Gaywatch – Virginia Edition
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Send a SEAL, not a RINO??? Whaa???
From Scott Taylor’s Facebook page:
You can help send a principled conservative to Congress. www.ScottTaylorMoneyBomb.com
Scott Taylor is a former Navy SEAL, Iraq-War Veteran and small business owner. Take a minute and learn about Scott at www.ScottTaylorforCongress.com
Messy Stuff in Norfolk
From Vivian Paige comes a horrible story of Democrats gone haywire.
Pictured above is one Norfolk Councilman Randy Wright – on the left wearing a McCain/Palin sticker and standing with Norfolk GOP Chairwoman Pam Brown, and on the right grinning with Sen. Mark Warner who is hosting a fundraiser for Wright on March 19.
The pic on the left is from a Pilot article entitled “McAuliffe’s Man. “”Yup, I was there,” Wright said when I asked him about the picture in my files. “I voted for McCain-Palin. And I love Sarah Palin… she knew how to talk to regular people.”
Seven months later Wright becomes “McDonnell’s Man” and he’s rumored to be supporting Scott Rigell for Congress. Yet all the constitutional officers in Norfolk call themselves “Democrats” and all have endorsed Randy Wright. Egads!
As Vivian writes “a close reading of the Virginia Democratic Party Plan shows that the section which deals with ousting of party members when they support another candidate (Sec. 10.8) only comes into play if the candidate is the party nominee”. Norfolk’s races are non-partisan thus there isn’t a party nominee on the ballot. “This loophole needs to be closed”, she writes. “The Party Plan should treat endorsees just like nominees”.
What a mess, especially considering a really great Democrat, Tommy Smiegel, is also running for that Ward 5 seat. And WTF is Mark Warner’s problem???
Nye’s Principles for Health Care Reform
More than a year ago, Rep. Glenn Nye established his “Principles for Health Care Reform.”
In violation of his own principles, Rep. Nye voted against the House bill.
Soon he will have another chance to stand up for his principles. Democrats are urging him to vote in favor of a bill that already passed the Senate by a 60% supermajority and then to vote for a second budget reconciliation bill. The Senate bill already meets or exceeds all 7 of Rep. Nye’s principles: Read the rest of this entry »
RNC’s “Evil Empire”
Wow! Apparently, there are two different varieties of Republican. On the one hand you have the garden-variety sheep who lap up on another spewed by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. They little know how to spell “socialism” let alone know what it means. But hell, throw a bumpersticker on your car saying “Obama = Socialism” despite your ignorance.
But it’s a different story for Republican donors who actually engage and utilize the gray matter between their ears. Now the RNC is sheepishly back away from it big time. From
“It’s one to sit around a conference room or a bar with your colleagues and talk about stuff like this,” said Denver-based political analyst Eric Sondermann. “It’s another thing — a whole new level of both cynicism and immaturity to put it into a Power Point presentation to other donors and strategists. And it’s a level of stupidity to leave it lying around.”
Sondermann said the document surfacing can hurt Republicans in two ways — with Democrats, already suspicious of the conservative movement’s possibly racist underbelly, and with wealthy Republican donors, who are referred to as “ego-driven” and easily milked with offers of access and “tchochkes.”
Way to go, Repugs!
Scott “Do I have a Deal for You” Rigell
Ha! The DCCC sent me a funny email today. “Last time someone spoke out of the both sides of their mouth this much, they were trying to sell a Pinto”, writes Southern Regional Press Secretary Jesse Ferguson.
Scott “Blah, blah, blah, bad Obama” Rigell is a car salesman. Yet despite his opposition to all things Obama, he was all too happy to rake in the cash from the Feds for “Cash for Clunkers”… $450,000 worth of happy.
Rigell is also trying to sell himself as a dyed-in-the-wool Repug despite his $1,000 donation to Obama in 2008, albeit pre-primary and supposedly as a “protest donation” against Hillary Clinton. Bwaaa!!!
VBDC to Consider Climate Change Resolution
I like this new Virginia Beach Democratic Committee!
At its monthly business meeting tomorrow evening (Bayside Library, 7-9pm), the VBDC will be considering a resolution similar to that passed by the Arlington County Dems which condemns AG Ken Cuccinelli for suing the EPA over its climate change endangerment finding. The Arlington Resolution is below the fold.
I know that the Hampton Dems are also considering such a Resolution. This is terrific!
Nye to Reconsider his Bad Health Care Vote?
“Nine House Democrats indicated in an Associated Press survey Monday they have not ruled out switching their ‘no’ votes to ‘yes’ on President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, brightening the party’s hopes in the face of unyielding Republican opposition”. Could one of those 9 include our own Rep. Glenn Nye?
What’s the Big Picture at HRT?
Area bloggers were invited to a private meeting with new HRT director Phil Shucet. I found myself quickly bored with the discussion that got almost exclusively mired in the ugly details (cost over-runs, who was going to pay for Virginia Beach’s study, embezzlement, “culture of fear”).
When new leadership steps on board, folks typically take a step back and again review the bigger picture of their work. From attending this so-called “discussion” on Monday, I sense none of that happening with HRT. My question that turned into a whiny speech attempted to take a stab at exactly what the end goal was with HRT.
With everything in life, don’t we always put big decisions or actions on a scale to weigh both the pros and cons? In business, isn’t that called a “cost-benefit analysis”? Why isn’t HRT doing that analysis now especially in light of the additional costs?
I wanted to both ask that question and at the same time point out that many of the benefits in that analysis could be overlooked. HRT has so far failed to recognized them and in turn failed to promote them to the public. Too many folks only weigh the costs of light rail to only the potential income from fares and the lessened traffic from fewer cars on the road. And for folks to continue to be so limited in their thinking about mass transit is surely the death of any chance for any light rail expansion to Virginia Beach.
A lot of the benefits are neither so obvious nor correlate to money in the bank. I mentioned this as one example. Hampton Roads has been designated as non-attainment for ozone by the EPA. We have to develop a plan to mitigate this pollutant or we risk losing Federal highway dollars. Expanding mass transit needs to be part of that plan. Why isn’t this potential benefit highlighted at all to the public?
Believe it or not, there are a lot of people in Hampton Roads that care about climate change. Why can’t HRT spell out to the public how many tons of carbon emissions are removed with folks opting to leave their cars in the driveway and taking mass transit to work?
While Virginia Beach has its own issues with outreach and education, mass transit plays an integral role in smart growth development. So few people have an understanding of compact urban development. They have no clue as to why we can’t continue the status quo of sprawl and car-centric patterns of living.
Always lost in the cost benefit analysis is our moral obligation to do the right thing for folks who can’t drive. There is, for example, the societal obligation to provide transportation to the disable who can’t drive. And with the economy the way it is, a lot of folks can’t afford to own and maintain a car. Public transportation is increasingly a must for getting to work.
I hope with HRT paying Phil Shucet $40,000 per month that we eventually do indeed get the “big picture.” Without it, HRT is doomed to failure.
Stop The Rush To Drill Virginia
Click here to send an email to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar urging him to stop the rush to drill Virginia.
Lemmings to the Fall
A double whammy has been delivered on the Navy with encroachment by land and encroachment by sea. “In one short day, the Governor and Legislature have delivered a gift wrapped package to the citizens of Florida. First, over the stated objections of the Navy and DoD, they passed the off shore drilling bill. Then, they cut funding for the joint land use program that was part of the concerted effort to retain the master jet base at NAS Oceana and of course the carriers and supporting ships in Norfolk. Way to go Legislature; makes one wonder why we even try here in Hampton Roads when our needs and requirements are simply paid lip service to the Grover Norquist inspired anti tax zealots. This one day was a debacle and will take years to mend, if ever.” – Mike Barrett commenting on recent Virginian-Pilot article.
Adding insult to injury, eight lemmings on the Virginia Beach City Council followed Gov. McDonnell off the cliff. “The Governor made me do it”, is Mayor Sessoms reply. That is so so sad.
Virginia’s offshore wind development better produce a lot of jobs to make up for all the lost jobs caused by the Navy packing up and leaving for Florida. Governor McDonnell is both the Pied Piper and the Emperor with No Clothes, for there are no jobs with drilling off Virginia. It’s a net loss with the Navy saying “Adios, Virginia”.
Republicans against jobs
The Senate overcame a Republican filibuster of the jobs bill (that mostly consisted of business tax cuts) 62-30 along party lines, with only 1 Democrat voting against it and only 5 Republicans voting for cloture.
Update: The bill passed the Senate 70-28 (8 of the Republicans who voted against cloture flip-flopped and voted in favor of the bill).
The long and the short of it
Too Long:
“The best way to get a sense of what Speaker Pelosi’s takeover of health care looks like is to actually look at it. Just shy of 2,000 pages, it runs more than 620 pages longer than the government-run plan Hillary Clinton proposed in 1993. [It’s] 1,990 pages of bureaucracy.” – House Minority Leader John Boehner, in October
Too Short:
“The White House’s ‘plan’ consists of an 11-page outline, which has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office or posted online as legislative text. So they want to reorganize one-sixth of the United States’ economy with a document shorter than a comic book, and they’re complaining that they can’t find our plan on their own website? C’mon.” – Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner, today
Just Right:
“First it was too long, now it’s too short. Goldilocks is easier to please than these folks.” – Doug Thornell, adviser to DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen
Public option popular in Virginia
The pressure is on Senators Warner and Webb to support health care reform that offers consumers the choice of a public health plan option like Medicare.
Virginians favor a public option 61%-31% (including independents 62%-30%).
A separate nationwide poll found that 60% of Americans would like a public option as part of any final healthcare reform legislation (including 86% of Democrats, 57% of independents, and even 33% of Republicans).
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