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It’s Saturday again, so that means another follow up with our Story Sequels!
We start first today with a very detailed report on former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber’s last few days in office. Remember that Kitzhaber and the former First Girlfriend, Cylvia Hayes (she of the sham marriage and undisclosed income) are still under investigation by the FBI on possible public corruption charges.
From the Oregonian report:
They (the people interviewed for the story) portrayed a talented politician long in denial that Hayes’ consulting contracts and forceful involvement in public affairs threatened his governorship. When he finally grasped the threat, he was indecisive about how to respond. Events made the choice for him.
Rival factions of his team contributed to his uncertainty with compelling but contradictory advice. For months heading to the end, his political advisers were increasingly pointed: The love of his life was political poison and would bring him down unless he distanced himself from her and disclosed everything about her business affairs.
The attorneys argued just as adamantly that transparency was a luxury the governor could no longer afford. Above all, the attorneys told him, don’t quit. His job was his most important bargaining chip for likely settlement negotiations of ethical and perhaps criminal accusations.
In the end, Kitzhaber picked his own path.
He sealed his fate by opting for secrecy over disclosure, leading even his most loyal supporters to wonder what he was hiding. In their view and to their lasting dismay, he left the political stage arm-in-arm with the one person whose naked self-interest and disregard for ethical boundaries led to his undoing.
“He chose Cylvia over his reputation, over his legacy, over his service to the people of Oregon,” one insider said.
The report is worth a read, but the bottom line is that only one head on Kitzhaber was working, and it was the one that will always choose nookie over political expediency. It remains to be seen if Kitzhaber and Hayes will escape federal charges – and if that happens, which one of them will turn on the other first.
Our second follow-up comes from a story just reported yesterday by fellow Victory Girl Nina, regarding the teacher who had her third grade students write convicted murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal “get well” letters in class, and then passed them along to activist Johanna Fernandez, who gave them to Mumia herself. The convicted murderer of Officer Daniel Faulkner was reportedly hospitalized for complications relating to diabetes.
Word has now come down from school officials that this was not an approved assignment, and the teacher, Marilyn Zuniga, is now suspended with pay, pending an investigation.
“The Orange Public Schools was surprised to learn through recent news reports that one of its teachers, Ms. Marilyn Zuniga, a third grade teacher at Forest Street Elementary School, involved her students in a ‘get well’ letter writing assignment to convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal,” the statement reads.
“The school’s principal and district administrators vehemently deny that it had any knowledge of the assignment and preliminary inquiries find that no approval was ever sought nor were parents notified about this unauthorized activity.
“The incident reported is in no way condoned nor does it reflect curriculum, program or activities approved by the district.”
The district is closed for spring break this week, but school officials said they will commence a full investigation into the matter when staff and students return on Monday.
“Ms. Zuniga will be immediately suspended with pay until such time the investigation is completed and based upon the results of the investigation additional action may be taken by the Board of Education,” the statement reads.
If Zuniga is not fired, she will probably be removed from the classroom, as I can’t imagine that parents will want to return their children to a classroom of someone with a long history of activism and appallingly poor judgement.
And finally, President Obama decided to blame his daughter Malia’s asthma attacks as a young preschooler on….. climate change!
“I’ve seen how scary it is when your kid comes up to you, your four-year-old, and says, ‘I’m having trouble breathing,'” the president told CBS News’ Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jonathan LaPook.
“Malia – early on, when she was young – had asthma,” Mr. Obama explained. “And we had to go to the emergency room once. We had good health insurance, and we had the capacity to really knock it out early, so that over time, she was able to not have to carry an inhaler around.”
The president’s comments came as the White House is trying to put a human face on the health impacts of climate change.
“I’m a dad like everybody else,” Mr. Obama said.
The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has blamed climate change for rising asthma rates. It has resulted in fewer days of frost and more with warm temperatures, which “can contribute to shifts in flowering time and pollen initiation,” the CDC’s website says. Pollen is one of the major triggers for allergic asthma, the variant suffered by over half of all people diagnosed with asthma.
Let’s leave the low-hanging fruit about “good health insurance” aside for today, and focus on the “climate change” aspect. Because while the president might want to blame the environment at large for triggering his daughter’s asthma, maybe he should have looked a little more closely into the environment at home before pointing fingers.
.@instapundit
Obama blames Global Warming for his daughter's asthma.
Hey, you know what does cause asthma?
Living with a father who smokes.— John Rivers (@JohnRiversToo) April 8, 2015
Well, of course he can. It’s always easier to make all the personal things have a political angle for easier exploitation. And it’s not the first time he’s used his daughters’ personal lives to make a political point.
And that’s this Saturday’s stories! Have a great weekend, everyone!
Optimizer says: The earliest mention of a daughter I remember was when one of them supposedly asked him about plugging the oil well spill very early in his first term. I say “supposedly” because we later learned that he didn’t even call BP for over a month, and pretty much everything he says is a completely made-up lie. He was intentionally standing in the way of efforts to protect the coast, because the bigger a disaster it was, the more he could demonize the oil industry. When he finally did step in it was to seize control of the billions BP was voluntarily paying for the cleanup, trying to make it look like he was making them do it, while slowing down the payments to those effected dramatically. Despicable stuff.
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