Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Monday, April 27. Also, that photo is from Ayn Rand-worshipping, right-wing extremist Rep. Dave Brat’s Facebook page. According to what he calls the “Brat pack,” Trump was “in Richmond Friday to offer his support of Dave’s great work in Congress,” such as “standing up to Obama’s destructive policies on illegal immigration, corporate cronyism, and the endless war on the American middle class worker.” WTF are they ranting and raving about? Who the heck knows, but it gets super weird and super wacky when you get Dave Brat and Donald Trump together!

*Earthquake Aftershocks Jolt Nepal as Toll Surpasses 3,400

*The GOP’s demonic alliance: How the religious right & big business are dumbing down America

*Clinton Foundation acknowledges ‘mistakes,’ emphasizes transparency

*The GOP estate-tax folly (“Maybe congressional Republicans really are nuts, suicidal or both. The latest evidence is House approval of legislation abolishing the estate tax, sometimes called the ‘death tax.'”)

*Krugman: Nobody Said That (“Several months into 2014 many leading Republicans – including John Boehner, the speaker of the House – were predicting that more people would lose coverage than gain it. And everyone on the right was predicting that the law would cost far more than projected, adding hundreds of billions if not trillions to budget deficits.” WRONG!)

*Poll shows Bush-Clinton toss-up in Va.

*The Biggest Winners and Losers in Sully District (“The biggest losers in the Sully race were former Congressman Tom Davis, Supervisor Pat Herrity, and Congressman Barbara Comstock.”)

*Cruz warns of ‘liberal fascism’ targeting Christians (“Fascism?” Look in the mirror, Sen. Cruz!)

*Virginia’s equal rights history may sway court’s gay marriage ruling

*Putting brakes on big brother (“State lawmakers ignored Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s revisions to legislation to prevent authorities from collecting and retaining surveillance information from license-plate readers for as long as they want.”)

*2nd Navy SEAL dies after accident in Little Creek pool

*Week will begin on the chilly side, but coming weekend could be fantastic

In our continuing series on Gov. McAuliffe’s flawed, false, flat-out-wrong comments at the recent “The Next Frontier of Climate Change” conference,” we now present an anti-fracking activist getting into a heated argument with Gov. McAuliffe – and ultimately getting escorted out of the room for not knowing when to stop talking and let the governor dig his own hole deeper. In brief, here’s what happened and why I say McAuliffe dug himself into a deep hole.

*The activist asked McAuliffe about Dominion Power’s gigantic, proposed Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline, and how McAuliffe’s support for this monstrosity squares with what she asserted was McAuliffe “campaign[ing]  against fracking.” Actually, as far as I can determine, McAuliffe only stated outright opposition to fracking in the GW National Forest, not in general. Still, the anti-fracking activist is correct that the natural gas for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP will come mostly from “fracked” natural gas in West Virginia. In addition, it IS worth pointing out that the U.S. Forest Service just approved “a permit to survey part of the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia for a proposed natural gas pipeline,” and that the ACP also would run “through the George Washington National Forest – as well as the Allegheny Mountains, Blue Ridge mountains and the Shenandoah Valley.”

*McAuliffe’s response was basically a bunch of nonsensical and/or distorted arguments. Argument #1: Virginia has a bunch of pipelines already, ergo there’s no reason to be concerned about this gigantic new pipeline. That’s like saying, since there already is bad stuff happening in the world, we shouldn’t be concerned about far worse stuff happening in the world. It’s just a ridiculous, non-argument “argument.” The fact is, this pipeline is seriously flawed in its underlying conception, economics, environmental impact, etc. Gov. McAuliffe should respond, on point, specifically on the merits – or in this case, lack thereof – of the ACP, not throw out red herrings and non sequiturs in an attempt to avoid doing so.

*McAuliffe started to argue – but was cut off by the protestor – that the ACP would spur economic development in Nelson County. Except for one problem: according to Dominion itself, the ACP would generate only 118 jobs TOTAL in the entire state of Virginia (which has 4 MILLION employed people, so 118 jobs would be…let’s just say miniscule, something like a few McDonalds’ worth), and a pathetically small “$37.8 million per year in economic activity in the Commonwealth” (that’s not-even-a-rounding-error, just one ten-thousandth of Virginia total economic output of more than $400 BILLION per year). Oh yeah, Dominion also claims that the ACP will generate “$233,000 in additional tax revenues for Virginia each year,” which again isn’t even a rounding error in Virginia’s tens-of-billions-of-dollars state budget. So much for this pipeline being a “game changer” in any way.

*McAuliffe then continued arguing with the protestor as she was escorted out of the room. When he resumed, he attempted a few more laughable non-arguments: 1) that the fracking for this pipeline won’t happen in Virginia, so we shouldn’t worry about it apparently (yeah, who cares about West Virginia anyway, right?!? ugh); 2) that he personally can’t stop fracking in America, ergo apparently we might as well allow construction of an enormous pipeline that will encourage MORE fracking in America (great “logic” there, huh?); 3) that this pipeline will provide “cheap natural energy (sic) costs,” which of course will only be the case in the unlikely eventuality that natural gas prices stay low for years/decades to come; 4) that this pipeline would encourage manufacturing in parts of Southside and Southwest Virginia, but there’s no evidence that this will really come to pass, nor is there any comparison to how natural gas compares to wind, solar, energy efficiency, etc. in terms of economic development potential; 5) that “it’s done cleanly, it’s done safe,” neither which is true – in fact, “fracking” is a dirty, dangerous process, and pipelines are also environmentally destructive and dangerous, unlike safe, non-polluting solar, wind and energy efficiency; 6) that he’s “always told Dominion [to] work with the local communities…to do this in a way that doesn’t impact their neighborhoods,” but there’s evidence to date that Dominion’s doing the exact opposite, trying to ram the pipeline through, over significant local opposition in places like Nelson County.

Bottom line: Gov. McAuliffe’s case for the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline is extremely weak, not supported by the facts, and the wrong direction for Virginia, which should be focusing ALL its efforts in the energy area on transitioning rapidly to a clean energy economy, not to doubling down on dirty, dangerous, climate-change-fueling oil, coal and natural gas.

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines for Sunday, April 26.

*Death toll in Nepal quake exceeds 1,900

*President Obama’s Top 10 jokes

*President Obama Reveals Surprise Guest at White House Correspondents’ Dinner

*Barack Obama lands the zingers at White House correspondents’ dinner (“The president tells diners at the fundraiser he’s bringing a new attitude to the final quarter of his presidency, and it rhymes with bucket”)

*Contracting allegations expose a hole in protocol, gray areas, at Virginia’s SCC (“Allegations of contracting irregularities at the State Corporation Commission are sitting before the Virginia Supreme Court, and the state legislature has ordered changes in the SCC’s post-award review process.”)

*Gov. Terry McAuliffe to drive pace car at tonight’s NASCAR race at Richmond International Raceway (And knowing T-Mac, I’m sure he’ll be the GREATEST pace car driver in the HISTORY of Virginia! LOL)

*Schapiro: In different ways, McAuliffe, Webb make it all about Clinton

*More review for power line

*A few Va. Senate races expected to have wide-ranging impact

*The stonewalling sheriff (“Rather than delay that day of reckoning, the authorities in Fairfax would be wise to be proactive, transparent and accountable. So far those qualities are lacking.”)

*John Guevara takes Republican nomination in Fairfax supervisor race

*Incumbents sweep Prince William GOP firehouse primary (Corey Stewart “won about 73 percent of the vote against challenger Chris Crawford, a defense contractor from Gainesville.” Now that THAT is out of the way, hopefully he’s off to anger management counseling. LOL)

*Can a tolling and transit deal fix I-66 after decades of failure?

*Despite trafficking, Va. cigarette tax appears unlikely to rise

*Showers and clouds are on the wane, but a bit of a chill will linger in region

Yesterday, I wrote about Ivy Main’s excellent post on Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s interview at “The Next Frontier of Climate Change” conference. The main conclusions of that post: 1) McAuliffe clearly doesn’t know a great deal about energy issues, from what distributed power is (e.g., rooftop solar); to how much it costs to transmit electricity from a nuclear plant vs. a renewable energy facility; to the Virginia power mix, both today and in coming years; to the “levelized cost of energy” for different sources of power (perhaps someone can stick this report on his desk and make sure he’s read it?); etc. and 2) what McAuliffe DOES know appears to come disproprortionally from a wildly biased, pro-fossil-fuel, pro-nuclear, anti-energy-efficiency, anti-distributed power source — Dominion Power — with which he spends an inordinate amount of time (question: could a small business, or an ordinary citizen, get the level of access Dominion Power – $13 million in donations and counting! – has to the governor’s office?), and which he alternately claims he has no control over/can tell what to do.

Anyway, there were so many misstatements, flat-our errors, etc. in Gov. McAuliffe’s 38-minutes-but-felt-like-an-eternity interview at the “The Next Frontier of Climate Change” conference, this is going to require a multi-part series to tackle them. We’ll start with McAuliffe’s comments on fossil fuel divestment, which were flat-out wrong on several points.

First, the question was specifically about whether “the state of Virginia and its retirement fund and other relevant funds should divest from fossil fuel companies. McAuliffe’s answer?

No! I think they have to make the decision what is in the best interest of whatever they’re making their investments; they have a fiduciary duty to make those investments. And clearly as governor I am not going to sit here and tell the people who manage these funds what to do — not my role. And I clearly understand my role…Jeff, it is not my job to come in and tell our businesses what to do. I am a fiscally conservative, pro-business Democrat; I am socially very progressive…

Just a few problems here.

• After answering point-blank “no” to the question about whether Virginia’s retirement fund should divest from fossil fuels, McAuliffe completely contradicts himself by arguing that it’s actually NOT his job/role to tell the people who manage these funds how to handle their “fiduciary duty.” So then why answer “no” to the question — or “yes” for that matter? If McAuliffe really believes he has no role in this, then why doesn’t he just say “not my role” and leave it at that?
• Of course, if Terry McAuliffe really believe that it’s not the governor’s role to be a leader on the most important issue facing humanity (man-made climate change), and our state (which the last I checked was part of humanity), that’s just sad. And I’m just curious: by that reasoning, is it also not McAuliffe’s role, as governor, to lead on a whole host of other issues affecting Virginia? Or is it just this specific issue?  If so, why just this specific issue? Perhaps because Dominion Power and other powerful, wealthy fossil fuel interests (and donors to Virginia politicians) fiercely oppose fossil fuel divestment? Or is that just a wild coincidence? Hmmmm.
• McAuliffe then segues into a complete non-sequitur about it not being his “job to come in and tell our businesses what to do.” Except that nobody asked him about “our businesses;” they asked him about the Virginia STATE retirement fund, which covers thousands of employees of the Virginia executive branch – you know, the one that Gov. McAuliffe heads up. Wo why bring up businesses at all? Freudian slip?
• Anyway, just for argument’s sake, let’s say we were looking at this issue purely from a “fiscally conservative, pro-business” point of view. Would it make sense to at least CONSIDER divesting from fossil fuels? Actually, yes – big time. Evidence? See this post, which points to several leading private-sector analyses on this topic, such as:

  1. Impax Asset Management, which found that “over a five-year period, ‘removing the fossil fuel sector in its entirety and replacing it with ‘fossil free’ portfolios of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other alternative energy stocks, either on a passively managed or actively managed basis would have improved returns.”
  
  2. S&P Capital IQ, which found that “Endowments That Divested Ten Years Ago Would Have Been ‘Better Off.'”
  
  3. Northstar Asset Management, which “found negligible costs between 0.07 and 0.15 percent annually for divesting from fossil fuels.”
  
  4. Aperio Group, which found that “a portfolio excluding the 15 most harmful stocks as identified by climate change advocates incurs ‘virtually no risk penalty.'”

Meanwhile, scientists say that “75% of known fossil fuel reserves must stay in ground,” which effectively means that if humanity hopes to avoid environmental catastrophe in the next few decades, most fossil fuels are simply “unburnable”. That, in turn, raises the spectre of a massive carbon “bubble” (think the real estate bubble, but possibly even more dire), in which “fossil fuel assets, such as coal, oil and gas, could be significantly devalued if a global deal to tackle climate change is reached.”

The upshot of all this is clear: it’s imperative for pension funds like the Virginia Retirement System  (VRS) to be considering, seriously and urgently, whether they NEED to divest from fossil fuels, and quickly, in order to protect their investors. And they need to be considering that divestment for purely “fiduciary” reasons, not even taking into account their moral obligation to the planet, future generations, etc. As such, it follows that the governor of Virginia should be leading that conversation, not claiming he has no role to play as the top elected official in our state.

Other than all that, a fine answer by Gov. McAuliffe. 🙂 Stay tuned for more in this multi-part series…

Can someone please explain how much, if not most, of this stuff has to do with Christianity? Photo ID? Proof of citizenship to vote? “Illegal aliens?” Eliminating the state income tax? Guns? Offshore oil drilling? Tort reform? Dominion Power? WTF? Of course, this group is a bunch of extremist nuts, but frighteningly, a sizeable number of Virginians agree with them…shuddderrrrr.

(lots more on the “flip”)

I might take Gilmore the least bit seriously if he: a) called for far-reaching campaign finance reform, including repeal of “Citizens United,” enactment of public financing, etc; b) also called on Jeb Bush and a bunch of other Republican candidates to ‘withdraw from the race,” since they have the same issues Gilmore claims Hillary Clinton has; c) switched parties, since the GOP is the epitome of the corrupting influence of money on our political system (e.g., the “capture” of government by monied interests). Until he does all of those things, I’ll continue to simply laugh at this clown.

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Saturday, April 25. Also, see this week’s White House address, in which President Obama makes the case for “why new, high-standards trade agreements are important for our economy, our businesses, our workers, and our values.” I’m skeptical, but open to being shown exactly how the TPP protects workers, human rights, the environment, etc.

*Bill Nye: Climate change is “not something you should be debating or denying”

*Republicans are engaging in smog and mirrors on climate (“A revenue-neutral carbon tax is a reform Republicans should love. It could end irrational federal subsidies, lower the GOP’s most-hated taxes and harness market efficiency to provide some insurance for the planet at a minimal cost. Instead, the party’s would-be leaders appear to be looking for any way to avoid engaging seriously.”)

*Drone Strikes on Al Qaeda Are Said to Take Toll on Leadership in Pakistan

*Quake in Nepal Kills Hundreds and Destroys Buildings

*The trade-off Obama missed on trade (“Clinton, and Obama, should champion the trade bill – but only after congressional Republicans do what’s needed to protect low-wage American workers from the dislocation that will occur”)

*Obama’s Piecemeal Climate Policy Is Gradually Paying Off (“The next step will be attempting a bi-partisan economy-wide carbon cap-a feat that will probably fall to the next president.”)

*North America’s Oil And Gas Industry Has Taken Over 7 Million Acres Of Land Since 2000 (Another massive government subsidy for the utterly NON-“free market” oil and gas industry in this country.)

*Gov. McAuliffe Announces Members of ABC Review Panel

*Survey for Atlantic Coast Pipeline approved in part of national forest in West Virginia (Ugh.)

*Teresa Sullivan contract before UVa board

*Feds looked hard, found nothing on Virginia lawmaker Norment (Nothing illegal that is. They weren’t looking to see if Norment is unethical and/or “legally corrupt” in many other ways…)

*Norment sponsored bills pushed by Beach lobby firm (Speaking of which…)

*Va. delegates bash effort to aid transgender kids (Digusting.)

*Joe Morrissey says Rosalyn Dance opposed medicaid expansion (“Mostly false”)

*Donald Trump receives warm welcome in Chesterfield (“Donald Trump derided President Barack Obama as incompetent while playing up his own political prowess at a gathering of Chesterfield County Republicans on Friday” That says it all!)

*Costs rising on state campuses

*Slain Mary Washington student recalled as a ‘force of nature’ at vigil

*In the Geer case, Fairfax takes steps toward justice (“Let’s hope this is the case that disproves the axiom that justice delayed is justice denied.”)

*Marco Rubio wins Chesapeake GOP straw poll

*Our view: Meals tax is clarifying moment for Roanoke

*Looking for warm weather?

This may not be your weekend.