A few comments so far:

‏@LVozzella – “Is this an admission of paternity or just Joe Morrissey playing dress up?”

@LVozzella – “And the woman in the portrait? Is she the spurned lover/hacker?”

@MarcusSimon – “there is a lot happening in that photo. Just when you thought that saga couldn’t get any weirder”

@TravisFain – “I am without words, because they are unnecessary.”

@slday29 – “That’s a teaser to the next season of his reality show.”

Feel free to add your comments/captions in the comments section. Personally, I’m kinda speechless at the moment.

Thanks to strong progressive, environmentalist and 10th State Senate District candidate Emily Francis for highlighting this op-ed in today’s RTD by Stephanie McClellan, Ph.D., “director of Special Initiatives on Offshore Wind at the University of Delaware” and “former director of strategic initiatives and outreach for the Atlantic Wind Connection.” Here’s an excerpt:

On Earth Day last month, Gov. Terry McAuliffe praised offshore wind energy for its job-creation potential for Virginia. The governor likely had not been told by Dominion Power that 24 hours later the utility would decide to “take a step back” from the much-touted offshore wind demonstration project based on a single bid for the project’s construction.

McAuliffe should feel validated, not discouraged, as the facts are on his side. Dominion’s decision should be seen as the regulated monopoly utility’s need for outside expertise from those with experience in competitive offshore wind markets, rather than an ominous bellwether of offshore wind’s future here.

[…]

…Virginia has a federally designated zone to develop this new industry. Its estimated potential is two gigawatts of power, enough to power 500,000 homes and create thousands of jobs in the process. Yet, there is no clear development plan or timeline available to the public, a fact that hinders market participation from the field of companies that want to drive the industry forward.

Our research shows costs can be cut by 10 percent to 20 percent just by creating competition. In addition, there was only one complete bid for this demonstration project – a situation that is almost guaranteed to result in an uncompetitive price.

There’s a viable path to seize the opportunity in front of us, and the governor is right to see it and push for it. The sooner Dominion can draw on experienced experts to chart a clear path forward, the sooner Virginians can reap the significant economic benefits that offshore wind energy offers.

The problem, as usual, is out-of-control, state-protected monopoly, Dominion Virginia Power, and its utter disrespect for both the environment and the people of Virginia. The question is, when will Virginia’s legislators get the courage to tell Dominion where to shove its dirty money, and to pass legislation that forces this dirty energy dinosaur to get with the 21st century? And no, given that our entire govenrment is “captured” (aka, “corrupted”) by companies like Dominion, I’m not holding my breath…

P.S. Emily Francis is absoulety right: “Virginia has a huge opportunity to create jobs in the renewable energy market. Let’s not wait any longer…let’s put people to work.”

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, May 14. Also, check out the video of Sen. Elizabeth Warren on last night’s NewsHour, talking about trade promotion authority, and making a strong case for her position. By the way, if you’re an Arlington Democrat who cares about education, don’t forget to vote in the school board caucus today or Saturday.

*Jeb Bush falters on Iraq, and his rivals pounce

*Azerbaijan secretly funded 10 Congress members’ trip

*Train approached curve at 106 mph, twice the limit

*The abuse of the mentally ill in America’s prisons (“Even as an accounting of Ms. McKenna’s death remains mired in inertia in Fairfax, what’s become clear is just how commonplace it is that mentally ill inmates like her are subjected to physical abuse and mistreatment, including the casual use of stun guns, in the nation’s prisons and local jails.”)

*House GOP approves cuts to Amtrak budget despite crash (These folks are crazy.)

*Jeb Bush, in apparent slip, says ‘I’m running for president’ (“The difference between considering a run and actually jumping into the race affects what he can and cannot do under the law with regard to fundraising. Once candidates formally enter the presidential race they face tighter restrictions on raising money.”)

*House Approves Revised Measure Banning Most Abortions After 20 Weeks (Yep, Republicans again.)

*Wow, Jeb Bush Is Awful (Ain’t that a shocker? LOL)

*Former AG Troy: McDonnell “not even ethically” wrong (Uhhhhh….)

*McAuliffe says workforce development, defeating sequestration vital to region’s economy

*Hillary Clinton to keynote Democrats’ Jefferson-Jackson dinner

*McAuliffe pardons man wrongly convicted of attempted rape

*Another candidate for BaCote’s seat (“Pricillia Burnett, the former Newport News School Board member and retired police officer who has also run for mayor and sheriff in the last decade, has thrown her hat into the ring for retiring Del. Mamye BaCote’s seat.”)

*With vote, The Tide moves closer

*Metro: Extension on one of three loans improves financial picture

*Grand slam propels Washington over Diamondbacks; Nats win series

*Rangers continue Game 7 mastery of Capitals with overtime win

*D.C. area forecast: Spectacularly sunny and springlike today, summer returns this weekend

Below, check out the latest in our series of cartoons, which previously have illustrated how Dominion Power feeds at the taxpayer-funded corporate welfare trough and controls our political system, among other problems with this out-of-control behemoth. The latest cartoon refers to Dominion’s April 23 announcement that it was “putting the brakes on a plan to erect two test wind turbines off the coast of Virginia Beach because the project, as it stands now, is too expensive, according to the company.” Note that Dominion’s announcement came, ironically (?), just a day after Gov. McAuliffe’s Earth Day signing of several clean energy jobs bills. At that signing ceremony, McAuliffe spoke of “the emerging clean energy jobs sector provid[ing] a tremendous opportunity for economic growth and diversification” in Virginia. A great vision, but not one, sadly, that will be achieved if Dominion Power gets its way…

Thanks to Brian Devine for pointing me in the direction of this article (“To replace Columbia Pike streetcar, Vihstadt proposes Circulator bus“) on the always-excellent “Greater Greater Washington” website. The two key points it highlights are as follows.

1. Arlington County Board member John Vihstadt (note: he disingenuously calls himself an “independent,” but he’s been a big-time Republican donor and activist for years) is now calling for  “Circulator-type buses” on Columbia Pike, but there’s a big problem with that suggestion: “Bus service on Columbia Pike is already better than DC Circulator.” Even worse, “Circulator-type buses” on Columbia Pike “would do nothing to solve the chronic overcrowding and bus bunching that PikeRide buses already face,” “wouldn’t address Columbia Pike’s actual problems,” is “not a replacement for streetcar, and it’s not the kind of streetcar-comparable BRT that Vihstadt promised in his campaign. It’s even a step down from articulated buses.”

In other words, #FAIL all around for Vihstadt, whose 2014 County Board campaign was a model of demagoguery, b.s. and frankly flat-out lies (e.g., that “BRT” was possible on the Pike; that money was “fungible” between the streetcar and what he hand-wavingly called “core services”).

2. It calls out Vihstadt for having “promised communities along Columbia Pike a real solution” to their pressing transportation needs. Instead, what we’re getting is “flippant comments proposing something that already exists” and that “is less than the bare minimum to meet that promise.” So, so true. And so, so unacceptable.

I’d add that the Orwellian-named group, “Arlingtonians for Sensible Transit” (AST), of which Vihstadt was a leading member, is proving more every day/week/month that goes by, that it was really not FOR anything, but actually should simply have been called “Arlingtonians AGAINST the Streetcar.” Period. Why do I say this? Because, quite simply, since AST/Vihstadt et al. managed to kill the streetcar (with a huge assist by long-time streetcar advocates Mary Hynes and Jay Fisette, for no good reason I’ve ever heard), and after months of claiming that they could do something much cheaper and faster with most of the benefits of a streetcar system, AST has basically gone dark, with essentially no updates on their social media pages, no proposals for the promised alternative to the streetcar, etc. What happened? Where’s the faster/cheaper option to the streetcar? How about ANY alternative to provide badly-needed transportation options and economic development opportunities along this relatively neglected portion of Arlington? Uhhhhh.

By the way, about the only “counterargument” we ever get from anti-streetcar folks is some variant on the theme that we should all just “get over it,” “move on,” that we lost and Vihstadt won, etc, etc. Which, of course, is an utterly non-substantive non-“argument” that does nothing to answer our questions, let alone make progress in terms of transportation and economic development along the Columbia Pike corridor. Not that Vihstadt really cares; after all, he’s on the County Board for another 3 years 8 months, during which time he can focus on…apparently killing anything that doesn’t fit into his cramped, short-sighted, anti-progressive, “penny-wise/pound-foolish” Republican worldview of what government can and should be there to accomplish.

P.S. There are some excellent comments on Brian Devine’s Facebook thread on the GGW article. For instance:

*GGW is “correctly calling out a transit proposal that’s both redundant and lazy. That makes it worse than the streetcar project that he and his AST buddies torpedoed…AST’s raison d’être was to torpedo the streetcar plan. And the county had been holding hearings on the streetcar for years before that…AST went into overdrive opposing the streetcar and whipping up opposition to it, and now that it’s dead not only are they and their allies on the board not coming up with any new proposals, they’re actively denying their role in killing off the old one.”

*”John and Libby campaigned on the notion that they had alternatives and that the best alternative was some kind of BRT. They capitalized on everyone else’s failure and drove the stake into the project. So now that they have effectively killed the streetcar, their silence is deafening. Be it on transportation, school and facility siting, or housing issues, Arlington government right now is simply not functioning. People want vision, they want plans, they want answers. And so it is absolutely right to ask the prime proponents of ‘alternatives’ where their alternatives are. And it is incumbent on those others who supported the streetcar to either do the same, or explain why we are not. And if there are no alternatives, then the task is to begin again considering whether the streetcar is indeed the best available solution.”

( – promoted by lowkell)

If you live in Virginia and would like to shrink your carbon footprint, here’s what passes for good news: We’re now officially free to ban fracking. For two years, Old Dominion communities weren’t at liberty to prevent that kind of oil and gas drilling.

After the cities of Staunton, Lynchburg, and several other local governments expressed reservations over fracking or tried to prevent it, former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said they lacked the authority to block Big Fossil. In early May, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring overrode his predecessor’s position and asserted that these local policies adhere to state law.

Either way, Richmond-based Dominion Resources, which wields near-monopoly power over Virginia’s electric grid, wants to boost demand for this environmentally hazardous drilling. It’s partnering with other companies on a $5 billion pipeline that will funnel gas fracked in West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania over a 550-mile route to Virginia and North Carolina.

Dominion’s dirty-energy ambitions for its home state don’t stop there. The company also intends to drop $10 billion on a third nuclear reactor at a site within 50 miles of Richmond, Charlottesville, and Fredericksburg.

The firm Clean Edge ranks big utilities according to how much power they draw from solar, wind, and other renewable options and their energy efficiency efforts. Dominion made the bottom of the list.

While it recently minted a plan to invest $700 million in solar projects in Virginia, that would barely chip away at the state’s reliance on power derived from coal, natural gas, and nuclear. And the company just shelved an offshore wind pilot just as the first project of that kind is getting underway off the Rhode Island coast.

Why is Dominion getting away with paying lip service to green energy?

It’s not Virginia’s voters. Thanks to the coexistence of progressive areas near Washington, D.C. like Arlington, where I live – and conservative regions of the kind that surround Roanoke – Virginia is deep purple. Democrats and Republicans rotate through our governor’s mansion. While the GOP holds a slim majority in the state senate, both of our U.S. senators are Democrats.

Nor is it denial. Two out of three of Virginians, in line with the U.S. average, believe climate change is happening. The vast majority support policies that would force Dominion to get serious about wind and solar power. Yet we’ve got one of the country’s weakest renewable energy standards.

It’s about corporate campaign money. Dominion ranks among the state’s biggest donors to both major parties, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. The power company’s largesse makes most politicians – with the notable exception of a few Democrats who hail from Northern Virginia, like State Senator Adam Ebbin and Delegate Patrick Hope – willing to do its bidding.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, beat Cuccinelli, his Republican opponent, in 2013 partly by harping on his opponent’s climate denial. Yet McAuliffe fully supports Dominion’s plans to spend heavily on nuclear reactors and power plants fueled by fracked natural gas instead of making the big investments in wind and solar that would actually cut the state’s carbon footprint.

What could turn things around?

That brings me to another news flash. Some leading opponents of that big fracking pipeline are Republican landowners. They’re annoyed by Dominion’s failure to engage with people whose property is in its way, and they doubt it will help Virginians.

Now, the protests that erupt at Dominion’s shareholder meetings are becoming bipartisan. Even if Virginia’s dominant power company can buy political loyalty, at some point its customers and investors may force the company to clean up its act.

Columnist Emily Schwartz Greco is the managing editor of OtherWords, a non-profit national editorial service run by the Institute for Policy Studies. OtherWords.org.

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, May 13.

*Democrats vote to block Obama trade authority

*Democrats hand Obama a stinging defeat on trade deal (“Under intense pressure from the Warren wing, 44 of the 45 Democrats present Tuesday afternoon defied Obama.”)

*5 dead as Amtrak train from D.C. derails in Philadelphia

*The Jeb Bush Adviser Who Should Scare You (“Paul Wolfowitz not only championed the Iraq war; he obsessively promoted a bizarre conspiracy theory.”)

*A Crank Theory of Seymour Hersh (“To understand the legendary national security reporter, you need to understand an archetype of the intelligence world: the crank.”)

*You can’t kill the Christian right: Why extremists are thriving even with religion in decline (“A record number of Americans consider themselves religiously unaffiliated, but our conservative nightmare won’t end”)

*Schapiro: McDonnell corruption case – like McDonnell – is nuanced (” A jury of his peers – that’s not what McDonnell’s lawyers would call them – declared what voters might have: His public persona was inconsistent with his private wont.”)

*Jury instructions, publicity key at McDonnell hearing

*Va. attorney general in tricky political spot over Sweet Briar closure

*Supreme Court accepts appeal, briefs in Sweet Briar case

*Appeals court hears arguments in Bob McDonnell case

*U-Va. dean sues Rolling Stone over ‘epic failure’ on retracted rape story

*He ‘slit my throat’: Va. couple details harrowing attack for the first time

*Fairfax supervisors and school officials can’t stop fighting over money

*Outlet mall entrance: “City Council Way” (“The new traffic arrangement around a proposed outlet mall in Norfolk will inconvenience residents of both Norfolk and Virginia Beach. It will punish shoppers and tourists. It will, in a concrete way, make life a little worse on the border of Virginia Beach and Norfolk. For no good reason.”)

*Virginia Beach council OKs budget, votes to support light rail

*Portsmouth council approves budget with 3-cent tax increase

*D.C. area forecast: Heat and humidity on hiatus through Friday; unsettled weekend?