When is pornography linked with job creation? When the idea-averse Republicans in Congress (including our own clueless Frank Wolf) decide it is.Yesterday, Democrats in the House of Representatives were poised to pass something called the COMPETES Act, which would have increased “investments in science, research and training programs”, thereby creating more jobs . But the GOP,  ever mindful that there’s an election coming up in 6 months, decided that they’d play political games and made a motion to recommit the bill, and attached to it an amendment which would bar federal funds from being paid as salary to federal workers viewing porn on government computers.

Now, I think we can all agree that misuse of government property in that manner is completely inappropriate. But how was that amendment in any way germane to the legislation in the COMPETES Act? Where was Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA-10th), who, as a 30-year member of the House of Representatives, could have shown some authority and said, “we need to create jobs in this economy; this amendment will kill the opportunity to do so”.

Of course, the blindly partisan Wolf took no such leadership role, instead falling in line with the rest of the obstructionist Republicans, and the bill died.

Jeff Barnett, running against Wolf this fall, is a champion for job creation. He understands that investing in education and training is key to getting people back into the workforce again. He’s not interested in going along with cheap political stunts like Frank Wolf is – he’s committed to fixing our problems in our time and on our dime.

The first fix is to remove the 15-term, do-nothing incumbent from office, and keep this economy moving along.

Here are the links we’ve been reading over the past couple of days.

And if I may make one editorial comment:

So let me get this straight, Goldman and Morgan were essentially taking bets from both sides of the housing boom, and making money on the difference based on the rates on each side that they themselves arranged?

Look, I’m not that smart, but I know a bookie when I see one. -P13

I need to give a tip-o-the-hat to my friend Jennifer who lives in Astoria for the first link below.  

• Locals and linguists argue that notorious Queens accent is fading away – This one hits pretty close to home for me, as my mom grew up in Queens and I have a large extended family from there. I’ll never forget walking into an office in the City one day and hearing a voice that I swore was my late great-aunt. It turns out the secretary there grew up in her neighborhood. There’s a Queens accent, believe me.
• SUNY New Paltz looks to the sky – One of our closest friends now runs her own telescope observatory. Here’s a classic quote: “That’s why the university brought in a person with a Ph.D. in astronomy. I’m expected, and have been trained, to build a telescope.” Go Amy!
• Conservative Admits: Tax Cuts Don’t Pay For Themselves. – As the author says, refreshing not so much for what it says, but because a conservative is saying it. Is there hope for Reality-Based World after all?
• A drug raid goes viral – War on Drugs FAIL. Apparently, it’s standard operating procedure in a mistaken drug raid for the police to shoot your dogs, and possibly other family members, then to lie about it. Radley Balko has been doing the heartbreaking but necessary work of exposing this.
• Color Survey Results – xkcd ran a color survey to see if there were gender differences in how people name colors. The results are both interesting and hilarious. Read the whole post down to the part with “color names most disproportionately popular among men.”
• Stuff White People Do: Blame Their Crimes on Phantom People of Color. A police officer in Philly shot himself in the shoulder and said a black guy shot him. Yeah.
  

The name Jeff Barnett has been in circulation a lot in Democratic circles of late, but it may be a name some Democratic voters may not know. For example, we know that Doorbellqueen knocks for him. And we know that Daverunner makes the case for him.

So who is Jeff Barnett? He is a veteran, a Democrat, a homeowner, a father and a fighter for you and me.

Jeff Barnett is our Democratic candidate for Congress in Virginia’s 10th district, running against 20-year incumbent, Frank Wolf.

A new vision for the 10th District

My name is Jeff Barnett, and I am running for Congress in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District.

Forty years ago I answered the call to serve when I took the oath for the United States Air Force. Today I am stepping up to serve again. I am running for Congress because our district needs someone who believes in stepping up to our problems, not passing the buck to the next generation of Virginia. We need to start solving our problems now. In our time. On our dime. We need to focus on producing economic growth while helping families keep their homes, sparking the next generation of job growth, creating the next generation of transportation, and achieving national security. – Jeff Barnett

That’s who Jeff Barnett is. Follow below the fold for my own reasons for supporting our next Congressman.  I first met Jeff at the LCDC Reorganization meeting in January. He spent many (boring!) hours on a Saturday watching the most procedural of events, just for the opportunity to see, meet, and talk with Loudoun’s democrats. He spent his time listening to our diverse voices, and hearing what we had to say.

I met Jeff again at an event hosted by the Lansdowne Democrats. On a grey afternoon, Jeff met with a score of Democrats in a neighbors house and talked with us about health care, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the burdens of debt carried by so many of our students.

But Jeff’s primary message truly struck home for me. He talked about the debt and despair brought on by the housing crisis. He talked about neighbors losing their homes, people unable to make their mortgage payments because of losing their jobs. He talked about how Loudoun county had suffered from the housing bubble more than most anywhere, and how its aftereffects reverberated from house to house and street to street.

And then Jeff talked about people like me.

He talked about homeowners who were underwater, but making their payments in good faith, even as the banks they were paying were reneging on their own promises, and refusing to renegotiate terms, even as they negotiated the best terms they could from our government.

Jeff understands that we need to fix our problems in our time and on our dime. That means doing it now, not leaving it to the next generation, that means talking about defense spending as something to be considered rationally. It means governing for you and me.

So that’s who Jeff Barnett is, and why he’s going to have my vote in November. I hope he’ll have yours.

[Update] If you want to get involved with the campaign, here’s how!

How can I get in contact with the campaign?

For general questions and information, you can email info@jeffbarnettforcongress.com, or call our office number at 703-657-2664 (NOTE: This number rings through directly to our Herndon HQ. It is a different office number than we had previously given, however both numbers will still work).

Where are your offices located?

Our Campaign HQ is located at 344 Elden Street, Herndon, VA 20170. It is in the Herndon Centre (KMart) right behind the McDonalds.

Our McLean office, located at 1322 Vincent Place, McLean, VA 22101, will be up and running by May 14.

Will you be opening other offices in the District?

Yes we will. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for people to reach us and to volunteer for the campaign. The only other confirmed location is the Loudoun County Democratic Committee office in Leesburg, which at least one of our Field Organizers will be working out of.  I will email out as soon as locations are nailed down and offices are up and running.

I want to volunteer today, can I do so?

Most definitely! If you stop by our Herndon office (or our McLean office at the end of next week) we can get you a walk packet or set you up with call lists.

(Crossposted from Leesburg Tomorrow.)

The Loudoun County Democratic Committee will be sponsoring Relay for Life teams to walk in the Relay for Life at Heritage high school on June 12-13th. We already have one full team (15 people) and are now putting together a second!

Our Reason to Relay

Fighting cancer is a team effort. The impact we can make together is much greater than what any of us could do alone.

At the American Cancer Society Relay For Life, our team will camp out overnight and take turns walking around the track to raise money and awareness to help the American Cancer Society save more lives from cancer. By joining or donating to our team, you will be a part of a life-changing event that gives everyone in the community a chance to celebrate the lives of people who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against a disease that takes too much.

Please make a donation, or join our team and help us create a world where cancer can no longer claim another year of anyone’s life.

Ellen Heald is organizing the teams, and the LCDC will have a tent at the Relay. We Democrats are committed to our community and are proud to be able to support this great organization.

I hope you’ll consider joining the team and walking that weekend. (There’s more below the fold!)Even if you cannot make the event, you can still support the Relay For Life by going out to dinner!

If you eat at American Flatbread (Map) on May 19th and say you’re there for the “Benefit Bake,” 15% of your bill will be donated to the Relay for Life. If you go out to dinner once or twice a month anyway, consider going to American Flatbread on the 19th this month and eat for a cause.

You should eat at American Flatbread anyway, for what that’s worth. Locally produced ingredients in fantastic pizza accompanied by good beer. What more could you want?

Am I the only one who is puzzled by the Comprehensive Transportation Plan and its lack of comprehensiveness?

(Here’s a link to the Countywide Transportation Plan, for those who might want one. – P13)Where did they come up with the idea of all those 6-lane North/South roads? Where is the sense in that?

What we need are more and better East/West roads. The biggest jam-ups we get going North/South are from folks trying to avoid the Greenway and Rte 50 (one for the completely outrageous cost and the other for the completely outrageous volume.)

We need East/West arteries and, more specifically, we need mass transit. Not just the Metro – though I love me the Metro, New Yawkuh that I am. We need bus service. Lots and lots of bus service. We need to be able to get from our neighborhoods to our jobs without needing to get into a car. Buses can do that. Partnerships with HOAs and local businesses to get vanpools to bus-stations could be a start, but actually having a county-wide (or, dare I hope, region-wide) transportation system could be a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly alternative to the mess we’re currently in.

6-lane North/South roads? No thank you. Bus Service? Yes, please.

Rosalind Helderman  of The Washington Post today tells us of a letter written by 10 members of the Virginia General Assembly, all military veterans, to Senators Jim Webb and Mark Warner, “expressing their apprehension” regarding President Obama’s selection of Elena Kagan as the next  Supreme Court justice.

The Assembly members (including Del. Thomas A. Greason (R-32)) take issue with Solicitor General Kagan’s amicus brief filed when she was Dean of Harvard Law regarding her opposition to military recruiters on Harvard’s campus. What the Assembly members fail to say in their letter to the Senators is that Ms. Kagan was against the recruiters’ presence primarily because the military’s stance on gay and lesbian servicemembers ran counter to Harvard’s non-discrimination policy. Simply put, if the military would treat all potential enlistees/officer candidates equally, regardless of sexual orientation, there would be no issue. The Atlantic further reveals that a Harvard student/soldier doesn’t doubt Kagan’s support of pursuing a military career; just the fact that the military discriminates against a certain sector of the population.(As a proud former military member myself, and a staunch supporter of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, I have no problem with Ms. Kagan’s completely rational argument.)

The Assembly members also go on to assert that Ms. Kagan :

would be the only current member of the Supreme Court to come to the bench without prior judicial experience. As such, she has no body of rulings from which to form even the most basic conclusions as to her judicial philosophy.

Yet another misstep on the legislators’ parts – there have been many instances of justices with no prior judicial experience serving on the Supreme Court; former Chief Justice Willam Rehnquist, for one. The Los Angeles Times states:

Kagan is most often compared to William H. Rehnquist, who was a lawyer in the Justice Department when President Nixon selected him for the court in 1971. Rehnquist had never served as a judge but had spent years in private practice in Arizona. Like (Earl) Warren, he later became chief justice.

Yes, that’s right, former Chief Justice Earl Warren also had no judicial experience when he was appointed to the court, either.

It seems that in the typical GOP obstructionary mode, they have no ideas other than to say “No”, so they will go to great lengths to distort someone’s record and qualifications to support their narrow views.

Virginia, along with the 32nd District, deserves better from its’ legislators.

This week, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the construction of a hospital on Route 50, Stone Spring Medical Center. This brings the long saga of HCA vs. Inova to, if not a conclusion, at least a resting point.

After almost a decade of debate, Loudoun supervisors on May 10 unanimously approved the county’s second full-service hospital.

StoneSpring Regional Medical Center-a 337,000-square-foot 164-bed hospital to be located at the intersection of U.S. 50 and Gum Spring Road near South Riding – is slated to open in 2015, according to officials with Hospital Corporation of America, the facility’s developer.

“Loudoun’s residents have long asked for another hospital and a choice in hospital care,” Tracey White, vice president of community and government relations, said in a statement. “It has taken eight long years to get the county’s approval of HCA’s project that will answer that call and we are pleased that residents are finally one step closer to getting the care and access they deserve. We look forward to serving the people of Loudoun County.” – Loudoun Times-Mirror

The funny thing about this outcome is that the past five years of community protests, shady astroturfing campaigns, lawsuits, recriminations and threats could have been completely avoided. The thousands of hours and millions of dollars spent by all the various entities involved in this fight could have been put towards more useful purposes, if HCA had simply referred to the county’s health care plan, and proposed a hospital for the Rt. 50 corridor originally.

There’s more below the fold…After four years, Loudoun got the hospital it wanted in the location it wanted. The County Comprehensive Plan guides development for the County, and all the debates and discussions that fill our news and discussion are generally spawned by developments that would violate that plan.

(County Comprehensive Plan – Land Use)

In light of this week’s decision, it is interesting to reflect on some of the comments and actions by the various parties over the past five years. For example, HCA swore they would not come to Loudoun if the Broadlands hospital was rejected.  

Before the vote, Margaret Lewis, head of HCA’s Capital Division, said the company had no immediate plans to build a full-service hospital on Rt. 50 because the area could not support such a facility. Tuesday, Foust reaffirmed that position, saying the vote against Broadlands did not change those plans.

“Rt. 50 is not an option for us to build a hospital,” he said, adding that the HCA-owned Glascock site is “clearly an inferior site” when compared with the Broadlands location or Inova’s property on Rt. 50. – Leesburg Today

It’s funny how that “not an option” became the best option, and was also the original option that the County planned.

We should always take comments from developers with a grain of salt, especially comments that are absolute in nature. When a developer says they “cannot” or “will not” do something unless they get their way, the saga of a second Loudoun Hospital proves the lie of that absolutist assertion. It is wise to follow the money. HCA coveted the wealthy Loudoun healthcare market, and was going to grab a piece of it in whatever way they could. Our Board of Supervisors did well to hold to the plan, and look with a jaundiced eye on the machinations of the hospital campaigns. They knew that HCA wanted Loudoun more than Loudoun wanted HCA, and in applying that knowledge, our County got what we wanted and needed.

It is okay when developers, and other monied interests, do not get their way when it comes to our land and our community. We, the voters of Loudoun, are the ones who get to choose who will do what where, through our elected officials and publicly developed plans in advisory commissions. In all cases it is the will of the voters that must supercede the wishes of developers.

I love snarkiness, and there has been some delightful snark set to music roaming around the internet this week.

(Follow below the fold to see the videos! -P13)First, Roy Zimmerman updates his classic:

(ht Joe. My. God)

Second, the absolutely wonderful contribution from The Richmond Times Dispatch: I Am the Very Model of a Mad Attorney General (takes a moment to load. Music only, no video).

Lyrics available here.

Crossposted at Equality Loudoun.

Naturally, it has to do with those peas in an odd pod Dick Black and Ken Cuccinelli. In case you’ve been under a rock:

George Rekers, who had made a lucrative career of anti-gay activism until discovered returning from a European vacation with a lovely young man he found on rentboy.com, was paid $120,000 in Florida taxpayers’ money to “deliver expert academic opinions” in support of the Florida law (since found unconstitutional) that prohibited gay people from adopting. What did the Florida attorney general who hired him (who now says Rekers “was the best available at the time”) get for that sum? From the resulting court ruling:

Dr. Rekers’ testimony was far from a neutral and unbiased recitation of the relevant scientific evidence. Dr. Rekers’ beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science. Based on his testimony and demeanor at trial, the court can not consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy.

Previously, Rekers had provided “expert testimony” in a similar Arkansas case. Arkansas judges found his testimony “pointless” and “worthless as evidence because it was only his personal view.”Equality Loudoun reported on the Florida case here, back in November 2008. As it happens, not only did Rekers co-found the execrable “Family Research Council” with James Dobson, he and and his good pal Paul Cameron (who is the fellow fake “expert” hired by the infamous former Loudoun delegate Dick Black to “deliver expert academic opinions” to the Virginia General Assembly in support of his 2005 bill, “Adoption; prohibited if homosexual” – for which he cited the Florida law as his model) once started a pay-to-play journal in which to publish their “research” – which of course real academic journals would have nothing to do with.

You can get a good idea of the George Rekers/Paul Cameron sideshow by listening to the interview with Dick Black by “Concerned Women for America” included in the aforementioned Equality Loudoun post. And this is a detail I had forgotten about, but is even more relevant to Virginia now:

Meanwhile, a thread germane to this case is currently unwinding over at Too Conservative; it seems that there is disagreement among local Republicans over whether state Senator Ken Cuccinelli (R-Fairfax) is electable statewide (he’s one of three potential Republican nominees for Attorney General). His weakness, according to some, is that he’s too closely associated with idiocy exactly like this. Cuccinelli did indeed cast the lone dissenting vote against an apparent effort to kill Black’s dumb bill before it became even more of an embarrassment. It’s an encouraging sign that this sort of thing is being flagged as a liability for statewide office in Virginia.

That’s right, our current attorney general cast the lone vote to report Dick Black’s bill, one almost identical to the law later found unconstitutional in Florida, and well after the embarrassing performance by Paul Cameron. Given some of his behavior since he took office, maybe he would still find Rekers “expert academic opinions” convincing, too. Hold on to your wallets, Virginia.

I’ll be making calls instead of canvassing.

Boo.