There were a number of things that disappointed me in this article in the Manassas Journal Messenger, including a huge mistake in misquoting  Chief Deane.  But this part disappointed me, puzzled me, and pissed me off.  The writer editorializes that 9500 Liberty,

works to demonize board Chairman Corey Stewart, R-at large, who was running for re-election in 2007 when he and Supervisor John T. Stirrup, R-Gainesville, pushed to pass the resolution.

I’m not sure what the writer was thinking when he added this perspective to what is supposed to be a straight news article.  First of all, there is no call for using such a strong word.  Second of all, the film does not “work” to do anything other than show Chairman Stewart being very good at what he does.  If you like the idea of immigration culture wars dividing your community right before an election, Corey is no demon in this film, he’s a saint.  No one in the film criticizes him.  No one who spoke after the film directly criticized him.  In fact, his name didn’t even come up. I was among a number of audience members who were shocked that certain of the Chairman’s most dastardly deeds were NOT included in the film.  I wasn’t going to respond to the comment other than to say I agreed, but this was posted yesterday by Last Best Hope:

Billed as a film that “makes Corey Stewart look like an idiot” (this was the big quote in a MJM article from someone who got a sneak preview), the film revealed nothing I did not already know about him, while omitting many of the things he did to make himself look, if not idiotic, at least unhinged. There was nothing about Stewart instantaneously forwarding internal BOCS emails to Greg Letiecq so that the Letiecq Internet Frenzy machine could be used to bully the Board into firing Chief Deane. That was Stewart’s lowest moment and a glaring omission from the film. Stewart’s second lowest moment, or most brilliant depending on your agenda, was using county funds to send out a political post card during his “fighting illegal immigration” reelection campaign setting up the circus act BOCS meeting in Oct. 2007. While this is 10 times more predictable, it was also 10 times more infamous and more discussed at the time. I was looking forward to seeing Maureen Caddigan’s brilliant move to hold the Chairman’s feet to the fire when he tried to limit the very people he invited to participate to only one minute at the podium. I believe Stewart lost the vote 6 to 2, and the result was 12 hours of Citizens’ Time to delay a vote that was already decided before they showed up. But this was skipped as well.

Last Best Hope concludes by saying, “Basically Stewart is not in the film other than Board meetings, and I’m not sure this alone makes him look like an idiot.”   I could not agree more.  If anything, the film was soft on Corey Stewart, considering how it should, or could have been made.  Much was left out that could follow Corey politically. 

 

Speaking of soft pedaling, I thought the film went too easy on Mr. Fernandez as well.  Most people I have talked to say that his sign hurt the Hispanic community more than helped it, by handing Greg Letiecq a perfect gift with which to demonize (here is where the word is apt) the Hispanic community.  Greg got more mileage out of that sign.  He signed up more people because of it than he ever would have with his laughably manipulative pictures of men with ski-masks holding machine guns. 

The voice over in the film  criticizes the wording of the third sign, which was over-the-top offensive, but only because the inflammatory language could endanger his kids.  A fair point, but it did more than endanger kids, it pissed a lot of people off, of all races,  who might not otherwise have been that critical of the sign.  Fernandez insulted the very people who were actually trying to help; the coalition of people who were working to fight back the powers of darkness ended up being included in the broad-brush insult.

385 Thoughts to “Demonology: MJM Claims Chairman Stewart “Demonized” in 9500 Liberty”

  1. Emma

    You called it, hello. The invocation of ultimate evil to describe people who want laws enforced against illegal immigrants. Except it is effectively stripping all the power away from those words. It’s not even worth becoming defensive over them, since they’ve essentially become meaningless, almost a joke now.

    More unintended consequences, I guess. Those accusations just make me laugh now.

  2. GainesvilleResident

    I can make a counterpoint to all the “white trash” causing problems. Some of the tenants of the flophouse next to me broke into my house, stole several thousand dollars worth of electronics, and the Manassas police told me those people were not legal aliens. If the resolution helps to discourage those kind of people from being here, that’s good. I actually don’t think it does much to discourage those kinds of people. Lawbreakers like those ignore laws. However, the bad economy helped discourage those people from living in my former neighborhood, and THAT is a very good thing in my opinion.

  3. GainesvilleResident

    Zoning laws won’t fix flophouses, good luck with that. You’d be very surprised at how many people can legally inhabit a house before it is considered overcrowded. That’s why the City of Manassas tried unsuccessfully to modify them, and look what happened.

  4. Emma

    Yes, Censored, what about all those “neighborhood solutions” you all have been harping about that are gosh-darn so effective? Why aren’t you using those to get your neighbors to clean up their acts?

    Oh, wait, they don’t always work now, do they? Gosh, I guess sometimes you do need the law to help you out. And you are just helping to prove the point that maybe we have more home-grown lawbreakers than can we really handle. Why add to the numbers with illegal immigrants?

  5. GainesvilleResident

    Censored bybvbl :
    GR, I’m curious when you say:
    “I don’t know about that, but from my own personal experience I will say I care a lot less about all of this now that I was able to extract myself from my former neighborhood. However, as I still own property there, it still makes me care about it. Once I no longer own property there – in a year and a half or so – then I think I won’t care a whole lot about this whole subject, unless it somehow starts to creep into my new neighborhood”
    Using that logic, why should the rest of us care about what happened to you when you lived in PoW? Why should we care about Emma’s neighborhood or Rick’s neighborhood? Why should most of the people in this county (who were unaffected by your problems) care? I’m curious.

    Fine, then don’t care. All I was citing was my own personal experience. If you don’t like it, that’s fine with me. You can’t take away from the fact that I had a personal experience that was not good. Again, if it is not too your liking, based on other responses of yours – I could care less if you aren’t sympathetic. Big deal.

  6. Censored bybvbl

    Hello, I have used Zoning and the police to solve these problems. I didn’t need to have a rift-creating resoluion passed. The laws were there to begin with to address the problems. 287(g) was at the jail.
    The problem I see is that the people who whine the most about the problems are often the same people who don’t want to pay more in taxes to upgrade these departments.

  7. GainesvilleResident

    And it is true, I won’t care so much once I sell my property. But for now I still do care, and I think things are broken. Actually, as I said, the economy helped fix the problem more than the resolution did, in my own opinion. But if the resolution helped in any tiny way, that’s fine too. If you don’t care then because you are unaffected, that’s fine. But don’t try and tell me the majority of the county was unaffected, that just isn’t true. The most populous areas of the county were affected, so it stands to reason your logic is faulty.

  8. GainesvilleResident

    Censored bybvbl :
    Hello, I have used Zoning and the police to solve these problems. I didn’t need to have a rift-creating resoluion passed. The laws were there to begin with to address the problems. 287(g) was at the jail.
    The problem I see is that the people who whine the most about the problems are often the same people who don’t want to pay more in taxes to upgrade these departments.

    Actually, I’m all for giving law enforcement as much money as they need. If they want to double their budget, and increase taxes to pay for it, that’s more than fine by me as a PWC taxpayer.

  9. GainesvilleResident

    Of course, once again I see assumptions being made that aren’t true. Where’s your statistics about people not wanting to pay higher taxes but whining about law enforcement. Oh, I know – you are just pulling that stuff out of thin air. There’s an awful lot of assumptions made on this blog like that…

  10. GainesvilleResident

    Censored bybvbl :
    Hello, I have used Zoning and the police to solve these problems. I didn’t need to have a rift-creating resoluion passed. The laws were there to begin with to address the problems. 287(g) was at the jail.
    The problem I see is that the people who whine the most about the problems are often the same people who don’t want to pay more in taxes to upgrade these departments.

    And let’s see you use zoning to fix the problems in my own neighborhood. I tried, no success.

  11. GainesvilleResident

    Emma :
    Yes, Censored, what about all those “neighborhood solutions” you all have been harping about that are gosh-darn so effective? Why aren’t you using those to get your neighbors to clean up their acts?
    Oh, wait, they don’t always work now, do they? Gosh, I guess sometimes you do need the law to help you out. And you are just helping to prove the point that maybe we have more home-grown lawbreakers than can we really handle. Why add to the numbers with illegal immigrants?

    There’s the repeated mantra that “zoning will fix all your problems”, or the vague “Community solutions”. Yeah, that works great when half the community is full of flophouses and doesn’t give a damn about their effect on the rest of the community. Some vague kind of hand holding or whatever they are talking about isn’t going to help there. People who trash the neighborhood – they aren’t going to be interested in any kind of “community outreach” or whatever. Good luck with that.

  12. Censored bybvbl

    GR, I believe that less than 5% of the housing stock in the county/city was affected by overcrowding. That’s not to say that that 5% doesn’t affect the surrounding neighbors. It does. But most people are unaffected.

    GR, I too am willing to pay higher taxes to address those issues.

  13. GainesvilleResident

    OK, let’s take that 5% number. I would argue one overcrowded house affects at least 5 other houses neighboring it. That’s 25% of it. OK, no majority, but a sizeable percentage. And I think that 5% number is low. On my block 50% of the houses were flophouses (every other house basically).

  14. GainesvilleResident

    And it’s funny, but most people seemed for example unwilling to pay for cameras in police cars. I find that appalling – for one thing it would be helpful on a wide range of issues. I wish they had approved that – it would have been a good thing and I’d be willing to pay higher taxes for it.

  15. Censored bybvbl

    GR, and you’re assuming that zoning or the police haven’t solved these problems for me. I’m a believer in using rhe right approach when making a complaint. I want the actual problem solved. I don’t care about the ethnicity of the scofflaw.

  16. Censored bybvbl

    I think cameras should have been funded had the resolution not been altered. I think cameras can be costly in ways unrelated to merely mounting them in cars. I suppose anyone with a complaint against the police could request the footage that affected them. Don’t know how that would figure into the cost.

  17. GainesvilleResident

    JustinT :
    GR, I don’t have time to find it for you. But the fact that you didn’t find it doesn’t mean it ain’t there. Someone posted about a FOIA request for security cam footage of the two of them leaving the office together at 2 AM. I didn’t start the rumor.

    And just because it was posted somewhere here on antibvbl makes it the truth, apparently. And repeating a rumor, even if you didn’t start it, keeps propagating it, which in and of itself is a bad thing. I’m sure people could FOIA “UFO’s landing in PWC” but that doesn’t make it true.

  18. Lafayette

    Emma :Lafayette, I COMPLETELY misread you early on, and I take back anything I have said to attack your views. I should have read more carefully back then.

    Thanks, Emma. I really do speak my mind and from personal experiences. I will admit I’ve had numerous people say they’d misread me. However, once they met me face to face and really LISTENED to what I was saying it became clear I was not the “evil” person they’d thought I was.

  19. GainesvilleResident

    Censored bybvbl :
    I think cameras should have been funded had the resolution not been altered. I think cameras can be costly in ways unrelated to merely mounting them in cars. I suppose anyone with a complaint against the police could request the footage that affected them. Don’t know how that would figure into the cost.

    Yes, I actually agree with that. It would have removed any dispute of what happened IF someone was pulled over for probable cause. Although I will say, I’m not sure the whole probable cause part was such a good idea, but indeed, if it had been continued – the cameras were the right way to go -no doubt about that. I suppose it would have generated a lot of requests for camera footage though – so might have needed a full time person to handle those requests. Although, that would maybe only be $40K or $50K – a drop in the bucket probably compared to the cost of the cameras themselves.

  20. GainesvilleResident

    However, ignoring the resolution completely – I think the PWC police should have cameras in all squad cars. Other police departments do – it’s too bad the PWC police don’t – for their own protection actually from frivolous “police force” or “racial profiling” lawsuits.

  21. GainesvilleResident

    I’m glad zoning enforcement worked for you Censored. Maybe in City of Manassas it is different, but the existing zoning laws did not work for me – well twice I did get that townhouse cleaned out – but they just came back. And since the City got sued for overcrowding, they were very reluctant to take any action on that townhouse – in my own personal experience. I guess for awhile zoning maybe did work for me – for very brief periods of time. The townhouse would be vacant for a month or two and just go right back to the way it was. I would say it was a mixed success – it never was a permanent solution.

  22. GainesvilleResident

    In fact, there was a large amount of furniture stored on the deck, which I felt was a safety hazard. City of Manassas never seemed concerned about that, from a zoning point of view. I’m talking an entire dining room set (including the cabinet where you would store dishes and stuff)! It was that way for 2 years – amazingly the deck never collapsed from the weight.

  23. hello

    “I think cameras should have been funded had the resolution not been altered.” – I couldn’t agree more. I was actually stunned when I heard that our police cars didn’t have cameras in them.

  24. GainesvilleResident

    I wonder what the percentage of police departments that have cameras in squad cars is? I would think it is relatively high. Don’t know where that statistic can be found though. I do think it is a great idea though, and should be pursued – completely outside the whole resolution business. In fact, somewhere i read federal funding can be obtained for outfitting police cars with cameras. Not sure how much it pays for, but anything is better than nothing.

  25. Moon-howler

    I stopped reading at comment #65. For the last time, the Nazi discussion was not on this blog. 2 people, and you know who you are, brought it to this blog and I removed it. Took it down. I am so g-damn tired of hearing about Nazis and all the complaining that I am going to put NAZI as a trigger word. Make my day. Use it and see where it gets you.

    When calling a politican a nazi equals calling children and non-citizens dog food, vermin, and rodents then perhaps we can have a discussion.

  26. Rick Bentley

    “These people in my book act like Nazis and if they don’t like that assessment…TFB.”

    Okay, but don’t get mad if they, or I, feel and express that you are an ineffectual nit-wit whose positions are entirely unrealistic and laughable, who is completely out of touch with mainstream thought. we are entitled to that belief, as you are yours.

  27. Elena

    Emma,
    What sharks are you talking about? No, I don’t live on this blog, but I did comment when somecalled Corey a racist, I said I did not agree with that sentiment at all. But how about getting back to the topic at hand. Censored is right, I had neighborhood issues, I didn’t try to get a resolution passed to kick all Pakanstani’s out of the country! It was easy to look at your hispanic neighbor and assume they are “illegal” or a call every Latino “mexican”, and it was a LOSING and prejudicial solution. It’s THAT simple to me.

  28. GainesvilleResident

    Fine, but it wasn’t that it was calling him the leader of him, and that equated him to a mass murderer. Apparently that’s acceptable.

  29. GainesvilleResident

    Fine, but it wasn’t that it was calling him the leader of them, and that equated him to a mass murderer. Apparently that’s acceptable.

  30. GainesvilleResident

    Sorry for the double post – I tried to correct a key word (him versus THEM which is what I meant). Basically, Corey was called a mass murderer on here – no two ways about it.

  31. Elena

    Rick,
    Don’t talk about yourself that way, you aren’t a nitwit and your positions aren’t laughable and out of touch with main stream thought!

    Oh, were you talking about Moon-Howler, it sounded like you were talking about yourself 😉

  32. GainesvilleResident

    Elena :
    Emma,
    What sharks are you talking about? No, I don’t live on this blog, but I did comment when somecalled Corey a racist, I said I did not agree with that sentiment at all. But how about getting back to the topic at hand. Censored is right, I had neighborhood issues, I didn’t try to get a resolution passed to kick all Pakanstani’s out of the country! It was easy to look at your hispanic neighbor and assume they are “illegal” or a call every Latino “mexican”, and it was a LOSING and prejudicial solution. It’s THAT simple to me.

    This is a favorite tactic it seems – claiming people assume all Hispanics are illegals, etc. etc. That is also a losing argument.

  33. Elena

    Corey WAS NOT called a Mass murderer on this blog Gainesville, not even alluded to such a thing, THAT is completely and utterly a lie! Talk about ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  34. GainesvilleResident

    I much rather be called a nit-wit than some other things I’ve been called on here!

  35. GainesvilleResident

    No, he was compared to Hitler – same thing.

  36. GainesvilleResident

    Not ridiculous at all – one poster compared him to Hitler. Comparing someone to a mass murderer is indeed calling them one.

  37. GainesvilleResident

    But of course it’s normal to label one’s opponents liars, as is done more than a few times on this blog.

  38. Last Best Hope

    Here is something we all should be able to agree upon.

    In the film, Corey Stewart takes a radical stand. He passes the gavel to John Stirrup in order to break with tradition and make a motion as Chairman, to RAISE TAXES, (grrrrrrrr-rrrr).

    What is worse, his strategy for getting the rest of the Board to support RAISING TAXES (grrr-rrrr) is to use the Letiecq blog to frighten senior citizens into making deranged statements that essentially say “Raise my taxes all you want, if the Probable Cause status checks are removed, we’ll be over run by illegals.”

    Thankfully the Board did not go for it, taxes were raised, but not as much as Stewart wanted them to be raised, and the Probable Cause standard for status checks were thrown on into the dust pan of history where it belongs.

    Did we get overrun by “illegals” as a result? Nope.

    That means Corey Stewart frightened a lot of senior citizens for nothing, other than to RAISE TAXES (grrrr-rrrr), save his pride, and cost the county millions of dollars in law suits.

    Not demonology, but certainly bad, very very bad politics for a so-called conservative Republican.

  39. GainesvilleResident

    I’ll drop the discussion, but it just illustrates the point this blog likes to deny past statements by some posters or minimize them. I know what I saw, it was there in black and white. I could search the archives, but why bother? No one’s minds are going to be changed even if I offer up the proof – they’ll be some defense of that comparison, I know it.

  40. GainesvilleResident

    Hint, it was right during the “ethnic cleansing” discussion.

  41. Witness Too

    Gainesville, I agree with you. It is simply juvenile to imply that Stewart and Letiecq have anything more than a professional relationship. I doubt they are even friends after all the damage Letiecq did to Stewart’s reputation (or some would argue vice versa).

  42. Censored bybvbl

    GR, there is little uniformity in codes which affect overcrowding. One standard is set by zoning, another by property maintenance codes. The federal government has different standards for Section 8 housing, military housing, etc. When you get down to rock solid particulars, I don’t know which would prevail in a court case. I hear there’s a move afoot (at the State level?) to hold landlords responsible for their tenants’ actions.

  43. Witness Too

    LBH, raising taxes was not the issue. Whether you frighten our parents and grandparents to raise taxes, to lower taxes, to support health care, or to oppose health care, we should not be treating our senior citizens that way.

  44. GainesvilleResident

    Witness Too :
    Gainesville, I agree with you. It is simply juvenile to imply that Stewart and Letiecq have anything more than a professional relationship. I doubt they are even friends after all the damage Letiecq did to Stewart’s reputation (or some would argue vice versa).

    Indeed, that seemed to be the implication of the “leaving at 2 AM in the morning” comment. Otherwise, what would it matter what time they left the building to get together. I got the sense a long time ago Corey distanced himself from Greg, actually. Anyway, it is sort of a stooping low to imply anything of the sort.

  45. GainesvilleResident

    Censored bybvbl :
    GR, there is little uniformity in codes which affect overcrowding. One standard is set by zoning, another by property maintenance codes. The federal government has different standards for Section 8 housing, military housing, etc. When you get down to rock solid particulars, I don’t know which would prevail in a court case. I hear there’s a move afoot (at the State level?) to hold landlords responsible for their tenants’ actions.
    Landlords should be held responsible for their tenants actions. I support that – even though I myself am a landlord. If I found out my tenant was doing anything in violation of the law, I’d want them evicted as soon as I could legally do it.

    Also, landlords should be held responsible for overcrowding. They knowingly create that situation, and all the problems it causes. If issues arise from it, then they should be responsible for it legally.

  46. Emma

    Mom, you’ve said it all. Couldn’t improve on those wise and entirely true words if I tried.

  47. Rick Bentley

    Elena, I was talking about the aptly-named “Posting as Pinko”. I would never say such things about Moon-howler, I am a fan of the way she runs this board.

    I wouldn’t call you a nitwit, either, though “out of touch with mainstream thought” is probably fair to say.

  48. hello

    CR, were you referring to this: http://www.antibvbl.net/index.php/2008/03/19/zeigen-sie-mir-ihre-papiere-seien-sie-ihre-papiere-im-auftrag/

    Basically comparing PWCPD to the SS? Quote from topic “Claims that there would be no Gestapo knocking on your door asking for your papers are now suspect.”

  49. Last Best Hope

    Witness, I wouldn’t expect you to get this because you are clearly a liberal. I am talking to the majority of people on this blog including the person who founded when I speak of true Conservatism. Low taxes is a pillar of true Conservatism. The fact that Corey Stewart was lured so far away from his purported foundation that he would make a theatrical production out of RAISING TAXES is an example of how far this man, in my opinion, abused the public trust. I think most Republicans would never have even considered this measure if we didn’t think it would save the county money. When it turned out to be the opposite, well that’s when the policy was repealed.

    So we can talk about human rights and civil rights all we want, and I do believe in the U.S. Constitution and the rights it affords all of us, even those without status in this country, but the bottom line was the bottom line. That’s where Corey lost the middle.

  50. Last Best Hope

    I’m glad to see that comparing our elected leaders to Hitler has gone out of style once again on the fringe right. For that, Madam Pinko, I must thank you.

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