of war spending would replace every one of the 70,000 bridges in this country rated structurally deficient and we'd have done that much less damage to the hearts and minds of those we claim to be helping. Maybe you should learn shame?
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ReplyDeletehey Colin Lee..
you forgot the PORK!! albeit both sides of the isle suq imo.. 1st place goes to Mealy Mouth Murtha coming in @ $150.5 mil, and that's just counting what's been disclosed so far..
ps: bridge repairs have more or less been steadily funded over the years, where does the money go?? FOLLOW THE MONEY!!
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ReplyDeletejust a few flashbacks & updates, there's literally tons more, but believe i've already gone a tad overboard (not to mention OT).. :D
Iraq Tells UN it Wants Multinational Force to Stay
In an About-Face, Sunnis Want U.S. to Remain in Iraq
excerpt:
["We want to tell the American people to increase the presence of the Americans here, to control the situation," he added.]
UN Security Council Extends Iraq Force Mandate
excerpt:
["The Security Council remains strongly of the view that we need to see stability in Iraq and continued progress toward democracy," he said. "And the fact that it was a unanimous vote shows that all the countries want to contribute to it, and I think the explanation vote by France made it clear we all share the same objective. I think that's something that neighboring countries need to take into account."]
NBC: Iraqis Want U.S. to Stay, Anti-War Effort Helping Insurgents
excerpt:
["The people here are very glad to see us." Williams marveled: "You just said, 'They don't want us to leave.' That's the tenth time today I've heard that. I've got to go back to the States and do a newscast that every night has another politician or 12 of them saying, 'We have got to get out of that godforsaken place.'"]
A War We Just Might Win
excerpt:
[Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done.]
A Turn For The Better In Iraq?
excerpt:
[No, we're arguing that the course of events seems to have turned decisively in our favor. If we keep our troops on mission, we might be able to produce within a year or two a stable government in Iraq that will be able to defend itself from all enemies, foreign and domestic. This is the desired outcome -- one that will leave in place a government that will not support terrorists against the U.S., unlike the previous regime in Iraq headed by Saddam Hussein.]
Symposium
excerpt:
James S. Robbins
[The weak link in the war effort is in the U.S. Congress. Politically driven assessments that downplay the progress of the war, pandering to antiwar groups, and a public that has tuned out, add up to grave difficulties in sustaining the war effort.]
The New York Times' John Burns: "The Possibility Of As Many As A Million Iraqis Dying."
excerpts:
[HH: One of the arguments for those favoring a timeline for withdrawal that’s written in stone is that it will oblige the Iraqi political class to get serious about such things as the oil revenue division. Do you believe that’s an accurate argument?
JB: ... So in effect, the threats from Washington about a withdrawal, which we might have hoped would have brought about greater political cooperation in face of the threat that would ensue from that to the entire political establishment here, has had, as best we can gauge it, much more the opposite effect, of an effect that persuading people well, if the Americans are going, there’s absolutely no…and we’re going to have to settle this by a civil war, why should we make concessions on that matter right now? ...]
[HH: In his recent speech in Charleston, President Bush argued that to withdraw would be to empower al Qaeda in Anbar Province, and to allow them to set up a base there. What do you make of that projection, John Burns?
JB: Well, I think it's self-evident. Whatever we may make of the original intent of coming here, if the United States did not have a problem with Islamic extremism in Iraq before 2003, it certainly does now. You only have to look at the pronouncements of Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahiri, his deputy, to see that they regard Iraq now as being, if you will, the front line of the Islamic militant battle against the West. And so if American troops were withdrawn, I think that there would be a very serious risk that large parts of this country will fall under the sway of al Qaeda linked groups. Now we could debate what that exactly means...]
Going soft in Ramadi
excerpts:
[Security conditions in the western Iraq city of Ramadi have improved so much since coalition forces wrested control from al-Qaida that 80 days have now passed without a single attack, according to Col. John Charlton, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team.
Security has blossomed not only in the city, but in the entire 8,900 square-mile province of Anbar, of which Ramadi is the capitol, Charlton told Pentagon reporters Friday during a remote video briefing from his Ramadi headquarters.
In February, the 6,000 U.S. servicemembers under Charlton's command and the 12,000 Iraqi security forces were braving between 30 and 35 daily attacks from the organization known as al-Qaida in Iraq, which had declared Anbar, particularly Ramadi, as the center of its operations.
Attacks now average one a day or fewer, Charlton said.
Some weeks, there are no attacks throughout the province, Charlton said.]
[This weekend I talked with a Marine friend of mine who recently came back from a tour in Anbar province. His base was attacked (incompetently) twice while he was there, and that used to be the worst place in the whole country. He was disappointed in the level of action he saw and felt that as Marines his unit should have been rotated to the active fighting in Baghdad. When troops come back complaining that there aren't enough fights to go around, you are not losing.]
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Hey big A, how come you didn't sign up to be Saddam's human shield when you had the chance? Feeling to comfortable and safe in your mommy's basement? Now that would've been a serious anti-war statement...
ReplyDeleteThen we have colin lee who whines about chickenhawks (a phrase cowardly libtards love to use but obviously don't understand it) and the cost of war...
Well gee colin lee! If you are so worried about trillions spent where's your anger and disgust over LBJ's war on poverty ? There's trillions of dollars extorted from the productive so politicos of both parties can buy the votes of the parasitic but not a peep from you or your fellow travelers and that war is 40+ years and still stealing strong...
Its funny colin lee like all libtards you forget that Minnesota did have the money to fix those bridges but they apparently thought it was more important to spend it on projects more important than bridges ...
Where's your rightous indignation over that?
Speaking of bridges, the New York Sun has a golden nugget of an editorial letting folks know what a putz Sen. Schumer and his fellow travelers are (are you getting this colin lee?): Weinshall-Schumer Bridge
ReplyDeleteSenator Schumer appeared yesterday at the base of what a press release from his office described as the "iconic and aging Brooklyn Bridge" for an ambulance-chasing press conference following the collapse of a bridge in Minnesota. The senator complained that "For far too long, highways and bridges in New York and across the country have been allowed to degrade to the point of dangerous disrepair."
Funny, when The New York Sun ran an editorial about the decrepit state of the Brooklyn Bridge, we got a letter to the editor from Mr. Schumer's wife, Iris Weinshall, who was then the city's transportation commissioner. "I wanted to let your readers know how we make repair and painting decisions for New York City's bridges — and assure them that our treasured Brooklyn Bridge does not suffer from ‘neglect,'" Ms. Weinshall wrote in the letter we published September 13, 2006.
(there is more)
Retorts of this kind aren't worth my time. Pointing at Democrats guilty of the same offenses is a child's excuse. Many of the protesters in the picture are not Democrats, nor am I. Just because many Democrats also screw over our social infrastructure doesn't make it right. If we can raise taxes and bury ourselves in debt to buy a stadium and a war we don't need, we can do the same for bridges and roads MN has underfunded for decades.
ReplyDeleteAs for the war, Iraqis don't want it and we're losing it badly. Pollack and O'Hanlon have proclaimed victory since before we ever invaded Iraq, so they never deserved one whit of credibility. As long as we lose the war for hearts and minds, which happened when we resorted to the practices of Saddam, Iraq's occupation will continue to be a cause that attracts even moderate Islamists opposed to Western expansion in the Middle East. LBJ's "war on poverty," as quixotic as it seems, is more winnable than the one in Iraq.
We may win an inconsequential battle or two, but we lose the war that matters simply by being an occupier in a Shiite nation that believes religiously in martyrdom against oppressors. The war isn't because of Al Qaeda, but because we stirred up a nest of nationalists as unified against a common enemy as Afghanistan in the 80s.
Geez!
ReplyDeleteBrenda's comments about where this money to build or repair bridges and roads is further proof that most people have no clue how their own government works.
The gasoline taxes pay for this stuff - and the Federal government then gives yearly their portion of the funding (the states also collect gas taxes for the same thing)to the various states, and the STATES then decide on the projects!
So if this bridge fell down then blame where the blame should be - on past Minnesota governors and state legislators that spent the money on other things or did not take the warnings dating to 1990 serious enough about the bridge to fix it! The same thing happened in New Orleans with Corps of Engineers funds for the levees - the money was sent in the billions but when it got to corrupt Louisiana, it got diverted to other things quite often. The Washington Post wrote about this two years ago!
Brenda - it does not matter who sits in the White Hosue - it DOES matter who sits in the governor's mansion - when it comes to bridges and roads. Always has - always will!
Greg
Hey big J, I noticed you didn't mention what branch of the service you were in. Mine was Army. Yours? Probably mommys basement. That's why you know about those places, right?
ReplyDelete++
ReplyDeletehey colin lee, more sad news for you..
Positive News From Iraq Is Causing Perceptions to Change
excerpt:
[Michael Yon reported yesterday on the positive signs he is witnessing in Iraq:
I, like everyone else, will have to wait for September's report from Gen. Petraeus before making more definitive judgments. But I know for certain that three things are different in Iraq now from any other time I've seen it.
1. Iraqis are uniting across sectarian lines to drive Al Qaeda in all its disguises out of Iraq, and they are empowered by the success they are having, each one creating a ripple effect of active citizenship.
2. The Iraqi Army is much more capable now than it was in 2005. It is not ready to go it alone, but if we keep working, that day will come.
3. Gen. Petraeus is running the show. Petraeus may well prove to be to counterinsurgency warfare what Patton was to tank battles with Rommel, or what Churchill was to the Nazis.
And yes, in case there is any room for question, Al Qaeda still is a serious problem in Iraq, one that can be defeated. Until we do, real and lasting security will elude both the Iraqis and us.]
oh yeah, Iraq is a guagmire.. for the
Despicable Defeatist Dhimmi Dems..
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ReplyDeletehey analmouth @ 4:39 PM
i'm, Marilyn Monroe reincarnated, can you prove i'm not??
point: anyone can say something stoopid, only some don't usually do it on purpose..
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ReplyDeleteGreg @ 4:05 PM
nail hit on head.. (thumbsup)
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Greg said "Brenda's comments about where this money to build or repair bridges and roads is further proof that most people have no clue how their own government works." Greg, hate to tell you, but you are also clueless.
ReplyDeleteBelow is an article from the NY Times that describes how federal money is allocated to states, and how the "federal highway" funds have been getting slashed over the last 5 years (need to go to graph at article to see it). 35W was is a federal highway. . . Steve Ellis, the vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense also has a quote in the article:
"There has also been more emphasis nationwide on building new roads than on the maintenance and upkeep of old ones. Steve Ellis, the vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that monitors federal spending, said that might help move traffic in some places, but it left many others with the equivalent of a leaky roof.
“It would be irresponsible of me to go out to dinner if I couldn’t fix a leak in my roof,” Mr. Ellis said. “But that’s essentially what we do. We don’t take care of what we’ve got, but we talk a lot about building more and new.”
Full article below:
Bridge Collapse Revives Issue of Road Spending
By SUSAN SAULNY and JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: August 7, 2007
MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 6 — In the past two years, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota twice vetoed legislation to raise the state’s gas tax to pay for transportation needs.
Now, with at least five people dead in the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge here, Mr. Pawlenty, a Republican, appears to have had a change of heart.
“He’s open to that,” Brian McClung, a spokesman for the governor, said Monday of a higher gas tax. “He believes we need to do everything we can to address this situation and the extraordinary costs.”
Even as the cause of the bridge disaster here remains under investigation, the collapse is changing a lot of minds about spending priorities. It has focused national attention on the crumbling condition of America’s roadways and bridges — and on the financial and political neglect they have received in Washington and many state capitals.
Despite historic highs in transportation spending, the political muscle of lawmakers, rather than dire need, has typically driven where much of the money goes. That has often meant construction of new, politically popular roads and transit projects rather than the mundane work of maintaining the worn-out ones.
Further, transportation and engineering experts said, lawmakers have financed a boom in rail construction that, while politically popular, has resulted in expensive transit systems that are not used by a vast majority of American commuters.
Representative James L. Oberstar, Democrat of Minnesota and the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, sent out a news release last month boasting about Minnesota’s share of a recent transportation and housing appropriations bill.
Of the $12 million secured for the state, $10 million is slated for a new 40-mile commuter rail line to Minneapolis, called the Northstar. The remaining $2 million is divided among a new bike and walking path and a few other projects, including highway work and interchange reconstruction.
The $286 billion federal transportation legislation passed by Congress in 2005 included more than 6,000 earmarks, which amounted to blatant gifts to chosen districts, including the so-called Bridge to Nowhere in rural Alaska (that earmark was later removed after a political uproar).
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in a telephone interview Monday that earmarks for transportation in federal legislation were “almost always new construction and not maintenance.” Earlier, Mr. Schumer said that he would introduce legislation next month to double a proposed federal transportation bill appropriation, with a focus on upkeep to $10 billion.
“The bottom line,” Mr. Schumer said, “is that routine but important things like maintenance always get shortchanged because it’s nice for somebody to cut a ribbon for a new structure.”
Last week, Representative John L. Mica of Florida, the ranking Republican on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, met with advisers to the Bush administration to urge a nationwide plan to address transportation needs. Rebuilding the I-35W bridge would be only “a Band-Aid” Mr. Mica said, “to a much more serious problem.”
“We don’t have any kind of strategic plan to deal with infrastructure, and we’re falling behind,” he said.
In statehouses across the country, legislators tried this past session to fill some of the void by passing bond acts or allocating money to improve roads, bridges and other pieces of the transportation system.
In Arkansas, lawmakers set aside $80 million, 15 percent of which will be used to repair county roads, 15 percent for city byways and the rest for its highways. New Mexico approved a $200 million plan for local and tribal road projects, and in Texas, $700 million was allotted for state transportation projects over the next two years.
Voters in California this year authorized nearly $20 billion in transportation bonds to pay for repairs and make other improvements to its taxed system.
“We still barely scratched the surface,” said Adam Mendelsohn, the communications director for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. “The governor is very concerned about the lack of attention that the federal government has given to infrastructure. It is probably no more acute than in California because of the tremendous strains from population growth.”
The federal budget for transportation comes largely from excise taxes, particularly on gasoline, set by Congress at 18.4 cents in 1993 and eroded over time by inflation and fuel efficiency. As such, over the last decade, state legislatures in 14 states have voted to raise the state gas tax 19 times. And several states are looking at toll roads and congestion pricing initiatives to help shore up the roads.
The National Conference of State Legislatures, a group with members from all 50 states, is calling for a 3-cents per gallon increase in the federal gas tax.
C. Michael Walton, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Texas, Austin, helped write a series of reports issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers that have repeatedly found the nation’s highway system with insufficient money. “Continually falling short of the actual needs,” Professor Walton said, results largely from “our backlash to increases in taxes.”
Professor Walton said states had been looking to the federal government for leadership. “I am not sure transportation falls to the top of the priorities as it should barring a catastrophic failure,” he said in reference to state government spending.
A study released in May by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young found that 83 percent of the nation’s transportation infrastructure was not capable of meeting the country’s needs over the next 10 years. The American Society of Civil Engineers, in its latest national report card, gave transportation infrastructure a D.
Meanwhile, there are urgent needs. The Interstate highway system turned 50 last year and is showing signs of age and inadequate upkeep. Around St. Louis, for instance, old bridges, rocky roads and tight ramp loops have led to a shutdown of parts of Interstate 64/Highway 40 — one of the most important corridors in the state — until late 2009.
“It’s so easy to let this stuff slip,” said Robert Dunphy, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute.
The national highway system, originally called the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, came into being under the Eisenhower administration. (The country’s population was 169 million then, and there were about 54 million registered vehicles on the roads.) It was spurred by fears that Americans would have a mobility crisis if the country were attacked in a nuclear war. By the 1970s much of the system was completed.
But since then, the nation’s highways have eroded with age and use, especially in areas like the Southwest where population booms have far outweighed the ability of roads to carry the new drivers.
Typically financing for capital transportation projects comes from the federal government matched with funds from states, which are then charged with maintaining the roads and bridges. But the federal government and states operate trust funds, filled with revenues from various excise taxes, which have been unable to maintain existing roadways adequately or finance capital expenditures.
But it may often be less the amount allocated for transportation than how it is doled out that leads to eroding highways, some critics say.
“Highway funding is supposed to be on the basis of need,” said Raymond Helmer, a transportation consultant in Houston who has worked on transportation projects for over 50 years. “There is supposed to be cost-benefit analysis, and every state does a study as required by federal government and comes up with needs, but then politicians say, ‘I don’t want that road here, I want it here.’ ”
Some transportation experts also said that though light rail and other public transportation projects made sense in cities, investing in them in sprawling suburban regions might not, even if the systems were supported, in theory, by the public.
“Too many American cities are spending far too much money on expensive rail transit projects, which are used for only 1 to 2 percent of local travel, and far too little on highway projects which are used for 95 to 99 percent of local travel,” Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, said in an e-mail interview.
There has also been more emphasis nationwide on building new roads than on the maintenance and upkeep of old ones. Steve Ellis, the vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that monitors federal spending, said that might help move traffic in some places, but it left many others with the equivalent of a leaky roof.
“It would be irresponsible of me to go out to dinner if I couldn’t fix a leak in my roof,” Mr. Ellis said. “But that’s essentially what we do. We don’t take care of what we’ve got, but we talk a lot about building more and new.”