Tag Archives: Hall of Shame

“A brave stand”

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While all agree that some traditions should be honored, others must be put to rest as our national values and notions of tolerance and diversity evolve. At any rate, no amount of history and tradition can cure a constitutional infraction.

Does this sound familiar? It’s from the January 11 ruling on Ahlquist v. City of Cranston, in which an explicitly sectarian prayer banner was ordered removed from the wall of a public high school. The Rhode Island school district argued that “the prayer, which dates back to the early 1960s, is an historical memento of the school’s founding days, with a predominantly secular purpose.” The plaintiff who took her school district to court is a 16 year old student, Jessica Ahlquist. Here is the full paragraph from the ruling (PDF): Continue reading →

The first priority of the new School Board: sneer at human rights

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Crossposted at Equality Loudoun

The very first action taken by the newly elected Loudoun County School Board was this:

Regarding the Virginia Human Rights Act:

“I move to amend the Board’s previously adopted Legislative Program by removing the recommendation to expand the protected classifications contained in the Virginia Human Rights Act, Code of Virginia §2.2-3900 and §2.2-3901, to include gender orientation and gender identity and to further amend the Code of Virginia §22.1-78 to allow local school boards to similarly expand the protected classifications contained in local school board policies and regulations and that Staff be directed to make such other changes to the Legislative Program as to conform to the Program language of this motion.”

[from page 5 of the adopted Legislative Program]

Motion: Mr. Kuesters
Second: Mr. Fox

Vote: 6-3-0 (Mr. Reed, Mrs. Bergel, and Mrs. Sheridan opposed)

The only reason for initiating such an action is ideological, and the idea in play is that gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender and gender variant youth are not deserving of having their human rights protected. The Wisconsin School District that was the subject of the film Bullied found out the hard and expensive way that this is not a good position for school boards to take. I hate to being up money when this is a fundamental moral issue, but unfortunately that’s the only language some people seem to understand.

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Conduct unbecoming

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See if you can follow the logical arc here:

Newly elected supervisor Janet Clarke makes an embarrassing gaffe right out of the gate, getting her board-mates to “fire” the Blue Ridge representative on the Economic Development Commission (only to find that, since his term isn’t actually up until the end of the year, the board action is null and void. Awkward.)

Why the retribution? Because of (in the words of Leesburg Today, not Clarke) “his public criticism of the Purcellville Town Council over its efforts to build the final segment of the town’s Southern Collector Road through a portion of Crooked Run Orchard.”

The truth is that EDC member Steve Mackey has the integrity to stand up for the David in this conflict, against the Goliath that is Clarke’s Purcellville Town Council. He shares what happened when he tried to reach out to then-candidate Clarke here, and Crooked Run Orchard owner Uta Brown explains what the Town is doing to them and other small businesses here. It’s pretty obvious that this is unethical political payback of exactly the sort a code of ethics is meant to address.

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Waking up now?

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This is absolutely dead on, and what we’ve been saying to those people trying to either dismiss or defend Mr. Delgaudio for years now. Rob Tisinai does more than just point it out, though; he walks us through it, in detail both hilarious and sad. Sad, because Mr. Delgaudio is a fraud, which means that someone is being duped. This brief analysis of his financial records demonstrates it. Thanks to Rob for posting the link in comments.

Put it together with Mr. Delgaudio’s open admission to a colleague that he really doesn’t care, personally, about the so-called “homosexual agenda,” and what do you have? Some folks I have to feel a great deal of pity for, among other things.

Delgaudio has the public’s eye right now, and he’s working it. This might be a good time for him to step back from his cries of persecution and tell his donors exactly what it is he does with their money — besides using it to ask them for more money.

But why? They’ve shown no interest in that information thus far. I think that he just may have compiled a list of the stupidest people in America. And anyone defending him here in Loudoun, whether for their own personal gain or for any other reason, is helping this sociopathic little man to prey on them.

The Janet Clarke litmus test

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[Promoted by Liz]

Janet Clarke, Vice Chairman (R-Blue Ridge)

Loudoun’s 2011 BoS held its first meeting on Tuesday Jan 3, 2012 and Janet Clarke (R – Blue Ridge), the Vice Chairman graciously handed the public a litmus test to be  applied over the course of the board’s tenure. The Leesburg Today reports that Supervisor Clarke blocked the reappointment of Stephen Mackey, owner of Notaviva Vineyards to the Economic Development Council. Her rationale was:

“We want to have a positive approach with the community, with the towns, with the businesses,” she said. “I don’t think that people who hold themselves contrary to that position should be allowed to serve.”

Geary Higgins, Ken Reid, Eugene Delgaudio and Shawn Williams voted with Clarke. Scott York, Ralph Buona, Matt Letourneau and Suzanne Volpe abstained. Clarke was upset by Mackey’s “heated exchange” with the Purcellville Town Council. Mackey blogged about the issue.

 

Stephen Mackey interviews Sam Brown after land was siezed

July 11, 2011

Mayor Lazaro, Purcellville Town Council Members:

I am writing to inform you of our alliance with Sam and Uta Brown, owners of Crooked Run Orchard in their efforts to preserve their farm.

For some time now, we have followed with mounting disappointment and ire the news reports of their ongoing battle with the Town of Purcellville. Perhaps, like many others in the community, we held high hopes the issue would somehow “sort itself out” and that the Browns would prevail in their campaign. And perhaps, like many others in the community, we also held high hopes that their rights as citizens, rural business owners, and landowners would be preserved.

We reacted with shock as we learned of the Town’s aggressive tactics in removing the injunction preventing the seizure of the Brown’s property, and your subsequent acquisition of their land. In our opinion, you have violated a sacred American right, and we find it unconscionable that the Town of Purcellville has engaged in such actions.

Picking blackberries at Crooked Run Orchard

Given the negative actions of the town – bisecting a thriving farm with a road – most would see Mackey’s response as a positive approach. But we are dealing with elite Loudoun Republicans who have consistently aligned themselves with so-called “property rights” activists, activists who, aside from Joe Lafiandra, ignored, and perhaps even celebrated the Purcellville land grab.

Let’s add some perspective.  Judeo-Christian scripture confirms, over and over, that opposition to injustice and hypocrisy is positive. But let’s turn the other cheek and give Ms Clarke her litmus test. Like Ms Clarke, we’ll ignore Mackey’s credentials; Board of the Virginia Wine Council, President of the Loudoun Wineries Association, Co-Founder, CEO and President of Notaviva Vinyards and focus on the one item she deems important. For the next four years, we expect a “positive approach with the community” from all members of our local government and their appointees. If there is a deviation, the guilty party should not be “allowed to serve“. If you witness such a deviation, post a comment and be sure to let Janet Clarke know.

It’s not personal

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Students riot Nov. 9, 2011 in State College, PA. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

I think that must be what the rioting Penn State students and anyone else making excuses would say to the victims of child rapist Jerry Sandusky, if they felt the need to say anything to them at all. Sorry you were raped, but our team is winning national championships and that makes us feel good and we don’t want any interruptions. It’s not personal.

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Unfit for office, unfit for endorsement

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I could never, had I been asked to imagine the most ridiculous and easily verifiable lie that Eugene Delgaudio might invent, have imagined something as ridiculous and easily verifiable as this:

When contacted by the Loudoun Times-Mirror for comment about the exposure of his “Blood Door” email, Mr. Delgaudio told the reporter that the Photoshopped image he had sent to his mailing list was the original and that his image had actually been Photoshopped, by the very people who caught him in this behavior, to make it “look like blood.”

Side by side image comparison by the Loudoun Times-Mirror

When the reporter told me this, I said I thought that was interesting, and suggested that she search on Google images for “blood door.” She did.

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An unfortunate omission

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I was very impressed with the airy above-it-all tone Joe was able to summon about “the recent Halloween unpleasantness” until I saw his images, images that were apparently the point of the post.

The thing is, there’s nothing new there. We already know that there are people on the outer fringes of good judgment and civility, enough of whom might actually be dangerous that we need a Secret Service whether our president is a Democrat or a Republican. What I fear is that this post is a – I hate to say it – deliberate attempt to pretend that the images at issue in Loudoun did not come from an official Republican Party Committee and a Republican elected official, and hope that no one notices. I’m sorry, but someone did.

From the official Republican Party Committee

From the Republican elected official

Is this acceptable to you, LTM?

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A second update (the first one appears at the bottom of the post): This is the original image that was photoshopped by Loudoun Republican Eugene Delgaudio to turn the blood “rainbow,” which he then lied about to the Loudoun Times-Mirror. This was found by a commenter via google using the search terms “blood door.”

Image included in the header of an October 25 fundraising letter sent by Eugene Delgaudio

Editor: Please direct the following to all individuals with input into political endorsements at the Loudoun Times-Mirror.

Is this what the Loudoun Times-Mirror editorial staff had in mind when you said of Eugene Delgaudio “his view on social issues is unsettlingly conservative and his antics distracting”? The attached image of the GLBT rainbow symbol in the shape of a pool of blood, complete with a gruesome bloody handprint, was sent to the presumed supporters of an elected official to whom you just gave your endorsement for reelection. While it could be described as unsettling, especially if one has been witness to such a crime scene, I don’t think that “conservative,” “distracting” or “antics” would apply.

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Bought and paid for. Deal with it, suckers.

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Thanks to Liz for alerting me to the recent obscenity from the Sterling supervisor, in which he rants about the Board of Supervisors supposedly “punishing” business leaders:

The pursuit of profit and prosperity is what makes America a great nation.

To attack free market leaders and business spokesman in Leesburg– our local seat of government– or on Wall Street– is an attack on all our freedoms..

..[T]his board has ochestrated and frequently hosted assaults in public on business leaders and spokesmen and spokesladies who simply come and give professional written testimony about what other business leaders think or say.

Top business leaders have been brought into the public gallows and condemned by members of the Loudoun County board of supervisors by name and accused of crimes, undue influence and illegal acts on a routine basis.

“Top business leaders” like OpenBand spokesman Ben Young, perhaps? He does seem intent on removing any obstacles – like competition – to his company’s “pursuit of profit and prosperity.” The rant is followed by this, about the “top business leaders” who have donated to Eugene’s campaign: “These donors and their companies have been generous on the record and make a very big difference.” Indeed.

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