First it was the FL-S giving the Virginia House Republicans a shellacking for its abdication of leadership during the special session on transportation.

And now from The News & Advance, Lynchburg Va.’s daily, comes an equally scathing editorial.

Here’s a snippet:

But those with egg on their faces are neither the governor nor the Democrats who control the State Senate. It’s the anti-tax, heads-in-the-sand wing of the Republican Party that calls the shots in the House of Delegates.

Uh oh.

You know the Republican House Caucus is in trouble when a daily newspaper in bright red Lynchburg takes it to task.

Read the full editorial here.

You know the state of things must be really dire when Fred2Blue finds itself in total agreement with the editorial board of the FL-S. 

In a scathing editorial in today’s edition, the FL-S places the blame for the transpo meltdown in Richmond squarely on the shoulders of the Republican majority in the Virginia House of Delegates.

From the editorial, there’s this:

However much some Republicans may fantasize about the prospect, private individuals by and large are not going to build and repair the public roads upon which all Virginians depend for efficient mobility. Yet House Republicans, meeting last week with the rest of the General Assembly in special session, for the third time refused to advance statewide transportation bills based on new taxes–a time-proven method of building roads dating to ancient Rome, and tied up with the very definition of civilization.”

And then, there’s this:

The causes (of this astounding inaction) are several, but one is ideological: It is the modern Republican belief, at a visceral level, that government is bad and taxation is theft. This idea–less “conservative” than radically libertarian–is, like most cranky simplifications, harmless when embraced by a scattering of sour bellies. But government-haters in government make no more sense than muggers in the police department or arsonists in the fire station. Such mismatches predictably produce unhappiness.”

We here in Fred2Blue Land  have come to expect such roadblocks to improvement from the likes of Del. Mark Cole (R-88th District), who has said no to more proposed legislation of merit (on transpo improvement and practically every other pressing need of the Commonwealth) than anyone else in the Virginia House of Delegates. 

But Speaker Bill Howell, your job is to lead and not be led.  Your 28th House District constituents suffer some of the worst traffic nightmares in the Commonwealth, and yet while you have been Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates (their) suffering has only gotten worse.  As this FL-S editorial suggests, a three-hour trip down I-64 ”to the beaches” might soon extend to five or six.

Your and your Republican caucus’ abdication of leadership has had, and will continue to have, a deleterious affect on Virginia’s and in particular the Fredericksburg Region’s efforts to attract more businesses and industries such as “green” technology.  Your and your Republican caucus’ abdication of leadership means that many high-paying jobs - that would allow people to actually work close to where they live - will not be created.

You, Mr. Speaker, are the one who has been led.  And the constituents of the 28th should see to it that your days atop your golden perch are numbered. 

November 3, 2009 cannot come soon enough.

DON’T BE fooled by the parliamentary razzle-dazzle and the gush of obfuscatory recrimination pouring forth from Richmond this week. The failure of Virginia’s lawmakers to provide the first new new source of funding in a generation for the state’s aging transportation network lies squarely with the Republican leadership in the House of Delegates.

And so begins the blistering lead editorial in this morning’s Washington Post.

But wait, it gets better:

It was the Republicans who rejected any real attempt at raising revenue statewide to plug what is fast becoming a gaping hole in the funding available for highway upkeep. It was the Republicans who spurned regional packages to deal with the gridlock in the state’s two most urbanized areas, Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, through new taxes and fees.

And then — cynically, comically — it was the Republicans who rushed out statements faulting Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) for convening a special session of the legislature without first achieving a consensus plan. Never mind that the Republicans themselves, so many of whom have either signed pledges to oppose new taxes or fear primary challengers who have, make any reasonable consensus impossible.

Republicans like to pretend that state transportation funding, last meaningfully increased a little more than halfway through the Reagan administration, can be addressed by diverting existing general fund money to build and maintain highways, bridges, tunnels and rails. They like to pretend that those funds are not needed for public schools, the salaries of sheriff’s deputies, the operation of prisons, or payments to Medicaid providers. The bills they offered this week on transportation — proposing to divert future tax revenue from Dulles International and Reagan National airports, for instance — were therefore fraudulent; if push came to shove, those bills would have been undone by Republicans themselves.

In fact, the GOP bills were not really intended to ease traffic at all; rather, they were meant mainly to fool Virginia voters into thinking that the Republicans want to solve problems. They don’t. When the only serious transportation measure on offer came to the floor of the House on Wednesday — it was a Senate proposal to provide hundreds of millions of dollars annually in new statewide and regional revenue while also lowering taxes on food and prescription drugs — it was backed by most Democrats but received precisely one vote from a Republican: Del. Thomas Davis Rust of Fairfax.

So there will be no transportation remedy in Virginia, not anytime soon. That means there will be no assured new source of funding for Metro, funding that could have helped unlock $1.5 billion in federal money over the next decade. The failure means that tens of millions of dollars in road construction money, in Northern Virginia and elsewhere, will be siphoned off to maintain existing roads. And it means Northern Virginia commuters will sit and sit in traffic while downstate Republicans assure their constituents that they will never — never, ever — raise taxes for transportation.

Well, here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Speaker Howell!

There’s a must read interview on the Netroots Rising blog between Lowell Feld, netroots coordinator for Jim Webb in 2006, and Jon Henke, netroots coordinator for George Allen in 2006.

Here’s a taste:

Feld: Do you believe that senior Allen strategists like Dick Wadhams were surprised at the intensity of the Virginia blogosphere? Did anyone ever say to Wadhams, “Dick, I don’t think we’re in South Dakota anymore!”

Henke: I think virtually all Republicans were surprised at the effectiveness of the Democrats internet media machine. I suspect that a few years of apparent impotence had lulled them into the belief that the LeftRoots movement was just the “fringe crazies”. That misses the real power and influence of the liberal blogs, in my opinion, which is much more in narrative development and messaging to the influentials than about fundraising and GOTV.

Chris O’Donnel of O’DonnellWeb is hosting a Fredericksbug bloggers happy hour from 6-8 PM on Thursday June 26th at J Brians Tap Room. Here’s the Facebook page Chris made for it to RSVP or just contact him here the old fashioned way.

I’d also like to thank Chris for giving me an excuse to post this picture, a response to an outrageous campaign promise from Sen. McCain.

John McCain: “I will veto every single beer.”

Good luck Gilmore (you’re gonna need it).

Today, Fred2Blue reaches a very important milestone as it passes 30,000 page views.

For a six-month old local blog that no one reads, well, that’s quite an accomplishment!

Thank you very much for your continued support and readership.  We hope you’ll stick with us!