I’ve written before (HERE and HERE for instance) about Rep. Dave Brat (very very R-VA07) and his many connections to Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions, the DeVos family, and Trump himself. Today, though, we veer away from that to his simple refusal — for over a year - to meet with constituents in an open town hall. Granted that he did have to endure one raucous meeting where passions over his vote to repeal the ACA ran high, but still…. That sort of thing comes with the territory of being a representative and if he’s running that scared, then his spirit animal may want to lay off a bit (you know, before he gets covered in egg. SorryNotSorry). Since that horrible trauma (which Brat notoriously referred to as women being “in his grill"), Snowflake Dave has refused to meet with constituents unless he knows they’re already fans because they’ve paid to see him at some fundraiser or other.
But all this is fairly small potatoes (hash browns, to go with the eggs, doncha know) compared to what happened this past Friday, Dave’s birthday. Several constituents who’d been wanting to speak with him to no avail received an e-mail inviting them to the celebration at Dave’s office. Tickets were required and they ordered them. When the constituents arrived at the office, however, they were turned away (police sometimes were employed) because they were on a special list (who’s old enough to remember Nixon’s enemies list? Let’s see, how did that work out?)
So, give a listen. Should Sarah McDermott be on such a list?
Then there’s this account of another constituent who wanted to relay to Brat her pressing need to have pre-existing conditions covered by insurance (from Richmond2Day, which has full story):
“My husband is a very conservative man who actually voted for Mr. Brat in the past. We were not expecting any problems nor were we planning on causing any. We have two children who are military officers and we even have season tickets to the Navy Midshipmen games!
“When we arrived, we found that they didn’t have a name tag for us at the door, but upon showing our tickets which we received from Congressman Dave Brat’s office, we were given hand written tags and shown in. Upon entering, we were quiet and respectful and I even chatted with a man that I had encountered on Facebook.
“Within minutes, we were accosted by one of Mr. Brat’s staff who asked us to ‘talk to her outside’. I knew they were asking us to leave and suggested that I would do so, but that I wanted 30 seconds to simply tell Dave the story I related above. Another woman met us and told us to go and pointed to a security badge on her belt. We told them we had been invited and ticketed and had made absolutely no trouble. What was the problem? Was Dave incapable of hearing from constituents who would be hurt by his policies?
“They then proceeded to call in the police who were outside the door. We explained to them as well we had been invited and ticketed but they told us they would be required to arrest us if we didn’t voluntarily leave. Since it was not our intention to cause trouble, we left. The police were very nice, letting us know that they did not agree with the stand that had been taken but they were required to do so ‘as the owner of the building could rescind an invitation at any time’”.
If you go to the full account at Richmond2Day, you’ll find that the husband won’t be voting for Brat again! Way to go, Dave!
And now, patient audience, for your JUST DESSERTS — it’s CUPCAKE TIME!!! (And no one correct me, I KNOW it’s “just deserts”! And besides, NO dessert is “JUST dessert” — they are all special — especially cupcakes one is being offered in lieu of seeing one’s Congressman! You must listen — you can’t make this stuff up!
But to polish off the meal (notice that I’ve so far resisted any puns related to “brats” because “Brat is the Wurst” and things like that are just too obvious), let’s have just a skosh of aged brandy in the form of a May 2014 radio interview Brat did. This is when he was running against Eric Cantor, who had become widely despised for being inaccessible to constituents. Starting at 24:50 of this link, Brat inveighs against Cantor on the grounds that he doesn’t hold real town halls, just ticketed events where he gets canned questions! Too rich!! This meal is too rich!
Now for the palate-cleansing chaser:
The Democratic candidate, Abigail Spanberger, has been running a GREAT race. CNN has joined Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato in rating this race a toss-up (from solid R) and we #VA07 Dems are energized and are optimistic that we can flip this seat!
Check out Abigail’s website, and volunteer opportunities (including virtual phone banking). You can follow her on Twitter (@SpanbergerVA07) and on Facebook (@SpanbergerForCongress).
Last but not least — the donation link: can I sweet-talk you into a donation of $7, $17, or $70 for the 7th?
Thank you!