December 2012

Two emails coming from Del. David Ramadan recently have me screaming to myself, “Will someone please primary this guy?!”

In the first. he beats his chest claiming that the State Corporation Commission “ordered” the owners of the Greenway to respond to his complaint, when, if you read the order, the SCC simply allowed the owners to respond. Not a big misstatement, but an exaggeration nonetheless.

The second, however, is a whopper. In that email, Ramadan writes how “an anonymous donor” has pledge to match 20% of any campaign contributions received by midnight tonight.  Of course, there’s really no such thing as an “anonymous” donor given election reporting laws.  So just what is he selling here?

All this just reminds me of his disgusting, disturbing tactics during the last campaign in 2011, and it makes me sick to my stomach when I think about another round.  Keep in mind that, because he’s now the incumbent, he gets to choose the method of nomination: primary, convention or canvass.   It will be interesting to where Ramadan thinks his chances are better.  It also will be interesting to see who, if anyone, steps up to unseat this first termer who, in virtually all circles, has failed to impress.

UPDATED 12/31 at 4:51 p.m.  Looks like Ramadan isn’t the only one pulling the “anonymous donor” ploy.  Jim LeMunyon sent a similar email touting a 20% match.

I’ve been struggling to find a good New Year’s resolution.  It’s really a tough thing to do when you’re perfect in every way.

Let me think.  Hmmm.  Nope.  I got nothing.

Yesterday, Leesburg Today reported on the arrest of a Loudoun County deputy sheriff, the second arrest of a LC deputy this year.  The first was a DUI arrest of an undercover officer and this most recent arrest was on assault charges.

To the naïve, this statistic may suggest that the Sheriff’s Office is lacking discipline under Sheriff Chapman.  A more sophisticated view, in my opinion, is that these arrests in fact evidence a greater degree of accountability and leadership within the office.  Look, there are bad actors in every field.  To think that the police (most of whom do not even have a college degree) are somehow above any human shortcomings are simply kidding themselves.  If there’s any reason there haven’t been more arrests it’s because the police simply look the other way when it’s one of their own.

Good to see that’s not happening here.  At least not all the time.

The national reply to the recalcitrant Republican members of the House of Representatives has been curious. “Tea Partiers,” whatever that means and whoever they are, were once simply written off as half-crazy partisan rabble-trousers, but now that we’re on the edge of the fiscal cliff (again) the derision has turned to disdain. They’re now viewed by both the left and the right as something more than just the garden variety political wingut, something more sinister.  Almost evil. Pointy-eared, hunch-backed gremlins fiendishly intent on destroying America and wrecking the middle class.

Why, you say?  Simple answer:  they have had the audacity to ignore party bosses, think for themselves and vote just the way they said they would when they were campaigning.  Yes, independent thought, my friends.  It’s something unknown in Washington since Mr. Smith (and even that was fiction).  Heeding George Washington’s advice to put aside party, these members have completely disrupted the process, changed the paradigm, mixed things up.  Whatever you want to call it, these representatives in continuing to oppose raising the debt ceiling effectively send a very simple message that every elected representative in any capacity should hear:

Think for yourself.

In remembrance of the moment when humanity was granted a mulligan: Regardless of faith, I hope each of you is able to find a scintilla of peace in the holiday.

Reports in the comments section are that several of the more “progressive” commentators in this forum have decided not to return and are engaged in some sort of discussion with themselves about what they perceive as terrible thoughts that have been posted here, I apologize for not being more precise as I don’t have time to visit that other site and see what they are talking about.

This is not the first time that TC has been boycotted by one group or another. An interesting tactic since nobody here makes any money on anything. It has historically been the statist right who decry us and refuse to come here. Those on the right who think government should enforce their vision of the world. When they get criticized here, they become offended and disappear to their echo chambers to discuss how we are RINO’s and how TC is controlled by liberals.

Then we express the conservative views we have. Expressions of support for some Republicans and a non-PC perspective on guns results in the far left to declare this blog controlled by the extreme right and endless name calling.

So what does it mean?

(more…)

At precisely 7:27 a.m., January 1, 2013, the sun will rise.  At noon, the cheesey Taxslayer.com Bowl will kickoff.  At about 3:00 p.m, depending on the hangover, the Lloyd family Christmas tree will be dragged unceremoniously to the curb along with some remaining tinsel and whatever ornaments we missed.  At 4.56 p.m., the sun will set, and, with the following dawn, the little nukes will be back to school.

All that will happen whether there’s a budget deal or not.  I promise the world will not end.

If that’s the case, then, why not just go with Plan A?  Yes, sequestration is strong medicine and a bad result, but I’d far rather suffer the consequences of automatic budget cuts and tax hikes than pass along any an ever-growing debt with no prospect of controlling it or the reckless behavior that created it.  Frankly, that control needs to happen sometime, and there’s no better time than the present.  Truly, no deal is better than a bad deal.  In the long run, the Republic will be better off.

Believe it or not, no one’s actually falling off a cliff.

Thank you , MWAA, for clearing the peasants from my road.

Tolls increase on the Dulles Toll Road beginning January 1, 2013, raising the rate at the main toll plaza to $1.75 and $1.00 at the ramps.  No whining, people!  If you don’t like the tolls, then buy that darn road through eminent domain.

As I understand it, the increased tolls are to cover the cost of  serving espresso and croissants at the toll booths.  Delicious!

The orange hatted buffoon???  The bloated attention whore self proclaimed “Jew Who Saved Christmas”???  So many of the rest of them, including the morons who populate the local political committees???  Scary monsters.  And super creeps.  I’m not running scared, just staying way from the stupefying stench of it all.  Crank it up!

For three days now, I’ve done my best to avoid coverage of the tragedy in Newtown.  Stories like this, as horrific as they are, sadly are becoming all too familiar.  In fact, the coverage is almost formulaic:

Photos of survivors running from the school

Interviews with concerned parents

Press conferences with the police identifying victims and the murderer

School pictures of the murdered kids

Pictures of the murderer, along with stories about how he was a loner in need of psychological help

Then the eulogies

Then, finally, the tiny coffins and grieving parents behind them

Also formulaic is the response from politicians and pundits.  Clamor for more gun control, clamor for better treatment of mentally ill.  In the end, it doesn’t ease anyone’s suffering.  It doesn’t prevent future suffering.

Indeed, the cold, hard reality, as painful as it may be to admit in times like these, is this

• Guns are not going to go away no matter how tough the laws are
• Crazy people are not going away no matter how great the treatment programs are
• Mass killings are not going away no matter how stringent the gun control laws are and no matter how great our mental health programs are.  If some crazy wants to get into a school and kill people, he’s going to succeed.
• Worst of all, and most difficult:  this wasn’t the first, it won’t be the last, and, someday somewhere, there will be a worse one.

What we have learned, however, is that programs at the school worked – to a certain extent.  Split second decisions to lock down the school and hide the kids were effective, assuming the reports we’ve heard are true.  In other words, the only things that really have been proven to work in terms of meaningful protection (or prevention) is found at the school itself.  With that simple fact, I offer this simple, yet admittedly incomplete, recommendation: allow principals to have loaded shotguns at the schools, train them in their use, and prepare them for the worst.  When seconds count, it is, sadly, about the only thing that could make any meaningful difference.   Yes, explore our mental health programs and explore ways to ensure the imbalanced don’t get access to weapons, but, in the end, there’s really only one way to end (not prevent) these murderous rampages.

Just like 9/11 made air marshals out of all of us, so, too, should this tragedy make every teacher a sheriff and every principal a marksman.