The other day in Arlington, at an fossil-fuel-funded energy forum in Arlington, Ken Cuccinelli didn’t even bother trying to say anything truthful, and the idiot/lazy/cowardly media didn’t bother looking into it. Fortunately, the “media” these days isn’t just the dead-tree version. There are also many blogs and other social media outlets, obviously of varying quality (just as the legacy media is of varying quality – mostly crap, infotainment, etc., but a few that are generally excellent, like PBS, NPR, and the New York Times for the most part). In the case of Blue Virginia, our focus is overwhelmingly on Virginia politics, but we also write about whatever other issues we’re interested in and/or have some expertise. In my case, I worked at the U.S. Energy Information Administration for 17 years, and have consulted at clean energy PR firm Tigercomm the past three years. So I feel that I have a bit of knowledge when it comes to energy. Enough knowledge, anyway, to easily debunk Ken Cuccinelli’s multiple lies and distortions that he made the other day in Arlington.  

Check out the videos here and on the “flip.” I’m going to pick out 5 of Cuccinelli’s biggest lies and show why they are demonstrably false. I’m not expecting that the legacy media will give a crap, or even spend two minutes reading this, because they are lazy and don’t care about substance. Still, I feel it’s worthwhile setting the record straight, if for no other reason then to prove how pitiful the “mainstream media” is, and how bloggers can easily kick their butts.

Cuccinelli Energy Big Lie #1 (5:42)

“I’ll encourage the free-market development of alternative sources of energy, including more nuclear power, solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable sources. I’ll prevent our government from picking winners and losers in the energy markets…”

I’m not sure if Cuccinelli realizes how wildly he contradicts himself here, but a few seconds before he talks about a “free market” in energy, he pledges to massively interfere in supposedly “free” energy markets: protecting the coal industry (how is it “free market” exactly for the government to artificially prop up/subsidize an industry?), preventing energy prices from rising (how it is “free market” for the government to control prices?!?). Note that later in his presentation, Cuccinelli flatly asserts, “government should do all it can to reduce energy costs.” That’s about as opposite of a “free market” as is humanly possible; much closer to socialist-style central planning, actually, which I thought Cuccinelli abhorred? Guess not?

So that’s just ridiculous. But the biggest howler is Cuccinelli’s  claim that he’ll prevent our government from picking winners and losers in the energy markets.” There are two options here. One is that Ken Cuccinelli is completely ignorant of the entire history of energy markets in America. Two is that he knows the history, but is just lying through his teeth. The fact is, the U.S. government for the past 100 years has very much picked “winners” in energy markets: namely, the U.S. government has picked fossil fuels, via massive subsidies ($594 billion in fossil-fuel subsidies over the last 60 years), billions of dollars in government R&D on things like “fracking,” indirect subsidies of all kinds (e.g, building an interstate highway system with our tax money in order to facilitate gasoline-and-diesel-powered transportation, as opposed to investing that money in, let’s say, a high-speed rail network crisscrossing America), and of course allowing fossil fuels to spew their pollution into the air and water without paying for it.

That last item is what’s known as an “externality,” or alternatively “market failure,” and it’s enormous in the case of fossil fuels. How enormous? Well, for coal alone, a Harvard study found that “the full ‘lifecycle cost’ of coal to the U.S. public is actually upwards of $500 billion a year” in terms of health and environmental costs. Again, that’s just coal. The “externalities” for oil in terms of national security costs, environmental costs, health costs, you name it, are enormous as well.

Anyway, the point is that there is absolutely no “free market” in energy in the United States, nor has there ever been. To claim that there is an energy “free market,” or that the government hasn’t for over a century picked oil, gas, and coal as the big “winners” in U.S. energy markets, is a Big Lie. Nothing whatsoever is true about it. Does Ken Cuccinelli know that, but lie anyway? Or is he an ignoramus who won’t listen to anyone who points out his ignorance? Or both? You decide. I can’t read this guy’s severely addled/confused mind.

By the way, it’s unintentionally hilarious that Cuccinelli says government doesn’t have a “great track record” of picking “winners and losers,” since he’s basically admitting that government made a huge mistake in picking oil, gas and coal as “winners” the past century plus. But of course that’s not what he means; he’s just lying and/or severely confused.

2. Cuccinelli Energy Big Lie #2 (6:02)

“I’ll fight burdensome federal regulations that seek to put coal, oil, and natural gas out of business…”

Yeah, whatever (rolls eyes sarcastically). That’s why oil and natural gas production are booming,  because they’re being put “out of business.” Uh huh. Also, as for the supposed “burdensome federal regulations” supposedly seeking to put coal out of business, there are a couple of facts Ken Cuccinelli doesn’t want to acknowledge: a) the federal government has actually been extremely WEAK, pitifully so really, when it comes to the abomination of mountaintop removal coal mining, also when it comes to taking strong action against b) global warming, of which Ken Cuccinelli is a Koch-brothers-funded denier.

3. Cuccinelli Energy Big Lie #3: 13:00

“In Virginia, the war on coal is a war on our poor; that’s who suffers in Virginia from the war on coal…drive with me down through Southwest Virginia and you’ll see what I mean.”

Bzzzzz. Nope, false on ALL counts. First, there is no “war on coal.” In fact, as these three graphs demonstrate, it’s the opposite if anything: in fact, coal mining employment in Virginia is actually UP a bit from the George W. Bush years, while most of the decline in coal mining employment in Central Appalachia occurred under Presidents Reagan and George HW Bush (the trend continued under Bill Clinton, then reversed a bit under George W. Bush and Barack Obama). So much for THAT theory. As for how much coal mining employment contributes to Virginia’s economy, see here: we’re talking about 0.46% of Virginia jobs and 0.56% of Virginia’s economy. Third, it’s important to emphasize that the major competitor to coal in recent years has been cheap, “fracked” natural gas, which has undercut coal as a fuel for power plants. In other words, if there’s a “war on coal” (which there isn’t), it’s Cuccinelli’s friends in the natural gas industry (at CONSOL, for instance) who are waging it. Finally, as for coal being a source of riches for Appalachia…I mean, seriously, do we have to debunk that one? After decades and decades of coal mining, Appalachia remains one of the poorest regions in America. I mean, if coal mining is so great, why isn’t Appalachia rich? Perhaps because, as >Professor Michael Hendryx of West Virginia University has found in his research, “Appalachian counties with the heaviest concentration of coal mining have the worst unemployment and the worst economic conditions in the region.” Hmmmmm.

Cuccinelli Energy Big Lie #4: 16:50

“In 2009, Kansas made their voluntary Renewable Portfolio Standard mandatory, and the Kansas Policy Institute estimates that that law will eliminate 12,000 jobs during this decade and increase electricity prices by approximately 45%…Studies of Washington and Oregon’s Renewable Portfolio laws have shown similar results…lost jobs and higher electricity prices.”

Wildly false on all counts. First, though, what on earth is the “Kansas Policy Institute?” Check this out.

The Kansas Policy Institute (KPI) has been the central coordinating think tank within Kansas as outside interests have backed ALEC’s attack clean energy laws. KPI co-published the debunked Beacon Hill Institute report that ALEC has used for its clean energy standard repeal in Kansas (see sources in Beacon Hill section above for debunking).

Kansas Policy Institute Vice President & Policy Director James Franko testified in the Kansas legislature alongside representatives of Heartland Institute, Americans for Prosperity and Beacon Hill Institute on Feb. 14 to weaken Kansas's renewable portfolio standard…KPI has served as the glue for other State Policy Network affiliates entering Kansas to amplify the opposition to clean energy.

What is the “State Policy Network?” According to Sourcewatch:

The State Policy Network (SPN) has franchised, funded, and fostered a growing number of “mini Heritage Foundations” at the state level since the early 1990s.^[1] It describes itself as a network and service organization for the “state-based free market think tank movement,” and its stated mission is “to provide strategic assistance to independent research organizations devoted to discovering and developing market-oriented solutions to state and local public policy issues.”^[2] It was founded in November 1991^[3] and incorporated in March of 1992.^[4]

The founding chairman of the board and a major funder was Thomas A. Roe (1927-2000),^[5] and the founding executive director was Byron S. Lamm.^[3] In the mid-1980s, Roe allegedly told fellow wealthy conservative donor and Heritage Foundation trustee Robert Krieble, “You capture the Soviet Union — I’m going to capture the states.”^[6]

SPN was formerly known as the Madison Group (see SPN’s history below).^[1]

Fueled by robust funding from right-wing funders including the Koch brothers, the Bradley Foundation, the anonymous wealthy donors to the donor-advised funds of DonorsTrust, and others, SPN has grown rapidly in recent years. There were 12 original think tanks when SPN was founded. In 2012, there were 59 SPN member think tanks in all 50 states. Please see SPN Members for more, including links to articles about each of them.

So much for the “Kansas Policy Institute” and its “study” of Renewable Portfolio Standards. As for the Oregon “study,” Cuccinelli’s apparently referring to the Cascade Policy Institute, another member of the right-wing, fossil-fuel-funded “State Policy Network.”

Meanwhile, just in the past couple days, the Wichita Business Journal reported, “Kansas ranks sixth in nation for creation of green-energy jobs.” And earlier this year, the conservative, Republican-controlled Kansas legislature beat back a fossil-fuel-funded effort to repeal the state’s 20% Renewable Portfolio Standard target. Why? Because:

… Representative Moxley, a Republican and rancher by trade, said it best when he noted that there is an entire industry built up on the RPS, meaning hundreds of millions of dollars, and that changing this would be devastating to Kansas’s economy.  The RPS truly is a bipartisan issue that is bringing jobs and prosperity to the state.  The number of wind farms that came online from 2011 to 2012, after the passage of the RPS, nearly doubled Kansas’s installed wind capacity. And the 19 wind farms operating in Kansas have created more than 12,300 jobs, $13.7 million in payments to landowners annually, and $10.4 million in contributions to communities each year.  These are real benefits, experienced by real Kansans.

The fact is, State Renewable Portfolio Standards Create Jobs and Promote Clean Energy, with success stories ranging from Kansas to Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina, etc, etc. What on earth is Ken Cuccinelli talking about? Simple: he’s spouting his fossil-fuel masters’ lies. That’s it.

The question is, why would anyone listen to him? Also, why is the media not reporting on Cuccinelli’s lies? Are they oblivious? Are they in the tank for the fossil fuel companies too? Are they just too cowardly, afraid of being criticized by the fossil fuel companies and their right-wing pals? My guess is it’s all of the above. Anyway, we’ve just shown that it’s not hard at all to debunk Cuccinelli’s Big Lie on Renewable Portfolio Standards. It took us maybe 10 minutes. Why can’t a “real reporter,” one PAID to do this job, spend 10 minutes Googling and finding the same information anyone else (like me) can find? Think about that.

Cuccinelli Energy Big Lie #5: Second video, 0:49

…at least some people in the Sierra Club supported getting rid of those [RPS standards] because they artificially incentivized our utilities without any environmental benefit that any of us could discern…we were just funneling money to what amounted to special interests…”

It’s hard to know exactly what Cuccinelli’s babbling about here. Obviously, environmental groups are STRONG supporters of mandatory, ambitious Renewable Portfolio Standards. Perhaps Cuccinelli is referring to frustration by some Virginia environmentalists that “lobbyists for the state’s largest utility companies riddled the RPS with so many loopholes that it is not serving this intended purpose [to “make Virginia’s air and water cleaner, and reduce the commonwealth’s emissions of greenhouse gases”]. The question is, if Virginia’s weak, pathetic, voluntary RPS has been even further “gamed” by Dominion Power and others so that they end up “getting credits for power they generated at old, out-of-state facilities, almost all of which were already in operation when the RPS was passed,” the there’s a serious question whether Virginia’s weak, pathetic, voluntary RPS is even worth having at all. Of course, a MUCH better option would be to make Virginia’s RPS mandatory and strengthen it in every other way. But that’s not what Ken Cuccinelli and his fossil-fuel masters want, of course. They want NO RPS AT ALL, just fossil fuels forever, global warming be damned, and also the enormous economic potential represented by clean energy be damned. It’s short sighted. It’s stupid. And it’s greedy (see “Dirty Money, Dirty Power: How Virginia’s Energy Policy Serves the Interests of Top Campaign Contributors” by CCAN, Sierra Club, and Appalachian Voices), if you’re a fossil fuel company or one of the politicians they’ve bought and paid for. But it’s not anything the rest of us should support on November 5, or any other day, that’s for damn sure.

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So, those are just five of Ken Cuccinelli’s Big Lies on energy, from just one conference on one day, debunked. I could go on and on with this all day, as almost literally not a SINGLE WORD Cuccinelli said on Thursday in Arlington was true. Go through the videos yourself. Examine every statement Cuccinelli made, even the seemingly most innocuous. What you will find is that they are either totally or partially false, deceptive, misleading, and or bizarre. But what else would we expect from someone who is being lambasted in today’s newspapers for being wildly corrupt in his unethical/should-be-illegal dealings with…you guessed it, a fossil fuel company (CONSOL Energy)?

Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Sunday, September 1. Also, check out the photo of Tom Perriello firing up the canvassing volunteers for Terry McAuliffe yesterday morning in Annandale.

*Washington Post Actually Runs Piece Arguing Teachers Shouldn’t Be Jailed For Sex With Underage Students (There’s something seriously wrong with this newspaper. First they give climate science deniers space in their paper, now this?!? What a disaster.)

*Obama asks Congress to back a strike on Syria

*Va.’s senators praise move to seek Congressional review of Syrian intervention

*Rep. Connolly talks about Syria

*AG’s explanation begins to unravel (“Cuccinelli’s initial bid to explain Pigeon’s conduct has boomeranged. His only recourse for trying to salvage credibility on the subject now appears to be to draw the same kind of independent scrutiny that he brought on himself this spring, after revising his incomplete financial disclosure forms. Unless, of course, the governor, whose connections with Star Scientific remain under independent review at Cuccinelli’s request, is willing to get involved.”)

*Va. governor’s race shifting into high gear

*Gov. McDonnell said to have been aware of gifts from businessman (“Despite the picture Virginia’s governor has tried to paint, people familiar with the investigation say he knew about the Star Scientific CEO’s generosity as he and his wife tried to help his company.”)

*McDonnell sacrifices wife in scandal

*Libertarian Robert Sarvis sees himself as viable alternative for governor (I strongly encourage all Republicans to vote for Sarvis over corrupt, sodomy-obsessed nut Ken Cuccinelli.)

*Schapiro: The state of the gubernatorial race (“It’s bad enough, locals say, that Cuccinelli is seen as siding with corporate big boys. Worse is his perceived conflict of interest, having taken more than $110,000 in contributions from one of the firms, Consol Energy.”)

*Our region will play a key role in election

*Donation woes, job criticism put Ken Cuccinelli on defensive (“In June, a federal judge said she was shocked to learn of emails from one of Cuccinelli’s assistant attorneys general offering advice to attorneys for two energy companies involved in a potential class-action litigation with Southwest Virginia property owners over natural gas rights.”)

*The race for governor: Echoes from Virginia’s epic political wars

*JLARC gets new executive director

*Stolle brothers hope to pull off a ballot box hat trick

*Weather Gang: Threat of late-day summer storms

*Mets beat up on Haren, Nationals (I was at this game, and it wasn’t a pretty picture…)

Excellent speech by President Obama on Syria, although I still would have liked to hear more about how much damage we need to do to the Assad regime in order to make clear that there’s a “red line” against the use of chemical weapons. Other than that, though, this was perfect. There’s absolutely no question that killing 1,000+ civilians – men, women, and hundreds of children – with chemical weapons is a violation of every moral and legal standard the world has established since World Wars I and II. If we let a regime get away with this, we have basically sent a message to every other regime in the world that they can pretty much do whatever they want – gas their people, develop nuclear weapons and/or biological agents, whatever. This needs to be completely unacceptable, or as a species, our days are seriously numbered.

I also love how President Obama said he’s happy to have this debate, and welcomes a Congressional vote on it. Of course, U.S. presidents since World War II have used military force dozens (hundreds?) of times without any authorization by Congress, and it’s not even clear constitutionally where the power to do so lies exactly, but in an ideal world, it would be great if Congress – our elected representatives – could play a responsible, serious role in committing this nation to use of force.

Now, the question is, can the bat**** crazy teahadist-“led” House of Representatives do ANYTHING responsible? I’m highly skeptical. Can Congress even get its sorry a***es back to Washington, DC, as the British Parliament was clearly able to do? It’s not like they don’t have enough other stuff to work on, like the federal budget and the debt ceiling, even without the Syria situation. So where are they, other than working something like 9 (count’em, NINE!) days after Labor Day and before the budget deadline. Rough life, huh? Anyway, I wouldn’t count on a serious, sober, sensible debate on Syria, or on anything else for that matter, as long as we have the Teapublican lunatics elected in 2010 continuing to run the House “asylum.” But it will be interesting to see, nonetheless, and possibly beneficial to expose these people yet again for the irresponsible, Obama Derangement Syndrome-suffering fools that they are.

UPDATE: See Sen. Kaine’s statement in the comments section. Also, I’d note that Rep. Scott Rigell just tweeted, “I applaud & respect President Obama’s decision to seek congressional authorization.” And Rep. Gerry Connolly tweeted, “I call on Speaker Boehner to convene the House to debate and vote on Syria by Wednesday of next week.”

Here’s some video from this morning’s opening of the new, revamped dog park in Clarendon/Arlington, Virginia (I was there at 6 am with my dog and 4 or 5 others.  A few key points on the park, from Arlington County:

1) “What was a used car lot and dog park is now much more: combination dog park, passive park area and a demonstration garden of native plants.”

2) “Scarce open space (¾ acre) in a very dense neighborhood (over 8,000 people live within a 10-min walk + 15,000 workers).”

3) “Model of sustainable design – permeable pavement and recycled materials, stormwater managed on property, solar power for water, lights, irrigation, etc.”

4) “After community process, CB adopted the master plan in 2007. Construction contract was approved in 2012. Will be built within $1.7M budget.”

Also important to point out is that parks add tremendous value to communities. See this article, for instance, which explains that a $13 million investment in New York’s Central Park resulted in a $209 million increase in property values over the next 17 years – a 15 fold increase! Also, “After Centennial Olympic Park was built, adjacent condominium prices rose from $115 to $250 a square foot” (more than double). Yet another example: “Improvements in Chattanooga resulted in an increase in annual combined city and county property tax revenues of $592,000 from 1988 to 1996, an increase of 99 percent.” In other words, expenses on parks like these are not really “expenses,” but smart investments, as they pay for themselves multiple times over, not even counting the aesthetic, communal, and other benefits.

Finally, from that same article: “A 2001 survey by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) revealed that 57 percent of voters would choose a home close to parks and open space over one that was not. In addition, the NAR survey found that 50 percent of voters would be willing to pay 10 percent more for a house located near a park or protected open space.” That’s right: great parks, like the Clarendon dog park, are a feature that attract people to communities, thus increasing property values and making the community an even more desirable (and enjoyable) place to live.

The bottom line: “Parks provide intrinsic environmental, aesthetic, and recreation benefits to our cities. They are also a source of positive economic benefits.They enhance property values, increase municipal revenue, bring in homebuyers and workers, and attract retirees.” Note, by the way, that the place was packed already this morning with happy humans and canines? Great stuff, nice job by Arlington County, as usual thinking long-term, not short sighted, and with a broad, overarching, smart community vision in mind.

The other day, I attended an energy forum in Arlington, sponsored by overwhelmingly pro-fossil-fuel groups with connections to climate science deniers. I predicted that it would be a travesty, I just didn’t realize how much of that travesty would be the result of the media utterly failing to do its job. In short, here’s what happened.

1. The place was PACKED with reporters – probably a couple dozen. After the event, there were a bunch of articles published on the forum. In all of those articles by “mainstream media” reporters, I saw basically ZERO analysis of the many false statements (see the video here for a few) made by Ken Cuccinelli in his presentation, and during the Q&A session on stage. I mean, there were literally dozens of lies and distortions by Cuccinelli, including some huge/glaring ones. Yet the supposedly “professional” media – people PAID GOOD MONEY TO DO THIS WORK!!! – couldn’t even be bothered to go back and check on any of what Cuccinelli said, let alone clue in readers as to what was true (almost nothing, in Cuccinelli’s case) and whats was false (almost every word Cuccinelli uttered). In other words, the “professional” media couldn’t be bothered to – or simply refused to – DO ITS JOB. Instead, they went for the cowardly, lazy approach – false equivalency (e.g., “the candidates hurled accusations at each other”), focus on the sound and fury (signifying…what?) but not on the substance, failing to do a bit of research to find out whether the statements made were accurate, talking to energy experts (e.g., at the U.S. Energy Information Administration) who might actually know, etc. Nope, that would all be too much like…I dunno, actual JOURNALISM?!?

3. With regard to the press “scrum” for Cuccinelli, which you can watch here, note that it took a blogger – me in this case – to get good video and quickly post it up on YouTube so everyone could see it. Why couldn’t the “mainstream” media do that, given that they have about a gazillion times the financial resources that bloggers like I do? Or is informing the public simply not in their job description, as opposed to checking the box by attending the event and filing the obligatory “candidates attacked each other/there was CONFLICT so pay attention to my article!” story? Ugh.

4. Also in that press scrum, note that there were only TWO questions on energy – again, which was the subject of the candidates forum – and neither of those two questions was asked by a “mainstream media” reporter. In fairness, two reporters (Martin di Caro and one other, who I didn’t recognize) tried to pin Cuccinelli down on climate change (note that Cuccinelli refused to answer the question), and I COMMEND them for doing so. Still, those were not questions specifically on energy, which again was the subject of the forum. The final question on CONSOL Energy, for instance, the one that caused Cuccinelli to stalk off in a huff, was asked by this guy, director of the Checks and Balances Project, a “government and industry watchdog group.” That’s right, it took a “government and industry watchdog group” to ask the question the corporate media wouldn’t, or couldn’t, ask. Hmmmm.

5. Another major fail was that most of the media which covers Arlington – the Sun Gazette and ArlNow, in particular – didn’t cover the event at all, nor did they link to other coverage, nor did they post video of the event, etc. Even worse, the Sun Gazette’s right-wing hack/editor wrote that even though he didn’t attend the event (he wrote – apparently without any shame – that he “bail”ed after “arriving and surveying the timetable,” deciding it was not interesting enough for him to spend two hours of his precious time at!), that he just KNEW that the candidates “spent most of their time – McAuliffe particularly – blasting the other rather than talking about energy, which supposedly was the topic under discussion.” But wait, you say, if he wasn’t there, how did he know how the candidates spent their time? Hmmm. For the record, it turns out that both candidates talked a LOT about energy – McAuliffe in the Q&A session; Cuccinelli throughout his presentation (although, as I mentioned earlier, almost every word he said was either outright false or highly misleading/deceptive). In no way, shape, or form is it correct to say that McAuliffe spent more of his time “blasting” Cuccinelli then Cuccinelli spent blasting McAuliffe. I recorded the entire Cuccinelli talk (see Part 1 here and Part 2 here), and as you can see, it’s an almost unremitting series of (mostly false) attacks on Terry McAuliffe, on renewable energy, on billionaire/environmental activist Tom Steyer, etc, etc.

6. In fairness, let me just say that Jason Spencer of the Patch actually a) covered the event; and b) did a generally thorough, professional job. Unlike the Sun Gazette or ArlNow, that’s for sure (among ArlNow’s big news items from the day of the energy forum was “Cupcakes to Return to FatShorty’s.” Hahahahahaha.).

Anyway, the bottom line is that with very few exceptions, the “mainstream media” utterly failed to cover the substance of the energy forum in Arlington this past Thursday. They most certainly DID NOT take Ken Cuccinelli’s many false statements and subject them to scrutiny, let alone inform readers as to what was true (almost nothing) and what was a lie (almost everything).  That leaves me, your intrepid blogger (aka, not a “real journalist,” according to the arrogant-if-nothing-else media) to do just that. Stay tuned…

Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Saturday, August 31.

*U.S. officials’ strong words on Syria signal that strike is near

*Case against Syria said to include intercepts of regime planning attack

*Justice Ginsburg Becomes First Supreme Court Justice To Officiate Same-Sex Wedding

*Mr. Cuccinelli: Virginians Deserve an Answer

*Larry Sabato: Virginia Governor: A Favorite Emerges (“McAuliffe leads race going into Labor Day”)

*McAuliffe, Cuccinelli slug it out on public radio

*Libertarian Sarvis Gaining Traction in Governor’s Race

*Update: Annual Lobbyist Disclosures (Good information, but what percentage of Virginians will dive in here and scour this information? Like 0.001% maybe?)

*Cuccinelli has a video message for Virginia Tech fans (I wonder if science-denying Cuckoo had gone to Virginia Tech if he might have actually learned something. Apparently he didn’t learn s*** about science with his Mechanical Engineering degree from UVA.)

*Kaine to give speech on war powers on Tuesday

*Just wait, Norfolk. Time is on your Waterside.

*Chances for showers, storms will increase through holiday weekend

*Nats’ winning streak stops with 3-2 loss (Time to start another one, immediately!)