Results tagged “secretarychertoff”

Even though he has amended his plan to give illegal immigrants the opportunity to get driver's licenses, Governor Spitzer can't make everyone happy.

Chertoff but were unable to convince him to raise New York's anti-terror funding. Secretary Chertoff repeated said the he was not there to talk about money, but Spitzer says, "he knew we were going to raise" the issue. Yeah - if you're a federal official walking into a room with the Governor and Senators of a state that has been vocal about how the government has shortchanged it, you can guess what will be discussed.

New York politicians on the Hill are doing their happy dance: The Department of Homeland Security will give $26 million in port funding for this year, which the NY Post reports is a 400% increase over last year's port funding. Remember how earlier this summer the DHS released it/s budget, and New York City's (and DC's funding) was cut by 40%? Granted, the overall DHS budget was lower, but when you drastically cut back on two big terror targets, people wonder what's going on.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that a Homeland Security representative would be placed in New York in order for the police and feds to have "one voice." This move is seen as a way to address the should we freak out or not subway threat two weeks ago. Hmm, a couple months on the job and finally he realizes there needs a rep in one of the country's biggest possible terror targets - nice thinking! Chertoff will also place a representative in LA, but Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco - they just don't make the cut, probably because the DHS wants to control the media. Anyway, the Police Commissioner's statement makes us laugh:

"Certainly we welcome anybody here. We reserve the right to make a decision on deploying our resources to protect New York City. So I don't know about any sort of joint announcement. But we certainly welcome communication with Homeland Security - we need a strong relationship."

He's only been the Department of Homeland Security Secretary for a couple months, but Michael Chertoff is a real dumbass. Chertoff, you're not going to win any fans by saying, "The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people. A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you're going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first," no matter how true it may be. Because when there are millions of people who use mass transit on a daily basis just to get from here to there. Commuters in the area are angry, as well as quick to conjure up worst case scenarios. One man tells Newsday, "To me, Penn Station -- it's just a matter of time. I think more than 30 people would die from a bomb." And the Straphangers' Gene Russianoff says, "He obviously doesn't ride the train. It's staggering what damage an explosion might do at Grand Central or Penn Station... the real risks are in transit. It just couldn't be clearer than day." The American Public Transportation Association also condemned Chertoff's remarks, stating, "'To say that a terrorist attack on a subway is less important than an attack using a commercial airline is another example of how the federal government treats the millions of public transportation riders as second-class citizens when it comes to security."