Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Sun Gazette - Bad to Worse

Hello, Yupette,

I attended the July 28th candidates' debates for the 31st Senate District and 49th Assembly District at El Puerto on the Pike. Based upon what I heard the candidates say, and the significant conflicts of interest Sun Gazette Editor Scott McCaffrey maintains, Mr. McCaffrey and the Sun Gazette should not be endorsing any candidate for public office.

Scott McCaffrey refused to attend the July 28th debates. If he had attended he would have known that Jaime Areizaga-Soto served as both a White House Fellow and as an aide to the Democratic leadership of the General Assembly.

Mr. Areizaga-Soto demonstrated during his debate with Barbara Favola that his knowledge and working relationships with senators will make him an effective State Senator. Barbara Favola demonstrated that she doesn't really know what's happening in the General Assembly.

But the real problem with Scott's endorsement of Barbara Favola is he's a member of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce's Executive Committee and serves at the pleasure of fellow Chamber members who are Barbara's campaign contributors.

As in past endorsements, Scott provides several excellent reasons why a candidate, in this instance Barbara Favola, should not be running for election or re-election and then proceeds to endorse the candidate.

Scott's employer, American Community Newspapers, is run by a group of chamber of commerce and real estate boosters in Dallas and Leesburg. ACN is owned by a consortium of banks and financial services corporations, led by General Electric, that are only concerned about ACN's bottom line. To the point where the Sun Gazette runs an ad next to Scott's endorsement of Barbara pointing readers to favolafacts.com, a laundry list of Barbara Favola's conflicts of interest and contributions received from Republicans and Neocons. Surprise, surprise, McCaffrey and the Sun Gazette endorsed Barbara Favola.

Terri

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

Same stunt Scott pulled last year, refused to meet Miriam Gennari, provided a laundry list of Sally Baird's failures and proceeded to endorse Sally Baird.

Anonymous said...

Barbara's campaign contributors? You mean major league Chamber members, like John Shooshan and Preston Caruthers?

Anonymous said...

How many years have people who post on this blog been referring to the County Board as 'Republicrats'?

Peter said...

You gotta wonder how much input the summer interns have to these local political endorsements.

Barb said...

I rely less and less on endorsements by the newspapers for information about candidates. They seem to almost always endorse incumbents.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Barbara's claim to be in-the-know about what's happening in the General Assembly is apparently based upon a few meetings with a few Senators.

Anonymous said...

What has Barbara Favola ever done for us, except for raising our taxes?

Anonymous said...

McCaffrey and his newspaper and its parent company are corrupt and sleazy. If he didn't endorse Favola he would be kicked off the Chamber's board of directors.

Anonymous said...

Barbara Favola has served the interests of the special interests. She's also sleazy and corrupt.

Ted said...

McCaffrey and the Sun Gazette should not endorse any more candidates for public office. The newspaper is profoundly biased towards the business community and upscale special interest groups.

Miriam Gennari is concerned about educating Arlington's children, Jaime Areigaza=Soto wants to represent everyone's interests. These goals are incompatible with the Sun Gazette's pro-business more-ad-revenue mentality.

Anonymous said...

Agree with Ted. Appears that McCaffrey didn't endorse Zimmy last year because he was insufficiently pro-business.

Anonymous said...

If Favola is taking contributions in advance of voting for legislation that will directly benefit a local corporation, how much will she be taking from regional corporations if she's elected to the state senate?

Scott's Endorsements - Imagination at Work said...

General Electric? Same General Electric whose CEO is in the process of outsourcing GE's medical imaging division to China? Oh, he's also Obama's chief jobs creation guru.

Anonymous said...

The Post's candidate endorsements actually DO read like they've been written by summer interns.

Anonymous said...

Jeff Immelt has big plans for Mr. McCaffrey. Hint: Shanghai Scotty

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised said...

These media 'endorsements' are part of the pretend-democracy charade Arlington has become. I had to shake my head at what's going on in England, the rioting, looting, etc. Obviously the working classes have had it with having to pay so the royal yuppies can play, e.g., a hugely expensive royal yuppie wedding while everything that might benefit the working class is cut or the cost increased significantly. The British media went right along. Then it was revealed that the British media and the police are corrupt. Why was I not surprised when widespread rioting and looting occurred.

formerly homeless said...

I am surprised that the Commonwealth's Attorney's office and the police haven't provoked a riot in Arlington given their abuse of the homeless and minorities.

Anonymous said...

All the "local media" want to do is promote yuppie hedonism here and more warfighting in the Third World. It's good for advertising

Pike Rider said...

Wash Post isn't all written by elitist a-holes. Check out Courtland Milloy's column in the Metro Section today.

It's not a matter of if riots will occur in major U.S. cities, it's a matter of when.

Anonymous said...

War is good for business...just ask General Electric.

Mike said...

Many suburban newspapers don't endorse political candidates, but just report the political news in an unbiased manner. So should the Sun Gazette.

Anonymous said...

Sun Gazette, FC News-Press, Washington Post have three priorities: $, $$, and $$$.

Anonymous said...

Isn't it interesting that Audrey Clement and Jaime Areizaga-Soto look like ad models for a health and fitness club and Scott McCaffrey looks like a feature in Inova Fairfax Hospital's newsletter about its coronary care unit?

businessperson said...

McCaffrey wants to emulate Nick Benton and become President of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce.

Anonymous said...

McCaffrey is a shill for every yupscale special interest and business interest in Northern VA

Anonymous said...

Anyone know who's doing a 'pump and dump' on American Community Newspapers's stock, traded on the penny stock market?

Anonymous said...

Just hope all of you posting actually bother to show up and vote for Jaime on the 23rd! I fully agree that Jaime was: 1) significanlty more impressive; 2) had a better grasp of the issues and how Richmond works; and 3) had better ideas on issues that he had clearly spent time thinking about. Barbara will just look to the party leacdership or special interests and ask how she should vote.

Marisol said...

The sleazy Plutocrats are lying about Jaime. The Arlington Democratic Party is totally corrupt and its incumbents will do anything to stay in power.

fed up Dem said...

Sleazy Dems are spreading lies and malicious gossip about Jaime. Reason's obvious, the gang that controls ACDC wants to go on wheeling, dealing, and stealing.

Anonymous said...

Sleazy? That's Barbara Favola's middle name. Know how much time she spends in her County Board office lobbying for Marymount? The time she doesn't spend lobbying for developers in return for pay offs.

Anonymous said...

The slimy ACDC Gang is spreading lies about the real Democrats like rats spread the plague during the Middle Ages in Europe.

Progressive said...

Next time someone comes up to you from the ACDC Rat Pack and tries to tell you some malicious lies about Jaime, ask him or her - "Since you seem to know so much about Arlington Democrats can you answer something I've always wondered about, who is Barbara Favola's other husband?"

Anonymous said...

The ACDC Rat Pack is blaming everyone but Favola for Favola's lack of ethics.

Anonymous said...

What a joke Sun Gazzette is. This rag hasn’t done the proper research to fully understand the extent of Favola's actions from donor money. Most of her campaign donations come from developers that she has, in turn, supported. She supported the 2016 Proffer bill that was detrimental to the constituency and great for developers and her clients such as Marymount and Virginia Hospital:

https://loudounnow.com/2019/02/22/governor-signs-new-proffer-bill/

Also no mention of Advanced Towing! This endorsement means nothing to me.