DC’S METRO TRANSIT MESS (REP COMSTOCK’S REFORM BILL)

DC’S METRO MESS (REP COMSTOCK’S REFORM BILL):

FEDERAL FUNDING FOR THE DMV’s METRO SYSTEM SHOULD BE HALTED UNTIL PEOPLE SEE CHANGE.

METRO PASSENGERS & DMV BLACK VOTERS DESERVE TO BE RESPECTED.

DISABLED & SENIOR PASSENGERS ALSO DESERVE TO BE RESPECTED.

Sources: WTOP, NBC News, Washington Post, House.gov, YouTube

District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia all share the responsibility of managing a massive public transportation system called the METRO.

More than 600,000 people utilize the METRO System each week to travel to Work and other various reasons.
The METRO operates via Federal Funding and extremely high-priced, unregulated Passenger Fares.
It’s unregulated because each region is legally allowed to charge passengers whatever the Elected officials choose to for service.

Unlike New York’s very well-organized MTA Public Transportation system, the DMV’s METRO System can legally charge riders up to three different Fares for just one trip.

Yet despite receiving Billions and Billions of Federal dollars, along with daily Fares from passengers the DMV’s METRO Public Transportation system remains plagued with:

***** Poor Service levels (Late Arrivals),
Poorly trained Operators,
Waste & Abuse of Federal Funds,
No Accountability,
Black Management Employees with Bad Attitudes who consistently display Poor Customer Service especially to Black patronage,
Corrupt Private Contracts (Dispatchers),
Preventable Accidents,
Broken Escalators (SUITLAND),
Workplace Drama (Adulterous Affairs & Sexual Harassment) which adversely impacts Employee Performance,
Top Heavy Management who are in it only for MONEY,
Nepotism,
etc.

I welcome Congresswoman Rep BARBARA COMSTOCK’S Metro Reform Bill to help straighten out this maze of the DMV’s Public Transit Mess.

Federal Funding should be halted until REAL Change is evident to the Voters and METRO’s passengers who deserve better from their Elected Officials.


***** New bill in Congress promises more money for Metro if…

Metro would get billions more in federal funding in exchange for a more powerful inspector general and better service under a new proposal to be introduced in Congress.

The region’s Democrats led by Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly are proposing to continue current federal funding of $150 million per year for capital projects, but would add another $50 million per year to support Metro’ operations for the first time plus $2 billion in additional cash over 20 years.

The proposed funding is dependent on a more independent inspector general, and that Metro would meet targets set by the U.S. Department of Transportation for better, safer, more cost effective service.

Among other competing proposals on Capitol Hill, Virginia Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock’s bill would require different reforms and provide significantly less money than the Democrats’ new proposal. She is the only Republican in Congress whose district includes a Metro station.

Even that bill has yet to have a hearing in the Republican-led House, so the prospects for the Democrats’ bill appear dim at best. Comstock opposes the latest proposal.

“It’s unfortunate that in the 9 years it took Gerry Connolly to write an 8-page bill, he failed to include any of the substantial management, financial or pension reforms advocated on a bipartisan basis by numerous transportation experts and Metro advocates who have been working for years to seriously improve and reform the system.

Throwing billions more at Metro without defined reforms is a dead on arrival strategy,” Comstock said in a statement.

General Manager Paul Wiedefeld has said additional money is needed beyond current levels to pay for maintenance and repairs that were put off for decades.

Without additional federal money, local taxpayers would have to foot the bill alone. Maryland, Virginia and D.C. are considering legislation to boost their share of dedicated funding for Metro.

The co-sponsors of the newly introduced bill with Connolly are Maryland’s Steny Hoyer, Jamie Raskin, Anthony Brown and John Sarbanes; Virginia’s Don Beyer; and D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.
Raskin and Brown had also introduced their own Metro bill that tracked transit union recommendations.
A separate bill from Maryland Democrat John Delaney would require changes to Metro’s collective bargaining structure and the size of Metro’s Board in exchange for an extra $750 million over 10 years.

CHARLOTTE POLICE DEVISE NEW PLAN TO REDUCE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN (TAKE HEED DC & MARYLAND)

CHARLOTTE POLICE DEVISE NEW PLAN TO REDUCE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN (TAKE HEED DC & MARYLAND):

IT'S TIME TO STOP COVERING UP FOR MEN WHO BEAT THEIR WIVES OR GIRLFRIENDS REGARDLESS OF HOW "NICE" THOSE MEN MAY APPEAR.

"NICE" MEN DO NOT BEAT UP THEIR WIVES OR GIRLFRIENDS.

"NICE" MEN DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY ON THEIR WIVES.

"NICE" MEN CAN NOT BE PROVOKED TO BEAT UP THEIR WIVES OR GIRLFRIENDS.

SO STOP LYING TO PROTECT THESE VIOLENT MEN WHO DESERVE PRISON TIME, INCLUDING MEN WHO ATTEND CHURCH.

MANY CHURCHES PROTECT WIFE BEATERS WITHIN THEIR CONGREGATION.

WOULD JESUS PROTECT A WIFE BEATER??


Sources: Charlotte Observer, ABC News, Australia Today, Psychology Today, Youtube


***** A quarter of Charlotte’s homicide cases involve domestic violence. This plan may help.


About a quarter of the city’s 84 homicide victims so far in 2017 have died through domestic violence, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police.

The victims have included a UNC-Charlotte professor, at least one pregnant woman and, on Saturday, a recent immigrant and her mother-in-law. Police said her husband shot and killed both women, and then himself, in an east Charlotte apartment.

In the next few years, city leaders hope to save lives and reduce Charlotte’s domestic violence overall by opening a family justice center, based on a model that has worked well in other cities, CMPD Sgt. Craig Varnum said.

“Instead of the victim having to go across the street to talk to a Safe Alliance advocate, down the road to talk to someone at Community Support Services to get counseling for their child, coming here to talk to a police officer and across the street to get a 50B (protective order), they go to one place,” where representatives from all those agencies will be available, he said.



The center is only in planning stages, but Varnum said he expects it will open within three years. He said it’s too early to estimate how much the center will cost.

Communities around the state and country have seen big reductions in domestic violence after opening family justice centers, Varnum said. In San Diego, where the country’s first family justice center opened in 2002, he said domestic violence calls dropped 50 percent during a six-year period. Domestic violence homicides declined, too, he said.

Beyond the key goal of improving victims’ lives, reducing domestic violence will help the city overall, Varnum said. Nearly 40 percent of the 52 homicide suspects identified so far this year have criminal histories including domestic violence, he said.

“We spend more time investigating crimes of domestic violence than any other crime that we respond to,” he said. “We average about 35,000 calls per service per year that are related to domestic violence.” Varnum said about 9,000 of those calls turn into criminal reports every year.

The Buncombe County Family Justice Center opened in Asheville in 2016, and Varnum cited research about what victims in Buncombe County dealt with before the center opened.


In the first three days after a victim asked for help – a request often sparked by a violent, traumatic incident, Varnum said – Buncombe County found that, on average, victims went to eight different locations, spoke with 12 people about their cases and filled out 61 pages of paperwork.

The traveling and bureaucracy are a particular challenge for victims who have come to an unfamiliar place without transportation and who may be accompanied by children, Varnum said. In contrast, the family justice center is meant to be a safe place where victims can get all the help they need.

Laura Lawrence, chief legal officer for Safe Alliance, which helps survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Mecklenburg County, will work with Varnum to lead the creation of the new center, she said Wednesday.

So far, the steering committee includes representatives from Pat’s Place Child Advocacy Center, the district attorney’s office, Child and Family Services Center and the county’s Community Support Services, along with Safe Alliance and the police, Lawrence said.

In the new center, Lawrence said victims will meet first with a Safe Alliance representative, who will help them file a protective order and decide what to do next.


Filing protective orders sometimes involves waiting in court for hours, Lawrence said, which can be intimidating and stressful for victims, especially when they have children. As early as March – long before the new center opens – Safe Alliance clients will be able to stay in a safe place and make video calls into the courtroom instead of going in person, Lawrence said.

GOP Leaders Denounce Racist Tea Party Behavior & Slurs

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GOP Leaders Disavow Protesters' Biased Epithets Toward Lawmakers



Nobody condones the racial epithets used toward black lawmakers on Saturday, the second-ranking House Republican said Sunday.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) disavowed the actions by some conservative, "Tea Party" activists who, on Sunday, used the N-word toward Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), and spat at Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).

"Nobody condones that at all," Cantor said during an appearance on ABC. "There were 30,000 people here in Washington yesterday. And, yes, there were some very awful things said."

The actions toward the protesters drew quick rebukes from members of the Congressional Black Caucus and House Democrats as a whole.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a gay lawmaker who also faced epithets yesterday based on his sexual orientation, called on the GOP to distance itself from the protesters, while Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) denounced Republican speakers at the rally and demanded they apologize for the actions of the protesters.

House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.), who was one of the speakers at the rally, said he decried the behavior of the protesters "in the strongest terms."

House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Sunday On NBC Meet the Press that the “isolated incidents” at the rally on Saturday were “reprehensible.” But he said that these “few isolated incidents” should obscure the fact millions of Americans fear the impact of the Democrats’ healthcare reform.

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said Sunday on NBC Meet the Press that the incidents were the result of “a handful of people “who just got stupid.”

Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said that he welcomed debate on Sunday, but pleaded with Pence to ratchet down the tone of the debate.







Dem Rep Calls On GOP To Condemn Biased Slurs Hurled At Frank, Lewis



Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) took to the House floor tonight to call on Republicans to "distance" themselves from the ugly epithets allegedly yelled at minority members of Congress by anti-health care reform protesters gathered on Capitol Hill today.

Ryan called on Republican pols who addressed today's anti-reform rally to "come out and condemn" the protesters for their alleged slurs against black members and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), who is openly gay.

"This behavior is irresponsible it does not belong in a civilized society," Ryan said of the protests. Video after the jump.

Ryan seemed visibly upset by the allegations, but he didn't refrain from using a questionable phrase himself to describe the protesters.

"I wanted to come to the floor today after hearing about experiencing and reading some of the reports about what happened here today in the nation's capitol to some of the finest servants that this institution has ever seen by some of these tea bagger protesters who have been out today," he said.

Ryan said that that it was now up to the Republicans to condemn what was said.

"We call on the Republicans to say 'shame on you' to that kind of behavior," he said.




Tea Partiers Call Lewis 'N****r', Frank 'F****t', At Capitol Hill Protest


Tea partiers and other anti-health care activists are known to get rowdy, but today's protest on Capitol Hill--the day before the House is set to vote on historic health care legislation--went beyond the usual chanting and controversial signs, and veered into ugly bigotry and intimidation.

Civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and fellow Congressional Black Caucus member Andre Carson (D-IN) related a particularly jarring encounter with a large crowd of protesters screaming "kill the bill"... and punctuating their chants with the word "nigger."

Standing next to Lewis, emerging from a Democratic caucus meeting with President Obama, Carson said people in the crowd yelled, "kill the bill and then the N-word" several times, while he and Lewis were exiting the Cannon House office building.

"People have been just downright mean," Lewis added.

And that wasn't an isolated incident. Early this afternoon, standing outside a Democratic whip meeting in the Longworth House office building, I watched Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) make his way out the door, en route to the neighboring Rayburn building. As he rounded the corner toward the exit, wading through a huge crowd of tea partiers and other health care protesters, an elderly white man screamed "Barney, you faggot"--a line that caused dozens of his confederates to erupt in laughter.

After that incident, Capitol police threatened to expel the protesters from the building, but were outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed. Tea party protesters equipped with high-end video cameras were summoned to film the encounter and the officers ultimately relented.

After the caucus meeting, TPMDC's Evan McMorris-Santoro caught up with Frank, who reflected on the incident.

"I'm disappointed at a unwillingness to be just civil," Frank said. "[T]he objection to the health care bill has become a proxy for other sentiments."

"Obviously there are perfectly reasonable people that are against this, but the people out there today on the whole--many of them were hateful and abusive," Frank added.

Asked by TPMDC whether today's protesters were more hateful than at other rallies, Frank took issue with party leaders for aligning themselves with the movement.

I do think the leaders of the movement, and this was true of some of the Republicans last year, that they think they are benefiting from this rancor. I mean there are a couple who--you know, Michele Bachmann's rhetoric is inflamatory as well as wholly baseless. And I think there are people there, a few that encourage it.

"If this was my cause, and I saw this angry group yelling and shouting and being so abusive to people, I would ask them to please stop it," Frank concluded. "I think they do more harm than good."



Shortly thereafter, the same group of people surrounded Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) as he entered a first-floor elevator. Above the cacophony, I heard one man call Waxman a "crook" and a "liar."

"This is incredible," House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) told reporters of the slurs. "It's shocking to me." He said he hadn't heard such vitriol since March 15, 1960 when he was protesting segregation laws that forced him to sit in the back of buses. "A lot of us have been saying for a long time that much of this, much of this, is not about health care at all," Clyburn said. "I think a lot of those people today demonstrated this is not about health care."

What is it about, a reporter asked?

"It's about trying to extend a basic fundamental right to people who are less powerful."


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Sources: MSNBC, Meet The Press, TPM, Youtube, Google Maps

How Long Will Mid-Atlantic Blizzard Last? Flights Cancelled

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Powerful Blizzard Paralyzes Mid-Atlantic States


Mid-Atlantic residents were buried Saturday from a likely record-setting blizzard the president jokingly dubbed “Snowmageddon,” and those brave enough tried to clear a path through the wet, heavy mounds of thigh-high snow.

The snow was falling too quickly in the nation’s capital for crews to keep up, and officials begged residents to stay home and out of the way so that roads might be cleared in time for everyone to return to work Monday. The usually traffic-snarled roads were mostly barren, and Washington’s familiar sites and monuments were covered with nearly 2 feet of snow.

Tihana and Jarrett Blanc had given up on digging, instead taking their dog, Hector, for a walk through northwest Washington during what forecasters said could be the biggest storm for the nation’s capital in modern history.

“Our car is stuck. We’re not even trying,” said Tihana, 36.

The storm toppled trees and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers in Washington, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The situation was the same in West Virginia, where some 400 National Guard troops were helping with snow removal.

"I feel like an Archaeologist"

Shoppers picked store shelves clean Friday in anticipation — Tihana Blanc mused it was like people preparing for Armageddon. Nearly two feet of snow had fallen by noon Saturday in cities across the region.

Hundreds of car wrecks were reported across the region, though only two deaths were reported — a father and son who died while helping another motorist in Virginia. By Saturday, most people couldn’t drive anywhere because their cars and roads were buried.

In Ellicott City, Md., Christine Benkoski said she was trying to dig out from at least 2 feet. As she tried to clear her driveway, she said she uncovered how the storm had transitioned from snow, to ice, then back to snow.

“I feel like an archaeologist,” Benkoski said.

“I’ve been out here for an hour, and my only goal is to get to the street.”

Presidential Snowplow

And President Barack Obama, a snow veteran from his days in Chicago, didn’t have a smooth day. He walked out of the White House midmorning to find the South Lawn, his backyard, looking nearly like an untouched wilderness. Instead of the familiar scenes of manicured lawns and clipped hedges, snow had piled on every shrub and the backyard was almost colorless.

First, there was a small fender bender on the White House south lawn. Then a tree branch, overcome with snow, cracked and fell on a motorcade vehicle with press inside when the president was coming back from a speech at the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting in town.

Instead of a presidential limo, Obama rode in a black SUV covered with presidential seals.

Obama thanked Democrats for “willing to brave a blizzard, Snowmageddon.”

Noting the president’s hometown, DNC chairman Tim Kaine said “It’s like an April day in Chicago.”

After all that, the White House announced Obama would have no more outings for the day.

Meanwhile, Shawn Punga and his wife, Kristine, were making plans to move to a hotel if the power was not restored to their house in Silver Spring, Md. They were concerned for their 2-year-old daughter, Ryder, who was bundled up in thick pink pajamas and slippers.

“I have just been watching the thermostat. If it hits 60, that’s when we’re going to pack up,” he said.

Travel Troubles

Airlines canceled flights, churches called off weekend services, and Amtrak and commuter trains ground to a halt. Some people wondered if they would be stuck at home for several days.

At Dulles International Airport, part of a hangar roof collapsed and damaged some of the private jets housed inside, though no one was hurt, said Courtney Mickalonis, spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Snow crews worked overnight, but “it’s coming down faster than we can keep up with it,” she said.

The snow comes less than two months after a Dec. 19 storm dumped more than 16 inches on Washington. Snowfalls of this magnitude — let alone two in one season — are rare in the area. According to the National Weather Service, Washington has gotten more than a foot of snow only 13 times since 1870.

The heaviest on record was 28 inches in January 1922. The biggest snowfall for the Washington-Baltimore area is believed to have been in 1772, before official records were kept, when as much as 3 feet fell, which George Washington and Thomas Jefferson penned in their diaries.

Despite the onslaught, some embraced the chance for a little peace and quiet. Carolyn Matuska was loving her morning run along Washington’s National Mall.

“Oh, it’s spectacular out,” she said. “It’s so beautiful. The temperature’s perfect, it’s quiet, there’s nobody out, it’s a beautiful day.”


Sources: MSNBC

Michelle Obama Visits Her "Gardening Buddies" At Bancroft Elementary School

It was just a couple of months ago that First Lady Michelle Obama invited several fifth students from Bancroft Elementary in Washington, DC to assist her in planting and cultivating a vegetable garden at the White House.

Her garden project had a two-fold purpose: 1) Inspire the children to include healthy fruits and vegetables in their diet, 2) Encourage them to help provide food for those who are less fortunate.

Well on Friday she decided to check on her new found friends by paying them a visit.

The students who were happy to see her, displayed their gratitude for the White House junket by reading personal essays they wrote. The essays described how she'd made a positive difference in their lives and what they have learned about proper Nutrition.

Mrs. Obama obviously very pleased with what she heard each child share, then gave them an update on the garden's progress.

"It is blooming. It is bursting," she stated.



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Sources: MSNBC, Day Life, Reuters, Google Maps