Author: Timothy Watson

Witch-hunt in the 99th House District.

I first got wind of this little witch-hunt at the 1st Congressional District Republican Committee meeting on December 11th. I was sitting in the back of the room when Bill Kling (Crabill’s campaign manger) went to up Larry Kile (King George County Republican Committee Chairman), who was sitting about ten feet away from me, and starting talking. While I couldn’t hear everything that was being said I did hear, “Caroline”, “Jeff”, “censured by the central committee”, and “not going to be Chairman much longer”.

See, that’s the problem with loud mouths: They don’t think — if they ever think — to check to see who’s around them before they starting running their mouths. The even funnier part was when it came to introduce any guests that were present at the meeting: I introduced myself and Larry Kile responded clear as day from ten feet away: “Ugh, that’s him!” That quote now graces my subtitle and will be staying there for a while.

Then there was the 99th Legislative District Committee meeting on December 14th. After spending over an hour hurling insults at the bloggers, at the statewide candidates, and at Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) Chairman Pat Mullins, the committee went into executive session.

After executive session, the committee voted 4–0 (Jeff Sili was at a School Board meeting from what I’ve heard and not present to vote) directing the Chairman, R. Allen Webb, to draft and send a letter asking that Caroline County Republican Committee Jeff Sili be censured and removed as Chairman of the Caroline Committee.

His crime? Not supporting Catherine “OKC Truther” Crabill in her run for Delegate.

Um, Jeff Sili is the only person that’s expressed an inkling of common sense and intelligence in this whole fiasco. The Caroline delegation unanimously voted against nominating the OKC Truther as a Republican. The Caroline Committee also decided that her name shouldn’t be included on their sample ballots for the district. And that decision was definitely clairvoyant because the day of the election, Catherine Crabill’s supporters were responsible for the theft of several Democratic signs, which were replaced with her signs, at the Bowling Green Town Hall (the district’s polling place). Definitely the type of campaign I want to associate myself and my committee with.

But, of course, the folks on 99th District Committee would vote for David Duke if he had an R by his name and harshly attack anyone that dared to oppose his candidacy (“He shares out values! His opponent is anti-family!”, etc.). I notice they decided not to formally request that Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling, or Ken Cuccinelli be censured (for Pat Mullins see below). They also don’t seem to have a problem with Chris Saxman, who openly endorsed Delegate Pollard for reelection.

Apparently the true Republicans in the district (not the ten people that show up for the 99th District Committee meetings) weren’t too upset with Bob McDonnell’s opposition to Crabill since he won with 69% of the vote in the district (Bolling got 66% and Cuccinelli got 67%) .

The 99th District Committee also approved a motion, again 4–0, directing Webb to draft and send a letter “expressing displeasure” at RPV Chairman Pat Mullins for his refusal to support the OKC Truther.

Hopefully Pat Mullins gives them the Dick Cheney treatment (anyone else remember what Cheney said to Patrick Leahy?).

Cross-posted at On The Right and Virginia Virtucon.

2010 General Assembly Session: The good, the bad, and the ugly (so far).

Or the “great”, the “good”, the “bad”, and the “what the…” bills that have been prefiled so far for this coming session.

Great

HJ5 (Oder): Creates a transportation lockbox.

SB 4 (Smith): Requires General Assembly members to disclose if them or anyone in their families makes more than $10,000 from any state or local agency or government.

SB 5 (Smith): Requires state budget documents and amendments be posted for 72 hours before they can be voted on.

Good

HB1 (Loupassi): Makes Virginia’s anti-spam statute constitutional by excepting religious and politician spam.

HB8 (Carrico)/SB 3 (Smith): Allows for renewal of Virginia concealed handgun permits via the mail instead of requiring you to go to the courthouse.

HB18 (Cole): Tells the federal governments that regulation of interstate commerce is exactly that: interstate commerce.

Bad

HB2 (Loupassi): I’m sick of tax credits. And people wonder why it’s impossible to understand the tax code without a team of accountants and lawyers.

SB 9 (Blevins): Because the government doesn’t have anything better to do.

SB 10 (Blevins): See above.

What the…

HB21 (Kilgore): Seriously, who knew that the state had civil immunity for people doing space flights?

Since I’m too lazy to post anything for Christmas: Check out Kat’s Carnival of Christmas.

A Carnival for anything Christmas related. You can share Christmas stories, Christmas poems, Christmas podcasts, Christmas parodies, Christmas pictures, etc. The only requirement is that the post be respectful of the Holiday and in the Spirit of Christmas cheer and kindness.

Check it out.

Bill Kling: Just as crazy as Crabill.

[audio:https://www.imsurroundedbyidiots.com/videos/Kling_2009_12_14.mp3]

If you want to download the whole file to your hard-drive click here (11.6 MB MP3).

Things to consider as you listen to the audio:

  1. Winning against no one with 63.89% of the vote is a “substantial margin”?
  2. Of course, the federal government dared to provide response and recovery operations when a federal building was destroyed (federal jurisdiction) and a large quantity of explosives were used (again, federal jurisdiction).
  3. Yes, that evil liberal Washington Times misquoted her. I blame the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
  4. It’s nice to see him getting friendly with 9/11 conspiracy theorists like Jesse Ventura. ‘Oh, I don’t agree with him, but he raises the same points about 9/11 that Cathrine does about Oklahoma City.’ Uh-huh…
  5. And, yes, those evil blogs like Virginia Virtucon. Interesting fact: The 99th Legislative District Committee’s website actually links to Virtucon.
  6. And it’s nice to see that Bill Kling confirms everything that the Democrats have been saying about the “tea party” movement: There nothing but a bunch of crazy Republican astroturfers.
  7. And how does comparing your town to Mayberry make the people “country bumpkins”? Last time I watched The Andy Griffith Show, everyone on the show, for the most part, was portrayed as being pretty smart (Barney and Otis being the exceptions). What Mrs. Sili was saying is that she didn’t want to have to work with people the day after election after supporting someone that called anyone that disagreed with her a “traitor”.
  8. And, of course, that evil Albert Pollard engineered a conspiracy to call Catherine Crabill’s home! Call the police! And, funny, when I was doing door-to-door in Spotsylvania County for the Republicans I encountered a bunch of solid Dems that were on the Republican lists. So I guess I was engaging in “voter suppression”.

Cross-posted at Virginia Virtucon.

Rob Wittman to hold telephone town hall meeting Wednesday night.

Washington, D.C. – Tomorrow, Congressman Rob Wittman will host a live telephone-town hall to hear directly from constituents about their concerns as the first session of the 111th Congress comes to a close.

Date: Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Time: 7:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Call in Number: 877-229-8493

Log in Pin: 13327

To be placed on the call list to receive future calls, please visit Congressman Wittman’s website: http://wittman.house.gov/

Delegate Scott Lingamfelter: Just another big-government Republican.

From today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter is getting in on the fight over the flying of the American flag.

The Prince William County Republican plans to submit a bill for next year’s General Assembly session that would require homeowners associations to allow combat veterans decorated for valor to fly the flag in any manner permitted by federal law.

[…]

Lingamfelter joins a group of supporters that boasts the White House, Democrats including Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and both of Virginia’s U.S. senators, as well as Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, the second-ranking Republican in the House.

[…]

Lingamfelter hasn’t finalized the language of his bill, and he noted that he’s open to broadening its scope to include more than just decorated veterans. He also said he’s open to associations decreeing requirements for residents’ flag display.

“Just don’t tell them they can’t do it,” he said.

In terms of Barfoot’s specific situation, Lingamfelter said it’s possible that the association will allow the matter to quietly go away.

“But I’m not going to quietly go away,” he added.

Similarly, he said that he has never faced a situation in which someone objected to his display of the red, white and blue.

But if it had happened?

“It would have only happened one time,” Lingamfelter said.

Okay, this need to be broken down line-by-line (with some reorganizing of the text for increased brevity):

Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter is getting in on the fight over the flying of the American flag.

The Prince William County Republican plans to submit a bill for next year’s General Assembly session that would require homeowners associations to allow combat veterans decorated for valor to fly the flag in any manner permitted by federal law.

Lingamfelter hasn’t finalized the language of his bill, and he noted that he’s open to broadening its scope to include more than just decorated veterans.

Lingamfelter is still “open” as to who will be covered by his proposed edict, but the congressional proposal only covered Medal of Honor recipients. What about those lowly combat veterans that only managed to get a Silver or Bronze Star (sarcasm!)? What about those that only receive a Purple Heart or Distinguished Serve Medal? What about those that didn’t serve in a combat? What about reservists and National Guard members? What about the families of all of the above? What about an average person that didn’t serve in the military at all? Will all of these people be protected by these edicts (which, interestingly, doesn’t seem to be part of the powers of Congress, at least not in my copy of the United States Constitution)?

I do find it funny as well that all these Republicans are jumping on a bandwagon to create a protected class of individuals that are exempt from the rules of a homeowners association (HOA), an organization that they entered into a contract — voluntarily — with. No one forces you to join a HOA, you make that choice when you decide to move into a particular neighborhood. You choose to give up your rights, while presumably of sound mind, when you enter into a contract with the HOA.

And notably, for Republicans, when it comes to protecting a certain class of people under hate crime legislation, then it’s totally unacceptable to create a class of individuals that are treated differently in the eyes of the law. Or so they would want you to believe.

[…]

Lingamfelter joins a group of supporters that boasts the White House, Democrats including Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and both of Virginia’s U.S. senators, as well as Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, the second-ranking Republican in the House.

We call them “statists” here.

[…] He also said he’s open to associations decreeing requirements for residents’ flag display.

“Just don’t tell them they can’t do it,” he said.

And here comes the lying (or the opening of one’s mouth and proving of one’s own ignorance).  The veteran in this case was never told that he couldn’t fly the flag. He was told that he could not erect a flag pole. So, Mr. (or Delegate, or King of Virginia) Lingamfelter, you have now shown yourself to be a liar or completely ignorant.

In terms of Barfoot’s specific situation, Lingamfelter said it’s possible that the association will allow the matter to quietly go away.

“But I’m not going to quietly go away,” he added.

Of course not, you’re a politician, they never go away — quietly or not.

Similarly, he said that he has never faced a situation in which someone objected to his display of the red, white and blue.

But if it had happened?

“It would have only happened one time,” Lingamfelter said.

And what exactly does that mean? Is King of Virginia Lingamfelter saying he would result to violence if someone told him he was violating an HOA rule? Or is he saying he would just use his power as a legislator to exempt him from any rule that he feels like violating?

Questions, questions.

Great Ann Coulter column.

From December 9th but somehow I missed it:

In Tuesday’s primary election, Massachusetts Democrats chose as their Senate nominee a woman who kept a clearly innocent man in prison in order to advance her political career.

Martha Coakley isn’t even fit for the late Teddy Kennedy’s old seat. (What is it about this particular Senate seat?)

During the daycare/child molestation hysteria of the ’80s, Gerald Amirault, his mother, Violet, and sister, Cheryl, were accused of raping children at the family’s preschool in Malden, Mass., in what came to be known as the second-most notorious witch trial in Massachusetts history.

Read the whole thing.

http://www.anncoulter.com/

My agnosticism towards the tea party movement validated once again.

Does anyone consider this rhetoric attractive? (The Free Lance–Star):

Members of the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party and questions about health care greeted Rep. Robert J. Wittman (R-Montross) at a gathering Tuesday night in his hometown.

“Where in the Constitution is government charged with protecting people’s health?” asked Catherine T. Crabill, a maverick Republican who, despite being shunned by Wittman and state GOP leaders, came close last month to winning the seat Wittman once held in the House of Delegates.

“My frustration is that we don’t want any government-run health care. The Constitution is the only thing that will save us from this death spiral that the country is in,” Crabill said.

“Some elected officials are committing treason by not upholding their sacred oaths. Do you intend to uphold your oath of office and fight to make sure that your elected colleagues uphold theirs?” she asked Wittman, who promised he would.

I’m still laughing about how the constitutional scholar, Catherine Crabill, is making comments about what’s in the United States Constitution when she’s apparently unfamiliar with the Article III, where the founders went to the trouble of specifically defining the crime of treason:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

And why did Madison et al. decide to be that specific regarding the crime of treason? Consult Federalist No. 43:

As treason may be committed against the United States, the authority of the United States ought to be enabled to punish it. But as new-fangled and artificial treasons have been the great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free government, have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other, the convention have, with great judgment, opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger, by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime, fixing the proof necessary for conviction of it, and restraining the Congress, even in punishing it, from extending the consequences of guilt beyond the person of its author.

But that nut Catherine Crabill wants to prosecute people for political disagreements (and probably execute them). This is the same thing that the crazies on the left wanted to do for George Bush et al. for the Iraq War and the USA PATRIOT Act.

And then we have this one:

“The federal government is gang-raping the people,” said Mark Carpenter of Acorn, a Westmoreland County community–not the controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Do I need to expand how absurd, vulgar, and bordering on obscene that comment is? Does this idiot need someone to explain to him what the crime of rape is, much less the crime of gang-rape?