One World Trade Center, which will replace the World Trade Center towers that fell in the September 11 terrorist attacks, became the tallest building in the United States this morning when workers hoisted a 408-foot spire atop it. At 1,776 feet tall, the building is now the tallest in the United States and the third-tallest in the world.
And, as American Rights at Work noted when it became the tallest building in New York, it was built with union labor:
It’s fitting: union members were among the first responders; union members served in the immediate cleanup; and now union members are part of the rebuilding.
Anti-union legislation has made its way across America in recent years, from Michigan to Indiana to Wisconsin. But unions were instrumental in building America’s middle class, in responding to the attacks on 9/11, and now, in rebuilding the World Trade Center in the decade since the attacks.
“It’s a pretty awesome feeling,” project manager Juan Estevez told the Associated Press. “It’s a culmination of a tremendous amount of team work … rebuilding the New York City skyline once again.”
Echoing what Joan Walsh called Mayor Bloomberg’s “ugly” defense of the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practice, police commissioner Ray Kelly asserted Wednesday night that African Americans are “understopped” by police. During an interview with ABC, the commissioner and the policing tactic’s greatest defender, said that “African Americans are being understopped in relation to people being described as perpetrators of violent crime.”
While Mayor Bloomberg has been mayor, the NYPD has carried out over 5 million stop-and-frisks. Analysis by the ACLU of official police data found that over 86 percent of the stops were of black or Latino individuals. The analysis of police data also revealed that 88 percent of the stops did not result in an arrest or summons (and of course an even smaller proportion ever lead to a prosecution, or conviction). The number of innocent people stopped alone serves as ample riposte to Kelly’s suggestion that any demographic is “understopped.”
Kelly suggests that since 75 percent of violent crime victims describe the perpetrators as African American males, it is therefore valid to treat millions of black young men in New York as criminals without grounds. The fact that many perpetrators of violent crime in New York have been African American does not in turn mean that per se African Americans in New York should be assumed violent criminals. The logic is not only flawed, but perpetuates a policing system that, through quotas and targeting certain communities, confirms its own bias about who gets to be a criminal.
And, while we’re at it, here are a few relevant facts to challenge Kelly’s “understopped” claim: The number of stop-and-frisks carried out yearly since 2003 has nearly quadrupled. However, the number of weapons recovered from stops each year has remained pretty much constant. Meanwhile, marijuana arrests have spiked (while suspicion of drug possession is cited by police in less than 1 percent of instances as the reason for a stop). Federal statistics also consistently show that marijuana use is more prevalent among young white people than young black people. So: more guns are not being recovered, more young black men are being arrested for marijuana possession, while more white people are users of the drug. And yet, says Kelly (with malleable stats at his finger tips), African Americans are being “understopped.”
Under the headline “This Is A Tragedy—Does It Really Matter Exactly How Many People Died Or What Any Of The Details Are?” the Onion writes as a New York Post columnist:
Yesterday’s violent attack at the Boston Marathon has left all of us struggling to come to terms with such a senseless display of carnage. In the wake of this devastating tragedy, we at the New York Post join the nation in mourning those who were lost in this horrible event so that we may console one another and ultimately emerge from this catastrophe stronger and with a greater compassion for one another.
And so, as we attempt to begin the healing process, let us not bicker over such trivial matters as the actual death toll and what exactly happened at yesterday’s bombing. After all, is it really important, in the aftermath of an event so disastrous and sad, to pick apart the so-called information surrounding this horrific situation and find out what actually happened?
GoldenBoy Marco Rubio shows up in New York to fundraise and one of the state’s Reps, Republican Peter King, protests.
“Guys like Marco Rubio in Florida. All the money that your people have gotten in Florida over the years from every hurricane that came along. And this guy has the nerve to vote against money for New York and then come up here and try to raise money. You know, he can forget it.”
“I made it clear any of those people who voted and postured against money coming to New York and New Jersey and comes up here and wants to take money out of our pockets – forget it, stay home.”
A couple of thoughts on King’s little rant…
a) Consider Rubio to be another Mitt, only shorter and with a better command of Spanish. The man is a fraud who will say or do what he must to get the votes he needs in his quest to become the GOP candidate in 2016.
After leading the Republican charge on immigration reform, Rubio is now hesitating as a bipartisan agreement is within sight. Why? Because the GOP base whose support he needs, opposes any form of amnesty for undocumented workers. In effect, Rubio finds himself in the exact same position that Romney was in – trying to appear to be a rational and reasonable politician while appeasing the crazies in the party.
He’ll discover, like Romney did, that it cannot be done.
b) King is upset with Rubio for voting against Sandy funding for New York and New Jersey. Cry us a river. How the hell did King expect Republicans to act? The man is a standing member of a political party that can best be described as suffering from severe sociopathic personality disorder – manipulative, paranoid and delusional, showing lack of empathy, remorse, guilt or shame, callous in nature with a strong tendency toward pathological lying. And King himself shows many of these traits.
He opposed the 2009 stimulus package.
He voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.
He opposes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
He’s an Islamophobe. “There are too many mosques in this country… There are too many people sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully and finding out how we can infiltrate them.”
He voted for the Ryan budget that would slash social programs like Medicare and Medicaid that form the socials safety net for the aged, poor and middle class.
He’s voted to defund Obamacare despite the fact that it would help many of the 50 million Americans who cannot afford health care insurance.
Word of advice for Peter King. Don’t bitch about waking up with fleas when you lie down with dogs.
President Obama caused a stir Thursday when he commented on the appearance of California Attorney General Kamala Harris.
“She’s brilliant and she’s dedicated, she’s tough,” Obama said at a DNC fundraiser in Atherton, Calif., according to a White House pool report. “She also happens to be, by far, the best looking attorney general….It’s true! C’mon.”
After the remarks began to surface on Twitter, Politico media reporter Dylan Byers decided to chime in, defending Obama.
That prompted New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait to take Byers to task for suggesting that comments about women’s looks are harmless.
“For those who don’t see the problem here, the degree to which women are judged by their appearance remains an important hurdle to gender equality in the workforce,” Chait wrote. “Women have a hard time being judged purely on their merits. Discussing their appearance in the context of evaluating their job performance makes it worse.”
Chait continued, taking on the president for setting a bad example. “It’s not a compliment. And for a president who has become a cultural model for many of his supporters in so many other ways, the example he’s setting here is disgraceful.”
This isn’t the first time Obama has taken flack for a comment describing a woman. In 2008, he ultimately apologized after calling a female reporter “sweetie.”
The Sunday New York Time’s editorial page celebrated the third anniversary of the Affordable Care Act by detailing some of its achievements, even ahead of its full implementation next year. That includes:
Some 6.6 million people ages 19 through 25 who have been able to stay on their parents’ insurance plans and more than than 3 million young adults getting health insurance.
17 million getting some kind of free preventive service, like flu shots, and 34 million Medicare recipients getting free preventive services in 2012;
17 million children with pre-existing conditions being protected against being uninsured;
More than 107,000 adults with pre-existing conditions finally having insurance under the federally run insurance program;
21 million received care from expanded community health centers, 3 million more than previously served;
$1.1 billion in rebates, an average of $151 per family paid by insurers that failed to meet the benchmark of 80 to 85 percent of premium revenues on medical claims or quality improvements;
Since 2010, more than 6.3 million older or disabled people have saved more than $6.3 billion on prescription drugs;
Beyond that, as the editorial notes, the annual growth of health care expenses has declined sharply, both in private care and Medicare. But the focus on quality of care seems to be working. “The percentage of Medicare patients requiring readmission to the hospital within 30 days of discharge dropped from an average of 19 percent over the past five years to 17.8 percent in the last half of 2012.” That’s largely because Medicare can impose penalties now for poor performance, but can also pay incentives for quality care.
Not a bad track record for the first three years, before the meat of the reforms kick in. What’s particularly important—and so far ignored by policy-makers—is the real slowdown in the growth of health care costs. It suggests that Medicare isn’t a hair-on-fire emergency right now, and that any changes to it should be dealt with outside of deficit grand-bargaining. It’s not an immediate crisis.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D) has come out for marriage equality:
CLINTON: LGBT Americans are our colleagues, our teachers, our soldiers, our friends, our loved ones, and they are full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship. That includes marriage. That’s why I support marriage for lesbian and gay couples. I support it personally and as a matter of policy and law, embedded in a broader effort to advance equality and opportunity for LGBT Americans and all Americans.
Watch Clinton’s full remarks in a video released by the Human Rights Campaign:
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton was outspoken supporter of LGBT equality, but like President Obama at the time, had not yet come out for marriage equality. During her tenure as Secretary, she largely stayed silent on political issues, but did provide clues that her position had changed. In June 2011, Clinton offered her approval of New York’s passage of marriage equality, calling the legislature’s vote “historic.” In December 2011, she delivered amonumental speech to the United Nations, declaring that “gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights” and that to support LGBT equality is to be “on the right side of history.”
Deep in the belly of New York’s subway system, a beautiful untouched station resides that has been forgotten for years with only a limited few knowing of its existence. Stunning decoration with tall tiled arches, brass fixtures and skylights run across the entire curve of the station, almost a miniature imitation of Grand Central Station… But it sounds like something straight out of Harry Potter, right?
It was opened in 1904, with the hope of making it the crowning glory of the New York subway system in elegant architecture and a place for commemorative plaques to honour the work that had resulted in such a successful underground mass transit system. It was to be the original southern terminus of the first ‘Manhattan Main Line’; however the station was closed and boarded up in 1945. The gem of the underground began gathering dust, forgotten by the general public, as passengers were forced off at the Brooklyn Bridge Stop before the train continued on to the terminus to make its turnaround.
The reason for its closure was that newer longer cars were required to match the demand of passengers that passed through the system. But as the stations tracks were severely curved, a dangerous gap between the train doors and the platform was formed making it an unsafe area. This combined with the fact that only about 600 people used it, resulted in its closure with only mythical plans of turning it into a transit museum. But this was never followed through.
However, now you don’t have to take my word that the secret City Hall Station exists, as the 6 Train will now allow the passengers who have been enlightened with the knowledge of its whereabouts to stay on the train during its turnaround and see the Station. You won’t be able to get off, but you’ll be taken for a slow tour of the platform and see what a beauty it was in its heyday!
And if that isn’t enough, The Underbelly Project has turned it into a kind-of off-limits art gallery. They are a group of street artists who have painted the walls of the unattractive concrete areas with their art in a spooky art exhibition that will be witnessed only by urban explorers who prowl the deep train system at night and Metropolitan Transportation Authority workers.
A storm of “historic” proportions is set to sweep across the northeastern United States, beginning with light flurries on Thursday night and lasting through Saturday evening. The powerful winter weather system is expected to dump snow, sleet, rain, and hurricane-force winds from Connecticut all the way up to Maine. Start stocking up on food and supplies; things could get pretty ugly out there. Here, everything you need to know about Winter Storm Nemo, 2013′s first nor’easter:
How much snow are we talking about?
The National Weather Service says that southern New England, which will get the brunt of the storm, could see anywhere from 18 to 24 inches between Friday and Saturday. Suffolk County in New York is under blizzard watch, as are parts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, reports The Associated Press. New York City is expecting slightly less snow — somewhere between 4 and 6 inches. The storm could be as bad as the historic blizzard of 1978, which dumped more than 2 feet of snow and blew through New England with hurricane-level winds. A few analysts say Nemo could be one of the 10 most powerful storms in the history of the region.
What kind of damage are forecasters anticipating? The area could see “widespread power outages with winds of this force,” says Weather.com. Highways will likely be paralyzed by rush hour come Friday evening (so plan your commute accordingly). And communities in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Long Island could see some coastal flooding as well. In the below report, The Weather Channel gives Nemo a 10 out of 10 on its winter storm index:
So flying is out of the question then? Most likely, yes. Delta, Jet Blue, US Airways, and American Airlines are already planning ahead, offering customers a chance to change their flights one time without additional fees.
Why is this storm so nasty?
Nemo is actually the convergence of two pressure systems: One traveling east across the Great Lakes, and another coming up from the south. On Thursday night, half the storm will move through Lower Michigan and continue into upstate New York. By Friday night, prepare for the worst: Heavy snow, rain, and strong winds will start blanketing New England, upstate New York, and the Lower Hudson Valley. These conditions will persist into Saturday.
Why is it called Nemo?
The Winter Storm Team dubbed the storm “Nemo” because of its potential impact. In Greek, Nemo is a boy’s name meaning “from the valley.” In Latin, however, the name means “nobody.” “The fact is, a storm with a name is easier to follow, which will mean fewer surprises and more preparation,” said Bryan Norcross of the Weather Channel.
