From AlterNet, via Oliver Willis – this guy really wants to be county treasurer:
Laugh riot!!
EDIT: Apparently the viral nature of the video prompted someone to pull it off of YouTube. Sorry – it was a classic.
Here’s a link to it on Huffington Post.
Christmas displays (yes); staggered terms (no); pay raises for the BOS and perhaps to go to a full-time board (come back with more info); give school overage back to the teachers to cover the furlough days (no).
And that’s just a start.
I’m home sick today, so I’ve been watching the whole thing. I am fascinated.
President Obama is scheduled today to unveil a new economic package, part of which will be to make permanent the Research & Development Tax Credit that expired at the end of last year. This tax credit was instituted in President Reagan’s Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, has expired 8 times, and been extended 13 times, most recently in 2008 by President Bush.
The tax credit, a one-for-one write down of qualified R & D expenses, is hailed by businesses as an incentive for companies to create jobs in the U.S. and remain competitive in the global economy. So much so that Tech America runs an ongoing calculator on its’ website that shows how much the lapsed tax credit is costing our economy in lost jobs and revenue. The numbers are simply astounding.
We know where Jeff Barnett stands on the issue of R & D and job creation. He believes that the key to creating jobs in this economy is working with “technological innovators”, just the sort of entities that can benefit from a R & D tax credit.
We also know how our current incumbent congressman stands with regard to R & D. Oh, he talks big on his House website about it:
I have been a longtime champion of job creation through export promotion, domestic manufacturing, and high-tech research and development. Ninety-five percent of the world’s customers live outside the U.S. These markets provide an opportunity to grow American businesses and create American jobs.
Unfortunately, his actions speak louder than his words. When the R & D tax credit came up for reauthorization in 2008 (HR 6049), our 10th District representative voted AGAINST reauthorization.
Republicans have generally been behind the R & D tax credit since its introduction in 1981, as have Democrats. It’s a common sense method to spur innovation, keep businesses competitive in a global economy, and create jobs, since many of the labor costs can be recouped through the credit. But judging by the reactions of the “Party of NO”, it seems like they will be in lock-step opposition to the reauthorization and/or permanence of the credit. Because Republicans in Congress and the Senate, along with our do-nothing and hypocritical representative, are all about playing politics right now, now in helping the economy.
Jeff Barnett is below petty politics. He truly desires to keep the country moving forward by investing in the people and companies that are the lifeblood of the economy.
I’m done.
It’s taking up too much of my energy. I’m done being angry at Republicans/Conservatives/Tea-baggers.
I read Lowell’s story yesterday morning on Blue Virginia about the woman in Maryland who was verbally abused on the highway by an angry Obama-hater. I thought to myself how I would handle such a situation. I have a short temper, and I’m prone to argument, but I decided that, for the sake of my family, I’m taking a new tack.
I’m going to laugh.I’m going to laugh at juvenile imbeciles who go on local newspaper comment boards, and, in a manner not germane to the issues being discussed, go on a taunting spree that is on a 12 year-old’s level, and “nanny-nanny-boo-boo” Democrats (or the “boys up the river”), just to make their point.
I’m going to laugh at the good ol’ boy I occasionally see driving his pick-up truck on the Dulles Toll Road with all the anti-Obama, anti-Democratic, pro-Palin bumper stickers.
I’m going to laugh at the people who think they are informed because they watch Fox News 24/7, and take the word of people like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity as gospel.
I’m going to laugh at people who think the President is a Muslim (with all the evidence against it) or wasn’t born in this country (with all the evidence supporting it). And at the people who think that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are to blame for companies making money hand over fist but not hiring or giving their workers raises. And at people who want to repeal the health care reform bill because they think that allowing people to get care for pre-existing conditions, or for allowing people to join pools to purchase health care represents a “government takeover of health care”.
I’m going to laugh at the low-information nut-cases who wish to deny Americans their First Amendment rights granted by the Constitution simply because they aren’t Christians. And who are against building a “Ground Zero Mosque”, even though it’s not at Ground Zero and it’s not a mosque.
I have to laugh, because as hard as we try, it’s difficult to get through to the 60% of American voters who refuse to educate themselves fully on the issues and use logic and reason when doing so. Really, though, it’s more like 40%, because you have the 20% of rock-heads who are solidly in the right-wing tin foil hat brigade.
Am I calling people names? You betcha. Am I stooping to their level? Yup. But you know what?
I really don’t care.
Indications are showing that it’s possibly going to be bad news for Democrats in November, depending on which polls you read and trust. Them’s the breaks, I guess. I’m still going to work hard to get Jeff Barnett elected as our new congressman. I’m going to work hard in 2007 to get Senator Mark Herring re-elected and the ineffective Tag Greason defeated. I’m going to work hard to have a Democrat win the Supervisors seat in Broad Run next year, too.
But I’m not going to let the loud mouths bother me anymore. They’re not worth my time.
Hahaha.
The Washington Post has a new poll out this morning that has some interesting data. In it, the initial questioning of all adults seem to favor Democrats. The difference comes when the questions are asked of only ‘likely voters’ – then the data skews heavily towards Republicans.
What can we derive from this? Of course, it’s that the Republicans (and right-leaning independents) are more motivated to vote this election cycle. For whatever reason, Democrats (and left-leaning independents) don’t seem like they’re going to come out in the magnitude that they did back n 2008, and that doesn’t bode well for us.
But there is a positive in all of this – there are 2 months to go before Election Day. If we as progressives can persuade enough uninterested Democrats and like-thinking independents to get out there on Election Day, maybe we can turn the GOP tidal wave into just a 3-foot swell.
We have people on our side, but we need to convince them that not voting in this election is equal to a vote for Republicans, which means:
• An attack on Social Security, possibly looking at privatization, and the potential for huge losses;
• Extensions of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, which will increase the national debt by $1 trillion;
• An attempt to roll back the Health Care Reform Act, which, among other things, allows people with pre-existing conditions to not be rejected for care;
• A return to the days of not-so-long-ago, where, in the 6 years from 2000-2006, Republicans racked up trillions upon trillions of dollars in unfunded spending; turned a $268 billion budget surplus into a $800 billion deficit; and didn’t create one new net job;
• Continued assaults on the civil rights of gays and American Muslims.
There still is time, if we can get out the vote. Voting for a common-sense progressive like Jeff Barnett would be the first step.
I’m voting tea party because the links told me to.
There’s nothing like a good fabricated controversy for political advantage to get people talking, and sometimes they say things they really shouldn’t have.
The Times-Mirror article posted below by Dave is growing a nice comment thread. I want to call attention to a comment made by Tom Seeman, former Precinct Ops chair for the Loudoun County Republican Committee. He was so pleased with himself for crowing about how Democrats are going to take a bath over this issue that he forgot to not say this:
Whether you like it or not the majority of citizens are religious. Most conservatives and liberals who are Christians are ok with religious displays.
Here’s what he just did. He admitted that he is A-OK with “most” citizens, or even Christian citizens, getting to decide what should be displayed on the courthouse lawn and enforcing their will via the ballot box. If this “majority” can force government to open the courthouse to ALL displays, it can just as easily demand of government that only certain displays are allowed. That is what we are talking about here; the constitutional principle that some rights belong to everyone and are not subject to popular vote, period – and Tom is ready to flush it if it gets his party some votes. Once started down that road, his comment could just as easily be this:
Whether you like it or not the majority of citizens are religious. Most conservatives and liberals who are Christians are offended by that display.
These discussions also open a window into just what happens when a cultural majority is allowed to define “appropriate” expression. It’s illustrated in numerous comments on this and previous threads that make no distinction between messages designed to mock the demand for religious displays, and minority religious displays themselves. For example, this commenter predicts a bizarre, embarrassing circus “[w]hen the Christian nativity is surrounded by Wiccans, Pagans, Druids, Jim Jones/David Koresh wannabes, Star Wars, etc…” In fact, there are practitioners of Wicca and other earth-based faith traditions in Loudoun, and the thoughtless presumption that a Wiccan or Pagan display would by definition be the equivalent of mocking Christianity strikes me as pretty insulting. Obviously ideas about what falls within the boundaries of legitimate expression are wildly different, including even some current loud voices claiming that Islam isn’t a real religion and should be exempt from First Amendment protections.
Given the ease with which people dismiss the beliefs of others as a joke or an abomination, who am I or anyone else to decide that there is nothing of spiritual value in Pastafarianism or the Star Wars narrative? Everybody naturally thinks that their own “common sense” is a good enough guide for this job, and that anyone who experiences it differently is just wrong. In other words, there is a reason that religious liberty for everyone is explicitly included in our Bill of Rights.
Adding to the irony here is the fact that those insisting on the right to their own choice of religious display based on “tradition” would, under different circumstances, insist that every opposing ideological or evidence-based position (environmentalism, feminism, secular humanism, the made-up term “Darwinism”) should be treated the same as a religion; they want this so that their own religious beliefs will be on an equal footing in education with science.
If truthiness like Tom Seeman’s continues to float to the surface, this should at least be entertaining. I think – although it’s hard to know for sure these days – that the Twas The Night Before Christmas poem is a parody; but a parody of which side?
Public input session – Tuesday, September 7, 7:00 pm
1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg.
You can call in advance to sign up at 703.777.0204 or 703.771.5072.
The folks who insist that the First Amendment allows them to display “traditional” religious symbols on the courthouse lawn are planning a repeat of the heated public input session of last holiday season. So, I suppose, are the equally insistent anti-display advocates, who have already snapped up at least three of the ten currently permitted display sites.
I think the inclination among progressive people is to not give too much attention to stunts and manufactured controversies like this. It doesn’t seem like something that should be taken seriously. There comes a point, though, at which our silence is perceived as consent. A situation in which book burnings and violence occur has reached that point, and our local controversy is developing in the context of such a national climate. A local blogger has been maintaining an online petition demanding that our government exclusively “Keep Christmas in Leesburg,” and here are a couple of the more disturbing comments that accompany the signatures:
I do not like the smell of curry therefor if we are unable to have a Christmas Tree and a Nativity Scene then get rid of your curry!
Freedom of religion is a right of every citizen this is not the middle east. If a nativity scene or christmas tree offends you, go home.
Notice how the facts don’t matter, as if people of other faiths and cultures are the ones responsible for the issue being on the agenda. This is a poisonous atmosphere, and it’s being encouraged by those politicians who do better at the polls when their constituencies are motivated by fear and loathing of the “other.”I suspect that a lot of people in Loudoun and elsewhere just feel a bit resentful of things not continuing to be “the way they’ve always been,” and it seems reasonable to them that as the majority religious tradition they should be able to have that. Add some well-placed demagoguery to that sentiment, and you can get a range of things, from a white suburban Christian mom claiming to know from the courthouse issue “what religious persecution feels like” (trust me, Ma’am, you don’t) to a book burning fueled by anti-Muslim bigotry, to violence. I have to call attention to this comical bit of pretense, though, buried in an angry post promising to “ferret out” those Loudoun County supervisors who don’t bend to the will of “the majority” on the courthouse issue.
This is really a striking display of either ignorance or outright lying on the part of this blogger, the same one mentioned above. If she valued facts over fabrication she would know that the supervisor who demanded that the holiday display policy be amended to require that the Board regularly revisit the policy, and the supervisor generating most of the false ‘war on Christmas’ propaganda are one and the same person. After all, one can’t put on a very dramatic ‘war on Christmas’ performance without media interest and without an enemy to engage. It had to be arranged, and it was.
If reasonable people show up and say what needs to be said, the media will be able to report something like this: A group of residents largely organized by one of their colleagues called the Board of Supervisors anti-Christian tyrants, and threatened them with defeat in 2011 if they “vote against Christmas.” Other speakers said that they see claims of bias against Christians as a nonissue, since all religions must be treated equally under the policy. They pointed to evidence that those claiming to be victims of anti-Christian discrimination don’t want minority viewpoints represented, and dismissed the “war on Christmas” narrative as a political stunt.
Although the judges’ recommendation makes a good case for excluding the courthouse grounds as a site, whether the board should vote to allow all displays or none on county property is a matter on which people can reasonably disagree. What our supervisors really need to hear from us, regardless of our opinions about the display policy, is that we want them to make it clear that one group is not entitled to special rights or special treatment by virtue of being “the majority.” That’s not what our Constitution is for.
Related posts:
Solving the holiday display impasse
‘Tis the season for cheap political grandstanding
Debates, Distractions and Religious Freedom
From today’s Loudoun Times Mirror:
Loudoun County’s highest ranking judicial officials have asked supervisors to ban public displays from the courthouse grounds, saying the current policy could impede on the daily functions of the courtrooms.
In an Aug. 31 letter to the board, judges from all of Loudoun’s courts asked supervisors to find a more suitable place for the displays to continue.
“We appreciate the Board’s interest in fashioning a policy that permits diverse individuals and groups to erect displays celebrating their beliefs, history, and traditions in a publicly owned place, and hope and believe they can be accommodated in an appropriate location within the County ownership. But we believe the courthouse grounds should be a symbol of the rule of law and a testament to the beauty and history of the County and its people,” the letter reads.
A sound, rational opinion.
Last week, the eastbound interchange linking the Loudoun County Parkway with Route 7 was completely opened. Great news for commuters, except that there was still a traffic light just prior to the Route 28 South on-ramp.
Imagine my surprise yesterday afternoon as I was driving from Leesburg to my son’s school in Sterling and found, to my delight, that the aforementioned traffic signal at Richfield Drive/George Washington Blvd. had been completely removed and the crossover blocked. So now, except for 3 remaining traffic signals, at Belmont Ridge Road, Ashburn Village Blvd., and Lexington Drive, there is practically a free-flow of traffic from Battlefield Parkway in Leesburg to Route 28 in Ashburn.
The intersections at Belmont Ridge and Ashburn Village will probably be there for some time, as they are slated to be converted into interchanges with no traffic light, but there is no funding currently in place to do so. But the light at Lexington is vexing. It would be impossible to make it an interchange, with its’ proximity to Ashburn Village Blvd., but you also just can’t block it off. Blue Mount Nursery is served with that interchange, and one would think that it would hurt their business if that light were removed.
Or would it?Here’s a possible solution – if the traffic light at Lexington Drive were removed, couldn’t eastbound drivers who wish to patronize Blue Mount Nursery simply drive the half mile or so to the Loudoun County Parkway interchange, cross over Route 7, and head westbound to make a right into Blue Mount? Surely that can’t take any longer than waiting for a left-turn signal at Lexington Drive, would it? What it would do is keep a freer flow of traffic both ways. The number of drivers inconvenienced by this, relative to the volume of drivers who drive Route 7, would be minimal.
There is also the issue of westbound drivers making the left on to Lexington to get to their homes and offices in the Ashbrook Commons area of Ashburn. Again, driving the quarter-mile or so to the light at Ashburn Village Blvd., and either making a U-turn and heading east to a right on Lexington or accessing Ashbrook Commons from Ashburn Village Blvd. would also keep traffic moving. The inconvenience factor would be slightly higher, but (I would assume) probably not much.
And there is already precedent for this, as eastbound drivers who seek access to the Holiday Inn on Route 7 West in Leesburg have to utilize the interchange at River Creek Parkway, as do golfers coming from the east who wish to play at Goose Creek Golf Club.
What we do know, though, is that we currently don’t have the funding to modify any of the existing interchanges, so we need innovative solutions to keep traffic flowing and keep congestion down to a minimum.