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Mitt W. Bush
May 7, 2012 | 29 comments
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Education’s Medicaid Problem
January 11, 2012 | 39 comments
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The NEA’s Progressive Turn
December 9, 2011 | 13 comments
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Taking Over Lousy Schools
December 2, 2011 | 29 comments
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Teachers’ Union Fat Cats
October 26, 2011 | 75 comments
Special Report
Bring Fenty Back
Under Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, our nation’s capital is again a bastion of urban corruption.
Two years ago, Washington, D.C. voters shocked the nation when it decided to bring back a political establishment that long-tolerated rampant crime and systemic academic failure, voting out mayor and rising Democratic Party star Adrian Fenty, and replacing him with Vincent Gray, whose only notable achievement in his long career in politics was overseeing the clown college known as the city council.
Fenty won acclaim from fellow centrist Democrats in the school reform movement for his takeover of D.C.’s woeful public school system — long renowned as the Superfund Site of public education (before Detroit took that unenviable position) — and for hiring the sharp-elbowed Michelle Rhee to overhaul it. But the rest of his tenure was filled with spats with the city council, incidents of alleged cronyism, a high-profile snub of Dorothy Height, a doyenne of the city’s black political elite, a jailbreak from the city’s juvenile detention center that destroyed his reputation as an effective city manager, and even bruising the egos of the very school reformers who kept his campaign afloat by failing to appear at a debate sponsored by the Young Education Professionals of D.C. Only Rhee’s popularity (and fears that Gray would let D.C.’s schools slide back into decrepitude) kept Fenty from losing to Gray in a landslide.
But these days, Chocolate City residents are as tired of Gray — and the rest of D.C.’s political leaders — as they were of Fenty and his jerk reputation. The very culture of bureaucratic ineptitude, graft and chicanery, and race-baiting that typified D.C. politics during the days of the notorious Marion Barry has once again become the norm.
This week, a donor to Gray’s successful mayoral campaign, Jeannette Clark Harris, pled guilty to her role in helping local powerbroker and government contractor Jeffrey Thompson recruit straw donors so they could funnel $653,000 in campaign dollars to Gray and other candidates. The case itself stems from a year-long investigation into Gray’s political campaign, which has included guilty pleas by two of Gray’s campaign operatives for their role in passing money to Sulaimon Brown, another candidate in the 2010 mayoral race Gray’s team allegedly recruited to run a “shadow campaign” against Fenty. This led the Washington Post to demand that Gray “address these revelations”
Last month, Gray’s flashy successor as chairman of the city council, Kwame Brown, resigned from his post after pleading guilty to charges of overstating his income on a loan application (and submitting falsified documents) in order to purchase his home and a $50,000 powerboat he inexplicably named “Bullet Proof.” The son of one of Barry’s cronies during his days as D.C. mayor, Brown became the second city councilman in six months to be forced out of office and head to a prison cell — and joins a long list of current and past city officials (including Barry, who spent six months in prison on charges stemming from his notorious 1990 drug arrest) with rap sheets longer than lists of accomplishments.
Speaking of Barry: His continuing presence in D.C. politics remains as embarrassing to the city as its seemingly permanent status as the nation’s murder capital ever since his four scandal-plagued terms in the mayor’s office. Barry made a spectacle of himself last month when he argued with fellow councilmembers about who should take over a top post on the body. Without a hint of personal contemplation, he declared that the city had become “the laughingstock of the nation.” This came after he aroused the ire of the city (and the entire nation) this past April when he proclaimed that D.C. needed to “do something about these Asians coming in and opening up businesses and dirty shops.”
Certainly D.C. isn’t nearly as in bad shape as it was during the 1980s when the best thing about the city was the three Super Bowls won by the now-woeful Redskins. But the corruption-plagued political culture once again threatens to further tarnish Downtown’s reputation — and raises the question of whether the federal government should put an end to its five decade-long experiment in home rule.
AT LEAST D.C. RESIDENTS no longer have to worry about crime outside the District government’s offices in the aging John Wilson Building. A 72 percent decline in reported crime between 1991 and 2010 (the last year reported by the city to the Federal Bureau of Investigation), along with a two-thirds decline in burglaries, has made the city a more-hospitable place to live. The reductions in crime, along with the desire among hipsters and wonks to live in cramped rowhouses, the improving status of D.C.’s traditional public schools (along with the array of public charter schools), and the unceasing expansion of the federal bureaucracy, now means that middle-class white and black residents can reside as comfortably in Anacostia and the H street corridor as they could in Adams-Morgan and Dupont Circle. It’s why the percentage of whites residing in the district increased by 31 percent between 2000 and 2010 (and caused some consternation among the city’s old-school black politicians, who can no longer engage in the kind of race-baiting that made their careers).
Much of the credit for D.C.’s revival belongs to Anthony Williams, who pulled the District from the brink of insolvency, cut taxes, and brought greater attentiveness to crime and quality-of-life issues during his eight years as Barry’s successor as mayor (and four previous years as its chief financial officer). Another person responsible for D.C.’s revival is Virginia Walden Ford. a mother and activist now living in Arkansas, whose agitation against the city’s abysmal school district led to the growth of school choice (including charter schools and the recently revived D.C. Opportunity voucher program saved last month from the Obama administration’s latest attempt to shutter it), and, ultimately, the school district’s takeover under Fenty during his first year in office.
Even Fenty, flaws and all, did his part to improve the city’s quality of life. With help from Rhee, Fenty succeeded in reversing D.C. Public Schools’ decades-long slide into the academic and systemic abyss. This included forcing the district’s American Federation of Teachers local to accept a new contract that allows for the use of student test score data in evaluating teacher performance, and the ability to pay bonuses to top-performing teachers for their work. The district’s success in purging 23 percent of its low-performing teachers this past school year (and in rewarding 476 more-deserving teachers with bonuses of as much as $25,000) has made it a model for reformers looking to improve the nation’s teaching corps.
But for residents (and reporters) these days, those improvements are less visible than the corruption that has once again reared its ugly head.
D.C.’s city councilmembers, better-known for squabbling with mayors (and penny-ante graft) than for being selfless public servants, have come under even more scrutiny. In January, Harry Thomas Jr., who succeeded his father on the legislative body six years earlier, copped a plea (and stepped down from the post) after being caught embezzling $459,000 in city grants marked for charities and youth baseball teams to pay for golf outings, SUVs, and an inaugural ball he held for himself. (He will now spend the next three years in the federal pen.) Thomas’s troubles cast the harsh light on Kwame Brown, who had already caught flack for demanding an SUV with all the features that would cost taxpayers $2,000 a month; his high living ultimately caught up with him last month after federal prosecutors indicted him for engaging in fraud related to two loans from a local bank (including falsifying the name of a college chum on an employment verification form).
Gray hasn’t exactly covered himself with glory during his tenure. Even before taking office, Gray raised eyebrows when he appointed as fire chief Kenneth Ellerbe, a former city fire commander who had been forced to formally quit his job two years ago after it was revealed that he was also serving as head of the fire department in Sarasota, Florida (and was still taking a tax deduction on his D.C. home even though he was no longer a full-time resident). Scandals plagued Gray’s other appointments. In June, Gray came under fire again after it was learned that his choice to head the city’s public housing agency, Michael Kelly, was forced to resign from his previous job in Philadelphia the week before his appointment by Gray after being caught giving bonuses and promotions to an aide with whom Kelly was having an affair.
Meanwhile Gray’s 2010 mayoral campaign came under federal scrutiny after Congress ordered an investigation into the hiring of onetime Gray and Fenty rival Brown, who was immediately fired (and disavowed by) Gray after Washington City Paper learned he had faced (and beat) assault and attempted murder charges. Brown testified before a grand jury that Gray’s campaign paid him $44,000 (along with a $750 loan from the campaign’s chairman, and promise of a city job) to stay in the mayoral race and ask Fenty embarrassing questions. As a result, several Gray’s former campaign operatives, including Thomas Gore — who had helped the mayor in his ascent in D.C. politics — pled guilty to federal campaign finance law violations.
But Gray’s biggest problem may not be indictments, but with two groups that helped him win office in the first place.
About the Author
RiShawn Biddle the editor of Dropout Nation , is co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era. He can be followed at Twitter.com/dropoutnation.
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 7:31AM
You gotta be kidding me.
The Black Mayor of the City that Houses our Black President, who spends most of HIS time, giving OUR money to HIS Street Gang Union Buddies, and to his Big Donors, and Money Bundlers (one of them - John Corzine -) when he's not Running Guns to Drug Cartels and Confiscating School Vouchers from Poor Minority Children and Jetting off on our dime, to one Exotic, Luxurious, Multimillion Dollar Vacation after another, is a no good Corrupt CROOK, involved in Rampant CRONYISM?
What about all the other Chocolate Mayors? Detroit, Baltimore, Philly, Cleveland, Gary, Oakland, and on and on and on?
It's as if Chocolate ALWAYS = CORRUPTION.
Every Chocolate City in America is a Third World Hellhole. Every Chocolate Country on the Chocolate Continent is a Hellhole.
Might I suggest a New Bell Curve?
We already know about the "Intelligence" one that was already done. They're Stupid. I get it. I see it every Election, when they go out, en masse to pull the Lever for the Political Party who has kept them penned up in their Ghetto Corrals, with NO HOPE of a better life. EVER!
I don't think anyone would be surprised by a Black Corruption Scale's findings.
In fact, I can imagine an Evolutionary Scale - like the ones that portray Human Evolution - with the Black Man starting off in Chains, moving up through Reconstruction, the 20's, the 40's, the 60's, I to the Political Office, and ending with him being led out of Court, in Chains, once more.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 7:53AM
It's fascinating how you manage to be utterly offensive in nearly every post.
You'd make a great psychological case study.
Now...do you have any specific comments you want to make on this article, or do you just want to insult an entire group of people, including the author with your boorish rants??
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 9:50AM
Here's a guy who can't walk by one of my Comments, without feeling the Crack Addict's irresistible urge and compulsion, to stop and scribble one of his Subconscious Homosexual Love Letters, to me.
And then he goes on to proclaim that I would make a great psychological case study?
Actually, if there ARE any Shrinks out there, doing any work on any kind of Involuntary PROJECTION Psychosis?
I know just the Lunatic you're looking for.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 10:20AM
You're a classic case of narcissism with pent-up aggression issues, and a serious dose of poor self-esteem.
Additionally, you persist in assuming that my replies to your rants have a homosexual under-current.
Sounds more like a wish on your part than an actual observation.
But again, that's not surprising, as many male narcissists are closeted homosexuals, or bisexuals.
Yup. You fit the profile.
MK48| 7.11.12 @ 11:43AM
Hey Doc........male narcissist are closeted homosexuals, or bisexuals.....I know someone who fits that model....ding !...ya you and your brother "the one" Mr. down low.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 4:35PM
I can only assume tat you're referring to Obama?
If so, then you must have read my post on that very topic about 2 days ago.
In any event, what gives you the impression that I support Obama in any way, shape, or form?
Because I think TLP is an obnoxious blowhard?
Perhaps you haven't read my 1,000 or so posts during the last several years where I clearly state my dislike of Obama and Liberal policies?
I guess you're either ignorant, or stupid.
Probably both.
Dummy.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 7:57AM
It is difficult to find sympathy for the residents of DC when they continue to vote for corruption at practically each and every election.
They wanted Gray, and they have him.
The only thing that could turn this ship around are the votes from these incoming yuppies and hipsters. Most of them will still vote for Dems, to be sure, but it's doubtful they'll have much zeal for DC's old-school kleptocrats.
...There's nothing new under the sun.
Alej| 7.11.12 @ 9:14AM
"The only thing that could turn this ship around are the votes from these incoming yuppies and hipsters."
Thank you for corroborating TLP' thesis.
If his post is offensive to you, it's because you are chocolate, or a chocolate-lover.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 9:31AM
"Alej"?
Is that another one of your pseudonyms, "TLP/Clint"?
And is your conclusion based on careful research and analysis?
You're not too bright.
FYI, the quote you pulled from my first post bears zero relationship to anything that "TLP/Clint" wrote in his offensive screed.
Secondly..."chocolate lover"? Is that how they say it nowadays?
There was a day when the degenerate racists in our society at least had the courtesy and conviction to identify themselves...
...Nowadays, they hide on anonymous message boards and post things they wouldn't have the guts to say to somebody's face.
For the record, I could care less that Obama is black; I don't like him because he's a horrible President.
In that regard, neither do I have any particular animus towards black Americans, although I admit a high level of frustration with their seemingly blind allegiance to the Democrat Party.
This board is becoming a circus; it's full of clowns.
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 9:59AM
Yes, lunatic.
I'm everyone, and everyone is me.
And, we're all "Hiding on Message Boards" the way you hide in your Mom's closet, when she's Undressing.
I guess we can add PARANOIA to Involuntary Projection Psychoses.
Everyone, be patient.
A text book display of Schizophrenia is right around the corner.
I promise.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 10:25AM
No, you're NOT "everyone."
But there's no doubt that your "style" of posting is deeply reminiscent of "Clint's" style - same anger issues, same bad grammar, same tendency towards ranting, even some of the same catch-phrases (like the use of the word "Mittens" to describe Romney...only "Clint" did that).
"Clint" - a hanger-on if there ever was one - suddenly disappeared as soon as the forum required logins and emails.
And now you're here...every day...practically the first to post. Just like "Clint" used to be.
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 10:40AM
Aaaaaaaaand, there's the Schizophrenia, right on schedule.
As anyone who is familiar with the intricacies involving THE FORCE, already know.
Simple Minds are very susceptible to any "Suggestion" given them, by a Superior Intellect.
It's true.
I saw it in a Movie.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 11:15AM
Do you even know what "schizophrenia" is, genius?
'Cuz there's the real definition, and then there's the idiot's definition (driven by Hollywood) that it has something to do with "Multiple Personality Syndrome," which itself is a questionable diagnosis.
Most likely, you lean toward the idiot's definition.
Makes sense...prevents you from actually having to think.
BTW...I'm still waiting to see if you have anything to say about the article, or do you just want to insult black people?
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 5:22PM
You really need to get some friends.
Good luck with that.
Bob Grant| 7.11.12 @ 5:44PM
Dr. Right,
I hate to put sugar in your gas tank but are you implying TLP is Clint?
If so, I have to disagree. Clint claimed to be a Ron Paul supporter and would never, never, never come close to supporting Romney. TLP regularly does.
The only way TLP is Clint is if he is indeed some sort of schizo. Is that what you are implying?
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 6:29PM
You're assuming that both are real people, and that one person could not successfully fool people into believing that he/she is someone else.
I can tell you from experience that's a faulty conclusion.
Remember: This is an anonymous message board. You don't see my picture, or hear my voice. How do you know I'm even the same Doctor Right that was here several months ago?
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 6:57PM
He's an idiot, and a shut in.
Pity him.
This site is all he has.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 10:22PM
This, from the moron who is ALWAYS the first to post on any topic!!!
L-O-Friggin'-L!
You're not very self-aware, are you?
Alej| 7.11.12 @ 11:06AM
"Careful research and analysis?" Casual observation, actually. Plus seven years' active duty watching the military dragged down because of affirmative action, having to knocknout a black who was trying to kill me in Viet Nam, and remembering the sick feeling in my stomach when I found out my daughters had been mugged for their lunch money in elementary school by older black females.
Speaking of research and analysis... have you ever lived for years in barracks in close proximity to the type? Have you ever done manual labor in their proximity ? Or are you one of those theoretical Minnesota crocodile-tears academic intellectuals who afe above such empirical experience, to flatly state "fact."
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 11:12AM
Funny...
I was saved by a fellow Marine...black, too...in Khafji, in '91.
I've been mugged, too. Yeah...he was black.
But so what? 'Cuz a white guy tried to break into my house, once.
I'm not sure what qualifies as an "intellectual" in your book, but it looks like anyone who can think in more than one dimension is a suspect.
...And for the record, I'm not a professional academic.
Just a guy on a mission...
Quartermaster| 7.11.12 @ 12:53PM
The black guy that saved you in desert Storm is one of the small number of decent blacks you will meet. FYI, stating an observation about a group is not racism. It's a shame, but Blacks in this country are pretty much a block that couldn't care less about the facts, particulrly when those facts make them look bad.
At present, almost every black "governed" town in this country is on a financial edge. A very small scratch reveals deep seated corruption by a very small group that is continually elecetd by the rest of teh low info blacks that make up the electorate in those cities. Detroit is not some horrid exception, it is the rule.
The only thing that differentiates Detroit from the others is it is already reaping the harvet of shame and degradation brought on by Black majority rule. We've seen in one country, Zimbabwe, and South Africa is on the edge now.
It is not racist to call attention to the facts. It is deeply racist, on the other hand, to call people racist when all they do is call attention to the sad facts that people like you want to avoid. Worse, what people like you do is stupid because no problem can be solved by avoiding it.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 4:38PM
Actually, I know lots of very decent black Americans.
Including the Preacher of the church I attend. He's a Vietnam vet, and one of the best people I've ever known.
When it comes to politics, I disagree with a lot of black Americans. I also think many of them are being misled.
That aside, your sweeping generalization is stupid.
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 5:24PM
56% of all Violent Crimes in America, are committed by Blacks.
I hope that wasn't too broad a brush, for you.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 10:22PM
Yes.
It was.
Who Knows?| 7.11.12 @ 10:45AM
Thanks for the hot poop about DC.
Now I don't have to watch any soap operas.
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 6:58PM
Does ANYONE know what this idiot is talking about?
George Collins| 7.11.12 @ 11:22AM
Excellent article by Mr. Biddle. By the way, TLP, you really are a jerk and a very angry one at that. Washington is a great town, in spite of the corruption, sort of like Chicago. I noticed you left out Chicago, New York, Miami, and Boston on your list of undesirable cities. I don't know that there has ever been a black mayor in Chicago, Boston, or Miami (4 years of Dinkins in New York) but you won't let facts get in the way of your screeds, as these are some of the more corrupt cities in the country. What do you propose to do to change the things? Disenfranchise 40 or 50 million people? Are you mad when a black person drives a nicer car than yours? At least your honest.
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 5:31PM
It's a case of so many Scum Bag Cities.
So little time.
The FACTS are the FACTS.
Maybe, instead of Pissing your pants at me?
You should talk to Mayor Emanuel, in Chicago?
Or, Mayor Bloomberg, in New York.
I don't believe in the PC Bullshit.
I believe in The Facts.
And, The Facts are that BLACKS are running wild in every Major City in this Country, killing people like it was an Olympic Event.
WTFU.
Or, STFU.
Stkman| 7.11.12 @ 11:23AM
It's not just balck politicians that are corrupt. The politicians of Harris County Texas are just as bad if not worse. They get exposed by the local media and niether the County Attorney or County Judge do a damn thing about it. Corruption comes in all colors and both genders.
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 7:04PM
No.
It IS that Black Politicians are so Corrupt.
I treat them as EQUALS.
Apparently, you are a follower of the Soft Racism of Low Expectations principle.
It is YOU, who is the Racist.
Go back and read what Daniel Patrick Moynahan had to say about Dumbfcks, like you.
Derek Leaberry| 7.11.12 @ 12:28PM
Adrian Fenty was elected as a new sort of modern black urban politician who was respectful of white liberal sensibilities, as different from Marion Barry as Jack Kemp was a different sort of Republican than Jesse Helms. In a city of very affluent, albeit liberal, whites, Fenty wasn't a knee-jerk tax raiser. Although not a small government man, Fenty didn't view the DC government as a jobs program. He supported government accountability, especially with the public schools. Fenty supported homosexual marriage and more bike lanes for the thousands of white liberals who pedal to work.
But Fenty was viewed by the black community as too sympathetic to the city's whites. This was especially so when he appointed reformer Michelle Rhee as his education chief. For DC's blacks, the DC school system is not dysfunctional. Instead, it is a tremendous source of well-paying jobs that provides several thousand blacks a stake into the middle class. When Rhee axed over 300 incompetent school teachers, Fenty was regarded as a threat to DC's black middle class and a traitor by some. By 2010, Fenty was viewed as the white candidate and Vincent Gray the candidate of the blacks and the teacher's lobby.
Interestingly, DC is moving towards a white majority, if not in 2020 then in 2030. White liberal gentrification is exploding along with the federal government. DC's gentrification feeds off the federal government that Democrats expand and Republicans fear to cut.
C'mon Man!| 7.11.12 @ 12:47PM
Clearly not all blacks are bad or idiots, but why isn't there one black-run city/state/country that is well run? Or even not corrupt?
The black population sure does vote itself into slavery every chance it gets.
Makes the call for intelligence tests for voting sound good, except that would still allow Ivy league graduates to vote.
Quartermaster| 7.11.12 @ 12:59PM
It was African blacks that sold their prisoners into slavery. Otherwise they would have killed most of them. The small number they spared were kept in slavery there. The imperialist whites in great Britain and Spain that operated the trans-Atlantic slave trade made it profitable for the paramount tribes to engage in warfare.
It would be nice if there were one black run city to point to as something other than a den of corruption. For a short period Botswana was fairly well and honestly run. They had a Christian president for a couple terms. It sunk back after he was out, however. In this country, even black Christians have voted for the corruption we see. One black Bishop said he will support anyone that supports blacks, but then turns around and supports and coterie of corrupt men. Makes one scratch their head and ask how that supports blacks.
Derek Leaberry| 7.11.12 @ 1:22PM
Hugh Thomas' THE SLAVE TRADE, which I am currently reading, details how African kings sold slaves to the Europeans. The Portugese were first to get into the slave trade.
Crassus| 7.11.12 @ 12:57PM
Atlanta is one black run city that is fairly well run. It has its problems (a scandal involving its school system being one of them) but it's nowhere near the level of Detroit, Washington, Baltimore, Memphis, etc. Like D.C. Atlanta has a lot of white people who are moving back inside the city limits so the old time race baiters have to tone down their rhetoric for votes.
Quartermaster| 7.11.12 @ 1:01PM
Atlanta is actually on the edge that detroit is already over. The cronyism that has characterized black government in Atlanta for so long has done enormous damage to the city. Atlanta can back away from that precipice, but I don't see it happening.
Tom Kyba| 7.11.12 @ 1:34PM
I believe that TLP's pointed shots at blacks are not racist but reflective of the frustration at always and ever seeing leftist blacks being put in positions of power without the disciplined work required to earn their way there, and then feted by guilt-ridden whites who quite frankly enjoy the ensuing nonsense. After all, black folk are just tools for white libs to assuage their race guilt. If black people were no longer sitting under the liberals' table waiting for the scraps and the pat on the head, the libs would would be spiritually broken. Leftisit elites need to condescend. So, since liberals have enjoyed cultural hegemony for decades, we see black people representd by incompetents like Al Sharpton and Marion Berry and not Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, who have decided they are going to sit at the table with the rest of us, not under it.
TLP's comments were caustic, but also true. David Frum-style attitudes like "well I agree with your overall premise, but we must be gentler in how we address the problem", will just keep the wheels of race relations spinning in the mud.
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 5:36PM
Congratulations.
You're my New Best Friend.
Like a Spoiled Child.
We do them no favour, by EXCUSING their SHIT.
I treat them as EQUALS!
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 6:32PM
So you consider yourself a scumbag, too?
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 7:09PM
Occam?
I give you Exhibit A.
This CCKSCKR can't help himself.
I love ya, but don't ever put me in the same sentence with this MFing POS, again.
I'm asking you, as a Friend.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 7:35PM
You don't need the comma after "you."
I've discussed your poor grammar before; please pay attention.
Occam's Tool| 7.11.12 @ 3:00PM
Gentlemen: may I remind you that unless you are actually evaluating a patient in person, and know what you are doing, diagnosis is not possible.
As Thucydides said, "all men are pretty much the same. He is best who trained in the severest school." Paul Robeson, for example, was a genius and a polymath. He also supported Stalin and was a Communist even when the evidence was overwhelming regarding Communism's evil. He was therefore a Brilliant idiot.
Obama is merely an idiot who was very lucky and charmed. The color of the skin is unimportant. But the fact that a person is Liberal or Conservative does offer an insight into character and general tolerance of corruption in government.
We are in deep trouble. But I totally agree with Dr. R when he states that he despises Obama based on his character not color, and I totally support TLP when he notes that the vast majority of Black run cities are run by VERY LIBERAL Blacks and are, due to the extreme Liberalism and the corruption this engenders, therefore run badly. (I am sure that Allen West would make a fine Mayor, for example.)
If one wishes to change the outcome for Black kids, one must change the culture. To do that, one must focus on Everything BUT color. Change the Welfare system to force men to be with the babymamas and raise their kids to get their welfare checks, and things will change for the better, for example.
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 5:39PM
Thank You, Occam.
All I'm saying, is what Daniel Moynahan said, and was beaten in to the ground, for it.
Sometimes, THE TRUTH HURTS.
Occam's Tool| 7.11.12 @ 3:02PM
By the way, I really, really like both you guys. We have a common enemy, and watching you hate each other is quite hurtful.
Drunken Sailor| 7.11.12 @ 3:22PM
OC, I have been scratching my head for the last several weeks trying to figure out what got these two at each others throats as well. Other than minor differences they both understand that BHO must go, yet the divide remains.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 4:41PM
I guess what I don't understand is how anyone could read such a boorish, loathsome post as the first one that TLP entered today...
...and NOT understand what I don't like.
Look...I don't tell anyone who or what they should like...That's your choice. But if you're wasting time figuring out my motives, then I can only conclude that you're not paying much attention.
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 5:44PM
I guess what I don't understand is how anyone can't see that this little insecure PUKE, dogs everyone of my comments, with his Insipid, Amateur, Idiotic, attacks?
All I do is RESPOND to his shit.
Are you people BLIND?
Look it up!
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 6:33PM
You're projecting again...
You remind me of a song by the Police...
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 7:11PM
This is what I'm talking about.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 7:33PM
Exactly!
Occam's Tool| 7.11.12 @ 3:05PM
Umm, I'm a Minnesota guy, and I got my MD at age 25 and was boarded by 32. I like books, but I work with native Americans and have no "illusions": Native Government is the worst enemy of the Native Peoples. I have no doubt the same is true for other race based governments, as these situations tend to DISCOURAGE OBJECTIVE AUDIT.
As always, it is system, not melanin.
Skippy| 7.11.12 @ 3:46PM
I can't wait for Ann Coulter's new book on race-hustling in America due out in October.
After 55+ years of insisting that race is meaningless in judging a person, the evidence is mounting that I may have been mistaken.
I sure hope not.
anamvet68| 7.11.12 @ 4:38PM
Being 66 yrs. old I was in the middle of the race riots during 1968 in Baltimore. Where I lived at the time. Went one of the 2 best high schools in the US at the time. Balto. City college.
(both schools rated in the top 5 in the nation) When to war (combat vet...Ranger) in '66 and fought side by side with blacks. We got along not just for survival but on a personal level. So, after reading over the yrs. comments here and other sites (being retired I can do that) and living in this race baiting society for so long I come to the conclusion...it will take 2 to 3 hundred more years for this "crap" to end (black vs. white). One more thing..the self imposed black leaders of this country have crapped all over Dr. Martin Luther King's idea of judge a man by his deeds not his color.
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 5:49PM
And, WHY will it take 2 to 3 hundred more years?
I'll tell ya.
Because of THEM!
You can't be this Naive.
We elected a Black President, but we're still Racists?
Fck them.
They will NEVER be satisfied, until WE are in chains.
Even a Blind Man can see it.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 6:34PM
Gee, you're inspiring!
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 7:15PM
Again.
This guy is a Puke Loser.
Are you people BLIND?
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 7:35PM
No, they simply prefer quality over longwinded quantity.
Trinacria| 7.11.12 @ 5:03PM
Ah, yes; another article about the plight of the black community by this tired one-trick-pony of an author. How utterly banal.
C'mon, sport; haven't you the slightest interest in broadening your horizons beyond the color of your own skin? Surely even you must be growing weary of the "rampant corruption in minority-run inner city government" angle - it's about as novel and provocative a headline as "water is wet".
Bob Grant| 7.11.12 @ 6:17PM
This story is played out time.and.time again. And with the EXACT same results. A thriving city attracts many blacks. As soon as the thriving city first experiences real fiscal problems, the mobile affluent move out of said city into some (economically) safe nearby town or bedroom community.
Paradoxically, the more the economic conditions worsen, the more powerful the black political base becomes. Minorities soon control the mayors office, city council, school boards, and the like.
With a shrinking tax base and not much chance of economic revival, city leaders begin to look after themselves and how to improve their lot and neglect the reminder of the city.
These corrupt leaders quickly learn the racially-tinged rhetoric needed in order to get re-elected time.and.time.again....ad infinitum.
The viscous cycle is born and repeats endlessly.
Throw in another minority group, the fastest growing demographic in the U.S., and this problem EXPONENTIALLY worsens, see Los Angeles.
To understand the end result, look at Detroit. A dead, hollowed-out, cesspool of a city. A city that is shrinking so rapidly that it will soon be classified as a town. Parts of Detroit make Tobacco Road look liveable.
Sad, depressing!!!!
Now imagine other cities experiencing that same fate? How will that affect the country as a whole? Will we truly become a balkanized nation?
With the reelection of obama and many of these corrupt/incompetent mayors, we might find out sooner than we expect!
TLP| 7.11.12 @ 7:16PM
Think - LOCUSTS - Bob.
Doctor Right| 7.11.12 @ 7:36PM
Think "Clint."
Cobalt| 7.11.12 @ 7:42PM
There is something to be said for enforcing the law, and protecting good citizens from bad people.
"I refuse to take responsibility every time some black son of a bitch kills another"
Reuben Greenberg
http://www.ajlmagazine.com/con.....nberg.html
Arnebya | 7.11.12 @ 9:49PM
The issues for which we voted Fenty out of office remain. Nothing Gray has done (or is accused of doing) has eliminated our reasons for ousting his predecessor. Certainly we may not be under the guise of the political honeymoon with Gray still, but simply "bringing back" Fenty? No. Let's move forward.