One of the candidates that is running is John Lampmann, a resident of Portobago subdivision in northern Caroline County. I always thought the guy was a squish, now I am thinking he’s just an idiot.

I find it bizarre that a man that talks about how he will “[s]hore up protection for our property rights and property values and” “[r]e-create the foundation for more and better jobs that pay a living wage in the Northern Neck”, has been one of the foremost opponents of the special exception permit request by Vulcan and Black Marsh Farms.

Lampmann is an enemy of private property rights and wants to deny the citizens of Caroline 14 full-time jobs and $100,000 annually in tax revenue.

Lampmann: Already Bought and Paid For

Even more bizarre to me is that Lampmann goes on and on ad nauseam about how he is going to fight the “urban special interests”.

Right, the guy that has spent the last six years as a corporate lobbyist is going to fight special interests? To make matters worse, Lampmann is not even honest about what he does for a living referring to his job as a “Washington Representative”. Yes, seriously:

Upon leaving public service, John joined Johnson, Madigan, Peck Bolland & Steward as a Washington Representative for two years.  John now runs his own consulting company where he continues to serve the public interest by helping private organizations make government work for the public good.

To Lampmann, “serv[ing] the public interest” is getting corporate welfare and subsidies for private companies and organizations.

Who have been some of Lampmann’s lobbying clients?

• AARP, one of the biggest supporters of Obamacare.
• “Compete America”, a collection of different corporate interests that support issuing more H1-B visas for immigrants. So while Lampmann is talking about how the Northern Neck has no jobs, he has been representing a client that thinks that jobs should go, not to Americans, but immigrants.
• WilmerHale, a law firm that defended, pro bono, the unconstitutional McCain-Feingold “campaign finance law” before the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled the law to be an unconstitutional violation of the people’s right to freedom of speech.

But here’s my favorite: According to Lampmann’s biography he was the chief of state for Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary for 18 years.

In 2006, after leaving his job as chief of staff, Lampmann was a lobbyist for the “National Music Publishers Association”, a trade association that attempts to get legislation passed seeking tougher penalties for copyright violations. The same year that Lampmann was a lobbyist for the association, his former boss introduced a bill that would have:

The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

It also represents a political setback for critics of expanding copyright law, who have been backing federal legislation that veers in the opposite direction and permits bypassing copy protection for “fair use” purposes. That bill–introduced in 2002 by Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat–has been bottled up in a subcommittee ever since.

[...]

But one of the more controversial sections may be the changes to the DMCA. Under current law, Section 1201 of the law generally prohibits distributing or trafficking in any software or hardware that can be used to bypass copy-protection devices. (That section already has been used against a Princeton computer science professor, Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov and a toner cartridge remanufacturer.)Smith’s measure would expand those civil and criminal restrictions. Instead of merely targeting distribution, the new language says nobody may “make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess” such anticircumvention tools if they may be redistributed to someone else.

[...]

The proposed law scheduled to be introduced by Rep. Smith also does the following:

• Permits wiretaps in investigations of copyright crimes, trade secret theft and economic espionage. It would establish a new copyright unit inside the FBI and budgets $20 million on topics including creating “advanced tools of forensic science to investigate” copyright crimes.
• Amends existing law to permit criminal enforcement of copyright violations even if the work was not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.
• Boosts criminal penalties for copyright infringement originally created by the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 from five years to 10 years (and 10 years to 20 years for subsequent offenses). The NET Act targets noncommercial piracy including posting copyrighted photos, videos or news articles on a Web site if the value exceeds $1,000.
• Creates civil asset forfeiture penalties for anything used in copyright piracy. Computers or other equipment seized must be “destroyed” or otherwise disposed of, for instance at a government auction. Criminal asset forfeiture will be done following the rules established by federal drug laws.
• Says copyright holders can impound “records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in” infringements.

Draw your own conclusions there.

And speaking of Lampmann’s former boss, Lamar Smith, he thinks that “the liberal media bias” is a gravest threat facing this country, even worst than a recession and a terrorist attack:

Do we want our next Delegate to be a Beltway insider and a corporate lobbyist?

Hi, my name is Jim and I am one of the two liaison officers of the Virginia Tea Party Patriot Federation. We formed a little over 6 months ago. Right now I believe we have around 30 Tea Party/912 groups in our Federation. We believe that by showing the Commonwealth of Virginia that we are becoming more organized that they will pay more attention to us, and it is starting to pay off. All groups still act autonomously, but we now have a group to bounce ideas off of and we can help each other in other ways too. Let me know if you are interested in joining up with us, you can call me or email me. Hope to hear from you soon.

Merry Christmas,
Jim Spiess
Virginia’s 99th District Tea Party

Those tea party folks are making themselves look oh-so-brilliant. Lay down with dogs, wake up with fleas.

And once again, my agnosticism towards the tea party “movement” has been validated.

Cross-posted at On The Right and Virginia Virtucon.

To download, click here (139 KB MP3).

I don’t have a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order so I’m not too familiar with parliamentarian procedure. Anyone want to help?

Cross-posted at On The Right and Virginia Virtucon.

No comment from Bill Kling or Catherine Crabill about the latest addition to the list of evil bloggers.

See, that’s the problem with loud mouths: They don’t think — if they ever think — to check to see who’s around them before they starting running their mouths. The even funnier part was when it came to introduce any guests that were present at the meeting: I introduced myself and Larry Kile responded clear as day from ten feet away: “Ugh, that’s him!” That quote now graces my subtitle and will be staying there for a while.

Then there was the 99th Legislative District Committee meeting on December 14th. After spending over an hour hurling insults at the bloggers, at the statewide candidates, and at Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) Chairman Pat Mullins, the committee went into executive session.

After executive session, the committee voted 4–0 (Jeff Sili was at a School Board meeting from what I’ve heard and not present to vote) directing the Chairman, R. Allen Webb, to draft and send a letter asking that Caroline County Republican Committee Jeff Sili be censured and removed as Chairman of the Caroline Committee.

His crime? Not supporting Catherine “OKC Truther” Crabill in her run for Delegate.

Um, Jeff Sili is the only person that’s expressed an inkling of common sense and intelligence in this whole fiasco. The Caroline delegation unanimously voted against nominating the OKC Truther as a Republican. The Caroline Committee also decided that her name shouldn’t be included on their sample ballots for the district. And that decision was definitely clairvoyant because the day of the election, Catherine Crabill’s supporters were responsible for the theft of several Democratic signs, which were replaced with her signs, at the Bowling Green Town Hall (the district’s polling place). Definitely the type of campaign I want to associate myself and my committee with.

But, of course, the folks on 99th District Committee would vote for David Duke if he had an R by his name and harshly attack anyone that dared to oppose his candidacy (“He shares out values! His opponent is anti-family!”, etc.). I notice they decided not to formally request that Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling, or Ken Cuccinelli be censured (for Pat Mullins see below). They also don’t seem to have a problem with Chris Saxman, who openly endorsed Delegate Pollard for reelection.

Apparently the true Republicans in the district (not the ten people that show up for the 99th District Committee meetings) weren’t too upset with Bob McDonnell’s opposition to Crabill since he won with 69% of the vote in the district (Bolling got 66% and Cuccinelli got 67%) .

The 99th District Committee also approved a motion, again 4–0, directing Webb to draft and send a letter “expressing displeasure” at RPV Chairman Pat Mullins for his refusal to support the OKC Truther.

Hopefully Pat Mullins gives them the Dick Cheney treatment (anyone else remember what Cheney said to Patrick Leahy?).

Cross-posted at On The Right and Virginia Virtucon.

Things to consider as you listen to the audio:

1. Winning against no one with 63.89% of the vote is a “substantial margin”?
2. Of course, the federal government dared to provide response and recovery operations when a federal building was destroyed (federal jurisdiction) and a large quantity of explosives were used (again, federal jurisdiction).
3. Yes, that evil liberal Washington Times misquoted her. I blame the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
4. It’s nice to see him getting friendly with 9/11 conspiracy theorists like Jesse Ventura. ‘Oh, I don’t agree with him, but he raises the same points about 9/11 that Cathrine does about Oklahoma City.’ Uh-huh…
5. And, yes, those evil blogs like Virginia Virtucon. Interesting fact: The 99th Legislative District Committee’s website actually links to Virtucon.
6. And it’s nice to see that Bill Kling confirms everything that the Democrats have been saying about the “tea party” movement: There nothing but a bunch of crazy Republican astroturfers.
7. And how does comparing your town to Mayberry make the people “country bumpkins”? Last time I watched The Andy Griffith Show, everyone on the show, for the most part, was portrayed as being pretty smart (Barney and Otis being the exceptions). What Mrs. Sili was saying is that she didn’t want to have to work with people the day after election after supporting someone that called anyone that disagreed with her a “traitor”.
8. And, of course, that evil Albert Pollard engineered a conspiracy to call Catherine Crabill’s home! Call the police! And, funny, when I was doing door-to-door in Spotsylvania County for the Republicans I encountered a bunch of solid Dems that were on the Republican lists. So I guess I was engaging in “voter suppression”.

Cross-posted at Virginia Virtucon.

If you want to download the whole file to your hard-drive click here (5.73 MB MP3).

Cross-posted at Virginia Virtucon.

Members of the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party and questions about health care greeted Rep. Robert J. Wittman (R-Montross) at a gathering Tuesday night in his hometown.

“Where in the Constitution is government charged with protecting people’s health?” asked Catherine T. Crabill, a maverick Republican who, despite being shunned by Wittman and state GOP leaders, came close last month to winning the seat Wittman once held in the House of Delegates.

“My frustration is that we don’t want any government-run health care. The Constitution is the only thing that will save us from this death spiral that the country is in,” Crabill said.

“Some elected officials are committing treason by not upholding their sacred oaths. Do you intend to uphold your oath of office and fight to make sure that your elected colleagues uphold theirs?” she asked Wittman, who promised he would.

I’m still laughing about how the constitutional scholar, Catherine Crabill, is making comments about what’s in the United States Constitution when she’s apparently unfamiliar with the Article III, where the founders went to the trouble of specifically defining the crime of treason:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

And why did Madison et al. decide to be that specific regarding the crime of treason? Consult Federalist No. 43:

As treason may be committed against the United States, the authority of the United States ought to be enabled to punish it. But as new-fangled and artificial treasons have been the great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free government, have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other, the convention have, with great judgment, opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger, by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime, fixing the proof necessary for conviction of it, and restraining the Congress, even in punishing it, from extending the consequences of guilt beyond the person of its author.

But that nut Catherine Crabill wants to prosecute people for political disagreements (and probably execute them). This is the same thing that the crazies on the left wanted to do for George Bush et al. for the Iraq War and the USA PATRIOT Act.

And then we have this one:

“The federal government is gang-raping the people,” said Mark Carpenter of Acorn, a Westmoreland County community–not the controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Do I need to expand how absurd, vulgar, and bordering on obscene that comment is? Does this idiot need someone to explain to him what the crime of rape is, much less the crime of gang-rape?

OFFICIAL CALL FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA’S 99^TH HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE

Oi, some typo.

Any chance we get a motion of no confidence against this dolt?

Governor: Bob McDonnell

Lieutenant Governor: Bill Bolling

Attorney General: Ken Cuccinelli

99th District: Hamilton “Ham” Sandwich, Esq. (write-in candidate)

97th District: Chris Peace

And for the voters in the Lee Hill District of Spotsylvania County: D.J. McGuire