Today's Sermon: DC Mayor Adrian "Hope & Change" Fenty's "Neighborhood Safety Zone" Blockades

Meet our mayor!


Gee, he looks familiar, doesn't he?

We all drank his Kool-Aid in 2006 and elected him mayor... almost unanimously.

His youth, vigor, and "Yes, We Can" attitude convinced us all that DC would become a safer, friendlier place if we just "believed" and elected Fenty.

Fast forward to 2008.

Mayor Fenty and his newly appointed Police chief, Cathy Lanier, are about to set up police barricades both into and out of Ward 5 business/residential areas and will call this initiative "Neighborhood Safety Zones."

At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest.

Sidebar: Why is it that there's always at least one guy in every police force photo who looks just like James Belushi?

Anyway, the impact of these "Safety Zone" blockades isn't being taken lightly:

“This is a very targeted program that has been used in other cities,” (Interim Attorney General Peter) Nickles told The Examiner. “I’m not worried about the constitutionality of it.”

Others are. Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the D.C. police union and a former lawyer, called the checkpoint proposal “breathtaking.”

Shelley Broderick, president of the D.C.-area American Civil Liberties Union and the dean of the University of the District of Columbia’s law school, said the plan was “cockamamie.”

“I think they tried this in Russia and it failed,” she said. “It’s just our experience in this city that we always end up targeting poor people and people of color, and we treat the kids coming home from choir practice the same as we treat those kids who are selling drugs.”

Hm. If Fenty looks familiar, so does DC's new "Safety Zone" idea:




Thus endeth today's sermon.

Go forth today and consider that properties in DC's Ward 5 are all valued at or above a quarter of a million dollars and many of them sell for a million or more. Ward 5 is also home to Catholic University, Trinity College, Gallaudet, and The National Arboretum.

Also consider the "new" approach to crime prevention proposed by Mayor "Hope & Change" Fenty. How naive do you have to be to think this idea is new? What's that old saying about those who refuse to learn from history and what happens to them?

Think about it.

I mean it, damn it!




Number of days since Donna Brazile promised to leave the party if superdelegates decided the Dem nominee:



Donna has known for a long time now that superdelegates would be necessary for any Dem candidate to win the nomination this year. Ask Donna when she intends to keep her promise.
Don't hold your breath awaiting a reply.



Best bar bet in the world: Delilah didn't do it.
Judges 16:19-- And she made him (Samson) sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.