I guess what happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas. Where ya goin', honey? I'm going to Vegas, babe, gonna spend other people's money!
Excerpts from
CBS Chicago (h/t Drudge):
The Chicago Public Schools system is suffering from a $700 million budget shortfall. So why did some educators travel to Las Vegas just days after a travel restriction was ordered?
Tax dollars were spent on champagne costing $125 a bottle; thousands more on limousines, steak lunches and a food and liquor bill from a Soldier Field skybox event that alone cost more than $6,000.
In the case of the Las Vegas trip, a CPS spokesman says the conference was required for educational development plans and procedures were followed.
Procedures were followed? Oh, well, good, then.
What kind of slob feels good riding around in a limousine joy-ride paid for by other tax-payers?
America is losing its moral resolve, one compromised, corrupted American at a time. And that's the way a nation is lost -- one corrupted person at a time.
Access to taxpayer funds is, apparently, a key to the corrupting process; this makes even bigger government a very scary proposition. Who could resist a "free" trip? And how easy it is to forget who's funding it, or where the money is coming from; how easy to convince ourselves we've earned it, or we're entitled to it, or we are going to Vegas for the best of possible reasons?
The diligent and ethical in America and Canada are increasingly being taken hostage by indolent and corrupt persons with access to taxpayer funds. As someone put it, you're either feeding at the buffet or you're on the menu.
Never was their a greater need for the churches of America and Canada to remind those who fill their pews -- it used to be "everybody" -- of their moral and ethical duties, and the need to "abstain from fleshly lusts" -- lusts for greed and gratification whose tug we all feel. Never has the restraining and leavening effect of the Christian message been more sorely needed.
And that's the way the conservative Ball bounces.
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Cover of Jimmy Carter
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image by Ravencrest Travel via Flickr
Image via Wikipedia
Image by afagen via Flickr
Image via Wikipedia
Image by joeldinda via Flickr
Image via Wikipedia
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
