Archive for April, 2010
JCFR to McDonnell: “Divisive effort to revisit sectarian public prayer at state police events…creates unwelcoming environment…[for] religious minorities”
Another week, another controversy has erupted for Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA). As the Washington Post reported yesterday, McDonnell made the decision to “quietly” reverse “a policy banning Virginia State Police troopers from referring to Jesus Christ in public prayers.”
For those of us in the Fredericksburg-region, you may recall the 2005 controversy surrounding City Councilman Hashmel Turner’s. In addition to being on the Council, he is also an ordained minister and part-time pastor at a local church. He filed suit in 2005, after the City Council implemented a policy requiring that all legislative prayers be nondenominational. He insisted that this violated his First Amendment rights and that he must close his prayers in the “name of Jesus Christ.”
The United States Fourth Circuit of Appeals eventually ruled that since the “prayers at issue here are government speech, we hold that Fredericksburg’s prayer policy does not violate Turner’s Free Speech and Free Exercise rights.” This ultimately resulted in police chaplains being instructed, in 2008, to offer only nondenominational prayers at any department-sanctioned public event. This had been the standing policy, until McDonnell “quietly” reversed this decision recently.
Virginia Legislators have stood behind this policy, since 2008, and defeated several bills over the years to legislatively change this policy.
The Jewish Community Federation of Richmond has responded to this controversy by sending a letter to McDonnell, blasting the prayer policy change.
It leads us toward unnecessary religious clashes, demeans our Commonwealth’s Jeffersonian principles, and creates an unwelcoming environment for the Commonwealth’s Jewish citizens and other religious minorities. A final concern is the likelihood that revisiting this guidance would ultimately lead to litigation costly to our Commonwealth.
In the letter, Fredericksburg Rabbi Devorah Lynn sums things up best when commenting on this issue, “When you are asked to speak in public for a group of people with different religious practices you need to think not of who you are praying to but who you are praying for.”
McDonnell once again proves that he is more interested on pushing his radical social agenda than on focusing on critical issues facing the Commonwealth. This has become a disturbing pattern with him. He continues to move Virginia backwards, essentially slamming the door shut on creating a more welcoming environment for all in favor of pushing a divisive social agenda. He seems more interested in spending time in the courtroom than the boardroom. Priorities Bob, Priorities.
Stewart on the Lost iPhone Police Raid: “If you want to break down someone’s door, why don’t you start with AT&T, for G-d sakes?”
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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The story goes something like this: a guy walks into a bar and loses a prototype of Apple’s newest 4G iPhone, slated for release in June, and Gizmodo pays $5K for the device and publishes a huge story about it. What follows next is a police raid of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s house, which, on the surface, appears to have violated journalistic shield laws in California. Although, there are some questions on whether these laws extend to journalists who purchase stolen or missing property. And, it also raises a serious question for bloggers in general. Are bloggers considered journalists, under the law, and thus protected by shield laws?
Stewart recently weighed in on the story, ripping Apple over the debacle. My favorite quote from him was when he said, “If you want to break down someone’s door, why don’t you start with AT&T, for G-d sakes? They make your amazing phone unusable as a phone!” I think he may be on to something here (snark)…
Stafford County BOS Chairman Reveals True Intention on Holdback Funds
At a recent meeting of the Stafford County Board of Supervisors, Chairman Mark Dudenhefer (R-Garrisonville) made a stunning statement. He suggested that Republicans could look to make further cuts in the adopted FY’11 by withholding a percentage of county funds (a.k.a. holdback funds).
With the 7 percent holdback, they will have an opportunity to actually affect that budget by impacting that holdback of funds.
He made this statement in reference to Supervisor Susan Stimpson’s (R-Falmouth) statement that she was going to vote against the budget, since she wanted even deeper cuts. He suggested that this was still possible, even after passage, by not appropriating a portion of the holdback funds.
This is in sharp contrast to prior board precedent with regards to the purpose of holdback funds. The intent of holding back a percentage of funds appropriated to the county government and schools has been to avoid the situation where expected revenue is revised downward at the mid-year and it no longer supports the same level of budget expenditures. To me, it certainly makes good fiscal sense to hold back a certain percentage of funds, pending a mid-year review, although I would have required more justification on why 7 percent; however, I am deeply opposed to using this holdback as a way to affect adopted budgets outside of the normal budget process. This smells of politics at its worse.
This also presents significant problems for county government and the school system. They are essentially operating, based on their adopted budgets. If funds are cut surreptitiously, this will create a huge budget nightmare. If Stafford Republicans wanted to address specific budget items, they should have done it within the constraints of the normal budget process. Dude, say it isn’t so?!
If all of that wasn’t bad enough, Stafford Republicans, in approving the FY’11 budget, also voted to withhold the reappropriation of educational federal stimulus funds – pending accounting reports verifying the exact amount of unspent funds in FY’10. The fact is that Stafford Republicans were already provided this information by the school system. You see the information they were already provided doesn’t fit within their preconceived notions. They want to claim that this money was local money and not federal stimulus money, so that they can further cut the school budget by arguing that if they didn’t spend this money last year than they don’t need it this year.
As I previously mentioned, the school system froze expending federal stimulus funds in FY’10, during the FY’11 budget formulation process, to protect against a looming budget cliff that they identified due to significant declines in state and local revenues. The local decline in revenues were not only because of the struggling economy, but was actually exacerbated by Stafford Republicans fiscal irresponsibility.
By withholding these federal stimulus dollars from the school system, Stafford Republicans are potentially jeopardizing continuing a recent step increase given to teachers and other school employees into the next school year. Why you ask? The federal stimulus dollars were included as part of the instructional budget for next year. This instructional budget includes the large majority of employee salaries. If Stafford Republicans were not to reappropriate the $11 million or so of federal stimulus, not only would this raise be in jeopardy, but also significant teacher layoffs would be necessary.
It’s past time that Stafford Republicans stop playing political games with our teachers and children as their pawns! Enough is enough already.
In Defense of the Tea Party Movement…
Dale Robertson, founder of TeaParty.org
Who said this? Glenn Beck? Laura Ingraham? (answer at bottom)
Most Tea Partiers believe that we in America have the right to preserve our heritage, language, and culture, just as every nation has that human right. The vast majority of Tea Party activists oppose affirmative action and diversity, which are nothing more than programs of racist discrimination against white people. The vast majority of Tea Party enthusiasts despise Hollywood and the mass media.
You know, the unelected media bosses have far more power than any senator or congressman, and are far more alien to America than the British were at the time of the American Revolution. At least the British were of our own, Christian cultural heritage, while the non-Christian ethno-religious minority who dominates Hollywood sees itself as very distinct from the 98 percent of the rest of us.
Tea Party activists are true populists who see the powers that control international finance and the Federal Reserve as the biggest threats to American prosperity and freedom.
Click here to find out where this came from. (h/t C&L)
Jon Stewart Calls Arizona “The Meth Lab of Democracy”
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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It looks like Arizona has actually managed to out-crazy Virginia Republicans for a change (snark). Well there is always next week…
Did Stafford County Supervisor Paul Milde Break the Law?
I was recently made aware of some footage of Stafford County Supervisor Paul Milde (R-Aquia) at a 2009 fundraiser at Hope Springs Marina in Stafford, VA. In the video, Milde spent quite a bit of time thanking everyone for their help in planning this fundraiser.
Of particular note, Milde thanks Jimmy Franklin for the food and accommodations that he provided for this fundraiser. Jimmy owns the Hope Springs Marina. He also thanked Skip and Cindi Causey for their donation of wine. Skip and Cindi own the Potomac Point Vineyard and Winery, also in Stafford County. Lastly, he thanked a person by the name of John for DJ Services that he provided and even suggests that attendees at his fundraiser grab one of his cards.
So how did Milde potentially break the law? I’ve poured through his Campaign Finance Reports from 2009 and was unable to find any in-kind contributions for the marina, food, wine or DJ services. Surely, based on the size of the crowd, each of these donations were above $100.
According to the Campaign Finance Disclosure Act of 2006, Milde was required to report such in-kind campaign contributions. By not reporting such contributions, Milde could be subject to a civil penalty.
I’ve long heard rumors of these sort of violations of campaign law by him; however, I’ve never seen any hard proof. To me, the video clearly shows Milde thanking folks for various in-kind contributions made to him – none of which appears on any of his campaign finance reports (you can see the full video here). Given Milde’s experience running for office, he certainly must understand what is required of him. One can only wonder what else he may be hiding?
Milde is certainly no stranger to the law. In 1986, Milde was convicted of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and sentenced to six years in prison, five of which were suspended. In 1995, he also plead guilty to attempted burglary as an accessory after the fact in Fairfax County.
Just last year the Free Lance-Star also reported that “tax records between 1993 and 2009 show that Milde and companies he owns or that bear his name have a history of delinquent county taxes and federal tax liens.” Perhaps most disturbing was the fact that while Milde served on the board (his first term), “[Stafford] county sent him at least 30 delinquent real-estate tax bills on Garrison Woods condominiums owned by McMillion and Milde L.L.C.” If that wasn’t enough, while on the board, his company Closet Interiors Plus “was subject to four federal tax liens.”
Given Milde’s checkered past, one has to wonder whether he willfully omitted the aforementioned in-kind contributions from his campaign finance reports? I have a feeling we are all about to find out real soon…
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