Schumer seeks better WTC security

A teenager was recently charged with climbing to the top of the 1,776-foot spire. | AP Photo

NEW YORK — Sen. Charles Schumer stood by the World Trade Center on Sunday, demanding that federal officials review security after daredevils twice sneaked to the top of the site’s signature, 104-story skyscraper.

Schumer’s request comes after a teenager was charged with climbing to the top of the 1,776-foot spire of 1 World Trade Center, three skydiving enthusiasts turned themselves in to face charges in a September jump off the building, and a newspaper published a photo of a guard apparently sleeping on the job.

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“What is going on here?” asked Schumer.

The New York Democrat wants the Department of Homeland Security to monitor the performance and training of trade center security guards, in addition to testing surveillance equipment and checking the perimeter for possible illegal entry points.

Schumer said the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the 16-acre site, is responsible for any security breaches.

“They’re the public authority in charge of this; I’m holding them responsible,” Schumer said during a news conference on Sunday.

In a pair of statements Sunday, Port Authority security chief Joseph Dunne called the lapses “unacceptable” and invited Homeland Security officials to tour the site again “in light of recent security breaches.”

Dunne said the Port Authority and the Durst Organization, which manages 1 World Trade Center and provides private security for the building still under construction, “have taken significant steps” to address the lapses.

David Velazquez, the assistant security director for Durst, resigned on Friday.

Dunne noted that the two reported breaches are unrelated. “Each involved different means of accessing the site,” he said, without elaborating.

A “Phase 1” review of site security was submitted to DHS in November and is currently under review, Dunne said. A “Phase 2” application with measures including fences, closed-circuit television, perimeter patrol and access control is being prepared, he said.

Schumer was not satisfied.

“I do not feel we can leave it up to the Port Authority to say, `Oh, we’ve corrected it, never mind,’” the senator said. “There have been too many breaches.”

Schumer said he’s pleased the New York Police Department is also participating in the security review and that Dunne, the PA security chief, is a former NYPD First Deputy Commissioner.

The New York Post published a photo Wednesday that showed a guard in a bright-green security vest leaning back in a chair, legs crossed and head tilted back. A Durst Organization spokesman told the paper the guard was fired immediately.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said the image of the sleeping guard is an “extraordinary embarrassment.”

“You’ll see security levels enhanced significantly on that site,” Bratton told WABC television on Sunday.

The commissioner said police were looking for possible accomplices who may have helped the parachuters enter the high-rise.

“They didn’t walk up,” Bratton said. “They had assistance getting in and out of there, and we’re continuing our investigations as to who helped them get up there.”

POLITICO – Congress

Schumer seeks better WTC security

Gohmert: Republicans Must Unite, Reshape Better Healthcare Alternative

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert called on his fellow Republicans to eschew political fallout and come together to reshape the existing Obama healthcare law, noting that they must show leadership and unite to alleviate “suffering” for the American people.

“Obamacare is causing the suffering and we have got to keep pushing on this because this isn’t about politics. If people are trying to make it about politics, it’s going to hurt them in the end. It’s about helping alleviate the suffering that Obamacare is and will cause,” Gohmert, a Texas Republican, told Newsmax at the annual Restoration Weekend event in Palm Beach, Fla., a day after the House voted on a fix to the divisive health plan with 39 Democrats breaking ranks in support.

Gohmert urged Republicans to be firm as the healthcare law continues to unravel and Democrat fears over 2014 midterm elections mount. He believes they have the power to reshape something better if they are thoughtful.

“What I keep wanting people to understand in our party is when you stand up for what’s right instead of arguing about what’s politically best, if you just stand up for what’s right, in the end, it may hurt you here or there, but, in the end, it ends up being the best thing politically,” he said. “And not getting cute and trying to twist this, just stand up for what we believe in, show the people what our plan is… Let’s come together. Let’s have these discussions.”

Story continues below the video.

Despite the unification message, Gohmert mixed no words when defining the Obama administration’s plan to force healthcare into a single-payer system. He said he read the Obamacare bill completely and said it amounted to a plan that would eventually bankrupt insurers by forcing them to provide a large set of coverage, keep premiums low and then have the government eventually rush in to rescue a system it set up to fail as it called out doctors and providers as “greedy.”

He acknowledged that the House resolution is unlikely to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate or a certain presidential veto, but said it sends a crucial message to the insurance industry because it changes the way Obamacare moved ahead.

“Obamacare says the insurance companies are going to get hammered if they don’t provide the policies exactly like they were supposed to. Our bill says if you got a policy in place before Obamacare now, it’s OK. Keep it going for another year,” Gohmert said. “So it would allow insurance companies to do that.”

Gohmert said he and some House colleagues are working on an alternative interim plan that would not allow a bridge for consumers to keep their policies, at least for a year, removed from sweeping government control, noting “we do have alternatives. We can make this work to get back to sanity.”

He explained their rationale: “What some of us want to see is an interim, only a bridge, not a permanent solution, but every state has insurance policies that are approved for the state workers, the federal government has policies that were approved for people that worked for the federal government in the different states that are OK in those states. (This is) just a one-year bridge to get us through this tough time when people have lost their insurance and can’t afford what’s there,” he said.

“Let them buy from the private insurance companies that are approved by the federal government or the state government or the local government. Let them buy those policies for the next year and not those governed by the federal government, not controlled by the OPM in Washington but just controlled by the states.”

Gohmert called on lawmakers to reshape a stronger dialogue with the public over what is good and bad within the framework of a federal healthcare law, much like the debates that occurred in 2008 as Obama began discussion on such a plan. By walking it back, listening to feedback, holding thoughtful hearings and not rushing it through, better alternatives are likely to emerge, he said.

“What appealed to the American public in 2008 was the United States president now, candidate then, saying I am going to have debates, we’ll even have them on C-SPAN, we will discuss this, and we will get all of this information and we’ll pull together a bill. That’s what should be done. Our leadership is not ready to have that open debate. It’s time not to just say here’s the bill; we’re going to ram ours through like the Democrats. No, but let’s have the open debate,” he said.

“It’s time to move forward with our plan but let’s don’t ram one down,” Gohmert cautioned of Republicans in shaping a better law. He noted that Congress is full of medical expertise.

“Let’s let Mike Burgess, Louie Gohmert, Tom Price, Phil Roe, all of these doctors, John Fleming, let all of these doctors that have good ideas, let’s get all of this input.”

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Newsmax – America

Gohmert: Republicans Must Unite, Reshape Better Healthcare Alternative

Ezra Klein: WH Trying To Buy Time Until People Realize Obamacare Offers Better Insurance

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: What you heard from today from the White House about how the president hopes to fix this situation. What’s your reading of how that will work?

EZRA KLEIN: It isn’t a fix. And part it’s not a fix because the situation actually isn’t that broken. What’s broken is another part of the law. So, what he said today, the new policy he’s got coming out, you’re basically dealing with an optional opportunity for insurers to keep putting forward plans that are not going to be profitable for them any longer. And the president really rolled over on insurance today and then fundamentally they are responding to a new set of rules that the Affordable Care Act brings out.

The idea that it’s kind of up to them now, I don’t think is actually all that accurate. I mean, some of them will take the opportunity to extended the plan for an extra year, but for a lot of them it’s not going all that profitable to do so because they simply would have to send out the cancelation notices a year later. They would have to reconstruct infrastructure around the plans in the meantime.

The problem, ultimately, is that the fundamental machinery of the law, mainly Healthcare.gov and the digital architecture it stands atop, is that it is still not working. It is that fundamental problem where people having their plans being canceled, if they can see, often times that they could get better insurance, they can’t see that now. I think fundamentally the White House is trying to buy time until those people can see that.

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Ezra Klein: WH Trying To Buy Time Until People Realize Obamacare Offers Better Insurance

Obama Weekly Address: A Better Bargain For Responsible Homeowners

White House: In this week’s address, President Obama says that the housing market is starting to heal — and that it’s time to build on that progress by creating a better bargain for responsible, middle class homeowners.

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Obama Weekly Address: A Better Bargain For Responsible Homeowners

Dolphins display memory better than elephants

This Oct. 3, 2012, photo provided by the Brookfield Zoo, shows the dolphin Allie at the zoo in Brookfield, Ill. Dolphins can swim circles around them elephants when it comes to long term memory. Scientists in a new study repeatedly found dolphins can remember the distinctive whistle _ which acts as a name to the marine mammal _ of another dolphin they haven’t seen in two decades. Bailey the dolphin hadn’t seen another dolphin named Allie since the two juveniles lived together at the Dolphin Connection in the Florida Keys. Allie landed up in a Chicago area zoo, while Bailey got moved to Bermuda. Yet 20.5 years later, Bailey recognized and reacted to Allie’s distinctive signal when University of Chicago researcher Jason Bruck played it on a speaker. (AP Photo/Brookfield Zoo, Jim Schultz)

This Oct. 3, 2012, photo provided by the Brookfield Zoo, shows the dolphin Allie at the zoo in Brookfield, Ill. Dolphins can swim circles around them elephants when it comes to long term memory. Scientists in a new study repeatedly found dolphins can remember the distinctive whistle _ which acts as a name to the marine mammal _ of another dolphin they haven’t seen in two decades. Bailey the dolphin hadn’t seen another dolphin named Allie since the two juveniles lived together at the Dolphin Connection in the Florida Keys. Allie landed up in a Chicago area zoo, while Bailey got moved to Bermuda. Yet 20.5 years later, Bailey recognized and reacted to Allie’s distinctive signal when University of Chicago researcher Jason Bruck played it on a speaker. (AP Photo/Brookfield Zoo, Jim Schultz)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Forget elephants. Dolphins can swim circles around them when it comes to long-term memory.

Scientists in a new study repeatedly found that dolphins can remember the distinctive whistle — which acts as a name to the marine mammal — of another dolphin they haven’t seen in two decades.

Bailey the dolphin hadn’t seen another dolphin named Allie since the two juveniles lived together at the Dolphin Connection in the Florida Keys. Allie ended up in a Chicago area zoo, while Bailey got moved to Bermuda. Yet 20 1/2 years later, Bailey recognized and reacted to Allie’s distinctive signal when University of Chicago researcher Jason Bruck played it on a speaker.

Other dolphins had similar steel-trap memories. And it’s not just for relatives. It’s non-kin too.

“It’s mind-blowing; I know I can’t do it,” Bruck says. “Dolphins in fact have the longest social memory in all of the animal kingdom because their signature whistle doesn’t change.”

Studies have shown that monkeys can remember things for about four years and anecdotes have elephants remembering for about 10, Bruck says in a paper published Wednesday by Proceedings of the Royal Society B. But remembering just a sound — no visuals were included — boggles even human minds, he says.

For Bruck, 33, it’s as if a long-lost classmate from middle school called him up and Bruck would be able to figure out who it was just from the voice.

Faces, yes, yearbook pictures, definitely, but voices that change with time, no way, Bruck says.

“We’re not as acoustically as adept as dolphins,” Bruck says. It helps that dolphins have massive parts of the brain that are geared toward sound.

Bruck thinks dolphins have the incredible memory because it could help them when they approach new dolphins on a potential group hunt. And even more likely it probably allows dolphins to avoid others that had mistreated them in the past or dominated them, he says.

Male dolphins had a slightly better memory than females and that’s likely a case of worrying about dominance. Some males would hear Lucky or Hastings, dominant males, that they hadn’t heard in years and they’d react by going into an aggressive S-posture or screaming their own signatures, Bruck says.

Outside dolphin researchers praised the work, saying the next effort is to see whether somehow the dolphins visualize their old buddies when they hear the whistle. Bruck says he is working on that.

“The study raises some very interesting questions and hints at the wider importance of long-term social memory in nonhuman mammals and suggests there are strong parallels between dolphin and human social recognition,” said dolphin researcher Stephanie King at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

___

Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at http://twitter.com/borenbears

Associated Press

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Dolphins display memory better than elephants

Weekly Address: Securing a Better Bargain for the Middle Class

In this week’s address, President Obama tells the American people that his plan for creating a better bargain for the middle class builds on the progress we’ve made, fighting our way back from the worst economic recession of our lifetimes. 

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