I was chatting with Virginia Democratic Party insider earlier this week, and out of the blue the person asked me, “Are you hearing about the pending DPVA fight over local committees?” I hadn’t heard a word about it, actually, so I started asking around (as we bloggers are wont to do – lol). Here’s what I’ve found out so far.

*There’s a proposal to give local Virginia Democratic Party chairs a third year and not reorganize until after the presidential election in November 2016, instead of the end of this year, which is what the current plan calls for.

*I haven’t nailed down where this is coming from exactly, but it sounds like it’s probably from the local chairs (one source specifically mentioned “Chair of Chairs” Gene Magruder) In other words, it does NOT appear to be coming from the Clinton campaign, Gov. McAuliffe, DPVA Chair Susan Swecker (who I hear opposes this) or new DPVA Executive Directly Rebecca Slutzky (ditto).

*What is this all about? I’m not sure exactly, but one source told me, “I hear it’s about chairs, particularly in Northern Virginia, wanting to keep their positions for another year, expecting ‘bennies’ from the Hillary Clinton run.” I also heard an argument made that it’s better to have “experienced leaders in place for the presidential race.”

*Apparently, for this rule change to pass, it would need to get an “absolute majority” of the Central Committee [update: someone else tells me that it might only require a simple majority of those present).

*I’ve heard from several party folks who oppose this idea. One told me they just don’t think it makes any sense, that “the harder years for most local chairs are the odd years,” not the federal election/even-numbered years.

*One person responded, tartly: “Canceling elections? These chairs were not elected for next year… changing the rules midstream and making it effect old elections is highly questionable.”

*Another counterargument I heard was that this change “could create problems for larger committees [Lowell’s note: actually all committees have would to amend their bylaws to allow for this change],” such as in Northern Virignia, Richmond and Hampton Roads, since they “would need to change bylaws and their schedules.”

*I hear from multiple sources that there are folks in the Fairfax County Democratic Committee who are opposed to this because they don’t want current chair Sue Langley to get a third year.

*Another local party official told me, “Any DPVA member who cares about their local committee’s finances should vote it down.”

*Finally, I received the following statement from a Democratic local committee person who wanted to remain anonymous, but was concerned about the potential loss of income to their committee.

I’m a local Democratic Committee member, but not a voting DPVA member, and I’m not happy about this proposal.  For one thing, our members hardly know that the proposal exists and they haven’t been given much of an opportunity to weigh in on something that will greatly affect our local organization.  We elected our Chairs to serve a two-year term in early 2014.  The terms of office will be extended not only for our Chair, but for the rest of the leadership and full membership as well. Some will welcome this change, and there are others who never intended to serve that long and will resign.

Additionally, a large portion of our revenue comes from membership dues. We actually budgeted for the thousands of dollars we expected to take in at the end of this year in the form of two-year memberships. Without that income, we’d have to cut back on our voter outreach programs. You can “assess” members for a year’s worth of their membership dues but that would have to be optional, and we might only get half of the membership participating (not to mention a lot of confusion).  So we would recover roughly a quarter of the budgeted income in membership dues, and wait another year for the remainder.

Given all those arguments, my view is that the terms shouldn’t be changed unless there’s some overriding reason to do so, and I can’t think of any (and haven’t heard of any). Also, I see no reason for a divisive issue to come up when we have such important elections this year (for control of the State Senate) and next (for President and Congress). If I were a Central Committee member, personally I’d vote “no.”

By the way, DPVA will be meeting at 10 am at Woodson High School in Fairfax City the day after the Hillary Clinton event to vote on this. Supposedly it’s open to the public; should be interesting.  

Bottom line: as long as there are racists and violent people out there with access to guns, this type of thing will keep happening. So what are we going to do about it? I mean, when a mass murder using guns happened in Australia, they took highly effective action; since then, mass shootings stopped, gun homicides and suicides plummeted. So what about our country? How many more times do we have to watch, helplessly, as kids are gunned down at school, worshippers are gunned down at church, people are gunned down in movie theaters, women are gunned down by their violent male stalkers, etc., etc? One time is too many. Oh, and for anyone who delusionally claims there’s no racism in this country, here’s more evidence that they are absolutely wrong.

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, June 18.

*The pope, the saint and the climate

*Updates on Pope Francis’ Encyclical on Climate Change

*Fox host freaks out over ‘Marxist’ Pope Francis: He is ‘the most dangerous person on the planet’ (More evidence Fox is utterly deranged.)

*9 dead in S.C. church shooting: Police search for gunman in Charleston ‘hate crime’ (“The shooting took place Wednesday night during a prayer service at the historic African American church. The pastor was missing after the shooting and feared to be among the dead.”)

*Here are 10 of the worst domestic terror attacks by extreme Christians and right-wing white men

*Thugs and Terrorists Have Plagued Black Churches for Generations (“The Charleston, South Carolina, shooting spree is the latest attack on these symbols of African-American endurance and triumph-over-adversity. And their members need our solidarity today.”)

*Bursting Jeb’s bubble: The ugly truth behind Bush’s economic record

*Donald Trump Campaign Offered Actors $50 to Cheer for Him at Presidential Announcement

*Fox News as we know it may be screwed: Roger Ailes’ stunning rebuke could spell the end (“With Rupert Murdoch stepping aside, Roger Ailes will now report to Murdoch’s Fox-hating sons”)

*One Big Fact Media Are Missing On Jeb Bush, The Pope, And Climate Change (“Coverage Of Bush’s Criticism Of Pope’s Encyclical Should Include Candidate’s Secret Coal Industry Meeting”)

*Fox’s Sean Hannity Lets Jeb Bush Whitewash The Consequences Of Florida’s Permissive Gun Laws (“Bush Signed Nation’s First NRA-Backed ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law”)

*GOP ‘Fix’ To A Supreme Court Decision Gutting Obamacare Would Actually Make Things Much Worse

*CTB approves VDOT budget, funding formulas (“Members upped by 5 percentage points the ‘accessibility’ category, used to measure how easily people can get to jobs and could boost transit projects. The board did the same for ‘land use,’ which indicates whether a project will encourage smart growth.” Good, but not enough.)

*Why Virginia’s Tea Party Wants the GOP to Ditch its Primary in 2016 (“Tea partiers have the clout to switch from a primary to a convention, but some establishment members say it will hurt the party in the general election.”)

*Kaine, Warner call for tougher regulation of financial abuse of military members

*Webb blasts trade deal over lack of transparency

*Editorial: Data on executions shouldn’t be hidden

*Push to open government meetings shot down in Richmond (“A Daily Press push to open local government discussions about the performance of leaders was rejected Wednesday by a state panel studying Virginia’s open meetings laws.”)

*Prosecutor outlines why he dropped charges against black U-Va. student

*Another ‘wake-up call’ for Metro

*Steven Souza Jr. haunts Nationals, Jordan Zimmermann

*D.C. area forecast: Dodging showers today, drier Friday, Sunday may be stormy

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, June 17. Also see Vice President Joe Biden speaking at the White House Clean Energy Investment Summit, “bringing together major foundations and institutional investors to announce $4 billion to scale up investment in clean energy innovation.”

*Cracks appear in the climate change deniers’ defenses (Just remember, these people are aided and abetted by the corporate media, which continues with its wildly irresponsible, cowardly false equivalence and also downplaying of denialism to “skepticism,” which it most certainly is not.)

*Senate passes torture ban despite Republican opposition (Anyone who voted to allow torture is utterly unfit for public office, not to mention a sociopath.)

*NASA: Aquifers losing water at alarming rates (Yet another example of how humanity is trashing the planet. And Republicans’ answer? Keep on doing the same thing, or even accelerate the devastation!)

*Donald Trump’s festival of narcissism

*Donald Trump Elbows His Way into the Republican Clown Car (“And Sidney Blumenthal does the whole Benghazi thing.”)

*Neil Young to Donald Trump: Don’t Rock in My Free World (“The rocker also endorses Bernie Sanders.”)

*RNC Official Awkwardly Refuses To Denounce Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Screed (Yikes.)

*Jeb Bush Says Obama Has Left “Violence Unopposed.” Ask Al Qaeda. (“The day after the GOPer bashed the president’s foreign policy, a US drone strike kills Al Qaeda’s No. 2.”)

*Jeb Bush knocks Pope on climate change push (Wow, what an f-tard. Also, utterly unqualified for higher office, let alone president.)

*Rhetoric rises in Dominion pipeline fight (“As the developer of a pipeline to bring fracked natural gas to North Carolina sues landowners for refusing to cooperate, a politically influential collection of opponents is trying to raise $1 million to torpedo plans to route the project through Virginia farms and properties, saying the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would be a scar on Appalachia.”)

*Jim Webb: ‘I don’t want a Super PAC’ (The problem for Webb is that he also hates fundraising.)

*Virginia, Coal Country for Centuries, Now Embraces Carbon Regulations (Not sure I’d go that far…)

*Herring PAC pulls plug on Roanoke fundraiser (“Tommy Jordan, one of the event organizers, said he was told by the PAC director that the group was pulling out because [Sen. John] Edwards’ campaign claimed major donors were upset and wouldn’t attend an event at [Roanoke Councilman Ray] Ferris’ office.”)

*Schapiro: Low primary turnout would have thrilled Byrd (“The quirks of Virginia’s political calendar help the ins and hurt the outs”)

*Northrop Grumman lays off 51 state workers under contract with VITA

*Transportation overhaul: New scoring system for project funding nearly set (Environmental quality and land use should make up large percentages of this formula. If not, it’s a major #FAIL. Also, it really depends how they calculate “congestion relief”; if they think adding lanes helps in that regard, they are flat-out wrong.)

*Layne: U.S. 460 negotiations will keep going

*Save Sweet Briar

*Senators from Maryland and Virginia blast Metro (Not sure members of Congress blasting Metro is the answer, when the system is so badly underfunded by…yep, Congress.)

*Nationals pound out 23 hits in 16-4 rout of Tampa Bay Rays

*D.C. area forecast: Not as hot the next few days, but still feeling like summer

Yet another #FAIL by the corporate media when it comes to “reporting” (using that word VERY loosely) on energy and environmental issues here in Virginia. One of the most egregious, frankly disgraceful examples of this occurred last fall, when the Virginia media gullibly/cluelessly reported as fact the fossil fuel propaganda/garbage put out by the thoroughly “captured” State Corporation Commission on the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. The lack of any critical analysis or digging on that one was simply astounding, calling into question why we even have “reporters,” if all they’re going to do is print whatever drivel they receive in their inboxes.

Now, we see yet another example of the News Corpse at work, with their “reporting” on a new “poll” that ostensibly shows support for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, as well as for “expanded off-shore energy  production, constructing the Keystone XL pipeline, and coal power plants.” These are “interesting” results on a couple levels: 1) the poll was conducted for the “Consumer Energy Alliance” (CEA) fossil fuel front group, which has worked ” to thwart government efforts to favor relatively cleaner conventional fuels over the dirtiest forms of extreme unconventional energy like the Alberta tar sands;”  and 2) the CEA fossil fuel front troup “poll” contradicts other polling which finds overwhelming majorities in Virginia and other states who support moving off of dirty energy and towards cleaner sources like solar and wind. As Peter Galuszka writes in the comments secion of Dominion Power-sponsored blog Bacon’s Rebellion:

The “Consumer” Energy Alliance? Funny but I don’t see one “consumer” advocate on the board, rather the pr spokeswoman for steel maker Nucor, a rural electrical coop, another other manufacturing types. Nary an environmentalist there. Nor a consumer.

Of course, they’re going to have a poll showing that “Virginians” just love Dominion’s controversial pipeline project.

Jim, if this is a sample of what the new Dominion sponsorship means then maybe we should quit before we are ahead.

Also worth noting is a comment by the Sierra Club’s Glen Besa, who points out that “the poll at best is indicative of the success of a major advertising campaign by the natural gas industry promoting it as a clean fuel…s an industry poll, and it reflects the industry’s perspective.” And yes, in fairness, the corporate media DID note that the CEA is “industry-backed,” and that it “includes Dominion and Piedmont Natural Gas among its members.” Of course, that raises the question of why the media even went with this “story” at all. As a commenter at the Roanoke Times puts it: “A poll that was bought and paid for by the industry. Back in the days of journalism this was called a ‘press release’.” Bingo.