Louisa County Democratic Committee
Working to Help our Community and Nation
To the Editor:
No representative in my memory has kept in touch with her constituents like Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger. You don’t have to get in her grill — she’s already contacted you twice.
David Black
Louisa
Printed previously in The Central Virginian and reprinted here by permission of the author
Those of us who count on the productivity of the soil for our livelihood could use some help. We want to implement practices that make our soil healthier and stave off some of the effects of the severe weather we have been having. We know that this will increase profitability by making the soil more resilient in the face of erratic rainfall and extreme temperatures, and better able to support our crops We choose the best soil conservation practices we can afford.
But that’s the catch. Many of these healthy soil practices are out of reach financially for farmers, especially those with smaller operations. Farming is already capital intensive and we often don’t have enough cash left over to do what we know is right.
A couple of weeks ago our congresswoman, Abigail Spanberger, came to Louisa County to discuss this issue. She visited a farm owned by Dustin Madison, just north of the Town of Louisa. While there, she announced a new bill to help farmers use more conservation practices. The Healthy Soil, Resilient Farmers Act of 2020 aims to ensure that FSA loans are available to all farmers who want to do what we know is the right thing.
Her opponent, Nick Freitas, courts the support of the Farm Bureau. I’m wondering what he may have actually done in his current position to deserve that. Nick talks ideology, while Abigail is out here working for us. It looks to me like Abigail is the one walking the walk. A member of the House Agriculture Committee, she is using her position to help Louisa’s farmers. I’m voting for Abigail again in November, so she can continue her good supportive work for us.
Pam Dawling
Printed previously in The Central Virginian and reprinted here with the permission of the author.
To the editor:
Last Friday state Senator Amanda Chase attended a pep rally at a private home in Mineral. Her purpose was to hit up unsuspecting Republican donors to fund her bid for the governor’s mansion in 2021. In pictures of the event, no one is wearing a mask or social distancing. I wonder if the Covid-19 numbers will go up in our county in the next two weeks.
Our country is in an unparalleled health and economic crisis. Regardless of your political affiliation, I hope we can all agree that our leaders need to be calm and make well measured decisions. Chase’s behavior has shown that she is the polar opposite of a competent leader.
For those unfamiliar with her, she earned the moniker #parkingprincess in March 2019 when she threw a temper tantrum in the General Assembly parking lot. She tried to park in a restricted area and an officer asked her to move her car. She responded by berating the officer with racial epithets and made denigrating comments about the clerk who was allowed to park there.
When interviewed about it later, she first denied cursing and then admitted it. The scene she caused prevented schoolchildren from exiting their buses for a field trip. She exclaimed, “Don’t you know who I am?”
In May of 2019 Chase used the Capitol Police for transportation so frequently during the General Assembly session that its chief asked the House and Senate clerks to remind lawmakers about accepted procedures. Chase received more than 20 police transports during the General Assembly session—all of them outside the established protocol outlined in a Jan. 24 email from Senate Clerk Susan Clarke Schaar to senators that “the Capitol Police staff are not to be used by members or staff for personal transport.” She also utilized the Capitol Police as her personal service in the fall of 2018 when the General Assembly was not in session.
The day after her appearance in Mineral, Chase attended another fundraiser event with musician Ted Nugent, an admitted pedophile. He wrote a song entitled Jailbait with lyrics like, “Well I don’t care if you’re just 13, You look too good to be true.” He also adopted a teenager with the express purpose of having sex with her. Ted purposely soiled his pants for a week in order to avoid the Vietnam draft. Why in the world would a gubernatorial candidate associate herself with someone like this? Is she that hard up for money?
It seems that Chase is desperate for the attention that the reality TV era has made seem commonplace. But this entitled and unhinged woman is the last thing the hardworking people of Louisa need in the governor’s mansion. We need a strong, decent and hardworking leader and I sincerely hope that the Republican Party is able to field such a candidate for governor in 2021.
Aleta Strickland
Louisa
This letter was previously published in The Central Virginian and is republished here with the permission of the author.
Older Americans like myself depend on the Social Security checks we receive every month. For the past 85 years, the Social Security program has enabled us to retire with dignity. It’s our insurance policy. We paid into it. We count on it. Even so, the president made an announcement last Saturday that if re-elected, he will seek permanent cuts to the payroll tax that funds Social Security.
Our 7th district Congresswoman, Abigail Spanberger, has consistently worked to keep Social Security and Medicare functioning, pushing back against such threats. She has always focused on working with both Republicans and Democrats to maintain the benefits that employees have earned. We must support her efforts in the upcoming election.
Mary Kranz
This letter was previously published in The Central Virginian and is republished here with the permission of the author.
The presidential campaigns are about to swing into the convention phase. But the president’s demand for a crowded, rousing, balloon-dropping convention has run aground on the rocks of the coronavirus.
The Republican Convention was originally scheduled for Charlotte, N.C., but North Carolina’s governor insisted on adherence to pandemic restrictions. The same was true of the attempt to move the convention to Jacksonville, Fla. Apparently, the pandemic is not a hoax.
The reality is that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is fighting an explosion of COVID-19 as more than 80,000 cases, about 23 percent of Florida’s total, have been reported in the past seven days. A pandemic hot spot, Florida recorded more cases in one day than any other state, with more than 15,000 on July 12. Last Sunday was the fifth consecutive day that Florida’s number of known cases grew by more than 10,000.
President Trump sought a smooth-running, well-attended convention because his recent rallies have not met his attendance expectations. At his Tulsa rally, instead of proper social distancing, campaign staff removed seating stickers to bunch people up for better news photos. More COVID-19 cases were reported afterward. The campaign knew there was a danger and required attendees to sign waiver agreements so attendees couldn’t sue if they got infected.
Other campaign speed bumps appear. Fox News, Trump’s stalwart, admits its polling is not showing massive support for the president. Key blocks of his 2016 base, suburban women for example, are slipping away. In Trump’s recent interview on Fox News, Chris Wallace pressed him to back up some of his more bizarre assertions—not typical Fox style.
The campaign has fallen back on a law-and-order theme, which includes criticizing constitutionally empowered, elected public officials.
To back up their assertions of mayhem, the president and the attorney general sent federal law officers to Portland, Oregon, as a demonstration of their wider intent. The conduct of these unidentified enforcers has spawned the Wall of Moms and Wall of Vets to protect protesters. Federal officers, in camouflage, have grabbed citizens unassociated with any crime and whisked them away in unmarked vehicles. Recently, the federal enforcers set upon a retired Annapolis graduate and Navy veteran. Video shows them beating him severely, breaking his hand in two places.
Certainly, Trump has expressed disdain for those who wear the uniform of the United States. His long, public spat with Sen. John McCain was so bitter that when the White House discovered the president might see a Navy vessel named after the Vietnam War hero’s father during his visit to Japan, it ordered the ship’s name be covered up.
Nor was Trump kind to Gold Star parents who lost a son or daughter in combat. A serial user of condescending labels, Trump called his secretary of defense, Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, “an overrated general.” Personal slights are not the only demonstration of Trump’s low regard for the U.S. military. He has raided the Defense Department budget for money to pay for his wall at the southern border.
Not only is the president’s conduct costing him points in the polls, but his policies have diverged from the standard Republican mantra. Republicans used to believe in low national debt; no more.
But as Election Day nears, the Republican Party is beginning to be concerned about the consequences for down-ballot candidates who have to defend high-debt and anti-military attitudes. Their campaigns will be hard pressed to explain away Russian proxy attacks on American soldiers and Russian interference in American elections.
The president’s law-and-order policies, which push aside local authorities, are government overreach—and would have been severely criticized by previous administrations. Down-ballot candidates may not be able to defend all that Trump has created or destroyed.
David Reuther
This letter was previously published in the Culpeper Star-Exponent and is published here with the consent of the author.
Most of us realize that the only way we are going to get the coronavirus behind us is for each of us to take personal responsibility and not be a spreader. Whether it’s masking up, staying home, avoiding hot spots, or getting tested and isolating if we test positive, it’s up to each of us. Virginia has done better than many states, but numbers and deaths are increasing again. In order to open our businesses and schools, and in order to keep them open, we need to immediately nip this dangerous trend.
As I write this now, on July 19, there are talks going on to decide how the federal government will allocate money for coronavirus relief. The administration is trying to block funding that would help states conduct testing and contact tracing, even over the objections of a number of Republican congressmen. These are the very things we need most to get the pandemic under control.
Abigail Spanberger, 7th district congresswoman, is working hard to make sure there is a bipartisan deal that will enable us to be successful.
“Blocking testing support may obscure just how bad the pandemic is, but it won’t help us save lives, rebuild the economy, or reopen schools safely,” she said. “In Congress, I’ll continue to fight for support of testing and tracing.”
Peter Sugarman Louisa
Originally published in the Central Virginian and published here with the permission of the author.