LuAnn Bennett for Congress
I hear a lot of people saying they wish this election season was over.
As a person who has spent a large part of my life concerned about matters political and legal, I understand the electoral weariness, especially this campaign season.
But how this election is done, how it’s finished, is going to be critically important to the nation and our communities, so, unless we prefer to regret the results at our leisure, we have to pay attention now.
One of my political heroes, Robert Kennedy, was fond of saying when the going gets tough, the tough get going. This is a tough election and we need to be tougher.
I’ve already decried the Republican presidential nominee as abusive, intolerant, especially abusive of women, and unfit for office.
We must, however, also consider who should represent us in Congress.
Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, the incumbent, is somewhat of a puzzle to me.
I’ve watched Barbara appear at many local events, especially in Western Loudoun, passing out balloons bearing her name, posting those oversized signs that should be banned, and succeeding at remaining as content free of any controversy as one possibly can, offering poll tested nostrums that offend as few voters as is politically possible.
Barbara is a prominent member of a do-nothing Congress directed by her Republican Caucus, led by Speaker Paul Ryan.
The Republican controlled Congress couldn’t move its lumbering “deliberative” self only days ago to grant emergency funds to Flint, Michigan where the health and safety of women and children remain at grave risk.
Barbara insists that the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court should be left vacant until after the election, guaranteeing that the Supreme Court may do nothing, the Republican’s current mantra, in those pending critical constitutional cases where the court is expected to split 4-4, leaving major conflicts in our court’s application of the law unresolved.
Barbara has fought to conceal past efforts to lie this nation into war.
Barbara was a top level aide to Attorney General John Ashcroft at the Justice Department while Ashcroft was in charge of the investigation of former White House VP Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
Mr. Libby was investigated for unlawfully blowing the cover on clandestine CIA Secret Agent Valerie Plame, risking “agency” assets around the world, as a media reprisal against Ms. Plame’s husband for his special report finding that no uranium cake went from Africa to Iraq for nuclear fuel or weapons. Ms. Plame’s husband thus put the lie to the White House rationale to invade Iraq.
The CIA was furious, and demanded a real investigation, not some fast once-over by then AG Ashcroft. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed as a Special Prosecutor.
Ms. Comstock left the Justice Department four days after Fitzgerald’s appointment, and she raised a substantial treasury of cold hard cash to defend Scooter Libby as the legal defense fund’s committee chair, against the investigation begun while she was the Justice Department’s Director of the Office of Public Affairs. Libby was rightly indicted, sentenced, and was disbarred. Ms. Comstock suffers from ethical astigmatism and overzealous partisan politics at the expense of our confidential assets.
Further, Ms. Comstock supports policies that abuse and offend other women.
When Barbara was in the General Assembly, she voted for a bill to require women to undergo transvaginal ultrasounds before having an abortion..
In May 2015, Barbara voted in the U.S. Congress to limit abortions to 20 weeks and no later, trying to limit Roe (and Roe’s progeny, particularly Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey), which permits abortions after 20 weeks.
Barbara refused funds to screen women for breast cancer because the Planned Parenthood Federation of America performs that function and would receive some of the funds for cancer screenings.
Barbara’s mentor, Congressman Frank Wolf, endorsed Trump this past August. That appeared to be a gambit so that the public might think Barbara, his protege, was also for Trump, without having her say so, preferring the ambiguity to satisfy those for Trump.
Barbara didn’t outright oppose Trump until he was in free fall. She didn’t speak up sooner despite Trump’s blatant abuse of women because the top of the ticket usually pulls along down ticket candidates. But not this year. Trump’s persistently offensive buffoonery has congressional Republicans wondering if their party will survive Trump. Nor does it help Barbara’s confidence that Trump is fleeing the state with his electoral tail between his legs.
If you want someone who will work for you and can work with the next Administration, then vote for LuAnn Bennett for the U.S. Congress. Prefer leadership for a change.