FROM HISTORY'S GIANTS TO A FANATICAL FUNDRAISER: THE LOOMING NIGHTMARE OF A GOVERNOR MCAULIFFE

            The Commonwealth of Virginia teeters on the brink of electing an utterly unqualified  vulgarian boor to the powerful office once held by some of the most distinguished giants in American History.  If that calamity actually comes to pass, Virginia will have completed its descent from the heights of historical preeminence to the depths of political and cultural infamy.

            A sleazy and unscrupulous Democratic grifter named Terry McAuliffe reportedly – and inexplicably -- leads Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli by roughly 7 percentage points in current polls monitoring the race for Governor of Virginia. 

            Cuccinelli has spent nearly his entire professional career in effective and dedicated service to the Commonwealth, both as an accomplished state senator and as a highly effective and principled Attorney General.  He is Virginian to the core, both in education (degrees from both University of Virginia and George Mason) and career, as well as in longstanding family residence.  His unwavering dedication to public service is exceeded only by his demonstrated commitment to the most important job a man can perform – that of a strong, loyal, and protective husband and father.

            McAuliffe, in contrast, has spent nearly his entire career ruthlessly raising money for Democratic politicians who represent the antithesis of Virginia values -- like Bill and Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, and now, himself.  He has raised $275 million for the Clintons and their causes alone. 

            This is his primary, if not his sole, claim to prominence in public life.  There appears to be no moral principle or standard of simple decency he will not compromise in his fanatical pursuit of influence-driven political money and money-driven political power.  As evidenced in his own autobiography (elaboration below), McAuliffe has even treated his own wife, during the crucial hours of post-partum vulnerability, with churlish disdain and disregard – all in the cause of his obsessive pursuit of political dollars for non-Virginia Democrats.

            Can a man who treats his own wife with such brutal indifference be expected to treat the unknown millions of Virginia citizens – of whose rich culture, traditions, and geography he knows little to nothing – with the conscientious consideration expected of a Virginia Governor?  The answer is obvious.  What is less obvious is how so many millions of Virginians are so ill-informed that they appear prepared to place this moral midget in the distinguished office held by a line of luminaries unequaled among the 50 states.

    Governors Monroe, Jefferson, and Henry would not be amused by a Governor Moneybags

            Virginia's past governors include such patriotic giants as Patrick Henry, James Monroe, Edmund Randolph, and the illustrious Thomas Jefferson.  These titans have established high and challenging standards of moral and governmental excellence for Virginia's highest office.  Each of these men, like most of their successors in more modern times, devoted years of distinguished service to the Commonwealth and its people before presuming to qualify for Virginia's highest government office.

            Yet now, the inattentive voters of Virginia appear on the brink of electing as their governor a D.C.-bred political operative who has never served a single day in a single Virginia office.  Nothing – repeat, nothing – in his tawdry career as a political money-man remotely qualifies him to be Governor of Virginia.  On the contrary, the distorted value system he has followed and cultivated in his disreputable career soliciting funds at Georgetown and Manhattan cocktail parties is fundamentally inconsistent with the solid values required for Virginia's highest office. 

            While Ken Cuccinelli has devoted his career to serving the interests of the citizens of Virginia, McAuliffe has devoted his career to money-trolling for morally-challenged Democratic politicians like Bill Clinton – who dragged the dignity of the American Presidency to depths that Virginians can expect McAuliffe to emulate if they entrust the Governor's Mansion to this smirking charlatan. 

            Think of the qualifications, accomplishments, and character of the Commonwealth's long line of distinguished governors.  Then consider the dubious record of the brazen interloper who is potentially on the brink election, and mourn the decline of American and Virginian values and civilization.

            Patrick Henry inspired and rallied the American Revolution with his profound courage and his inspirational oratory in the Virginia House of Burgesses, which is epitomized by his timeless revolutionary call-to-arms:

                        "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and   slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me Liberty, or give me Death!" 

            Now, try to think of the glad-handing and feckless McAuliffe emulating Governor Patrick Henry's principled greatness.  His governing principle is the pursuit of political money to enable Democratic collectivists to curtail our liberties.  McAuliffe's version of Henry's immortal declaration would thus be something like, "Is life so dear that you will not contribute more to the election of Democrats?  Give me $4,000, or better yet, give me $5,000!"

            Before his election as Virginia's Governor, James Monroe served with distinction both in the Virginia House of Delegates later as a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress.  Earlier, he fought bravely on the frontlines of the Revolution, including heroic service under fellow Virginian George Washington at the Battle of Trenton, where he was wounded in that historic American victory.   The thought of placing the name of a truly little man like McAuliffe alongside the likes of Governor James Monroe is repellent.  The closest McAuliffe ever came to combat service was his aggressive frontal assault upon the wallets of corporate sugar-daddies to procure contributions for Democratic politicians.

            Thomas Jefferson, the most illustrious of all Virginia Governors, served with great distinction in both the House of Burgesses and the House of Delegates before his election as Governor.  That was before he earned his stature as one of the Giants of American History as, among other things, Author of the Declaration of Independence and America's Third President. 

            Among the extensive catalogue of Governor Jefferson's incisive quotations is the following:  "The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits."  The policies of a possible Governor McAuliffe, patterned after those of his leader, President Obama, would be exactly the opposite of Jefferson's vision – imposing laws like the Affordable Care Act precisely in order to aid favored political constituencies, while restraining and oppressing the balance of the populace.

            It would be difficult to envisage a candidate who presents a sharper and more dispiriting contrast to Virginia's distinguished line of great governors than Moneybags McAuliffe.  His prominence in public life derives almost entirely from his notoriety as a fundraiser and political organizer for Washington Democrats as well as his mastery of the most garish forms of crony capitalism.  He has openly admitted that his success in business is an outgrowth of his insider relationships with Bill Clinton and other Democratic political figures.  He has never served the people of Virginia in any governmental capacity, and his only government service at the federal level was laughably limited to the oddly named position of Ambassador to the Taejon Expo of South Korea.

            The title McAuliffe chose for his autobiography aptly describes a lifelong pattern of sleazy behavior that may be the right stuff for Democrat fundraisers and professional glad-handers, but which unwittingly flaunts his obvious unsuitability for the office occupied by the likes of Jefferson, Monroe, Randolph, and Patrick Henry:  "What a Party! My Life Among Democrats:  Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators and Other Wild Animals." 

            Among other infamies, McAuliffe's own book openly describes his outrageously churlish  treatment of his own wife during her pregnancies, including abandoning her in the delivery room in 2005 to attend a party for a newspaper columnist; his disruptive shouting match with the anesthesiologist over health-care reform while his wife was in labor in 1993, resulting in his ejection from the delivery room; and, while driving his wife and newborn child home just after  delivery, leaving his wife waiting in the car in tears while he made a "quick little drop-by" at a Democratic fundraiser.  He flippantly justified the latter outrage against the most basic notions of spousal solicitude and support by declaring that it meant "a million bucks for the Democratic Party."  These admitted behaviors confirm that McAuliffe has a profoundly warped sense of values and priorities.   Consider him applying those values and priorities as Virginia's Governor, and shudder for the Commonwealth's future.

            These and other disturbing episodes demonstrate why it is not merely Republicans and conservatives who understand why McAuliffe is profoundly unfit to serve as Governor of Virginia.  As but one example, consumer advocate and liberal legend Ralph Nader has flatly stated:  "He really is not someone who should be governor and in possession of the public's trust." 

            The truth of Nader's assertions have been more recently confirmed by the insidious misrepresentations spread by McAuliffe's multi-million dollar TV calumnies, which relentlessly broadcast the blatant falsehood that Ken Cuccinelli effectively advocates the abolition of contraception in Virginia.  McAuliffe's dishonesty extends not only to his gross misrepresentation of Cuccinelli's actual position, but in the broader libel that a demonstrably dedicated and supportive husband like Cuccinelli is somehow anti-woman.  Coming from a certified boor who has treated his own wife with churlish disrespect and insensitivity when she was still recovering from the stress of childbirth, this is more than a bit rich.  Like so much that McAuliffe says and does, it is a complete distortion of reason and reality.

            Luckily, there are still several weeks left until Virginia's voters actually enter the booths and pull the lever for Cuccinelli or McAuliffe.  There is still time for those Virginia voters who care about such things to learn and understand that McAuliffe is an unqualified, untrustworthy candidate who would disgrace and damage the Commonwealth if elected governor. 

            Otherwise, rocks and slag will be falling from Mt. Rushmore, as Thomas Jefferson shakes his great head in disgust at the folly of the voters in placing an unscrupulous political hustler in the office held by so many illustrious Virginians.

BARRICADE GOVERNMENT IN AN UNRECOGNIZABLE AMERICA

           Sometimes writers like me stop themselves and pull back from publishing an especially harsh description because, on second thought, it may have an extreme or exaggerated ring to it --  at least when considered from the standpoint of readers who don't share one's core premises or assumptions.

            But the Obama administration's grotesquely overbearing and perverse behavior in connection with the so-called federal government shutdown has nullified any justification for such delicate scruples or rhetorical restraint.  The simple facts of the government's malfeasance are so extreme in themselves that merely relating them amounts to a harsh indictment.  And the indictment extends not just to Obama and his senior political appointees, but even to the legions of mindless, overbearing drones in the ranks of the so-called civil service who are so enthusiastically implementing the lawless directives to "close" and barricade facilities that require no government expenditure or activity to "open" in the first place. 

            The growing list of arbitrary and petulant closures of both government and non-government facilities and sites by Obama's minions under the guise of the purported shutdown authority has been well-documented elsewhere -- and grows increasingly offensive and outrageous by the day.  See, e.g. "The List:  Unnecessarily Shut Down by Obama to Inflict Public Pain" at breitbart.com (Oct. 7, 2013).

              Essential Government Servants Performing Complex Shutdown Operations

            Mad with a lawless power derived from deliberate distortion of the limitations on spending required by a lapse in appropriations, the administration and its agency goons have:

            -- ruthlessly barred entry to otherwise open-access public memorials (including the WWII and Vietnam Memorials) that require no government involvement or expense to "operate" in the first place --  because they just lay there in the open air, and are not "operated" by anyone;

            -- gratuitously barricaded roadside pullover spaces to prevent American motorists from stopping to view scenic views and memorials like Mt. Rushmore;

            -- perversely blocked riverside bike paths that neither require nor receive any federal government involvement or oversight at any time;

            -- brusquely evicted elderly couples from their privately-owned homes that happen to be located on public lands;

            -- brazenly blocked privately-owned campgrounds in New Hampshire from operating during the prime Fall foliage-viewing season;

            -- forcibly shut down a private business on the Blue Ridge Parkway that, as with similarly oppressed private properties, neither requires nor receives any federal government service for their operation;

            -- closed beaches on Cape Hatteras to surfers, fishermen, and anyone else who has the temerity to approach the vast Atlantic Ocean from public land;

            -- and, in a leap of lunacy that could only be made by this administration and its bureaucratic enablers, have actually purported to close one (and probably more) of God's bays and waterways to navigation by free Americans.

            Not since the megalomaniacal King Canute ordered the ocean to stop short of high tide has authoritarian hubris extended to such grotesque extremes.  Barack's Barricades may yet place him alongside the delusional Canute in the infamous annals of governmental lunacy.

            It has been long apparent that Obama himself is an arrogant, power-mad, leftist tyrant who smugly employs presidential power not for the general or national welfare, but for his own twisted political objectives and for the benefit of those groups and constituencies who provide mindless and monolithic support for him and the Democrat party.  But in his exploitation of the "opportunities" provided by the necessity of minimizing government services during the current appropriations shortfall he has descended to unprecedented depths of petulance, arbitrariness, and malice.  And the hordes of government drones and dragoons who are so arrogantly and vigorously enforcing his lawless and arbitrary directives are descending with him.

            It takes a whole village of 21^st Century totalitarians to abuse government authority and curtail the people's liberty to the grotesque degree that we have witnessed in the wholly unnecessary barricading of the streets, rivers, paths, parks, memorials, monuments, and parking lots of this nation under the false flag of a bogus government shutdown.  And the hordes of the federal bureaucracy – especially such egregious drones as the Barricade Battalions of the National Park Service – have provided Obama with the bureaucratic legions he needed to implement his vision of Government-by-Barricade. 

            No one resigns in protest -- or even takes the minimal risk of declining to enforce the government's lawless blockades and forcing it to wade its way through the morass of civil service protections and procedures that make strong discipline for such infractions virtually impossible.  The Spirit of '76 is not to be found in the cubicles of Obama's comfortable and compliant bureaucracy.

            The Obama-minions' perversion of the government spending restraints that are occasioned by an appropriations gap is unprecedented and utterly arbitrary.  The legal restraints necessitated by the Anti-Deficiency Act -- and by the simple principle that the government cannot incur expenditures absent appropriations to fund them – do not require, or even authorize, the government to bar access to public lands and places where no government operations or expenditures are necessary to permit or oversee such access in the first place. 

            Still less do those laws and principles require or authorize the government to incur novel expenditures, or to employ agency personnel, in order to prohibit and prevent citizens from entering public places, or using public paths or waterways, that otherwise lay open for all to use under the open skies of America.

            Indeed, the shutdown measures adopted by Obama and his federal minions are actually violating the very laws and principles they purport to enforce.  They are incurring government expenditures that are not only "nonessential," but improper and ultra vires.

            A primary example is the government's perverse and arbitrary placement of thousands of barricades to block access to parking lots, curbside pullovers, roads, bike paths, and open-air facilities like the World War II Memorial.  Popular access and use of these places and paths requires no government action or expenditure whatsoever; in short, on a normal day, when the government is operating under full appropriations, the government doesn't need to spend a penny, or do a thing, to enable the public to access and use these facilities.           

            And yet, at the very time when government expenditures must be limited to what is essential, the Obama administration spends funds and employs agency personnel on facilities that are not only nonessential, but which would otherwise require not a penny or a person for their operation – and all for the purpose of thwarting the very purpose of those self-maintaining facilities, namely, the enjoyment and use of the people. 

           In short, in the name of enforcing the Anti-Deficiency Act, this perverse government orders unprecedented and unnecessary expenditures that actually violate it.

            And just when one decides that the government's shutdown abuses could not possibly get any worse – they do get worse.  We now learn that the National Park Service – the same shameless Obama-drones that are blocking individual American citizens from entering parks, bays, memorials, and in some cases even their own homes and businesses on the false authority of the shutdown – has just agreed to grant preferential access and use of the otherwise "closed" National Mall in Washington to a horde of illegal immigration advocates.  As just reported in the Washington Examiner:   "Organizers for the 'Camino Americano: March for Immigration Reform' were spotted Monday setting up a stage and equipment on the National Mall for the rally which will take place on Tuesday." See Washingtonexaminer.com (Oct. 7, 2013).  So the national parks that are locked and chained shut for ordinary American citizens are opened for whole hosts of amnesty-advocating leftists, undoubtedly including thousands of illegal immigrants.

            Not only are the Obama administration and its bureaucratic drones perverting the reasonable restrictions necessitated by an appropriations lapse to impose lawless restrictions and prohibitions on the freedom and movements on Americans, they are implementing their pernicious policy in a manner that discriminates in favor of Obama's political allies and favorites.

            The whole grim fiasco unreels like one of those Grade B horror movies that are sensationalized with ads that warn, "Be afraid, be very afraid."  Only this time the ads would have it all wrong.  The only proper response to this fiasco is, "Be angry, be very angry."  And make your anger felt in Washington.