Category: Politicians Suck

An Open Letter to District of Columbia Parents with Children in Public Schools

Dear Parents,

When are you guys going to stand up and demand a better life for your children? Do you actually want to hold any of your elected leaders accountable for, oh, anything? Because that’s the first step in no longer making a better life not only for your kids, but for yourselves.

Take the scallion incident. Kids in the SE part of the city (the city’s poorest) were served raw green onions as part of the federal government’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program that cost us $1.2 million. Now the idea of giving kids a free fruit or vegetable is a noble one. I’m not going to get into a debate on spending issues since I suspect you and I would disagree on many of those topics. But, where I hope we can agree is on the fact that if we’re taking $1.2 million from taxpayers, that it should be spent on fruits and vegetables that children (and adults, for that matter) will actually eat instead of raw onions that will be thrown in the garbage.

There should be accountability here. Instead, the food service provider is dodging questions to both its leadership and the dietician on staff. I’m sorry, but there should be no excuse. If that dietician is charged with making sure your kids eat healthy food provided by the school, the company should have an open door policy to his or her office. These are your children, and the adults who carry the responsibility of caring for them during the day should not be allowed to hide from the public.

The school district is covering for the food service provider. They say that they are confident it was a one-time mistake and there was no big deal. If you care about your children, you need to tell them that making excuses isn’t good enough – and possibly research any political or friendly ties between the company and the District. If this happened in my poor school district in rural Oklahoma, parents would be at school board meetings demanding some kind of action. It might be as extreme as cutting the contract if there were other issues in the past. It also might be simply demanding some sort of restitution from the food service provider. According to the article, school staff had to scrounge up apples from their other supplies to provide the snack. That costs money for the apples and money for the staff time to do the job the contractor did not do. Force your school leaders to demand concessions, a statement, an open door policy when it comes to the contractor’s staff who make diet decisions for the school menus, and a plan of action to make sure these kinds of mistakes don’t happen again.

I’ll never understand the attitude that District residents seem to take with their leaders – that they will allow them to walk all over the citizens and treat them like crap. Serving raw scallions as a snack would not be tolerated in any of the wealthier schools & surrounding districts. Why do you allow your leaders to treat you and your children like this and then let them slide?

Just a few helpful suggestions from someone who thinks your kids deserve better.

Bitter

When I saw this headline over at Instapundit, my first thought was that William Jefferson had a new book out.

I’ll be here all week.

Close the state house loophole!

An Aussie politician is urging a gun ban:

Greens leader Bob Brown is calling for a ban on semi-automatic handguns after revealing he is receiving death threats for his pivotal role in the Government’s carbon tax policy.

We have to ban them. He is receiving threats after all, and he’s an important fellow, you see. It’s also well known it’s impossible to shoot a public official with a revolver.

Very little says more about what’s wrong with our political class that the proposal by Rep. King to ban guns within 1000 feet of important government officials. Prof. Reynolds summarizes the stupidity of this idea.

At this point, most people are tired of extreme partisans trying to blame the Arizona shootings on talk radio, dissenting opinions, and politicians they don’t like. Why are they tired of it? Because it’s all utter BS at this point. This was a highly disturbed man, and some reports from neighbors who have talked to his parents, they just never noticed he had issues. Which is odd since apparently his father was a stay-at-home dad for decades and the shooter lived at home.

One of the worst offenders in this case is the Pima County Sheriff. And the local press is taking notice:

The world’s eyes, once again, focused on Arizona for the worst of reasons. And Dupnik stood before the cameras interpreting the shootings as politically motivated, despite an increasing weight of evidence depicting the shooting suspect, Jared Loughner, as a mentally ill young man who rambled incoherently about pervasive bad grammar and other apolitical obsessions. Even Dupnik has observed that Loughner had made death threats against others and that they had been investigated by police.

Still, Dupnik used the opportunities to blame Arizona’s lax, new gun laws and, again, the angry “rhetoric” of talk radio. The shootings were spurred, he suggested, by “the rhetoric about hatred, about mistrust of government, about paranoia of how government operates.”

Dupnik took up his cause again on Monday. And, in response, we have to say at last . . . enough. Enough attacks, sheriff. Enough vitriol. It is well past time for the sheriff of Pima County to get a grip on his emotions and remember his duty. …

Dupnik needs to recall that he is elected to be a lawman. With each additional comment, the Democratic sheriff of Pima County is revealing his agenda as partisan, and, as such, every bit as recklessly antagonistic as the talk-show hosts and politicians he chooses to decry. (Emphasis added.)

Pot, Kettle, I think you two know each other.

From Politico:

“My staff is working on looking at the different legislation fixes that we might be able to do and we might be able to introduce as early as tomorrow,” McCarthy told POLITICO in a Sunday afternoon phone interview.

And while Carrie McCarthy is busy making sure the Second Amendment gets shredded, fellow Democrat and Philadelphia Congressman Bob Brady is busy making sure the First gets sent to the slaughterhouse too:

Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, a Democrat from Philadelphia, told CNN that he also plans to take legislative action. He will introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be seen as threatening or violent against a federal official, including a member of Congress.

Our political leadership is hopelessly vacuous. We have to keep giving them the boot until they get the message. The sad and unfortunate thing is, Bob Brady could strangle a puppy and his people will keep sending him back. The same would seem to be true for people like McCarthy and Quigley in Illinois.

I don’t understand city people. I really don’t. Are you really willing to keep re-electing these morons no matter what they say or do?

How many states have sitting governors with talent agents? Well, add Pennsylvania to that short list.

Arnold had an acting career long before he entered politics, and since he can’t exactly pull a Reagan and run for higher office, it’s safe to assume he will resume that career now that his time is up. One would expect he would maintain a professional agent throughout his gubernatorial sidetrack.

But our governor is known for getting upset at the NFL for canceling a game in unsafe blizzard conditions. Public safety officials and local leaders who would have to deal with all of the traffic accidents be damned!* Oh, and before that his face was plastered across the national tv screens when he said Janet Napolitano was perfect for a cabinet position because she was a spinster. He’s like Joe Biden with a little less stupidity and a lot more Philly asshole. And now, while in office, he’s secured an agent from William Morris.
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