Snapped Shot

According to that little widget in the sidebar, Snapped Shot has cracked the top 10 list of Virginian blogs this week—Woo hoo!

Many thanks to all of you (or is that all y'all?) who keep coming by to check out the latest craziness. There's always plenty more of that to be had—Be sure to hit the "Subscribe" button up above if you want up-to-the-second craziness.

Thanks also to to David Mastio's excellent BlogNetNews, which serves as the de-facto news aggregator for this grand Commonwealth and the many other states that wish they could be more like it. If you don't use BNN to find your local news, you are probably missing the best stuff.

Thinking about voicing your opinion in public? Want to share your opinion of a mildly confused political candidate in the open square of public debate, aided by a homemade protest sign?

You're also probably thinking that the Democratic Party fully supports this kind of openness, since they're the party of the people.

If so, then I hate to break it to you, but you're definitely quite mistaken. Check out what officials from the Democratic Party did to a gentleman who thought of doing exactly that—on a public sidewalk, no less.



Once again, we see that the standard of "Free speech" applies only to Democratic opinions. Those who differ with Democratic Thought Patterns deserve not to be heard at all. (At least, according to Creigh Deeds and his staffers.)

(On a positive note, at least he wasn't assaulted. That's progress for these Democratic thugs, right?)

Thanks to Crystal Clear Conservative for pointing this out.

Jason Kenney brings on the funny:

Criegh Deeds, in his own words, in today’s Washington Post:

The day after I’m elected, I will begin assembling a bipartisan commission to craft a comprehensive transportation package. Like Gov. Baliles did, I will appoint Republicans, Democrats and independents along with private-sector leaders and transportation experts. The commission would begin work in December and issue its report early next year.

Emphasis mine. But just to make sure you didn’t miss it:

THE DAY AFTER I’M ELECTED

THAT is when Creigh Deeds intends on begining to come up with any sort of solution for transportation. That is when he’ll start telling Virginians his plans for the roads they drive on (or sit on for hours on end) every day. Not before, no, not when you and I are supposed to consider Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell’s positions so we can make an informed decision on who to vote for Governor.

Which is exactly what I noticed when liveblogging the Gubernatorial debate. But be sure to click on over to Jason's place to get the rest of the funny—It's worth every sentence!

Hey, you know what they call a leader without a plan?

A follower.

Which is exactly what Virginia is going to get if enough of our electorate falls for the traditional Democratic Party smoke and mirrors once again.

Straight from the Democratic National Committee's press office:

If you're a candidate for governor coming to debate in Northern Virginia, you'd better be able to say simply and plainly how you'd raise money to repair and improve the roads. Democratic State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds (Bath) failed to do that Thursday. In fact, he bungled it pretty badly. He managed to sound both vague and two-faced about the most important issue in the race for the Washington region.

It's too bad, because as governor Deeds would be more likely to actually fix the roads than his Republican opponent, former attorney general Robert F. McDonnell. That's because Deeds is willing to raise taxes for transportation, while McDonnell isn't, and some kind of tax increase is the only way to do the job.

But Deeds certainly didn't explain that clearly Thursday. When asked directly by moderator David Gregory of NBC News whether he would raise taxes if necessary in the current economic climate, Deeds said: "No, I'm not going to raise taxes. But I am the only person on this dais who will sign a transportation plan that raises new money."

Huh? When I and other reporters pressed him afterward to clarify, he said he meant only that he wouldn't raise taxes for the state's general fund, which pays for a broad range of services, including education and law enforcement. That clearly left open the possibility that he'd raise taxes for the transportation fund, which is separate.

Despite the fact that Creigh Deeds has no "plan" for transportation, the Post puts words into his mouth and says that he's "more likely" to raise taxes than McDonnell?

Notice also that the Post glosses completely over the fact that Bob McDonnell has outlined a very detailed plan for transportation (available here), one which would not require a tax increase. Also significantly absent is Deeds' remark in the middle of the debate that he would be happy to outline his plan next year, as I noted yesterday. And while they mention the condescending remark Deeds made to a female reporter (an action which would be instant death if committed by a Republican), it is written in as positively, butt-coveringly a way as I've ever seen.

"I think I made myself clear, young lady. I don't know," Deeds said. The McDonnell campaign immediately began showing the clip to the press corps. Their message: You don't like what our guy wrote in 1989 about working women? Look at how Deeds treats working women today! Deeds later apologized to the reporter.

Wow. Just wow.

Once again, the Washington Post is obfuscating the truth in support of a Democratic candidate. In fact, I would go on to say that this illustrates very clearly the reason why this paper is absolutely worthless to Virginians.

For those of you who believe the fishwrap's notion that Deeds is really clear on taxes, see this video.

Clear as mud, no?

Creigh Deeds, the somewhat less than intelligent candidate for the Virginia Governorship, hosts a post-debate wrapup session with reporters that is pretty stunning in its own right.

Let's see if, after watching this video, you can figure out if Creigh is for or against raising taxes. (Of course, if you follow Brian's Rule of Democrats, you already know the answer to that.)



Notice also the statement Creigh makes which would bring a Republican's career immediately to a halt. At 1:46, his frustrated response to a female reporter:

"I think I've made myself clear young lady."

Anyone know what NOW's opinion of this little outburst is? (There's a shorter version of his outburst over here, if you want to send it to them. I know I will.)

Thanks to BVBL for the video, and Roanoke County Republicans for pointing out the career-ender.

Others discussing Creigh's Confusion: The Lee Brothers, Bearing Drift, Sun Versus Wind, Shaun Kenney, Below the Beltway, On the Right, Red NoVA, Yankee Phillip, StrictlyVA, BVBL.

I'll add more links tomorrow morning.

As of 10:30 this evening, I still have not gotten word back from VANOW about this presumed outrage. The silence, as they say, is deafening.

Thanks for the link, Bob's Blogger!

I'm watching it over on NewsChannel 8, and so can you. So far, McDonnell's going on the offensive quite adeptly. We'll see what kind of dirt Creigh Deeds intends to dwell in shortly...

I'll update this post if either of them say anything remotely interesting. Continue reading »

That's the gist of what I get from this, judging by this paragraph in particular:

"I am a strong supporter of collective bargaining rights for public safety employees," he wrote in a questionnaire he returned to the group at the beginning of August.

But the Deeds campaign now says the questionnaire was filled out incorrectly by a staff member. The senator told members of the Virginia Sheriffs' Association Monday that he does not support collective bargaining, association executive director John Jones said.

... But don't you worry about that: The Washington Post will gladly run another seventeen Page A-1 stories smearing his Republican opponent until Deeds wins the election.

Such disgusting, one-sided reporting. The Post can't go out of business fast enough!

(h/t Right-Wing Liberal)

I don't know who designed the Creigh Deeds for Governor signs that have just started popping up all over our area (for a general idea of the pollution I refer to, see here), but I am definitely curious as to why the color scheme of that little swoosh at the bottom of the logo is so darn similar to these countries' flags.

Is Creigh Deeds running for a different Governorship than we're voting on this November?

(Back here in Virginia, we support the smarter fellow.)

-- Thanks to Greg@BVBL for the link!

Apparently, since the Post has discovered that the Deeds campaign doesn't actually have a plan for anything relevant to Virginia in 2009, they've determined to make this entire election season be about 20 years ago.

To which I ask you, the reader: If what the (com)Post is doing isn't "looking ahead" to "progress," then what is?

In addition to our kidnapping from yesterday, it would appear that a man was also brutally assaulted in the middle of the bloody day (thanks to FFXU):

SPRINGFIELD, Va. - A man who was brutally attacked in the middle of the day at the Springfield Mall has a warning for shoppers.

Surveillance video shows four men on the verge of a violent mugging in the Macy's parking lot garage in the Springfield Mall. The man who survived the vicious mob-style attack wants to protect his identity because the men who beat and robbed him have not been arrested.

"The next thing you know you're surrounded by criminals [lying] unconscious in the parking garage. I could've been killed," the victim said.

He says the incident occurred at 5:30 p.m. on a Friday when he got off the Metro at the Springfield station. He says he was just steps from his car parked in the mall garage when he was grabbed by one man and punched in the face by another.

The best part? The same exact thing happened a few days ago. Isn't it odd that it didn't seem to make it on the news?

Isn't it also strange that our illustrious news agency doesn't seem to think that descriptions of the suspects would be helpful in stopping these crimes?

Wonder why that is.

From the same article as above:

Sources say a similar violent robbery happened days earlier but this time, police have video of their suspects and a composite sketch of at least one of them. [Ed.:--Which News Channel 8 doesn't seem to think is worthy enough to include with their article!]

"We are concerned that they are out there and we haven't caught them but we are making every effort to ID these suspects and place charges on them," said Officer Tawny Wright of the Fairfax Police Department.

My sincerest thanks to Tawny Wright and all of the other police officers here in Fairfax County, who continue to do a faithful job despite the constant meddling from our inept Board of Supervisors.

I'll let my commentary from yesterday stand.

The sooner our police force is allowed to fight crime without the constant oversight of a heavily politicized Board, the better.

Actually, this happened at the Franconia-Springfield Metro Station:

SPRINGFIELD, Md. [sic] - Authorities in Fairfax County say they are searching for a suspect who carjacked and kidnapped a woman from the Franconia-Springfield Metro Station Tuesday night.

The incident occurred around 7 p.m. on the fourth floor of the parking garage at 6880 Frontier Drive.

Police say a man forced the woman into the trunk of a Chevy Camaro and drove around for about an hour before crashing near the intersection of Hooes Road and Furnace Road in Lorton.

No word on details (hey moronic news robots: How about a description of the suspect?) yet, though I'm going to keep watching the police for answers.

This particular area of the county has, as I've discussed previously, become completely overrun with crime. A combination of ill-conceived low-income housing blocks, increased traffic thanks to the Mixing Bowl and Metro stations, and, of course, a County government that insists on complete blindness about the causes of crime in the area has ultimately led us to the state we're in today.

And, if what I'm hearing lately is correct, the Kingstowne area (in particular, the brand new theater complex) is starting to be affected by crime as well. Which means that what used to be a very nice, family friendly area is once again devolving into a third-world ghetto, requiring constant police supervision to keep things even remotely at hand.

Perhaps if the County Board of Supervisors stopped tying our police officers' hands behind their backs with useless politically correct mumbo-jumbo, we could actually get to work on stopping crime.

Update: Our esteemed police force has arrested a suspect in this case.

Way to go, guys!

Updating yesterday's astroturfed controversy over Bob McDonnell's decades-old thesis, J.R. Hoeft Steven Osborne over at Bearing Drift demolishes the Democratic candidate in a way that only he they* can:

Recently, the Deeds campaign and the Democratic attack machine have tried to drive a wedge between Bob McDonnell and the people of Virginia. They must do this because they lack any real solutions of their own. The stories of these desperate actions on the part of the Democrats would be funny if they were not true.

Bob McDonnell is a social conservative. He has never tried to hide that. He has been straightforward about his record throughout this campaign. The Democrats have a vested interest in trying to suggest that McDonnell is hiding something. Those on the ground level of the campaign see that McDonnell is proudly standing behind his legislative record. It is time for the Democrats to stop their dishonest assertions about McDonnell.

Be sure to click on over for the surprise ending. And whatever you do, don't miss the exquisite poo-flinging that the Democratic trolls are engaged in.

Virginia, is this childish group of finger-pointers really who you want in the Governor's mansion?

Update: Greg has gotten to the heart of the matter:

The story that so far no one has dug into is why the Deeds campaign (through the Washington Post) chose now to dig into Bob McDonnell’s college thesis to find a hidden supposed bogeyman. When campaigns traditionally go into high gear after Labor Day, who’s trying to drop an “October Surprise” in August, of all times? The timing here suggests there’s more to this story, and it’s not about whether Bob McDonnell wrote about policy options supporting marriage that even Governor Tim Kaine supports. There’s likely more to this story. Much more.

...

It’s unlikely that this was just a matter of the Washington Post not sticking to Deed’s campaign strategy and running this story earlier than he wanted. Given what I’ve seen from the Post, I seriously doubt that’s the case. They’ve been close to the Deeds campaign from the beginning, consistently support liberal candidates, their primary endorsement certainly was a big part of his success in the primary, and I have a really hard time believing that if the Deeds campaign asked them to defer this story the Post would refuse. Deeds knew this would run now, because they have quotes in the Post article. They wanted this run now. There’s a reason for that.

So what happens when a campaign starts running what they think are the big negative attacks early? It gets the phones ringing, and gets the contributions rolling in. In this case, it gets them rolling in at a critical time, when Deeds needs to prove his campaign is still viable after months of lagging behind terribly. Democrats really do seem to think that money is the determining factor in campaigns, and Deeds hasn’t been getting a whole lot from the looks of his last campaign fianance report. After a few months of looking like he’s effectively out of the race, this last minute cash might make his campaign look a lot more viable going into the last sixty days of the election. It could keep his campaign afloat, and allow him the chance to fight his way back.

Indeed. So why is it that the Washington Post feels so compelled to run Democratic-promoted scandals as front-page news, while ignoring scandals that we Republicans discover? Have they really no shame at all?

* Sorry for the slip-up, Steven! That's what I get for trusting my trusty RSS reader.

The leftosphere, with the help of their gutless cheerleaders in the dead-tree media, are going absolutely apoplectic over what they claim is a "controversial" thesis paper written by the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Bob McDonnell.

Fair enough. It's not like it's all that unusual for the left to blow relatively minor papers into international incidents.

So I figured I'd hop on over to my scholarly archives and see if I could find out a bit about what Mr. Deeds (and, by the same wide brush that McDonnell's detractors are using, every left-leaning individual in Virginia) believe.

Lo and behold, it would seem that my efforts are fruitless. Despite holding a doctorate in law from the distinguished Wake Forest University, I can't find a single paper that Creigh Deeds (or R. Creigh Deeds, or Robert C. Deeds) has written.

Nothing in JSTOR.

Zilch in Digital Dissertations. Nada in Dissertation Abstracts. (Both of which returned Bob McDonnell's "secretive" paper.) Shoot, there's not even so much as a word in legal-minded publications like Legal Collection, which one would expect to see Mr. Deeds in, he being an accomplished Doctor of Law.

I could've sworn that a dissertation was required to obtain a doctorate, and yet, there's not a trace in these digital databases that the good Mr. Deeds has even written one. If the Deeds people are so bent out of shape by a Republican theorizing about Republican ideas, shouldn't their candidate have a whole host of original ideas on his own?

At least with Bob McDonnell, we know where he stands.

*If any of you Deedsians know of anything of substance that he has written on the topics that affect us today, please feel free to contact me. I'd be absolutely delighted to hear whatever words of wisdom he has to share.

Update: A kind WaPo reader informs us that:

... you have the wrong degree.

Mr. Deeds received a Juris Doctor (JD) from Wake Forest. A JD is a professional degree, and like an MD does not require or usually include a thesis.

A "Doctor of Law" or an LLD is usually given in the United States as an honorary degree.

A true legal doctorate, requiring a theis, would is called a JSD (Doctor of Juridical Sicence) in the United States. Mr. Deeds does not have one of these.

That makes sense. And now, if I may respond:

Does that mean that Bob McDonnell--who has two masters degrees (in addition to the "humble" J.D. and a track record of running large executive organizations)--is more qualified for the job than Deeds is?

Somehow, I doubt this will impact the Post's negative outlook of our candidate.

Remember that last-minute town hall meeting here in Fairfax County that we were discussing here a few days ago?

Apparently, even though Gerry Connolly gave us a whole 24 hours notice about the town hall meeting he was hosting for our district, he couldn't be bothered to show up at the time he scheduled it.

The result?

Chaos and confusion, naturally! Via a first-hand report over at BVBL:

The time was changed. Gerry showed up at 11:30. Lots of people didn’t know and showed up around 3:30 but there wasn’t anything going on because Gerry changed the time at the last minute.

Thanks to all of you Democratic voters here in Fairfax County for giving us such an attentive representative.