Had enough yet

[Lee Chowaniec]

Alvin Bragg’s indictment of Trump will open a can of worms for Democrats

Stupid is as stupid does. While America wallows in economic / domestic / foreign decline it further embarrasses itself with today’s indictment of Donald Trump. Six years of relentless attacks by the Democrats on Trump to diminish his presidency and to ensure his announced 2024 candidacy is crushed, they outdid themselves, embarrassing the U.S. on the world stage, fostering more national divisiveness.

The only ones more clueless and despicable are Alvin Bragg supporters.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6323971799112

[Lee Chowaniec]

Rock bottom for embarrassing U.S politics? Me thinks not!

If Trump and Biden are their party’s presidential nominees in 2024, the American voter will be tasked with more than making a ‘lesser of two evils’ choice, but one as distasteful as picking up a turd at the clean end. Trump is so hated he can’t win. Biden is unfit for the position, has the country in shambles, blames Trump for all his failures (now the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle), and despite the mainstream’s whitewash narrative he has the second lowest favorable rnking at this point of a presidency – Trump at number one – and his own party favors his not seeking another term.

Alvin Bragg’s indictment was foolish and the Dems euphoria will be short-lived when the Republicans seek vengeance. In two short years America’s prosperity has been diminished, its security threatened, and its world image tarnished.

Maybe, just maybe, this is rock bottom for embarrassing U.S. politics

https://www.somerset-kentucky.com/op...1aaf1dbf5.html

The Republican nominating electorate, although not invariably farsighted, surely will recognize that if Trump is the Republican nominee, his November 2024 defeat is highly probable: A national majority of voters dislike him and hate the chaos he promises and delivers. Besides, is anyone undecided about him?

Trump, however, evidently believes, as much as he believes anything, that it is impossible for him — martyr and Superman — to lose in any unrigged process. So, if he is defeated for the Republican nomination, his inexhaustible spite might motivate him to try to doom the Republican nominee. If Trump urges his supporters not to vote, enough might obey to defeat whoever is the nominee of the party that has lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections.

Republicans should try to avoid this by fielding, before the first candidates’ debate in August, an array of aspirants from their strong bench. Granted, it is risky to divide the non-Trump vote. It is, however, riskier today to wager everything, about nine months before Iowa begins the delegate selection, on one person.

Largely because of the nation’s generally dyspeptic mood, Biden’s job approval is the second lowest of any president at this point in a first term in more than 30 years. (Trump’s was lower.) It is unlikely to suddenly improve. The increasing improbability of a second Trump term erases Biden’s principal rationale for seeking reelection. This gives him an opportunity to perform something vanishingly rare: a nation-healing act of statesmanship.

[Lee Chowaniec]

Donald Trump: The only Republican Biden can beat

Spot on!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...7aab5fc0&ei=27

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) mocked Donald Trump across the board while sharing his concern about what would happen if the Republican Party does nominate him again in the 2024 election. Christie predicted that Trump would stick to his usual political style because “he’s got no other act.”

“That sounded, to me, like a guy you’d encounter at a bar who you wind up sitting next to and he’s griping to you about his bad divorce,” Christie said.

“That’s what it sounded like to me. I don’t think most elections, in my experience, are won on the past. They are won or lost on the future. That’s gonna be his problem when the primary comes, because the smart primary candidate will be talking about the future and ignoring Donald Trump except for when he pops up.”

“I think Donald Trump is the only Republican [Biden] can beat,” he said. “I don’t think he could beat any other Republican that could get nominated. But the economy will still be the thing that determines this, and I think we have more bumps ahead.”

Christie’s opinion is shared by conservative columnist Ann Coulter, another former Trump backer who is now warning Republicans that endorsing Trump will lead to Biden getting re-elected.

Watch VIDEO.

[Lee Chowaniec]

Regular NYers eager to leave? Thank progressive policies.

https://www.newsbreak.com/new-york-c...ssive-policies

Congratulations, Empire State progressives!

Your years-long campaign to drive out average New Yorkers via sky-high taxes, job-killing regulations, soaring energy costs, pro-crime policies and hollowed-out public education is working.

Per a new Siena poll , 27% of New Yorkers plan to leave the state in the next five years. That’s in keeping with our population exodus from 2022 and 2021 , when New York was a national leader in outflows.

Dive deeper into the numbers and the picture grows even grimmer.

Almost a third of New Yorkers have a negative view of overall quality of life in the state — “only fair” (26%) or “poor” (6%).

Crucially, asked about “affordability,” two-thirds give a negative response: 31% “only fair” and a full 36% “poor.” No wonder, with housing growing ever more unaffordable and the jobs market languishing : Everything costs more in these parts.

Also damning: 39% of New Yorkers are negative on the state being a good place to raise children. Given the largely atrocious condition of public schools here — some 57% of New York City high school students as of 2019 weren’t ready for college, for example, and 43% of respondents are Gothamites — we’re shocked it’s not higher.

The data show 49% negative on feeling safe from crime (a figure that jumps to 59% among Black respondents). This as the hard-left caucus in Albany blocks even modest fixes to our insane criminal justice “reforms,” crime rises rampant statewide, and kids kill kids .

Some 57% are negative on whether the political system works for average Joes, which jumps to 69% among people making less than $50,000 a year. So much for progressive policies helping the disadvantaged.

The shame of it is that clearly New York is a great place to live when these issues don’t overshadow the good. Nearly 80% said there were excellent or good leisure activities, a similar number said the state is filled with people they enjoy, and just over 70% believe they have access to quality education and health care.

It is worth noting that those who took part are not recent transplants. A whopping 78% of respondents have lived here for 20-plus years — which means that the low quality of life and dim future expectations are pushing out people with deep, real roots in the state.

The picture is beyond sad. But for any rational observer, it’s not in the least surprising. When Albany’s lefty ideologues jack up the cost of basic necessities and rip apart the social fabric via terrible policies undertaken in the name of “equity,” all New Yorkers lose.

Expect the bleeding to continue until the fanatics are no longer in charge.

[Lee Chowaniec]

The truth is, we're not hearing the truth

Why shouldn’t we feel embarrassed by a Biden administration and a feckless / inept mainstream media that continue to lie to the America people- covering up an economy that continues to tank and a country besieged by one crisis after another.

Biden declared today he is not concerned about the intelligence breach. Is not concerned about the border crisis, inflation, crime, or his unfavorable poll numbers. Many from his own party want this man absent in 2024, but will support him because of their hate for Trump.

The American people deserve the truth and is why more people are turning to FOX and why the White house and biased left-wing media attempt to silence FOX.

LAURA INGRAHAM: We're not hearing the truth about the war in Ukraine

https://www.foxnews.com/media/laura-...th-war-ukraine


Joe Biden mocked after Hunter has to explain child's question in Ireland: 'I am so embarrassed for my country'

https://www.foxnews.com/media/joe-bi...rassed-country

[Lee Chowaniec]

America in decline

While America is in decline in so many ways that impact our wellbeing and security we are being to believe it is the new norm, suck it up, and go with the flow or there will be consequences. The Democrats / left / mainstream are not that committed anymore to supporting a Biden administration with policies, ‘executive orders’ and actions that are so radical and beyond common sense that they are indefensible.

While we see or hear of:

The crisis / chaos at the border, the number of illegal immigrants in our country and being told they have the same rights we have, the illicit drugs entering our country resulting in over 100,000 fatalities, Biden and Mayorkas and Biden turn a blind eye to the problem and deny the border is open, or that a problem exists.

While crime is surging and rampant throughout the country, Democrats dare to deny it exists and to even tell us the youth of America causing a large portion of it presently ‘need a safe place and a need to blow off some steam with the improving weather.

While the Ukraine war is depleting our resources, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people and combatants, where there are now 3 nuclear superpowers and several on the verge of become one, America is internally being divided and weakened by identity politics. Our children are falling behind in simple reading skills, we are fighting over trans people being allowed to compete in women’s sports, and we are being ostracized should we not agree with another’s opinion if it differs from there’s – all in the name of democracy, free speech, and inclusiveness.

Today we have a Secretary of Education who can’t, or won’t define what a woman is, unrealistic, mandated climate policies, Biden proposing legislation whereby individuals with good credit scores will pay more for their mortgages to help pay for individuals with lower credit scores and ‘riskier’ loans. Insane!

Trump is out of office and still gets blamed for many of Biden’s failures. Trump is toxic and should not be considered worth endorsing in the 2024 election. That said, nor should Biden. He lies as much as Trump and has been responsible for America’s decline. As Trump has been deserving of investigation, Biden deserves the same treatment.

Biden favorability continues to drop in the polls. America is waking up, understanding they are not better off than they were two years ago, and much less safe from internal as well as external strife.

When leaving Ireland from his 5-day visit, Biden said he wished he could stay. Yeah, me too!

[Lee Chowaniec]

Biden sees spike among Dems who say they would back him in 2024: poll.

Scary stuff my friends should Trump and Biden wind up representing their political parties in 2024.

With a solid lead in the polls, and hoping to add to his numbers, Donald Trump has been making promises and rolling out proposals for the second term that was denied him in 2020 when he lost to now-President Joe Biden.

In his Truth Social posts and interviews with conservative news outlets, the former president has been floating the idea of using the military to control crime, purging government workers, and siccing the DOJ on whistleblowers.

After urging state and local officials to take harsher measures on crime and homelessness, Trump says he is now determined to take more direct federal action. And the only way you can do that is by interjecting federal authority into matters that constitutionally or at least traditionally have been reserved to the states.

Poll

More than 80 percent of Democrats said they would likely vote for President Biden in 2024 despite a minority saying the want him to run for reelection, according to an AP-NORC poll released Friday, improvements on earlier figures.

The poll found that just 26 percent of American respondents overall and 47 percent of Democrat respondents want Biden to run for reelection, with many citing his age a concern.

Biden is expected to announce his 2024 campaign officially at an event as early as next week, and it comes as the president’s approval rating slips below 40 percent this month in a different poll, down from 42 percent last month.

Despite sliding approval, the reelection numbers are improvements from January, when 38 percent of Democrats said they would want Biden to run.

Biden’s support is weakest among younger Democrats, with just 25 percent of those under 45 saying they would “definitely” back the president compared to 56 percent of older Democrats. However, 51 percent of young Democrats surveyed said they would “probably” vote for Biden, according to the poll.

The unfavorable figures still put Biden in a better position than GOP frontrunner former President Trump. The same poll found that 65 percent of American respondents would not vote for Trump in 2024, including 53 percent saying they definitely would not.

The numbers are slightly better for Biden, with 56 percent of Americans surveyed saying they would not vote for him and 41 percent saying they would definitely not.

Biden has challenged concerns about his age and urged voters to compare him to the alternative candidate, likely Trump, when determining their support. “It’s legitimate for people to raise issues about my age,” he said in an ABC News interview in February . “It’s totally legitimate to do that. And the only thing I can say is, ‘Watch me.’”

The poll of 1,230 adults was conducted April 13-17 and has a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points.


We can't do better, really?

[Lee Chowaniec]

The Biden 10-Step Plan for Global Chaos

Our enemies do not fear us, our allies judge us unreliable, neutrals assume America is in descent and too dangerous to join.

By Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
April 12, 2023

 Why is French President Emmanuel Macron cozying up to China while trashing his oldest ally, the United States?
 Why is there suddenly talk of discarding the dollar as the global currency?
 Why are Japan and India shrugging that they cannot follow the United States lead in boycotting Russian oil?
 Why is the president of Brazil traveling to China to pursue what he calls a “beautiful relationship”?
 Why is Israel suddenly facing attacks from its enemies in all directions?
 What happened to Turkey? Why is it threatening fellow NATO member Greece? Is it still a NATO ally, a mere neutral, or a de facto enemy?
 Why are there suddenly nonstop Chinese threats toward Taiwan?
 Why did Saudi Arabia conclude a new pact with Iran, its former archenemy?
 Why is Egypt sending rockets to Russia to be used in Ukraine?
 Since when did the Russians talk nonstop about the potential use of a tactical nuclear weapon?
 Why is Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador bragging that millions of Mexicans have entered the United States, most of them illegally? And why is he interfering in U.S. elections by urging his expatriates to vote for Democrats?
 Why and how, in just two years, have a confused and often incoherent Joe Biden and his team created such global chaos?

Let us answer by listing 10 ways by which America lost all deterrence.

1) Joe Biden abruptly pulled all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. He left behind to the Taliban hundreds of Americans and thousands of pro-American Afghans. Biden abandoned billions of dollars in U.S. equipment, the largest air base in central Asia—recently retrofitted for $300 million—and a $1 billion embassy. Our government called such a debacle a success. The world disagreed and saw only humiliation.

2) The Biden Administration allowed a Chinese high-altitude spy balloon to traverse the continental United States, spying on key American military installations. The Chinese were defiant when caught and offered no apologies. In response, the Pentagon and the administration simply lied about the extent that China had surveilled top-secret sites.

3) In March 2021, at an Anchorage, Alaska mini-summit, Chinese diplomats unleashed a relentless barrage at their stunned and mostly silent American counterparts. They lectured the timid Biden Administration diplomats about American toxicity and hypocrisy. And they have defiantly refused to explain why and how their virology lab birthed the COVID virus that has killed tens of millions worldwide.

4) In June 2021, in response to Russian cyber-attacks against the United States, Biden meekly asked Putin to at least make off-limits certain critical American infrastructure.

5) When asked what he would do if Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden replied that the reaction would depend on whether the Russians conducted a “minor incursion.”

6) Between 2021 and 2022, Joe Biden serially insulted and bragged that he would not meet Muhammad bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and one of our oldest and most valuable allies in the Middle East.

7) For much of 2021, the Biden Administration made it known that it was eager and ready to offer concessions to re-enter the dangerous Iran nuclear deal—at a time when Iran has joined China and Russia in a new geostrategic partnership.

8) Almost immediately upon inauguration, the administration moved the United States away from Israel, restored financial aid to radical Palestinians, and both publicly and privately alienated the current Netanyahu government.

9) In serial fashion, Biden stopped all construction on the border wall and opened the border. He made it known that illegal aliens were welcome to enter the United States unlawfully. Some 6-7 million did. He reinstated “catch and release.” And he did nothing about the Mexican cartel importation of fentanyl that has recently killed over 100,000 Americans per year.

10) In the last two years, the Pentagon has embarked on a woke agenda. The army is short by 15,000 in its annual recruitment quota. The defense budget has not kept up with inflation. One of the greatest intelligence leaks in U.S. history just occurred from the Pentagon.

The Pentagon refused to admit culpability and misled the country about Afghanistan and the Chinese spy balloon flight. The current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called his Chinese communist counterpart and head of the People’s Liberation Army to advise him that the U.S. military would warn the Chinese if it determined an order from its commander-in-chief Trump was inappropriate.

This list of these self-inflicted disasters could be easily expanded.

But the examples explain well enough why our emboldened enemies do not fear us, our triangulating allies judge us unreliable, and calculating neutrals assume America is in decent and too dangerous to join.

Yet without America, the result is a new Chinese order in which, to quote the historian Thucydides, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

[Lee Chowaniec]

Propaganda, deceit, and outright lies

A recent NBC poll indicates the majority of Americans are fed up with Trump and Biden and prefer others from their respective parties as president endorsed candidates in 2024. Yet the Republican and Democratic parties have dug in to support either candidate ignoring the voters and country’s best interest to favor theirs.

The new poll shows nearly 3 out of 4 Americans do not believe President Joe Biden should run for reelection, citing his age as the main reason, many his policies and the state of the economy, crime, and immigration. On the flip side, 60% of Americans said they do not think former President Donald Trump should run for president in 2024, with only 35% voting yes.

But there they are front and center propped up by today’s media propagandists. Even the media networks are reacting to the nonsense spewed by some of their media analysts and parting company with them – aka Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson,

Biden announces 2024 presidential run

The delusional Biden says he needs another term to finish the job. His White House lackeys and mainstream minions are all too willing to cover for the guy who is slowly killing America’s foreign and domestic prominence.

1,000 illegal immigrants are daily crossing our border and Biden signs an executive order to protect ‘the vulnerable’. 66% of U.S. citizens voicing living paycheck-to-paycheck pick up the tab.

Crime is so bad in Chicago even former Mayor Lightfoot admits to it’s existence and that it has to be addressed. In New York City Mayor Eric Adams bellows the same and adds immigration is
negatively impacting his city and the country. Even he is now calling out Biden’s policies as foolish..

China announces it will no longer import our vehicles.

Russia declares the world has never been as close to nuclear war as today.

We have a spending and debt ceiling crisis.

A recession is on the horizon, or here already.

Inflation is not cooling. Cost of living increase since Biden took office: Overall 14.9 %. Energy 32.6%. Food 18.3%.

Biden’s climate change strategy sucks!

The doddering old man believes and claims he is uniting Americans as he continues to trash a number of Americans as domestic terrorists, racists, sexists, etc. Where his own Secretary of Education can’t define or refuses to define a woman.

Biden’s announcement should have terrified American today – especially when 70% voice he should not run. Especially the 66% who voice they are living paycheck-to-paycheck and where 40% of Americans declare a $400 unexpected expense could be devastating.

The U.S. should be embarrassed by having this man at the helm. Giving him another four years in office would further negatively impact this country. Biden or Trump in 2024, an abomination.

[Lee Chowaniec]

If voters choose between Trump and Biden, Republicans won’t like the results.

Spot on! How many times does it have to be reported? They are both undeserving to be re-elected in 2024. Because of age, acuity, and ineptness, Biden more so, but more likely to kick Trump’s butt. America deserves better!

If voters choose between Trump and Biden, Republicans won’t like the results

https://siouxcityjournal.com/if-vote...9daeaa458.html

WASHINGTON — As he announces his reelection campaign, President Joe Biden is extremely vulnerable. According to NBC News polling out this week, his disapproval rating is at 54% (just two points shy of his all-time high) while a whopping 70% of Americans say they don't want him to run again. With those numbers, his campaign should be politically dead-on-arrival.

But here's the problem for Republicans: Sixty percent of voters also don't want Donald Trump to run again. Americans are sending a clear message to both parties: They want new candidates to choose from in 2024. As Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who helped conduct the NBC poll, explains, "people do not want a Biden-Trump rematch." But it looks increasingly likely the country will get exactly that.

So, what happens if voters are forced to choose between two candidates they don't want? A Wall Street Journal poll (conducted by pro-Trump super PAC pollster Tony Fabrizio) suggests the answer: It found that among voters who disapprove of both Trump and Biden, Biden leads Trump by a massive 39 points: 54% to 15%. Clearly, swing voters who dislike Biden dislike Trump even more.

To beat Biden, Republicans need the votes of the 54% majority who disapprove of his performance in office. And Trump appears to be the one candidate who can't deliver those votes. If Republicans force these voters to choose between Trump and Biden, they will push these voters into a position they don't want: picking Biden.

[Lee Chowaniec]

Billions of gallons of sewage still flow into Buffalo's rivers. Can the sewer authority keep up?
Sewer authority has made gains, but controlling overflow is an uphill effort.
Buffalo News – Jay Tokasz

An excellent report worth reading! There is more to saving the planet than Green Enery

A messy mix of rain, sleet and snow on a Friday and Saturday in early March did more than make driving a little treacherous along some Western New York roads.

The heavy precipitation and snowmelt over a 24-hour period overwhelmed Buffalo’s combined sewer system and resulted in something even messier: an estimated 40 million gallons of stormwater and raw sewage – enough to fill 60 Olympic-size swimming pools – spilling into the Niagara River and other area waterways.

Combined sewer overflows occurred dozens of times in the city in 2022, and an estimated nine times since January. The foul discharges are legally allowed and have been happening for decades.

“Whenever it rains or there’s a snowmelt, we know there’s an overflow. It’s pretty much a given,” said Jill Spisiak Jedlicka, executive director of Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper, which keeps tabs on water pollution and water quality in the region.

Each time, fecal coliform bacteria and other contaminants, such as oil, chemical and nutrient runoff, spew into rivers and streams, potentially creating a public health hazard, particularly in warmer weather when residents flock to waterways for recreation.

The Buffalo Sewer Authority operates and maintains the roughly 800 miles of underground pipes that collect and divert stormwater, along with the flushed sewage of tens of thousands of city homes and businesses.

In 2014, under pressure from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the sewer authority agreed to spend $380 million over 20 years on infrastructure improvements aimed at cutting the number of annual overflow “activations.”

The sewer authority appears to have made strides, reducing its reported number of system overflows from 85 to 35 per year.

But the mitigation work continues to be an uphill challenge, and the sewer authority has a long way to go to cut its annual overflows to nine or less, per the terms of an EPA compliance order.

An estimated 4.4 billion gallons of untreated sewage and stormwater still poured into waterways in 2022, according to the sewer authority's annual report. Cost projections have soared by $180 million since the authority released its Long Term Control Plan more than a decade ago, and the sewer authority is looking to raise customer rates for the first time in years.

Supply chain issues stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, worker shortages and unanticipated engineering challenges also have resulted in construction delays that could undermine efforts to meet a 2034 deadline for limiting the number of overflows in a year to single digits, said Rosaleen B. Nogle, principal sanitary engineer for the Buffalo Sewer Authority.

An EPA spokesperson said in an email that both the EPA and DEC are “in discussions” with the Buffalo Sewer Authority about a compliance schedule included in the 2014 administrative order. “While BSA has made progress, there have been delays,” said the spokesperson, Stephen McBay.

1.5 billion gallons of waste near popular fishing spot

Each of the sewer authority's 52 outfall sites has a green sign identifying it as a “permitted discharge point” and providing a phone number for more information.

Outfall No. 55 discharges into Cornelius Creek, a narrow channel that spills into the Niagara River at Black Rock Canal Park. It’s historically been the site of frequent overflows that produce some of the largest volumes in the city. An estimated 1.5 billion gallons of waste and stormwater – more than double the volume of the next largest overflow site – spewed from Outfall No. 55 into Cornelius Creek and ultimately the Niagara River in 2022, according to the sewer authority's most recent combined sewer overflow annual report in January.

Despite the discharges, the creek is a popular fishing spot.

When temperatures soared into the mid-80s on a recent Sunday afternoon, more than a dozen people, including children, lined the south bank of the creek casting lines in the muddy water for perch or nets for minnows.

Brothers Dave and Kristian Sherk said they weren’t too concerned about high bacteria levels in the water. They said they have been fishing there for years without any issues and often bring a grill to cook fresh-caught perch on site for a meal.

“When you pull these fish out, you can tell they’re healthy,” said Dave Sherk, who hooked a couple of perch within a few minutes of arriving at the creek.

Several yards away, Woodrow James said he was very aware of how polluted the creek’s water can be.

About 20 years ago, James said he got a tiny cut on his thumb from a hook while he was fishing in the creek. He ended up in the hospital with a nasty infection, and doctors told him it was probably caused by E. coli bacteria in the water, he said.

“My thumb was swollen like a sausage,” he said.

James said the creek has gotten cleaner in recent years, and still fishes there with a net for bait minnows that he uses in other city waterways.

But he said he’s more careful now. Just a few days earlier, he noticed a heavy flow of brown water and decided against trying to catch minnows, he said.

“Sometimes, you can smell it,” he said. “There’s definitely bacteria in here. They could do more.”

'We know how to fix it': $70 million in work done since 2014

Buffalo’s sewer system typically operates fine on dry days, with sewage running through sanitary sewer pipes to Bird Island wastewater treatment plant, where solids are removed and water gets disinfected and discharged into the Niagara River.

It’s a different story when it rains heavily. Parts of Buffalo’s sewer system originally were designed as far back as the late 1800s and simply transported wastewater to streams and rivers. The wastewater treatment plant didn’t begin operating until 1938. Weirs, which are damlike structures inside combined sewer lines, keep waste flowing to the treatment facility. But the treatment plant, last upgraded in the 1970s, can’t handle the huge amounts of stormwater that enter the combined sewer system, often as runoff from asphalt roads and much of it from the suburbs of Cheektowaga and West Seneca, which have sewer systems that tie into the city’s. To protect the plant from too much volume, the weirs allow the stormwater and sewage mix to overflow to an outfall pipe. The deliberate overflows into rivers and streams during heavy rains also help prevent basement floodings and sewer backups.

More than 800 systems in 32 states have combined sewer overflows, including 43 in New York, according to the EPA. The overflows lead to beach closures, algal blooms, depressed property values, limits on fish consumption and other problems, and in the early 1990s, the EPA began more forcefully pushing communities around the country to curb them. Without systemwide improvements, those problems could get worse as climate changes are expected to result in more intense rain and snowstorms.

The Buffalo Sewer Authority has completed $70 million in construction since 2014, mostly “green infrastructure” projects that allow stormwater to filter naturally through the ground and stay out of the sewer system. Those include a reconstruction of Niagara Street from downtown to Ontario Street, removing 2 acres of impervious asphalt and adding hundreds of rain gardens and trees – a design estimated to prevent 613,000 gallons of stormwater runoff from entering the sewer system during a heavy rain. A similar green overhaul of Ohio Street diverts 71,000 gallons of runoff from sewers during a storm, according to the Buffalo Sewer Authority.

An additional $60 million in work is under contract. Underground, the authority is installing “real-time control” technologies to capture and store wastewater in parts of the sewer system that have excess room. It involves installing a large concrete chamber with motorized gates around an existing sewer line. The gates can be closed during heavy rain events to hold back and store some flows, rather than having them rush into a stream or river, while allowing other flows to continue to the treatment plant, said Nogle. Then, when the rain stops, the flows that were held back can be sent through for treatment.

Even slowing down the amount of stormwater that comes into the sewer system will help, Nogle said. The sewer authority already has completed several projects along those lines, including on Bird Avenue, Lang Avenue and Bailey Avenue. By the end of June, it will wrap up a $4.2 million project on Broadway near Oak Street designed to detain 7.2 million gallons of wastewater per year that otherwise would end up in the Commercial Slip area of the Buffalo River. And this past October, construction started on a $56 million project to upgrade the Bird Island Wastewater Treatment Plant for the first time in nearly 50 years.

The state has pledged a variety of grants and low-cost loans to pay for the first of three phases in planned improvements that will expand the plant’s capacity to handle more intense rainfall and reduce water pollution.

More money will be needed to meet the terms of the Long-Term Control Plan.

City residents haven’t seen a sewer rate increase since 2006, and that is expected to change beginning in 2024. Sewer authority officials have proposed a 7% increase for next year, and “there will likely be similar increases for several years to come,” said Nogle.

Jedlicka said the Buffalo Sewer Authority seems to be making progress on the overflows. “We know why it’s happening. We know how to fix it. It’s just that it takes a long time and a lot of money to do it,” she said.

[gorja]

I'll always remember this letter the late Michael Bielman wrote regarding the pollution of Scajaquada creek and Hoyt lake from the Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

https://www.speakupwny.com/article_3901.shtml

[Lee Chowaniec]

Democrats must own up to their failures

But they and their biased mainstream left media stooges will continue to narrate that Biden’s polices are working and that he and they must extol his accomplishments. The American voter does not live in the alternate universe they wish to propagate. The majority of American voters polled believe the economy is in decline, headed in the wrong direction and don’t want to see Biden in 2024.

Joe Biden did make this mess, continues to blame Trump, and will never own up to his failures. Is this the best the Democrats have to offer? A doddering old man unable to walk and chew gum at the same time, an embarrassment before the world, who will be kept off the debating stage to prevent further embarrassment. He should be occupying a jail cell along with Trump!

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6326865221112

[Lee Chowaniec]

Trump and Biden: The hate for both is palpable.

While new polling indicates Biden dropped 6 percentage points in his favorable rating since February (42-36), Democrats can’t understand why Trump’s favorable rating is surging. Blanks and Independents can’t understand why either one is still considered top of the class by their respective parties.

Trump is hated primarily for his acerbic, narcissistic, mendacious persona; blamed for every failure / misstep of the Biden administration by Biden, the White House, and his media lackeys.

Biden has become equally despised by voters for his recent outbursts that he is the most experienced individual occupying the oval office and doing more for the country than any of his predecessors. The voters see otherwise; 65% declare he is mentally incompetent.

The majority of Americans also think Trump did a better job at handling the economy than Biden, with 54% supporting Trump’s performance compared to only 36% who think Biden is doing a better job.

While he claims his policies are working and are evident from the improving economy, job creation, and low unemployment numbers, Americans cite inflation, a poor economy, fear of an upcoming recession, and the following Biden failures:

Biden has mismanaged:

Covid
Afghanistan
Congress
The Border
Crime
Energy Independence
Fentanyl
Iran
The spy balloon event
Spending / debt limit crisis
The proposed military equipment (tanks, mobile transport, etc.) becoming electric by 2030 is insane.
As AI only gets better job losses will occur.
Biden, a president who has done everything possible to limit freedom, emphasizes the importance of freedom in the country.

Trump and Biden are too old and unfit to serve again as president. The White House and Biden biased media should be ashamed of themselves narrating Biden’s accomplishments. Voters have had enough!

[Lee Chowaniec]

Battle looms among New York Democrats over high cost of Green Energy plans

https://www.newsbreakapp.com/n/0mNby...SvFwa&hl=en_US

The stage is set for a battle royale within the New York Democratic Party over climate policy. Governor Hochul has suddenly realized that the cost of the state’s planned emission reduction scheme will be “ extraordinary ,” and is challenging her own party to make the climate law less damaging to New Yorkers’ pocketbooks. Will the left wing of her party go along?

In this year’s budget negotiations Ms. Hochul and the legislature agreed to a cap-and-invest program as recommended by the state’s Climate Action Council. Cap-and-invest programs put an annual limit on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions New York businesses collectively emit, with the amount declining each year. Businesses will have to bid for an ever-decreasing number of permits and naturally will pass the costs on to consumers by raising prices.

But a wrinkle in the Climate Act will make those costs more than half as much as they would be under Hochul’s proposed change.

Most countries and states compare emissions of different greenhouse gases using a 100-year time frame. New York’s Climate Law is unusual in that it uses a 20-year time frame. The issue is complex, but New York’s choice has two effects: it would reduce greenhouse gases faster, but at a much higher cost.

The governor has recognized this and wants to change to the more commonly used 100-year time frame, which would reduce greenhouse gases more slowly, but would have less sticker shock for average New Yorkers.

Under the Climate Act’s 20-year time frame, cap-and-invest would add 63 cents to the cost of a gallon of gasoline. Ms. Hochul’s proposal would reduce that to a still hefty but more bearable 39 cents per gallon.

For users of natural gas, the current approach would add $595 to the average family’s average annual bill. Changing it would reduce that to a $330 cost increase.

And for users of heating oil, the annual hit under the current law would be $605, while Ms. Hochul’s requested change would drop that to $410 per year.

Either way, the price increases are going to be considerable, but if Ms. Hochul gets her way, many New Yorkers would be spared hundreds of dollars per year in Climate Act costs.

A recent Siena College poll conducted for the industry group New Yorkers for Affordable Energy found that three-quarters of New Yorkers were unwilling to pay $480 per year to combat climate change, and more than half balked at paying just $240.

Ms. Hochul tried to get this change made during budget negotiations but was shot down. How hard she’ll push during the rest of the legislative session is anyone’s guess.

In the short run the activists may get their way again. But how long they can dominate a public that’s increasingly financially pressured remains to be seen.