As Candidate Josh Duggar's Dad Said Incest Should Be Punishable By Death

Just as Bobby Jindal is displaying the latest incarnation of the proclivity of GOP candidates to say and do anything to win over lunatic party primary voters, so to did serial molester Josh Duggar's father when he ran for a U.S. Senate from Arkansas, but lost in the Republican primary.  Now Duggar senior's words are coming back to haunt him now that his son Josh has admitted to the serial molestation of under age girls, including some of his sisters.  One has to wonder if Duggar senior still stands by his pronouncements that incest should carry the death penalty.  These people are beyond despicable and one can only hope that TLC flat out cancels their freak show reality show.  The New Civil Rights Movement looks at how past statements are coming back to bite the Duggars in the pharisee like asses.  Here are excerpts:

James Robert Duggar, better known as Jim Bob Duggar, the patriarch of the "19 Kids and Counting" clan, was an Arkansas State Rep. from 1999 to 2002. He then ran for the U.S. Senate, but lost in the Republican primary.

An archive of Duggar's 2002 campaign website, which Gawker just dug up, included rather powerful statements against issues like incest and rape, made probably just before the time Josh Duggar, according to police reports published by In Touch, sexually molested five girls, reportedly including family members.

"Jim Bob lost the Republican nomination for Senate to Arkansas’ incumbent Senator Tim Hutchinson," Gawker notes. "His son Josh remained very much alive and went on to molest several underage girls including some of his sisters from 2002-2003."

Like many politicians, Duggar posted his position statements to his 2002 campaign website, in a Q&A format.

"What is your abortion position, and specifically, where do you stand on rape, incest, and threat to the mother’s health?," the website asks.

"If a woman is raped, the rapist should be executed instead of the innocent unborn baby. Adoption is an option. Many couples would love to adopt and are waiting for a baby. Abortion has been and always will be the destruction of an innocent child," Jim Bob Duggar said.

"Rape and incest represent heinous crimes and as such should be treated as capital crimes.

A capital crime is one that can result in the death penalty.

When faced with his own son's acts, Jim Bob Duggar consulted church elders, sent Josh to live with a family friend who remodeled houses, and reportedly enrolled him in a short stint of Christian counseling that had its own dubious issues, before notifying the authorities.

Have you noticed  how time and time again it is the professional Christians that seek to tell everyone else how to live who in reality have the most screwed up, dysfunctional families?  They are the last people on earth to be telling anyone else how to live their lives.  And, yes, I am loving this cycle of Karma biting the Duggars in their hypocritical asses.   Now all we need is something similar to be uncovered involving the queen of hate, Victoria Cobb of The Family Foundation. :)

P.S. Those of us in Virginia need to make sure that no one forgets that the Duggars active campaigned for Ken Cuccinelli and Mark Obenshain.  Let's hope that bites Obenshain in the ass in 2017.

Virginia's 20 Craziest Politicians

Lowell has a great list of Virginia's craziest politicians at Blue Virginia and not surprisingly, 85% of them are Republicans.  Included in the pack of asylum escapees are the GOP's 2013 "dream team" of Cuccinelli, Jackson and Obenshain.  And one can never leave out spittle flecked homophobe Del. Bob Marshall.  When one looks at the insanity of these Republican's I can only shake my head and think "WTF happened to the party I once supported."   Here are excerpts on some of these GOP loons:

The following list is inspired by GQ's just-published "America's 20 Craziest Politicians" (Steve King, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Joe Barton, etc.). For my list, I'm sticking to Virginia elected officials, people who have been Virginia elected officials, or current/past candidates for elective office in Virginia.  . . . . note that the vast majority are Republicans - shocker, huh? - and it's not for lack of trying to come up with Democrats to make it more "even" - the fact is that today's GOP attracts "teh crazy" like....well, crazy!).  Anyway, enjoy!

1. E.W. Jackson (R): Has anyone ever heard anything come out of his mouth that wasn't at least a bit "out there?" OK, need specific examples of this guy's insanity?  For starters, he's obsessed with Barack Obama (e.g., how Obama's supposedly not a Christian, how he's supposedly an anti-Semite, blah blah blah); how "Planned Parenthood has been far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was;" how gays are "frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally," who are attempting to "poison our children, divide them from their parents and the teaching of the church and basically turn them into pawns for that movement so that they can sexualize them at the earliest possible age." What's truly shocking about this guy isn't so much that he's an extremist and an all-around lunatic, but that the Virginia GOP nominated him for Lt. Governor of our state in 2013! What does that say about them? Anyway, E.W. Jackson has the "honor" of being #1 on this list.

2. Ken Cuccinelli (R): Again, where do you even start with this guy?  I mean, this is someone who - in addition to the de-rigeur-among-wingnuts climate science denial - also tried to make it easier for people to discriminate against gay people, claimed that Virginia can disobey federal laws it disagrees with, believes the government is tracking his kids via Social Security numbers, and talks to a toy elephant named "Ron", is a "birther," rants about a "vast left-wing conspiracy" and the "Humanist Manifesto," claims that liberals "cannot tolerate god" and that Barack Obama has "helped destroy this country," compared immigrants to rat families, etc, etc. Most appallingly, "the Cooch" actually was elected to be Virginia's Attorney General, where he spent four years on a bunch of crazy, mostly failed, crusades. He also was, appallingly yet again, the Virginia Republican Party's 2013 nominee for governor of our state. It says a great deal about said party that they'd nominate such a lunatic, not to mention extremist, as Ken Cuccinelli. Come to think of it, maybe Cooch should have been #1, and E.W. Jackson #2, on this list?

4. Del. Bob Marshall (R):  We nicknamed him "Sideshow Bob" for good reason. Seriously, the list of his lunacy is endless. Check out, for example: "Sideshow Bob" Marshall Completely Unhinged Over Demise of His Anti-Gay Hate Amendment, Video: "Sideshow Bob" Elaborates On His Vicious Homophobia (That's right, according to "Sideshow Bob," it's all about "blood transfusions," "sodomy," and being "worried about this guy whose got eyes on me." Can we say "he's got issues?" Uh huh.); Does Bob Marshall Agree w/ Rev. Ellison that Haitian Earthquake Was God's Punishment for Voodoo?; Virginia lawmaker: Children with disabilities are God's punishment to women who previously had abortions.; Chief Sponsor of Virginia 'Personhood' Bill Calls The Affordable Care Act 'Rape'; Robert Marshall, Virginia Delegate, Pushes Bill To Study Whether State Should Have Alternative Currency; etc. Seriously, with Bob Marshall, the "Sideshow" truly never ends!

5. Senator Dick Black (R): A few items include Dick Black on Spousal Rape, "Nighties," etc.; Republican Loudoun-sanity Continues: Dick Black Rails Against Gays in the Military; VA Sen. Dick Black (R) Praises "Extraordinary Gallantry" of Syrian Armed Forces; Sen. Dick Black (R-Homophobia): Polygamy "just more natural" than homosexuality . Yeah, this one's certifiable. 

8. Sen. Mark Obenshain (R): I had heard stories about this guy's nuttiness for years, but I didn't really focus on him until last year's AG race. Then, it came to light that Obenshain had tried "to force women to report miscarriages to police," introducing legislation to require that "when a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf, within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff's department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred...and that a violation of this section is a Class 1 misdemeanor." There's lots more craziness with this guy, but I'd say that's enough right there to put him on the Top 20 craziest Virginia politicians list. We'll see if Republicans nominate him again for statewide office in 2017, after he narrowly lost (phew -- close call!) to Mark Herring in a recount last time around.

14. Michael Farris (R): He ran for Lt. Governor in 1993 against Don Beyer (D) and lost, 54%-46%. Thank goodness, too, because aside from being a right-wing extremist, he's also just plain crazy. For instance, "Farris was featured on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° on December 7, 2012 as a leading opponent of U.S. ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act." Why? In part, according to Farris, because "[t]he definition of disability is not defined in the treaty, and so my kid wears glasses; now they're disabled; now the UN gets control over them." Cuckoo! Cuckoo! 

Yes, there are Democrats on the list, but they comprise only 15%.  What is truly frightening is that the GOP crazies are "mainstream" for today's Republican Party of Virginia.

The Scourge of Partisan Primaries

One of the things that is accelerating the Republican Party's descent into crazy land is partisan primaries where only those registered as members of the party can vote in primaries.  The result is that extremism on both sides of the political aisle is increased, especially in the case of the GOP where Christofascists and their members hiding behind the Tea Party moniker are driven by hatred of others, greed and a general rejection of objective reality.  Although Virginia has so-called open primaries, the nomination in 2013 of Ken Cuccinelli, "Bishop" Jackson and Mark Obenshain demonstrated what happens when only the hard core of the GOP select who the candidates will be.  A column in the New York Times makes the case for ending closed, partisan primaries.  Here are excerpts:

POLARIZATION and partisanship are a plague on American politics.

Political scientists have found that the two parties have each grown more ideologically homogeneous since the 1970s. The Senate hasn’t been so polarized since Reconstruction; the House has not been so divided since around 1900. As measured by laws passed, the current Congress is on track to be among the least productive in our republic’s history.

How did this happen? One of the main causes has not gotten enough attention: the party primary system. 

The partisan primary system, which favors more ideologically pure candidates, has contributed to the election of more extreme officeholders and increased political polarization. It has become a menace to governing. 

From 10,000 feet, the structure of our electorate looks to be healthy, with perhaps a third of the potential voters who are left-leaning Democrats, a third who are right-leaning Republicans and a third who are independents in the middle. 

But primaries poison the health of that system and warp its natural balance, because the vast majority of Americans don’t typically vote in primaries. Instead, it is the “third of the third” most to the right or most to the left who come out to vote — the 10 percent at each of the two extremes of the political spectrum. Making things worse, in most states, laws prohibit independents — who are not registered with either party and who make up a growing proportion of the electorate — from voting in primaries at all.

The phenomenon of primaries’ pulling people to the extremes seems more prevalent in the Republican Party, where centrists and moderates are increasingly rare, as a result of a combination of factors since the 1970s — the shift of Southern states toward Republican control, the mobilization of evangelical voters around social issues, anti-tax movements in California and elsewhere, and the rise of conservative talk radio and other news media. 

Two additional factors exacerbate the problem of party primaries. The first are the deep-pocketed interests that often lie at the extremes. The loosening of campaign finance restrictions by the Supreme Court has unleashed a flood of “independent” political spending by these special interests.

The second is the redistricting process. Technology has allowed parties that dominate their state legislatures to draw districts that will almost never elect a candidate of the opposing party.

We need a national movement to adopt the “top-two” primary (also known as an open primary), in which all voters, regardless of party registration, can vote and the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, then enter a runoff. This would prevent a hard-right or hard-left candidate from gaining office with the support of just a sliver of the voters of the vastly diminished primary electorate; to finish in the top two, candidates from either party would have to reach out to the broad middle. 

While there are no guarantees, it seems likely that a top-two primary system would encourage more participation in primaries and undo tendencies toward default extremism. It would remove the incentive that pushes our politicians to kowtow to the factions of their party that are most driven by fear and anger. For those of us who are in despair over partisanship and polarization in Congress, reform of the primary system is a start.

The Virginia GOP's Problem With People

Having just suffered an across the board shut out in the statewide elections where gerrymandered districts do not ensue GOP victories, the Virginia GOP needs to face one of its main problems: people.  Today's GOP simply doesn't like most people.  The Virginia GOP hates gays, blacks, Hispanics and certainly women who want  control over their own bodies.  And the people that the Virginia GOP doesn't like do not like the GOP.  A column in the Richmond Times Dispatch looks at this reality.  Here are excerpts:

Sen. Mark Obenshain’s squeaker defeat for attorney general — confirmed in a recount this past week — could set him up for something bigger but not necessarily better: the titular leadership of a dispirited Republican Party and dibs on its nomination for governor in 2017.

For more than 30 years, the most conservative Republicans have dominated the party’s governing body, the state Central Committee, and many of its subdivisions, the city and county units.

In the 1980s, it was Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson religious conservatives. In the 1990s, it was Mike Farris home-schoolers and Ollie North apologists. In the 2000s, it is Paul-ites and tea partiers. Organizational power translates to political power, assuring these activists the final say in candidate selection.

One would think an electoral embarrassment on the scale suffered by Republicans last month would augur a change in personnel and policy. Not in the Virginia GOP. Setbacks only strengthen the resolve of those on the inside to remain there.

These people are not going unchallenged. . . . . But for Republicans, the primary is a solution fraught with problems.

In 2012, George Allen was nominated by primary for the U.S. Senate seat he narrowly lost six years earlier to Democrat Jim Webb. Allen drew 65 percent of the vote in a four-candidate field. It would qualify as an impressive feat, were the primary not poorly attended.

Slightly more than 200,000 voters participated, compared with the 4,000 who picked this year’s Republican statewide ticket at a convention in Richmond. The Senate primary vote, however, represented less than 5 percent of Virginia’s 5 million-plus electorate.

Primaries are not a panacea for Republicans, particularly when the pool of prospective voters is becoming more perilous. The increasingly diverse electorate, most evident in the Northern Virginia-to-Virginia Beach corridor, is a vote trove for Democrats.

The Republican remedy: more of the members-only politics that got the GOP in trouble in the first place.

Given the dominant profile of Republicans — white, older, lopsidedly male, conservative, and rural — it’s unlikely their primary elections would attract voters different than themselves.

The Republican Party’s problem is one of people. Because it is seen as preoccupied with restricting abortion, cutting taxes, fighting gay rights, and promoting firearms, the GOP is estranged from business, working women and new Virginians. For them, politics seems less relevant.

Obenshain Concedes and Confirms Democrats’ Advantage in Virginia

Thankfully GOP far right candidate Mark Obenshain conceded the Virginia Attorney General race to Democrat Mark Herring (pictured at right) this afternoon as the recount showed Herring's margin of victory increasing to over 810 votes per an earlier Washington Post story.  By doing the right think Obenshain saved Virginia from what some had feared would be an attempt to steal the election by pushing the election results to the GOP dominated Virginia General Assembly.  With the Democrats now having had a clean sweep in the off year election that for over 30 years has seen the party not occupying the White House prevail, the postmortems and back biting in the GOP will likely go over the top.  Not that the Christofascist/Tea Party base of the Virginia GOP will be likely to admit that the majority of Virginians do not want the toxic policies and embrace of ignorance which are the hallmarks of today's GOP.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the growing Democrat advantage in statewide elections.  Here are excerpts:

Democrat Mark Herring’s victory in the exceedingly close Virginia attorney general’s race, which Republican Mark Obenshain conceded Wednesday, ought to end any debate about two key questions regarding politics in the Old Dominion.

First, in statewide elections, it’s now beyond doubt that Democrats start with a significant advantage. It turns out the 2009 GOP landslide, led by Gov. Bob McDonnell, was an exception fueled by the initial, tea party-led backlash against President Obama.

Since then, Democrats have won five straight statewide elections: for president and U.S. Senate in 2012, and for governor, lieutenant governor and now attorney general in November. Democrats hold every statewide elective office for the first time since 1969.

“In a statewide election, this is a state with a bluish tint. Republicans can win, but they can’t win easily,” said Bob Holsworth, a veteran Richmond political commentator.

Minority and immigrant voters, who tend to support Democrats, are growing as a share of the electorate. Populous suburbs such as Fairfax County, which used to be up for grabs, are now reliably blue. Those that once leaned red, such as Prince William and Loudoun, now lean the other way.

Second, to be competitive, the GOP needs to nominate candidates with more moderate views, especially on social issues. Republican support for low taxes and less government regulation is popular. But the GOP loses many voters because of its positions on issues such as abortion and immigration.

He [Obenshain] lost primarily because the Democrats were able to link his views to those of Cuccinelli, especially on social issues. A Herring ad pictured Obenshain riding in the same car as Cuccinelli. The Democrats called attention to Obenshain’s sponsorship of a bill that would have required women to report miscarriages to police within 24 hours.

Republican Tom Davis, a former U.S. congressman from Fairfax, said the 2013 election “should be a wake-up call” for his party. He blamed its right wing for insisting on a convention that nominated candidates who couldn’t appeal to moderates.  “It was a rebuke of the Republicans,” Davis said. “They lost it because they have a very exclusionary process for recruiting candidates. They do not understand the changing demographics of the state, and they’re not talking about issues that people care about.”

The GOP’s advantage in the House can restrain the Democrats’ agenda for now. If the Republicans wish to advance their own, however, they’ll have to win the top offices. On some issues, that will require a shift toward the center.

The comments on a post at the conservative Bearing Drift blog illustrate what the Virginia GOP  has in store for it as efforts are made to nominate candidates who are electable.  One comment sums up the mindset of the Neanderthals who do not grasp that Virginia and the nation are changing and rejecting the Christofascist/Tea Party agenda:

This is just incredibly sad. Not just for Mark O. and the VA GOP, but for Virginia. I am very much afraid that this beautiful state is going to become perverted and leftist. There is a reason why I didn't move to Maryland at one time in my life. I hope we don't lose our soul to whatever kind of "marriage" Hollywood is promoting on network t.v. this week, illegal immigrants calling the shots in the state legislature, and Medicaid expansion at the cost of our long-term access to health care providers, because it was dictated by the Federal administration.

 Meanwhile, the boyfriend and I are extremely happy that Mark Herring will be our next Attorney General and that we had the honor of holding a fundraiser for him in our home.

Washington Post: Virginia Attorney General Race Should End with Recount

A number of posts on this blog have looked at the conjecture that failed GOP candidate Mark Obenshain might try to steal the Attorney General Race by throwing the contest into the GOP dominated Virginia General Assembly.  Even conservative Bearing Drift blog has opposed such a move as have numerous newspaper editorials around Virginia.  The Washington Post has joined this list as the first day of the recount saw Mark Herring's lead increase.  Here are editorial highlights:

A RECOUNT is under way to determine the winner of last month’s stupefyingly tight election for attorney general in Virginia. Whether the victor is state Sen. Mark R. Herring (D-Loudoun) or state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg), both men should declare now, before results are announced by week’s end, that they will respect the outcome.

That seems so modest a proposition that we are abashed at having to argue its merits. It amounts to embracing the idea that candidates must respect the will of the voters, a convention sanctified by U.S. history, tradition, consensus and law.

Mr. Obenshain trailed Mr. Herring by 165 votes (out of 2.2 million cast) when the State Board of Elections certified the results on Nov. 25; that margin widened Monday, the first day of the recount, to 185 after a fraction of the ballots were reviewed. The trouble is that Mr. Obenshain has maneuvered to leave himself wiggle room for a challenge even if the recount confirms that he has lost. That would be a gross error.

If the General Assembly were to overturn the result of the recount in the absence of egregious evidence of fraud or malfeasance, it would amount to the nullification of the democratic process. That would be so whether it was done by the Republicans, who now control the legislature, or the Democrats, who have controlled it in the recent past and may again in the future.

No evidence supports his insinuations. There is no sign that oddities cited by the Obenshain camp — some ballots submitted late to the clerk’s office; others cast by voters who went to the wrong polling station or showed up without identification — amount to anything approaching electoral fraud or wrongdoing. To all appearances, the Republicans have been picking at nits. That’s par for the course in any recount. What’s important, though, is that the recount, once finished, should be the final word.

The big problem today is that the GOP no longer believes in democracy.  Instead, its base of extremists, religious zealots and white supremacists want to impose their toxic beliefs and policies on all citizens.  It is a frightening development.  

Lynchburg News Advance: Obenshain Needs to Abide by Recount

There is growing opposition to the possible effort by failed GOP candidate Mark Obenshain to throw the decision in the Virginia Attorney General race into the Virginia General Assembly where Obenshain apparently believes that the GOP controlled legislature would give him the election regardless of the vote turn out.  Hence Obenshain's frantic efforts to fabricate "Problems" with ballots, especially in pro-Democrat Fairfax County.  The News Advance, the hometown paper of Lynchburg based Liberty University, has come out against Obenshain scheme.  Here are editorial highlights:

Despite the reticence of most of Virginia’s Republican legislators to talk about it and the best efforts of outgoing Gov. Bob McDonnell to shoot it down, the possibility of the GOP-dominated General Assembly stepping in to decide the winner of the closely contested attorney general race is not a dead issue.

If Herring’s win holds up, we hope Obenshain will respect the will of the voters. He could well pull off a “win” in the GOP-dominated Assembly, but he would be viewed by the public as a usurper who “stole the election” by partisan chicanery. That is the last thing we Virginians need.

But lawyers for Obenshain and some Republican apparatchiks have been making noises — very disturbing noises — calling into question the propriety of the vote count.

Indeed, when the state Board of Elections voted Nov. 25 to certify the results, Chairman Charles Judd, a Republican and former top-ranking official with the now-defunct Moral Majority, said he was voting to certify “with question” because he had concerns about “the integrity of data.”

Thus, in a few words, the GOP laid the foundation for Obenshain, should the recount uphold Herring’s razor-thin victory, to mount a contest of the results before a joint session of the General Assembly.

In the Herring/Obenshain race, there have been no credible charges. None whatsoever. Obenshain’s lawyers and party officials have focussed their attention on Fairfax County, where the outcome of the election was decided after days of counting absentee and provisional ballots. Some GOP stalwarts have tried to make the charge that the Fairfax vote counting process is tainted and that local officials disobeyed state directives about determining the eligibility of provisional ballots.

That, in a nutshell, seems to be the basis for this dangerous chatter of a legislative contest. It’s made all the more ironic and hypocritical by the fact that the Fairfax Electoral Board, like all electoral boards in Virginia, has a Republican majority and is led by Republican Brian W. Schoeneman.

[T]he voters and the candidates deserve the assurance that every possible eligible ballot is counted to guarantee the voters’ voices have been heard. And respected.

Today's GOP has open contempt for democracy - at least any form of democracy that doesn't disenfranchise minorities and give power to angry white male far right Christians.  It is frightening.  

Conservative Blog Warns Obenshain Not to Try to Steal AG Election

I noted this morning how the Richmond Times Dispatch has raised the specter again of Mark Obenshain trying to steal the Virginia Attorney General election by throwing the election into the Virginia General Assembly where apparently Obenshain thinks the GOP majority would give the election to him regardless of the voter of the Virginia electorate.   The conservative blog Bearing Drift - the leading Virginia conservative blog in the minds of some politico junkies - slams Obenshain for perhaps heading down this deceptive road.  Unlike too many in today's GOP, the folks at Bearing Drift worry about the long term viability of the Republican Party and winning future elections.  Here are some of the highlights:

A good lawyer will keep every possible option on the table for his or her client and that’s exactly what Mark Obenshain’s legal team is doing in advance of the recount of the ballots cast in the attorney general race. Among those options? Contesting the possible outcome of the recount before the General Assembly.

The basis for a contest appears to rest upon how ballots were handled in Fairfax county, where our own Brian Schoeneman was in the thick of the action in his role as an election official. Brian has been very open about the process the county used to count, canvass and secure its ballots. He has done, and continues to do, a fine job in that capacity.  But none of that may prevent a contest. 

The assumption is that given the partisan make-up of the General Assembly, Mark Obenshain would be able to win a contest without much problem. Republicans would hear whatever evidence is presented and, regardless of its quality, hand the AG’s office to one of their own.

That would be a fatal mistake. Wooly-eyed partisans would cheer such an outcome . . . The real damage, though, comes afterwards. Anointing a winner — even if it is allowed under Virginia law — carries with it the real possibility that the party selecting the new incumbent will suffer at the next election. Worse, whatever patina of cooperation exists between the parties today would be erased for good. There are those who prefer such an outcome, even yearn for it. But Virginia loses if that happens as the political class would descend into an orgy of destruction.

Mark Obenshain would do himself an immense deal of good by making sure that doesn’t occur. He is already well position to run for statewide office in 2017 if the recount does not go his way. 

Accept the recounts results and then get on with it. There will be plenty of fights to come in the next session. 

It is encouraging that a few sane Republicans still exist.  However, one has to wonder how long it will be before the folks at Bearing Drift begin to be called RINOS.

Outlook of Obenshain Trying to Steal Election Increases

Yesterday I noted that failed GOP candidate appears to be trying to fabricate reasons to not tally votes from some precincts in Fairfax County.  Now, the Richmond Times Dispatch is reporting that Obenshain seems to be raising the issue of throwing the election into the Virginia General Assembly where he hopes the GOP majority will override the vote of Virginians and award the election to Obenshain.  Obviously, it is an ominous development and underscores just how anti-democracy the Virginia GOP has become.  Today's Virginia GOP represents angry white religious extremists and those mostly motivated by greed.  Here are highlights from The Times Dispatch story:

The lawyer representing Republican Mark D. Obenshain in the pending statewide recount in the attorney general race on Monday for the first time openly raised the issue of contesting the election in the General Assembly if the tally does not sway the result in the Republican’s favor.

During a hearing in Richmond, William H. Hurd, head of Obenshain’s legal team, told the three judges who will oversee the recount that it is “critically important” for his team to get full access to data from electronic poll books because Dec. 23 marks the deadline to formally challenge the election results in the legislature.

The court previously set Dec. 17-18 for the statewide recount, giving Fairfax County a one-day head start. The three-judge panel will review any challenged ballots Dec. 19, leaving a candidate only three days to announce a contest — a rarely used provision in state law.

If he loses the recount, Obenshain could ask a joint session of the General Assembly — which is dominated by Republicans — to reverse the results. Under state law, grounds for a contest include objections to “the conduct or results of the election accompanied by specific allegations which, if proven true, would have a probable impact on the outcome of the election.”

In an interview after the hearing, Hurd did not say whether Obenshain would pursue this option, adding that such speculation is based on “the unsubstantiated assumption” that the Republican would lose the recount.

But Hurd’s request to obtain electronic copies of poll books appears to indicate that a contest is not off the table. Poll books play no role in a recount but could become an important tool in identifying electoral irregularities, which would be the basis for a contest.

The court granted Hurd’s request to gain full access to the poll books, but rejected his motion to set aside the Fairfax ballots, first allowing local officials and Herring’s legal team to comment.
 
Herring’s attorney Kevin J. Hamilton called Hurd’s motion “nothing but an effort to distract.”

“The idea to set aside thousands of ballots and not count them is ridiculous,” Hamilton said in an interview. “I’m not worried about that. We’ll have an orderly recount and in the end, Mark Herring will be the next attorney general.”

In my personal opinion, Obenshain is down right scary and I could picture him among the ranks of Hitler's SS.

Is Obenshain Making Up NonExistent Problems So That He Can Steal Election?

Mark Obenshain - A Cheat and Liar?

I often say that no one lies more than the "godly Christian" crowd.  And more or less the same rule applies to extremist Republican candidates who wrap themselves in candidate a clock of religiosity even as they do violence to the true Gospel message.  Mark Obenshain, the failed GOP candidate for Virginia Attorney General, seems to fit this norm.  Why do I say this?  Because Obenshain is trying to allege that there were security issues involving ballots in Fairfax County even though the Republican Electoral Board secretary for Fairfax County Brian Schoeneman has stated that no such security issues exist.  The Daily Press looks at Obenshain's apparent effort to fabricate "problems" so that he can try to invalidate votes.  It's disgusting, but welcome to today's GOP.  Here are article highlights:

State Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, is asking the special court overseeing the recount of the attorney general's race to hold off counting a large number of ballots from Fairfax County because measures to keep them secure after the election were not followed.

His request involves part of some 115 boxes of election material out of the 869 now in the custody of the clerk of the Fairfax County Circuit Court. He asked the court to set those ballots aside and not recount them for now until the court decides whether the ballots were secure. 

Fairfax County Electoral Board secretary Brian Schoeneman said all the ballots involved were held in the board's warehouse.

"The good news is that those ballots were still secure," he said. "Our warehouse has security and is monitored and it's my understanding that the ballots were locked in the precinct carts, so no one could have accessed them. We're still determining why this happened, but it's most likely election officer error."

He said the problem was that two precincts did not follow the proper procedure. Instead of making sure their ballots were taken to the courthouse, election officials locked the ballots in their precinct carts and returned them to the Electoral Board's secure warehouse.

The voter registrar's staff discovered them and took them to the courthouse.  The two precincts, Virginia Run and Tysons, reported a total of 1,072 votes for Obenshain and 1,071 for Herring, according to the State Board of Election's official results.

Quentin Kidd, a political scientist at Christopher Newport University, said the motion follows a pattern in other requests by Obenshain's campaign to the recount court, such as access to electronic poll books.

"My guess is they are looking for any and every mistake," he said. The narrow margin of Herring's victory makes every ballot seem worth fighting over, Kidd said. That's especially so in Fairfax County, the state's largest locality, which gave both Herring and Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe the votes they needed to win.

Let's be clear about one thing.  Obenshain ran a slick but totally dishonest campaign and lied non-stop about his extremism, pretending to be a moderate.  Now, the lying campaign having failed, he is lying again  in an attempt to steal the election from Mark Herring.  Do we really want someone so dishonest and amoral as Obenshain in the office of Attorney General?  I think not.   In my opinion, tawdry whore make many of the "godly folk" and individuals like Obenshain look like pillars of virtue.

 

Judge Who Thinks Being Gay Is a "Choice" to Help Preside Over AG Recount

As long time readers know, my divorce after coming out was a nightmare.  Frighteningly, one of the judge in my case - who opined that being gay is a "choice" - has been tapped by the Virginia Supreme Court to be part of the three judge panel that will oversee the recount in the Virginia Attorney General race recount.  I for one, will NOT be sleeping better at night while this recount remains unfinished knowing that this judge is involved.  The judge in question was first appointed by George Allen and has handed down some questionable rulings (see No.6) - see here as well - in the past.  Here are details from the Virginian Pilot on this, to me, troubling selection:

Circuit Judge Junius P. Fulton III was selected by the Virginia Supreme Court to oversee a fresh tally this month in a contest where Democrat Mark Herring leads Republican Mark Obenshain by 165 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast.

Serving with Fulton are Danville Circuit Court Chief Judge Joseph W. Milam Jr. and Richmond Circuit Judge Beverly W. Snukals, who will sit as chief judge for the recount.

All three were named in an order from Supreme Court Chief Justice Cynthia D. Kinser.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for today in Richmond ahead of a likely mid-December recount, according to the Obenshain campaign.

By law, a three-judge panel, including the Richmond Circuit Court chief judge and two others appointed by the Supreme Court, supervise a recount when candidates for state office are separated by no more than 1 percent of the votes cast for them.

So-called undervotes and overvotes - ballots where voters didn't select a candidate for each available office or selected more than one in a single contest - will be of particular interest to the candidates' attorneys.

Fulton is a former Norfolk School Board member who, like Kinser, was appointed to the bench by Gov. George Allen.

Justice Kinser - a former law school classmate - was also appointed by George Allen who was a darling of the far right.  When I argued before the Virginia Supreme Court on behalf of Michael Moore who was fired by the Virginia Museum of Natural History, Justice Kinser struck me as incensed that I  described what had happened to Michael Moore as religious based discrimination.  To be candid, I will not feel comfortable with Judge Fulton on the recount panel.

Judge with Obenshain Ties Recuses Himself from Recount

There continues to be a great deal of concern - at least outside of Virginia Republican circles - that Mark Obenshain may yet try to steal the attorney general election having failed to do so at the ballot box. Thankfully, some conservatives are concerned about the integrity of the election and recount process.  A case in point: Richmond judge Bradley B. Cavedo who normally would have presided over the recount has recused himself due to family ties to Obenshain.  A second surprise was Sunday's main editorial by the Daily Press which admonished Obenshain NOT to try to throw the election into the Virginia General Assembly where the GOP controlled legislature could ignore the popular vote.  First highlights from the Washington Post on Judge Cavedo's recusal of himself:

The Richmond judge who would normally preside over the recount in the tight Virginia attorney general race has recused himself, possibly because of his close ties to the family of state Sen. Mark Obenshain.

Under Virginia law, the special court that will oversee the recount of the contest between Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg) and state Sen. Mark Herring (D-Loudoun) — which Herring won by 165 votes, according to the results certified by the State Board of Elections — should be led by the chief judge of the Richmond Circuit Court.

But Bradley B. Cavedo, holder of that title, recused himself from the recount case last week, according to Ed Jewett, the court’s chief deputy clerk. Instead, the recount will be overseen by another circuit court judge, Beverly W. Snukals, who was selected for the task by the Virginia Supreme Court. Two other judges, also selected by the Supreme Court, will participate in the recount court.
 
Cavedo did not say publicly why he was recusing himself, Jewett said. But Cavedo has a long-standing tie to Obenshain’s family
A preliminary hearing in the Herring-Obenshain recount is expected to happen Wednesday, though an official time has not been set. The recount itself is expected to take place over roughly a two-day period in mid-December.

As for the Daily Press' admonition, here's the money quote:

Since the difference between the two candidates is less than one-half of 1 percent, Sen. Obenshain was within his right on Wednesday to request a statewide recount to be conducted at taxpayer expense. A three-judge panel will oversee the process.

Yet, given the doubts expressed publicly and recklessly by Mr. Judd, Sen. Obenshain could later avail himself of an alternate path to victory by seeking a "contest" of the election. He could appeal the Republican-leading General Assembly and allow its members to decide the outcome.

However, leveraging those concerns to throw the election to lawmakers would be deeply troubling, especially for an individual who intends to serve as the commonwealth's attorney. A race decided by the legislature and not by the public would undermine both the office and the individual holding it.

All eyes will be on Sen. Herring, Sen. Obenshain and election officials as the recount proceeds, and they should conduct themselves as agents of the commonwealth, rather than instruments of parties, to ensure confidence in the results.

Adam and Eve Debacle: Science Drives Theologians into Frenzy of Fabrication

As noted previously on this blog, the human genome project has scientifically confirmed that the Adam and Eve of the Book of Genesis never existed as historic people.  Thus, the story of the serpent, the fruit from the tree of knowledge and mankind's fall through the sin of Adam and Eve never happened.  Obviously, this blows the Hell out of the Christian story line and the need for a redemptive Messiah to atone for mankind's sinfulness.  Some denominations are trying to merely ignore this reality which has blown apart Christianity's entire premise as violently as the U-boat torpedo ended the Lusitania's reign as a queen of the seas.  Other denominations - e.g., the Southern Baptist Convention - that have stupidly held to the inerrant truth of the Bible are desperately seeking to fabricate a revised story line that avoids the total collapse of the story of the Fall and Christ's redemption.  A piece in Why Evolution is True looks at this desperate endeavor.  Here are excerpts:

Busily engaged in apologetics, BioLogos has a new post on the never-ending kerfuffle about the meaning of Adam and Eve: “Why the church needs multiple theories of original sin.” It’s by Loren Haarsma, who has a doctorate in physics from Harvard and teaches it at Calvin College (he’s also the co-author, with his wife Deborah, of Origins: Christian Perspectives on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design). 

The cynical—but correct—answer to the title question is: “Because science showed that there isn’t an Adam and Eve, so you have to make up stuff to save the meaning of Jesus.” And indeed, that’s precisely what theologians do, though of course they don’t admit it. Instead, they pretend that the scientific results showing that humans didn’t evolve from a single pair of ancestors simply means that we must reinterpret the Genesis story of Adam and Eve. But, as usual, theology cannot solve this problem, though Haarsma pretends that diligent theological study and proper interpretation of Scripture will yield an answer. It’s a prime example of how religious tenets are not only disproven by science, but, more important, how religion, unlike science, is powerless to find truth.

The facts first. Sheehan et al., building on an earlier paper by Li and Durbin (references below), calculated that the minimum population size associated with the worldwide expansion of humans out of Africa about 60,000 years ago was 2,250 individuals . . . . Note: 2,500 is larger than two.

Normally, such a scientific trashing of scripture could be absorbed, at least by liberal theologians. They’d just reinterpret Adam and Eve as metaphors. But that causes big trouble on two counts. First, if there really were 2,500 or more ancestors, then all of them must have transgressed to bring original sin into the world. That is hard to fathom: did everyone do something bad at the same time?

Second, if Adam and Eve were metaphors, and the source of original sin is mysterious, then we have no idea why Jesus died. After all, his death and Resurrection occurred precisely to save us sinful humans from the transgressions of Adam and Eve. If you have to turn that story into a metaphor, then Jesus died for a metaphor. That’s not very palatable to Christians.

But before Haarsma even gets to the science (whose truth he gracefully admits, because he has to), he discusses how the Church has historically dealt with the problem of atonement. The answer is that they’ve considered multiple theories and can’t settle on one. 

A variety of scenarios are being proposed by Christian scholars today for how we might understand the Adam and Eve of Genesis 2, and their disobedience in Genesis 3, in light of modern science.

1. Some scenarios propose Adam and Eve as two individuals living in Mesopotamia just a few thousand years ago, acting not as ancestors but as recent representatives of all humanity. As our representatives, their disobedience caused all of humanity to fall into sin.

2. Other scenarios propose Adam and Eve as two individuals, or as literary representations of a small group of ancient representative-ancestors, selected out of a larger population, living in Africa over 100,000 years ago at the dawn of humanity; they were ancestors—but not the sole ancestors—of all humans today . . .

3. Other scenarios propose that Adam and Eve’s disobedience in Genesis 3 is a symbolic retelling of the story of every human who, over our long history, became aware of God’s claims on how they ought to live, and then disobeyed.

[E]ach of these has its own set of problems if you want to save the idea of original sin. The first raises the problem of how the transgressions of two people could infect the entire species.

The second scenario, which proposes that Adam and Eve could be “literary representations” (i.e., made up) of an entire group of ancestors, also fails to explain how that whole group became infected with original sin.

The final alternative, if you wish to save original sin, is the one employed by more sophisticated theologians like Peter Enns (reference below). Enns, formerly a biblical scholar at BioLogos, but presumably expelled from Paradise by his science-y transgressions, simply says that the whole scenario is metaphorical. . . . In other words, the Adam and Eve story is fictional.

[T]he whole problem is this: what, exactly, is God’s revelation in Scripture? It used to be a literal interpretation of Adam and Eve, and still would be had science not taken that off the table. But maybe original sin is metaphorical, too, and perhaps even Jesus is!  Indeed, maybe God isn’t loving and good, either. After all, he’s pretty much of a hateful bully in the Old Testament.

In the end, the inerrant Bible crowd is left with nothing.  This, of course means their entire house of cards faith construct collapses.  Yet despite this reality, we continue to see folks like those at The Family Foundation and individuals like failed GOP candidates Ken Cuccinelli, "Bishop" Jackson, and Mark Obenshain seeking to impose precepts based on fictional myths on all citizens.  Thinking, decent people need to resist these efforts strenuously.
 

Will Obenshain Acting Honorably And Not Try to Steal AG Election

Like many others, I have followed the razor thin lead of Mark Herring in the Virginia attorney general race in which Herring was certified as the winner by the Virginia Board of elections yesterday.  Likewise, I have been concerned that the extremists in the Virginia GOP will push the contest loser, Mark Obenshain, to not only demand a recount but also to push the election results to the Virginia General Assembly where the GOP majority could reject the popular vote and declare Obenshain the winner.  In the Virginia GOP of old, such worries would be nonexistent.  But in today's Virginia GOP which is dominated by Christofascists and Tea Party lunatics and which has Ken Cuccinelli as the still incumbent attorney general to stack the dice so to speak, it is a legitimate worry.  A post at Blue Virginia suggests that Obenshain will do the honorable thing and concede the election.  I hope the post's author is correct. Here are post highlights:

The following piece has run in several Virginia newspapers, including today in the Lynchburg News & Advance.

Earlier this month, an alarm about Virginia's razor-close Attorney General's race sounded in some Democratic circles. Adam Swerver, in an article posted on the MSNBC website, declared that even if the defeat of Republican candidate Mark Obenshain is confirmed in a recount, he might still be able to have himself declared the winner by the Virginia state legislature, which is dominated by Republicans.  . . . . Opinions differed about the chances of Republicans succeeding with such a gambit, but there was little faith that scruples would hold them back from stealing the election. One response: "The va GOP will do ANYTHING to win cheat or steal an election."

I don't know whether state Senator Obenshain can gain the office through such a power-grab. But I bet he won't.

I live in Senator Obenshain's district. For more than twenty years, I have done talk radio in Harrisonburg, the town where Mr. Obenshain lives, discussing politics with the predominantly conservative audience in the Shenandoah Valley. I have only general impressions of him, but I know the political culture from which he comes.   

That political culture retains traditional conservative values and a sense of honor not yet transformed by the very different spirit that's come to dominate the Republican Party nationally.  I would bet that Obenshain - scion of a much-respected family of Virginia conservatives - would act in that true conservative spirit.   

A real conservative would not damage a pillar of the American political tradition by disrespecting the voice of the people expressed through voting.  It is at the heart of American democracy, because it is the means by which we confer power in an orderly and peaceful way.  

At the national level, the Republican Party has shown has shown itself increasingly contemptuous of the voters and of the sanctity of elections.  This is a party that

• Had its partisans on the Supreme Court decide the 2000 election to put their guy into the presidency, rather than make sure that the results in Florida honored the intent of the electorate;
• Has been erecting barriers to voting for constituencies that  support Democrats, ostensibly to solve a problem of voter fraud that every study shows to be virtually non-existent;
• Has used the filibuster in the U.S. Senate in an unprecedented way that subverts the basic principle of majority rule;
• Has made as its top priority preventing this president from leading the nation, even though he was fairly chosen by the people.

If the national Republican Party calls the shots in Virginia, such a disturbing scenario would indeed become plausible.  And we have seen how the spirit of power-at-any-cost has been spreading in the Republican Party from the national level down into the states. We've seen that Republican governors and legislatures -- in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Florida - have pursued parallel agendas, further empowering the already mighty at the expense of ordinary citizens.  

But I'm betting that, if the recount confirms his defeat, Obenshain will stay true to his more genuinely conservative roots, and will act the part of honor. 

Again, I hope the post's author is correct.  As for Obenshain, if he does act honorably, it may go some way to rehabilitate his image.    Of course, he will still need to stop trying to police people's bedrooms and women's vaginas if he wants to stage a come back in the new, demographically changed Virginia.

Attorney General Race Certification Today - GOP Likely to Demand Recount

Today is the day that the Virginia Board of Elections is scheduled to certify the results of the 2013 attorney general race results.  All indications are that Democrat Mark Herring will be certified as the winner and it is expected that extremist GOP candidate Mark Obenshain will demand a recount.  There is little precedent for recounts reversing an election outcome, but some fear a recount is the first step towards Obenshain seeking to throw the election into the General Assembly where the GOP members of the legislature could overthrow the popular vote.  The Richmond Times Dispatch has details:

The two candidates for attorney general are gearing up for a recount in the closest statewide contest in modern Virginia history, pending today’s meeting in which the State Board of Elections will certify the results.

State Sen. Mark R. Herring, the Democratic candidate, maintains a 165-vote lead over his Republican opponent, state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain — that’s about 0.007 percent of more than 2.2 million votes cast statewide — following extensive canvassing in several localities.

If a candidate is within one-half of a percentage point, the state will pay for a recount. If the margin is between one-half of a percentage point and 1 percentage point, a candidate can urge a recount at his own expense.

Charles E. Judd, chairman of the elections board, expects a recount. “We’re probably looking at the middle of December. It will be a long day for some localities,” Judd said Friday.

At 9 a.m. today, the board will review the election results provided by the local electoral boards.

Confident that he’ll maintain his lead, Herring declared victory two weeks ago. Obenshain, however, has repeatedly pointed out that the race is far from over and that the numbers could still turn in his favor during the state canvass or a recount. Both candidates have named transition teams.

Herring campaign lawyer Marc Elias, who worked on the Minnesota recount, told reporters in a call last week that he wouldn’t expect, based on history, a lot of movement in the vote totals during the state canvass that will be certified today.

“Obviously, Senator Obenshain will have a choice to make about whether to bring the people of Virginia through a recount,” Elias said. “Those of you who have seen past recounts in Virginia know they do not tend to change the results,” he said.

During a recount, all Scantron forms are run again and provisional and absentee ballots are recounted. Electronic receipts are re-tallied and re-added — all on one day. A law passed after the 2005 contest for attorney general requires that all paper ballots have to be rescanned or recounted. Deeds sponsored the bill.

If neither the state canvass nor a recount swings the vote count in his favor, Obenshain has one last chance to challenge the election. He could ask a joint session of the General Assembly — which is dominated by Republicans — to reverse the results through a rarely used provision in state law called a contest.

Under state law, grounds for a contest include objections to “the conduct or results of the election accompanied by specific allegations which, if proven true, would have a probable impact on the outcome of the election.”

Logan, Obenshain’s spokesman, did not comment when asked Friday if the Republican would consider contesting the election.

Bob Marshall and the GOP Continue the War on Women and Contraception

People don't like to believe me when I tell them that the ultimate goal of the Christofascists is to overturn Supreme Court rulings that found a right to privacy, especially those like Griswold v. Connecticut that legalized contraception.  In the minds of these fanatics who would police everyone's bedrooms the contraception cases were the beginning of the end of the puritanical world they so loved and opened the door to decisions like Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas and United States v. Windsor.   Here in Virginia, the war on contraception continues as bills are pre-filed that would disallow health insurance plans that include contraception coverage.  Leading the charge is the utterly insane and anti-woman would be Grand Inquisitor Del. Bob Marshall who unfortunately won reelection.  Blue Virginia has these highlights:

Del. "Sideshow Bob" Marshall has been reelected yet again, and he's back yet again with his monomaniacal war on contraception.

HB 18 (requires HMOs, insurers, etc. who offer health insurance policies "be required to offer a policy, contract, or plan identical in all respects except that no such coverage [for contraception] is included");

HB 19 ("no individual or group accident and sickness insurance policy, individual or group accident or sickness subscription contract, or health care plan for health care services shall provide coverage for contraception methods, sterilization procedures, abortifacient drugs or devices unless the subscriber or enrollee in the policy, contract, or plan requests such coverage");

HB 20 ("no health insurance plan, regardless of whether such plan consists of self-insurance, purchased insurance, a combination of purchased and self-insurance, or the use of a health maintenance organization, offered by the Commonwealth or any locality to its employees or by any agency, department, division, or institution of the Commonwealth or any locality authorized by law to offer such a plan to its employees is required to include coverage for contraception methods, sterilization procedures, or abortifacient drugs or devices.").

Totally on board with this lunacy is, of course, would be Attorney General Mark Obenshain who has backed "personhood" legislation.

Will Obenshain and the Republicans Steal the AG Election?

Jeff Shapiro, political columnist for the Richmond Times Dispatch that looks at the frightening manner in which Ken Cuccinelli clone, Mark Obenshain, and Republican members of the Virginia General Assembly may yet steal Mark Herrings victory in the race for Virginia Attorney General.  One can hope that these individuals will not try to overthrow the popular vote, but given their eagerness to disenfranchise voters through voter ID laws and other machination, I for one do not have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the honesty or integrity of Obenshain in particular and the Virginia GOP in general.  The fact that the party's base now consists of a mix of religious extremists, white supremacists, homophobes and anti-women factions doesn't suggest a party that values the will of the general public or the rights of others.  Here are highlights from Shapiro's column:

Republican Mark Obenshain is trailing Democrat Mark Herring for attorney general by 164 votes. Obenshain could win with as few as 71 — with not a single one cast by an ordinary Virginian. It is a nuclear option that takes the election out of the hands of the electorate.

Obenshain could initiate what state law calls a “contest” in which the 140-member legislature decides the attorney generalship by a majority vote. That would be a minimum of 71. They shouldn’t be too difficult for Obenshain to round up. There are 87 Republican legislators. Many of them don’t like one bit that their party could be completely shut out of statewide office.

A contest would be high-risk. Democrats would almost certainly accuse Obenshain of stealing the election, having overridden the popular vote in an increasingly blue state. A contest also could be high reward. Obenshain would cement his status as his party’s titular leader and its likely gubernatorial nominee in 2017. But the big issue that year would probably be Obenshain’s scheming four years earlier.

Obenshain’s advisers are not saying what he will do. . . . . Continuing Republican fundraising by, among others, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the defeated candidate for governor, suggests that Obenshain is preparing for any eventuality.

On Monday, the Virginia elections board will certify Herring as the winner by what apparently is the closest margin ever in a statewide election here: 164 votes. At that point, Obenshain could request a recount at taxpayer expense, run by a Richmond court.

The supervising judge could be Brad Cavedo, chief judge of the city’s Circuit Court. He has a special tie to Obenshain. Cavedo, once a reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, was the driver and confidant of Obenshain’s storied father, Dick, and was one of the last people to see alive the Republican U.S. Senate nominee before he died in a plane crash in Chesterfield County on Aug. 2, 1978.

Mark Obenshain could go through a recount — though it’s not required to seek a contest — hoping it does what no modern recount has done in Virginia: reverse the outcome of the election.

Then, having endured the recount — a process likely to drag into the countdown hours to Christmas — Obenshain would have political to launch a contest in the General Assembly. He could say he is taking this extraordinary step to ensure every vote is counted.  More to the point: that every one of Obenshain’s votes is counted . . . . 

The legislature serves as a court, hearing evidence and rendering a judgment.  And it would be a court that, if only because of the preponderance of a particular party label, presumably would be very friendly to Obenshain.

Do we really want a man who is willing to steal an election as the top attorney for the Commonwealth?  If Obenshain would do this, what else would he do in office.  I find the prospect nothing short of frightening. Today's GOP has turly become something toxic and dangerous.  The women of Virginia in particular should be terrified by the prospect of Obenshain stealing the election.

In Conflict of Interest, Cuccinelli Leads Fundraising For Obenshain Recount

Hopefully history will regard Ken Cuccinelli as one of the sleaziest and most corrupt attorney generals in Virginia history.  The man continues to believe that he's above the law and not constrained by conflict of interest concerns that govern the rest of us.  His arrogance truly knows no limits.  As many news outlets and blogs have noted, there is an inherent conflict of interest for a sitting attorney general overseeing election results when he was himself a candidate in the election contest.  The Daily Press looks at Cuccinelli's efforts for losing GOP candidate Mark Obenshain and Cuccinelli's likely effort to steal the election from Democrat Mark Herring.  Note the lie in Cuccinelli's e-mail claiming that he supports equality for "ALL Virginians" - unless, of course, one is LGBT, black, Hispanic, or non-Christian.  Here article are highlights:

Ken Cuccinelli, whose office would represent the State Board of Elections in any challenges to its vote count, has asked people to help pay for state Sen. Mark Obenshain's legal costs for any recount in his race to be the state's next attorney general.

Democrats say that's a conflict and casts a huge shadow over the state's efforts to ensure that every vote is counted. Cuccinelli and Obenshain's fellow Republicans say the Democrats are making a mountain out of a molehill.

But with the Democratic attorney general candidate, state Sen. Mark Herring, holding a lead of just 165 votes over Obenshain, both sides are gearing up for a fight.

In the email, Cuccinelli said he was asking for the donations because, "It's important the work I started at the AG's office continue. Mark will do just that – fighting for liberty, fighting against federal overreaches and fighting for justice for ALL Virginians."

Herring's campaign declined to comment, but other Democrats were more vocal.  A fundraising appeal from former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello says, "No wonder Obenshain thinks he has a chance — he's got a guy on the inside."

State Sen. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, said Cuccinelli's fundraising was disturbing because "he is someone who has a critical role to play to help ensure that Virginians have confidence in the outcome and know that our elections are professional, fair and non-partisan. Attorney General Cuccinelli needs to take his responsibilities seriously in this process and refrain from his overt and extreme partisanship."

The sooner Cuccinelli is forced from the Virginia political scene, the better off Virginia will be.