Political Discussion

Summer Schedules start next month for MBTA's commuter rail. And they finally include the return of the weekend service that was cut last year.

However, one community is fighting to keep weekend service out of their town. They have enjoyed the peace and quiet over the last year and do not want the noise of trains to return over the weekend.

Looks like saturday service will return, but not sonday, where a recently past ordinance bans trains on sundays.

I'm just rolling my eyes at this. Petition the FRA for your community to be a quiet zone, which means no horns at grade crossings and help pay for crossing upgrades so that the community can become a quiet zone.

This is the case of an affluent Boston suburb being a pain in the ass. Okay, so maybe most people in this neighborhood don't use public transportation, but by you preventing sunday service through your town it hurts the people who live in the towns further out how do use public transportation and commuting into Boston.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
Democrats had slipped a provision into the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill to include reparations for past wrongs committed by the USDA against farmers of color. Something of course the republicans didn't approve of, but it was in the final stimulus bill that passed.

The USDA was set to make payments to farmers of color as approved by congress until several lawsuits were filed from gom different groups of white farmers arguing that the USDA's program discriminates against them and is unconstitutional.

A Wisconsin judge had already temporarily blocked the payments earlier this year, but a federal judge in Florida blocked the payments nationwide stating that the USDA debt relief payments to only people of color discriminates against white farmers who are economically disadvantaged by these payments.

Separate lawsuits against these payments exist in states such as Texas, Tennessee, Wyoming and Illinois.
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The history of this is something to look into. It's of course terrible and tragic with the USDA and banks being complicit in and actively pursuing policies and lending practices that ultimately resulted in black land being loss (and claimed by white farmers / corporations) and bankruptcy. I heard a very good talk by a local health department employee who is a multi-generation farmer in Alabama about this stuff. Despite anti-discrimination laws, rules, policies the practices have persisted in various forms.
 
jaycee said:
The history of this is something to look into. It's of course terrible and tragic with the USDA and banks being complicit in and actively pursuing policies and lending practices that ultimately resulted in black land being loss (and claimed by white farmers / corporations) and bankruptcy. I heard a very good talk by a local health department employee who is a multi-generation farmer in Alabama about this stuff. Despite anti-discrimination laws, rules, policies the practices have persisted in various forms.
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Yeah, it's awful.

And despite the anti-discrimination laws, rules and policies there was nothing black farmers could do about it for years.

But as soon as black farmers get something that white farmers don't, it amazes me how quick lawsuits are filed and the courts siding to block the payments. Payments meant to right past wrongs at that. Because the payments would be discriminatory against whites...
 
RenegadeMonster said:
Yeah, it's awful.

And despite the anti-discrimination laws, rules and policies there was nothing black farmers could do about it for years.

But as soon as black farmers get something that white farmers don't, it amazes me how quick lawsuits are filed and the courts siding to block the payments. Payments meant to right past wrongs at that. Because the payments would be discriminatory against whites...
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I mean it was an active post-civil war strategy to not only limit the upward mobility of black americans, but to force people into labor for others instead of self-sufficiency and the U.S. gov't and financial industries supported the strategy.
 
Joe Mac said:
Yeah I fear as much. I don’t think we have the capabilities to manufacture anymore and if we needed to it would take too long to set up and we’d see our prices rise exponentially. We really have enabled a really repressive damn regime to get far too tight a grip on power.
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Right. it could be done but requires a massive reset and sacrifice that nobody seems to be willing to take on. China has tech by neck and therefore the rest of us.
 
jaycee said:
Right. it could be done but requires a massive reset and sacrifice that nobody seems to be willing to take on. China has tech by neck and therefore the rest of us.
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It could tie in with more sustainable environmentally friendly practices in certain sectors if we were willing. Save up and buy quality products once that can be repaired rather than a stream of cheaper disposable shit. That’s said people are often lazy and cheap, and I include myself in that!

You’re right about tech and given the speed of advancement there I think we are long way off that.
 
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Last weeks collapse of the 12 story condominium tower in Florida shows that our country's infrastructure issues aren't just limited to roads and bridges.

Many details are common out that are quite typical of condos and condo boards.

Often times in buildings like this, the average age of people on the condo board is 80 years old. The people most motivated to be condo boards are those most motivated to keep prices down. They live on a fixed incomes in retirement and can't afford to take on higher fees. This too often leads to the cheapest patch being approved for repairs instead of expensive and extensive repairs to fix it the right way. Pass the buck on to the next generation is the mentality.

Those familiar with the condo board at the condominium that collapsed said they often fought over how much should be spent to make repairs. The most common outcome was always the cheapest possible solution being the only thing they could agree on. Their main concern was preventing maintenance fees from going up. There were also reports of them being notorious for not doing maintenance repairs. In 2015 a tenant sued them over water leaking into their unit through an exterior wall that was cracked that they wouldn't fix.

A 2018 study of the building found major structural damage. A lot of it had to do with failed waterproofing causing concrete slabs and support columns to crack and crumble. They found evidence of several cheap attempt to patch previously that was not holding up. While the study did not say the building was at risk of collapse, and the findings were typical of buildings of this age, they did recommend $9 million worth of repairs be made now or the condition of the building would quickly start to deteriorate.

Those $9 million in repairs would have amounted to roughly $66k in additional maintenance fees to residence. Word is that the work recommended in 2018 was just getting started this year and being conducted in a hurry to pass the 40 year government recertification inspection taking place. All this work being done at once may or may not have helped contribute to the collapse. Also, the 3 year gap from the work being recommended to being conducted very well could have resulted in further deterioration. It's also unknown at this time how much was spent and if the recommended work from 2018 was being conducted as suggested or if cheaper options were selected.

One of the things that puzzles me was that there was no warning. Experts said that if there were any major structural concerns where a collapse was imminent they would have known. Residence would have seen new cracks appearing in the walls. Unlevel floors, hear noises they were not accustomed too. All things that would have appeared before the failure and been on the radar of the city to evacuate the building and condemn it. There was nothing like that.

Now we are getting reports that that type of stuff may have been happening. And it just never got reported :oops:

We are now getting several reports that the building was making loud creaking noises starting about 24 hours before the collapse and that some cracks did open up in walls. No one thought it meant that the building my be in danger of collapsing or that they should report it. They just complained about it to relatives.

Last year when they were building a hotel next door residence complained that the vibrations from the construction created all kinds of cracks in their walls.

It's a really sad situation all around.
 
Unspoken, but locals know: this building was built pre-Andrew. Before Hurricane Andrew in '92, we hadn't had a "real" hurricane that made landfall since '77. Hurricane parties were a regular thing, no one ever, ever took hurricanes as anything more than a minor annoyance or an excuse to party*. This attitude largely extended to building codes, and part of the reason Andrew was so devastating** is that the buildings just weren't built with the expectation of having to take any serious kind of stress like that. So any buildings built pre-1993 (and after the 60s) are essentially trasheaps that haven't fallen down yet because they're held together by hope and good fortune. This particular condo had consturction done next door, which vibrations affected the condo. The weight on the roof didn't help, but as far back as 2018 there were engineers pointing out problems with the structural makeup and longevity of the building.

re sad, the collapse was at 1am, and the side of the building is just sheared off, in at least one of the photos you can see some children's bunkbeds, empty, in the half-room that's still left. The sheer amount of anguish and despair that's going to come of this is heart-wrenching.

*this is in fact still largely the case; "don't wake me unless it gets to category 3" is a common sentiment locally, and with fairly good reason, Cat 1 & 2 are kinda meh. Cat 3 is when trees and street signs go flying. Notable exception to this laissez-faire attitude: snowbirds who've relocated for the warmth and have never seen a tropical storm back in New York or Michigan or whatever, they tend to freak out and bum rush the grocery stores for water and tuna etc. Locals just keep a rolling pantry of canned goods ready to go.

**part; the other part was that it was huge and although internally was going faster than anything before it (and thus got a new category, cat 5), it was slow moving. usually when they hit land, the lack of warm water kills the forward momentum and they die out PDQ. Andrew just....stood there....for a day, grinding Homestead into itty-bitty pieces over 24 hours. No one had really seen anything like it. Before that, the "worst" hurricane was the unnamed 1926 'cane that was so sudden and huge that the pressure drop caused people's eyes to literally pop out of their skulls and induced pregnant women to give birth then and there.
 
Democrats are now the their own biggest thorn for getting the infrastructure bill passed.

Biden came to an bipartisan agreement with republicans on the infrastructure bill. The agreement came because Biden was pushing a true infrastructure bill with no tax increases. By true infrastructure bill that means the bill only covers fixing our infrastructure. There is no ham sandwich of other bills slipped in. Republicans will support the infrastructure bill provided no tax increases and no other bills / agenda are grouped with it.

However, democrats are disagreeing about this approach. Many of them want to push for tax increases on the wealthy and social programs. Package them as part of the bill as it's their best shot at getting them passed.

Republicans said if they package any of this stuff with the infrastructure bill they will not receive a single republican vote and the filibuster will be used in the senate.

Biden is now telling Democrats if the bill doesn't hit is desk exactly how it is now, a true infrastructure bill, he will veto it. He is giving this strong messaging so that the bill will move forward and pass.
 
yukbon said:
Unspoken, but locals know: this building was built pre-Andrew. Before Hurricane Andrew in '92, we hadn't had a "real" hurricane that made landfall since '77. Hurricane parties were a regular thing, no one ever, ever took hurricanes as anything more than a minor annoyance or an excuse to party*. This attitude largely extended to building codes, and part of the reason Andrew was so devastating** is that the buildings just weren't built with the expectation of having to take any serious kind of stress like that. So any buildings built pre-1993 (and after the 60s) are essentially trasheaps that haven't fallen down yet because they're held together by hope and good fortune. This particular condo had consturction done next door, which vibrations affected the condo. The weight on the roof didn't help, but as far back as 2018 there were engineers pointing out problems with the structural makeup and longevity of the building.

re sad, the collapse was at 1am, and the side of the building is just sheared off, in at least one of the photos you can see some children's bunkbeds, empty, in the half-room that's still left. The sheer amount of anguish and despair that's going to come of this is heart-wrenching.

*this is in fact still largely the case; "don't wake me unless it gets to category 3" is a common sentiment locally, and with fairly good reason, Cat 1 & 2 are kinda meh. Cat 3 is when trees and street signs go flying. Notable exception to this laissez-faire attitude: snowbirds who've relocated for the warmth and have never seen a tropical storm back in New York or Michigan or whatever, they tend to freak out and bum rush the grocery stores for water and tuna etc. Locals just keep a rolling pantry of canned goods ready to go.

**part; the other part was that it was huge and although internally was going faster than anything before it (and thus got a new category, cat 5), it was slow moving. usually when they hit land, the lack of warm water kills the forward momentum and they die out PDQ. Andrew just....stood there....for a day, grinding Homestead into itty-bitty pieces over 24 hours. No one had really seen anything like it. Before that, the "worst" hurricane was the unnamed 1926 'cane that was so sudden and huge that the pressure drop caused people's eyes to literally pop out of their skulls and induced pregnant women to give birth then and there.
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Being from NOLA, I can confirm the hurricane party attitude to building codes. I also don't think it helped that there was also a sink hole issue. When the Hardrock Hotel collapsed (and thankfully many people were not inside), they found that building inspectors had done a sub par job of inspecting and anyone who saw that building before it fell (myself included) could tell that the top floors were sagging around the support columns. Later, a story came out about how building inspectors had been caught being paid off instead of actually going to the site to inspect it. I really wonder how much of what was going on in NOLA was also happening in Miami.
 
nolalady said:
Being from NOLA, I can confirm the hurricane party attitude to building codes. I also don't think it helped that there was also a sink hole issue. When the Hardrock Hotel collapsed (and thankfully many people were not inside), they found that building inspectors had done a sub par job of inspecting and anyone who saw that building before it fell (myself included) could tell that the top floors were sagging around the support columns. Later, a story came out about how building inspectors had been caught being paid off instead of actually going to the site to inspect it. I really wonder how much of what was going on in NOLA was also happening in Miami.
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I can't really say about the payoffs, although yes, Miami specifically has a reputation for uh, a less-than-stringent attitude toward business propriety and being corrupt as hell.

One issue with ground stability is that pretty much all of FL south of Orlando is swampland made available by the US Corps of Engineers, who have just an absolutely priapistic devotion to draining swamps and building roads. At any given location, you're standing about 10 to 30 feet above the water table:

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They are looking into allegations of payoffs related to the building that just collapsed. However, nothing definite yet.

One thing that is interesting though, is that in 2018 the private study of the building found major structural issues and provided recommendations for repair where is the city inspection in 2018 gave the building a clean bill of health.

Also, while they were just now starting to fix the issues from 2018 along side with the 40 year recertification, it's sounding like they were only fixing those issues now because they were called by the 40 year inspection and were working to fix them for their 40 year recertification. Not because they were called out back in 2018.

It's sounding a lot like they didn't do any of the recommended repairs back in 2018 because the city gave them a clean bill of health.
 
Just linking to this lovely map of why we can't have lower insulin prices (spoiler alert: It's because our politicians are getting paid off by big pharma).

State lawmakers in Oregon have tried to lower high drug prices from nearly every angle: They’ve sought to cap how much people can pay for insulin, install a panel that could determine how much state agencies should pay for medicines, and even import drugs in bulk from Canada. Nearly every proposal has failed.

One reason, at least according to the effort’s supporters: Two-thirds of the state legislature accepted at least one campaign check from the drug industry during the 2020 election cycle. The trade group PhRMA, alone, wrote checks to 43 of the legislature’s 90 lawmakers.

It was even more dramatic in Louisiana, where 84% of lawmakers accepted funding from pharmaceutical companies. In California, it was 82%, and in Illinois, 76% of legislators cashed a check.


“It’s gross,” said Rachel Prusak, a Democratic state representative in Oregon who has introduced a number of drug pricing bills. “I’m sure it influences other people that take a lot of money. That’s why we can’t get bills passed.”

The same dynamic has played out in nearly every state across the country. In the last two years, at least 2,467 state legislators — over one-third of all state lawmakers nationwide — used pharmaceutical industry cash to fund their campaigns, according to a new STAT analysis of campaign finance records that spans the full 2020 election cycle. The industry wrote over 10,000 individual checks totaling more than $9 million.
www.statnews.com

Pharma funded more than 2,400 state lawmaker campaigns in 2020, new STAT analysis finds

In Louisiana, 84% of state lawmakers accepted campaign funding from pharmaceutical companies, a broad new analysis from STAT shows. See how your state stacks up.
www.statnews.com www.statnews.com
 
There is "probable cause" to believe there could be issues at the sister Champlain building the mayor said earlier today.

The sister building was built at the same time, it's structure is nearly identical and it was built by the same contractor. Records show it has had similar structural issues over the years. An immediate inspection of it didn't show any cause for alarm that it could fall down at any time, but they still don't know what caused the failure at the other building. They are now going through all structural records, records of repair and comparing the to buildings together.

This will takes weeks to do, and the final results of what cause it's sister tower to collapse could take years.

While all this is going on, a volunteer evacuation order has been issued for the sister tower.

However, the option to leave the sister tower is not something all can do without help. If they have a mortgage payments are not going to end just because they left the building unless the government intervenes. Right now they are calling for the public's help with donations to cover these expenses of getting people out of the sister tower. Those who do have a paid of mortgage aren't likely going to be able to sell their unit anytime soon. I guess a mortgage really is a "death grip".

The third sister building was built at a later date and does not have an identical footprint of the other two buildings. Therefor they do not think there there is currently any major issues with that building.
 
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