RPV upholds decision that LCRC Convention Call is flawed

Via Too Conservative, I note that the RPV has upheld the General Council decision regarding the validity of the LCRC’s Convention Call. (I wrote about this a few days ago, see here and here.)

An appeals committee today unanimously upheld a decision by the Republican Party of Virginia’s general council that the Loudoun County Republican Committee’s Convention Call, as published, was invalid, according to RPV spokesman Shaun Kenney.

RPV General Council John Padgett last week issued a ruling, at the request of 10th District Chairman Jim Rich, stating the Convention Call, which establishes the rules for the local party’s June 9 nominating convention, lacked required language, among other things, and that it must be republished. LCRC Chairman Paul Protic appealed the decision, saying that a local committee meeting Monday that the Call as published had been approved in advance by the state party. That meeting became somewhat contentious, as some argued the push to reissue the Convention Call was a political maneuver made to subvert the agreed to process.

Now, according to Kenney, the Call will have to re-published and once it is, a seven-day window will emerge during which new delegates for the convention can be signed up and new candidates for elected local office can emerge. The process of signing up delegates is critical to those in a contested race. Politicians in a contested race who may have lagged behind a competitor in the delegate count will now have a full-week to play catch-up. Also, at least one board of supervisors candidate who had been unchallenged for the nomination is now expected to have a contested race.

Read the whole thing for more details. As I mentioned before, this really puts a hurt on the LCRC’s credibility and it appears that leadership higher up in the party is getting the hint. Leadership like Jim Rich of the 10th District:

“We have one loss after the other,” Rich said today, pointing to Democratic gains in Loudoun County. “Let’s see what happens in November. That’s an objective test. It’s not subjective. It’s how a company would look at its books. You either have a profit or a loss. The objective is for the party to win in November. We’ve lost a state senate and state delegate seat in Loudoun. We lost the county for the gubernatorial election. I’m not happy about losses.”

Kenney said the appeals committee is the last line of appeal, and that the LCRC leadership have no other venue to appeal. Kenney said the appeals committee meeting Thursday was “amicable,” and that there were “no fist-fights,” and added that all parties were ready to move on.

The convention, he said, will still take place as scheduled on June 9.

Rich said that he and state party leaders would be watching the convention closely.

“I think so,” he said. “I’ll be watching to make sure every Republican is treated fairly. That would be a big problem if there was an attempt to prevent democracy from happening. Another thing we can’t tolerate in any unit is ethical problems. We need to have zero tolerance.”

Nice to see Jim Rich has noticed the situation in Loudoun, considering we’ve been getting our political butts kicked, locally, since the 2004 Presidential election. As for ethics, I’d like to know how he considers himself a valid ethics monitor when his own conduct at the District Convention in 2005 came under fire, also by the RPV. I hope he’s cleared his own garbage first.

Two execs at companies contracted to build border fence hired illegals

Grrrrrrrr.

Tuskegee Airmen honored

Any serious student of history knows the name “Tuskegee Airmen” and the significance of their actions during WWII. While there now appears to be some question about their perfect record of bomber escort during the war, their performance was still, by any measure, stellar. It was the performance by the American public after the war, when these men returned home, that was lacking.

President Bush honored these men yesterday, presenting the group with a Congressional Gold Medal.

President Bush saluted the Tuskegee airmen on Thursday, six decades after they completed their World War II mission and returned home to a country that discriminated against them because they were black.

“Even the Nazis asked why African-American men would fight for a country that treated them so unfairly,” Bush told the group of legendary black aviators, who received a Congressional Gold Medal — the most prestigious Congress has to offer.

“These men in our presence felt a special sense of urgency. They were fighting two wars. One was in Europe and the other took place in the hearts and minds of our citizens,” he said.

Bush then saluted the airmen, saying he offered the gesture to “help atone for all the unreturned salutes and unforgivable indignities” they endured.

“We are so overjoyed,” said Roscoe Brown Jr., after he and five other Tuskegee Airmen accepted the medal on behalf of the group. “We are so proud today and I think America is proud today.”

Bush, members of Congress and other dignitaries joined some 300 airmen, widows and other relatives in the sun-splashed Capitol Rotunda for the ceremony recognizing the Tuskegee Airmen — some of them walking with the aid of canes, others being pushed in wheelchairs — for their long-ago heroism.

These honors are well deserved and long overdue. I add my enthusiastic voice to those raised in gratitude for the Tuskegee Airmen. I am grateful for their service in the face of a dangerous foe and a less-than-supportive home front. I will not forget them and I will see to it my children don’t either.

Pelosi refuses to let British-supporting resolution to come to the House floor

A House resolution (H. Res. 267) to condemn the Iranian seizure of British sailors in Iraqi waters has been submitted but Speaker Nancy Pelosi is keeping it from coming to the floor for a vote. Power Line has the story.

Pelosi is so wrapped up in opposition to anything she thinks the Bush administration might want that she’s perfectly willing to ignore the plight of one of our closest allies. She and her caucus want to walk on eggshells to not tick off the likes of Iran and North Korea – who won’t lift a finger to help us so much as figure out the time of day – and she snubs people who have stuck with us for longer than she’s been alive.

Her hubris will impact us all, folks. But hey – America voted. Elections have consequences, folks.

Book Report: The Last Templar

The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury bears a strong resemblance to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and there’s an obvious reason for that: it deals with the same events and the same subject. Sadly, that subject can be boiled down to the simple idea that nothing of what the world has been told of Jesus Christ is actually real and that the Catholic Church is little more than a cabal of power-hungry, deceitful, murderous nutballs. But where Brown’s work deals with the safeguarding of the “truth” by a series of Illuminati – that “truth” being that Jesus sired a bloodline that exists today – Templar concerns itself with Jesus himself. Specifically, Jesus the man. Meaning: man, not Son of God.

The starting point for the book is in 2 time periods. One is the fall of the city of Acre in 1291 to the Saracens where a scene is depicted of 2 of the remaining Templar defenders being given a mission and a cargo of such importance that the dying Templar Master at Acre sends them off to leave the rest of the defenders at Acre to be slain by the advancing Moslems. The second is in present-day New York where an exhibition of “the treasures of the Vatican” is being held at the Met. The exhibition is raided by 4 horsemen in medieval armor and the only significant treasure taken is a machine that turns out to be a Templar encoding device literally 400 years ahead of its time. The story follows the efforts and conflicting goals of law enforcement agents to track down criminals (enter FBI agent Reilly), archeologists to uncover ancient knowledge and score a place in the history books (leading lady Tess and initial bad guy Vance), and – of course – Church officials in keeping secrets buried to maintain their iron grip on their power.

On my reading list…

I’ve been making a strong effort at reading books, lately, rather than spending every free moment here on-line. More specifically, I’m trying to set aside time to read books that don’t have something to do with network engineering. Here’s some quick blurbs on books in my reading queue:

• The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury.
• Stong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Meg Meeker.
• Somebody’s Gotta Say It by Neal Boortz.

I’ll post on each as I complete them and let you know what I thought.

Eliot Stein: loser, lowlife, definition of crass and waste of good oxygen

As blogger and author Cathy Seipp was breathing her last, succumbing to cancer, some disgusting sub-human slimewad was taking yet another cheap shot. If you’ve got the stomach for it, FoxNews.com has the story.

Just hours before her death, “Cathy Seipp” suddenly seemed to undo decades of hard work with an oddly written letter posted on the Web site, www. cathyseipp.com. In what came off as more bizarre rant than heartfelt apology, her supposed “very last blog entry” called her years of journalism a “shoddy,” “despicable” and “irresponsible” career as a “fourth-rate hack.” Her political stance? All a mistake.

The fiery, unwavering supporter of George W. Bush supposedly said she’d done a complete 180 in the past year and was now an implied supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. What was even more perplexing was that “Seipp” was taking mean-spirited potshots at her own daughter, Maia Lazar, whom she called an “obnoxious” and “arrogant” wanna-be “skank” who was “mentally ill.” Throughout the letter, the one person whom “Seipp” seemed most sorry for ever having offended was Maia’s 10th-grade journalism teacher, who had frequently clashed with mother and daughter. Finally, “Seipp” said she was probably to blame for her own illness — the “venom” she’d spewed for years was responsible for her terminal cancer.

Friends were horrified. They quickly realized that the letter was the work of an infamous character known as “Troll Dolls” who’d positioned himself as the blogger’s archenemy and bought the domain name www.cathyseipp.com years earlier (Seipp’s real Web site is www.cathyseipp.net). Troll Dolls is really Eliot Stein, a 54-year-old former online talk-show host and stand-up comedian who haddtaught Maia in a journalism class for a brief period in 2004, and who blamed Maia and Seipp for his departure from the school after only five weeks. Seipp’s friends marshaled their resources, creating an impromptu Internet chat room to make their plans, fingering Stein as the culprit, enlisting the help of a lawyer to serve him a cease-and-desist letter, and successfully lobbying Stein’s Internet host to take the Web site down permanently.

Stein’s trying to come off as the aggrieved party with a sense of wit. He’s got nothing of either, truth be told, and he’s just another hateful, spiteful little man throwing a tantrum that the world doesn’t recognize him for the important person he believes himself to be. One wonders what he’ll do with his life without someone else to elevate him to anyone’s notice, not that the vast majority of us care. I will, personally, forget all about him within moments of this post confident that such a putrid life as his obviously is will deliver to him that which he deserves.

In a story where the Swiftees are key, why no quote from them?

The Bush Administration has withdrawn the nomination of Sam Fox for ambassador after it saw the level of resistance the Dems were ready to put up over Fox’s donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in the 2004 campaign season.

Again, I see Kerry getting quoted and Kerry supporters getting quoted, all stating or implying that the Swiftees were just a bunch of smearing liars. To my knowledge, the vast majority of the Swiftees’ accusations were not even directly addressed, let alone disproven. I’m thinking the liar might have been the other side of this argument.

Aside from all that, why is this story written with Kerry’s comments, his supporters comments, the specific reason given for the withdrawl being the donation Fox made, and there’s not a single quote in there from the Swiftees themselves? The story doesn’t even mention an attempt to contact them. Why’s that? And if a future Republican-controlled Senate makes a stink about some Democratic President’s nominee’s donation to the ACLU or to the NAACP, will the media cover for them, too?

LCRC Chairman Paul Protic releases statement re: RPV ruling

As previously reported, the Republican Party of Virginia has ruled that the Convention Call by the Loudoun County Republican Committee was invalid and would need to be republished. Late last night LCRC Chairman Paul Protic released this statement on the matter:

As I indicated at the March 26  LCRC meeting, I have determined that it is in the best interests of the Party, our candidates, our delegates and principles of fundamental fairness to pursue my prerogative as Unit Committee Chairman to appeal the March 23 ruling of the General Counsel of the Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) invalidating the 2007 LCRC Convention Call.

However, it is not in the best interest of any of the parties to litigate this appeal in the media.  So rather than releasing the full appeal, I am providing this summary of our key assertions:

A General Counsel Ruling is not an appropriate vehicle for this challenge, and under the applicable provision of the RPV Plan of Organization (“Party Plan”), the time for an appeal has past.

Neither the LCRC nor affected candidates and delegates were provided notice of the Ruling or an opportunity for a hearing.

The LCRC complied with the Party Plan’s new provisions for shortened published versions of a Call and provided adequate notice of qualifications for participation.

Language in the Call relating to conduct of the Mass Meetings does not conflict with the Party Plan, which allows for flexibility in operating those Meetings.

The requirements to reissue our call and re-open the filing process are expensive, burdensome and unfair to the LCRC, the candidates and delegates in comparison to the minor and technical nature of the alleged violations in the Call.  No showing of harm to current or potential candidates or delegates has been shown.

The RPV Counsel reviewed the Call in question and similar Calls for other Units without raising the objections cited in his Ruling, and the Ruling would invalidate Calls with similar language submitted by other Units across the Commonwealth.

I am confident that we took the right step in challenging this Ruling invalidating our Call — which produced more than 1900 delegate filings and the addition of more than 150 new LCRC members — and equally confident of our prospects on Appeal.  And I am equally confident that we will emerge from this challenge stronger and more united as a Party and better prepared to win in November.

To be completely fair, this entire issue has 1 real point of contention to me that has to be cleared up before anything further proceeds: Did the RPV, in fact, have the opportunity to review the Call prior to publication? If they did and they permitted it to be published, then they’ve got no call now to pull the rug out. It was incumbent upon them to perform the due diligence when the Call was brought before them and if they didn’t do their jobs then, that’s too bad now.

That said, I’d like to see which other Units around the State also used the same language in their Calls – if any. I’d also challenge Protic’s stance that the General Counsel is out of line issuing a ruling regarding the behavior of one of their Units.

You know, I can’t be the only one looking at this and shaking my head. It would appear, to the casual observer, that the RPV no longer has confidence in this local Unit and that doesn’t speak well for any actions the LCRC might take. Like, nominating candidates that will actually work for the good of Loudoun County. Win this appeal or not, the LCRC’s credibility is shot and that’s not going to do well come election day.

Tony Snow’s cancer has resurfaced

Aw, damn. I hate hearing news like this.

Our prayers are with you, Tony.