Blue Louisa

Who are the real Republicans?

Who are the real Republicans?

Statewide, the answer is not clear. The Republican candidate for governor, Glenn Youngkin, is running multiple, soft, feel-good TV ads in the expensive northern Virginia market that do not reflect his party affiliation and former president Donald Trump’s endorsement.

Obviously, the Youngkin campaign’s objective is to create a fuzzy image to appeal to the suburban voters who may not support Trump. To avoid being questioned about his identification with Trump, Youngkin continues to shatter Virginia traditions. He has refused to participate in the Virginia Bar Association’s decades-long hosting of the first general election debate, as well as the subsequent debate hosted by the AARP.

It appears, however, that one Trump campaign theme Youngkin will run on is Trump’s unfounded allegation about election security, as seen by his participation in an “election integrity” rally at Liberty University.

If the statewide campaign’s focus is soft Youngkin ads, in Culpeper County, things are distinctly partisan, led by former Culpeper Republican committee chair Jon Russell and Marshall Keene, the county party’s current chair.

We all recall that Keene bragged about organizing and dispatching three busloads of Trump supporters from Culpeper to the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” event in Washington. Russell, now the Republican candidate for town mayor, watched the event on the right-wing One American Network and commented on Facebook that “patriots have breached the barricades at the U.S. capitol.” Since when is breaking and entering patriotic?

This June, Culpeper Republicans prepared a full slate for the nonpartisan Town Council by holding a “casting call” for the candidates they wanted to anoint with a GOP endorsement. Only four candidates were considered. Weren’t there others who filed and were either not considered or subsequently withdrew their paperwork?

The apparent conductor of the four endorsed Republican candidates for the council positions, mayoral candidate Russell, is running his own campaign on a platform of “New Energy for Culpeper.” Responsible independents who may vote as Republicans have served on the Town Council for years, so Russell’s platform could be considered an insult directed at a former generation of local leaders. Then again, it might be a meaningless, pandering slogan.

Note that Russell’s yard signs are Democratic Blue, not Republican Red. Because Russell has already made clear he wants to “protect” Culpeper’s heritage, like Lake Pelham, it is not clear where he and his four endorsed colleagues will differ from the preceding generations of local leaders.

Despite their claim of new energy, Culpeper Republicans have fallen in line with ultra-radical Republican themes. The Republican County Committee recently passed a meaningless resolution, signed by Keene, demanding that the Virginia General Assembly order a full forensic investigation of the state’s 2020 general election. There has not even been a whisper that Virginia’s election procedures need review. So why is it important for Culpeper Republicans and others, like Amada Chase, to show their fidelity to the unfounded claims of Trump?

Where were our patriotic Republicans at this year’s traditional Independence Day celebration in Yowell Meadow Park? Held at the park’s Monuments to Freedom site, the Minute Men program celebrated the founding of our nation and honored the people who fought the British for our freedom and right to self-governance. Instead, the Republican committee held its own event in the parking lot next to its headquarters, in response to a personal invitation on social media from state Del. Nick Freitas.

Who are the real Republicans? Youngkin, who dominates television and social media with blank happy talk, or the Culpeper GOP hardliners who are comfortable ignoring the Virginia tradition of nonpartisanship in Town Council races? Voters in November may have the answer.

David Reuther, a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer, is a past chair of the Culpeper Democratic Committee. These are his personal observations. This letter was previously published in the latest edition of the Culpeper Star-Exponent newspaper and is reprinted here with the author’s permission. 

Lockhart protects the right to vote

For someone who is always talking about how he will protect the right to vote, Delegate John McGuire certainly has a strange way of going about it.

Having voted NO on:

  • No-excuse absentee voting. (HB 1)                                                                               
  • Same-day voter registration. (HB 201)

In 2020, and following up in 2021 with these NO’s:

  • The Virginia Voting Rights Act. (SB 1395)                                                                     
  • Ballot drop boxes and pre-paid postage for vote-by-mail. (HB 1888)
  • Automatic restoration of rights for people who have served their time (SJ 272) 

He publicly admits to participating in the January 6th Rally in DC, joining white supremacists and proud boys.   

McGuire is an insurrectionist

This week he is scheduled to repeat those lies about the elections integrity at an Election Integrity Rally . 

The right to vote-Hiding their deeds

Most people don’t know that a three-bus caravan chartered by the Culpeper Republicans took like-minded Louisa County residents to join him. Or, that they are doing their best to hide this inconvenient fact.

Patriots erasing their participation

There have always been those who dislike their Party’s embrace of racial hostility and culture wars but have swallowed their distaste as long as their taxes were low. And now that the G.O.P. has become the party of election lies and violent insurrection — are they still willing to make that trade-off? 

Their ceaseless lies about the legitimacy of elections make it clear that they don’t support protecting the right to vote. And while everyone was paying attention to these distractions, one third of the country has passed laws to restrict voting.

Winning with a minority

Their goal is to normalize the theft of a constitutional right. Treating it like a privilege, which can be restricted if voters fail to meet their expectations. Ensuring they can win elections even when in the minority.

So what should you do when one Party does not want every legal vote to be counted?

Start at the local level by rejecting the two astroturfed challengers for Board of Supervisors. And clear out the deadwood in the General Assembly, electing Blakely Lockhart as your next delegate

Jon Taylor

This letter is an enhanced version of a letter published in the August 5th edition of the Central Virginian and is reprinted here with the author’s permission. 

 

Wrong vote on animal abuse bill

To the editor:

If you care about animals as much as I do, you may be glad to know that we have a new law in Virginia that will help protect our beloved companions from being abused in breeding situations and pet shops. The bipartisan bill, SB1412, was introduced by Republican Sen. Bill Stanley and passed the Senate 29-10 and the House of Delegates 67-28.

It is now a misdemeanor for anyone working with companion animals as a pet shop owner, dealer, breeder, or employee of these people to have a criminal record of animal cruelty, neglect or abandonment.

One would think that this law wouldn’t be controversial. After all, who would be in favor of animal abusers working with animals? Apparently, Del. John McGuire is. Our representative for the 56th istrict voted against this bill.

This makes me suspect that he is in the pocket of puppy mill breeders and the unethical dealers who sell these mistreated creatures. Hard to say, but whatever his reason, it can’t be a good one. It is a well-known fact that pet shops that sell puppies get their animals from puppy mills, which have a long record of horrific abuse. If you wonder why so many pet stores do not sell dogs or cats, or only provide space for animal rescue groups to support pet adoption, ask anyone working in animal rescue, animal control officers, or veterinarians. The one thing that would make this egislation stronger would be an outright ban on selling puppy mill dogs in Virginia. The fact that it does not is evidence of the strength of the puppy mill lobby.

There is nothing good about animal cruelty, and there is nothing good about McGuire’s refusal to support legislation aimed at stopping it. So far, on any piece of decent legislation – even bills patroned by members of his own party – John McGuire is batting zero.

Sincerely,
Claire Kaplan
Troy

Administrator’s Note: This letter was originally published in the Central Virginian newspaper and is reprinted here with the author’s permission.

Current supervisor has been an asset

To the editor:
I hear a lot about Supervisor Fitzgerald Barnes supporting business in Louisa. I would like to remind people that he pushed to get the Betty J. Queen Intergenerational Center funded, and the swimming pool, too. Those facilities and the programs they support are just as important to me as business development. Fitz works hard to better all aspects of life in Louisa.

Sue Rayburn
Louisa

Administrator’s Note: This letter was originally published in the Central Virginian newspaper and is reprinted here with the author’s permission.

Electing the competent requires knowing the candidates

The 2020 Presidential election was noted for its massive turnout of voters. President Biden received 81,268,924 votes, while former President Trump received 74,216,154. It appears the Republican party views the loss as the result of too many Democratic voters, and its solution is to swamp state legislatures with voter suppression measures.

One example of recent voter suppression was to create long lines at polls by closing rural polling places, then to make it illegal for poll workers to give water to those standing in line. There is no well-run, customer-friendly business anywhere that could perceive long lines as good customer service. Why would we want to discourage voter participation this way?

Indeed, across our nation courts are striking down the recent efforts of several Republican-dominated legislatures to create restrictive voting laws in their states. Virginia’s legislature, however, with its Democratic majority, is not following the voter-suppression mob. The election this November for all 100 seats in the House of Delegates will be enormously important in blocking voter-suppression efforts by the regressive Republican minority.

U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s win in the November 2020 election shows us that voters in the 7th Congressional District are looking for competence above party affiliation. She has proven again and again that she is willing to reach across the aisle to represent all residents in her district.

Here in Culpeper, the recent election for Clerk of the Circuit Court resulted in 71 percent of the vote going to the only candidate with the qualifications and experience for the job. Voters understood that ideological posturing alone was insufficient to qualify an individual to run this important constitutional office.

Even so, our local Republican committee’s recent actions indicate that it wants ideological candidates up and down the ballot. They have endorsed candidates for the four open non-partisan Town Council seats this November. Former Culpeper County Republican Committee Chair Jon Russell, running for the non-partisan position of Culpeper mayor, has himself been endorsed by Republican office holders, as well as the local committee. Again, is absolute party loyalty more important than what is best for Culpeper? Should a party demand that their chosen candidates agree to promote that party’s creed and uphold “other values?”

Yes, Virginia is changing. There are more Democratic candidates running for House of Delegates this year than ever before. In our area, Annette Hyde, the Democratic candidate for the 30th District, has been introducing herself around Culpeper, Orange, and Madison counties. Those county committees are hosting a fundraiser and rally for Hyde at the Lake of the Woods Community Center at 3 p.m. this Saturday, July 24. 

Rep. Spanberger will be the guest speaker. Attorney General Mark Herring will also be there, and other Virginia notables will offer video tributes. Culpeper’s independent-minded voters can get more information about how Annette would represent us in the House of Delegates at annetteservesva.com. Sign up for the fundraiser at to meet her and hear her ideas. In addition, concerned Culpeper citizens in the northern part of the county will want to educate themselves about 18th District challenger Doug Ward.

Yes, something is in the wind. There is a huge pool of voters from all sides of the political spectrum looking for competence. 

There are several highly qualified, intelligent, and independent Town Council candidates who have the best interests of the community at heart and who are not bound by regressive political creeds, party affiliation and endorsements. Voters understand that dogmatic posturing is not the same thing as governing effectively.

Educate yourselves about the candidates at all levels of the commonwealth and vote in your own best interests this November. 

David Reuther
Culpeper

This letter was previously published in the latest edition of the Culpeper Star*Exponent newspaper and is reprinted here with the author’s permission.

Why infrastructure matters

Infrastructure is more than highways and bridges anymore. In today’s world, it includes energy and water utilities, internet and cell phone service, health care, education, and the environment. It’s more complex and interrelated than it used to be.

Also, it’s more vulnerable to internal neglect as well as external attacks like the Texas power grid failure and the Colonial Pipeline ransom, respectively. Neglect of the former caused deaths and unnecessary hardship for Texas citizens. Tactical attacks on the latter caused inconvenience to East Coast states but also identified vulnerabilities to national security, to ourselves as well as those intending us harm.

These warning signs are obvious, or should be, to all elected representatives. Denial by Republicans, en masse, that there is a problem, or if there is then we should pay as little attention to it as possible to resolve it, is simply myopic. Even more so, it’s dangerous because propagating that thinking interferes with preventing the consequences we’ll inevitably have to solve in the near future at much greater cost, both human and financial. With Republican denial, the hazards have only increased in duration and intensity and I wonder if, as a country, we can survive the lack of fiscal morality that’s been displayed so far.

So-called financial conservatives are failing to make decisions in the best interest of the general public to mitigate the risks that are expected to be fulfilled in the future. Nothing we deal with today lasts forever. Everything we know and have contact with will wear out, erode, fracture, break down, stop working, and just die. The only thing we can do is to take care of it long enough so we don’t become its victims. If we can’t, or won’t, take care of infrastructure, replace it with something better. Somehow, the wealthy are able to get better service from Republican politicians than the rest of us. Instead, we the people are left behind to clean up after the roads buckle from heat and water resources get plagued with “colorful” algae blooms (if there’ll be any water available at all).

The Republican policy to minimize the risk while remaining reluctant to protect citizens is disturbing. Supporting a platform to cause self-harm is beyond comprehension. The addiction to short term gains blinds these elected “representatives” and their supporters to the magnitude of the losses that will need to be repaid. The most recent tragedy with the condominium collapse in Surfside, Florida is just another example of ignoring the consequences in favor of inaction.

How many catastrophes will it take before we all realize that policies need to be in place to make the best use of resources before disaster strikes? A simple analogy comes to mind: Do you make a habit of changing the oil in your car before or after the engine blows up? If infrastructure had a dashboard with a warning light, would we be ignoring it then too? As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what’s happening.

Stacy Briley
Zion Crossroads

This letter was previously published in the latest edition of the Central Virginian newspaper and is reprinted here with the author’s permission.