Find out how Cooch took $55,000 from the disgraced "U.S. Navy Veterans Association," in apparent exchange for his promise to get the Virginia Office of Consumer Affairs (which had "notified Thompson's group that it no longer qualified for an exemption from state registration requirements") off the group's back. Can we say "pay-to-play?" Find out more.
This morning in the Republican-controlled Virginia House of Delegates, a nasty piece of voter disenfranchisement legislation, HB 9, passed out of committee on a 15-6 vote. Sponsored by Del. Mark Cole (R-Spotsylvania), this bill would effectively "suppress the vote of the elderly, the young, the poor and minorities," whil addressing the non-existent, figment-of-Republicans'-fevered-imaginations problem known as "voter fraud." Here's what ProgressVA has to say about this abomination. Also, check out the audio of Del. Cole admitting that he has no knowledge of any instances of voter fraud. Finally, check out what AARP Virginia thinks, which is that "Passing this measure could disenfranchise nearly one-fifth of the older population because nearly one in five people over age 65 do not have a government issued photo ID." Wow, I wonder what Republican seniors will think of this?!?
ProgressVA Statement on House Privileges and Elections Committee Vote to Report HB9
ProgressVA, a progressive advocacy organization, released the following statement from Executive Director Anna Scholl on the House Privileges and Elections Committee vote this morning to report HB to the full House. HB 9, sponsored by Delegate Mark Cole, would make it significantly harder for thousands of Virginians to vote.
"We're deeply disappointed by this vote to advance unnecessary legislation that will make it harder for thousands of registered Virginia voters to cast a ballot. Both Delegate Cole, the sponsor of this measure, and Justin Reimer of the State Board of Elections have admitted during debate on this bill that they know of no documented cases of the voter fraud. Quite simply, our voting system isn't broke, so why on earth are our representatives advancing unneeded and potentially expensive solutions to "fix" it? Voting is a fundamental American right and freedom. Making it harder for Virginians to vote in order to fix a problem that doesn't exist is a waste of the legislature's time and taxpayer money."
Background:
During a January 12th meeting of the House Privileges and Elections Committee Elections Subcommittee, Del. Sickles inquired as to whether Del. Cole was aware of any instances of voter fraud, which HB 9 is designed to combat. He responded "No, not to my knowledge." (Audio of that meeting is available online.)
During the House Privileges and Elections Committee hearing this morning, Delegate Alexander asked Justin Reimer of the State Board of Elections: "Do you have a quantified number, do you receive numbers from the registrars or others that report to you that they have had voter identification fraud at their polling places?" Mr. Reimer responded: "Delegate, I have no specific statistics on that.{
No shocker here: we already knew that Bob McDonnell was on the side of the richest of the rich, the millionaires versus their secretaries, etc. Still, it's nice to hear McDonnell outright admit this viewpoint - radical redistribution of wealth from the richest 1% of Americans to everyone else -- on tee-vee. So yeah, McDonnell deserves a Nobel Price...for rare but refreshing honesty by a Republican't! LOL
The U.S. economy grew at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the final three months of last year, the fastest growth in 2011.
Americans spent more on cars and trucks, and companies built up their stockpiles. But growth in the October-December quarter - and all of last year - was held back by the biggest annual government spending cuts in four decades.
[...]
Spending by government at all levels fell at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter and 2.1 percent for the year - the biggest decline since 1971.
Key takeaways from this data? First, the economic recovery is slowly but surely gathering momentum, as we dig our way out of the Bush/Republican Great Recession, thanks in large part to policies put in place by President Obama and the 2009-2010 Democratic Congress. To them, we should all say, "thank you!" Second, the recovery was held back by one factor above all -- the Teapublicans' insistence on damaging, de-stimulatory policies, particularly cutbacks in state and federal employment. Thanks a lot. Third, the economic recover would have been even faster if Teapublicans hadn't played games this past summer with the debt ceiling, thus massively increasing the very "uncertainty" they decry; and if they had allowed for more (and better) economic stimulus, and not insisted on damaging, short-term austerity policies (when the opposite is called for, according to every Econ 101 textbook).
In sum, to the extent that the economy's recovering thanks to government policies, it's mostly thanks to President Obama and the Democrats, with Republicans not just a neutral factor but actually a significant negative factor. The question is, why would anyone in their right mind vote for these people to send us lurching backwards, just as we're finally pulling ourselves out of the ditch they drove us into?
Here are a few Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, January 26. Also, note that Newton Leroy Gingrich had his keister handed to him last night, all but guaranteeing that Willard "Mitt" Romney will be the Teapublican't nominee to lose to President Obama in November. Maybe Newton will next run for president of the lunar colony he's planning on setting up? Heh.
The DC area's forecast for Friday calls for temperatures near 60 degrees with thunderstorms. In January.
But you won't catch our television weather presenters attributing the bizarre forecast to global warming loading the dice for extreme weather! No, sir! Expect to hear lots of things like, "Wow, tropical weather in January. Uh ... weird!"
If they mentioned our changing climate, they might get angry calls from viewers who find climate reality doesn't fit in with their political views. Here in the DC area, unless your name is Bob Ryan, you're likely to figure it's better to keep quiet about the facts than risk standing up for inconvenient truths. Or maybe, like Topper Shutt, you're a climate science denier yourself.
Learn more about why some TV weathermen aren't straight with their viewers about climate science at ForecastTheFacts.org.
It's an empty threat. The fact is, overwhelming majorities of Americans - across party, age, and regional lines - support clean, modern energy. A poll conducted by ORC International in November found that 77 percent of Americans, including 65 percent of Republicans, believe that "the U.S. needs to be a clean energy technology leader and it should invest in the research and domestic manufacturing of wind, solar, and energy efficiency technologies." Last February, a Gallup poll offered a list of actions Congress might take. The most popular option, with an incredible 83 percent support, was "an energy bill that provides incentives for using solar and other alternative energy resources." [...]
Clean energy isolates the Republican base from the broad mass of American opinion and, in particular, from swing-state independents. It's a wedge issue and an electoral winner for Democrats if they can quit playing defense and go on the attack. The appropriate response to threats from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a well-administered ass kicking.
Next time you hear a Democrat waffling on support for clean energy, kick them in the shins. I am not making this up: Some focus group testing this week showed clean energy is almost as popular with swing voters as killing Osama bin Laden (although who gives killing the mastermind of 9/11 a B minus?). Plus, we all know how much voters love candidates apologizing for what they believe in.
Our fine Attorney General continues to work hard for the people of Virginia and...yeah, right, what am I TALKING about? In reality, Ken Kookinelli continues to waste everyone's time on his crazy, extremist, ideologically-and-politically-driven wild goose (or should I say rat?) chases. The latest example? Check this out.
The Pacific Research Institute and Eagle Publishing are hosting a cocktail reception Thursday night to honor health care expert Sally Pipes with special remarks by Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli.
Pipes, author of The Truth About Obamacare, will explain just how big a threat she thinks "Obamacare is to the health and wealth of the American people" in her new book: The Pipes Plan: The Top Ten Ways to Dismantle and Repeal Obamacare
Great stuff, huh? Sounds like a true meeting of the minds. So who is this Sally Pipes individual? I'll let Think Progress Health explain:
With her 'BA with honors' in economics, Pipes leads a tiny 'think tank,' Pacific Research Institute, and advances special interest (PRI's list of donors include Altria (formerly known as Philip Morris), Microsoft, Pfizer and ExxonMobil) agendas. PRI promotes itself a s "free-market think tank," but Pipes offers little in the way of solutions...
...Pipes' real contribution is her ability to conflate the administrations' health care proposals with the evils of socialized Canadian medicine and reference discredited health care crisis deniers along the way. For instance, when Braley asked Pipes why "dont' people who come from your point of view come to this committee and talk about constructive ways we're going to reduce preventable medical errors" and lower overall health care costs, Pipes quotedfellow health care denierBetsy McCaughey!
Great stuff, huh? By the way, is it just me, or have you noticed that the word "denier" comes up an awful lot when we're talking about Ken Kookinelli and his nutty friends? The pattern here is simple: they reach their conclusions based on ideology, what their corporate allies want, and general lunacy, and then they ignore any empirical evidence (aka, "facts") that don't conform to said conclusions. Thus, there's no need to do anything about greenhouse gas emissions because...magically, presto change-o, there's no global warming. See how easy that was? It must be nice and comforting to live in a fantasy world of your own making, where purple unicorns prance through the fields, and where there are ponies, ponies for everyone! That's where Ken Kookinelli resides, apparently, and he's none the wiser about it.
Gov. Jan Brewer may be best known for her extremist policies, from draconian immigration rules to banning gay marriage and state recognition of domestic partnerships. But she's also known for extremely erratic behavior, and yesterday was no different as she charged up to President Obama and angrily jabbed her finger in his face:
The unusual confrontation--which included Brewer pointing her finger at Obama, and Obama walking away--centered on Brewer's newly published account of a meeting she and Obama had at the White House in June, 2010, officials said.
Obama descended the stairs of Air Force One and was greeted by Brewer, who was waiting for him along with other politicians in a traditional receiving line. Brewer offered Obama a letter, which she later said was an invitation to sit down with her to discuss Arizona's economic "comeback" and to join her for a tour of the U.S.-Mexican border.
The president told Brewer he would be happy to meet with her, a White House aide said, but also informed the governor that he thought she had been inaccurate in describing their earlier session in the Oval Office.
Brewer's book, "Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure the Border,'' details her conservative approach to dealing with the state's illegal immigration challenges. An review published in the Arizona Republic said that Brewer casts Obama as "condescending" and skewers him repeatedly. Although she originally described their Oval Office meeting as cordial, the newspaper said, "in the book she calls the president 'patronizing' and said 'he lectured me.'"
As Charlie Pierce put it, "The president engaged her for a while and then politely walked on, as we all try to do when confronted by crazy people at places like airports and bus terminals."
I certainly wouldn't call the incident unusual considering Brewer's history of erratic behavior. Brewer has lied in an attempt to inoculate herself from criticism, claiming she'd been compared to Nazis & that it was offensive because her father died fighting Hitler - when in fact her father was not even a veteran and died of cancer in 1955. And there was her behavior in 2010's gubernatorial debates:
(Great diary, VERY helpful - thank you! - promoted by lowkell)
Lowell already brought to our attention the good news that the courts handed the Republicans a defeat in the first round of what may prove to be a long legal fight over redistricting in Virginia. I am no legal scholar, but I was excited by the news that the judge dismissed the Republican argument that "shall" doesn't really mean "shall" and found that the group of Virginia citizens had standing for the lawsuit to move forward. But Governor McDonnell is moving forward with the same incumbent protection plan that the House Republicans (with a few unfortunate Democratic allies) pushed through last year in 2011. With redistricting still a big question mark moving forward, just months away from the November election, I wanted to take some time to sort through the entire mess. Where we've been, where we are, and where we're going.
Where We've Been Going back over a decade ago, Virginia Republicans in 2001 had the "privilege" of controlling redistricting for the first time in the modern era. They leveraged this advantage into pressuring Virgil Goode, already a Democrat-In-Name-Only who had voted to impeach President Clinton, to officially leave the party and begin to caucus with the GOP. They also worked to shore up newly elected Congressman Randy Forbes in the 4th, who had won a special election by a very close margin.
Below, I've calculated the partisan lean of the post-2000 census drawn district based on the 2000 Presidential numbers relative to the national average. So a R +6 district is one in which George W. Bush ran 6 points ahead of his national showing (47.87%, or rounded to 48%), which as we all know was less than Al Gore's popular vote national...
Here are a few Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, January 26. Also, check out this brilliant video by Newsweek/The Daily Beast's Michelle Goldberg, entitled, "The Case Against Liberal Despair." I couldn't agree more.
P.S. Also see When Fact Checkers Go Bad...Very Bad, as PolitiFiction...er, PolitiFact fouls up again. Guys, is it really THAT hard to simply fact check a statement like "created x jobs in x months?" It either IS true or it is NOT true? Sheesh.)
Why is it so hard for George Allen to admit what's glaringly obvious, that during his 6 years in the Senate, he voted for a massive new entitlement, two wars, and big tax cuts for rich people and corporations, none of which were paid for, thus quickly turning the Clinton surpluses into massive deficits? Can George Allen not even do what Rick Santorum did, admit he made a big mistake? Apparently not. Thus, the title of this blog post: George Allen is Rick Santorum, just more dishonest.
Former Senator and Willard "Mitt" Romney advisor Norm Coleman says, point blank, "We're not going to repeal Obamacare." Of course, that completely contradicts Willard that he'll "repeal Obamacare" (a ridiculous notion, since only Congress can "repeal" a piece of existing legislation, unless we turn into a dictatorship). Coleman adds that "Obamacare" doesn't work without the individual mandate, which is an interesting admission from the Teapublican side of the aisle.
Former 10th CD (Virginia) Democratic nominee and health care expert Judy Feder follows up with some interesting thoughts:
I think that the [Supreme] Court is going to find that the individual mandate is constitutional. In fact, only one appeal's court has gone the other way...If it does go away, I think that there are challenges, it's not the only way that the law can operate, there are other things, it's not as good...but I'm betting on it sticking...I'm really interested to hear Sen. Coleman say that they're not going to repeal, because they sure do say they're going to repeal. And I think you're right, they repeal at their peril. There are lots of [popular] things in this law...coverage of drug costs for seniors, coverage of children up to age 26...
Great points by Judy Feder, as she completely kicks Norm Coleman's hindquarters. Most importantly, though, is the first thing Coleman admitted, better known as a "gaffe" in the sense of accidentally speaking the truth when you're not supposed to, that the Republicans will not - repeat NOT - be repealing the Affordable Care Act anytime soon. All their claims to the contrary are just machismo, bluster, and pandering to the teahadists.
P.S. More video of the discussion is on the "flip."
Richmond, VA - Virginia Democrats spoke out today against former-Senator George Allen's reckless and hypocritical rhetoric on the possibility of building more oil and natural gas pipelines in Virginia without giving them the proper environmental and public safety review.
"If there were an issue, gosh we'd put a natural gas pipeline, or should we put an oil pipeline through Virginia, it wouldn't be worrying about gosh, lets have a study, let's determine the danger of this." He continued, "if Virginia were trying to hold up a gas pipeline, or oil pipeline, it simply wouldn't happen because we have them."
House of Delegates Democratic Leader David Toscano (Charlottesville) condemned Allen's dangerous suggestion that new pipelines would not require study because "we have them:"
"Building a pipeline through Virginia without conducting a single study or review is not in the best interests of our citizens. While a decision to build may ultimately make sense, the failure to conduct a comprehensive review sets a dangerous precedent.
"George Allen's suggestion that we can build an oil pipeline through Virginians' backyards without a thorough review of the consequences demonstrates, once again, that he puts the oil industry's interests before public safety and the good of the Commonwealth."
Virginia Senator Adam Ebbin (Arlington), a member of the Argiculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee continued:
I know we're all focused on the State of the Union address, but this is pretty important too: Round #1 in the legal battle over Virginia's Republcian-favored Congressional redistricting plan goes to the good guys. :) Click here for the full order by Judge Richard D. Taylor, Jr. of the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond. The conclusion is as follows:
For the reasons previously stated, the Court finds that the Plaintiffs have standing to bring this action, that this matter is ripe for decision, that the doctrines of separation of powers and sovereign immunity do not preclude it from deciding this matter, and that the language of Article II, Section 6, of the Constitution of Virginia speaks in mandatory, not directory, terms. Accordingly, the Defendants' Motion to Dismiss is DENIED and their Plea in Bar of Sovereign Immunity is OVERRULED.
In short, we won the first step of the redistricting lawsuit, probably many more steps to go but great news nonetheless. Now, back to the SOTU!
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The 
Our fine Attorney General continues to work hard for the people of Virginia and...yeah, right, what am I TALKING about? In reality, Ken Kookinelli continues to waste everyone's time on his crazy, extremist, ideologically-and-politically-driven wild goose (or should I say 
From the Democratic Party of Virginia, more criticism of George Allen's latest idiocy:
