December 12, 2007
Morning Roundup: Prohibited Page Promiscuity Edition
Good morning, Washington. It turns out that House Pages don't need lecherous congressmen's help to make scandalous headlines: two have just gotten busted for inappropriate behavior in a House elevator. They've been dismissed, bringing the year's total fired pages to five — two others were caught shoplifting, and one was booted for fighting. Needless to say, it looks like the program — the oversight of which has been in turmoil — will be getting additional scrutiny.
Fenty's School Plans Get Complicated: Mayor Fenty's and Chancellor Rhee's effort to overhaul D.C.'s schools has hit some speed bumps, as the Post details. A recently discovered $100 million budget shortfall prompted Fenty to ask the city council for another $81 million, and sent Rhee scrambling to cut costs and find more revenue. But as those efforts proceed, others will have to be put on hold: planned expansions to art, language and music programs won't occur this spring after all. There's other trouble, too, as Marion Barry and Harry Thomas have introduced legislation aimed at stopping Fenty and Rhee from closing the 23 schools they planned to shutter unless they get the council's okay.
GOP Retains Davis's Seat: WJLA brings word that, as expected, the Virginia Republican Party has managed to hold on to deceased Congresswoman Jo Ann Davis's spot in congress. Rob Wittman won the special election by about a 2 to 1 margin. Davis passed away in October after a lengthy battle with breast cancer.
Gun Buyback Program Announced: Via NBC4, the AP reports that MPD will be holding a gun buyback event this Saturday, in an effort to reduce violence — or perhaps to get in as much gun-buying goodness as they can before the Supreme Court rules on the gun ban. Guns can be turned in for payouts of between $10 and $100, and will be collected at Shiloh Baptist, Holy Christian House of Praise or Union Temple Baptist Church. Needless to say, participants will be given amnesty for the gun possession charges they would otherwise face.
Briefly Noted: Former FBI supervisor pleads guilty to abducting girlfriend... High school students charged for putting dilute hydrochloric acid in another kid's lunch... Beltway racing ends with fatality... Albemarle man admits to UVa-area rapes dating back to '97...
This Day In DCist: One year ago we announced the first DCist Exposed. One year before that the great church parking battle was heating up.
Photo by Eye Captain
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I belive the BJ was in the Dorm elevator, not a House elevator. But honestly, where are these kids today going to get lucky?
Can't the Mayor just get someone in the tax office to just steal the hundred mil he wants for the schools? I mean, it's not like they've got the strongest security controls against theft there. Would certainly cut out the red tape. And supposing Barry and Thomas succeed and keep the 23 schools open. How much is that going to cost, keeping underattended schools open? Isn't that the whole point of consolidation? And why is it that paragraphs with the word "Barry" in it always include the word "theft?"
Back when DC first started doing buybacks in the 1980s, a lot of MD/VA folks with busted, unworkable firearms would show up and claim the money. Since they didn't take down any identifying information, there was no way of telling these people were from out of town.
I really miss that Beltway rail overpass near the Mormon Temple that had "Surrender Dorothy" spraypainted on it. Always looked so pretty in the snow during Christmastime. But "someone" had to paint over it.
You'd figure people who wear special "ascention garb" underwear would have more of a sense of humor.
MPD's gun buybacks still primarily net obsolete, non-functioning junk guns. And I'd bet a good number are from folks in the surrounding suburbs & gun dealers getting rid of old non-functioning stuff - our DC tax dollars at work. MPD's Chief was in front of the City Council a few weeks ago and admitted these buybacks didn't do much in actually getting criminal's guns off the streets.
So let me get this straight... two horny teenagers get fired for doing what high schoolers do, and Congressmen stay in office after exhibiting leaherous behavior (not to mention extramarital)?
harry thomas didn't get my vote in the election last time around, and he's CERTAINLY not going to get it going forward. way to tie yourself to the barry express, sir. what a joke. if they succeed in passing this bill, fixing the school system simply won't happen. if i were rhee, i'd be raising hell right now, because she's going to rapidly hit the point where she won't be able to get anything done. it'll be time to start looking for yet another superintendent/chancellor...
Monkey,
Even since OFFICIAL DECLARATION—1 Mormons stopped being fun.
If only those Congressional pages were http://wonkette.com/politics/dept%27-of-one-wears-the-diapers%2C-one-wears-the-pants/our-marriage-is-stronger-every-day-279374.php">Republican diaper-fetishists or gloryhole goblins, this wouldn't even be an issue.
What is the point of voting to give Fenty power over the schools if you're just going to take that power away from him, piece-by-piece?
Also, are there singing, wheelchair-bound Washington Times salesmen at every Metro station, or is the north side of Dupont Circle the only one?
Washington Times
Only 25 cents.
Help me out.
Would ya help me out.
Oh man, that's gonna be stuck in my head all day!
The District: We'll trade for your old gun, no matter how much you owe! No credit? No problem!
Ugh! The councils needs to stop showboating and back the f*** off school reform- they voted to give Fenty control, and now they need to give him a chance to control it already. If he fails, HE takes the fall.
Is it me, or is this politicking BS what ALWAYS happens as soon as reform of a trouble urban school district gets going?
At Shiloh Baptist, your gun's your credit...
Yes, this kinda Council grandstanding ALWAYS happens when school reform gets going. How many school reform "czars" and bitchy hybrid school boards and revolving door six-figure-a-year superintendents has DCPS burned through? And how many times has the Council micromanaged them to death? I swear, give the Council enough rope and they'll f**k a mile of it STRAIGHT INTO THE DIRT. You've got Doctor Fenty giving Nurse Rhee the tools to try and help the patient, but the Council keeps breaking out the chicken bone rattles and the stanky incense and and the funky mojo bag and insisting that THEY know what's right. DC's Public Schools are like a scab that migh actully heal if the Council quacks would just stop picking it. Or licking it. Or something.
The time for iodine and mercurachrome has come and gone. Either we amputate or lose the patient. And you don't want it coming back from the dead, lusting for the flesh of the living, because if Omegaman has taught us anything, the ONLY way to dispatch a zombie school system is bullet through the brain and YOU CAN'T OWN GUNS IN DC, REMEMBER? Hell, you can't even cut their heads off because MACHETES ARE ILLEGAL. I suppose you could try burning them but SMOKING'S ILLEGAL, TOO. Where you gonna get a match?
If a DC councilman wants to prevent an underenrolled school from being closed, he should have to show solid analysis justifying the decision and do so by a fixed deadline. Otherwise, they should shut their yaps and back off.
DCPS controls millions of square feet of property and cannot fill the schools. Elected officials need to put that space in the hands of charter schools like they promised. Stalling is only denying schools and parents the right to good school alternatives.
At Shiloh Baptist, your gun's your credit...
oh god, that's going to be stuck in my head all day. awesome, adam...
The time for iodine and mercurachrome has come and gone. Either we amputate or lose the patient. And you don't want it coming back from the dead, lusting for the flesh of the living, because if Omegaman has taught us anything, the ONLY way to dispatch a zombie school system is bullet through the brain and YOU CAN'T OWN GUNS IN DC, REMEMBER? Hell, you can't even cut their heads off because MACHETES ARE ILLEGAL. I suppose you could try burning them but SMOKING'S ILLEGAL, TOO. Where you gonna get a match?
Taking the whole Monkey-warped medical analogy to its logical ends, I ask:
Monkey, you off your meds again?
I will admit though, that visions of a machete-wielding Monkey cavorting through DC in a fit of bloodlust and caps-lock inspired rage really does brighten my day.
The time for iodine and mercurachrome has come and gone. Either we amputate or lose the patient. And you don't want it coming back from the dead, lusting for the flesh of the living, because if Omegaman has taught us anything, the ONLY way to dispatch a zombie school system is bullet through the brain and YOU CAN'T OWN GUNS IN DC, REMEMBER? Hell, you can't even cut their heads off because MACHETES ARE ILLEGAL. I suppose you could try burning them but SMOKING'S ILLEGAL, TOO. Where you gonna get a match?
Taking the whole Monkey-warped medical analogy to its logical ends, I ask:
Monkey, you off your meds again?
I will admit though, that visions of a machete-wielding Monkey cavorting through DC in a fit of bloodlust and caps-lock inspired rage really does brighten my day.