Again. Really.

Do you honestly expect a candidate, any candidate, to call the 5000 organizations in this state and ask them if they will be endorsing someone and if they would, pretty please, send a questionaire?

Sometimes I wonder if you engage the brain before the fingers.

They are payments. You can even pay on your credit card. You can pay cash. But you still pay.

I sometimes say that I am “naive” when it comes to politics. However, certainly you are not naive enough to actually believe what you wrote here: “Candidates don’t go begging for endorsements, Charles, groups who endorse come to the candidate.”

I mean, obviously some groups do just endorse without being asked, and sometimes even when you’d rather them not endorse.

But candidates DO seek out and beg for endorsements, both from popular elected officials, AND from organizations that will help turn out voters.

I hope you aren’t a political advisor to the Lucas campaign. I don’t know much about that task, but at least I know to seek out the endorsements that are important to you.

“We see the impact of illegal immigration more and more every day. We cannot promote and encourage illegal activity. We also cannot allow our local jurisdictions’ hands to be tied with this issue. ”

“Julie supports entering into a MOA (Memorandum of Agreement) to form a partnership with the Department of Homeland Security allowing ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) training for employees at our jails, our state police department, and our local law enforcement officials. We must do everything we can to keep Prince William and all Virginians safe and keep repeat criminal offenders off the streets. According to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department, the ICE training program “provides necessary resources and latitude to pursue investigations relating to violent crimes, human smuggling, gang/organized crime activity, sexual-related offenses, narcotics smuggling, and money laundering; and allows increased resources and support in more geographical locations.” This program will allow our local and state law enforcement officials to fulfill their duty to keep everyone safe.”

“Julie does not support using tax dollars to fund day laborer facilities.”

I mention the day laborer sites because they were very important to me, and when I was writing a couple of columns against the PWC version, Hilda Barg was very coy with me when I tried to pin her down on HER support for the centers (which she ended up saying she opposed LOCAL tax dollars, but was seeking federal and state taxes, and private funds, because she was FOR building the centers).

I haven’t seen James Young “admit” that payments were made to those people.

We all know through campaign disclosures that campaign contributions were made to three of those named people, when they were running for election. Campaign contributions are not “payments”.

For example, I don’t think John Light is PAYING Julie Lucas for anything. He donated money to her campaign, and I doubt he expects anything in return for that donation.

Charles, you also wrote: “Hey, John Light, when you were talking to Julie, did you ask her if she thought to call them and ask for a questionare to fill out? Did she even think that might be a good endorsement to have?” No, why SHOULD she call them??? Candidates don’t go begging for endorsements, Charles, groups who endorse come to the candidate.

I do agree with you on the part of why Faisal was endorsed. While you can’t always chose who endorses you, you DEFINITELY can speak out against a group who endorses you but you disagree with, for example, the KKK. Another strong message is to return money from people who you do not agree with, i.e. Jack Abrahamoff (sp).

Could you please clue us in on EXACTLY what Gill is doing to “protect our civil liberties”??? I seriously would like to know. Thanks.

Maybe they like Gill’s stance on defending our personal civil liberties. Hey, is that something this blog supports, or are you all against civil liberties?

She doesn’t even mention Help Save Manassas. JL, maybe you could fix that for her?

Julie doesn’t say anything about keeping illegals from getting in-state tuition, or denying them state or local benefits, or keeping them from free health care, or about overcrowding of housing, or anything.

She doesn’t say anything about getting the federal government to start enforcing the laws, or passing state laws to discourage illegal immigration in our state.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully with her on the two things she supports, but there is more I want to do than that.

Maybe she got the letter and misplaced it. I do that with my mail all the time.

Illegal immigration is not just a federal matter. Now it is true that illegal immigration is primarily the failure of the Federal Government. A judge in Texas just noted that only the Federal Government can define who is legal or not. That’s one of those constitutional things.

But Illegal immigration is a serious problem in Prince William County that affects our personal security as well as our quality of life.

The federal government is failing us all regarding illegal immigration. Virginia should not be left with this federal responsibility.

What we need is legislators who will work with the Attorney General to do everything we can by law to discourage illegal immigration at the state level, and then push the federal government to enforce existing federal law.

—Mukit Hossain, president of the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee—-

However, you’ll certainly recognize what he did — as leader of Project Hope and Harmony, he led the fight for the Herndon taxpayer-funded day laborer center.

But you admit that Faisal has paid Lingamfelter, Stewart, Kopko and most significantly Bolling ($13,750.)

Only an extremely naive person would assume that these sums of money, especially the five-figure payment to Bolling, do not influence their recipients.

So the suggestion that perhaps other Faisal defenders MAY also have a financial stake in supporting Faisal, while fanciful, is not a smear. It is a reasonable question to ask.

You will not understand why the PWCRC machine is lurching with Faisal over that cliff unless you separate their personal interests from that of PWC as a whole.

Clearly Stewart, Kopko, Bolling and Lingamfelter benefit personally from their support for Gill.

Not at all surprising when you consider that a substantial portion of Faisal’s donations have come from Democrats. And Faisal got donations from leadership of this democrat-endorsing PAC.

And here’s a post from that bastion of liberalism, NovaTownhall, from October 2006 regarding the Virginia Muslim PAC:

http://www.novatownhall.com/blog/2006/10/virginia_muslim_pac_endorses_d.php#comments

And here’s some of the PACs thoughts on immigration and voting for democrats:

“Mukit Hossain, president of the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee, said his group believes there are 60,000 registered Muslim voters in the state and he is working to mobilize voters to get out and vote Democratic…

One issue especially important to the group was local enforcement of federal immigration laws. The Herndon Town Council’s decision to train local police to enforce these laws was especially troubling, Hossain said.

“That’s the sort of mechanism we believe would be extremely dangerous for the Muslim community,” he told the Washington Examiner. “You are handing over a degree of power that is not necessarily warranted and can be abused, especially given the skimpy training [Herndon police] are going to receive.”"

One more of JM’s fanciful smears.

http://www.masnet.org/takeaction.asp?id=3860

Is this the kind of person we want as the REPBULICAN standard bearer in the 51st Dist. HOD?

I think not.

Virginian Muslim Political Action Committee Gives Its Endorsement For 2006 Election
Date Posted: Thursday, October 26, 2006

————————————————————————-
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful

WASHINGTON, DC - Oct. 26, 2006 (MASNET) The Virginian Muslim Political Action Committee, which is a political PAC, has announced its statewide endorsement for election 2006.

Nationwide surveys show that the issues of erosion of civil liberties, human rights violations, unfair immigration laws, foreign policies of unilateral aggression against Muslim countries, health care, and education are considered high priority for Muslim Americans. After careful consideration of the track records and the positions of incumbents and challengers on these issues, VMPAC has endorsed the following candidates:

US Senate (for the whole state)

· Jim Webb (Democrat)

US Congress (Northern Virginia Districts)

· District 7: James M. Nachman (Democrat)

· District 8: Jim Moran (Democrat)

· District 10: Judy Feder (Democrat)

· District 11: Andrew Hurst (Democrat)

Please contact VMPAC for any further information:

I have never heard of the Gun Owners of America, but I have a good idea why this group may have endorsed Faisal without contacting Julie. ($$$$$$$$).

At some point we may wish to ask where all this money is coming from. I have a feeling that it comes through the lobbying group Sapentia LLC which Gill runs with noted sharia-law-in-the-USA advocate Asim Ghafoor.

Ghafoor is an object of some controversy. It seems that one of Ghafoor’s several Specially Designated Terrorist Entity clients named Al-Haramain was in Saudi Arabia, where its principal had fled to. Ghafoor was talking on the phone to the Al-Haramain official in Saudi Arabia, and didn’t know that the feds were listening in.

Now Ghafoor is suing the federal government for allegedly violating his or the Specially Designated Terrorist Entity Al-Haramain’s rights.

It might be a good idea if Julie would release her tax records and then challenge Gill, Gallinger and Gill, and Sapentia LLC to do the same. The results might be very interesting in explaining Faisal’s unexplained $13,750 munificence towards Bolling, the private schools for his four kids, the expensive car, the non-working wife, et al.

Well, the fact is, Gun Owners of America NEVER even contacted Ms. Lucas!!! No survey, no phone call, no e-mail…nothing. Seems to me that that group had their mind made up before even sending the survey to Faisal in the first place. To me, their endorsement means nothing. If they HAD sent Ms. Lucas something and they did not like what they read, we would not be having this discussion today.

Maybe this could be a different blog article idea, huh Greg???