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Illegal immigrant with 4 DWIs

Am I the only one who is bothered by this:
“”A 30-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador will spend four years in prison for crashing his pickup truck into a police cruiser while under the influence of alcohol.

Jose Joe Velasco, of Herndon, was sentenced in Loudoun County Circuit Court July 23 with DWI, assault on a law enforcement officer and driving on a revoked license, Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Plowman said. The DWI charge is Velasco’s fourth in 10 years.

The charges stem from Oct. 10, 2009, when deputies were called to Enterprise Street in Sterling at about 2 a.m. for a disorderly man. There, they found Velasco behind the wheel of his pickup truck. When a deputy went over to him and asked him to get out of his truck, Velasco backed out quickly, and tried to leave the scene, Plowman said.

He then ignored commands to stop and sped away, almost hitting the deputy and his cruiser.

At that time, two more deputies responded, and Velasco almost hit the first one and did hit the second. He then tried to flee, and in doing so, ran a stop sign before losing control of his vehicle, Plowman said.

A short time later, police caught Velasco, and he was taken to a hospital and treated for injuries, Plowman said.

Tests confirmed that Velasco had a blood alcohol level of .323, more than four times the legal limit.

Judge James Chamblin sentenced Velasco, and a federal immigration detainer was placed on Velasco since he is in the country illegally. He will likely be deported when his sentence is over, Plowman said.”"

Oh really? He’s ”likely” to be deported? Why wasn’t he deported after the previous three DWI convictions? Is FOUR the magic number for deportation? Or was it hitting a police cruiser that finally did it? Or is Jim Plowman simply hoping that Mr.Velasco will be deported? Can anyone doubt that we need Corey Stewart’s new law in Virginia?

WashPo Tries To Be Hip; Fails Miserably

The WashPo ran this article today:

After initial obscurity, ‘The DMV’ nickname for Washington area picks up speed

New York is “the Big Apple” and Chicago “the Windy City,” but unless the earnest and obvious “Nation’s Capital” is your idea of a cool handle, Washington and its environs have never gotten very far in the civic nickname game.

We are pleased to report, however, that this could be changing. A nickname has recently emerged that could put the Washington area on the regional nickname map: the DMV. As in, D for the District, M for Maryland, and V for Virginia.

So, what do WashPo readers think of this?

What do you think of the nickname ‘The DMV’?

11% – It’s great. I’ve been using it for years.
5% – I hadn’t heard of it before, but I’m going to start using it now.

57% – It just makes me think of the Department of Motor Vehicles.
27% – Lame. I’ll never use it.

A whopping 84% think that this name is either “Lame” or makes them think of a much maligned government bureaucracy (which actually is a pretty accurate description for D.C. come to think of it.)

And they wonder why Staten Island generally prefers Republicans

Congressman Mike McMahon (D-Staten Island) has found a new issue to level against his lead Republican opponent (Mike Grimm) – or, to be precise, a very old and ugly issue (New York Observer via From On High, emphasis added):

. . . in an effort to show that Grimm lacks support among voters in the district, which covers Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, the McMahon campaign compiled a list of Jewish donors to Grimm and provided it to The Politicker.The file, labeled “Grimm Jewish Money Q2,” for the second quarter fundraising period, shows a list of over 80 names, a half-dozen of which in fact do hail from Staten Island, and a handful of others that list Brooklyn as home.

“Where is Grimm’s money coming from,” said Jennifer Nelson, McMahon’s campaign spokeman. “There is a lot of Jewish money, a lot of money from people in Florida and Manhattan, retirees.”

Politico notes that Ms. Nelson has since been fired.  That sounds great, except that according to Nelson, the list was actually composed by campaign finance director Debra Solomon (“She herself is Jewish so she knows a lot of people in that community” - yup, Nelson really said that).

So while Nelson’s firing sounds great, it doesn’t remove the dark cloud from McMahon’s campaign.  Nor should it.

Most have presumed that McMahon – being a Democrat in New York City – was in fine shape this year.  I’m not so sure.  McMahon owes his election to a nasty scandal surrounding his Republican predecessor, Vito Fosella.  Prior to 2008, the GOP had held the Staten Island Congressional seat for 28 years.  Republicans have won six straight elections for Borough President there.  Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg (readers may disagree with my label here, but he did run on the GOP line in 2009, and he never endorsed Obama – unlike a number of RINOs) have carried the island three times apiece.

Oh, and John McCain beat Barack Obama by 4 points in the district.

Now there’s this.

If McMahon wasn’t in trouble before, he certainly is now.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Cross-posted to RWL

And Gov. Timmy! Thinks This Is Going To HURT Republicans?

Gov. Timmy! and his all-girl orchestra (props to Hawkeye Pierce on that last part) at the DNC have announced the big, scary “Republican Tea Party Contract On America.”  (Never mind that back in 1994 when Democrats derided the “Contract With America” as the “Contract On America” they lost the House and Senate.)

So, what are these big, scary things that Republicans supposedly want to do?

1.  Repeal the Affordable Care Act (Health Insurance Reform)

You betcha.  And a majority of the country (and even a greater majority of likely voters in November) agree with that as well.

2.  Privatize Social Security or phase it out altogether

Gee, Democrats supporting the status quo ponzi scheme that is bankrupting our country, robbing from those with shorter life expectancy rates of the funds they put into it, and stealing from our children and grandchildren.  Heaven forbid that Republicans succeed in allowing people to place a small portion of their payroll tax into a personal account that will grow at a higher rate of return and be able to be passed on to one’s heirs.

3.  End Medicare as it presently exists

Again, Democrats supporting the unsustainable status quo.  Of course it should be ended “as it presently exists” since “as it presently exists” will bankrupt the country as the baby boomers retire according to all government projections (and those are usually way too sunny on subjects of this matter.)

4.  Extend the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy and big oil

The Democrat alternative?  Further extend unemployment benefits beyond the nearly 2 years that they have put in place now?  When was the last time that someone got a job from a poor person?  How many of the so-called “wealthy” are actually small businesses that do create jobs filing as individuals because they are a sole proprietor or a partnership?  Perhaps they need a little history lesson on what tax cuts can do:

Oh, yeah.  Revenues to the federal government DOUBLED during this time as well because of the increased economic activity.  (Too bad Congressional Democrats spent all that additional revenue and then some.)

5.  Repeal Wall Street Reform

This “reform” didn’t end “too big to fail,” it enshrined it in the law.  It also will force banks to further restrict credit and place fees on the good customers (say goodbye to your free checking perk) because the Democrats decided to protect all the deadbeats who can’t balance their own checkbooks, don’t have a clue about what they can actually afford in terms of a home and/or car, and carry unsustainable amounts of debt on their credit cards.  (No wonder they protected them, they sound like future Democrat members of Congress!)

Let’s also not forget, Obama’s choice to head up the Office of Management and Budget received a $900K bonus from Citigroup AFTER they got their bailout.  And then there is the revolving door between Goldman Sachs and Democrat administrations and elected positions.

6.  Protect those responsible for the oil spill and future environmental catastrophes

Okay, this is just plain silly.  They probably threw this in there simply because they ran out of ideas and needed to round this list up to ten items.  And while we’re speaking of “future environmental catastrophes,” why don’t we ask why oil companies have to drill in such conditions.  Because Democrats don’t want shallow-water drilling, which is safer and had such a disaster occurred at such a site, it could have been stopped much faster.  Let’s not forget, selfish Democrat children like Ted Kennedy oppose windmills when they are in their own backyard and it threatens their scenic views with a few dots way out on the horizon.

7.  Abolish the Department of Education

I’m married to a teacher and am the son of a retired community college professor.  The Department of Education is useless to what goes on in the classroom.  Just walk around the block that the Department of Education occupies in Washington, DC and take in its massive bureaucracy.  Not one person in that building is educating a child.  Not one.  How much better off would every student be if Congress just took the $56 BILLION allocated to the Department of Education in FY2010 and pumped it directly into classrooms.  Not that dollars translate into excellence, but it would certainly be better spent directly on kids rather than on paper-pushing bureaucrats.

8.  Abolish the Department of Energy

What a useless vestige of the 1970s.  Similar to the Department of Education, not one person in that building is generating a single watt of energy for the country at a cost of nearly $29 billion in FY2010.

9.  Abolish the Environmental Protection Agency

It would be nice if the EPA (a Richard Nixon creation) actually did something, say, like protect the environment.  (Fortunately, each state has an agency that actually does that and understands the unique aspects and challenges facing that particular state.)  Instead, they are all about social engineering.  Their latest kick is working with the Department of Transportation to get people out of their cars and walking or biking to work.  Of course, that limits your options in terms of where you live and what kind of job you can have.  At least they’re only costing us some $8.4 billion in FY2010.  So, if the Democrats want to defend this Nixon creation, by all means they’re welcome to it.

10.  Repeal the 17th Amendment which provides for the direct election of senators

For more than half this nation’s history, America got along just fine with the system where voters directly elected their U.S. Representatives (hence why they are called “representatives” in the first place and why the House of Representatives is commonly referred to as “The People’s House.”) and state legislatures selected U.S. Senators.  The direct election of senators has only been in place for less than a hundred years and since then we have seen the Senate become more partisan, senators more loyal to their parties than to their states and the interests of their constituents, and a decline in the influence that states have in the federal system of government that is derived from the consent of the governed (especially the evisceration of the 10th Amendment where any powers not specifically delegated by the Constitution to the federal government are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”)

Let’s not forget Democrats’ oft used mantra of “getting the money out of politics.” Some of the most expensive elections in the nation are U.S. Senate races.  Repeal of the 17th Amendment would immediately get a huge chunk of money out of politics and reduce the influence of special interests.  It is the ultimate “campaign finance reform” measure.

And it isn’t as if the people still wouldn’t have a say in who their U.S. Senators were.  Voters would have to become more engaged with their state level elections (a good thing in and of itself) and the people they elect to their state legislatures would include the appointment of senators as part of their platforms.  One need only look at the Lincoln-Douglas race to see how things used to play out.  In a way, it was very similar to how the Electoral College elects the President — even today voters do not directly elect the President, they vote for a slate of electors who meet later and formally elect the President.

Finally, in the first election after the 17th Amendment was ratified, not a single senator who had been appointed by their state legislature and who stood for direct election by the voters lost.  That tells you right there that state legislatures didn’t do so badly after all.

So, other than the silly item about protecting those responsible for oil spills and environmental disasters, Democrats are crazy to think that these items would HURT Republicans if they actually ran on them.

CRU is at it again

One would think that after the numerous findings and reports of data fudging and other shenanigans (since this past November, I have been posting on the slew of errors, data manipulation, and other shenanigans that have been plagued cliamte change alarmism; including today’s post, we are now up to thirty-one of them), the fplks at East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit would know better than this (Steve Goddard at WUWT):

HadCrut released their January 1850 through June 2010 temperature data yesterday, and something “interesting” happened. Their temperature anomalies from January-April jumped up from their published values on June 3.

 . . .

HadCrut still shows 1998 hotter than 2010 so far, but they seem to be working on “correcting” that problem.

Why is it that post facto adjustments always seem to be upwards in later years, and downwards in earlier years? This whole global temperature business looks like a complete joke to me.

Did they really think we wouldn’t notice?

Cross-posted to RWL

On It’s Way…

Not to worry.  I’m still untangling the web of Krystal Ball’s personal finances and working to make it all understandable.  There’s a LOT there, though, and it will make for some very interesting reading, so STAY TUNED!!!

Gerry Connolly Supporters ♥ Illegal Aliens

Spotted in Alexandria yesterday.

As anyone who is following the news knows, SB 1070 is the Arizona law that requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they arrest, similar to what has been in effect for 3 years in Prince William County (without any of the problems that opponents claimed it would produce.)  A judge is set to rule today on whether to allow the Arizona law to go into effect tomorrow or stay its implementation.  (UPDATE: A Clinton appointed judge has ordered a partial injunction on the implementation of the law.)

I certainly hope that this Connolly supporter decides to get out of Alexandria and drive around with this message in the Fairfax and Prince William parts of the 11th Congressional District that Connolly currently represents.  I’m sure that message will go over real well there – not.

Hold-the-what? A walk down memory lane

Today we take a look at some local political history here in Spotsylvania.

One of the things I discovered in my campaign for the Board of Supervisors last year was the rather dubious record the county regarding taxes.  In fact, the county has experienced sixteen property tax increases in twenty-two years (1988-2010).  Now, truth be told, the county has so many recent residents (escaping even higher-tax jurisdictions), that this history hasn’t been highlighted much.  Moreover, a number of the tax increases have come during reassessment years, where the tax rate was reduced, but not nearly enough to counteract assessment increases – and even when assessments fell (as they did this year), the tax rate rose by more than what would have equalized taxes.

This latter reason has, as one would expect, sparked quite the debate here.  Many (including some Supervisors) have convinced themselves that the equalization concept (i.e., if the tax rate leads to a higher average tax payment, it’s a tax increase no matter what the rate is) is some recent creation of right-wing, anti-tax crazies trying to hamstring local government.  So, I thought it best to take a walk down memory lane to see . . .

• How the tax rate was treated during reassessment years?
• What was done with taxes prior to 1988?
• When was the last time property taxes were actually reduced in Spotsylvania?

The first question led me to the 1982 reassessment, in which property values rose 30% in the county.  Keep in mind, this is 1982, long before the Republican Party elected any Supervisors in Spotsylvania (although Buford Carr was rumored to be one back in the day), let alone allegedly hijacked the tax rate discussion. Yet what do we find as the headline for the budget story in the Free Lance-Star (emphasis added) . . .

Spotsylvania sets hold-the-line tax rate of 65 cents   Cutting the budget to avoid raising the average tax bill, the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors last night approved a $28.7 million operating budget for 1982-83 that drops the real estate tax rate to 65 cents . . .

Hold-the-what?  

As an added irony, none other than Emmitt Marshall (who in recent years has tried to wave off the equalization idea) made the initial motion for the 65 cent rate (county staff had proposed 68 cents).  So clearly, the idea that assessments can make a rate “cut” an actual increase has a long tradition in Spotsylvania.  

Meanwhile, I found that, somewhat surprisingly given the nature of the spending debate, that even though the 1970s and 1980s had faster growth in population than the later decades (from 1970 to 1990, population grew over 350%, compared to 212% for 1990-2010), they also saw fewer tax hikes (seven versus fourteen).  Lest we forget, this is also despite the 1970s having two double-digit inflation spikes.  

But what about a tax cut?  Well, after looking at Board meeting minutes and a slew of FLS stories (the archives going back 80+ years are on-line now), we find that the last genuine act of tax relief for Spotsylvania homeowners came in June of 1975.  Since then, we’ve had nineteen property tax hikes (and six presidents, nine governors, four sheriffs . . .)  

Oh, and the overall budget has grown over 3600% in nominal terms since then (890% in real terms).  

Cross-posted to RWL

Chuck Todd Really Is A Funny Guy…

Chuck Todd really is a funny guy.

Chuck Todd, political director and chief White House correspondent for NBC News, who was not part of Journolist, told me this:

“I am sure Ezra had good intentions when he created it, but I am offended the right is using this as a sledgehammer against those of us who don’t practice activist journalism.

“Journolist was pretty offensive. Those of us who are mainstream journalists got mixed in with journalists with an agenda. Those folks who thought they were improving journalism are destroying the credibility of journalism.

“This has kept me up nights. I try to be fair. It’s very depressing.”

Chuck Todd doesn’t “practice activist journalism”?  Chuck Todd doesn’t have “an agenda”?

That really IS funny stuff.

Let’s review…

We’ve been chronicling Todd’s activist journalism and his agenda going back to 2006.  Here are but a few examples.

Is “The Hotline” In The Tank For VA Dems?

A Fish Rots From The Head Down; More Hotline Shenanigans?

NBC’s Chuck Todd Once Again Carrying Water For VA Dems

The Three Stooges of the NBC News Apocalypse

What is truly amazing is how someone can either be so disingenuous or so self-deceiving.