Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by johnf on August 15, 2011 at 12:13am

I have replied in a seperate post, but I guess just for completeness I should include the information in here:

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Earlier today Jeff Brown posted demonstrably false information about Randy Minchew's recent mailer.

 

Let us examine Jeff's post:

 

"Those of us that live here know that Randy Minchew's attacks are false, and easily debunked, but the recklessness he shows in the mailing is disturbing. (He even misspelled Lansdowne in his rush to print.)"

First of all, I ask Jeff Brown to post a scan of the mailer.  After seeing Jeff's post, I asked for a copy from someone and the version I see has Lansdowne spelled correctly. Perhaps Jeff misread that, much like he misread the rest of the mailer.

Jeff Brown makes the claim that Randy's points are "easily debunked".  I challenge him to do so.  In fact, John Whitbeck's mishandling and slowing of action against Openband is easily proven with John Whitbeck's OWN WORDS.  Many of them are posted here on Lansdowne Living.  Any interested reader could easily do a search on Openband or Whitbeck on this site and will see post after post about the ways in which John Whitbeck prevented or slowed action against Openband.

Jeff Brown is doing what we have seen over and over from the Whitbeck campaign.  He is making accusations without proof.  In many of my postings, I have provided evidence for my factual assertions.  Jeff is just talking without providing any proof.  Much like how John Whitbeck claims to be a conservative, and then votes for excessive spending over and over.  Words not matching actions.

"The reason for this negative mailing is to distract voters from Mr. Minchew's own record of raising taxes and donating to liberal Democrats."

 

This is completely untrue.  Randy Minchew does not have a record of "raising taxes".  He also does not have a record of donating to liberal democrats.  Jeff Brown will not be able to show either of these things to be true.  Randy was never in a position to vote on raising taxes and he has only donated to Republicans.  The only tax he advocated did not happen and he PERSONALLY worked to get the same results without the taxes.  On the other hand John Whitbeck spent so much money while on the board that he FORCED Lansdowne dues to go up even though he irresponsibly voted against a balanced budget.  Taxes is not core issue for people who understand fiscal conservatism.  Spending is.  And John Whitbeck has had a spending problem.

 

Do we want someone like Randy Minchew who ACTUALLY WORKS to get us better results without taxes or John Whitbeck who just talks and talks.

 

Jeff Brown will not be able to show the check to the democrat candidate.  These are scurrilous allegations.  The candidate they are trying to tie him to was a Republican at the time and only later became a democrat.

 

"Randy has never denied that he repeatedly advocated for higher taxes or that he has given money to liberal Democrats down in Richmond."

 

Yes he has.  And oddly, since Jeff Brown claims to have attended the debate, he should know that since Randy addressed it there as covered in the Leesburg Patch.  Another false statement by Jeff Brown.

 

"If anyone is interested the following is the jist of the mailing:

Accusation:  He tries to tie John to the Openband contract."

 

That IS NOT what the mailing says.  I am not sure how Jeff Brown is doing Whitbeck any favors by not even accurately portraying what the mailer says.  If Jeff Brown can't even get the point of the mailer right, can you trust his judgment on Whitbeck or the issues?  Let Jeff post it so everyone can see how much he got it wrong.

 

The mailer makes no claim about Whitbeck being part of the signing of the contract.  It says he allowed them to "MAINTAIN" the monopoly.  That his ineffective leadership stopped us from getting competing companies in earlier.  So Jeff's REALITY statement is completely orthogonal to the issue at hand and the claim.

 

The REALITY is that Whitbeck HAS been an ineffective leader.  There have been many posts on here about his ineffective leadership for years.  He has only recently finally voted to allow a suit to go forward.  And I have not even yet seen that come online.

This is Jeff Brown's most bizarre claim:

"As a board member, John has continually worked to allow Lansdowne residents to have their own choice of internet service provider."

 

This is blatantly and completely untrue.  I say this as a former member of the tech committee and as the former chair of the short-lived Openband committee.  You can go back and look at my postings on Lansdowne Living here from the time.  I resigned my post because of the unwillingness of the board in general, but John Whitbeck in particular to take any action against Openband.  We couldn't even get John Whitbeck to agree to look into what our OPTIONS were.  He continually referred to how many people in Lansdowne liked Openband while letting month after month tick by without taking action.

 

If Jeff Brown would like, we could go quote by quote through emails and posts on here as well as public statements by John Whitbeck and show how little he was willing to act in the best interests of Lansdowne in addressing the Openband issue.

 

The Randy Minchew mailer is accurate.  If Jeff Brown wants to attack the mailer, then he should post it here and then post the evidence that it is false.  I will then respond with the counter evidence showing John Whitbeck's sheer inability to understand the issues involved or to take action by using John Whitbeck's own words.

 

I will point out to any who might not know that Jeff is a former President of the association as well and that I can find no evidence that he took action to resolve the Openband issue either.  He even recently posted that he wished "cooler heads" would prevail and that we would NOT take action to bring competition to Lansdowne.

 

So Jeff is telling us about John Whitbeck's "continuous" work to allow choice, yet they were on the board at the same time and no action was taken.  And Jeff was just a few days ago advocating AGAINST action.

 

Bizarre.

 

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Permalink Reply by Edward Washignton on August 15, 2011 at 11:58am

Ask and you shall receive, here is a copy of the mailing: http://www.scribd.com/doc/62331763/Minchew-NegativeB.

 

Minchew clearly misspells Lansdowne 3 times in the mailing. Now could you please give me a copy of the mailing where Minchew does in fact spell the name of the community correctly. Oh wait it doesn't exist does it?

 

You are clearly also lying about maintaining the monopoly. The mailer says,"John Whitbeck didn't stop a deal that gave Openband." How was John supposed to stop a deal when he was not a resident when the deal was signed? The word maintain is not even written on the mailer. Why are you lying on behalf of Randy Minchew?

 

Finally, Randy is attacking John because Randy advocated for higher taxes: http://www.bvbl.net/images/minchew-op-ed.png and he gave money to Democrats: http://www.vpap.org/donors/profile/money_out_details/318?committee_.... See totally sourced with all the facts.

 

Have you always been a liar Mr. Footen or did this just start recently?

 

 

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Permalink Reply by johnf on August 15, 2011 at 1:45pm

I will be posting a response that shows that you are wrong in a bit.  I am finding out about the VPAP link right now.  The rest of your assertions are wrong and I will write in detail why in a few minutes.

 

I will point out that your post is typical of John Whitbeck and his supporters.  Angry and attacking.  I think voters need to question whether they want to put in office someone who is prepared to so personally negatively attack.  In this case, Edward is calling me a liar.  This is his first assumption.  Not that I was wrong (I am not), or mistaken, or misinformed or only partially right.  That I lie is his first thought.

 

I NEVER lie.  I am wrong sometimes, but lying is something I consider abhorrent.  Again, I feel like the Whitbeck campaign and his supporters are treating this like a high school presidency election.  Very immature.  Whitbeck's general immaturity is something that Minchew apparently didn't want to point out in their debate, but I will.

 

Edward,  I will show you why you are mistaken in a bit, but meanwhile, check the spelling of your own name. Edward Washignton

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Permalink Reply by johnf on August 15, 2011 at 2:23pm

OK, In order to keep things clear, I will address each topic in separate posts:

 

First, the mailing.  I have scanned in my copy and am posting it here.  It clearly talks about "maintain".

 

It is clear that there must have been two different versions of the mailing that went out.  And the one Jeff posted about and you scanned must be a pre-release version that got in the mix somehow like a printing error.

 

So I will withdraw my criticism of Jeff vis a vis his interpretation of the mailer (or the spelling) since he obviously got one that is different than the one that went out to others.

 

You can see though that my interpretation of the mailer I saw was accurate though and I DID NOT LIE and I never will!  If you are intellectually honest, you will admit - just as I just did - that you were in error.

 

As to how two different versions got out into the wild, I guess someone will have to ask the Minchew campaign.  Like I said, my guess is the printer made a mistake and sent out a pre-release version to at least some homes that had mispellings, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attachments:

• Whitbeck Mailer.pdf, 1.5 MB

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Permalink Reply by johnf on August 15, 2011 at 2:46pm

On the taxes...

 

Jeff Brown said: "The reason for this negative mailing is to distract voters from Mr. Minchew's own record of raising taxes"

 

This is what I was stating was false.  Note that Jeff said Randy RAISED taxes.  In reality, what you say is more accurate and I mentioned it in MY post as well, so I guess you mean to say that Jeff is lying since you and I referred to the same thing.

 

But here is what is wrong with your analysis AND the analysis at bvbl.  You are simply leaving out important facts.  Yes, Randy wanted to pay for the project instead of incurring more debt like John Whitbeck and Barack Obama.  And this tax was supported by Bob McDonnell and Joe May.  Are you prepared to argue that Bob McDonnell is not a fiscal conservative too? 

 

Good luck with that.

 

 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Edward Washignton on August 15, 2011 at 2:55pm

Umm John you don't live in the district. So how did you get your hands on the mailing? Are you sure you didn't send a copy of the image of the actual mailer and then get the Minchew campaign to change it? Man how desperate are you? Have you left your basement recently?

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Permalink Reply by johnf on August 15, 2011 at 3:00pm

Edward,

 

I am working on the ACTUAL details around campaign contributions.  Its a lot of data, so it takes time to compose.

 

I have friends who live in the district.  It wasn't hard to ask for a scan.  I am getting scanned mailings from both campaigns from a friend in the district since I am interested in the race.  Ask the Minchew campaign if you care so much about a spelling error.

 

I will again point out to the readers the level of debate from the Whitbeck for School President campaign supporters.  :-)

 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by johnf on August 15, 2011 at 3:11pm

On the question of donating to democrats, I guess I will have to concede there were a very few donations 11 to 15 years ago.  But it turns out - after checking - they were from a joint checking account and that his wife wrote the checks.

 

So lets see what the great issue of democrat donations is (WITH FACTS) and compare them to John Whitbeck's records on donation.  We will use the VPAP records as the data source.

 

All of the donation to democrats occurred at LEAST 10 years ago and he has made no contributions to democrats in the last 10 years.  During the last 10 years, he contributed 194,391 to Republicans.  Look at this link and there is a convenient graph on the upper right side of the screen with totals.

 

http://www.vpap.org/donors/profile/index/318?start_year=2001&en...

 

Then we look at John Whitbeck over the last 10 years:

 

http://www.vpap.org/donors/profile/index/73173?end_year=2011&st...

 

John Whitbeck made made one contribution in 2004 and one in 2010 to Dick Black and then mysteriously disappeared from Republican politics until 2011 when he SUDDENLY he must have woken up to a desire to become a politician and THEN decided to start contributing to a few candidates.  In that same 10 year period that Randy contributed 194K, John Whitbeck contributed 3.5K.

 

And you want to question Minchew's dedication to the republican party and republican causes based on a few small contributions to conservative democrats by his wife over 10 years ago?  And with a candidate that really only THIS YEAR decided to be a serious Republican.  Shame on you.

 

This is spin ladies and gentlemen.  Pure political spin by the Whitbeck campaign to distort the Minchew record with partial facts and distortions.

 

Exactly as the mailer says.  Whitbeck would rather destroy a good republican who has dedicated his life to conservative causes just so he can advance his newly found political ambition.

 

I recommend reading the profiles of the candidates on Leesburg Today and making a decision.  You will see that Randy has a long record of service and is a positive force for Republicans.  Whitbeck is an angry politician out to serve his own interests. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Edward Washignton on August 15, 2011 at 3:49pm

Umm you do know that John was a substitute judge and prohibited by law from donating money to any political campaigns right? Also you do realized that over 100k of those Minchew campaigns were to his own failed run for state senate back in 2006 right?

 

Also you were the first person to bring up his wife. When did anybody mention his wife?

 

Also Dick Saslaw is a conservative? Janet Howell? Hull? Every single one of those you mentioned voted for every single tax increase brought before the General Assembly. Same thing with Russ Potts who he also gave money. Its good to know that you actually admitted that you were totally incorrect in saying that the Jeff made false statements. Great job apologizing.

 

Also conservative causes? You mean like the tax referendum that our current attorney general opposed? You still haven't responded to Minchew's developer donations or the fact that he advocated publicly for a sales tax increase which failed with 63% of the vote in Loudoun.

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Permalink Reply by johnf on August 15, 2011 at 4:04pm

Edward,

I will get back to you on this in a bit, but you are "lying" when you sat I was totally correct in saying Jeff didn't make false statements.  Several of Jeff's statements were false and still are and I made that clear.  Notably that he helped with Openband "continuously".  Reread.

 

And, by the way, is Whitbeck planning on returning all the money he RECEIVED from democrats?  Has he been bought by the democratic party?  What about his association with the NEA?  Is the NEA Whitbeck's idea of a conservative cause.

 

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Permalink Reply by johnf on August 15, 2011 at 4:31pm

"Umm you do know that John was a substitute judge and prohibited by law from donating money to any political campaigns right?"

 

Are you saying that if we look down to the date level that Whitbeck NEVER could have donated between 2005 and 2010?  And then why so few donations in 2004 and 2010?

 

"Also you do realized that over 100k of those Minchew campaigns were to his own failed run for state senate back in 2006 right?"

 

If you subtract that out, and look over the WHOLE period of Minchew donations in Virginia, then Minchew still donated something like 98% of his money to Republicans.  Are you really prepared to argue that someone who donates 98% of their money to Republicans isn't a good republican?  This is a shameful attack and the Whitbeck campaign should be ashamed for going negative first and trying to destroy a good Republican  for the political gain of someone who is clearly narcissistic.

"Also you were the first person to bring up his wife. When did anybody mention his wife?"

 

Because I took the time to ask someone who knows Minchew.  That's why I said it would take me a little while.  I don't know Minchew so can't just call him or his campaign up on the phone.  Did you EVEN ASK about these donations before joining the attack?  Did you consider that there was an explanation?  Did you think that it might be his wife and a joint checking account and that it WAS OVER 10 YEARS AGO?

 

"Also Dick Saslaw is a conservative? Janet Howell? Hull? Every single one of those you mentioned voted for every single tax increase brought before the General Assembly."

 

I never mentioned them.  What are you talking about?

 

"Same thing with Russ Potts who he also gave money"

 

He was a Republican.

 

"Great job apologizing."

It is called being intellectually honest.  You should think about doing the same.

 

"Also conservative causes? You mean like the tax referendum that our current attorney general opposed? You still haven't responded to Minchew's developer donations or the fact that he advocated publicly for a sales tax increase which failed with 63% of the vote in Loudoun."

 

Yes I did.  reread what I wrote.  Minchew is the one WHO ACTUALLY got the job done WITHOUT taxes.

 

And did you read his profile on Leesburg today.  Is this the man you want to attack?

 

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Permalink Reply by johnf on August 15, 2011 at 5:02pm

This is the link to the profile I have been talking about:

 

http://leesburgtoday.com/news/politics/article_184fbafa-c374-11e0-b...

 

And Jeff or Edward or John Whitbeck will need to explain why they are attacking Bob McDonnell and the many other Republicans who thought that it was the right fiscally conservative thing to do.

 

If you want some details from the time, they can be found here:

 

http://www.coopercenter.org/sites/default/files/oldVANL/vanl1102.pdf

 

But bottom line is that ALMOST EVERY REPUBLICAN supported this initiative.  John Whitbeck's attacks are baseless and shameful.

 

Good luck to his supporters in attacking every fiscally conservative Republican in Loudoun county.  I quote from the piece:

 

"It was supported by virtually
all of the Northern Virginia legislative delegation
and championed by Delegate Jack
Rollison (R-Prince William). In Northern
Virginia it was pushed by a broad coalition of
business, civic and local elected leaders from
across the region."

 

And in case there is any doubt as to whether Whitbeck is attacking Governor McDonnell, here is the vote he is attacking.

 

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?021+vot+HV2016+SB0668

 

So the question is, why is John Whitbeck attacking Governor McDonnell?  Is someone who is so dedicated to attacking so many clearly fiscally responsible Republicans a good leader? 

 

Why does John Whitbeck continue to exercise bad judgment?  Can Lansdowne Republicans really vote for a guy that is willing to attack almost all of this fellow Republicans including many good men - for his own political gain?

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