B-Man

It Could Take HOW LONG to Rebuild Francis Scott Key Bridge??? STEPHEN GREEN Could it really take twice as long and four times as much money to replace the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge than it did to build it in the first place? The Key Bridge was built at a cost (adjusted for inflation) of about $200 million. Replacing it could take a decade and cost $400 million to $800 million dollars, according to experts in what has become a dismal field. “To actually recreate that whole transportation network" could take a decade or more, structural engineer Ben Schafer told USA Today on Wednesday. Huge projects, Schafer said, now take “rarely less than 10 years." Well, they didn't use to. By comparison, the Apollo program that put a man on the moon required seven years, eight months, and 23 days. And — this is the really exciting part — everything about Apollo, from the massive Saturn V rocket to the "tiny" flight computer, had to be created from scratch. Those seven-and-a-half years included a monthslong delay following the tragic loss of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee during an Apollo 1 dress rehearsal that ended in a deadly crew capsule fire. Construction began on the Hoover Dam on July 7, 1930, and five years later, it was complete. It started generating electrical power on Sept. 11, 1936 — exactly six years, two months, and four days after the first shovelful of dirt was moved. The Empire State Building was fully erect (heh) after just one year and 45 days of construction. But those were all 20th Century projects, back when we used to get things done. Welcome to 21st Century America, where everything is needlessly time-consuming, expensive, stupid, or (most likely) all three. The timing "all depends on factors that are still mostly unknown," the AP explained. "They range from the design of the new bridge to how swiftly government officials can navigate the bureaucracy of approving permits and awarding contracts." {snip} The replacement bridge will have to be new and somehow improved — or so they'll claim — and require months or years of study on the environmental impacts, even though there's been a bridge there for 50 years already. Hiring contractors will likely take twice as long as they'll have to meet strict new DEI standards. Competence and speed? Tertiary considerations, at best. Planners will likely require three years just to decide on a new name. They'll eventually settle on "The George Floyd-Pete Buttigieg Antiracist Inclusive Transit Structure" or some such BS. This is why we can't have nice things anymore. That's not entirely true, of course. We can have nice things — sometimes. But only when the stars align, the tea leaves are correct, and the progressives are distracted by something even shinier. https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/03/29/it-could-take-how-long-to-rebuild-francis-scott-key-bridge-n4927756

We could clear the bridge in weeks IF 1) our federal maritime agencies @DOTMARAD & @USCG were fully funded and functional 2) we had heavylift, salvage and offshore construction ships on hand. We don’t The Navy sold off almost its entire fleet of salvage ships. We don’t even have a single fireboat in the Navy’s most important port. 3) The Navy hadn’t outsourced the majority of its salvage operations to a European company Sailing assets from Europe would take weeks and would anger certain powerful lobbyists 4) The Army didn’t sell off the majority of it’s watercraft fleet and deprioritize the Corps of Engineers maritime missions 5) If our DOT Ready Reserve fleet was fully functional and not a half a century old 6) if the balance sheets of our US shipping companies, tugboat operators, construction companies encouraged growth 7) if silicon valley investors didn’t have a revulsion to investing in maritime startups with revolutionary new ideas 😎 if the media understood ships and focused on the right stories and pushed DC in the right directions 9) if environmental regulations were not onerous 10) local port politics

New Georgia Voting Rules Approved. “While there are plenty of people talking about improving election security, Georgia appears to be doing something about it. Just in time for this year’s elections, the Georgia legislature has passed reforms that will impact access to the presidential ballot. They have also altered the rules defining the criteria for being able to submit a ballot and how ballots can be challenged. Ballot challenges will be under strict scrutiny this year with more people expected to be monitoring the process from each party, particularly in swing states like Georgia. The measure has been sent to Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who is expected to sign it into law. Needless to say, many Georgia Democrats are not happy about this.” Of course they’re not. It makes cheating harder. https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2024/03/29/new-georgia-voting-rules-approved-n3785598 .

Will Democrats’ Abandonment of Law Enforcement Finally Haunt Them in 2024? “As we’ve seen in recent years, it’s not just that the left is anti-law enforcement, but that they’re pro-criminal. Donald Trump and his supporters are the only people they want to see in jail, the real bad guys get sent right back out to return to their criminal ways.” https://pjmedia.com/stephen-kruiser/2024/03/29/the-morning-briefing-will-dems-abandonment-of-law-enforcement-finally-haunt-them-in-2024-n4927748 .

OH NO !. . . . . . . . . . verifying votes ?, how terrible. GOP Gets Big Election Integrity Victory in Pennsylvania, as Dems Seethe From Losses A GOP-led effort in Pennsylvania has prevailed after an appeals court ruled that undated (and arguably unverified) mail-in ballots can not be counted. That comes after a years-long legal battle led by various left-wing activist groups, including the ACLU and the NAACP. Pennsylvania mail-in ballots that are not dated on the outside envelope by the voter should not be counted even if they arrive at a county election office on time, a three-judge appeals court panel ruled on Wednesday. The 2-1 decision from the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals strikes down a lower court ruling and sets up a potential Supreme Court battle over Pennsylvania’s mail-ballots that began in 2020 https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/03/28/gop-gets-big-election-integrity-victory-in-pennsylvania-as-dems-seethe-from-losses-n2172050#google_vignette Shocking Court Ruling Says Ballots Must Be Signed and Dated. https://hotair.com/headlines/2024/03/28/shocking-court-ruling-says-ballots-must-be-signed-and-dated-n3785582 .

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Democrats beginning to panic over Trump’s progress and Biden’s weakness By Ahmed Adel Members of the Democratic party are beginning to panic because former President Donald Trump is ahead in the electoral polls in the lead-up to the November election in the United States, in which he will most likely face a weakened Joe Biden. This panic is likely to deepen now that Trump is directly calling for a debate with Biden, especially in the context of the president’s clear cognitive decline. According to an article in The Hill, the polls showing Trump ahead of Biden in electoral preferences and the lawsuits that the Republican has managed to win to avoid being banned from the presidential election have led the Democrats to “hit the panic button.” https://infobrics.org/post/40675

Back to the thread: Panic Time for Democrats By The Editorial Board The bedwetter caucus is back, to borrow the dismissive phrase from Barack Obama strategist David Plouffe about Democrats who fret about President Biden’s re-election odds. A spate of polls suggest that fretting could soon turn to wailing and gnashing of teeth. Four major polls rolled out in the past few days, and Mr. Biden is losing to Donald Trump in all of them. He’s down two points in a head-to-head matchup in the Wall Street Journal and Fox News surveys, more if you include third- or fourth-party candidates. He’s down five points in the Siena-New York Times poll, and he’s getting crushed in the swing states in the Bloomberg News survey. Worse is the public mood. A quarter or less of Americans think the country is moving in the right direction, and they think Mr. Biden’s Presidency has done more harm than good. They think Mr. Biden is too old to be President, and they view Mr. Trump’s Presidency far more favorably than they do Mr. Biden’s. https://www.wsj.com/articles/panic-time-for-democrats-trump-biden-election-polls-08ef51ef .

In which a very privileged and sheltered young woman claims that she is protesting a genocide, and that the most "depraved *****" she has ever seen in her life is not being provided with a free bathroom to change a tampon while attempting to occupy a building. And Panera. Not being given free Panera food. https://twitter.com/1kenthomas/status/1773210280576663814?

The Left Can't Have it Both Ways on Campus Activism JOHN SEXTON https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2024/03/28/dnc-holds-emergency-call-as-dems-panic-over-rfk-jrs-vp-pick-n2637102#google_vignette .

DNC Holds 'Emergency Call' As Dems Panic Over RFK Jr.'s VP Pick The Democrat Party seemed uneasy after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his choice of Nicole Shanahan as his vice president pick. According to recent reports, the Democrat National Convention has ramped up attacks on Kennedy, claiming the pair will boost former President Donald Trump’s chances of securing the 2024 election. Pro-President Joe Biden supporters are attacking Kennedy for appointing Shanahan as his VP—a California-based attorney and progressive activist. “I am personally offended and just disgusted by his campaign,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) said during a call from the DNC. “He should be ashamed of himself. He should stop running for president.” https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2024/03/28/dnc-holds-emergency-call-as-dems-panic-over-rfk-jrs-vp-pick-n2637102 .