Worst Campaign Ad Ever? Here's A Contender

A scene from perhaps the worst campaign ad ever

The video at the bottom of this post could be the worst campaign ad ever. And a lot of people agree with me. 

Democrat Dan Helmer is running for a U.S. House seat in Virginia.

So he put up an ad that is a parody of the scene in the movie "Top Gun" in which Tom Cruise sings "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' to Kelly McGillis in a bar, and then everybody in the bar joins in.

Here, we have Helmer in the bar singing "You've Lost That Centrist Feelin." to an actor playing his opponent. Rep. Barbara Comstock.

Yeah, it's as bad as it sounds. Watch if you dare:

Apparently, Police In A Lot Of Places HATE It When You Wear A Mask

This guy was arrested for wearing a 'Joker'
 makeup in Virginia. Apparently, it's illegal
to be out in public wearing a mask in Virginia.

Dressing up in costumes is fun.

That's why Halloween is so popular.

Some people take that dress-up ethos to other times of year.  Some lawmkers, and some police agencies, hate it, hate it when you do that.

Apparently, wearing a mask presumes you will commit a crime any minute now. So some jurisdictions go after masked people, just to show their law enforcement cred, I guess.

So it was in Virginia recently, police arrested Jeremy Putman, 31, for walking around the town of Winchester dressed as the Joker, complete with makeup on his face.

He was also carrying a sword, which police didn't seem so worried about. Instead, they nailed Putman for wearing a mask.

I have no idea why Putman wanted to walk around town dressed like the Joker, and he didn't commit any kind of violent crime. But who knows what he intended?

The original intent of these laws was pretty good: Lawmakers didn't want to make these easy for robbers, or the Ku Klux Klan.

However, like almost every well-intentioned statute, some law enforcement types will always find a way to abuse the law.

In any event, police are charging Putman with a felony.  According to Winchester Police, "Officers do not believe there are additional suspects, but want to remind the community of the seriousness of the crime."

Really? Serious? Some nutcase decides he wants to dress up as the Joker and that's a crime against humanity?

The Virginia law has exemptions for Halloween, theatrical performances and that kind of thing.

Still it wold have been nice in the case of Putman to have some discretion, to at least see what he was up to before automatically arresting him.  Some people just like to play dress up.

It appears Putman is just an eccentric who likes dressing up as cartoon characters sometimes. He reported has no prior arrest records and people who know him say he's not scary or dangerous.

The arrest forced him out of his Walmart job, and Putnam says the arrest is ruining his reputation, 

Virginia Ticketing/Municipal Revenue Generating Scam Being Broken Up

This cop in Fairfax County, Virginia spent
a lot of time ticketing cars in auto repair shop
parking lots for expired inspection stickers.
The cars were in these parking lots
because their owners were trying to get
these cars inspected.  

One of my pet peeves is municipalities who derive revenue from fines against people in ways that are total scams.

I highlighted one of these last year, when it turned out Fairfax County, Virginia were ticketing cars that had expired inspection stickers.

Ticketing people for expired inspection stickers is fine by me, except when the cars they were ticketing were in repair shop parking lots, awaiting required state inspections. 

In a rare dose of common sense, the Virginia legislature has stepped in and banned this practice.

Says the Washington Post:

"State Det. James M. LeMunyon (R-Fairfax) investigated the situation after reading about it in the Washington Post in October. He introduced a bill in December to prohibit ticketing cars awaiting state inspection, and it passed both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly unanimously. 

On Wednesday, Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed the bill into law, his spokesman said."

I'm certainly glad Virginia lawmakers did this, but the whole thing still smells like a scam between the industrial park condo association where the repair shops were being targeted, and local police.

Nobody has formally accused these parties of doing this, and I have no proof that I'm right. Still, the whole thing  stinks to high heaven.

The industrial park management and board gave Fairfax police a letter about seven years ago giving police permission to enforce traffic and vehicle ordinances on their private property.

So, police had a field day ticketing the cars there awaiting inspection. I'm pretty sure that the police department reaped oodles of money on fines, and maybe, just maybe kicked back some of these profits to the property managers and condo board.

No proof of that, but what else could it be?

Tellingly, the condo board is not talking to the press.

Fairfax police said they were merely responding to calls for service in the area

Riiiiggght.

A particular parking enforcement officer, Jacqueln Hogue, would always show up and start ticketing like crazy. (Bet there were bonuses in her paycheck!)

Shop owners would hastily move cars inside repair shops whe they saw Hogue.

Hogue one day had the balls to go inside a shop owned by Bruce Redwine to write a ticket on a car in the buidling.

Redwine snatched the ticket out of Hogues hand and admitted using colorful words to describe her. Who wouldn't?

She brought Redwine up on trumped up felony assault charges, but after several court appeals and such a jury took a grand total of 20 minutes to acquit him.

But the legal proceedings cost Redwine thousands of dollars in attorneys fees. That was the message from Hogue, and Fairfax County Police and the condo association. Mess with us, interfere with our scam and it'll cost you big time.

Here's why I care so much about this local case: Corruption like that exhibited by Fairfax, Virginia county police, with the collaboration of the rich guys in the condo association, is why faith in government has collapsed.

Corruption is rampant, people are pissed, and they turn to whoever  can channel their anger. The people who are best able to channel this anger are strongmen, fascists, and in their own right corrupt.

In other words, people like Donald Trump.

In their big get rich quick scheme, Fairfax police and the people around them contributed to this dangerous shift in American government toward more crookedness.

Which makes me doubly grateful to the Virginia legislature and governor for putting a stop to this mess.

Here's a quote from the Washington Post:

"One would think you don't need to legislate common sense, said Dickson Young, Redwine's attorney who won his acquital. "If the Fairfax police had exercised common sense, legislation wouldn't have been necessary."

Yeah, but common sense flies out the window when there's money to be made through a municipally run scam, right Fairfax County, Virginia police?

Virginia County Tickets Cars Awaiting Inspection At Repair Shops For Not Being Inspected

Why is this Virginia car enforcement officer
writing so many tickets for cars parked waiting
for new inspection stickers at repair shops?
I smell a scam.  

Is parking and car safety enforcement a tool to make sure everybody is complying with the law, or is it just to raise revenue easily off a bunch of what certain county governments regard as suckers.

The money  making schtick is what seems to be going in Fairfax County, Virginia.

 According to the Washington Post, a car enforcement gal named Jacquelyn D. Hogue has been going to repair shops and ticketing cars for expired inspections stickers. The cars are parked there because their owners are getting new inspection stickers.

There are several repair shops in the Mariah Business Center, and all of them have been seeing traffic enforcement ticket soon-to-be inspected cars.

The Washington Post says repair shop owners "don't understand why Fairfax police have zealously sought to enforce laws on expired tags or inspections, mainly on drivers who are making the effort to get their cars into compliance, while on private property. Hogue's appearance in the industrial park often set off a scramble to hide customers' cars inside the shops, the shop owners said."

The Post article explains that Fairfax pollice are only on the property because a letter issued by Mariah's property management firm specifially ranted police permission to enforce county traffic, parking and towing ordinances.

'Why aren't they barking up their property manager's tree?....That is their business. Without that letter, we have no authority - none - to be in that parking lot,' said Fairfax Police spokeswoman Lt. Brooke Wright.

Here's where it gets (intentionally?) confusing. The property manager declined to answer the Washington Post's questions. The repair shop operators rent from owners of individual buildings in the park, and the owners claime they can't change or withdraw the authorizing letter because they are not members of Mariah's condo association board of directors.

Murky? You bet. Which means I really smell a rat. I have no proof or evidence of this, but I bet the condo association is taking kickbacks from inspection ticket inspections. The condo association board wins financially, as do Fairfax Police.

And probably Hogue, who is the one who is always writing the tickets. She declined the Washington Post's request for comment. Surprise!!

It's all about revenue generation, not public safety.

This is all just one incident, but I wonder how many other swindles are going on in Our Fair Nation between police or other authorities and land owners.

I know I'm sounding paranoid and conspiratorial, but something is amiss, I'm sure.

I hope somehow this scam gets broken, but I'm not holding my breath.

Pervy Va. Prosecutors Decide Not To Take Pornographic Photos Of Teen After Public Revulsion

Police and prosecutors in Virginia were going to make pornography.  

I sure as hell don't want to see sexually explicit
photos of this kid, but some Virginia prosecutors
(briefly) did.  

Yep, it was all in the name of prosecuting a 17 year old kid for sexting.

Warning for the sensitive: This is kind of a gross story.

Sexting, for the uninitiated, is the act of sending sexually explicit texts to someone in the hopes of getting lucky, so to speak.

Here's what happened. A 17 year old boy was basically acting creepy and sexting a 15 year old girl. This included sending her a picture of his erect penis.

Prosecutors say the girl asked the boy to stop sending such stuff, but he did anyway. Others say there was basically back and forth between this boy and girl.  Stupid stuff. Probably something both kids needed some guidance on.

It's true the boy was wrong and needed to be stopped and probably punished.  He needs to learn to keep it in his pants and not harass people.

But prosecutors decided to really go for broke and charge the kid with manufacturing child pornography, which would make him a sex offender for life and pretty much ruin his life.

Worse, the prosecutors seemed to be enjoying this way too much. They had planned to take the boy to the hospital, get him a hard on and take photos of the penis. You know, to compare with the photos the boy sexted to the girl.

Riiiiigghht.

Because the way to teach a teenager not to send or make dirty pictures for people who don't want them is for so called responsible adults to make pornographic pictures of teenagers.

The boy's lawyer said the threat to take dirty pics of the kid seemed part of a threat.  The lawyer said either the teen pleads guilty or he gets forced to get those photos taken, according to the Washington Post.

After the media got ahold of this story, police and prosecutors changed their tune.   Police issued a statement after all the media attention to this weird, icky issue,  saying they weren't going to take those dirty pictures of the kid's junk after all.

I guess taking dirty pictures of 17 year old boys looks bad from a PR standpoint.

The issue of what to do with teens and sexting is serious. Too bad that, in an effort to look "serious" police and prosecutors in Virginia looked like idiots in this case.

Virginia Attorney General Is Way Too Interested In Your Sex Life

We need to talk about Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli's sex life.

No, I won't go into any detail here, mainly because I don't know a thing about his sex life, nor do I care about it.

Kenneth Cuccinelli is shocked, SHOCKED! by
most kinds of sexual activity.  

The problem is, he cares, very, very deeply about your sex life. Especially if you live in Virginia.

Before we get into the details, if you're a little delicate, you might want to avoid getting too involved in this post.

Here's the deal: In Virginia, Cuccinelli wants to ban oral and anal sex. 

I guess it's not Biblical enough or something. Of all the crime problems an attorney general would face in any state, I'm not sure why Cuccinelli is focusing on this, but I guess everybody has their priorities.

This all stems from the notion that Cuccinelli finds gay people icky. Courts have the state can't stop gay people from having sex, as long as they do it behind closed doors and it involves consenting adults. Cuccinelli's solution is to ban all oral and anal sex for everybody, straight or gay.

As you can imagine, there are lots of problems with Cuccinelli's potential law. It's unconstitutional, as the U.S. Supreme Court has already dealt with this issue. Yes, I know the Supremes should have been dealing with less carnal issues, but this topic came up, so to speak, so it had to be addressed.

Of course there are other, practical problems with Cuccinelli's idea. How are they going to enforce it? Most people don't have sex of any kind out in the street, where police could see whether people are doing the deed legally, at least to Cuccinelli's satisfaction.

Besides, I think it's already illegal to have sex of any kind out in the middle of the street.

Are you going to have to get a permit before having sex and then have some law enforcement person in your bedroom making sure your technique is proper, under Virginia law? Wouldn't having law enforcement watching kind of kill the mood?

Unless you're into that sort of thing, of course.

Worse, will Cuccinelli invite himself into everybody's bedroom to watch? If so, then geez, the guy really IS kinky!

What if Cuccinelli somehow succeeds with this law and then is able to prosecute everyone who breaks it. Supposedly, Virginia's prison system has the capacity of 30,000. There are several million adults in Virginia. Where would all those sex addled felons go?

And why is Cuccinelli so interested in how people are having sex, anyway?  Yes, I do understand and agree with the point that everyone in law enforcement, including Cuccinelli, should care and ensure that sex only happens between consenting adults

But wanting to regulate how these consenting adults do it just seems a little, well, obsessive.  Sure, Cuccinelli should decide for himself how he wants to conduct his sex life, but he should keep his dick nose out of our beds.

In any event, Cuccinelli already finds himself under pressure to ensure he and his staff have sex (not necessarily with each other!) in a way that Cuccinelli himself finds proper.

Mother Jones magazine has already demanded to know if Cuccinelli and his staff have ever had oral or anal sex. You'd hate to have a hypocrite in his office, so we'd better clean house now, goes the logic.

So far, no response to Mother Jones on that question.

There was that big tourist ad campaign a few years ago that went "Virginia is for lovers."  I'd hate to think the only lovers Virginia would welcome in the future are really boring ones.



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