Earlier this week, the huge expensive bus that Americans for Prosperity (no link, get your own) uses for their ‘rallies’ pulled into Farmville after a day of touring the 5th Congressional District. About a quarter-mile from the actual office of the congressman, the bus parked in a commuter lot on University property, put on its flashers and cranked up the music.

When the rally began, (Michael) Ben Marchi, Virginia Director for AFP took his wireless microphone and welcomed everyone. He had a guest there with him. He was dressed in a road workers’ day-glo vest and American flag hardhat with an eagle in front. I couldn’t really understand what he was doing there.

Ben Marchi and a construction worker? at the rally in Farmville.

I did hear his mention at the end that he had become an American citizen, which the crowd obviously loved. The man’s speech was that of a non-native English speaker, but I was having trouble understanding it, because I was around the end of the bus at that time.

I saw only one person that I know from Cumberland, an acquaintance who is a veteran, but very susceptible to these kinds of rallies and who is a Republican. Of course, Joe Topham, Congressman Perriello’s representative in the Farmville area, was also there. I had met Joe this summer during the Town Hall meeting in Prince Edward County.

I did see someone else I know, but who is hardly a friend. Tucker Watkins, chair of the 5th Congressional District Republicans and Virgil Goode’s campaign manager in last year’s loss, was there pimping an elderly woman who claimed to be from Canada, and would tell anyone, with Tucker’s urging, how horrible the Canadian health care system is.

It was also a subject of discussion, sometimes heated, with Tucker and I upholding our beliefs in loud tones, loud enough for the police officers present to wander over and listen. I wanted to restrain myself, since I can’t stand the man, and not upset him without a good reason. I couldn’t help myself, and I went over and asked him:

Me: Have you got any of those purple heart band aids tonight?

Republican 5th Congressional District Chair Tucker Watkins, at the 2004 Republican Convention

Tucker: No, this is not a purple heart event, er election.

Other such stimulating conversation includes talking about the display of a photograph at a Republican Congressional rally last Thursday that depicted a pile of scores of bodies, piled up like a trash pile with the caption “National Socialist Health Care”.

Me: Do you think it was proper to display the photo from Dachau last Thursday at the Capitol?

Tucker: Have you ever been to Dachau?

Photo poster held at 'rally' at the US Capitol last Thursday. Photo credit: Lee Fang

Me: No.

Tucker: Well, I have.

Me: But would you agree with the photo that was held up last Thursday at the rally?

Tucker: No, I wouldn’t agree with it. People called George Bush a Nazi, did you agree with that?

Me: I didn’t call him a Nazi.

Tucker: Sure you did.

Me: You mean you have read everything on my blog, all the various comments I have made in all the places on the web?

Tucker: No, (something that sounded like ‘harumph’ and turned his back on me.)

That’s the highlights. But there’s more! I have some photos of the rally itself, including the giant bus that AFP uses. It looks like a custom outfitted bus that would cost somewhere around $150,000-$200,000. And I am sure Ben Marchi is well paid to travel Virginia and ‘educate’ (in the 501(c)(4) sense) voters about the evils of health care for all and that darn climate problem.

A  few more quick observations to leave you with:

• Ben Marchi lives in Charlottesville, and was a Republican Delegate to the National Republican Convention in 2004.
• Does Koch Industries/AFP pay royalties on the public performance of the music they use at the rally?
• Does Tucker Watkins really believe Tom Perriello is 100% funded by George Soros? (a claim he made to me Monday night).
• Is Tucker and the Koch Industries/AFP upset that only 25 people showed up?
• No financial disclosure has been made by this IRS 501(c)(3) group. We do not know all their contributors.

• Americans for Prosperity is 85% funded (2003) by Koch Family Foundations.

• DeSmog Blog:

AFP is a non-profit organization who does not to disclose its donors. However, the Media Transparency project shows from 2003-2006, Americans for Prosperity received $1,181,000 from conservative foundations. $1 million of that funding was given by the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation–one of the Koch Family Foundations.

The AFP is the third largest recipient of funding from the Koch Family Foundations, behind the Cato Institute and the George Mason University Foundation.

Before 2003, when the AFP was still named the Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation, it received $18,460,912 in funding. 84% of that funding came from the Koch Family Foundations ($12,906,712) and the Scaife Family Foundations ($2,510,000).

Koch Family Foundations is funded by Koch Industries. According to Forbes, Koch Industries is the second largest privately-held company, and the largest privately owned energy company, in the United States. Koch industries has made its money in the oil business, primarily oil refining. Presently, it holds stakes in pipelines, refineries, fertilizer, forest products, and chemical technology.

Americans for Prosperity is also connected to oil giant ExxonMobil. According to ExxonSecrets, between the years 1998-2001, Citizens for A Sound Economy and Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation received $380,250 from ExxonMobil.

Medical-like graphics support the message.

Ben Marchi, State Director for Americans for Prosperity.

Marchi being interviewed by the media.

Joe Topham, Rep. Perriello's representative, talks with the 'Canadian' lady. Tucker Watkins looks on. (Note the anti-Soros sign)

More medical-like graphics on the bus.

Americans United for Change is broadcasting this video starting tomorrow in the Roanoke television and cable markets.

Brian McNeil, of the Charlottesville Daily Progress, wrote an article about some of the reactions to Tom Perriello’s vote for the health care bill on Saturday. Even better than the article are the comments section, where teabaggers abound with the usual misinformation and hair-on-fire pronouncements with little or no basis in fact.

Here’s Robert Hurt, State Senator and declared candidate for the 5th District seat in Congress:

“Make no mistake: this bill is a devastating blow to our economy at just the wrong time. With job losses continuing to mount, Congressman Perriello voted to raise taxes on small businesses,” Hurt said in a statement. “With seniors getting squeezed, he voted to slash Medicare benefits. With Virginians working harder for less, he voted to give taxpayer-funded healthcare benefits to illegal immigrants. Because of our congressman’s actions, one-sixth of our economy may be subject to government control. The consequences are monumental: premiums will rise even faster, bureaucrats will be in charge of healthcare decisions and the quality of patient care will suffer.”

Katie Wright, a Republican National Committee spokesperson, also weighed in. She said Perriello was saying one thing to constituents, and doing another in Washington. Obviously, I disagree.

Here’s part of Tom’s statement:

“Our work on this bill is not over,” he said in his statement. “As health care legislation advances through Congress, I will work with my colleagues in the Senate to push for better inter-state competition. But I am proud of the changes I fought for. After hearing from my constituents during over 100 hours of town hall meetings in August, and by continuing those conversations in the months since, I worked to include their ideas in the bill, pushing for legislation that now protect Medicare, ensure deficit neutrality, encourage wellness and preventive care, and protect small businesses.”

I guess this goes to show that not everyone is interested in everyone being able to obtain healthcare. Instead, the teabaggers are interested in protecting billionaires’ salaries at the insurance companies. People who make $35,000/yr are trying to protect the rich people who would deny them health care as well.

Welcome to the race, Senator Hurt. We’ll be watching and listening to you and the other candidates. We will be reporting on them as well.

Like I said, make sure and read the comments after the article.

[UPDATE: To correct placement of blockquote 10AM 11-09-09]

GOPAC Advertisement for District 24 GOP candidate

If you look closely, you can see the GOPAC address in this browser screen shot. H/T Adam Feiler.

UPDATE: HD-21 exact advertisement for the GOP candidate there. See Vivian for more.

Presented without comment, for youse enjoyment.

USDA Poverty Rates for Virginia

The USDA has a great interactive map showing poverty rates for adults and children in each of Virginia’s localities. Below is a reproduction of the map. To get the figures for each county, use the above link. (Figures are from 2007, the last year data is available for.)

Where I live: Cumberland County
Poverty rate for Adults and Children: 14.9%
Poverty rate for Children: 21.7%

Almost a fourth of the children in the county I live in are in poverty. This needs to change. Opportunity is closely linked to financial stability. In these times of scarce jobs, the problem continues to compound itself.

For interactive map, see link above.

The amendment would have ended the contract rights of companies that allow gang rape with no recourse.

John McCain is one of the Senators in favor of corporate gang rape, and will be appearing with Bob McDonnell in his campaign for Governor.

Radical xenophobe and former Congressman Virgil Goode campaigns Friday for Bob McDonnell in Stuart, Virginia.

State Sen. Robert Hurt, R-Chatham, announced today that he will be a candidate for the congressional seat currently held by Rep. Tom Perriello, and filed the paperwork with the FEC. He expects to make a more formal announcement sometime after this fall’s elections.

One of the first events he will go to as a candidate will be a so-called ‘Tea Party’ being held in Danville this weekend.

The Alta Vista Journal:

Danville TEA Party Patriots have assembled an impressive lineup for its next event at Saturday, Oct 10, at 1 p.m. at the Danville City Courthouse Plaza.

Among the dozen speakers scheduled are former 5th District Congressman Virgil Goode, and 5th District candidate Feda Morton, Laurence Verga, Del. Danny Marshall, state Sen. Robert Hurt and Fair Tax Nation community coordinator Herschel Stone.

The Fair Tax idea seems to be a popular one with Republicans, although there are certainly problems with the details of the plan. Tea parties have been held across the nation this past Summer, with the largest possibly at the National Mall on September 12, 2009, which was billed as a ‘912 event’. It was billed and promoted by Fox News and Rodeo Clown Glenn Beck as a protest to get the voices of the attendees heard on a variety of issues, taxes being among them.

As I have reported previously, California real estate developer Laurence Verga and former GOP committee chair in Fluvanna County Feda Morton have announced their candidacies for the congressional seat.

Morton also said she is concerned with the cap-and-trade legislation, health care reform and other issues backed by Obama and the Democrats in Congress.

“I think they’re destroying the freedoms we enjoy as private citizens,” she said. “We need someone with the character, values and beliefs that Virgil Goode has.”

Perriello, Morton said, will be vulnerable in next year’s election.

“I don’t feel he’s representative of the people in his district,” she said. “He was elected because he rode on the coattails of a popular presidential candidate.”

However, as McNeil points out, Perriello significantly outperformed Obama last fall. John McCain handily won the district. Morton goes on to intimate that there was something wrong with the vote totals in the last election.

Morton also said she thought it was unusual that additional votes for Perriello were discovered during a post-election canvass.

“Votes showed up the day after the election,” she said. “You don’t usually see that happening.”

Morton clarified that she has no evidence that any sort of irregularities or voter fraud. “There was nothing proven,” she said. “I’m not saying that.”

If Morton does not know about the canvass the day after the election, and that vote totals almost always change the next day, how can she be my Congressman? Surely she must have been at a canvass the day after elections in Albemarle County in the past, in her role as Chair of the Albemarle Committee.

Verga, who moved here 5 years ago from California, uses up an entire allowance of hyperbole in one interview. He said that he fears for the future of his four children. If that’s not bad enough, he thinks we might be headed for socialism.

Verga said he believes Obama is preparing to increase payroll and capital gains taxes, as well as other measures that Verga views as an attempt to keep the economy struggling.

“Obama doesn’t want to improve the economy,” Verga said. “He wants to keep it like it is so he can expand the federal government.”

Obama, he said, is moving the United States toward, “at best, a socialist-type country.”

“I think universal health care would ruin the best medical care system in the world and probably take a lot of lives,” Verga said.

Sure, people have the right to think whatever they want. And I have the right to laugh at them all I want too.

Just ask Bradley Rees.

I had read some of the material that described the ‘Education Plan’ of Bob McDonnell and Bill Bolling, but I hadn’t paid much attention to the details. The plan is fatally flawed and seeks to deceive voters into thinking that the money the plan speaks about is extra money put into the schools. This is disingenuous and false. To do it justice, read the article for yourself at the links provided. I can’t do it justice in one article.

In thearticle online by Lieutenant Governor Bolling in which he states his case for the plan. In it, he uses the phrase ‘central office to the classroom’ over and over, in an attempt at a one-size-fits-all scenario, where all schools would be required to attain 65% in ‘instructional expenses’. This would also be regardless of certain characteristics at schools that cause a problem, such as schools in low-income and poverty neighborhoods.

Generally not all schools will have the same need for administrative staff and overhead.

Another problem with the plan, or at least the way it was described by Mr. Bolling, is that it is written in a tone that is brusque and not at all friendly. Disparaging remarks about office personnel and Administrators at the schools are in my opinion, a sign of the plan’s shortcomings and weaknesses as a viable plan for our schools and the children that attend them.

Any plan that starts out being snippy and derogatory to a group of professionals such as I have mentioned, is no plan for fixing what’s wrong with the schools.

Selling a plan that merely uses the meager funds we have now differently, requires more than a pledge to put half a billion dollars into schools. No funny business with the accounting. Money from somewhere else will need to be found to meet the needs of the areas you propose to take money from. The schools need the money they have now, and a whole lot more.

Here is an example of another disconnect (from Bolling’s article).

While a vast majority of Virginians support increasing instructional spending by shifting money from the central office to the classroom, our Democratic opponents and certain members of the education establishment have been critical of the McDonnell/Bolling plan.

They claim that Virginia is already spending 64.5% in the classroom. Under the state’s broad definition of classroom spending, this is true. However, the state considers expenditures such as “office of the principal”, “social work services” and “media services” as instructional spending. While these may be worthwhile expenditures, we do not consider them classroom expenditures.

Notice how Mr. Bolling says that the state’s current definition of classroom spending, the 64.5% figure is true. He then goes on to downplay the importance to instruction of the office of the principal, social work services, and media services. All of these items are interwoven with the instruction day. Do I really need to spell out why social work services is a good thing for 6th through 9th grade classrooms?

Whatever changes are being proposed by this plan would have a very rough time in the Senate, and maybe even in the House of Delegates. New laws would need to be passed to put this plan into place.

Unfortunately, critics of the McDonnell/Bolling plan are largely members of the education establishment and the politicians beholden to them. We understand that they may have something to lose if our plan impacts the status quo, but they should not let their own self-interest stand in the way of providing a better education to our children.

Forgotten the log in your own eye, Mr. Bolling?

H/T Virginia Tomorrow