Check it out at Bloggers for Ken Cuccinelli: Tim Kaine Agrees With Ken Cuccinelli, Decides to Call Special Session.
Month: July 2009
Tip: If you don’t want to be facing a two-count felony indictment, you better not apply for a job that a relative of Sheriff Tony Lippa has also applied for.
I previously coyly mentioned a rumor that’s been going around as to why Sheriff Tony Lippa has declared a vendetta against Caroline County High School football coach Ben Boyd. I also stated that I wasn’t going to repeat the rumor at that time because it hadn’t been confirmed by anyone yet. Well, this portion of a letter from former Caroline County High School principal Jeff Wick, which appeared in this week’s edition of The Caroline Progress, is enough for me:
Is it a coincidence that the sheriff’s son-in-law [Robbie Jenkins] also interviewed for this job and did not get it? That is for the public to decide. In the end, this miscarriage of justice and harassment of a law-abiding citizen who paid the consequences for a disclosed incident that occurred 19 years ago is ludicrous and needs to end.
Well said.
It’s pretty interesting that The Caroline Progress actually published the letter with that particular section intact since they’re supposed to be such a pro-Lippa publication. If Lippa’s lost The Caroline Progress, he’s lost Caroline County I would say.
Nothing like some rampant nepotism to make a sheriff’s office great.
I speak of the Caroline County Sheriff’s Office specifically. There are at least two blatant and egregious examples of nepotism that has been demonstrated by hiring practices in that office and an additional examples that at least has mitigating circumstances. I’m not going to directly identify the employees — I personally don’t have a problem with one of the person involved — and instead will use their initials, but to anyone that has any knowledge of the office they should be able to identify the employees involved.
Then we have C.R., who’s currently a sergeant. He’s the stepson of another officer (again, officer in this context is someone of Lieutenant’s rank or higher). He’s also a blood relative of Supervisor Maxie Rozell (D-Reedy Church). In C.R.’s defense, he’s been employed by the sheriff’s office for awhile and as far as I know he actually deserves his rank of sergeant.
And now we get to the nuts and bolts of this post: We have A.L.J., who was hired as a dispatcher around a year ago. As you might be able to guess by her maiden name, she’s a close blood relative of Sheriff Tony Lippa. Her qualifications? As I recall from her engagement or marriage announcement that appeared in The Caroline Progress, she’s taken interior design classes at Germanna Community College. Hmm…I guess I can see that, interior design skills helping to dispatch and coordinate police and fire activities (snort). There’s another bad joke in there but I’m going to say it.
And then we have the most recent incident that I just learned about: J.A. was recently hired to be a court-services deputy. This particular person is a close blood relative of Supervisor Wayne Acors (I-Madison). Need I say more?
You know, this is the type of stuff that you would have expected during Homer Johnson’s day with the pervasiveness of the “good ol’ boy network” and not from someone (i.e., Lippa) that claims to be all about “professionalism” and hiring the most qualified candidates. All that apparently goes out the window when a relative of Lippa’s wants a job or a family member of a Board of Supervisors member wants a job.
On Monday: You won’t believe the history of someone that was just promoted to sergeant by Tony Lippa.
Crabill Watch: “We have the chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box.”
Actually the statement before the quote I have in the title is probably the worst:
H/t: Fred2Blue, Not Larry Sabato.
And the bad thing is these Republicans in the 99th district can’t backpedal now and say they didn’t know what they were getting. They knew full well the kind of comments she had made previously as well as her membership in a militia group. Oh, well…
UPDATE: Ouch, now Crabill’s on the HuffPo.
UPDATE #2: The Washington Independent takes note too.
UPDATE #3: Daily Kos and The Washington Post‘s Virginia Politics blog also weigh in.
UPDATE #4: It’s on Breitbart now too.
Speaking of Catherine Crabill, did she forget to file her campaign finance report this month?
It’s neither listed on the State Board of Elections’ website nor on the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP).
Of course, her report from the previous filing period was noticeably missing certain expenditures that should have been included in the report but I haven’t had a chance to write a post about that yet.
UPDATE, 07/16/2009, 1:10 p.m.: The report is finally up now.
Oh cool, I’m a character assassin now.
That’s a step above a mere hate-blogger right? From Catherine Crabill’s campaign website/blog (get your own link):
As we have all seen in these recent years anyone who stands for the core principles of a free nation are pilloried in the press. Just this past April we saw how Patriots who joined with the Tea Parties across the country were mocked and ridiculed. This is a part of Alinsky’s method: Rule #5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.” I have been a target of such character assassination as will any freedom loving American who dares to speak the truth. The only way to disarm this technique is to recognize it as such and stand against it or ignore it and support that candidate in spite of it!
I guess a character asssassin is just like an “attack ad”, they both tell the truth.
Interesting: BVBL and Anti-BVBL agree on at least one thing.
Steve Shannon (D) don’t know much about lawyering…
Right now, Steve Shannon is attacking Ken Cuccinelli for failing to support a bill of Shannon’s from back in 2007 that Shannon claims would have prevented the pending Charlie-Foxtrot regarding forensic techs being required to testify for drunk driving cases. The problem? His bill would have done no since thing according to “The Jaded JD”:
Most importantly, the bill is completely unrelated to the Melendez-Diaz decision. Melendez-Diaz says the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment allows a criminal defendant to confront the forensic analyst who analyzed the forensic evidence introduced at trial. Not only does Shannon’s bill not presciently recognize a right of confrontation, it restricts the ability of the defendant to object to the admissibility of the forensic certificate:
[…]
So, had Shannon’s bill become law, it wouldn’t have alleviated the current problem because it would itself be invalid under Melendez-Diaz. What’s worse, by linking the bill to Melendez-Diaz and criticizing Cuccinelli for not supporting it, Shannon appears not to realize that. That doesn’t inspire confidence in an Attorney General candidate.
You really need to read the whole thing as they say.
H/t: Bearing Drift.
And the railroading of Ben Boyd continues?
As you may be aware, Caroline County High School football coach Ben Boyd was indicted on July 1st for forgery of a public record and uttering of a public record. Below you’ll find a story from Jon Burkett of WTVR Channel 6 in Richmond (I apologize if you experience popping in the audio but that’s WTVR’s doing, not mine):
By Major Scott Moser’s own admission “the case is currently under investigation” and “could take a couple weeks” according to Jon Burkett. So, you know, don’t worry about making sure the guy is actually guilty or anything, let’s just indict him. Anyone remember the age old quote about being able to indict a ham sandwich? Perfect example here.
In certain situations, that would be alright. If you catch a suspect standing over a dead body with the proverbial smoking gun, then yeah, you would indict the guy while forensics testing and whatnot were still being done. But this situation takes on a completely different light because the sheriff — the chief law enforcement officer in the county — has publicly and falsely accused Boyd of a different crime previously while displaying zero knowledge of the situation.
And according to The Free Lance–Star (get your own link), Boyd was arrested at the school. That’s right, he wasn’t even given the opportunity to turn himself in. After all, when you have a vendetta against a guy, you want to cause the biggest scene and most embarrassment possible.
Who knows, Boyd could very well be guilty of these charges. But the Sheriff’s Office sure as heck doesn’t know for sure since they have “a couple weeks” of investigating to do still.
And, of course, there’s also the matter of Tony Spencer in this whole thing. He is the Commonwealth’s Attorney after all. But at least he’s been mum to the newspapers and other media stating “This case needs to be tried in a court, not in the press.” That’s a far cry from Lippa’s public announcement of vendetta against Boyd previously as well as Lippa’s personal friend (i.e., Jon Burkett) rushing to do a story about the case for WTVR while parroting everything that comes out of the sheriff’s office.
Yes, they’re friends before you ask. If you don’t believe me, think about this: When does WTVR do any stories about Caroline County? When it involves Lippa and his sheriff’s office. I don’t recall them covering the Gaudenzi case (a 14 year cold case) and, after all, Lippa wasn’t involved in the case, only the Virginia State Police was.
I would love to know why Lippa decided to pursue a vendetta against Boyd, an interesting theory has been suggested elsewhere (primarily on one newspaper’s website) — which I don’t plan on repeating on this space currently — but you better hope that the next person Lippa decides to go after it isn’t you or someone you care about.
Un-freakin’-believable: Paul Warner Powell gets a stay of execution.
From Virginia Lawyers Weekly’s blog:
Paul W. Powell will not be executed tomorrow night.
U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts granted a stay of execution today pending review of his petition for a writ of certiorari to the high court.
The three-sentence order indicates that Powell shouldn’t put but so much faith in the stay, however.
If the court denies the petition, “this stay shall terminate automatically,” according to the order. If it is granted, the stay will not end until the Supreme Court decides the case, the order says.
Oh, and Bearing Drift brings up a good point: Ask Sotomayor about Paul Warner Powell