... Is Good for the Gander

The Honorable Senator, and former chairmen of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON), Dianne Feinstein, or should I say Feinstain (as in stain of corruption) has again demonstrated her uncanny talent for blatant hypocrisy while leading the charge to bring down Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Demonstrating a talent for talking out of both sides of her mouth that would make a ventriloquist blush, Sen. Feinstain has excoriated not only the Attorney General and the Bush administration but also Senate colleague Pete Domenici for playing politics with US Attorneys.

Feinstain has repeatedly held up Carol Lam, the former US Attorney from San Diego as the designated poster child for political meddling, stating that, “It is a real surprise to me that you would say here that the reason for her dismissal was immigration cases,” and producing a recent letter from a top federal immigration official in San Diego praising Lam's record in combating immigrant smuggling.

What surprises me is how Senator Feinstain is capable of saying those words with a straight face. In a letter from Feinstain to Attorney General Gonzales dated July 15th 2006, Feinstain expresses frustration at the lax prosecution of immigration cases by US Attorney Lam and requesting to know what can be done to correct what she considered some of the most restrictive guidelines for prosecution in the entire nation. She points out in her letter that in FY 2005 Border Patrol Agents apprehended over 180,000 illegal aliens yet the US Attorney' s Office in Southern California (presided over by Lam) convicted a meagre 649 aliens for related offenses.

(read it on page 20 at http://www.judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/DOJDocsPt11-5070319.pdf)

Now, less than a year later, Feinstain is singing Ms. Lam's praises while at the same time fingering Pete Domenici for making similiar complaints concerning the US Attorney from New Mexico, David C. Iglesias', failure to push forward on varying prosecutions in his district. Now the mainstream media and blogs from the leftward land of silliness want Domenici on ethics charges while Feinstain skips away once again to get her face plastered on the small screen for her commitment to ethics, justice and the american way while at the same time enjoying all the money her husband made in defense contracts while his wife chaired the committee that approved them.

I know the Dems enjoy a good dose of double standards before bed but could they at least be discreet about it.

What's Good For the Goose....

“In the last election, the message was loud and clear: It’s time to change the way business is done in the nation’s capitol,” Senator Feinstein said. “Passage of this ethics reform package is the straightest, simplest thing we could do to show we have a different Congress in place.” http://feinstein.senate.gov/07releases/r-rules-bill.htm

These words, culled from the Senate website of the illustrious Senator Feinstein should (though I doubt they will) be coming back to haunt the Senator in the form of a resignation, hers, if there is any shame left within the Democrat party. For those of you who have missed the mediocre news coverage of Senator Feinstein’s hasty retreat from her position as Chairmen of the Senate Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee this is the basics.

The Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) is tasked with overseeing the appropriations of funds for military construction as well as quality of life issues for service men and women, such as housing and medical care ( e.g. the much and deservingly maligned Walter Reed). For six years as the ranking member of MILCON, Feinstein oversaw and approved billions of dollars worth of defense contracts awarded to Richard C. Blum, the owner of two major defense contractors, and who, by the way, is Senator Feinstein’s husband. And to think that the media had me convinced that the GOP had a lock on corruption.

While the cup of Kool-Aid passed me by when it comes to thinking all Republicans are pure as wind driven snow I would like to ask when the press conference demanding independent investigators, resignations and who knew what and when did they know it is going to take place. I would hate to miss a chance to hear Harry “Shady Land Deal” Reed pontificate on the evils of Republican… I mean Democrat corruption or Uncle Teddy Kennedy try to figure out where he is on live television. It’s not that I want to take away Alberto Gonzales’ moment in the sun but I was really looking forward to the all new ethical Congress I was promised by the left last November.

By the way Dianne, as a member of the military I would like to thank you for the excellent job your committee did providing congressional over site for hospitals like Walter Reed. Job performance like that is deserving of a whole lot of time off.

L'ego My Lego and the Evil Blue Angels

The Hilltop Children’s Center located in Seattle, Washington has recently come into the news due to the L’ego my Lego effort to ban the children’s play toy Legos from their school age care program. Apparently a project started by the children, ages 5-9 evolved into an elaborate “Lego Town” being constructed. Special legos that were rare or valued for their color or use began to take on value as more and more children became involved in the project and leggo parts became sparser. Children who had began the project took ownership and pride in their efforts and often expressed an amount of control over the expenditure of additional building blocks regulating in a child like way the expansion of “Lego Town”. This event provided an excellent opportunity to teach these children an important lesson in how the capitalist economy of our nation works as well as the importance of civic responsibility and responsible leadership. Unfortunately that’s not what happened. What did happen was the further indoctrination of children into a mindset that fits quite squarely into the definition of communism. (Read more at
http://www.bizzyblog.com/WhyWeBannedLego_RethinkingSchools_Wtr2006.html )

The two teachers around which this idiocy swirls are Ann Pelo and Kendra Pelojoaquin. Ann Pelo is an admittedly avowed classroom activist having co-written That’s Not Fair: A Teacher’s Guide to Activism with Young Children, with Fran Davidson another activist teacher. During Pelo’s “investigation” of the children’s behavior the children were guided through activities designed to inculcate the ideology of group ownership, equality and communal cooperation while at the same time subtly diminishing the concepts of individual personal property rights, stating that, “their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys… mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society -- a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive." I wonder what that says for their general opinion of the United States.

What bothers me more than this issue is that this is not the first time our friend Ann has pushed her political agenda on our children. In her book, That’s Not Fair: A Teacher’s Guide to Activism with Young Children, Pelo rambles on about the presence of the Navy’s Flight Team the Blue Angels who performed for the SeaFair in Seattle Washington. Pelo retells the “terrified, shaken” state of the children under her care after the Angels flew over during rehearsal flights. Ann then tells the children that, “Those are Navy airplanes. They’re built for war, but right now, there is no war, so the pilots learn how to do fancy tricks in their planes. They’re here to do a show about fancy flying.” Why not tell these children that the men and women flying those planes are the best and brightest we have to offer and their places in those planes were earned though years of study and hard work.

This same event happened again the following day after which Ms. Pelo guided her children through an exercise where they would express their feelings about the planes through art work and drawings. Ann states, “We went back to school, and the children leaped into the project of communicating their feelings about the Blue Angels. They drew pictures of planes with Xs through them: “This is a crossed-off bombing plane.” They drew bomb factories labeled “No.” Ann wrote down their messages: “Blue Angels, stop.” “Respect our words, Blue Angels. Respect kids’ words. Don’t kill people. “This is a book to tell you, ‘Stop, Blue Angels. Don’t kill anyone.” “If you blow up our city, we won’t be happy about it. And our whole city will be destroyed.
And if you blow up my favorite library, I won’t be happy because there are some
good books there that I haven’t read yet.”

I have young children. When they see planes flying overhead their first or second thoughts have nothing to do with anyone killing anybody unless this thought is planted in their heads yet the children in Ann’s care appear to have their slogans prepped and ready for the first anti-military, war protest they can find. As for what the parents might feel about Ms. Pelo’s political agenda Ann’s co-author states in their book, “Ann didn’t ask for parents’ input about their letter-writing—she didn’t genuinely want it. She felt passionately that they had done the right thing, and she wasn’t interested in hearing otherwise.” God forbid parents have the right to control the values their children learn.

Oh, and one more thing on the whole capitalism is evil thing. The rates for pre-school child care at the Hilltop Children’s Center range from $910 for three days a week to $1185 for four to five days a week. School age care ranges from $235 to $435 a week. The children involved in the leggo incident don’t arrive until 3:30 in the afternoon. I wish I could afford that kind of childcare but, hey that’s capitalism at work and Ann, in case you’ve forgotten, it pays your bills in an oh so sweet and hypocritically ironic way.

The Wheels on the Bus Blow Up and Down

On 16 Mar 2007, the Associated Press reported that the FBI had issued a cautionary bulletin stating that suspected members of extremist groups have signed up as school bus drivers in the United States. This bulletin was followed up by a press release by FBI Special Agent and spokesman Rich Kolko stating that, "Parents and children have nothing to fear." Kolko continued, stating that, "There are no threats, no plots and no history leading us to believe there is any reason for concern." In response to this I'm forced quote White House Press Secretary Tony Snow when I ask, "Are You kidding me?!" The sheer disingenuousness of this statement alone should boggle the minds of the American people.

If there was no threat then why issue the bulletin and if there is a threat why state that there is no reason for concern. The FBI has already stated that these “bus drivers are suspected members of “extremists groups” which should read (though no one wants to admit it) “Islamic extremist groups” Given our nations recent history you’d imagine that it would behoove someone, anyone, to be watching these people like a hawk. It’s kind of like finding out that suspected terrorists are taking flight lessons without bothering to learn how to land. OH wait, that one got screwed up to.

Special Agent Kolka did get one thing right though. There is no history of attacks on busses. Well at least not here anyway. However if we take a short trip across the pond or Google bus bombing you’ll find 25 killed in Jerusalem and Ashkelon on Feb 25, 1996, 2 killed in Gaza on Nov 21 2000, 9 killed on 4 Aug 2002 in Safad and another 19 killed and 14 killed on 18 Jun and 21 October respectively of the same year. Moving on to 2003 we find 16 killed on 11 June and 20 killed on 19 August, both in Jerusalem. 2004 left us with another 27 dead in attacks in Beersheba and Jerusalem in January and August of that year. And then there was some little blip in the news I remember seeing about some busses that got blown up in London. All of these attacks were on busses filled with civilians; children included and even a few Americans. Fortunately they were in other countries that have a history of this sort of thing. But then, I’m 100% positive that the United States had no history of people flying planes into buildings prior to September 11th 2001.

I’m driving my kids to school. What are you going to do?