Why do Dems protect illegal voting?

I wanted to write about the democrats in Indiana fighting a law which requires voters to present picture id when voting, to prevent voter fraud. But I found a story much closer to home, from the Potomac News: "Kaine alters Lingamfelter bill".

Virginia's Voter Registration doesn't ask if you are a citizen. Del. Albo passed a bill which requires the State Board to delete non-citizens, but they have no way to know who is a citizen or not. Lingamfelter proposed what seemed to be a very innocuous law which simply added a question about citizenship to the forms used at the DMV to register voters. That's it "Are you a citizen".

The idea is that people won't lie on an official form -- not much of a deterrent, but at least a step. Certainly it's nothing anybody could object to, right?

Wrong. It seems democrats need all the votes they can get, and they count on illegal voters. So Governor Kaine amended Scott's bill to remove all references to the DMV.

In a cultural climate where the topic of immigration is at the forefront of heated debates, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine eliminated the crux of a bill that could deter non-citizens from registering to vote.

Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles patrons can indicate if they would like to register to vote on driver's license, driver's permit and identification card applications.

HB170 would have for the first time required the DMV to include in these applications a question regarding citizenship status.

Kaine amended the bill, deleting all references to the DMV.

According to the PNews, the resulting bill is a "mirror" of the Albo bill. Kaine's excuse, provided by his spokesperson, was "We're not sure that DMV should become an immigration office without further discussion, further reflection".

Forget for the moment that the bill did nothing of the sort -- it merely added a question to a list of questions on forms that the DMV simply sends on to the appropriate agency. What further discussion, further reflection is needed when we are talking about NON-CITIZENS voting in our elections?

As the article states:

Clay Landa, a policy analyst with the State Board of Elections, said the agency has no way to verify who is legally registered to vote because the registration process does not request proof of citizenship.

And, there is no official tally of unlawfully registered voters.

"We have no way of knowing," Landa said. "There is no indication that it isn't a problem, and there is no indication that it is a problem."

Pardon me, but if there is no way to ensure that people are registered legally, there most definitely is a BIG problem.

Lingamfelter hopes to resolve this peacefully. Having worked to ensure that all agencies involved approved of his plan, he now is hoping to convince Kaine to rescind his amendment:

In a letter dated April 13, Lingamfelter asked the Democratic governor to recede his amendment of the voting bill.

"I took great pains to ensure that both the DMV and the SBOE were in agreement with this bill," Lingamfelter wrote.

"Additionally, I coordinated with both the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, and the U.S. Department of Justice to ensure that this bill did not violate any law. Both assured me it was legal and appropriate for the DMV to ask the citizenship question."

Lingamfelter said he wrote Kaine because "I think that in the process of looking at the bill he has come to a conclusion that is incorrect. What I'm trying to do is work with him in a bipartisan fashion."

Lingamfelter's bill passed unanimously in the house, and 25-14 in the Senate, so it seems he should have enough votes to override the changes. But he shouldn't have to.

I don't believe for a minute that Kaine took this step because of concern over DMV's involvement in the process, which would be nil. Kaine eviscerated this bill because democrats want to encourage voting by non-citizens.

Throughout the country, democrats have learned the value of collecting additional votes from the ranks of those who are not legally entitled to vote. Whether fighting removal of felons from the voting roles, or picture id's to ensure ballot integrity, or simply asking prospective voters if they are in fact citizens, the Democrat party stands opposed to protecting the valuable voting franchise.

Update: My internet connection crashed when I first posted this -- I recovered half of it and posted, but have since gone through and tweaked it a little.

Judge orders school to let Wheelchair athlete race with others

The Washington Post reports that Tatyana McFadden, a Paralympic-caliber Wheelchair track-and-field competitor, has won a suit to require her High School to allow her to run races with the other runners at the school track meets.

According to the article:

Tatyana McFadden, 16, a sophomore at Atholton High School in Columbia, will be allowed on the track at the same time as the other competitors but will be scored separately under a preliminary injunction granted yesterday in Baltimore by U.S. District Court Judge Andre M. Davis.

She is already a member of the track team, and runs in races, but only with other wheelchair athletes (and since there are no other wheelchair athletes, she runs by herself).

But:

She and her mother argued that the distinction prevented her from participating fully in team life.

The judge made his ruling based NOT on the Americans with Disabilities act, but rather a much older law:

McFadden's lawsuit was based on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which the judge cited in his ruling.

He found the school system in violation of the act, which prohibits the exclusion of people with disabilities from programs and activities that get federal funding.

In the end, a single wheelchair on the track probably won't be a big deal, but it opens a pandora's box -- and her lawyer thinks this is just the tip of the iceberg:

Her attorney, Lauren Young of the Maryland Disability Law Center, said she believes the ruling will pave the way for other disabled athletes.

"We're thrilled. We hope that other kids with disabilities see they have access to full participation in athletic programs in schools."

My problem is the definition of "disability" as it applies to athletes. I have short legs, and couldn't possibly keep up with long-legged runners even if I was in shape. Others may be able to walk, but may have "problems" with their legs that make it impossible for them to run fast enough to be on the track team. Could I and others join the track team and race in wheelchairs?

The school was worried about people getting hurt running into the wheelchair, and that may or may not be a problem. I don't understand what was so important about being on the track at the same time -- probably because I never made a team in school, because of my "disability" -- the disability to compete with my better-bodied peers.

Casey Martin was a golfer who had Klippel-Trenaunay-Webber Syndrome, which slowly took away the use of his legs. He sued to be allowed to use a golf cart, and won. He was able to argue that walking was not an integral part of the game of golf.

Now we are going to the road where using your legs may not be considered integral to the act of running.

My problem is that atheletics are, in essence, a competition to judge how "well-bodied" you are. At what point does the inability to use your legs to their fullest become a "disability" that then allows you to run in a wheelchair?

We had the ADA so that people who could do jobs, who could shop, who could perform all the normal functions of life, were being denied the right to do so simply because of physical barriers that could be corrected. But a physical competition should be about being physically able, and just like a less-mentally-abled person is unlikely to win a chess competition, a less-physically-abled person may have to accept that they can't run around a race track.

Blaming Rising Material Costs to hide Incompetence?

Monday's Potomac News has a dire report about rising costs for road construction.

There were several aspects of this story that simply did not make sense. But first, here are the actual numbers from the story detailing the increased costs:

Between February 2005 and February 2006, cement, which is the main ingredient in concrete, shot up by 14.2 percent, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, a Washington-based industry group.

Steel prices are also up 3.9 percent, the group said.

In the last year, there was a 16 percent increase in contract prices for asphalt, and the cost of sand, gravel and crushed stone used in pavement rose by 8 percent, said VDOT spokeswoman Joan Morris.

Diesel fuel prices increased by 34 percent, according to the spokeswoman.

OK. 3.9% is hardly more than inflation (The PWC board is using a higher number to justify their 5.7% tax increase). The other numbers are considerably above inflation, and you'd expect that paving a road might cost 10% more now (the cost of asphalt being a major, but not the majority, of the total costs).

But the fuel prices are a large increase, and could drive costs up by another 10-20%, I suppose.

But even if the entire cost of construction was the purchase of fuel, the cost increase would be 34%.

So, explain this:

Sharp increases in raw material prices are expected to cost the Virginia Department of Transportation an additional $180 million this year for road and maintenance projects, and will double the price tag of one local bridge renovation.
...
In Prince William County, expensive construction materials will double the cost of the Va. 28 bridge project over Broad Run.

Construction of the overpass is slated for the summer, and will cost about $11 million, Morris said.

I don't see how an increase of 100% in the cost of a bridge could possible be blamed primarily, much less entirely, on the inflation of raw material prices, all of which are under 34%. It seems clear that the primary cause of this increase is something else, but what? Did someone made a major mistake in estimating the job? Are we being ripped off by unscrupulous contractors? We don't know, because the PNews simply chalks the cost increase up to "sharp increases in raw material prices".

The rest of the story is a series of contradictions. My favorite:

VDOT representatives said the agency will use cheaper raw materials for maintenance and construction projects, but will not resort to using less durable supplies.

"We are not using inferior pavement," Morris said. "It's sort of like using oak instead of mahogany, you still are going to have a good quality project."

If I read this right, VDOT has a choice of two materials, which are equally durable, and they have been using the MORE EXPENSIVE of the two, because it LOOKS BETTER?

How many of us want to have our taxes raised another billion so that we can build our roads out of more expensive materials? Not me -- I don't care much what the road looks like so long as it's not filled with holes, and not blocked by stopped cars.

Last week a report suggested that VDOT WAS using inferior-quality materials that would wear out quicker. This story seems to refute that, but I don't know what to believe now. Given that there is a huge cost in labor, and in lost time and traffic backups, when fixing a road, it hardly seems wise to use material with a shorter life span -- that's just asking for big problems down the road.

Was Saddam recruiting pilots for 9/11 attacks?

That's the question explored by Captain Ed over at Captain's Quarters in the thread The Timing Of The Iraqi Air Force Memo.

Having used his own money to pay two independent translators to triple-check the translation performed by a contributer to Free Republic, Ed now explores what that document means.

The document details a program to recruit Iraqi Air Force pilots for terror attacks against the United States in March of 2001 (dates in day/month/year format):

The top secret letter 2205 of the Military Branch of Al Qadisya on 4/3/2001 announced by the top secret letter 246 from the Command of the military sector of Zi Kar on 8/3/2001 announced to us by the top secret letter 154 from the Command of Ali Military Division on 10/3/2001 we ask to provide that Division with the names of those who desire to volunteer for Suicide Mission to liberate Palestine and to strike American Interests and according what is shown below to please review and inform us.

Please read his commentary. The summary:

However, this recruitment memo offers another tantalizing possibility. The one 9/11 pilot who had not traveled outside the US the previous January was Hani Hanjour, who had just begun his flight training, which reportedly had not gone well. (See pages 226-227 of the 9/11 Commission report.) Hanjour had been assigned the most difficult of the 9/11 targets -- the Pentagon. That flight required taking the plane over the Beltway and into an incredibly low but stable approach to maximize the damage done to the building. This took more skill than merely flying a plane into the Twin Towers, and the late start on training could not have helped in Hanjour's preparations. Unlike Atta and Shehhi, the report never mentions Hanjour getting any training in a large-craft simulator.

The trip to Germany in January by the other pilots may have been an attempt to gather better-trained pilots for the attack -- and remember that the original plan was to have two waves of attacks, at least according to KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed], the second of which got cancelled due to increased security after 9/11. The late start for Hanjour would have endangered their mission. We know that the Iraqis started recruiting from their Air Force, and that those pilots had nothing to fly at the time. The trip to Prague may have been to find out if the Iraqis had anyone who could assist Hanjour in the difficult task ahead of him, or to plan the second wave of attacks using skilled pilots rather than the amateurs from the Hamburg cell.

If Saddam was involved in discussions about pilots to carry out a 9/11-type attack, it would cast a whole new light on the need to remove him.

But this story has not been examined by any major news organizations. Having firmly planted the idea that Bush lied or was completely wrong about the reasons for war, and having convinced most of America that Saddam was no threat, and therefore there was no reason to sacrifice lives or money in Iraq, the media seems to have little motivation to prove themselves wrong once again.

Meanwhile Bush seems to have little interest, for an obvious reason -- we already made the decision, and went to war, and we now have to deal with the aftermath. Bush isn't one to go over the past which cannot be changed, even to defend himself or his administration.

That is a mistake. I hope Josh Bolton can convince Bush to spend some time and energy translating these documents and putting the truth out to rebuild support for the hard work in Iraq.

But there ARE some good left-wing blogs, right?

I've often argued that it's hard to discuss things with a liberal, because they don't understand facts or logic, and believe that a good string of explitives is a winning argument.

This is of course a bit of an exageration, but one has only to look at a few posts on the biggest of the left-wing blogs (like DailyKos or DemocraticUnderground) to see that the conversation, if you can call it that, rarely rises above the level of "he's a ".

Well, it seems that the Washington Post has noticed the same thing. The article "The Left, Online and Outraged", Saturday, April 15, by David Finkel, describes a day in the life of a "typical" left-wing blogger, and includes quotes from many left-leaning sites.

The blogger has arisen, and is trying to decide what to write about:

Should it be about Bush, whom she considers "malevolent," a "sociopath" and "the Antichrist"? She smokes another cigarette. Should it be about Vice President Cheney, whom she thinks of as "Satan," or about Karl Rove, "the devil"? Should it be about the "evil" Republican Party, or the "weaselly, capitulating, self-aggrandizing, self-serving" Democrats, or the Catholic Church, for which she says "I have a special place in my heart . . . a burning, sizzling, putrescent place where the guilty suffer the tortures of the damned"?

From Eschaton, we have this:

"I just want to see these [expletive] swinging from their heels in the public square," reads a recent comment from someone named Dave in a discussion about the Bush administration on a Web site called Eschaton.

DailyKos has gone so far as to turn off the google caching for their site, as well as other "history" collectors. This allows the owner to censor outrageous posts, not only from his guests, but from himself. For example, when the 4 contractors were beaten, killed, and hung in Fallujah, his first comments were that they deserved it. But since even the rabid elected democrats would have trouble with such statements, that comment was summarily deleted -- so when Reid appears at DailyKos, it doesn't look like he's supporting people even crazier than himself.

You can't really read these sites without a hearty stomach for crude, offensive language. In the post article, we find the following references:

"Laura Bush Talks; No One Gives a [expletive],"
...
"It was rather though[t]less of me to compare the most asinine, brutal, criminal, disgusting, enraging, felonious, gross, horrendous, incompetent, jaundiced, kleptocratic, lazy, malicious, nefarious, objectional, psychopathic, quarrelsome, repulsive, sanctimonious, treasonous, unfit, vindictive, wasteful, xenophobic, yahooish, zealotic piece of [expletive] inhabiting the White House and the planet to persons suffering with a neurobiological disorder."
...
Go [expletive] Yourself, Mrs. Cheney"
...
"Bush Must Be HIV Positive By Now (you can't [expletive] 500 million people and not get infected)."
...
"MAKE SOME [expletive] NOISE ABOUT DARFUR and you WILL be heard, and it WILL be addressed."
...
"George W. Bush is the anti-Midas. Everything he touches turns to [expletive]."
...
"I. Despise. These. [Expletive]!"
...
"I also wrote to my [expletive] congressman to get off his [expletive] [expletive] and do the right [expletive] thing."

Note that two of these comments were directed at the WIVES of the President and Vice President.

But maybe these are just fringe elements, and the mainstream democrats don't respond to this type of cheap dialog? Well, the Post continues about the main character in our drama, who decides to write a post about Darfur called "Wake the F*** Up":

She clicks the mouse, and "WAKE THE [expletive] UP" instantly appears on My Left Wing, where, at the moment, 57 people are signed on.

A few seconds later, to increase its chances for impact, she sends "WAKE THE [expletive] UP" to Daily Kos, where the number of viewers per hour is about 30,000.

Thirty-eight seconds later, she gets her first response.

"I'M AWAKE!!!!!!" it says

"I'm going to be proud of this," O'Connor says, as the responses keep building. Ten now. Twenty-five.
...
Nearing 50 now
...
Past 60 responses now,
...
Now, as the responses near 100, O'Connor has a cigarette.

Now, as they head toward 200,
...
"You know what?" O'Connor says. "I did a good thing today." And for a moment, anyway, she isn't angry at all.

If you try to get an account on DemocratUnderground, you may have trouble. If you make it on, and try to have an actual conversation about an issue, you will most likely be summarily dismissed. They don't much like people actually thinking over there.

Meanwhile, DailyKos is the biggest web site on the internet. As the Post says:

To what, effect, though? Do the hundreds of thousands of daily visitors to Daily Kos, who sign their comments with phrases such as "Anger is energy," accomplish anything other than talking among themselves? The founder of Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas, may have a wide enough reputation at this point to consult regularly with Democrats on Capitol Hill, but what about the heart and soul of Daily Kos, the other visitors, whose presence extends no further than what they read and write on the site?

It is hard to imagine this collection of what appear to be hate-filled illiterates is able to persuade the average person of anything, given that they present no facts, assert no arguments, apply no logic. When your entire communicative ability consists of being able to string 3 explitives together in a single sentence, one can only hope that the common folk are wise enough to turn away.

The Post article presents the entire discussion matter-of-factly, as if being angry and hate-filled and writing meaningless diatribes is simply an ordinary occurance. And maybe it is on left-wing sites, although I know of many small sites which are decidedly liberal but actually speak to issues (that they remain small simply proves the essense of this Post article -- screed sells).

Some on the left like to argue a symetry between these major sites and conservative sites such as FreeRepublic.com. But as a member and frequent poster to that site, I can tell you that FR has a very high level of content and political discourse, with only the occasional "starred-out" explitive. FR is in fact exactly what the internet COULD provide -- a site where people who have differing views on events can discuss, argue, and debate their opinions in a rational, logical way.

Update: Captain Ed (Captain's Quarters) has a take on this article in his post "The Fever Swamps, Exposed". Check it out.

Did Saddam actually HAVE WMD?

If there's one thing that seems "universally" accepted, it's that we were wrong about Saddam having WMD. While some accuse Bush of knowing this and lying about it, even those who trust Bush believe that the intelligence was simply wrong.

But could the truth be that we are wrong now? Could the intelligence have been correct? Could we simply not be able to find the WMD?

That may be the shocking revelation of the next few months, as thousands of boxes of records from Saddam's regime are translated, mostly by free-lance bloggers on their own time and dime. For some unfathomable reason (well not so unfathomable -- the records are about the past, and Bush has a remarkable laser focus on the future, even when the past could exonerate him) -- the administration did not see fit to translate these documents. Instead, they have simply released them to the public in the original language, leaving it to Arab-speaking literates to sift through the hundreds of thousands of pages.

So far, only a tiny fraction has been translated. But already there is solid evidence that Saddam was trying to hide something as late as 2002. (Note: there is also direct evidence that Saddam was trying to supply Iraqi air force personnel to Al Qaeda for attacks on America -- which would put to rest the "Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda" as well as the "Saddam was no threat" lies told by those who would rather depose Bush than protect our country from the real enemy).

I hope to chronicle these findings over the next few weeks, as I sift through them. Here is an example from a 2002 document that details the destruction of WMD records just prior to the return of the weapons inspectors (from document CMPC-2003-002284):

Translation of Page 3
In the Name of God the Merciful The Compassionate
Subject: Destruction
On Friday that coincides on 23/8/2002 were destroyed the primary archives for the Atomic Energy Commission according to the instructions issued regarding this and it was destroyed (burned) in the outside warehouses and it was carried on Compact Discs and the destruction operation was achieved by the presence of:
1. Mr. Director of Energy Security- Mr. Saher Nassif Jasem
2. The Representative of the National Monitoring Department; General Kamal Abed Mohamad
3. Mr. The Director of the Disarmament Section- Mr. Maatook Abed Al Satar
4. Mr. Director of Monitoring Section in the Organization- Mr. Hani Hassan Ahmad
And according to this the document was signed (Remark: The remaining of the documents that are related to the purchasing of the Nuclear Program and that is 22 steel boxes will be received from the Monitoring Department to be dealt with)Signatures…
Mr. Hani Hassan Ahmad, General Kamal Abed Mohamad, Mr. Maatook Abed Al Satar; Mr. Saher Nassif Jasem
23/8/2002 23/8/2002.
End of Translation of Page 3

The next page tells how other documents were hidden:

Translation of page 4
Subject: Receiving documents
The documents preserved by the National Monitoring Department were accounted for and received by Mr. Ayad Kihtan Talab, the representative of The Military Industrial Security Agency and its details are shown in the attached tables and its numbers (12) are twelve pages and in (9) nine cardboard boxes
The Representative of the National Monitoring Department.. Signature… General Kamal Abed Mohamad 17/6/2002
The Representative of the Intelligence Apparatus.. Signature… Hamood Awde Salem 17/6/2002
The Representative of the Industrial Military Security.. Signature.. Ayad Kihtan Talab 17/6/2002.
End of translation of page 4

On the following pages we find reference to chemical equipment:

Beginning of partial translation of Page 6
Box number 4 (Chemical-K)
1. Document folder of the Air Force Equipment in the Glorified Qadisya Saddam, correspondences regarding the Chemical Equipments (all assembled in a Red folder mark on it Very Important)
16. File regarding the examination of the Special Equipment
End of partial translation of page 6 and 7.

And what is "Special equipment"? Well, in other records translated for the trial of Saddam, we find that the chemical weapons used to gas the Kurds were referred to as "Special Equipment".
Interesting....

Vacationing

I'm down in Williamsburg. I'm on a computer in the lobby of my hotel. I try to look at my blog.

It's blocked by the anti-porn filter.

Strange. Very Strange.

At least TooConservative is still available. Apparently, my site is considered to have considerably more adult content than Vincent's.

The nice lady at the counter has offered to allow me to plug my laptop into their network, maybe I'll try that tomorrow night. Next time I'll have to bring my own wireless router.....

I'm bored, so I'm going to follow Chad Dotson in following Ken’s lead with what he calls the “Venerable Book Meme.” Here’s how it’s supposed to work:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 161.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

OK, I grabbed one book for the CC comments, then I grabbed the next book:

"It came to be called the 'neck verse'."

No way anybody's going to figure out that one.

A conversation about Brentswood.

In my previous post, I outlined the controversy surrounding the Brentswood Community project, and expressed my opinion on the subject.

As I mentioned, there are a group of committed republicans in the community who from time to time have conversations via e-mail on subjects of importance to the community. I learn a great deal from these discussions, and thought I'd try an experiment where I share the contents of those discussions with the blogger community.

I asked the participants for permission to place their words in this blog, and I present below the discussion from those who assented.

The discussion was started by an e-mail referencing the vote in the PWC convention for a resolution opposing the development, which included a link to a Sunday Washington Post article Millions for Roads Aside, Planners Oppose I-66 Project, by Nikita Stewart.

The basis for the discussion was this response by John Schneider:

Sent: Monday, April 03, 2006 8:25 AM
Subject: RE: Planners Oppose Brentswood Project

Thanks for the article. This is really important.

1. Developers promise the moon and deliver three quarters of a mud hole. They leave their rickety LLCs holding the bag near the end of any development, and their main corporations move on to the profitable side of other things. There isn't much in Brentswood that says that the road improvements would be completed BEFORE the development started.

2. Developers are usually pretty shortsightedly greedy when it comes to the market. They purchase (an issue with that, too) land and start grinding the wheels... It is a long term thing, and when the building economy booms, like it has since 2002, they go to town. Unfortunately they usually miss the downturn and their plans and studies are based on overly optimistic assumptions.

The market is flattening out very rapidly, and I see that it will start south very shortly. We have an abundant number of existing single family and town homes for sale and they are not moving. The developers are running sales incentives right and left. The inescapable conclusion is that they are building too much for the available cash to purchase. Interest rates are up nearly 2 points from where they were during the boom times.

Brentswood would add to the downward pressure. Actually it might accelerate the spiral. For many of the same reasons, this county went through a serious market contraction between 1994 and 1998. Inventories went through the roof and prices fell drastically. Developers went belly up, and left folks holding lots of bags, as sales died, contracts expired and banks closed on houses because the developers were in receivership. Interest rates are key, here and the Federal Reserve doesn't seem to be slowing its steady increases.

3. Everyone talks about roads... the roads are getting built. Too slowly and haphazardly for sure, but hey are getting built. No one says a thing about schools, though. Brentsville District High is projected to have 1400 students next year from what I hear, that is capacity for that plant. Battlefield is pretty much full, and too large to begin with. It is starting to show the negative social pathologies of a school that has too large a student population and it is only two years old. We don't just need elementary schools. We are going to need more high schools... Brentsville needs a new school building and facilities (face it guys it is screamingly old.) but at the danger of converting it from a high quality AA school to a moshpit AAA school.

We really don't need anymore retail space. There are empty store fronts from failed businesses all around here.

What we need is a development pause. We need to concentrate on getting the roads finished, and the schools built to handle the existing population. Some of our subdivisions are now larger than small cities, and maybe some smarter political re-alignments and consolidations are necessary, but what is not necessary is a glut of high density housing, retail storefronts, doctors offices and professional buildings masquerading as "industrial business".

Turn Brenstwood into a park... some nice green buffer between Bristow Run and Gainesville. Linton Hall road is threatening to look like Old Bridge Road, and so is 28 south of the airport. Let us not repeat the mistakes that were made in Woodbridge and continue to make... when we moved there in 1988 Westridge was the last development on Davis Ford - except for the Oaks back in the woods..

Orderly development is good. Insane expansion will lead us to be what most of us moved "out here" to escape. High density, crowded, expensive, congested near-urban Fairfax.

Responses will be listed in comments below.

Opposition to Brentswood Development

At the April 1st Prince William Republican Convention, one resolution called on the Prince William County Board of Supervisors to reject the "Brentswood Community" project. The resolution passed easily.

A Washington Post article the next day, Millions for Roads Aside, Planners Oppose I-66 Project, by Nikita Stewart, details the reason for opposition to the project:

The project by Brookfield Homes would create five times the maximum number of houses intended for the area under the county's Comprehensive Plan -- the master plan that guides Prince William's zoning decisions on housing, schools, stores and office space, according to a staff report on the proposal.
...
Supervisor John T. Stirrup Jr. (R-Gainesville) questioned whether Brookfield Homes would be able to move any faster than VDOT or would follow through on its promises.
...
According to the staff report, the Federal Highway Administration would not be likely to approve the entrance to I-66 proposed by Brookfield Homes because it would be too close to another Gainesville interchange. The staff report said traffic analyses performed by Brookfield Homes are unreliable
...
The company [Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas Inc. of Herndon] concluded that the county has an adequate supply of housing planned for 30 to 55 years and that Brookfield Homes would add too many houses, according to the staff report.
...
The consultant also found that Brookfield Homes wants to build 875,000 square feet of retail but that residents would need only 175,000 square feet to be served well. Also, the county's economic development plan calls for the addition of more high-tech office space and Brookfield Homes is not offering enough, according to the consultant.
...
The staff report, however, says that the 6,800 houses "could be easily sold" but questioned their overall impact on the county.
...
"Is this the right time to bring on a project of this magnitude with the gridlock in this area?" Stirrup asked.

The number one proponent of at least further study is Supervisor Wally Convington, who represents the Brentsville district where the project is located. Again from the article:

"The only reason we're looking at this proposal now is that it offered the transportation improvements," said Supervisor W.S. Covington III (R-Brentsville). "The argument is, 'Do you put your trust in VDOT?' "

It appears from the article that Covington may not trust VDOT or the county staff on this issue. He questions whether the staff report is reliable and wonders why a study was ordered without board approval. He thinks they were overreliant on the comprehensive plan, and is skeptical of the relationship between the staff and Parsons, asking "Did they manipulate the study?"

I can't speak to why Covington questions the staff work. But while I voted against the resolution at the PWC convention, having looked into the matter further I believe this development should be rejected, at least in its present form.

In fact, there appears to be a groundswell of oppposition. According to an April 4 TimesCommunity.com article 6,800 homes 'next door?' by Tara Slate Donaldson, the more people learn about this project, the more they object. The biggest problem is that many supporters believe the developer offered to pay for road improvements, when in fact the developer is merely lending the money in hopes of getting paid back later:

In exchange for approval, Brookfield would provide massive proffers, including more than $100 million in transportation improvements.

It was these concessions that have had the community seriously considering whether Brentswood may be a good deal for the county. Brookfield's big selling point -- that the company will pay for the reconstruction of the Gainesville interchange and widening of part of I-66 -- has been a special point of interest.
...
That's where Brookfield comes in. The company has agreed to essentially reconstruct the interchange itself, a proposal that has drawn a great deal of interest from the community
...
But on Thursday night, residents were not happy to hear that Brookfield wouldn't be paying for the entire reconstruction project, as many had previously believed.

As that piece of information sank in, much of the audience began laughing."So they're not paying for it," called out several members of the audience. "The majority of that project is being paid by VDOT," Utz responded. "By the taxpayers!" another man yelled. "Yes," said Utz. From that point on, the audience, which had previously seemed somewhat curious about the plans, became openly hostile toward the idea.

I was part of an e-mail exchange regarding the proposal, which I will repeat with permission of the participants in the succeeding thread.

MoveOn Targets Drake with misleading Ad.

The folks over at Virginia Virtucon caught this story over a week ago, but I decided to dig deeper, so I watched the video and did some research.

MoveOn.org has launched a multi-campaign TV ad blitz titled "Red-Handed", trying to tie certain republicans to perceived scandals.

For some reason they chose to attack Thelma Drake, the freshman Republican congresswoman from Virginia Beach, who ran for the seat vacated by Ed Schrock, who was driven from the race over stories that he was gay (thank's democrats -- party of tolerance indeed).

The ad is a cheezy piece, unlikely to draw attention. It is a classic guilt-by-association gambit, only without the association.

The central charge of the piece, if you want to call it a charge, is that Rep. Drake "accepted more than thirty thousand dollars from energy companies and she voted against bills that would have penalized those companies for price gouging". The fact sheet says the actual amount was $32,250.

Their fact-sheet referenced above refers us to a site PoliticalMoneyLine, which in a touch of irony has a story about Alan Mollohan and his ethical troubles, which I discussed here.

But the two pages of interest are the Drake 2004 and Drake 2006 pages. There is little detail here, but we find that in the 2 cycles, she received $20,000 in 2004 cycle, and $15,250 in 2006, for a total of $35,500, not $32500. But further, these are not just "energy companies", but all companies or individuals in the fields of Energy and Natural Resources". You have to pay money to get a breakdown here.

But you can go to OpenSecrets to get more information. They show over $20,000 for the 2006 cycle from this sector, which includes Electric Utilities, Mining, and Waste Management in addition to oil and gas companies. Looking at her biggest contributions by INDUSTRY, the only one on this list is Mining, at $6000. So it is clear she didn't get $30,000 from energy companies.

Further, a Virginia Representative DID make the top 20 in recipients of money from this industry, but it isn't Thelma, it is Rick Boucher, Democrat, at over $82,000 (probably also not mostly from energy companies, he got 12,000 from mining companies).

They likewise mischaracterize the votes she supposedly took to support these energy companies: "Instead of protecting us, Congresswoman Drake has been caught red-handed, protecting oil company profits while we pay more at the pump."

Energy companies do not have excessive profits. As a percentage of their revenue, the energy sector is about average. Because of mergers, and the sheer volume of sales, the absolute dollar value of profits for the companies looks very large indeed. But they are hardly "windfall profits", or unreasonable.

To illustrate, in 2005 Microsoft earned $12 billion on sales of about $40 billion, for a return on investment of over 25 percent. ExxonMobil, in the last quarter, earned $11 billion, but had to sell over $99 billion to do so, a return of less than 10 percent. If Microsoft was able to sell as much in year as ExxonMobil ($370 billion), their earnings for the year would be over $100 BILLION dollars, compared to the $36 billion ExxonMobil earned.

But you won't see any Democrats complaining about how Microsof is gouging the consumers of operating systems and computer software, or talking about making Microsoft pay extra taxes because of their "obscene profits". It probably doesn't hurt that Bill Gates and Microsoft are both strong Democrat contributers.

So, I am at a loss as to why MoveOn chose to target Delegate Drake and to falsely imply she has been corrupted somehow in the little over a year she has served in the House. I hope her constituents will not be swayed by this MoveOn hit piece.

Much Ado About

nothing.

"I don't know why you guys wasted a trip down here."

Indeed.

Culture Of Corruption could haunt Democrats

The national democrats have for some time been more enamored with slogans than governance. A typical example is their two-year push on the "culture of corruption", while at the same time refusing to have any democrats show up for the ethics committee, whose job it is to police the house for possible corruption.

The ethics committee story is a long one, which I'll summarize. The republicans saw how the last ethics committee got tied up with investigations that never ended, because if half the committee (divided evenly between dems and reps) wouldn't vote to dismiss, the case continued. This allowed dems to charge that republicans were "under investigation" when in fact all the investigating was done, nothing was found, but the dems simply wouldn't vote on it.

So they republicans put together common-sense changes meant to ensure the process would continue, so a house member wouldn't be caught in limbo.

In response, the democrats refused to meet. They said they really wanted to have the ethics committee running, but they simply could not accept the rules. So the republicans took the unprecedented step of re-opening the rules, and voting to put them back to the way they were, simply to get the committee meeting.

Because while the committee was frozen, the democrats could keep making baseless charges, and there was no way to clear someone through the committee. Plus, there were several democrats who had pending complaints but until the committee met they couldn't be formally filed.

But then, after insisting that the rules change would fix things, the democrats moved the bar. They still have not allowed the committee to meet.

So, while the democrats are claiming that the house is as corrupt as ever, they have prevented the one committee which could to something about it from meeting for over a year.

Now we find that the Democrat leader on the ethics panel is under investigation for a series of questionable actions, including earmarks for charity organizations tied to donors to his campaign, and an amazing rise in his personal fortune over the past 5 years. A formal complaint has been filed against Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV). Among the charges:

For the period 1996 through 2004, NLPC found that the Financial Disclosure Reports:
• repeatedly failed to disclose real estate assets which public records showed were owned by Mollohan and his wife
• repeatedly failed to disclose financial assets which public records showed were owned by Mollohan and his wife
• repeatedly failed to disclose major loans which were used in the acquisition of financial assets which were not being disclosed
• failed to disclose interests in companies which owned major assets
• grossly undervalued assets, giving purported valuations which were a small fraction of the assets’ true value

They further note a remarkable change in his financial situation:

NLPC’s investigation began when its review of the Financial Disclosure Reports of House Appropriations Committee members showed a sharp increase in Rep. Mollohan’s assets from 2000 to 2004. A closer examination revealed that Mollohan and his wife had more than $2,000,000 in real estate investments with a former staffer, Laura Kuhns, and her husband. Kuhns ran a nonprofit, Vandalia Heritage Foundation, which had received more than $28 million in appropriations earmarks with Mollohan’s help from 2000 through 2005. She was also on the board of other nonprofit groups which had received over $100 million in earmarks of federal funds during the same period with Mollohan’s help.

Mollohan’s 2000 Financial Disclosure Report listed his income-producing assets as being worth from $179,012 to $562,000 with liabilities of $170,000 to $465,000. Among the liabilities was Visa credit card debt listed as $45,003 to $150,000.

Just four years later, Mollohan’s 2004 Financial Disclosure Report showed him with assets worth $6,313,025 to $24,947,000 offset by liabilities in the $3,665,011 to $13,500,000 range. It also showed him owning an oceanfront beach house on Bald Head Island, NC which was valued at $1,000,000 to $5,000,000. NLPC found that Mollohan was renting the beach house during the summer of 2005 for $11,975 a week.

They summarize the problem:

“The real issue here is not whether Mollohan systematically was hiding financial and real estate assets and grossly misrepresenting their value. He was. The real issue is why he was hiding those assets. Mollohan is the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct – popularly known as the ethics committee. He has served on that committee, which has jurisdiction over the filing of Financial Disclosure Reports, for 9 years (1985 to 1991 and then 2003 to present). No one in the House has more familiarity with the disclosure laws than he does. Any kind of excuse that he did not know how to fill out his financial disclosure reports – for a 9 year period – does not pass the straight face test.”

“The bottom line is Mollohan got very wealthy in a four year period. His account of his finances during this period is demonstrably false. The fact that he earmarked well over $100 million in tax dollars to groups associated with his business partner is about as big a red flag as one can imagine.”

The Republicans have called for him to step down pending the outcome of the investigation.

Now, he has not been found guilty of anything. But to contrast, Tom DeLay, who according to the democrats is the epitome of the culture of corruption, has next to NO assets listed on his disclosure form.

Here's Mollohan's Disclosure Forms

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will have none of it. In a prepared release, she said:

"Speaker Hastert and his Republican cohorts are responsible for the most corrupt Congress in history and the American people are paying the price at the gas pump, at the pharmacy, and with record high deficits.

"Republicans destroyed the ethics process in the House to protect their cronies Cunningham, DeLay, Ney, and other Members implicated in the Abramoff scandal - to name only a few.

But given that Cunningham is in jail, and DeLay is resigning, it's hard to take her claims seriously that the republicans are "protecting" anyone. Instead, it is increasingly clear that the democrats are protecting members of their own party in order to try to sell the false notion that corruption is a uniquely republican invention.

Oh, and there's more. According to Roll Call:

Rep. Alan Mollohan (W.Va.), the top Democrat on the House ethics committee, has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and gifts to a family foundation from MZM Inc. and another firm that did business with MZM.

That's the same MZM involved in the Duke Cunningham scandal.

Which might explain why the democrats are blocking the ethics committee meetings, and why the watchdog group that first exposted Cunningham could not get a single democrat to file an ethics complaint about the activities that led to his conviction.

The ethics committee system in the house is broken -- by democrats who want to use ethics as an issue in the campaign, rather than actually DO anything about it.

Blog Introspection 3

I've got a couple of big things I'm working on to post. One is an e-mail conversation that took place over the past week regarding a Brentsville District development project. There is a group of dedicated republicans who from time to time get into mass e-mail discussions about important matters.

I got the idea that their discussion deserved a wider audience. But instead I thought I'd post it here :->

Anyway, it's a bit of work as I'm going to add each e-mail as a comment. My hope is that when I invite them all to look, they will find the format helpful, and might use my blog for future discussions.


Anyway, after that I've got some prior commitments, and there's spring break with the kids, so I might not be able to post for a week or so -- although I'm sure going to try.

Immigration Bill fails in Senate

I'm getting a bit tired of talking immigration all the time. So it is with some glee that I note that the Senate couldn't find a way to continue to a vote on ANY of the three immigration bills that are currently floating around.

The first was the original bill from the Judiciary Committee, a horrid bill that needs to die a slow and painful death, and likely has seen its last breath. This was the bill that couldn't get a cloture vote a couple of days ago, and was seen as a dead end.

The second was a "compromise" bill pushed by the democrats with several republicans including Senator Mel Martinez and our favorite compromiser, John McCain, who once again seems to have gotten too close and is trapped in the gravitational pull of Ted Kennedy.

This was the bill that everybody was doing back-flips over yesterday. Except for a minor problem. The republicans were happy because they knew they could pass amendments to make this compromise palatable; the democrats were happy because they could vote for the bill as-is and later blame republicans for it.

So the Democrats refused to allow a vote on any amendment. Over two days they debated whether an amendment could be in order. Reid argued that it was simply a "filibuster by amendment", but the republicans had offered a 1-hour limit for debate, and frankly they could have finished 20 or so amendments in the time it took them to argue over whether there was time to do amendments.

Without the right to even speak to an amendment, the republicans weren't about to allow an end to the debate. Cloture failed miserably -- you need 60 votes to stop debate, and the proponents only got 38 votes. 5 democrats joined the republicans, making this a bipartisan call for allowing the amendment process to go on. The democrats tried to blame the republicans for this, but nobody is smoking what they are offering.

The third bill exposes the democrat's true nature. Frist took the border security portion of the Senate judiciary committee bill, the one all the democrats said was a perfect bill, and offered it. No republican was against this part of the bill, and it was part of a bill all the democrats supported, so we should have had a 100-0 vote.

Instead, every democrat voted AGAINST securing our borders. So did quite a few republicans -- this bill failed as miserably as the other two bills.

This is a mixed blessing. We are lucky to have been saved from the senate immigration bill -- I'll be writing about that bill next week so I won't talk too much more about it here.

But we failed to do anything to defend our borders, or to stop the wave of illegal immigration. We need to put an end to it, because we are fast losing our majority in our own country.

Bush is squarely in the middle on this one. He says he's against amnesty, but supported the senate bill. He wants to secure the borders but didn't push for Frist's bill. He supports a temporary worker program, which is probably a good thing, but hasn't done a good job of explaining it, or explaining how it differs from the senate's pay 200 and get out of jail bill.

The house bill had some bad stuff in it, which I will discuss another day. But I am counting on the house to protect us from the senate -- it's supposed to be the other way around, isn't it?

Allen's Website is Up

NBA? or NFL?

I recieved this via-email. The source will go un-named. So here it is:


NBA OR NFL?

36 have been accused of spousal abuse, 7 have been arrested for fraud, 19 have been accused of writing bad checks, 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses, 3 have done time for assault, 71, repeat 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit, 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges, 8 have been arrested for shoplifting, 21 currently are defendants in lawsuits, and 84 have been arrested for drunk driving within the last year. Can you guess which organization this is? NBA? NFL?Give up? Scroll down
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Neither. It's the 535 members of the United States Congress. The same group who crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep US in line.
You gotta pass this one on!


I of course, did not pass this on. Well, what do you think about this?
Don't forget ro leave a comment,
"you gotta pass this one on!"

Democrats - Still Stuck on Stupid

Even when the Democrats are handed a gift like the Tom DeLay resignation, they turn it into an albatross around their necks. How else to interpret the sentiment of the article Democrats won’t allow DeLay to go so quickly found on the MSNBC web site?

Even the headline itself reeks of absurdity. After months of calling for DeLay's removal from office, now that he's resigning they don't want to let him go?

Of course, headlines are just headlines. It's what's in the article that shows how utterly devoid of ideas the national democrats are at this time. Here's Tom DeLay. He's indicted but not convicted, he's not under active investigation for any other ethics or legal issues. He has close associates under investigation or pleading guilty, which does reflect badly on him.

But he has resigned. He's gone. He has decided that, for whatever reason, his constituents deserve an election not dominated by the issues that surround him, issues most suredly generated by the democrats themselves.

But the Democrats have prepared an entire campaign around the "Tom DeLay is bad" meme. They can't afford to have him gone. If the standard is you resign if a member of your campaign staff pleads guilty to a crime, Senator Schumer should be on his way out now, since two of his staff members stole a republican candidate's social security number and used it to get his credit report.

So they refuse to let him go:

Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., chuckled with delight as he discussed DeLay’s political demise Tuesday afternoon.
...
Democrats were reluctant to let DeLay go out the door without kicking him several more times.
...
"Tom DeLay is a chicken," proclaimed an e-mail from Jim Dean, brother of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and head of Democracy for America, the political action group that Dean founded.

We didn't think DeLay would ‘cut and run’ like he did. If he did nothing wrong — as he claims — then Tom DeLay shouldn't be afraid of a re-election campaign in a district he drew for himself,” Dean said.

DeLay is not being run out of congress -- at this time he is guilty of nothing except being a thorn in the side of democrats. I can't imagine republicans being this gleeful over a democrat's resignation, at least not so publicly.

And they could at least get the facts right. Tom Delay did not draw his district "for himself". In fact, the re-drawn Texas districts took solidly republican areas OUT of Tom DeLay's district, making it less safe.

Further, it is the democrats that have injected national politics and national money into a local race just to take out Tom DeLay, while Tom has graciously dropped out to spare his constituents a meaningless (for them) election. One would hope now the people of his district could have an election based on local issues. But the democrat was picked for one reason -- to make hay out of DeLay's trouble.

This reminds me of the 2002 New Jersey senate race. The Republican, Forrester, spent months scraping together money for ad buys blasting the much-better-funded democrat Torricelli for being corrupt. It worked, as he took a commanding lead in the polls. Then, when it was too close to the election to be ALLOWED to replace someone on the ballot, and way to late to change the ad buys or change the campaign, Toricelli was forced out of the race by the national democrats.

The went to court to override the laws of New Jersey and put Lautenberg on the ballot. He won handily, as all people knew about Forrester was that he wasn't corrupt like Torricelli.

But of course DeLay has resigned well before the deadlines, giving his district plenty of time to pick a new candidate and have a real election about real issues. It's hard to imagine the democrats allowing THAT to happen.

It would be nice to have an election based on two competing visions for the future. But since the Democrat vision for the future is little more than them in charge and Bush impeached, they have to keep trying to divert attention from their lack of anything important to accomplish.

So instead, they apparently now intend to run against a man who will be nothing more than a common citizen by the time the november elections come about.

They might as well make this a referendum on me.

Maryland 78, Duke 75, OT, For the Championship.

The Maryland women's basketball team just won the NCAA championship by a score of 78-75 over Duke, after going into halftime down by 13.

They didn't give up. At the half, their coach told the team that Duke was CELEBRATING.


Let's remember that when the Democrats brag about poll numbers and how the tide is turning in November. While they are celebrating, we will be working.

Sorry

Ok guys, sorry I haven't been on for a while, I've just been busy with school. So I'll probably start up again on Friday, if I can. I'm sure a lot of kids will try to protest again, they only seem to protest on Fridays. Well, talk to ya guys later!

Tom DeLay going out with a Bang

It appears that Tom DeLay feels empowered by his decision to resign from the house. In response to a question today by a reporter, he said that if no other member of congress will act, that he will file an Ethics Complaint against Cynthia McKinney, the democrat representative from Georgia who hit a Capitol Police officer who was manning a building security post.

It was an incident in 1998 involving Tom Delay's staff that prompted the increased security for te capitol which includes the checkpoint that McKinney blew past last week. From Human Events Online blog The Right Angle:

The subject of McKinney came up after DeLay recounted a fond memory he had of a Capitol Police officer killed in the line of duty. When asked about his best and worst days as a lawmaker, he said his best day was the GOP’s sweep in 1994.

The worst day, he recalled, was July 24, 1998, when Capitol Police Detective John Gibson was shot to death by Russell Weston Jr. in DeLay’s office. Fellow officer Jacob “J.J.” Chestnut was also killed that day protecting the congressman’s staff from the gunman.

The episode prompted DeLay to erect a tribute to Gibson on his office wall. He told reporters that a plaque he keeps in his office with the words “This Could Be the Day” serves as a reminder of Gibson, who had discussed its meaning with DeLay only two days before he was killed.

In case you have missed this story, here's the scoop from the April 4 Washington Times article Capitol Police seek McKinney's arrest :

The prosecution request stems from an incident last week in which Mrs. McKinney was stopped for bypassing a metal detector at the entrance to one of the congressional office buildings.

Members of Congress are not required to go through the metal detectors, but officers did not recognize her because she recently had changed her hairdo and was not wearing the member's pin that identifies her as a member of Congress. Once stopped, Mrs. McKinney swatted the officer with her cellular phone, according to police reports.

McKinney could also be brought before the Ethics Committee because of misuse of government funds. From the WSB-TV, Atlanta Ga. website: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/8343403/detail.html:

Rep. Cynthia McKinney admits that she broke government rules by spending money to fly a celebrity to Atlanta.
...
Using the money to pay for Hayes' airline ticket and hotel expenses is a violation of strict congressional rules. Those rules state that taxpayer money can only be used for "travel by Members, Members' employees and vendors. A vendor is an employee of a private company that provides maintenance and support for equipment and software..."

Watchdog groups call taxpayer-funded celebrity travel a blatant waste of taxpayer money.

She has offered to pay back the money, but that shouldn't absolve her of punishment for a clear ethical violation. She certainly must have known that flying a celebrity on our money for her own purposes was unethical.

The house ethics process is broken. The democrats have shut it down so they can complain about ethics without having to deal with actually proving anything. There's also the historic reluctance of sitting members to file charges against each other, since frankly a lot of what they ALL do could be turned into an ethics probe.

But with DeLay resigning in two months, he is free to file as many complaints as he wants. What will the democrats do, threaten to retaliate against other house members? The know Hastert has no more control over DeLay since he can't punish him more than the resignation does. If the Dems try to retaliate anyway, they will risk an all-out war.

It could be a fun couple of months.

It's OUR war, not Bush's War.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

DEAR CONGRESSMAN MURTHA...

By JOHN A. LUCAS

I SAW YOU ON TV recently. With all the venom and bile you could muster, you pronounced, "This is George Bush's war."

I understand fully what you were saying. You were telling the country and - more import- antly - our enemies, that this is not your war, that you do not support it.

More than that, you were saying that it is not your party's war. And, you were telling Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden and their jihadist allies that it is not America's war: "This is George Bush's war!"

You are wrong, congressman. Dead wrong. You are wrong on three levels: institutional, historical and moral.

On the institutional level, Congress voted to authorize this war. Virtually every prominent Democratic politician spoke in favor of its objectives - Hillary and Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Madeleine Albright and Joe Lieberman, to name just a few.

Many now conveniently ignore or seek to rationalize their vote. A few courageously stand by it.
But, it is not Congress' war, either. When Congress voted to authorize the war and the commander-in-chief gave the order to initiate it, it became our war. Ours: yours, mine, the country's. Our war, sir, not George Bush's.

You are wrong, too, about history - past and future. You were referring, of course, to the Iraq "war." However, history tells us that this is one battle in a larger war against radical, fascist Islamic fundamentalists who seek to conquer.

Do you know your history, sir?

Do you listen to what our enemies say?

Listen, they will tell you: They seek to restore Islamic rule and sharia law over that portion of the world that they regard as historically "theirs."

They mean not only the Mideast, but northern Africa, central Asia - and even Spain.
Then, they seek to expand that rule by imposing the same regime on any country where there is a significant Muslim population, anytime. They mean Europe, Nigeria - keep your eye on Nigeria, congressman, it is already happening in that most populous country of Africa - and, yes, the United States.

Do you deny any of these things? On what basis, sir?
They rightfully identify the United States as the sole power capable of standing in their way, of marshaling opposition to them.

Calling this battle "George Bush's war" won't blunt their strategy. No, it supports it.

Have you forgotten the other Islamic fascists' battles against us, indeed against the world?

Do you remember the airplane hijackings, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the USS Cole, the bombing of a barracks at a U.S. air base in Spain, bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the World Trade Center in 1993, in 2001?

They all are part of this war that George Bush did not start.

Yet they are not even the beginning of this war, congressman. This war has been going on for centuries, and it is not going to end if we retreat now, as you advocate.

Finally, you are wrong on the moral level.

Let me explain, lest you think that you have a monopoly on morality.

My son is now preparing for his second combat deployment in this battle. He will tell you that it is his war.

In his first combat tour, my son wrote: "I truly see this as a battle between the forces of good and evil. How can anyone not? Good brings hope to a whole people that have never known any and evil cuts the heads off innocent civilians on TV."

THAT SORT OF sums up the morality that our soldiers see. He and his comrades would like to think that they are not fighting this alone, that this is not just their and George Bush's war.
They would like to think that they fight for this country, including you, congressman.

It is their war, it is my war, and it is this country's war.

My son's life, and the lives of all the men and women fighting this battle are too precious to be endangered by politicians who give aid and comfort to our enemy in order to score rhetorical political points.

If you will not desist, I can only hope that responsible members of your party will repudiate your dangerous rhetoric and condemn your assistance to our enemies.

John A. Lucas, a lawyer in Knoxville, Tenn., is a West Point graduate and was an infantry platoon leader in Vietnam, where he earned four Bronze Stars

Lets all go to Mexico (unattributed from e-mail)

I got this from a post from an e-mail, so I do not know the source, although it was tagged as follows: Got this from a friend who's son just got back from Iraq. Funny, though sobering.

--------------------------

Dear President Bush:

I'm about to plan a little trip with my family and extended family, and I would like to ask you to assist me.

I'm going to walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and I need to make a few arrangements. I know you can help with this.

I plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws. I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do here.

So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Vicente Fox, that I'm on my way over? Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:

1. Free medical care for my entire family.

2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.

3. All government forms need to be printed in English.

4. I want my kids to be taught by English-speaking teachers.

5. Schools need to include classes on American culture and history.

6. I want my kids to see the American flag flying on the top of the flag pole at their school with the Mexican flag flying lower down.

7. Please plan to feed my kids at school for both breakfast and lunch.

8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to government services.

9. I do not plan to have any car insurance, and I won't make any effort to learn local traffic laws.

10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from Pres. Fox to leave me alone, please be sure that all police officers speak English.

11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my house top, put flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.

12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, and don't enforce any labor laws or tax laws.

13. Please tell all the people in the country to be extremely nice and never say a critical word about me, or about the strain I might place on the economy.

14. Eventually I want to be able to vote and have all election materials and notices sent to me in English with Spanish as a second language..

I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all the people who come to the U.S. from Mexico.

I am sure that Pres. Fox won't mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely. However, if he gives you any trouble, just invite him to go quail hunting with your V.P.

Teddy Roosevelt.

Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1919.

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...

We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...

and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt 1919

Acheivement. What's really important?

Somewhere in George Mason University, there is a student from a disadvantaged background. Maybe a broken home, from a poor neighborhood, or with a learning disability. But that student is exceeding all expectations.

They are thriving in the college atmosphere, mastering subjects nobody gave them a chance to even understand. They are stepping into leadership positions in prestigious organizations, defying the predictions of those who were certain they would amount to nothing in life.

Surely we would wish to honor students like this, who have overcome obstacles to acheive more than could every be imagined for them. We would write articles about them, take their pictures, maybe even make a movie about them.

Well, I don't know. I haven't read those articles, or seen the pictures, or heard of that movie.

But this is the reception being given to the George Mason basketball team. Truly they did better this year than anybody predicted. They deserve credit for their hard work and acheivement.

But still. They are a basketball team. They play a game. They have talent, and got lucky, and worked hard, but it's just play. I cheered for them, and cheer them. Having taken graduate classes at GMU, I think of them as "my team". But it's just basketball. It's entertainment.

But the blogs went crazy. People praising these boys left and right. You'd think this was the reason colleges existed. Tom Davis bragged about rushing off with other politicians to see the game -- but would he have done so to watch an underprivileged student participating in the state debate finals?

Would we all be so excited that a team from GMU was representing the state in a nationwide science competition?

I know, it's just basketball, it's a great story, we aren't trying to make a grand statement, it was just something nice to talk about for a change. And now I've ruined it, I guess.

But I worry that we lose sight of what's really important, and in the process we send the wrong message to the youth of america, especially those who don't have all the advantages. Maybe they need most of all to see that true academic acheivement is honored by society -- and I don't know how they could get that message, because we aren't sending it.

T-Shirts Two, revenge of the ACLU

I can't begin to express the distress I feel when I'm on the same side as the ACLU :->

Anyway, the Potomac news has a follow-up to the story last week on the elementary school t-shirt incident I first mentioned in Why do we ban T-shirts from school? The new article, titled Parents, ALCU want apology over T-shirts, follows the story through monday.

The headline suggests they just want an apology, and I think an apology is in order. However, lawyers are involved, so the fear is that an apology would lead to a lawsuit claiming admission of guilt. And the article suggests that may be the case:

The ACLU contends that the principal overstepped his bounds to limit the students' freedom of expression, and is asking for an apology to both students and parents.

The parents say it is too late for an apology.

Later the story says the parents are getting a lawyer.

I object to making this into a lawsuit. I agree with the parents that, given the facts as they have been presented to us (always a danger -- there could well be additional information we are not privy to) the principal overreacted, and should say so. But I don't think the error rises to the level of offense worthy of a lawsuit.

Parents are warned about shirts with personal messages. These are not the first students to be held out of class for language that was deemed "offensive" or that would detract from the school experience. You put messages on, you take your chances. I think we are too restrictive in our policies, but I agree that schools should have some leeway to control messages which are forced on other students by virtue of the mandatory attendance policies of schools.

In this particular case, the message to me seemed to be within the bounds of civil discourse. While I believe that overemphasis on cultural differences, especially when accompanied by foreign language, harms our country, I also believe people should be permitted to express pride in their heritage.

If a shirt that says "I'm proud to be an American" could be seen as offensive by people who complain that it suggests they should be ashamed because they are not American. But that is a sorry excuse for taking away the rights of students to express their pride. We should instead teach our children to tolerate other's opinions (not give in to them, but simply tolerate them). We can't do that if we ban the messages from our public schools.

So I say give the apology, and lets drop the lawsuits. Because as much as I dislike people enforcing their views of 'offensive' on others, it is nothing compared to the loathing I have for people who, when offended, think it requires government intervention and the exchange of large sums of money.

Take An American Flag To Work Day - April 6

In response to the immigration protestors waving foreign flags, the display of a Mexican flag over an upside-down American flag at a public school in California, and the banning of American flags in several schools as "provacative", a movement is afoot to declare April 6, 2006 as "Take an American Flag to Work Day".

The folks over at FreeRepublic.com are discussing the idea in this post: SHOW YOUR COLORS.

The nuts and bolts:

How it works is simple: Proudly carry an American flag with you wherever you are in public. Small parade style flags on sticks would work best for those who commute by bus or subway and those who walk to work. Carry it around with you when you go out for lunch and when you leave work.

Wear red, white and blue patriotic attire. Fly the American flag at your home. Fly an American flag from your car antenna. Tape an American flag in your car window. The goal is to have Old Glory be given the prominence it deserves and to remind everyone--politicians, illegal aliens and their enablers--that the American flag comes first in this country.

Folks have been clamoring for a march to respond to the pro-illegal alien marches. This is a way to do that without having to take time off from work and family responsibilities and still take a stand in public.

Whatever position you hold in the immigration bill battle in congress, I should hope we could all agree that we are first of all Americans, and that the American flag is an appropriate symbol of our allegiance to this country.

10 second movie review

Oh, who am I kidding. I couldn't spend 10 seconds explaining how I bought my ticket, much less on an entire movie review.

Anyway, the kids and I went to see "The Shaggy Dog" at the Manassas Cinemas over on Mathis avenue last Friday.

Once I got over the concept of spontaneous molecular and physiological transformation, this was a really good movie, with some great laughs. It was certainly appropriate for the entire family.

It had all the politically-correct themes. Evil drug company, good but misunderstood animal rights activists, a clueless father putting his work above his family, a boy forced to play football when he wants to do drama, etc..

But I don't really care about politics when I see a good comedy. And this was a good comedy. It got the audience involved (at one point a good number cheered an event on screen, always a good sign).

After the movie, we popped over to Nathan's for some ice cream cones, as the weather was quite warm and we were hungry, having eschewed the popcorn because the lines were long (as this was the opening weekend for Ice Age 2).

If you've never been to Nathan's, I urge you to check it out. It's on Mathis right next to the miniature golf course.

I wish I could figure out how to get paid for all these company plugs.....

Why do we ban T-shirts from school?

In yet another immigration-related story, Saturday's Potomac News contained the story Students excluded over T-shirts. I wish I could find the picture online that was in the paper. I'll let the story describe the T-shirts:

Anderson Urrutia, 8, and Joseph Soriano, 5, went to school Friday wearing white T-shirts stating "Latinos Forever" written across the front in Spanish, and "100% Latinos" on the back. The shirts were made by Rosa Granados, a 16-year-old student at Woodbridge Senior High School and Anderson's sister and Joseph's aunt.

First, it is clear that these shirts COULD offend someone. Just substitute "White" for "Latino" and you'll see how. So, if we are going to ban every message that could possibly offend anybody, the shirts had to go.

However, I hate this policy of 'forbidding offense'. I think we are raising a generation which will have no coping skills to survive in a real world where people offend. If your reaction to any offense is to go find an authority to punish or remove that offense, what will you do when you are all grown up and someone offends you? If the authorities rightly laugh at you, you may well take matters into your own hands.

Don't laugh, we increasingly see people using violence against offensive speech, and even against perceived offensive acts. Road rage is but one example -- when people are killing each other in cars because someone flashed the finger at another driver, we really have a problem.

However, it is clear that these shirts were part of the demonstrations taking place over immigration policy. As such, I suppose they could be seen as inciting students to continue those demonstrations which have been disruptive to the learning process. Now, to my mind the shirts would not be inciteful in that way. But I'm not personally and professionally responsible for the lives of hundreds of children at a school. If I were, I may well err on the side of caution.

According to the article, the students were taken to the office where they waited 3 hours. I don't understand why the Principal didn't simply have the students turn the shirts inside out, or loan them some pennys from gym class, or some extra shirts the school certainly has for "accidents" like children getting sick.

Forcing the parents to drive into school seems like an overreaction to me, given only the information in the paper. However, I will note that there are often circumstances not publicly known. So I will only say that, given the facts as I know them, I would not have called the parents or taken the children out of class for a first offense. I'm not going to say that for certain the principal was wrong.

But I do think we need to chill out a little on the "offensive message" policies. If a message is positive (certainly being proud of your heritage is a positive thing), we should not ban it just because others are offended by that pride.

Are the Protest achieving anything?

Apparently, the answer is yes. On the national scene, from Newsmax we learn that Senator John McCain Praises Pro-illegal Protests. He urges them to continue, saying "The more debate, the more demonstrations, the more likely we will prevail."

Excuse me, but I should think that a serious debate on immigration policy in the "cooling saucer" of the Senate should not be so easily swayed by demonstrators marching with signs calling for the deportation of all Europeans, at least not in the way McCain suggests.

Here at home, Prince William County school Superintendent Steven Walts is sending mixed messages. According to the Saturday Potomac News, and as heard by my own ears twice on my answering machine, Walts has recorded a personal message telling the students to stay in school or face consequences. From the article:

The statement refers to the immigration protests as "disruptions," and outlines penalties ranging from zeros on assignments, to suspension and "even more serious penalties."

"Leaving school without permission or in any way disrupting the learning environment will not be tolerated. Students who do so will be excluded from school, pending meetings with parents to decide appropriate disciplinary measures," the statement reads.

However, in the next paragraphs, we see a different message from Mr. Walts:

Walts attended the protest and addressed students with a megaphone.

"I came to here to experience, listen and learn," he said. "I know this issue is very complex, and I respect and understand that there are deep feelings involved." Walts urged the students to figure out the best way to get their message across - outside of school hours.

"Write your congressmen, or protest where Congress can see you," he said.

He did not echo the disciplinary guidelines laid out in the press release. "They already know about those," he said when questioned. He also said that he would not consider further action in light of the protest and the announcement of another protest at Freedom High School on April 7.

We already see that the student protests have reached the eyes of Congress.

Further, if the students wanted to get the attention of our school officials, they succeeded. Walts all but encouraged them to continue, by telling the protesters that their protest caused him to come out and listen and learn from them. This is the wrong message to be sending to students who are breaking the rules and causing disruptions.

As I have said many times, we can't reward people for misbehavior. Whether it is cutting in line to get cheap computers, illegally entering the country to take jobs from people who want to come here legally, or walking out during the school day in order to get an audience with the Superindent of schools, when bad acts are rewarded, more bad acts are sure to follow.

Does Mr. Walts not see that because of his honoring the protestors with his presence and his words, they are now emboldened to further acts? And what is the point of calling all parents with "stern warnings" if the Superindendent has told the paper that he plans no further action, even for a rally that has already been announced but not yet held?

Students have the same right to petition our government as the rest of us. And whether they are informed or ignorant, they have a right to say what they believe, and ask for what they want.

But during school hours, the students are under the authority of the school system. And just as your children have no right to go out without your permission, they have no right to leave school in the middle of the day to protest.

Especially given the fact that this protest has nothing to do with the schools, they could easily schedule their protests for after-school hours. In fact, such a protest would draw much more attention, as it would show a real dedication to their cause.

As it is, it looks like school kids doing what they always do, finding excuses to skip out of school.

The true irony is that the schools in our county are open to every child who shows up at the door, whether they have proper documentation or not. We spend millions on spanish-speaking counsellors and interpreters, on dual-language notices, and ESL classes. I see nothing in our schools which even hints at a discriminatory policy for immigrants of either the legal or illegal variety.

But it is the schools that suffer. And worse, as ConservaThing two points out, the other students at school to learn also suffer the consequences, when they have done nothing.

Kopko Wins at uneventful PWC Republican Convention

Update 4/2: Jim Young has a commentary about the election in his post Kopko Wins, which I believe is insightful.
Update 4/2: Changed "Weems" to "Woodbridge".

I just returned from the post-election party for Tom Kopko, after attending the Prince William County Republican Party convention (All members of the committee were invited to the party).

This is a report I mostly typed during the meeting, with some post-convention editing.

The meeting started relatively promptly at around 10:15 am, after an orderly check-in process. 177 people eligible showed up for the meeting:

• Brentsville - 63
• Coles - 20
• Dumfries - 17
• Gainesville - 35
• Neabsco - 11
• Occoquan - 26
• Woodbridge - 5
  

It took a while for the Credentials committee to verify all the registrations, so we were treated to speeches by several republican officeholders, including a rousing speech by Tom Davis that was well-received by all in attendance.

The 10th district delegate election was uneventful. The reading of the names was waived, and the entire delegation was approved. Heidi Stirrup gave a good speech outlining why she felt she should be chosen. I'll have more details on that speech tomorrow night (I have to finish this and fly to a cub scout camping trip).

When the names for the PWC committee membership were presented, a motion to waive the reading was made, but Jim Young objected. A show of hands found the convention split closely enough that a counting by district would have been necessary, and since that would take longer than simply reading the names, the names were read.

This was a good thing, as it was found that the people who had not paid were incorrectly left off the list. Some may remember that happened two years ago and led to some bad feelings at the next regular meeting.

The committee membership vote was therefore tabled.

This led to the nominating speeches for the county chairmanship. Tom Kopko went first (determined by coin flip, don't know who won or lost the toss). Tom was nominated by Karen Ulrich, who is his pick for the VP, and then there were speeches by Corey Stewart and Jeff Frederick. I'll post some details of their speeches later if I get the time.

Tom finally took the stage with his family, and his wife made a short speech. Then Tom finished up with a couple minutes re-iterating his campaign pledges and asking for our votes. He spoke for about 1 1/2 minutes.

Then it was Brian's turn. Brian was nominated by Delegate Scott Lingamfelter, who appealed for continuity and experience going into the next election cycle. Brian followed him, and gave about a 6 1/2 minute speech.

Desi Arnaiz then explained the voting procedure, and we were off to the cafeteria to stand in line to vote.

When we were called back to the room, Brian Murphy took the podium and announced that he had lost by 40 votes. That was the only official mention of the election result -- I'm told Brian intended to call for a vote by acclaimation, but did not (I believe just because he forgot), but that was why the elections committee did not come to announce the results.

Tom then took the podium. He thanked Brian for a clean campaign, and for his years of service as chairman of the committee, I may post more about the speeches later.

There was then a motion to reconsider the 10th district vote, simply to get the names read because there was questions about whether anybody was missing.

We then got back to the PWC committee membership. After the list was corrected, no objection was heard to the list.

The 10th district list also had some problems, so it was read. Again an error was found that was easily corrected, and the revised list passed easily.

Last on the agenda was 5 resolutions.
Resolutions 1,3, and 4 were put together and voted on en-blanc:

• 1. PARENTAL CHILD CARING RIGHTS
• 4. OPPOSING NEW TAXES
• 5. SUPPORT OF THE MARRIAGE AMENDMENT

These passed easily.

We had discussions on the other two, but both passed.

Resolution 2 "INCREASES IN REAL ESTATE PROPERTY TAXES" urged the county to limit the total rate of increase in property bills to an average of the rate of inflation for the Baltimore/Washington Region. We had some confusion on the floor as to what the resolution did, one thinking that we couldn’t change assessments.

Some did vote no, but it overwhelming passed.

Resolution 3 dealt with a development in Brentsville: "CONCERNING PROPOSED BRENTSWOOD DEVELOPMENT PROJECT". Some didn’t want to tell their supervisors how to vote. A lot of people wanted to talk about this one. I even rose in opposition to the amendment because I didn’t think it was a "republican" issue. I probably don’t support the development, but don’t see why a republican committee should be taking a position on the issue.

Anyway, the vote was only slighly closer than the others, passing easily.

We then adjourned.

I have pictures and audio, and even bad movies of the two candidate speeches (not the supporter speeches). I have to go to a camping trip and will be offline until tomorrow afternoon, then I will try to find a place to post the stuff and reference it here.

UPDATE: Virginia Virtucon has their initial post up here, and TooConservative's is here.