WHEN HARRIS DUCKED UNDER THE BRIDGE
The same writers who proclaimed Joe Biden “sharp as a tack” are now busy denying that Joe appointed Kamala Harris his “border czar.” While giving that failure the attention it deserves, recall the new span of the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Oakland.
The original double-deck span had served well since the 1930s and was quickly repaired after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The structure could have been retrofitted for an estimated $250 million but Bay Area Democrats wanted a new bridge they said would cost $1 billion. California boasts some of the best bridge builders in the world but the state hired China’s Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company, which at the time had no experience building bridges. China also got the nod on materials and much of the labor. The structure came in 10 years late, a full $5 billion over budget, and riddled with safety issues.
Bay Area Democrat Mark DeSaulnier, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, held hearings on the project. As witnesses revealed, the Chinese steel was too brittle; welds, bolts and rods were cracked, and every one of the bridge’s 750 panels had to be repaired. Caltrans, the state agency in charge of the project, hid the problems from the public and whistleblowers called for a “criminal investigation.” That prompted DeSaulnier to send a report to state attorney general Kamala Harris, who did nothing. With public corruption, as with the victims of terrorism in San Bernardino, Harris prefers to look the other way.
In 2010, Harris was so lightly regarded that the Sacramento Bee endorsed her Republican rival Steve Cooley. He was far ahead on election night but three weeks later Harris jumped ahead by less than one percent. With illegal voters and ballot harvesting in the mix, you’re free to believe that Harris won fair and square. And remember, the woman now running for president got her start under Democrat queenmaker Willie Brown, who appointed his main squeeze to lucrative sinecures. The 90-year-old Brown now believes Biden should resign and let Harris assume the presidency. “Silence all of this nonsense about how best to select some new nominee,” Brown told reporters. “Her chances go up if he [Biden] would at this moment say not only am I no longer the candidate, I’m no longer the president — she is.” We’ll have to see what happens and in the meantime, consider the sequels to the bridge story.
DeSaulnier’s hearing was broadcast live on the California Channel, the Golden State’s version of C-SPAN, launched in 1993. In 2019, under Gov. Gavin Newsom, the state shut down the California Channel. As Capitol Weekly wondered, “What’s the future of digital legislative transparency in California?” Democracy dies in darkness, and maybe some people along with it.
UC Berkeley structural engineering professor Abolhasaan Astaneh-Asi contended the design was not earthquake safe and declined to use the new bridge. Then-governor Jerry Brown famously shrugged off the dangers with “shit happens,” a possible prophecy. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a major quake is due in the Bay Area by 2032. That could give new meaning to Harris’s quip about being “unburdened by what has been.”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/07/when-harris-ducked-under-the-bridge.php
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