Time for a change in both parties
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Edwin C. King
Published: June 15, 2008
The article by Alfred Biddlecomb titled “ Be careful what you ask for,you might get it.” was great but the same argument applies to both parties. While it is very true that one wonders how the Republican
Party in the Old Dominion ever got itself into such a situation that it thought Jeff Frederick could help, national Democratic Party leadership is much the same.
The GOP at local, state and national levels seems to be drifting aimlessly toward self-destruction. Unjustified war, unlimited profit for military contractors, unpublicized rewards for friends,unheard of prices
for gasoline, all the result of GOP lack of leadership or even concern has lead to a new result, gopmess.
Gopmess is a newly discovered word that best describes the really humongous mess that the nation has learned to expect from GOP government at all levels.
Frederick earns high marks at creating gopmess, thus he should be the leader.
In the likely event some Democrat finds any joy in this situation, they should reconsider. Their nominee for the nation’s highest office, by opposing the counting of millions of Florida and Michigan votes in
the recent primary, has clearly demonstrated very undemocratic ideas.
Yet he, like the creators of gopmess, asks for our votes in November. Only the serious mistakes of one party explains the victory for the other. Neither, on their own merit, deserves or earns anything
other than shame. Maybe it is a time for real change in both parties.
EDWIN C. KING
Ormond Beach, Florida
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Posted by ( zcxnissan ) on June 26, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Everyhing that a Presidential candidate has done in his life has bearing on his life and really does matter and affect how he will perform as President whether it be McCain in a POW camp or Obama attending a racist pastor’s church for 20 years. Chris Cummings
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Posted by ( zcxnissan ) on June 23, 2008 at 5:44 am
When you think about it the Black Panther Party advocated by any means necessary so they are no better than the Klan. Chris Cummings
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Posted by ( zcxnissan ) on June 22, 2008 at 12:41 am
Why would a man attend a church filled with curses to God and other hate filled rhetoric? It is mighty suspect and downright despicable. Then again what would you expect from someone who supports baby killing, talking to mass murderers as detente’ even though detente’ has been tried and done for decades. What is the meaning of all this? Chris Cummings
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Posted by ( zcxnissan ) on June 21, 2008 at 3:25 am
Ron now lets get to the matter of government funding on public schools, if our taxes and the government funds public schools, then by law ROTC should be allowed to be there since that school is funded by the govt and the public. As for private schools that should be up to the discretion of the families and people who pay for it. If not, the federal govt. should by law pull funding from that school. That starve the beast mentality you speak of works both ways. Ron why would you want to raise taxes if the economy is heading into a downturn or is already in one? This raise my taxes mentality does not fly when clear majorities are against tax hikes, especially nonsensical ones like hiking the sales tax, raising the gas tax<don’t we pay enough at the pump>, raising the car tax, etc. etc. etc. Timmy doesn’t have a ghost’s chance in he** of passing his transportation bill. Why can’t he cut spending on illegals? We need better security checks on our social programs to make sure that individuals who are not legal immigrants don’t get these benefits. I am absolutely sure we can find billions of dollars that way alone in many states. Nobody likes uniforms in school, although i do have to admit it would cut down somewhat on discrimation of what people wear, and keeping gang colors out of school would be a good thing. Remember how our nation was founded “No Taxation without representation” would it be fair to tax us again on roads, schools, social programs? Is it fair to doubly tax an individual because theya re successfull? Now i do agree we should have better programs to help individuals find decent jobs, excluding illegals of course. Why give away our jobs to someone who isn’t paying taxes? Or who is stealing social services and benefits meant for a legal citizen or immigrant. What is the fairness and liberalism in that? I mean after all isn’t that just like letting a thief come into your house and letting him rob you blind? Chris Cummings
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on June 19, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Barnun,
I don’t have a problem with school uniforms, provided they are not completely and ridiculously restrictive.
I have serious issues with state lotteries for ANY reason - I don’t think governments should be supported by proceeds from gambling. I also saw, down in Mississippi, the same thing happening with state gambling revenue from the legalized casinos that’s happening here in Virgina with the lottery. The gambling tax revenues were originally promised as a way to fund better schools, which won approval from the Southern Baptists community to allow legalized gambling. Then somehow the money never made a significant difference to the state schools. My impression of the school system in Mississippi - based on what I saw of my friends kids, and my niece and nephew down there - was that I’ve seen better funded schools in third-world countries. And that was ten years after gambling was legalized, with funds promised to go to education.
As far as breaking up your kids school into three achievement teams; I suspect, based on seeing that experiment played out in other places I’ve lived in, that it was discontinued due to funding and intra-school politics more than an issue of being politically incorrect.
I agree that our K-12 system is not what it should be. It’s a sorry shadow of what I had going through school as class of 1974. This is mostly due to a lack of funding, that once again I see as a direct result of the “starve the beast” mentality pushed by Republicans. Yes, some Democrats have bought into this for various reasons, but the “taxes are evil” mentality and demonizing any politician who want to increase taxes to pay for public services, is pure Republican like it or not.
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Posted by ( barnun ) on June 19, 2008 at 3:08 pm
One more thing, I’m all for school uniforms for middle and high school. This would break down a lot of the social barriers that kids go thru based on clothing. BTW, cities, counties and states are all welcome to increase taxes for school funding. I’m sure that all the cities, counties and states in our nation are not controlled by them republicans. On your tax forms you can check a box to donate a dollar to a political party. Lets put a box on our state taxes but mandate this to be “additional” money for the schools. My daughter had a class in highschool that had one book per desk. 30 desks x 7 classes = 210 students. Kids are required to supply their own t8x calculator for math. This was about $150 back then. the girl that is going to become a hair dresser really needed that, eh? fix K-12
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Posted by ( barnun ) on June 19, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Ron, some families can find a way to afford private schools but not all. I’ve never thought the voucher would cover full cost but it might be enough to make the difference on whether the family could afford the rest.
we’re not completely at odds on school issues and I dont blame the “libruls”. Here in VA we were told the lottery money would benfit our schools. That should have been a Huge benefit to our schools. Instead it seems that as lottery money came, tax dollars were allocated elsewhere. I’m sure this was done by democrats and republicans alike. I’ve advocated adding vocational programs back to our schools. I’m for fixing our current school system. I dont think our K-12 program is near what it could be. When my oldest was in middle school, they broke the kids up into 3 teams for the entire grade. The teams were based on academic scores, letting the faster learning kids move on and slowing the classes down for the kids that needed help. This was not politically correct so they changed it and just mixed all the kids up. the result was some kids were bored silly and others were left behind. You advocate free college for kids interested in that pursuit but your plan leaves out ALL the kids that would like to choose another avenue. High school was once and still should be designed to either prepare the kids for a career or prep them for college. I’ll tell you another fact about our local school system. When my kids were in high school here in PWC, the guidance counselors were encourging the lower gpa or troublesome kids to just go get their GED and move on. These kids were bringing down the schools overall GPA. Feel free to blame that on the no child left behind mess.
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Posted by ( barnun ) on June 19, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Ron, it says that your brother is a good man working for a good cause but it didn’t answer the question.
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on June 19, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Barnun,
I don’t claim to speak for my brother. I speak only for myself. Nice try though.
I can and will say, he chose to remain a public school teacher when he had the opportunity to go private. I think that says it all.
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on June 19, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Barnun,
your statement:
“If you brother is an inner city LA teacher”
sounds a lot like you’re challenging the accuracy of what I wrote.
What I said about considering you naive and ridiculous holds. Your come across in your writings as hysterical, picking and choosing anecdotal snippets of “news” to fit your preconceived notions of “look-how-horrible-modern life-is-because-of-all-those-goddless-permissive-libruls”.
Private schools have their share of problems. You’re again naive to think that in a private school, if a student from a family of a wealthy and influential family is looking to fail a class that will keep them out of their college of choice, threatens a teacher, or otherwise acts out, the teacher can discipline the student without administrative interference.
I know many families who managed to send their kids to some type of private school without tax vouchers. One families’ share of tax money to local schools will not pay the full tuition for one child at a private school.
For the record, I have no children, but have no problem with my share of taxes going to support my local public schools. I am horrified that public schools have cut back so much on the offerings and programs I took for granted when I was in school, and blame that on lack of funding directly resulting from the Republican’s “starve the beast-no new taxes” mentality.
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