Rob Wittman | I'm Surrounded By Idiots

Video: Nut at Rob Wittman’s town hall meeting in Fredericksburg ask questions about ‘conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids’.

Ugh, just ugh:

Sound familiar? Sure does for me:

I wish politicians would call these type of people out as the nuts they are, instead of twisting these questions into something that actually sounds sane (like a general question on pollutants). And it’s sad that the myth about mercury and autism survives to this day. If you want a good read about that, check out this article in Discover magazine.

Thankfully, this was the only real nut that attended the Fredericksburg town hall meeting unlike the meeting in Warsaw (still need to post video of some of those questions).

The Free Lance–Star gets the location of Representative Rob Wittman’s (R-1st) Fredericksburg town hall meeting wrong.

UPDATE: The Free Lance–Star has since updated its story and now shows the correct location of the meeting.

The Free Lance–Star is reporting in today’s edition that Representative Rob Wittman’s (R-1st) town hall meeting for the Fredericksburg area will be held in the Sealy Auditorium at Germanna Community College.

WRONG.

While the town hall meeting was originally scheduled for GCC, Wittman’s website now notes the location as the following:

Date: Tuesday, September 1st

Times: 6:00PM to 8:00PM*

Location:

Univeristy of Mary Washington

Dodd Auditorium

1301 College Avenue

Fredericksburg, VA 22401

*Please continue to check the website for updates as these meeting times, dates and locations may be updated.

I previously noted the location changed on my own blog on August 21st, but apparently The Free Lance–Star didn’t notice the change.

And as a precaution, if you’re of those folks that likes to bring a firearm to town hall meetings, you best leave it in your car (which better not be parked on University of Mary Washington property) unless you want to be spending the night in jail since the event is on University property.

Cross-posted at Virginia Virtucon.

Rob Wittman condemns Catherine Crabill, refuses to support or endorse her candidacy.

The Free Lance–Star:

Rep. Rob Wittman has joined other top Republican leaders in the state who are shunning Catherine T. Crabill, a controversial candidate for the Northern Neck’s seat in the House of Delegates.

Wittman spokesman Steve Stampley said last week that the congressman from Montross will endorse neither Crabill nor incumbent Albert Pollard, D-Lancaster, in the race for the House seat Wittman once held.

Wittman also has no plans to appear with Crabill at campaign events or to donate money to her campaign, Stampley said.

I wonder what R. Allen Webb will have to say about this latest development. Maybe he’ll see the writing on the wall now.

Probably not, but I’ve always been an optimist. And I have no idea why in this particular case give previous actions by people in the 99th district.

Cross-posted at Virginia Virtucon.

Rob Wittman changes location of Fredericksburg area townhall.

It was originally scheduled to be at Germanna Community College, now it’s at the University of Mary Washington:

Date: Tuesday, September 1st

Times: 6:00PM to 8:00PM*

Location:

Univeristy of Mary Washington

Dodd Auditorium

1301 College Avenue

Fredericksburg, VA 22401

The next time that he decides to change the location of a meeting, it might be help if he sent out a separate e-mail, or posted a separate update on his website, noting the location change…

Can Rob Wittman (R-1st) tell us where in the United States Constitution it mentions youth crime and gang prevention?

I asked that question in a previous post regarding Bobby Scott’s youth crime and gang prevention bill that Rob Wittman is a cosponsor of. It was an admittedly snarky argument since 99.99% of the stuff Congress does has no authorization in the United States Constitution.

However, as I was browsing the legislation that Wittman is currently cosponsoring I came across H.R. 450. H.R. 450 would “require Congress to specify the source of authority under the United States Constitution for the enactment of laws”. The text of the bill reads:

Each Act of Congress shall contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act. The failure to comply with this section shall give rise to a point of order in either House of Congress. The availability of this point of order does not affect any other available relief.

So Wittman is cosponsoring legislation that would require people that introduce legislation in Congress to enumerate where in the Constitution it says that Congress has such authority to enact the legislation while simultaneously cosponsoring legislation that Congress has no authority in the Constitution to enact. Unless, of course, I missed a mention to youth crime and gang prevention in the Constitution. It wasn’t in the edition I have, but who knows, right?

While H.R. 450 hasn’t been passed — and never will be — Rob Wittman is supposed to be a leader, correct? One of 435 special people elected due to the their perceived unique abilities by the public, including their leadership ability. Now, if Rob Wittman was a leader, shouldn’t he be following this resolution before it was even pass and ensuring that every piece of legislation that he sponsored or cosponsored specified where in the Constitution it was permitted and authorized?

Big government Rob Wittman (R-1st) wants to baby gang members.

From The Hill:

Legislation aimed at curtailing crime through preventive measures is attracting broad bipartisan support in the House.

If enacted, the Youth Promise Act would mark a historic change in the direction in juvenile justice and gang-related crime policy. It also would be the first such bill of its kind to pass in a decade.

[…]

The bill seeks to fund evidence- and research-based crime-prevention programs and would allocate $1.2 billion over five years to bring together law enforcement, schools and community organizations in an effort to prevent gang crime. The focus on prevention rather than the traditional “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” approach would represent a dramatic shift in dealing with crime and the costs associated with it.

[…]

The Scott-Castle bill’s focus on prevention rather than punishment is driving much of the GOP backing, with Republicans noting the potential for cost savings by avoiding some costly incarcerations.

The Congressional Budget Office has not yet scored the legislation.

[…]

Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), who is a co-sponsor, said, “I think if you look at the investments we are making on the correctional side of things I get concerned with the number of folks going into correctional institutions. If we are going to stem the flow we’d better look at programs up front.”

Okay, so let’s stop putting people in correctional institutions then Rob. Heck, who doesn’t want murderers, rapists, and other criminals in their neighborhoods? After all, they didn’t do anything wrong. Those scumbags from MS-13 responsible for killing people in Stafford and Prince William Counties? Good folks. Those people from different “groups” in Caroline County that resulted in one kid’s death? Oh, that’s nothing, they were just horseplaying. Those miscellaneous other scumbags in Hampton and Newport News? Oh, they just hung out with the wrong crowd. It’s not their fault.

And just like any “problem” out there in the country, what’s the solution? Federal money of course! And just like any other federal program (e.g., Social Security or Medicare), 60% of the appropriations will be spent on “administration” of the program. And here we have a Representative (Wittman) that constantly talks and complains about how bad government spending is and how those big mean Democrats won’t let him do anything to reduce spending. So, what’s his solution? He supports a $1,200,000,000 government handout program.

Does he go out there and say “no” to every spending bill? Nope. Does he want the citizens to have more money instead of the federal bureaucracy? Apparently not. Maybe if citizens had more money (instead of the government having it) there would be more community and religious programs out there since more people would have more money to contribute to them. But, of course, them as elected politicians are more capable of spending your money than you are.

And you know the best thing about spending money on “prevention” is? There’s no way to prove that money spent actually prevented something from happening.

You know, I just looked through my copy of the United States Constitution and sure enough I didn’t see a single thing in that document about youth crime and gang prevention. I see stuff about treason and regulating interstate commerce but there sure isn’t anything about youth crime and gang prevention. Does Representative Wittman have a different version than the one I have? I’m sure the folks at Black’s Law Dictionary would make sure the proper version was included in their printing.

No word in that story on whether “nationally recognized anti-gang leader” Alex Sanchez, who was recently indicted for conspiracy to commit murder, will be receiving any of this money.

Representative Rob Wittman (R-1st) blocks yours truly from following him on Twitter.

I just noticed today that I was no longer a “follower” of Representative Rob Wittman and when I tried to “follow” him I got the following message:

I’m going to have to guess it has something to do with this exchange:

Rob Wittman at 9:51 AM May 29th: “Taxpayers owe an additional $55,000 a household for the Gov’s spending in the last year, which is a 12% increase. #TCOT”

I replied at 10:06 AM May 29th with: “@RobWittman Didn’t you vote for that $290,000,000,000 farm bill in 2008? How much did that cost per household?”

My Lord, that man is a baby. I make one sarcastic, yet truthful, comment and he runs and hides. Folks, this is the man that we have fighting for your interests in Washington, D.C; a man that runs from an “insignificant” “leftist” “hate-blogger”.

Not to mention that it doesn’t prevent me reading what he posts on Twitter, after all I have a RSS subscription to his feed already.

99th House of Delegates Mass Meeting: Terry Beatley, Catherine Crabill: tomato, tah-mah-toh?

For those that are unaware of Terry Beatley is, she’s the woman that managed to get a special grand jury convened in an attempt to indict a movie rental business in Lancaster County for creating a ‘public nuisance’ because they were renting pornographic movies. They managed to get an indictment against the business, but I can’t find out online what ended up happening with the case. Regardless, I’m sure the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Lancaster County enjoyed having his time wasted when he’s busy deciding whether he has the time to prosecute robbers, burglars, etc. You know, real criminals; not a case that arises from someone wanting the criminal justice system to dictate the business practices of a company.

She’s also the woman that sent letters to The Free Lance–Star et al. last year complaining about Albert Pollard’s “anti-family voting record”. Yeah, Pollard’s “anti-family” when he’s married with three kids versus his opponent at the time who’s a divorce attorney. Perhaps someone should tell Republicans in the 99th district that it isn’t politically wise to attack someone that routinely wins the district handily (consider the percentage of votes he has gotten: 53.0% [1999], 62.0% [2001], 65.1% [2003], 61.5% [2005], 57.2% [2008]) and is a personally likable guy as “anti-family”. But that’s a topic for a whole other post.

Anyway, to the point of this post: After being introduced by Representative Rob Wittman (R-1st), Terry Beatley gave at least a five minute speech on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. For those unfamiliar with the convention, it details various rights and protections that should be afforded to children by the signatories. The convention was signed by President Clinton back in 1995 but the Senate has so far failed to ratify the convention. The United States has, however, ratified two optional protocols of the convention, one prohibiting the use of child soldiers, and the other prohibiting child slavery, prostitution, and pornography and certain types of child labor.

I will say upfront that I’m not a fan of this convention based on my reading of it. For one, it provides that “[n]either capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age” (Article 37(a)), which means if this convention was ratified by the Senate, Lee Boyd Malvo would be eligible for release from prison (he’s currently doing life without the possibility of parole). (Capital punishment for offenses committed when someone was a juvenile was determined to be “cruel and unusual punishment” by the Supreme Court of the United States in Roper v. Simmons, so that’s not a possibility anymore anyway.)

But there’s a distinction from concerns such as those and what Terry Beatley had to say: For one, she said that the convention prohibits corporal punishment of children. If she had bother reading the bloody thing, she would see that nowhere in the convention is corporal punishment even mentioned. In fact, while 198 nations have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, there are only 24 nations that actually prohibit corporal punishment. Doesn’t seem to be much correlation between ratifying the convention and prohibiting the practice of corporal punishment now does it?

Just like Catherine Crabill, who thinks that there “there is an agenda that is in our Public Law to surrender our country to the United Nations”, Terry Beatley thinks the United Nations is going to take your children from you.

Hopefully there aren’t as many nuts at the Republican Party of Virginia convention (that I will be live hate-blogging) as there were at the 99th Mass Meeting.

99th House of Delegates Mass Meeting: Video: Rob Wittman (R-1st) takes the money and runs…

NOTE: I just noticed that the audio on the video is out of sync. I’m working on figuring out why. It’s fine on my original that I uploaded but YouTube apparently did something that caused it to be out of sync. It’s fixed now I think.

To paraphrase the Steve Miller Band.

Sorry about the poor quality of the recording but it’s a Sony Handycam with no tripod so you get what you pay for:

Anyone else think he didn’t want to be in that room any longer than he had to be? I don’t blame him of course, I felt like I was going to throw up by the end of the meeting. A relative of mine and I managed to be the first people out the door thankfully.

And here’s the full speech if anyone wants to watch it:

I don’t have video of the comments made by Terry Beatley but I’ll still go over those in a later post.

Let’s review Rob Wittman’s previous comments and actions regarding earmarks.

On February 7, 2008, Rob Wittman voted for a moratorium on the submission of earmark requests in the House of Representatives; the moratorium, however, failed to pass. The same day, he issued a press release condemning Speaker Nancy Pelosi for opposing the moratorium.

By the end of April 2008, Wittman had submitted $132,500,000 in earmark requests. Included in that amount were three earmark requests totaling $3,125,000 designated to the organization of a major campaign contributor.

By February 2009, several of those earmarks had survived the committee process and had become part of H.R. 1105 (the Omnibus Spending Bill). By the time it came up for an up-or-down vote on H.R. 1105, there were 15 earmarks with Wittman’s name on them totaling $37,661,500, including one for $95,000 for the organization of that campaign contributor. In the end, Wittman voted against the appropriates bill. Here’s a press release that Wittman posted on his website regarding H.R. 1105:

Today, Congressman Rob Wittman voted against H.R. 1105: the Consolidated Appropriations Act of Fiscal Year 2009 or “omnibus” spending bill. To date, only three of the twelve bills funding the government have been approved. Consequently, all domestic functions of the government are being funded through a continuing resolution that expires on March 6, 2009. Wittman has advocated maintaining vital programs included in the bill by freezing current spending rates at Fiscal Year 2008 levels. The spending increases in the bill would grow the budget deficit by $1.4 trillion in Fiscal Year 2009, and the bill is project to result in a deficit of $8.7 trillion in ten years.

“At a time when American families are tightening their belts, the government should be doing the same. We shouldn’t be irresponsibly placing more debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren,” said Wittman.

[…]

“There has been no oversight of the over 8,000 earmarks the bill funds and no opportunity to offer amendments to cut spending. The committee process has been circumvented allowing no review by elected Members of Congress and certainly no transparency for American citizens who want to know where their hard earned dollars are going to,” added Wittman.

[…]

The Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2009 ultimately passed the House by a vote of 245-178.

He even posted a video on his YouTube channel complaining about the earmarks:

And now he’s requested another $94,676,000 in earmarks.

Can someone explain to me if Wittman thinks the system for earmarks is so broken, why is he so willing to submit and have his name on earmarks that will be approved through that process? Is it because his earmarks are so great and everyone else’s are so bad?

Isn’t that the definition of hypocrisy?