Quint Essential Politics

Latest in a Title IX Controversy School Board “Race”?

WASHINGTON (August 22, 2025)—At least according to stolen valor blogs that had suddenly appeared in 2016, there had been “this guy in Virginia’s 8th Congressional District. . . running for that seat by the name of Michael Webb”; “[h]e was running as a Republican, but he was defeated in the primary, so he’s running as an Independent now.” At least in science, for every action there is in proportionality an equal and opposite reaction, and at least the pretextual rationale that had been presented by the author, who had boasted of his prior work in black bag operations on his blog that even celebrated their successful suicide count, Webb had come “to our attention a few months ago because he was touting his career in the military”, and “[h]e claims that he was an Airborne Ranger and a major in the Army Reserves”. Ask any local news source and they will confirm that “[b]ookies probably wouldn’t even lay odds on the chance of Republicans picking up the 8th Congressional District seat, it seems so out of reach.” According to Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, those seeking to run as Republicans in VA8, where, according to even the Washington Post, “a district where 48 percent of residents are minorities,” are only “make-a-statement candidates, playing to a small far-right base in that district,” while “[t]he real race for Congress in this district is always the Democratic nomination, the outcome of which is tantamount to election in November.” So, why and how did just some hapless loser even come to the attention of a stolen valor blog in another state?

The now deceased Jonn Lilyea claims on a stolen valor website revived after his sudden death, this loser who “looks like he’s a homeless bum who shops at the surplus store”, and “shows a lot of bad judgement”, somehow had also managed to emerge from nowhere and achieve 15 minutes of fame, in international notoriety because “he put a screenshot of his computer screen on the internet”, but “he forgot to close the PRON tabs before doing so”. So, why is the blog still being broadcasted now, almost a decade after what the progressive Blue Virginia describes as “another Republican, an ‘independent’ who is really a Republican, or a real independent (often a pesky candidate who finds a way onto the ballot almost every year)”, most certain “to be drubbed in an election in the small but intensely political county just across the Potomac from the nation’s capital”, still informing voters in another state, posthumously after the blogger’s decease?

By their only count, while today they claim boldly in court pleadings, attested under signature to be true, that “[n]ews publishers owe no duty of due care to readers or to the public at large”, “the late Philip L. Graham, then the publisher of The Post and the newly acquired Newsweek magazine, gave a speech in which he described the ‘daily and the weekly grist of journalism’ as providing what he called a ‘first rough draft’ of history’”. And if you ask the investigative journalists who broke the Watergate scandal and had forced a sitting President to resign, merely “launching an independent bid for Congress in Virginia’s 8th Congressional District”, “Webb shared a screenshot posted to his Facebook page. . . that included Web browser tabs titled ‘LAYLA RIVERA TIGHT’ and ‘IVONE SEXY AMATEUR.’” “Layla Rivera is a professional pornographic actress; Ivone is, apparently, an amateur.” On all evidence porn is huge news, even in the most educated municipality in Virginia, second most educated in the entire nation, a top story for readers in 2016. According even to late night host and Oscars emcee Jimmy Kimmel, everyone watches porn, but headlining on a late-night interview show? Former Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine didn’t make it to SNL, until Tim Walz lost, in a comic skit suggesting nobody even remembered who he was. Does something sound suspicious here?

Visit Major Mike Webb for APS Board

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