Friday, November 21, 2008

Low income housing; Obama and guns; DISD term limits

The Nightly Build...

Let Them Eat Cake

Trey Garrison has an uncanny knack for answering his own question without knowing it.

"What, exactly, is wrong with locating all the housing for low income people in one general area? ... Look, it’s not a politically correct fact, but the reality is low income neighborhoods have higher crime rates."
The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Thorough Vetting by Team Obama

Trey Garrison reveals his bitterness over the recent election by referring to President-elect Barack Obama as "Dear Leader." He also reveals the tinfoil hat he wears that allows him to see into other people's souls.

One of the 64 questions the Obama transition teams asks potential appointees is this:

"Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage."

Garrison sees it as a "litmus test," implying, without providing any evidence, that gun owners will be denied appointment. More likely, the transition team wants to ensure that appointees are responsible, law-abiding citizens. Conservatives used to consider that a good thing.

You don't think Republicans might try to embarrass Obama if one of his picks turns out to have an unregistered gun in his house? Remember, one of Bill Clinton's cabinet picks had to step down because she didn't pay social security taxes for her family nanny. A Supreme Court nominee had to step down because he had smoked marijuana as a young man. Given the gun nuts' knee-jerk antipathy towards Obama (witness Trey Garrison's reaction to this story), there's no doubt how they would respond to an embarrassing gun story coming out about an Obama nominee.

If John McCain had spent more than about five minutes vetting his own Vice Presidential nominee, we might be watching a President-elect McCain choose a cabinet now. Team Obama is refreshingly competent and on top of their game with this thorough and rigorous vetting process. Conservatives like Trey Garrison, on the other hand, are grasping. Maybe that tinfoil hat that Trey is wearing is on too tight.


Shut Up He Explained

Matt Pulle, in Unfair Park, reports on the astonishing power grab by the DISD school board last night, when they voted to suspend next year's board elections and extend their own terms from three years to four. Matt Pulle admires their timing: "In the middle of the darkest, deepest financial crisis in the history of the district, the board members who fiddled around while Rome burned want to remain Caesar."

Little debate preceded the vote. No justification for the suspension of democracy was given, other than perhaps the DISD attorneys' claim that the move was legal, as if legality is justification enough. DISD school board president Jack Lowe didn't utter a single word in defense of the measure. Needless to say, the public was not pleased. Blacks were yelling at Hispanics. Hispanics were yelling at each other. Everybody was yelling at the board members. Channeling the great writer Ring Lardner, Pulle ends his account by quoting one Hispanic activist yelling at another, "Shut up, Carlos."

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