Pennsylvania voters won’t get an opportunity to vote in today’s primary on one of the biggest boondoggles in the state: the Philadelphia public transportation system.
The system, called the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, is a billion-dollar mess!
The latest issue with SEPTA centers on the fare cards that don’t work well, causing the organization to dump the system after spending $285 million on the flawed system. That’s more than double the original budget.
Announced with much fanfare, the delayed 2016 rollout left many residents wishing the agency had remained in the analog age. The cards have been unreliable from the start, the vending machines that distribute them are slow and confusing, and SEPTA’s choice to use proprietary systems left the agency at the mercy of the manufacturer of the cards.
It’s unclear whether SEPTA and Conduent Inc., the company has cashed in, are incompetent or corrupt, but it’s probably a bit of both.
In 2011, SEPTA hired Conduent, a Xerox spin-off headquartered in Florham Park, N.J., to design and build the Key Card system for $129.5 million. It was supposed to be operational by 2014, and Conduent has come under fire over other projects. Last December, for instance, Conduent settled for $32 million in a class-action lawsuit brought by investors who said the company misled them about its progress in updating its information technology for toll-collecting systems.
SEPTA’s 50-year history has often been a tumultuous one. Railpace Newsmagazine contributor Gerry Williams observed that SEPTA regularly staggers from crisis to crisis. It has a long history of being at odds with the riding public and both county and state officials and has had more labor strikes than any other transit agency in the U.S., occurring in 1977, 1981, 1983, 1986, 1995, 1998, 2005, 2009, 2014, and 2016.
Williams commented that there is a notable lack of “any group… influential enough to bring shame on SEPTA,” adding that the organization’s chronic ills “merely reflect the broader problems of local provincialism and petty political squabbles which are so rampant within the region.”
Since taxpayers, including those far from Philly, pony up about $1 billion a year to run the system, letting the voters have a more significant say in what goes on would make sense. The 15 board members should be elected rather than chosen by government officials who hand out favors rather than balance budgets.
I — I couldn’t take a blow, sir. I suppose I’ve been too long with gentlemen”
Among gentlemen a blow could be wiped out only in blood; among the lower orders a blow was something to be received without even a word.
C. S. Forester: Hornblower and the Hotspur 1962 p 301
If you want to know why the left in California are not bothered by what is happening in San Francisco Kurt Schlichter nails it in one sentence in an excellent paragraph:
As in California, all the good ones are leaving. There are a lot of complaints about blue state denizens shifting to red places and bringing their clown show politics with them, but in my experience it’s the red people who are saying “The hell with this” and checking out. The poor libs can’t move and the rich ones don’t need to – their little enclaves are relatively safe. The subways may be a concrete jungle where freaks with meat cleavers wander and you might get pushed into an oncoming train by some schizo with 100 arrests and no real jail time on his rap sheet, but the cops are still empowered to act in the well-heeled precincts. People ask how I can stay in LA, but I’m not actually in LA – I’m in a city by the beach where the cops actually cop. The chaos is for the poors on the uncool side of the 405; my neighbors vote for Ted Lieu and let the consequences of their moral preening fall on the people who don’t work via Zoom
Emphasis Mine
There is a word for this. It’s not “socialism” it FEUDALISM.
I’ve been writing about the left’s actions as Feudalism for over 10 years: and it’s become more and more clear that what the left really wants is the status that comes from being better than those who they consider beneath them. After all if everyone has peace and prosperity what makes you special?
Can’t the doorman and driver understand that, like the Lords of old, the Pelosis in Washington like and the Mahers in Hollywood seek power and status simply for the good of all? Don’t they realize if they support the great Lords in DC and Hollywood, as trusted retainers, they might expect advancement from the state, a better job in a growing federal government? Don’t they understand that by keeping an underclass on assistance they provide protection to the retainer like themselves to keep them from revolt (remember Occupy)?
And if such assistance goes to the 2nd or third generation it is a good thing because like those who came before them, they are repaying their bounty with votes that keep the enlightened lords in power.
This entire philosophy & mindset is contrary to the entire march of Western Civilization from Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence. It is the idea that some laws can be enforced while others are not, why some standards apply to some and not to others. It’s the idea that the rights are granted by other men, the elites like themselves and not from God
If one were to examine the concept of California as a feudal state, all the pieces would be identifiable. The aristocracy is the wealthy billionaires and the titans of the high tech industry. The knights and the nobles are the public employees. The clerisy consists of the academics and the nonprofit activists, which include environmentalists, homeless and low-income housing advocates, and social justice warriors. Everyone else would be serfs.
California’s serfs would either be members of the state’s dwindling middle-class and small-business owners, paying crippling tithes to the feudal regime, or they would be low income workers and the unemployed, who would rely on alms from the nobles for their sustenance.
You can’t be a lord without serfs, California is returning to it’s Spanish and Mexican roots, Caballeros and Peons and the money that is voted to allow the peons to have drugs and the willingness to let them steal without consequence, that’s today’s version of Noblesse Oblige.
It’s just that it’s not that “noble” and it’s done using other people’s money.
When does a local crime story become a national one? Outside of a mass shooting, a local crime story becomes a national one when there is a race element.
On May 1, a deranged homeless man, Jordan Neely, was threatening passengers on a New York subway train. A former marine, Daniel Penny, aided by two other passengers, placed Neely, who by the way had 42 prior arrests, in a chokehold. Penny has since charged with second-degree manslaughter. I’m sure that you know these details: Penny is white, Neely is black.
The mainstream media, to use an old radio term, still has the Neely killing on heavy rotation.
On May 6 a much more troubling homicide occurred on Chicago’s South Side. Aréanah Preston, a Chicago police officer, had just finished her shift. As she exited her car in front of her home, Preston, who was still in uniform, was shot to death. Jakwon Buchanan, 18, two 19-year-olds Trevell Breeland and Joseph Brooks, and a 16-year-old, Jaylen Frazier, have been charged with her murder.
Preston, 24, was to have been awarded her master’s degree from Loyola University on Saturday.
By now you probably know why the murder of Preston is not a national news story. Preston, and the alleged killers, are African American. If the accused murderers were white, reports about this homicide would dominate the news outlets, particularly MSNBC and CNN, who would introduce each segment on the cop killing with a custom graphic and somber music.
There are additional chilling details about the alleged perpetrators, all of whom are in jail, bail has been denied.
Their crime spree began early on the morning of May 6, according to a Cook County assistant state’s attorney, because the girlfriend of Jakwon Buchanan needed money for a barbecue. That’s right, a barbecue. Buchanan, by the way, has a pending carjacking case in juvenile court.
First, the four teens, who were dressed in black and wore face masks, stole a Kia Forte, after robbing a woman of her charge cards, her smart phone, and a Louis Vuitton belt. As for the youths’ look and their criminality, think Alex and his “Droogs” from A Clockwork Orange crossed with ninja warriors from a 1980s action film. Next, a 62-year-old woman and her son’s girlfriend were robbed by at least three of the teens of a phone and a Coach purse. Then two of the accused allegedly robbed a man as he was leaving his car.
Then Preston was murdered. Her gun was taken and one of the accused allegedly sold her weapon.
I can describe the four accused killers with two words, ones that the holier-than-thou media has deemed racist: “Career criminals,” despite their youth, and “super-predators.” Remember how CWB Chicago portrayed the four, “all with extensive juvenile criminal backgrounds.” And CWB Chicago, citing a law enforcement source, said of two of the accused, “Brooks and Buchanan ‘are by far in the top 10 for prolific juvenile carjackers over the last two years.'”
On Monday, Brandon Johnson, a Democrat who is essentially a creation of the far-left Chicago Teachers Union, will be sworn in as mayor of Chicago. Until his mayoral campaign began Johnson was a “defund the police” guy. Among other things, Johnson favors sending social workers, instead of cops, to domestic disturbances. After a riot last month in downtown Chicago, the mayor-elect had this to say about the creeps, “It is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”
Sheesh.
If people do demonic things, they can expect to be demonized.
A few days later, Johnson doubled down on those initial remarks about the rioters. “They’re young,” Johnson said. “Sometimes they make silly decisions! They do. So we have to make sure that we are investing to make sure that young people know that they are supported.”
Investing?
Johnson is a big proponent of summer jobs programs for young people. I don’t believe such employment would cause youths like Buchanan, Frazier, Brooks, and Breeland to alter their destructive life decisions for $15-an-hour make-work jobs.
Chicago is stacked with career criminals and super-predators. My solution to the city’s crisis is simple, aggressively prosecute these lawbreakers and imprison them when they are found guilty. Johnson, Cook County’s so-called prosecutor Kim Foxx, and Cook County Circuit Court chief judge Tim Evans don’t agree with me. They’re “root causes” people.
Sadly, even though some moms rise to their challenge, there is one root cause the media and left-wing politicians refuse to discuss. Over eighty percent of African American births in Chicago are to single mothers.
I don’t know what the solution to that problem is. But admitting there is a problem is the first step in confronting it.
On Wednesday, four days after she was to receive her master’s diploma from Loyola, the funeral for Preston will be held.
John Ruberry regularly blogs five miles north of Chicago at Marathon Pundit.
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 