News Corner

Reprinted from Bethesda Beat

2021 | TRANSPORTATION

Three-month closure of Shady Grove, Rockville Metro stations will start next month

Platforms will be replaced, other improvements made; Rockville bus stops will shift soon

To prepare for a three-month closure of the Rockville and Shady Grove Metro stations, starting in September, bus stops at Rockville will be moved this month.

The station closures will happen from Sept. 11 to Dec. 4 to allow for upgrades at the Rockville station.

Free shuttles will be available for Red Line riders between the Shady Grove and Twinbrook Metro stations. 

At Rockville, crews will replace a concrete canopy, put in new LED skylights, upgrade speakers and digital screens, and make other changes.

Vehicles parked in marked construction zones could be towed. A driver whose car is towed can call Metro Transit Police at 202-962-2121. 

The West Kiss & Ride Lot at Rockville will be closed for five months, starting Monday. Bus stop T8 for Ride On Flex will move to the Kiss & Ride lot on Monday.

Then, starting Aug. 16, eleven other bus stations at the Rockville station will be relocated.

The following stations will move to the Kiss and Ride Lot on the west side of the Rockville station as of Aug. 16:

• Ride On Flex – bus stop T8
• Route 44 to Twinbrook – bus stop T2
• Route 46 to Medical Center/Montgomery College-Rockville – bus stop T1
• Route 47 to Bethesda – bus stop T5
• Route 54 to Lakeforest Transit Center – bus stop T4
• Route 55 to Germantown Transit Center – bus stop T6
• Route 56 to Lakeforest Transit Center – bus stop T5
• Route 63 to Shady Grove – bus stop T4
• Route 81 to White Flint – bus stop T2
• Route 101 to Medical Center – bus stop T1
• Route 101 to Lakeforest Transit Center – bus stop G

 

By William Richbourg

I'm mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!

If you are not of the same mind, or some version thereof, then you have either been asleep for the last six months or a “closet” Marxist. The left is clearly out to prove to the world that the “beauty of their utopian dream is so powerful that it drives the very evil of their practice(s) to achieve that dream." What does that mean? It means that the Left will do and say virtually anything to advance their cause. The problem is that Republicans don’t have the guts to respond in kind and don’t play dirty. They know they can walk all over us!

For my part, and I would guess many of you are of the same mindset, that we could simply wait for the Biden Administration to self-destruct, because as is typical of the Left, they are never satisfied and will never give up the pursuit of their impossible utopia. Anything they do, any lie they perpetuate, any lives they destroy are justified by their bizarre goals and dreams. Conservatives (Republicans) in the meantime have always assumed that politics occurs a few weeks every two years or so and, in the interim, want to be left alone to live their lives. Unlike the Left we actually respect others and tolerate differences.

Then Donald Trump appeared on the scene and gave us courage, a mission, and backbone and actually called out the Left for what they are. That’s why they hate him so thoroughly and us, as well, and why, while President Trump is on the sideline, we need to double down if America is to survive as “the last best hope of mankind”.

The damage inflicted on this country in such a short period, is unprecedented and may be irreversible as damaging policies and outright defiance of the Constitution are coming from every direction at once. That makes it difficult to fight particularly when our elected representatives for the most part not forcefully speaking out, to call the Left what it is, to challenge every insane proclamation, executive order, or policy that simply ignores Constitutional restrictions and American values.

Clearly our Representatives have not shown the courage to speak out and fight back or are simply asleep at the wheel, content to be a highly paid back bencher. It is so much easier to be a content loser than to stand and fight. 

Let me summarize, the Left has or intends to:

• Open up America’s borders to illegal aliens at the peril of law-abiding citizens,  shower them with free stuff to make them permanent leftists and future Democrat voters;
• Pack the Supreme Court to legislate from the bench and ensure conservatives lose every decision
• Gain DC Statehood to add two new liberal Senators and a another House member to permanently control Congress
• Defund the police and put Americans at the mercy of criminals
• Establish Federal control and assure corruption of elections while taking away States’ constitutional rights to control presidential elections
• Abolish the Electoral College to insure Democrat election victories
• Remake American social values including; indoctrination of children from very young age, destruction of the family unit, indoctrination and racism in the workplace and military and erasing the distinction between men and women. 
• To indoctrinate American children from a very young age to hate the country and its founding principles. We can see this at all levels of our education system. Note that in the Olympics no other country’s athletes publicly display hatred for their country and its flag. Only US athletes seem to be motivated to openly show hatred of the country that provided them the opportunity to compete. 

This is not everything. There are too many obvious examples to list here, such as; allowing the Democrats to jail conservative rally participants without bail and for unlimited periods without charges (clearly unconstitutional); Ignoring immigration laws and the release of virus carriers throughout the country while citizens have to take shots, wear masks and avoid crowds; the appointment of a Secretary of Defense (a defender and cheerleader for BLM) who is clearly out to destroy the American military, while the Chinese prepare for war, our military leadership stands down the entire US armed forces to indoctrinate the rank and file in Critical Race Theory, in essence to hate the country they are sworn to defend while leadership debates about the design of maternity flight suits.  I guess no one told them that pregnant women cannot fly in jets unless they want to abort their fetus with “g-forces” normally experienced in advanced fighter aircraft.

It is obvious to patriotic Americans that the deep state is alive and well and entirely corrupt. This is especially dangerous to democracy when the FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, DOJ, etc are thoroughly corrupt because they can use the law and the illusion of state security to suppress freedom.

Yet Republican leaders have been mute and have not done one serious thing to expose and clean out the cesspools these agencies have become. 

Time to get mad as hell is NOW!

_______________ 

William Richbourg is a Member of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee.

A Response to This Book Is Anti-Racist Being Taught to our Children

No, America is not systematically racist. Yes, there are racists in this country. No there is no way of looking at a person and determining if that person is racist. While you can make laws against racist practices, there is no law that can force away the ignorance of racism in a racist’s mind. You cannot legislate away ignorance. You have to teach. There was a song in a Broadway musical that says to be prejudiced “You have to be carefully taught.” We have to find ways of unteaching. This book does not do that. 

In Montgomery County our children are being taught from a book called “This Book is Anti-Racist.” 

It is the most racist book I have read. In it the author, Tiffany Jewell states: 

In our society REVERSE RACISM IS NOT REAL. People will bring it up from time to time and you can remind them that personal prejudice is indeed real. However, institutions continue to misuse power to maintain a racist foundation against Black, Brown, and Indigenous folx*. Therefore, the only people who benefit from that are white people. Contrary to the dictionary definition, racism is more that the personal prejudice” part of the equation.

This definition is made up by the author who does admit that she has a personal prejudice against white people, but because of her made-up definition or racism, her prejudice is not racist! (????) 

The dictionary definition of racism is: a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. 

Throughout her book the author denigrates white people. 

In his I Have a Dream speech, Martin Luther King said, “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” It makes no sense to try to turn hatred upside down so that you still teach that one race is better than another, but you endeavor to reverse who should be disdainful of whom. 

Let us try to find solutions together. Let us try to combat ignorance. Tiffany Jewell is contemptuous of who people say “When I look at you, I do not see color.” I don’t think I have actually used that phrase myself, but if I were to say it, I would not mean I cannot tell what color you are. Of course, I can see a difference in skin color, of course I can tell if you have blond hair or gray hair or black hair. If course I can see that your eyes are brown and mine are blue or hazel or green. What I would have meant was, of course. I know we have had different experiences. But even though we come to this moment with different personal experiences, you and I are able to talk, work together, or even have lunch together without a preconception of how the other thinks and feels. Our differences are of value. We may have had dissimilar events that make up our past, but together we can find a way to fix a problem, or maybe we can just enjoy each other’s company and have lunch together and talk about our families or the weather, or how good the food is at this restaurant.   

In her Anti-Racist racist book, the author talks of our history. She only mentions negative things that happened. There is no doubt that over hundreds of years, there have been many atrocities committed by those in authority; there have been many injustices and outrageous acts of violence committed against people, especially people of color. This is part of our history and absolutely needs to be taught. Slavery cannot be shoved under a rug, especially in a country which was founded on the principle that, “All men are created equal.” But we need also to understand that from the beginning there were large groups of citizens who spoke out against slavery. The Republican Party was established to end slavery (and it did). Anti-slavery activists set up the underground railroad, they fought a civil war. Many gave up their lives. Not every soldier who died, died to end slavery, but many saw the injustice of it and the end result was that slavery was legally abolished in this country.

After slavery was abolished, there was still injustice both on the personal level and on the government level. 

This country, inspired by Martin Luther King became much more aware of racism and the problems it causes. Because of his movement and his I Have a Dream speech, laws were passed to rectify egregious faults and abolish the contemptable segregation laws, but there will always be work to do. Let’s do it together.

* Folx is used in this book instead of “folks” because the author says folx is gender neutral … By replacing the k with an x it allows the reader who has never been seen before to see themselves in here.

(Not sure I understand the need to misspell a word I would have previously thought is perfectly impartial … I never thought folks denoted a gender.) 

_______________ 

Patricia Fenati is a Member of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee and Chair of its District 14 Committee.