S/O - What’s up with AEM?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of the posts about the Commonwealth Attorney race are really irritating. I don't like how how Dehghani-Tafti's campaign is centered around painting Stamos as a racist right winger using questionable statistics. If you point out that not all of the people who commit crimes in Arlington are from Arlington, you're just making specious arguments. Meanwhile, a quick look at the court docket for any given day will show people from DC, Alexandria, MD, etc. and yes, Arlington. Also, if you have a problem with outside money being used to influence an Arlington Democratic primary, you are once again a racist and/or antisemitic. WTF?

So here's the thing, calling someone racist on a message board who is actually racist does not bother them. They know they are racist and DGAF. It only serves to silence the people who actually care about such things and are terrified of accidentally causing harm.

I have paid little attention to the Commonwealth Attorneys race in the past. Even with all the signs, without AEM it wouldn’t have been on my radar. So it did raise its profile. But, I think it will do more harm than good for Parisa. I’ve told every Republican I know in Arlington and Falls Church (of course that’s only a couple dozen) about it — they are all going to vote in Democratic primary for Stamos. And all of the moderate Democrats I know are voting for Stamos as well. AEM will call us the silent majority. But all that really matters is the “majority” part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m rezoned to Drew and not sure what to do next fall for K. I have to imagine that not everyone in Nauck feels the way that the vocal few on AEM do.

Not everyone in Nauck feels the same way a vocal few do. I'm a white resident and have never felt unwelcome at our civic association or neighborhood events or the school. People are jerks sometimes, especially on the internet. My child will be going to Drew next year.

Because the vocal few don’t live in Nauck

So what does that make them? Own-race-haters? Definitely hypocrits!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m rezoned to Drew and not sure what to do next fall for K. I have to imagine that not everyone in Nauck feels the way that the vocal few on AEM do.

Not everyone in Nauck feels the same way a vocal few do. I'm a white resident and have never felt unwelcome at our civic association or neighborhood events or the school. People are jerks sometimes, especially on the internet. My child will be going to Drew next year.

+2 I'm also a Nauck resident with a rising K and was appalled by the whitesplaining drama and ordeal.

As others have pointed to, it totally shut down the conversation. I'm white, but, reached out to my black friends while it was unfolding to do a pulse check and make sure I wasn't being *insertanyuglytitle* or tone deaf about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had to take AEM out of my news feed because it was raising my blood pressure. I've left the group once before, and I think I just need to do it again. I consider myself pretty liberal, but I'm genuinely conflicted on the CA race and that makes me a racist on AEM. F that.

So, asking here so I don’t get pilloried. I am also conflicted about the CA race. Per someone I really trust and respect, this case with the 10 yr olds that is getting all this press, is it true that Stamos was not in fact the CA at the time? I looked up the bio of the principal and she retired from APS before Stamos was even elected CA. She was a prosecutor at that time, but was she the one who made the decision to charge those kids/how to charge them? Can anyone tell me the truth?

Ultimately, doesn’t this boil down to a bunch of 22207ers fighting amongst themselves, per usual? Stamos, Tafti, and this principal are all neighbors from the same super zip code in NA. Is there really that much daylight between them, other than the ACDC and McAuliffe retaliating against Stamos for stepping out of line (I don’t agree with Stamos’ position of not restoring voting rights, but am conflicted about the general idea of PDs becoming CAs as agent of change). I believe there is implicit and even plenty of explicit bias in Arlington courts/schools/community, but I don’t believe the particular cases of alleged “police brutality” or overcharging minors should be blamed on a Stamos either. If she was so awful, why didn’t anyone challenge her last time? These cases happened prior to the last election, I believe. I think I agree with Tafti on a lot of things, but I don’t like how the campaign has unfolded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had to take AEM out of my news feed because it was raising my blood pressure. I've left the group once before, and I think I just need to do it again. I consider myself pretty liberal, but I'm genuinely conflicted on the CA race and that makes me a racist on AEM. F that.

So, asking here so I don’t get pilloried. I am also conflicted about the CA race. Per someone I really trust and respect, this case with the 10 yr olds that is getting all this press, is it true that Stamos was not in fact the CA at the time? I looked up the bio of the principal and she retired from APS before Stamos was even elected CA. She was a prosecutor at that time, but was she the one who made the decision to charge those kids/how to charge them? Can anyone tell me the truth?

Ultimately, doesn’t this boil down to a bunch of 22207ers fighting amongst themselves, per usual? Stamos, Tafti, and this principal are all neighbors from the same super zip code in NA. Is there really that much daylight between them, other than the ACDC and McAuliffe retaliating against Stamos for stepping out of line (I don’t agree with Stamos’ position of not restoring voting rights, but am conflicted about the general idea of PDs becoming CAs as agent of change). I believe there is implicit and even plenty of explicit bias in Arlington courts/schools/community, but I don’t believe the particular cases of alleged “police brutality” or overcharging minors should be blamed on a Stamos either. If she was so awful, why didn’t anyone challenge her last time? These cases happened prior to the last election, I believe. I think I agree with Tafti on a lot of things, but I don’t like how the campaign has unfolded.

Agree with all of the above, especially 22207 part. Is there an implication that because our laws are racist we shouldn’t enforce them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had to take AEM out of my news feed because it was raising my blood pressure. I've left the group once before, and I think I just need to do it again. I consider myself pretty liberal, but I'm genuinely conflicted on the CA race and that makes me a racist on AEM. F that.

So, asking here so I don’t get pilloried. I am also conflicted about the CA race. Per someone I really trust and respect, this case with the 10 yr olds that is getting all this press, is it true that Stamos was not in fact the CA at the time? I looked up the bio of the principal and she retired from APS before Stamos was even elected CA. She was a prosecutor at that time, but was she the one who made the decision to charge those kids/how to charge them? Can anyone tell me the truth?

Ultimately, doesn’t this boil down to a bunch of 22207ers fighting amongst themselves, per usual? Stamos, Tafti, and this principal are all neighbors from the same super zip code in NA. Is there really that much daylight between them, other than the ACDC and McAuliffe retaliating against Stamos for stepping out of line (I don’t agree with Stamos’ position of not restoring voting rights, but am conflicted about the general idea of PDs becoming CAs as agent of change). I believe there is implicit and even plenty of explicit bias in Arlington courts/schools/community, but I don’t believe the particular cases of alleged “police brutality” or overcharging minors should be blamed on a Stamos either. If she was so awful, why didn’t anyone challenge her last time? These cases happened prior to the last election, I believe. I think I agree with Tafti on a lot of things, but I don’t like how the campaign has unfolded.

I can't answer your question for sure, but the way that Inside Nova letter is phrased strongly suggests Stamos had nothing to do with that decision.

Lots of the newer progressive ideas are a good idea from a criminal justice perspective. However, I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that Stamos is a Democrat and has implemented other progressive ideas in the past. Drug courts used to be rather cutting edge. She started one. Maybe it's too small, maybe it isn't good enough, okay. But she started one. Some of these newer ideas like felons voting and no cash bail were, until very recently, not that viable even among Dems. I think it's tough to pillory a candidate for implementing what used to be accepted policy by most everyone.

The biggest reason I'm probably going to vote Stamos is because she has experience. I'm a lawyer and the fact that Parisa has limited experience actually trying cases is a problem for me. It appears most of her career has been spent on innocence-project type stuff, which is much different from being in a criminal courtroom regularly. If Arlington was a jurisdiction that needed a great deal of reform, I'd be inclined to overlook that issue. But it's not. Frankly I agreed with Peter's Take and the commenter he quoted.

[Anonymous]

This is why some perceive it to also be about Stamos supporting JV

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m rezoned to Drew and not sure what to do next fall for K. I have to imagine that not everyone in Nauck feels the way that the vocal few on AEM do.

Not everyone in Nauck feels the same way a vocal few do. I'm a white resident and have never felt unwelcome at our civic association or neighborhood events or the school. People are jerks sometimes, especially on the internet. My child will be going to Drew next year.

That is great! I’m looking forward to following the first year as the “new Drew.”

You should come out to the family event tomorrow. Rising K definitely welcome, I know of multiple rising K and current K kids who will be there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had to take AEM out of my news feed because it was raising my blood pressure. I've left the group once before, and I think I just need to do it again. I consider myself pretty liberal, but I'm genuinely conflicted on the CA race and that makes me a racist on AEM. F that.

So, asking here so I don’t get pilloried. I am also conflicted about the CA race. Per someone I really trust and respect, this case with the 10 yr olds that is getting all this press, is it true that Stamos was not in fact the CA at the time? I looked up the bio of the principal and she retired from APS before Stamos was even elected CA. She was a prosecutor at that time, but was she the one who made the decision to charge those kids/how to charge them? Can anyone tell me the truth?

Ultimately, doesn’t this boil down to a bunch of 22207ers fighting amongst themselves, per usual? Stamos, Tafti, and this principal are all neighbors from the same super zip code in NA. Is there really that much daylight between them, other than the ACDC and McAuliffe retaliating against Stamos for stepping out of line (I don’t agree with Stamos’ position of not restoring voting rights, but am conflicted about the general idea of PDs becoming CAs as agent of change). I believe there is implicit and even plenty of explicit bias in Arlington courts/schools/community, but I don’t believe the particular cases of alleged “police brutality” or overcharging minors should be blamed on a Stamos either. If she was so awful, why didn’t anyone challenge her last time? These cases happened prior to the last election, I believe. I think I agree with Tafti on a lot of things, but I don’t like how the campaign has unfolded.

I see it as bunch of 22207ers who paid a fortune to live in a zip code that will let them send their kids to schools with very low FARMS populations supporting someone who says she is for social justice. Barf. I'm voting for Stamos. You know who supports Stamos? Crime victims. And I'd bet you a thousand bucks if any of those Tafti supporters are a victim of violent crime in the future, they are going to want an aggressive prosecutor, no matter the race or age of the perpetrator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had to take AEM out of my news feed because it was raising my blood pressure. I've left the group once before, and I think I just need to do it again. I consider myself pretty liberal, but I'm genuinely conflicted on the CA race and that makes me a racist on AEM. F that.

So, asking here so I don’t get pilloried. I am also conflicted about the CA race. Per someone I really trust and respect, this case with the 10 yr olds that is getting all this press, is it true that Stamos was not in fact the CA at the time? I looked up the bio of the principal and she retired from APS before Stamos was even elected CA. She was a prosecutor at that time, but was she the one who made the decision to charge those kids/how to charge them? Can anyone tell me the truth?

From an email from Libby Garvey:

5. Prosecuting Juveniles: One of the mailers accuses Theo of prosecuting 10 year-olds. Ms. Dehghani-Tafti’s accusations do not even make sense. She dug up a case from 20 years ago when Theo was not the Commonwealth Attorney, was not the Chief Deputy Commonwealth Attorney, and was not the trial prosecutor.

I was on the School Board and remember the incident. Two ten-year old boys put hand sanitizer in their teacher’s water bottle, which he drank from. The teacher thought he had been fatally poisoned The boys admitted it. They said they wanted to kill their teacher. The boys did not go to jail or prison. There was a deferred disposition on a misdemeanor, and the case was ultimately dismissed because the boys got the supervision and treatment that they needed. The case is not relevant to Theo, but even if it were, it is totally misrepresented.




This is consistent with the letter to the editor, where the principal says she regrets they couldn't "follow normal school procedures...." presumably because the teacher called the police directly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had to take AEM out of my news feed because it was raising my blood pressure. I've left the group once before, and I think I just need to do it again. I consider myself pretty liberal, but I'm genuinely conflicted on the CA race and that makes me a racist on AEM. F that.

So, asking here so I don’t get pilloried. I am also conflicted about the CA race. Per someone I really trust and respect, this case with the 10 yr olds that is getting all this press, is it true that Stamos was not in fact the CA at the time? I looked up the bio of the principal and she retired from APS before Stamos was even elected CA. She was a prosecutor at that time, but was she the one who made the decision to charge those kids/how to charge them? Can anyone tell me the truth?

From an email from Libby Garvey:

5. Prosecuting Juveniles: One of the mailers accuses Theo of prosecuting 10 year-olds. Ms. Dehghani-Tafti’s accusations do not even make sense. She dug up a case from 20 years ago when Theo was not the Commonwealth Attorney, was not the Chief Deputy Commonwealth Attorney, and was not the trial prosecutor.

I was on the School Board and remember the incident. Two ten-year old boys put hand sanitizer in their teacher’s water bottle, which he drank from. The teacher thought he had been fatally poisoned The boys admitted it. They said they wanted to kill their teacher. The boys did not go to jail or prison. There was a deferred disposition on a misdemeanor, and the case was ultimately dismissed because the boys got the supervision and treatment that they needed. The case is not relevant to Theo, but even if it were, it is totally misrepresented.




This is consistent with the letter to the editor, where the principal says she regrets they couldn't "follow normal school procedures...." presumably because the teacher called the police directly.

As little regard as I have for Tafti, it’s still shocking to me that she and her supporters have used such easily disproved accusations in order to win this race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had to take AEM out of my news feed because it was raising my blood pressure. I've left the group once before, and I think I just need to do it again. I consider myself pretty liberal, but I'm genuinely conflicted on the CA race and that makes me a racist on AEM. F that.

So, asking here so I don’t get pilloried. I am also conflicted about the CA race. Per someone I really trust and respect, this case with the 10 yr olds that is getting all this press, is it true that Stamos was not in fact the CA at the time? I looked up the bio of the principal and she retired from APS before Stamos was even elected CA. She was a prosecutor at that time, but was she the one who made the decision to charge those kids/how to charge them? Can anyone tell me the truth?

From an email from Libby Garvey:

5. Prosecuting Juveniles: One of the mailers accuses Theo of prosecuting 10 year-olds. Ms. Dehghani-Tafti’s accusations do not even make sense. She dug up a case from 20 years ago when Theo was not the Commonwealth Attorney, was not the Chief Deputy Commonwealth Attorney, and was not the trial prosecutor.

I was on the School Board and remember the incident. Two ten-year old boys put hand sanitizer in their teacher’s water bottle, which he drank from. The teacher thought he had been fatally poisoned The boys admitted it. They said they wanted to kill their teacher. The boys did not go to jail or prison. There was a deferred disposition on a misdemeanor, and the case was ultimately dismissed because the boys got the supervision and treatment that they needed. The case is not relevant to Theo, but even if it were, it is totally misrepresented.




This is consistent with the letter to the editor, where the principal says she regrets they couldn't "follow normal school procedures...." presumably because the teacher called the police directly.

As little regard as I have for Tafti, it’s still shocking to me that she and her supporters have used such easily disproved accusations in order to win this race.

+1. How on earth can someone be the CA having NEVER prosecuted a case. How can you vote for someone with ZERO prosecutorial record. Even if you don’t live Stamos, take the devil you know. We have no idea what Tafti would do.

[Anonymous]

If someone put hand sanitizer in my water bottle and admitted to wanting to kill me, I'd call the police, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To play devil's advocate here, a lot of the "race-baiting" can also be seen as pushing UMC white folks (like me) to consider our implicit biases. A PP posted: "If a black child was dissuaded or incorrectly told they had to do something to take an AP class or whatever, it is because the child is black. Full stop." The implicit point in the post, leading to the PP's conclusion that such accusations would chill the teacher/counselor from giving good advice, is that the teacher/counselor had a valid reason and that it wasn't just because the child is black. But none of us know that for a fact as applied to any particular situation. If a black parent is saying that's the issue and the teacher is saying that's not the issue, why do we assume the black parent is wrong and the teacher is right? Why would we not consider that as a possibility? It's not considered polite to talk about race anymore among the white community, which is fine and dandy when it comes to no longer making gross generalizations about minorities/people of color, but it's also a convenient way to shut down points about things that white folks continue to do to preserve their own privilege.

In addition, a lot of the recent racially tinged discussion began with the infamous "whitesplaining" post during the boundary discussion. That post was largely correct. The historically black community around Drew had been asked what it wanted and said what it wanted. At the last minute, white outsiders to that community came in and said, no you don't understand THIS would be better for you. The proposal may have come from a good place, but it was absolutely contrary to what the community clearly said it wanted and it was billed as "what's best" for that community. Whitesplaining was a provocative way to put it, but that is in fact what was going on.

All that said, the political posts, from Parisa vs. Theo to whether charter schools are a good idea, are ridiculous and detract from real discussion of issues. I generally think less of everyone who posts on those threads because they have such poor reasoning skills. And the reason they have such poor reasoning skills is that they are never tested by having to defend their positions outside of the echo chamber. That's the real problem with all of this political correctness.

That all gets lost with comments like: “whi.....I mean elitist"

Sorry, I disagree a bit here. Every community in Arlington says what it wants; but does not necessarily get it. Yeah, the wealthy white communities in the north get it more than not. However, the Black community of Nauck wants its own neighborhood school. They don't want anyone from outside their neighborhood coming to "their promised neighborhood school." Again, sorry; but no neighborhood gets that. Randolph ES is probably the closest thing to it; but even the majority of those students are technically from outside the Douglas Park neighborhood. I don't believe the Black community around Drew said it specifically wanted an 80% FRL neighborhood school. Even if they did, I don't think it's right to let them have that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had to take AEM out of my news feed because it was raising my blood pressure. I've left the group once before, and I think I just need to do it again. I consider myself pretty liberal, but I'm genuinely conflicted on the CA race and that makes me a racist on AEM. F that.

So, asking here so I don’t get pilloried. I am also conflicted about the CA race. Per someone I really trust and respect, this case with the 10 yr olds that is getting all this press, is it true that Stamos was not in fact the CA at the time? I looked up the bio of the principal and she retired from APS before Stamos was even elected CA. She was a prosecutor at that time, but was she the one who made the decision to charge those kids/how to charge them? Can anyone tell me the truth?

From an email from Libby Garvey:

5. Prosecuting Juveniles: One of the mailers accuses Theo of prosecuting 10 year-olds. Ms. Dehghani-Tafti’s accusations do not even make sense. She dug up a case from 20 years ago when Theo was not the Commonwealth Attorney, was not the Chief Deputy Commonwealth Attorney, and was not the trial prosecutor.

I was on the School Board and remember the incident. Two ten-year old boys put hand sanitizer in their teacher’s water bottle, which he drank from. The teacher thought he had been fatally poisoned The boys admitted it. They said they wanted to kill their teacher. The boys did not go to jail or prison. There was a deferred disposition on a misdemeanor, and the case was ultimately dismissed because the boys got the supervision and treatment that they needed. The case is not relevant to Theo, but even if it were, it is totally misrepresented.




This is consistent with the letter to the editor, where the principal says she regrets they couldn't "follow normal school procedures...." presumably because the teacher called the police directly.

As little regard as I have for Tafti, it’s still shocking to me that she and her supporters have used such easily disproved accusations in order to win this race.

I find the way that one of her supporters is hawking the story on AEM very sickening.