VB Dems

Local Virginia Rep. Scott Rigell joined 64 other House Republican freshmen in signing a letter begging their leadership to bring back a certain type of earmark.

Just a few months ago, Rep. Rigell announced that he was breaking his Tea Party oath regarding no tax increases.

Now, Rep. Rigell is apparently breaking his promise “not  to “seek ‘pork project’ funding unless the project deals with the military or national security”  (the local flavor of pork).

Once the political campaign heats up, we will see if he abides by another promise to “not campaign at taxpayer expense including direct mail pieces.”

Will “principled conservatives” care?  Nah!

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If a law compels someone to do something that they would otherwise have freely chosen to do anyway, how coercive is it?

About 60% of insured Americans currently choose to obtain private health insurance through their employers. Under health reform, they will continue to choose to do so.

About 30% of insured Americans currently choose to obtain health insurance from the federal government (Medicare, Medicaid, the military). Under health reform, they will continue to choose to do so.

About 10% of insured Americans currently choose to obtain private health insurance in the individual insurance market. Under health reform, they will continue to choose to do so but will greatly benefit from the consumer protections and the greater choice of private insurance plans in the health exchanges.

Under health reform, those who are currently uninsured because they were denied coverage due to pre-existing medical conditions or lifetime maximum benefits will be relieved that they can now choose to purchase health insurance again.

Under health reform, those who are currently uninsured because they can’t afford it will eagerly choose to obtain it through the expansion of Medicaid or subsidies toward the purchase of private insurance in the health exchanges.

Under health reform, 2.5 million previously uninsured young people have already chosen to be covered by private health insurance through their parent’s employers.

Health reform includes an exemption for the religious minorities who may not believe in medical care (ex. Amish, Christian Scientists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses).

Who is left who would choose not to obtain health insurance?

Theoretically, a fraction of a percentage of the population may be libertarian billionaires. They may currently choose to self-insure by assuming the risk of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket in the event that they need major medical care. Under health reform, they may still choose to remain uninsured by paying a tax penalty (which they could easily afford).

Who will be forced to purchase private health insurance? What constitutional rights are restricted?  Whose freedom is threatened?

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Tax day is April 17, 2012.

Want to see where you tax money goes? Enter information from your tax return and find out.

UPDATE: 60% of Americans support the “Buffet Rule,” including 74% of Democrats, 63% of independents, and even 43% of Republicans.

UPDATE: Will Romney release 12 years of tax returns, as President Obama has done?  Nah!

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Women in Virginia now favor President Obama over Romney by 13 percentage points.

By allowing the Republican General Assembly to advance their right-wing social agenda, Gov. McDonnell may have handed Virginia to President Obama on a silver platter.

A similar trend is ocurring in other swing states.

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4 reasons Abraham Lincoln wouldn’t win the GOP nomination in 2012.

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I agree 100% with conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan, who effectively makes the case that President Obama’s critics (from the right and the left) are both objectively wrong, that Obama’s first term has been remarkably successful, and that Obama deserves reelection.

UPDATE: A list of President Obama’s top 50 accomplishments.

UPDATE: Or, if you prefer, the highlight reel.

UPDATE: And the “13 Keys to the White House” guarantees the win.

UPDATE: President Obama’s own  look at the campaign ahead and the progressive case for his reelection.

UPDATE: Another highlight reel: Forward.

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The new scorecard is out from the League of Conservation Voters.  Here are the latest results from local Virginia members of Congress:

Name                 District     Party     2011   111th   Lifetime

Sen. Warner                         (D)       100%   94%   97%

Sen. Webb                            (D)       100%   83%   89%

Rep. Scott           (VA-3)         (D)       100%   96%   87%

Rep. Wittman      (VA-1)        (R)          34%   29%   31%

Rep. Rigell           (VA-2)         (R)          17%     —     17%

Rep. Forbes         (V-4)            (R)          14%      4%     6%

District 2 went downhill from Rep. Nye (90%) to Rep. Rigell (17%).

Retiring Sen. Webb has an outstanding 89% lifetime score compared to the former (and aspiring) “Dirty Dozen” Sen. Allen’s 1%.

Protecting the environment we live in, including the water we  drink and the air we breathe, is a very important issue for me and one of the reasons I vote for Democrats.

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“Look, I’m glad the economy is starting to recover, but I think it’s because of what Republican governors are doing in their states, not because of the president.” – Gov. Bob McDonnell; CNN’s “State of the Union” 02/05/2012

Gov. McDonnell is clearly auditioning for the part of Republican Vice Presidential nominee, by publically displaying the irrationality the role requires: The economic recession (that began before Obama was elected) was entirely President Obama’s fault. The stimulus bill and other federal job-creation initiatives (that were unanimously opposed by Congressional Republicans) created zero jobs. The economic recovery in states with Democratic Governors is just luck, but Republican Governors deserve full credit for the economic recovery in their own states.

What, exactly, have Republican Governors done to create jobs? They have mostly instituted austere budget cuts that have resulted in state and local government layoffs. Of course, Virginia benefited from federal government spending that cushioned the impact of the recession.

UPDATE: Virginia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 5.8 % in January.  Gov. McDonnell took credit again.

UPDATE: Nationally, between October 2009 and the present, the unemployment rate has fallen from 10% to 8.1%.  More than 4 million private sector jobs have been created, but a half million public sector jobs were lost due to budget cutbacks (like the ones Gov. Mcdonnell has implemented).

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After failing to qualify for the Virginia Republican primary ballot, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum may ask their supporters to vote for Ron Paul in an attempt to deny Mitt Romney Virginia delegates.  (In the open primary, Democrats and independents would be free to pile on as well.)   With only two candidates on the ballot, whoever gets a majority receives all the Virginia delegates.

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Chesapeake City Councilwoman Ella Ward has announced her intention to run against Rep. Randy Forbes in (my own)  4th Congressional District.

Her candidacy may be considered a long-shot: 

On the one hand, the district was held by moderate Democrat Norm Sisisky for 10 terms until his death.  Forbes (who was then a state senator and Chairman of the state Republican Party) managed to win a low-turnout special election against state Sen. Louise Lucas 52-48% in 2001.

On the other hand, the Republican-dominated General Assembly has racially gerrymandered the district twice since then, methodically slicing black voters out of the 4th district and into Rep. Bobby Scott’s 3rd district.  Rep. Forbes has either run unopposed or has dominated token candidates ever since.

Back on the first hand again, the district narrowly voted for Obama 50%-49% four years ago, and Obama will be back on the ballot this year in a high-turnout election.  Also, Ward is the most credible candidate Rep. Forbes has ever had to face since taking office.  She has already proven to be electable within the district.  If this shapes up as a Democratic wave election, she may get swept in with the tide.

Rep. Forbes’ lifetime League of Conservation Voters score on protecting the environment is a truly abysmal 4%.   He voted to privatize Medicare and repleace it with a voucher.  His biggest legislative accomplishment was a nonbinding resolution redundantlyaffirming that ”In God We Trust” is still the national motto.  I will be very happy to support Ward.

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The EPA has made available a searchable map of the nation’s major stationary sources of carbon dioxide and other global warming greenhouse gases.

The proposed ODEC power plant in Surry County would be the largest coal-fired plant in Virginia and would release 11.7 million tons of carbon dioxide per year for 50 years.  Let’s keep it off the map.

UPDATE: From NASA, global warming visualized.

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Just once per year, we honor Martin Luther King, Jr.

We tend to forget Ralph Abernathy, Julian Bond, Medgar Evers, James Farmer, James Lawson, John Lewis, Dianne Nash, A. Phillip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Fred Shuttlesworth, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and all of the countless anonymous men and women, black and white, who risked their lives for civil rights. It didn’t happen because of one great man, it happened because of hundreds of ordinary people.

We celebrate the “I Have a Dream” speech as if that was the only thing King ever did. We tend to forget that he was anti-war, pro-union, opposed to extreme income inequality, in favor of universal health care, and, always, an advocate of nonviolence. His dream has not been realized. If he were alive today, he would still be striving toward social justice.

The most eggregious affront to history is that conservatives have misconstrued a single quote to make the absurd claim that King actually opposed the Civil Rights Act and other anti-discrimination laws.

Don’t reduce King’s legacy to one day about one man who gave one speech. Take advantage of this opportunity to expand your knowledge. That same spirit is needed today.

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Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius wrote a letter to the Washington Post defending health reform, citing another letter recently submitted to the House Budget Committee by 272 of America’s top economists.  According to the economists:

“The Affordable Care Act contains essentially every cost-containment provision policy analysts have considered effective in reducing the rate of medical spending…

…The budgetary impact of repeal also would be severe. The Congressional Budget Office concludes that repealing the Affordable Care Act would increase the cumulative federal deficit by $230 billion over the next decade, and would further increase the deficit in later years.”

UPDATE: Here is an easy-to-understand animation explaining the Affordable Care Act, written and narrated by M.I.T. health care economist Jon Gruber (who advised  both Governor Romney and President Obama on health reform).

UPDATE (01/20/2012):  Under health reform, most insurance will now be required to cover contraceptives as a free preventive service.  Preventing unwanted pregnancies should help control medical costs as well as reduce the incidence of abortion.  (02/07/2012): In a new poll, 55% of Americans (including 58% of Catholics) agree that “employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost.”

UPDATE: According to a new Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services actuarial report, health reform will save Medicare $200 billion through 2016 and will save Medicare beneficiaries another $208 billion through 2020.

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70% of the antibiotics used in the U.S. are not prescribed for sick people, but are routinely fed to healthy animals in overcrowded factory farms.

Many of the same antibiotics fed to animals are deemed critically important in human medicine by the FDA, including penicillin, tetracyclines and sulfonamides.  In recent years, public health experts say there has been an alarming increase in the number of bacteria that have grown resistant to antibiotics, leading to severe, untreatable illnesses in humans. In 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nearly 3% of salmonella tested was cephalosporin-resistant.

The FDA has tried to limit the use of antibiotics in agriculture since 1977, but its efforts have repeatedly collapsed in the face of opposition from the drug industry and farm lobby.

The European Union banned the feeding of antibiotics and related drugs to livestock for growth promotion in 2006.

In 2008, the FDA issued an outright ban of cephalosporin for livestock. But the agency withdrew the plan after strong opposition from industry groups.

In 2010, the FDA issued voluntarily guidelines urging the judicious use of these drugs. But those have yet to be finalized.  Last year, several environmental and public health groups sued the FDA to force it to stop the industry from adding certain antibiotics to the feed of healthy animals.

Last Wednesday, the FDA finally said it would limit the use of cephalosporin in cattle, swine, chicken and turkey.  This is just a first step. The meat industry must stop giving antibiotics to healthy animals.

As discussed previously, meat production also creates more greenhouse gasses than transportation.

Nobody expects everyone to go “whole hog” and become vegan, but we would all be healthier if we cut back on our consumption of meat.  Here are some helpful tips.

UPDATE: A 04/16/2012 Virginian-Pilot editorial echoes my concerns.

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On Thursday, December 8th, all Democrats in Virginia Beach were invited to participate in a caucus electing members to the 2012-2014 Virginia Beach Democratic Committee. After membership was elected, the nominating committee reported their nominees for officers and directors on the Steering Committee. Nominations from the floor were asked for, but no additional nominations were made. Below is the list of nominees that will be elected on January 9th.

Chair: Tyra Fitch
Vice-Chair: Adrianne Bennett
Secretary: Yvonne Leonard
Treasurer: Alicia Fernandez-Bobulinski
Finance Director: Greg Turpin
Precincts & Elections Director: Joel McDonald
Outreach Director: James Cabiness
Candidate Recruitment Director: Eric Schmudde

Congratulations to the 2012-2014 membership of the Virginia Beach Democratic Committee and nominees for officers and directors.

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