Waldo’s Virginia Political Blogroll

So they (politicians, talking heads, and world leaders) have given Israel the one week warning before they will step in and create a ceasefire. What makes anyone think that the UN or any other multinational coalition will be able to make a decision and act on it after this week. Israel has at least two more weeks to act pretty much at liberty without regard for the rest of the world. The UN and

Richmond, Virginia — July 31, 2006

This is why it’s important to run Democrats in every district.

Back when it was announced, Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy raised some eyebrows. After all, some congressional districts are gerrymandered beyond all hope of a Democratic victory. Other districts are theoretically attainable, but are occupied by Republican incumbents who are relatively moderate and generally well-liked by their constituents. If there is no hope of winning, why go through the trouble and expense of running a candidate?

Tom Davis illustrates why it is important to challenge as many seats as possible. Davis, a Republican from Virginia’s 11th Congressional District, fits into the second category, being perceived as somewhat more moderate than many of his Republican colleagues in the House. In 2004, Davis beat Democratic challenger Ken Longmyer by a comfortable margin of 60.25% to 38.26% for the Democrat. On the other hand, during last year’s gubernatorial campaign, Tim Kaine carried the 11th CD with 55.67% of the vote to Jerry Kilgore’s 42.42%. Clearly the right Democrat can win in this district under the right circumstances.

The nominating process in Virginia ends fairly early, in June. Other states hold their primary elections much later–Joe Leiberman won’t find out his fate in the Connecticut primary until next Tuesday, for instance, nearly two months after Jim Webb won the Senate nomination in Virginia. Virginia’s early primary means that there is a fairly long period between the nomination and Labor Day weekend when political campaigns tend to heat up dramatically. Getting into a political race in Virginia requires a leap of faith because a promising nomination in June could look like a lost cause by September. Likewise, things might look bleak in June only to blossom in August. The race you sign up for in June can be a very different animal in August or September. A lot can happen in two-and-half months, and last week a lot happened to Tom Davis.

Last Wednesday the Washington Post broke the story that Davis had been linked to a consulting firm run by one of his closest friends and employing his wife, state senator Jeannemarie Devolites Davis. In a year in which the corrupting influence of lobbyists in Washington DC has become a major issue, Davis and his wife have been discovered in an exceptionally cozy relationship with a lobbyist. Devolites Davis recieved payments totaling $78,000 last year for making phone calls from home less than 20 hours a week. That’s not bad for a part-time job, but I guess you have to know someone.

The story contains a familiar element: a lobbyist, in this case Davis’ old friend Donald W. Upson of ICG Government, writing letters for the congressman that were then printed on the congressman’s stationary and signed by Davis. With this kind of access, paid for by his defense contractor clients, Upson could use Davis’ influence to intimidate the Pentagon into abandoning plans to terminate costly and wasteful contracts. Doesn’t really seem kosher, does it?

So now Davis is facing inquiries into his behavior and his Democratic challenger Andrew Hurst has a golden opportunity to exploit Davis’ ethical problems. Hurst is wasting no time, holding a press conference tomorrow, Tuesday, August 1st. The press conference will be held at 2:00 PM in front of the ICG Government office at the corner of Westpark and Greensboro Drive in Tysons Corner, Virginia. The address is 8400 Westpark Drive, in Mclean, Virginia.

Tomorrow’s event will also be an excellent opportunity for the many fine Northern Virginia bloggers to get out and do some first hand reporting. I look forward to reading your accounts and linking to the best of them.

As areas along the shoreline of our waterways are developed and as new owners purchase existing properties there are more and more applications to install or expand piers, platforms and boathouses. When there are more and more of these structures being proposed on our rivers and creeks there is more potential for conflict with surrounding property owners concerning the impacts of these structures. The process of permitting for piers, platforms and boathouses includes a variety of public participation opportunities for folks to comment on how these structures may affect them.

In this past General Assembly session there was a bill, Senate Bill 634, which proposed to exempt a number of structures from requiring a permit from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and therefore would not require an opportunity for citizens to comment. Essentially it would have allowed all open-sided shelter roofs or gazebo structures over the water to be permitted without any public input.

Through my years on the Westmoreland County Board of Supervisors the issues that caused the greatest concern among folks that lived along the water were those related to the permitting of roofed structures over the water. Anything that eliminates the opportunity for the public to comment on these projects potentially allows decisions to be made without consideration of impact on others.

In light of this problem with the elimination of public comment provided in Senate Bill 634 I proposed to change the language to require a permit and thus allow public input on all but the small open-sided shelter roofs or gazebo structures. These additions to the bill passed and now require that any roofed structure of more than 400 square feet as part of a dock or any open-sided roofs designed to shelter a single boat, boat slip or boat lift that exceed 700 square feet obtain a permit from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. These requirements continue to include that any adjoining property owner that objects to a proposed roof structure over the water will require a permit from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and therefore would require an opportunity for citizens to comment. Also, counties may continue to disallow such structures by ordinance.

Last week I attended the Kilmarnock Fireman’s Festival. Over the weekend I attended a fundraiser for the Northumberland Community Center as well as a Picnic for the Caroline County Farm Bureau at the Upper Caroline Fire Station.

As always, if I can be of assistance to you please do not hesitate to contact me by phone, 804-493-0508, or email, robwittman@verizon.net. Also, please visit my new website; www.delegatewittman.com.

Richmond, Virginia — July 30, 2006

We are now a week past the first debate in this year’s U.S. Senate race. For the most part, the debate looked like a draw to me with a couple of small exceptions. Webb was able to stick it to Allen on a couple of key issues like his rubber stamp approach to congressional oversight of the executive and the minimum wage.

But Webb fell into at least one trap set for him by Allen’s campaign, a trap so obvious that it frankly disappointed me to see it happen. Webb’s campaign compounded that error by adopting a press release-based “strategy” that defies logic.

The obvious trap I am referring to is Allen’s question about Craney Island. In the grand scale of things, Craney island is not that important. In fact, George Allen could have asked Jim Webb something like “what do I have in my pocket?” What is important is that, in the course of bargaining over the terms of the debate the Webb campaign conceded two points: 1) Allen demanded the right to ask Webb a question directly and 2) Allen declined to sign the agreement saying he would not use footage from the debate in political commercials.

The result was predictable: Allen asked a question about an obscure footnote in Virginia public policy and got Webb to say something like “huh?” on camera. That’s how campaign commercials are born folks. But Webb’s crackerjack team didn’t stop there.

In the course of the debate George Allen made some kind of idiotic comment like “Webb has changed parties so many times he’s R2-D2.” Huh? What the hell was Allen saying? Whatever he was trying to say, he sounded like an idiot. Webb could have said something along the lines of “George, you sounded like an idiot just now.” But that’s not what Webb’s crew did.

In a startling move that revealed that more of Webb’s inner circle are Trekkies than is strictly healthy in national politics, the Webb campaign adopted the Allen campaign’s Star Wars idiom. What the hell? Instead of calling Allen out on his childish behavior, the Webb campaign validated it and adopted it as its own.

So, now, Jim Webb is Luke Skywalker and George Allen is Darth Vader? Dude, Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father. If you are going to make lame literary allusions to Stars Wars, at least master the canon.

So listen up Webb campaign, from someone who has been a loyal supporter since the very beginning: don’t let the Allen campaign bait you. Let Jim be Jim. This campaign is not about who can pay their consultants more; it’s about who is the better man. George Allen is slick: no one is slicker, but by any reasonable measurement Jim Webb is the better man.

My advice: put Jim, Mac, and Phil in the Jeep and put them on the road. No entourage, no more lame press releases, just Jim Webb shaking hands and looking people in the eye.

Richmond, Virginia — July 29, 2006

The answer to this question is probably “yes and no.” I was doing some research for another piece I am working on, when I came across some interesting footage from an Israeli television station. The footage shows an Israeli armored column under attack from Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Those of you who have been following the news from the Middle-East know that the Israelis have encountered much greater resistance from Hezbollah than they originally thought they would.

The Israeli Defence Force is a heavily armored and highly mobile force that relies heavily on tanks and armored personnel carriers (”APC”s) to advance in the face of heavy resistance without taking heavy casualties. It is now becoming apparent that Hezbollah is using sophisticated anti-tank missiles to hit back at Israeli armored vehicles and stall the Israeli advance into Southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah has already pulled off one major coup using missile technology obtained from China by way of Iran. Hezbollah managed to hit an Israeli missile boat off the coast of Lebanon with an Iranian copy of a Chinese missile, probably a “Kowsar” missile like the one depicted below.

A Kowsar missile launcher mounted on a commercial truck chassis

It probably surprises no one that Iran has obtained missile technology from China. China has a booming arms industry and with her exploding economy, has a strong interest in obtaining Iranian oil. What might surprise some readers is that a significant portion of Iran’s burgeoning weapons industry is based on American military technology obtained by reverse engineering. Much of this technology was sold to the Shah of Iran prior to the Iranian revolution, but significant weapons and technology were provided to the Islamic Republic of Iran during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.

In 1986, the Reagan administration secretly traded these weapons to Iran in exchange for Iranian help in obtaining the release of American hostages held in Lebanon–weapons for hostages held by Hezbollah. The proceeds of these sales were then used to illegally support the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, leading to the Iran-Contra Affair that dogged Reagan’s final years in office.

Iran had a pressing need for these weapons in 1986; the new Islamic Republic had been engaged in a disastrous war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq since September 1980. The Iraqi Army possessed thousands of tanks and used these, along with chemical weapons, to dominate the relatively lightly armed Iranian Army. Iran had begun the war with a small supply of American “TOW” (tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided) anti-tank missiles, but these had rapidly been expended and Iran desparately needed a resupply.

Oliver North eventually brokered the sale to the desperate Iranians of at least 1,000 TOW missiles, along with other military supplies, at dramatically inflated prices. The Iranians were able to use these advanced anti-armor missiles to largely negate the Iraqi advantage in armor, though the Iraqis continued to inflict terrible losses using chemical weapons.

The Iranians didn’t fire off all of their TOW missiles, however. Some of the missiles found their way into the hands of Iranian engineers who carefully disassembled them and figured out how they worked and how to manufacture them, a process known as “reverse engineering.” As a result of this process, Iran was able to begin producing the “Toophan,” a clone of the American TOW missile system. Iran now offers the Toophan for export sales, and it is a safe bet that they have provided this deadly weapon to Hezbollah.

“Toophan,” the Iranian clone of the American TOW missile

Access to the Toophan would dramatically increase Hezbollah’s ability to stand up against even the heaviest armor now in service. Compare it’s ability with the far more common anti-tank weapon used by insurgents: the RPG-7. Depending on the kind of warhead used, the RPG-7 can penetrate between 350 and 600 mm of steel armor, but is unguided and extremely inaccurate beyond 300 meters. The typical range of engagement is more like 100 meters. The Toophan can penetrate 550 to 760 mm of steel armor (depending on which version), is fully guided, and has an effective range of 3,850 meters.

Now let’s look at the video clip I mentioned before. I warn you that this is actual battle footage: don’t watch this video if you are liable to be upset by such footage. In the center of the frame is an Israeli “Merkava” tank and just to the left is another Israeli vehicle in flames. The burning vehicle is probably a much lighter armored vehicle, a modified M113 the Israelis call “Zelda.” Somewhere off to the right of the picture are Hezbollah guerrillas trying to destroy the Merkava with missiles.

Watch carefully: the first missile is a large long-range missile–the missile’s rocket motor is still burning when it strikes the tank. The warhead detonates and the missile’s rocket engine, still burning, is thrown clear of the explosion. This hit, or perhaps an earlier one we do not see, apparently cripples the tank. The guerrillas then attempt to destroy the tank with a barrage of smaller rockets, possibly RPG-7s.

An Israeli Merkava IV tank on display

If the first missile is indeed a Toophan, then this attack is a tragic demonstration of the law of unintended consequences. By trading these advanced weapons for Hezbollahs hostages in the 1980’s, the Reagan administration inadvertantly placed the technology within reach of Hezbollah. Now Israeli forces in Lebanon are paying a bitter price for that exchange.

Richmond, Virginia seen from Haxall’s Canal

Richmond, Virginia — July 28, 2006

Part 4: The Future of The Richmond Democrat

I started this blog back in November of last year. Since then I’ve posted nearly seven hundred times. It’s been fun and I’ve learned a lot.

No, I am not quitting: I am going to be making some changes to the site though. The desire on my part for these changes are driven by several different factors:

• I want my site to be a useful resource, even if I don’t write daily.
• I don’t want my site to be a one-topic site that is completely wrapped around whatever campaign I happen to be working on at the moment.
• I want to write more extensive posts that have more of a shelf life and generate hits over time.

I’ve come to realize that only a fraction of my hits come from Lefty Blogs. When writing for the Lefty Blogs audience, I tend to produce posts with very little shelf life. These posts might generate a nice burst of hits when first posted, but the subject matter is usually covered on six other blogs within an hour and is forgotten a day or two later, never generating another hit.

I believe that I can generate more sustained traffic on my site by writing about things that I am interested in beyond the scope of Virginia politics. I began to realize this after I switched my hit counter to a site meter. As a result of the more detailed reports provided by my site meter, I’ve come to realize that there is a significant amount of international traffic drawn to my blog when I write about military topics.

Now I am no military expert–I’m more of a well-read lay person–but I do know enough to catch some of the more obvious mistakes reported by the mainstream media. This became especially clear when I saw how many hits I received from my posts about the Ahi-Hanit and the fighting in Lebanon. I enjoy military history and technology, and I’m going to write more of this sort of thing going forward.

I’m also going to write more extensive posts analyzing issues and debates I think I can contribute to in an intelligent fashion. An example of this was my series on the indoor smoking ban. I don’t think that the really weighty issues that face our state and our nation can be dealt with in two sentences and a hotlink. If a problem is really a problem, it’s usually complicated. One-liners and snark won’t generate progress.

Finally, I’ve acquired a really nice collection of research resources and links, and I’m going to start making these available online as a kind of library. I may even throw in some fairly basic posts about fairly basic “blog improvements” and tools.

This then is the broad agenda I am setting out for this site as I move forward. I will be pursuing a broader approach with a wider range of topics, more original writing and reporting, more substantial and enduring treatment of my subject matter, and a significant attempt to become an online resource for other bloggers.

Forgive me for temporarily leaving the topic of the Israeli-Hezbollah War, but I saw something today that is making me cringe. The Republicans in Congress may give way to raising the minimum wage. Yea, yea, whatever, right? I mean it happens every few years. Then I saw the disturbing thing; they may raise it to $7.50 an hour. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Nope! I started out back in the mid to late ’90s

As I mentioned last week one of the tax breaks that Virginians will see this year is a Sales Tax Holiday. The Sales Tax Holiday is a period of time in which certain purchases are exempt from the sales tax. This was established this year during the General Assembly Session and will take place the first full weekend in August every year. This year the Sales Tax Holiday will begin at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, August 4, 2006 and last until Midnight, Sunday, August 6, 2006.

Merchandise that is exempt from the sales tax during this time includes articles of clothing or footwear with a selling price of $100 or less per article and all school supply items with a selling price of $20 or less per item.

Clothing does not include accessories, sporting equipment or footwear designed primarily for athletic activity or apparel designed primarily for protective use and not usually considered appropriate for everyday wear. School supply items include “school art supplies” and “school instructional materials and music supplies.” School supplies do not include computers or “school computer supplies.”

There is mandatory participation for all retail sellers during this time period. For more information on Virginia’s Sales Tax Holiday you may contact my office or visit the Sales Tax Holiday’s website: www.tax.virginia.gov/salestaxholiday.

I would also like to announce that we are completing work on our new website, www.delegatewittman.com. On this website you will find useful tools that include archived legislative updates and press releases and information on legislation that I have introduced. As well as links to our blog, the General Assembly Webpage and various other state agencies. There is also a place to sign up for our email list. I encourage everyone to visit the website. It is my hope that this will serve as another communication and educational tool for residents of the 99th District.

This week in the district has been an exciting one. On Saturday, July 15th, I stopped by the Heathsville Market and had the opportunity to speak with a number of folks about issues important to our region. Tuesday, July 18th, I stopped by the Virginia School Board Association meeting in Richmond and I spoke with school superintendents and school board members from throughout the 99th District. On Thursday, July 20th, I attended the Northern Neck Community Criminal Justice Board Meeting and listened to suggestions on legislation and budget amendments that would improve our criminal justice system.

Over the weekend, July 21st-23rd, the First Baptist Church in Heathsville celebrated their 140th Church Anniversary by dedicating their new facilities. I commend this group on the work they do for their community.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of assistance. I can be reached by telephone, 804-493-0508, or email, robwittman@verizon.net.

The Club for Growth has released a tally of how each representative voted on the 19 Flake Amendments. Virginia was a collective 9 for 209. We should be so proud. Only three could muster the courage to vote against any of these important projects. Eric Cantor, Jo Ann Davis, and Tom Davis each voted to not fund three of the projects.

BVBL has a post up too. As he points out, these projects may have some merit, but is it the responsibility of the federal government to fund them? No, it is not the necessary and proper role of government to fund museums, aquariums, dairy education, swimming pools, multipurpose facilities (whatever that means), or other pet projects.

The Virginia Science Museum was one of the targets of the Flake amendments. It received $250,000. The fact that it is near where I live means nothing to me. The federal government should absolutely not be funding science museums across the country. If Richmond wants a science museum it should be self supporting. If they can’t convince people in the area to support them the taxpayers across the country should not foot the bill.

I’m especially disappointed in my representative, Congressman Cantor, and Virginia Republicans. I suppose Rep. Cantor is in a difficult spot since he is in a leadership position, but how can fiscal conservatives hold out any hope for real government reform and spending restraint when hydroponic tomato production is somehow considered a priority for the federal government? This fiscal conservative finds it disheartening. And before someone says Democrats are the answer, wake up, they aren’t.

Donny Baseball crunched the numbers and he ranks Virginia as the number 2 “RINO Breeding Ground”. Virginia Republicans in Congress should be ashamed.

Today’s question is: what are the implications of the media’s coverage of the Israeli-Hezbollah War? Even the liberal media outlets don’t seem to be playing this war like they do the Iraq war. They all seem to be on the Israeli side; whereas most liberal media elites are against the Iraq war. This may be changing, but that is not what I want you to think about. What is the media NOT covering.

Once again, it’s bee a while since I blogged - two weeks - that’s not good. My mind is still a “raging torrent” but work has been keeping me busy and I’ve been lazy. I do have another post in the works that I hope to finish up tomorrow.

Americans for Prosperity held a meeting on Tuesday evening in Goochland. I had hoped to help get a few more people out, but considering it was in Goochland it wasn’t too bad, and what we lacked in quantity we more than made up for in quality.

Whitney Duff, the state directory for AFP, talked about what AFP is and some of the legislation they supported (AFP is not just a “no taxes” group, despite what you may hear, they support legislation too) and what they opposed. Of course, a lot of it focused on taxes and how another tax increase is not necessary.

It’s easy for people to forget (especially in the summer) that the biennial budget grew by 20%. That is a lot of money. When you are spending billions and billions more dollars than the last budget it is absolutely outrageous to think that there is not money somewhere to pay for the transportation “crises”. It’s called setting priorities! Not everything can be number one.

One particularly humorous example of how the legislature does not set priorities is that there is $87,000 being spent on the “Virginia Transportation Museum”. Granted, that is not a large sum of money in the grand scheme of things, but it is not the amount of money that matters. It is the principle.

AFP is going to be going on a statewide tour beginning next month. If you are not on their email list you should sign up to stay informed and to learn when they will be in your area. There was much more discussed and I will try to expand on this later, but I would encourage you to try to make it to one of their meetings. I am glad they are keeping the issues front and center at a time when things are typically a little slower.

Richmond, Virginia — July 25, 2006

Previously:
Part 1 - “Reflections“
Part 2 - “The Mainstream Media“

Part 3: The Blogosphere

Here’s the thing, the political blogosphere is really messy and probably always will be. That won’t stop it from being important, now and in the future. The “blog” format has effectively put a printing press in the hands of anybody willing to take the time and write. Publishing is free and basically instantaneous.

When someone like Michael Shear criticizes bloggers for being a messy and repetitive “echo chamber” I tend to take it with a grain of salt, and so should you. Shear and others like him have a vested interest in pointing to the worst written blogs and drawing generalized conclusions about all bloggers. Shear seems to be a lot less willing to acknowledge the presence of blogs written by writers that are every bit as accomplished as he is: they are out there Mr. Shear.

On the other hand, the blogosphere is a marketplace of ideas, and if your ideas are no good or if they are poorly written, you will get less traffic on your website. Many bloggers don’t care about that. They do what they do as a kind of personal expression. For them, it isn’t about the number of hits they get or the advertising dollars they generate: they are happy to send their opinions out to an audience that might not pay them the slightest attention.

If you do care about hits and advertising dollars (and I do, by the way), then my advice to my fellow bloggers would be to worry less about what you write about (i.e. the “echo chamber”) and focus on writing better and more interesting posts. If ten bloggers post on the same story at the same time and your story is the best written and has pictures, you’ll get more hits and links than your competitors.

Learn about the technical aspects of blogging. Learn to spell and proofread. Learn to look things up when you aren’t sure. Learn about templates and html. Learn how to upload pictures and make picture links. Find blog tools online and see if you can find a novel way to use them. Learn about copyrights and the public domain. Find pictures and writing that is in the public domain that you can use to enhance your blog and make it more interesting.

If you want more hits and more readers, focus on making your websites more interesting and attractive. Learn more about your readership. Consider getting a free “sitemeter” hit counter: you’d be amazed to find out where your readers are. I have readers in Europe and the Middle East. Who would have guessed?

No great or original insights here, but then I never claimed that there would be.

Next: The future of The Richmond Democrat

All of us lefty, hippie, Europhile types “know” that US foreign policy is nothing more than pernicious imperialism whose evil is sometimes compounded by its puppet master Israal. Clearly then, American forces should have no role (even NATO is said to be “too American”) in the international force proposed to provide security along the Israel-Lebanon border in order to compel Israel to stop its bombardment of Lebanon. This is a job for good countries without vested interests in the region. I don’t know…like European ones. Unfortunatley they’ve all excused themselves. Way to go.

Even if Europe’s problem isn’t one of cojones but of manpower and other individual, legitimate concerns, the current crisis presents an excellent example of a situation in which a European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) could play a useful role. Squeamish European publics have been hesitant (some might say “wussy”) to commit the resources to produce a useful force that they only associate with violence, destruction and colonialism, but today in Lebanon the consequences of not even having the option of sending troops to a combat zone without the baggage of a soft UN mandate– orthe lengthy political gymnastics necessary for a robust one– is unavoidable.

Europe’s fickleness is also manifest in its inability to commit anything significant to the UN’s call for $150 million in aid. Hey, at least the Americans have pledged $30 million. It is the least we could do after allowing this to happen.

Rice gets savvy points for going to Beirut. Too bad she didn’t really get anywhere. She would have gotten lots of points for leveling some substantive criticism for Israel’s misguided, inappropriate and inhumane conduct. Instead she just made even more clear (Clearer than bunker buster bomb rush delivery? I’m not so sure, but maybe.) that the US condones such behavior. Maybe that is why a US force would be seen as an extension of Israel…