Psycho

HEALTH CARE FOR THE POOR & UNINSURED The Government of the District of Columbia spends a good chuck of its $9 billion dollar budget on various forms of social services especially in the area of health care for the poor and low-income earners that have no health care coverage. Incoming city council chairman Vincent Gray has been a strong advocate for that National Capital Medical Center as well as At Large Council Member Kwame Brown. Despite the direction the NCMC has taken in the last year or more, I think it is by far not a dead issue. As a matter of fact, with the DC economy now taking a turn downward with the Have-Nots having a whole lot less, I am confident that Vincent Gray will push the NCMC issue again in 2007 with the new muscle he will have as chairman of the DC City Council. Failure on the part of mayor elect Fenty to provide better healthcare to more of DC’s residents in need will injure him in the poll of public opinion.

Nelson, Does Bolton's resignation come as any surprise to you in light of the Democrats having an upcoming majority in Congress?

THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT IS STILL BUSINESS The District of Columbia’s government and people are unique in comparison to other major cities. DC is a city that is made up primarily of B-rated people in the legal and legislative fields (Lawyers have the highest rate of business failure of any profession in the USA.) with the best in these fields in Chicago, New York or elsewhere. DC has no industry. DC unlike other major cities does not have a “business brain bank” consisting of skilled economists, financiers, marketers or others in the business field to tap in to, but just those who would be considered mediocre at best. This is so, because advance skills in business are not required nor sought as it is in a city with a variety of industry. DC has never been a city known for attracting neither “business minds” nor offering respectable compensation for such minds, and thus the best go elsewhere leaving DC with mediocrity. This lack of a “business brain bank” is one of the underlying reasons why the DC Government often stumbles economically, in management of its total resources, it poor response to taxpayer needs or its often idiotic acts. Mayor elect Fenty sadly is exemplifying this lack of a business savvy or true managerial skills when he chooses to appoint people to positions of importance knowing they lack the educational and/or vocational experiences needed for the specific job: E.G. Stephanie D. Scott-Melnyk for Secretary of the District; Linda Singer for Attorney General; and etcetera that other cities would require before approving such appointments. Many come each week to DC Watch and posts our concerns on The Mail, but too often, our concerns are presented in a superficial manner, we do not delve into the causes of the problems we identify and thus when our elected leaders who read The Mail and see what we are saying, they only see that we have complained but have not identified the cause nor offered any intelligent or informed solution that they might be able to act upon. As long as DC is run by “business challenged lawyers” who live in the world of “hypothetical” at cocktail parties, and political science buffs with a diploma hanging outside a Starbucks instead of by great business minds, DC will never grow, and will remain the butt of jokes in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver and New York and rely as it always has on tax revenues earned off employees in the public sector to maintain what little it has.

DC Pages' contributor Ramon J. Stewart-Rivera was released from GWU Hospital after a two week battle with Emphysema but will be leaving DC permanently this week to take up residence back home on the island of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras (Metro San Juan) where he will surely torement people on all message boards. In the words of Arnold. HASTA LA VISTA RIVERA

D.C. LEADERS TO VISIT WALL STREET AGENCIES WTOP News Radio reports that on Monday December 4, 2006, a delegation of the DC Government official will visit with Wall Street finance leaders. In other words, WTOP News Radio is saying that the Mickey Mouse Club of D.C. will be stepping out of their league. D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi is leading the group, but is he the financial whiz kid everybody thought with a $300 million deficit looming over the District as recently reported which took place under his watch? What hurts D.C. is, it is run by lawyers, and lawyers are best known for being very poor in their business judgment! Lawyers as a profession have the highest rate of bankruptcy than any profession, whereby this lack of better judgment by a lawyer (Fenty) was reflected in his ripping off the elderly and then trying to rationalize it as an honest oversight plus other **to perform an anatomical sexual impossibility**-ups on his part. Sending a group of lawyers and a “Boy” to the major leagues of finance is laughable.

HOMELESSNESS AND THE POOR IS BIG BUSINESS IN DC For every dollar you contribute to a non-profit organization in DC to help the homeless and poor, only twenty cents at best ever goes to helping the homeless and the poor with the other eighty cents going for exuberant staffing salaries, rents and things like conferences, award dinners and other matters that have no impact upon the lives of the homeless and poor. In the spirit of the upcoming holidays of Christmas, Hanukah and Kwanza, I think the DC Government should take a closer look at our non-profit organizations that serve the needs of the elderly, homeless and poor from the standpoint of possibly passing legislation requiring that they have to spend a certain percentage of their income directly on those they say they serve. As a person who volunteers often at local non-profit organizations helping the elderly, homeless and poor, I always felt that this was something all of us who have been blessed with a good life should do and never expect “anything” for it. As a person, when my wife writes a check each month to support our place of worship, I have never reported such to the IRS or DC Tax & Revenue for purposes of seeking any offset on our tax obligations as I see that as an insult to GOD and liking to giving a gift and then asking for it back. I have heard the arguments that unless we pay good salaries to those who want to work in the non-profit industry then few would want to work there, and unless there is some kind of offset on taxes, then people will cut back on their giving. While this has proven true, doesn’t this show a degree of phoniness on the part of those who claim we care? Almost every major religion advocates directly and via scriptures that when we give to those less fortunate then it should be done humbly from the heart and we should not expect to receiving anything back for such works. I think by law that the DC Government should clamp down and set guidelines that must be met in spending in order for many of our non-profit groups to maintain their non-profit status and require that at least 50% of their income go to help those they say they are serving!

WHY PEOPLE ARE TURNING DOWN APPOINTMENTS FROM FENTY It appears that the reason why Adrian Fenty has been appointing poorly qualified people to head up his government is the result that better qualified people for each respective position have been turning Fenty down left and right for a variety of good reasons. One of the biggest reasons given is, most feel that Fenty is doomed to be a major disaster as mayor and these former and possible appointees do not want to become a part of a failed administration. Maybe this puts a better prospective upon why many of Fenty’s announced appointees seem to be so unqualified. Yet, to put a face on this matter, I think many of us recall how Fenty stated long ago that he was going to get rid of Ramsey and replace him with Richard J. Pennington which was no secret. Sadly, Peddington turned Fenty down as did others leaving him to make a mad dash for Cathy Lanier. The Washington Post on Wednesday, November 22, 2006; Page A01 quoted Tom Blagburn, a 23-year police official and member of Fenty's transition team on public safety, said Lanier "wasn't even on the radar screen.” There must have been a lot of thought and deliberation" on Fenty's part, Blagburn said. But, he added, "anytime you make a major selection like that, you have to engage people. . . . It's very tough if you're mayor to make a decision without anyone else knowing about it." The reason Lanier was not on the radar screen was because Fenty was waiting for a final YES or NO from Pennington and two other possibilities and when he got a big NO from them, he scrambled and hastily chose Lanier. As a matter of fact, most of Fenty’s appointments were made in such a hap hazard way after being turned down left and right. The foregoing should scare the dickens out of people because I have never seen such a cast of appointees (Singer, Reinoso, Lanier, Scott-Melnyk, etc) so poorly qualified to run DC Government.

Now the Red Hot Chili Peppers has a greatest hits CD out which seems to be mastered with better sound than the original songs did.

SCAM ARTISTS IN THE DC EMPLOYMENT MARKET We are always hearing that DC is one of the most vibrant job markets in the country but this is patently false. Outside of employment with the United States Government and the DC Government, the DC job market is not as vibrant as one might think. The sad truth is, the majority of all people employed in DC are employed as part-time, seasonal, temp to hire and anything other than full time. DC has the largest per capita job market where employment agencies in reality do the hiring. The truth is, outside of government employment, only 27% of the work force is classified as full-time and permanent with the other 73% of the non-governmental work force in positions that are shaky at best with the legal industry having an alarmingly high turn over rate with very few ever getting one (1) year under the belt although the lawyers doing the hiring rake in $172K a year on an average. Washington DC has the biggest market for employment agencies that are not geared to help people find long term and stable employment but employment that is very short termed and based upon a per project basis. This ability to abuse workers in America’s so called most liberal jurisdiction is routed in the DC Labor Laws that encourage this abuse of workers. Even the more conservative Maryland and Virginia offer greater protections and job security than DC. As we head into a new administration and council, both should look deeply at the laws our government previously created that allowed the exploiting of workers in DC.

AIDS TO BE 3RD LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH Within the next 25 years, AIDS is set to join heart disease and stroke as the top three causes of death worldwide, according to a study published online Monday November 27, 2006. When global mortality projections were last calculated a decade ago, researchers had assumed the number of AIDS cases would be declining. Instead, it's on the rise. Currently ranked fourth behind heart disease, stroke, and respiratory infections, AIDS is set to become No. 3, say researchers in a new report in the Public Library of Science's Medicine journal. It accounts for about 2.8 million deaths every year. But the researchers estimate a total of nearly 120 million people could die in the next 25 years. With the District of Columbia having one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the United States, it will be interesting to see how serious Adrian Fenty is in addressing this growing problem by who he choses to head up his Administration for HIV Policy and Programs. Will Fenty appoint a seasoned person or go again with one of his white yuppies under 40 with a short Resume?

See how Luke's smoking has been a bad influence on the familu dog!

Let me put this in non-offensive terms. Adrian Fenty is the great hope for whites. Why do you think Fenty is favoring white people to make up his administration?

I too have experienced that Luke and other problems. I guess Bill Gates is up to his ole dirty tricks!

Geez, isn't that comment Nelson a bit late?

GENTRIFICATION AND DC HOUSING MARKET Every night when I go to bed, I pray to God for a crash in the DC housing market or in the alternative, that housing prices drop 20%. Now some would ask, why would God entertain such a prayer? Because it would be contrary to the hidden agenda of the Fenty Administration to continue if not accelerate gentrification in DC! My motivation for wanting a crash or a drop in housing values would stop the wheels of GENTRIFICATION as the cost of housing is the number one tool used in gentrification. Sure a 20% drop in housing cost would hit the DC Government hard in the pocketbook, but if they have to eliminate some of those lazy $100k a year employees or implement a wage freeze and/or cut in pay, then it will all be done in the name of ending and/or reversing gentrification. Think of it, people would start moving out and into housing that cost less, landlords with vacant apartments would have to start dropping their rental rates and it would all start spiraling down to a point where low income earners could once again afford to live in the District. Even members of MPD who say they cannot afford to live in DC would finally be able to. I am really feeling the spirit of the holidays and maybe this year, Santa Claus will bring me a “Housing Deflation Device” to offset the hidden Fenty agenda!

DC Page participant Ramon Rivera is in the hospital and has been there for over a week battling emphysema and not doing very well.

GREASING UP THE WHEELS OF A RECALL OF FENTY AND CHEH As one travels through wards 4, 5, 7 and 8, meetings are taking place concerning talks of launching a recall of mayor elect Adrian Fenty on numerous grounds but the talk centers now around his biases based upon age and race in the appointment of his cabinet. These meetings are not small but consist of 50, 75 or 100 people and the numbers are slowly growing. Talk of a recall of ward 3 council member elect Mary Cheh is more specific in that a recall will be launched if she commits one of the three following fouls and they are: 1. Vote favorably on any matter that will benefit GWU; 2. Votes favorably on any matter that benefits developers like Akridge, PN Hoffman or others who through their employees contributed to Cheh’s campaign; and 3. If Cheh votes favorable on the nomination of Linda Jill Singer to be attorney general since Linda Singer was Cheh’s real campaign manager behind the scenes although Anne-Marie Baristow was the front for Singer. No matter how it goes down and it probably will there are already groups meeting and inviting others to join in a recall to take place against Adrian Fenty and Mary Cheh after their first 365 days in office. The people who are talking “Recall” are people who said they in fact voted for these two but now feel they have been duped! This fact should not be ignored by the local media although the Washington Post has reported such already in a story. The following DC law(s) would apply to any recall: 1100 Commencement of the Recall Process 1100.1 In order to commence recall proceedings against an elected official, a registered qualified elector shall file a notice of intention to recall with the Board in accordance with the provisions of this chapter and DC Code §11321 (1981). 1100.3 In accordance with the provisions of DC Code §11321© (1981), the Board shall not accept a notice of intention to recall which is filed within the first or last three hundred sixty five (365) days of the term of an elected official, other than a member of an Advisory Neighborhood Commission, or within the same period after a recall election which was decided in the official's 1100.5 A separate notice of intention to recall shall be filed for each officer sought to be recalled. 1100.6 The notice of intention to recall shall contain the following: (a) The name and title of the elected officer sought to be recalled; ( A statement not more than two hundred (200) words in length, which gives the reasons for the proposed recall; © The name, telephone number, and residence address of each proposer of the recall; (d) If the officer was elected to represent a Single Member District, an affidavit that each proposer is a registered qualified elector in the Single Member District of the commissioner whose recall is being sought; (e) If the officer was elected to represent an election ward, an affidavit stating that each proposer is a registered qualified elector in the election ward of the elected officer whose recall is sought; or (f) If the officer was elected at-large, an affidavit that each proposer is a registered qualified elector of the District. 1100.7 Upon submission of a notice of intention to recall, the Board shall issue a receipt to the proposer or his or her representative. 1100.8 Within five (5) calendar days of the filing of the notice, the Board shall serve, personally or by certified mail, a copy of the notice of intention on the elected officer sought to be recalled. 1100.9 Within ten (10) calendar days after the filing of the notice of intention, the elected officer sought to be recalled may file with the Board a response in accordance with the provisions of DC Code §11321(d) (1981), a copy of which shall be served on the proposer by the Board. 1100.10 The proposer of a recall measure for any elected officer, other than a member of an Advisory Neighborhood Commission, shall file a financial disclosure statement with the Office of Campaign Finance prior to the submission of a petition supporting the measure for filing. 1100.11 For the purposes of this chapter, the term "financial disclosure statement," in accordance with DC Code §11321(i)(1)(A) (1981), shall consist of the following: (a) The statement of organization, pursuant to DC Code §11414 (1981); and ( The report(s) of receipts and expenditures, pursuant to DC Code §11416 (1981). 1100.12 For the purposes of this section, the following shall apply to the counting of words in the statement filed by the proposer in the notice of intention to recall pursuant to DC Code §1-1321((1)( and the statement filed by the elected official in response to the notice of intention to recall pursuant to DC Code §1-1321(d)(2): (a) Punctuation is not counted; ( Each word shall be counted as one (1) word except as specified in this subsection; © All geographical names shall be considered as one (1) word; for example, "District of Columbia" shall be counted as one (1) word; (d) Each abbreviation for a word, phrase, or expression shall be counted as one (1) word; (e) Hyphenated words that appear in any generally available dictionary shall be considered as one (1) word. Each part of all other hyphenated words shall be counted as a separate word; (f) Dates consisting of a combination of words and digits shall be counted as one (1) word; and (g) Any number consisting of a digit or digits shall be considered as one (1) word. Any number which is spelled, such as "one", shall be considered as a separate word or words. "One" shall be counted as one (1) word whereas "one hundred" shall be counted as two (2) words. The number one hundred "100" shall be counted as one (1) word. I am confident that recalls will be launched against Fenty and Cheh as the momentum is clearly building and voters are waiting for them to mess up. I think most will agree that we have never before experienced such unhappiness, talks of a recall before candidates have even been sworn in but I think the voters of DC are very upset over many issues and are in no mood to be played with and if any politico messes up and do not deliver on matters like improving our schools by one means or another, tackling crime, improving government services or caving in to the wishes of developers to turn DC into a can of sardines, then none of them will be safe from a recall.

DC'S OWN BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD With the passage of time, the people of DC will come to realize that they have their own Beavis and Butthead in the form of mayor elect Adrian Fenty and his real campaign manager behind the scenes William Lighfoot. Yep, that William Lightfoot all of us kicked off the DC City Council for being a sleaze ball extraordinare! Fenty is not really bringing new and fresh faces to the government but bringing back DC's biggest crooks and giving them new titles.

THE CREAM IS ALWAYS IN THE CENTER I have always believed that one of the reasons why DC cannot achieve a lot of what it wants is because we have always been on the far left politically speaking while the remainder of the USA has gone to the right of the center, and this has resulted in Congress not being too cool on us. For now - I believe that if DC would abandon much of its leftist leanings and issues then we would achieve “Statehood” quickly as Congress wants to see DC embrace what Americans everywhere else are embracing. Am I suggesting selling out? No, I am not but what I am suggesting is to go with the flow for now and wait out for prevailing winds that would be more favorable on what DC people want. Sadly, too many people in DC are un-wielding and have never learned the art of compromise. Everything from a vote in Congress, Statehood, and same sex marriage are things that will not happen in most of our life-times when all is said and done. As long as many of us are un-willing to compromise, we are doing more harm than good for the District of Columbia. Now we are faced with what I see is an oncoming disastrous Fenty Administration that will give DC a bigger black eye than it already has had to date with Fenty’s highly bigot choices to make up his administration based upon age and race and let’s add to that people with minimal experience and spine. In the upcoming four (4) years the people of DC will learn that politically speaking that the cream is always in the center!

HEY BROTHER, I TOO WANT TO BE A PART OF THE HYPOCRISY Please correct me good people if I am wrong, but didn’t Mayor Williams and some members of our city council come up with this plan to eradicate homelessness in the District by 2008 or 2010? Since this announcement, I believe the local news media has informed us that the number of homeless people (25% of them being children) has risen. Yet, Mayor Williams, mayor elect Fenty, members of the DC City Council and incoming members did not touch upon this issue in their campaigning if anybody was paying attention. Most addressed issues that concerned the “haves” and not the “have-nots”. I understand that the homeless problem is a complicated issue or at least some would want to make us believe it is. Why has this problem drifted far from our social conscience radar in the last year or so? When I cruise the various message boards, list servers or other places where people express their feelings on issues of concern, all I see is people complaining about the impact this or that will have on their $550,000.00 home, the silly insurance rates on their $45,000.00 car, how they are having problems in paying the tuition for their children’s’ private schooling in order not to have to place them in one of those dreaded DC public schools or where can I get a manicure for under $100. Sure there is that annual Walk-A-Thon for the Homeless but a careful analysis of it shows that the money taken in would only feed 1,000 people a single meal. As for most of those non-profit groups who claim to be helping the homeless are in truth working hard on keeping themselves from being homeless with $100,000 salaries for their directors and high salaries for all within the operation but little of their income really going to help those they say they care about. Forgive me for ranting as I forgot that paying our already employed members of the city council an additional $92,000 a year on top of a salary they already have which is higher 80% of 71% of all workers in DC make is a far better way of spending my tax dollars. Of course, I think my tax dollars would go further continuing to catch the director of the DC Office of Campaign Finance Cecily Collier-Montgomery at a mall in Silver Spring during normal DC OCF office hours with various bags full of goodies while her staff back in DC lies about her whereabouts. She is trying not to look homeless thanks to Hecht’s. Here is my suggestion to our mayor elect and city council in 2007. Let’s cancel all planned pay raises for everyone in DC Government and take what we would have given and give it to a few and real charities that do actually help the homeless and let’s put a smile on the faces of people who rarely smile than on the face of an over-paid DC Government official when emerging from the BMW dealer or Hecht’s!

Mayor elect Adrian Fenty clearly seems to be heavily entrenched and/or controlled by the husband and wife team of Joe Sternlieb and attorney general nominee Linda Singer but all three of them are clearly complete jackasses, dreamers and out of touch with reality and with the people of the United States. Timothy Cooper has laid out for most of us how full of ***brown trout*** Fenty, Sternlieb and Singer are when he wrote at DC Watch on November 23, 2006: Ilir Zherka notes in “Join the Final Push for the DC Voting Rights Act” [themail, November 19] that “we can bring the dawn of a new democracy to DC if we all keep up the hard work over the next few weeks.” He is of course referring to the well-intentioned but deeply flawed DC voting rights legislation, that if passed, and deemed constitutional, would afford DC residents a voting representative in the House of Representatives as well as an additional House seat in the House for the state of Utah. But is it constitutional? Since no Congressional Research Service or US Department of Justice legal analysis has ever been conducted on Congress’s inherent power to legislate a single vote for DC in Congress, for reasons that remain perplexingly unclear, DC Mayor Williams/Fenty, the city council, DC Delegate Norton, and the House Governmental Reform Committee are relying in major part on the highly partisan legal opinions written by 1) Kenneth Starr, who was hired by the House Governmental Reform Committee under Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), and 2) DC Appleseed, to support their novel theory. But there are other noted constitutional scholars, including Prof. Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, who take strong exception to the theory and have been largely ignored. We do so at our possible peril. It should be noted, for instance, that in a recent DC voting rights case, Adams v. Clinton (2000, US District), the courts commented "how deeply Congressional representation is tied to the structure of statehood" and that "the Constitution does not contemplate that the District may serve as a state for purposes of the apportionment of congressional representatives"; and in Michel v. Anderson (1994, US Appellate) the courts held that a House rules change granting DC and territorial delegates a vote in the Committee of the Whole would be unconstitutional but for a so-called "savings clause" that prevented the nonvoting delegates from voting if their vote proved decisive because DC and territorial residents were not "people of the several states"; and in Clarke v. US (DC Circuit, 1989) and Palmore v. US, 411 US 389 (1973), the courts held that Congress enjoys plenary authority over the District under Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 17 only so long as Congress does not "contravene any provisions of the constitution." Can Congress simply ignore Article I, which confers the right of congressional representation on the so-called “qualified” people of the several states, without making DC a state or a part of a state or by passing an amendment? Should the DC Voting Rights Act pass, it will surely be challenged. Likely, a restraining order will be issued preventing DC’s representative from voting until all constitutional questions have been determined. But what if, at the end of a protracted litigation, DC’s single House vote is declared unconstitutional, but Utah’s extra seat is upheld? Will the legislation fail as a whole or will only DC’s portion be strike down? The current legislation contains a so-called “nonseverability” clause that states that if any provision in the bill is declared invalid “the remaining provisions… shall be treated as invalid”; but there’s ample precedent to suggest that courts aren’t bound by such boilerplate language (Bizko v. RIHT Financial Corp held, for instance, that “a non-severability clause cannot ultimately bind a court. . .”). Without more specific language about Congress’s true intentions regarding severability, the courts will turn to the legislative history for clarification. Statements made by the Committee Chairman, the Committee Report and the Floor Debate will be crucial. Otherwise, Utah could walk off with its extra House and electoral vote, with DC never casting a single vote. That’s hardly the dawn of a new democracy for DC. To me, it looks more like a Republican Trojan Horse rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue in the full light of day.

My office is at the corner of 20th & RI Ave NE and while there were plenty of Fenty signs during the campaign season, there were plenty of people in support of the other candidates. Fenty has a good heart, his intentions are honorable but he lacks in the brain power catgegory.

I am 52 and Adrian is 36. Praises? I guess you have not talked to a lot of people over in wards 5, 6, 7 or 8 as I just came from a meeting last night where a lot of AAs are angry with him showing too much favor to whites in his appointments.

Luke when I came to DC in 1979, I live on Mt. Pleasant Street and I knew the Fentys very well. Adrian always would deny he was BLACK, he did not like playing with other African American kids and always graviated toward Whites. Adrian as a young man often uttered ugly words about AA people and how he was glad he was not like them.

FEDERAL JUDGE NOT COOL ON LINDA SINGER FOR DC ATTORNEY GENERAL I will be the first person but by far not the only one to say that Linda J. Singer is not competent to become DC’s next attorney general for three good reasons. They are: 1. That she has not practiced law in over ten (10) years; 2. After moving to DC over a decade or more to go, she never saw fit to join the DC Bar but maintains a non-active membership in the NY State Bar; and 3. Mayor elect Fenty’s appointment of her has nothing to do with her qualifications for the job as she is not qualified at all but her nomination was political pay back for her hard work on Fenty’s campaign in ward 3. Recently, United States District Judge Royce Lamberth expressed a worried concern about Linda Singer’s intentions when the Washington Post quoted him as saying: “A federal judge sent a stern, angry warning from the bench yesterday to Mayor-elect Adrian M. Fenty: Don't let the D.C. attorney general's office start prosecuting local crimes until its lawyers competently handle the civil cases they already have. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth accused the attorney general's office of engaging in games in a wrongful arrest lawsuit an 18-year-old high school girl filed against a group of city police officers. She was arrested last year when she went to a police station seeking to rebut a routine $25 noise citation. In a hearing on the case yesterday, Lamberth pointed to evidence that the attorney general's office helped the officers avoid being served with the suit and simultaneously tried to get the suit dismissed. Lamberth -- who frequently admonishes attorneys he deems inadequate to the task -- said the case illustrated a pattern of lackluster performance. He said it heightened his concern about Fenty's and Attorney General-nominee Linda Singer's interest in taking over some local criminal prosecutions now handled by federal prosecutors. "It bothers me a lot to hear that kind of talk," Lamberth said, visibly fuming. "How could there even be a thought that they could take that on? The D.C. attorney general's office is not adequately or properly handling the cases it has now." Linda J. Singer has already shown her incompetence or lack of knowledge of the capabilities of the DC Attorney General’s Office and Fenty should withdraw her nomination.