When the first National School Choice Week began just one year ago, the prospect of educational opportunity for hundreds of D.C. school children hung precariously in the balance. In January 2011, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship (DCOSP)—a voucher program for low-income schoolchildren in the nation’s capital—had for two years been at risk of being completely phased out by liberals in Congress, right under the nose of the complacent Obama Administration. And for two years proponents of school choice had been fighting to ensure that D.C. children would have greater hope for …
The violent crime rate in Washington, D.C., is up 13 percent since the Occupy D.C. protest began this fall as police officers have been pulled out of local neighborhoods and reassigned to the protest. The chairman of the local police union pinned the blame on the city’s redistribution of resources, noting that on some shifts between two and 18 neighborhood patrol officers have relocated to Occupy D.C. Those protesters are primarily based in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, two downtown locations near the White House. Fraternal Order of Police Chairman …
This morning we wrote about hurricanes, and then Washington, D.C., had an earthquake. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides information about what to do before, during, and after an earthquake. FEMA also provides an index with contact information on state agencies. As residents of the East Coast found out today, earthquakes can happen anywhere. Earthquakes result from shifts in tectonic plates that comprise the Earth’s surface. The edges of the plates impact one another, creating intense geologic activity, including earthquakes, violent fracturing of the earth’s crust. There are also …
The federal government might not have shut down on Monday, but rush hour traffic stopped in our nation’s capital when the mayor of Washington, D.C., Vince Gray, already serving under a cloud of corruption, was arrested while protesting Congress’ budget agreement. Gray, city council members and more than 200 protesters blocked Constitution Avenue and diverted police resources, shouting, “Free D.C.” and “We can’t take it no more,” all in response to new restrictions on spending that Congress placed on the District of Columbia. But they should have been protesting outside …
Watch out Virginia. You’re next. According to TBD.com, Virginia House of Delegates member Joseph Morrissey will introduce legislation next week to tax residents 20 cents for every plastic bag they receive at a grocery store or retailer. Following the lead of Washington, D.C., Delegate Morrissey sees an opportunity to punish shoppers and low-income earners in order to “chang[e] people’s attitudes.” This is just the latest effort by the radical environmental left to punish their fellow citizens who are merely trying to make ends meet on a day-to-day basis. In D.C., …
Earlier this month, liberals, leftists and unions staged a sparsely attended “march” in Washington called the “One Nation Rally.” After the event, Americans for Prosperity put together an excellent video that shows the great extent that socialists made up the audience. But now, Heritage has been sent video that shows Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) addressing the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) before the march. Conyers gives the crowd his thoughts on the Tea Party, the war in Afghanistan, President Obama and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. In the video, …
This week Washington, D.C. became the second U.S. jurisdiction to lose the benefit of Catholic Charities’ adoption and foster care services over the issue of same-sex marriage. Early next month, barring Congressional or judicial intervention, the District of Columbia will become the sixth U.S. jurisdiction to authorize same-sex marriage. As the law developed last year, the Archdiocese of Washington, of which Catholic Charities is a part, endeavored to avoid a conflict between its social services and the new D.C. marriage law. The two major points of conflict involve the interaction …
Last week the District of Columbia’s Board of Elections and Ethics (BOEE) rejected, for the third time, a request by five D.C. citizens to put the issue of same-sex marriage to a popular vote. If the Board’s decision is upheld by the D.C. Superior Court and appeals fail, only the U.S. Congress will be able to ensure that a vote occurs before the same-sex marriage law approved by the D.C. Council takes effect early next month. Advocates of the traditional definition of marriage, represented by the public interest law firm …
D.C. STUDENTS: SAVE OUR SCHOOLS Blocking Children’s Path to a Better Future Congress Blocks Opportunity: Congress recently approved action that threatens to immediately phase out the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP), a federal initiative that currently helps 1,715 disadvantaged children attend private schools in the nation’s capital. Safe and Effective Learning Environments: Studies of scholarship families show higher parent satisfaction with their children’s school safety and learning environment. Test scores showed that students offered scholarships were performing approximately 3.1 months ahead in reading of students not offered vouchers and an …
Ed Whelan has a strong column in yesterday’s Washington Post on the Attorney General’s attempt to suppress an Office of Legal Counsel opinion concluding that the pending D.C. “voting rights” bill is unconstitutional. (We share that view.) This is not, as the Post had put it previously, a case of different parts of DOJ having different opinions, but an end-run around the Department’s usual clearance process: Now, it’s legitimate, if exceedingly rare, for an attorney general to contest OLC’s advice…. But there’s a right way to overrule OLC, and then …
