Great stuff, courtesy of Daily Kos. So, what about Virginia Republicans; where do they fit into this chart (click to “embiggen”) of the conservative movement? See below the chart for a short list, and please add your favorites in the comments section!
1. Ken Cuccinelli: A horrifying – and bizarre – combination of “Teabagger,” “Corporate Con,” “Libertarian” (although certainly not on LGBT equality, a woman’s right to choose, etc.), Paleocon” and “Theocon.” The only reason I left “Neocon” out is that I’m not sure what Cuckoo’s foreign policy views are.
2. Mark Obenshain and Rob Bell: Same as Cuccinelli; they’re his “clones,” as Sen. Mark Herring puts it.
3. Bob McDonnell: Mostly a “Corporate Con,” with a dash of Pat Robertson “Theocon” thrown in.
4. Bill Bolling: “Corporate Con” all the way.
5. Bill Howell: “Corporate Con”
6. “Sideshow Bob” Marshall: Mostly a “Theocon,” with some serious “Teabagger” thrown in.
7. Pete Snyder: A delightful “Teabagger,” “Corporate Con” and “Theocon” combo.
Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Tuesday, April 9. Also, check out Bob McDonnell being asked about his ethically…er, questionable gifts from Jonnie Williams of “tobacco candy” (among other fine products) maker Star Scientific.
As we know, Ken Cuccinelli’s reign (of incompetence, warped priorities, divisiveness, etc.) as Virginia’s Attorney General has been a case study in how not to focus on the right things, how not to set priorities, and how not to use taxpayer dollars effectively. With that in mind, you certainly won’t be surprised – although you won’t be happy! – to know that Cuccinelli has done it yet again.
This time, Cuccinelli was busy earning his taxpayer-funded salary working to ensure that people can smoke e-cigarettes in bars and restaurants in Virginia, despite the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. Great, huh? Oh, and I’m sure this isn’t a coincidence or anything, but Cuccinelli’s efforts on behalf of e-cigarettes took place right before Cuccinelli’s slimeball pal Jonnie Williams of Star Scientific filed a patent for…yes, e-cigarettes (as Julian Walker of the Virginian Pilot reported this morning)! Hmmm.
While Cuccinelli was fighting for Jonnie Williams’ interests over the health of Virginians, other state’s Attorneys General – of both parties, I might add – were busy actually – gasp! – doing their jobs, taking action against e-cigarettes and working to protect their states’ citizens health and well being. Priorities, priorities, I guess.
Here are a few examples of other states’ Attorneys General actually doing their job, working to protect public health and safety. I know, what a concept!
*In August 2010, Oregon’s Attorney General, John Kroger, “announced agreements with Florida-based Smoking Everywhere, Inc. and its President, Elico Taieb, prohibiting the sale and distribution of its ‘electronic cigarettes” in Oregon. According to a press release from the Oregon Department of Justice, .” Apparently, that’s not something “This settlement will help protect our teens from unsafe productsKen Cuccinelli cares enough about to spend any time on.
*In August 2010, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s office “announced a settlement with Sottera, one of the country’s largest electronic cigarette producers, to prevent the company from targeting minors, and from claiming that electronic cigarettes are a safe alternative to smoking. According to Brown, ‘Electronic cigarette companies have targeted minors with fruit-flavored products and misleading claims that their products are safe…This settlement will stop Sottera from marketing these dangerous and addictive products to kids.'” Once again, and in stark contrast, Ken Cuccinelli was AWOL on this one.
*In August 2009, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal “vowed to ‘vigorously fight to ban e-cigarettes, unless approved by the FDA, as well as any attempt to retail them in Connecticut.’ He also plans to work with federal authorities to regulate their sales over the internet.” Ken Cuccinelli? He was busy defending the e-cigarette companies and his slimeball pal Jonnie Williams’ economic interests.
*In February 2011, Arizona Central reported on a state bill that would make it a petty offense for merchants to sell e-cigarettes to children. In the report, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne supported the bill, saying: “It seems like another way to get young people addicted to nicotine is by using these flavors to entice them to use these products.” But, once again, Ken Cuccinelli couldn’t have cared less. Sensing a pattern here? Yeah, I thought so.
The President has endorsed a proposal – made last year by Senator Warner’s group – to adopt so-called “Chain CPI” as a way to cut deficit spending. In effect, the proposal will reduce benefits for Social Security retirees as used by the President. In his column today, Ezra Klein tries to show how this is really no big deal.
Klein is wrong on the numbers that actually matter and even wronger on the politics. The problem is, he totally misses the 200-proof strategy thing: in the Virginia context, this could be a huge political issue in the 2013 Virginia governor’s race, depending on how Terry McAuliffe and Ken Cuccinelli play it.
Why? Consider this: the average Virginian on Social Security is a 75-year-old widow whose total benefits are about $13,000 a year. Seniors are also the biggest backers, by pollster age groupings, of Virginia Republicans. Being seen as defending seniors – who vote disproportionately in governors’ races relative to younger people – would be huge for Cuccinelli, plus he’d get the added bonus of being seen as taking on his own party in DC! Yet, for some insane reason, the GOP can not even defend the economic interest of their key voters! This is how the Whigs went from winning the White House to oblivion.
It is trickier for Terry: he really doesn’t want to out there fighting the President, Bill Clinton, and Mark Warner. He might be scared off for the same reason Cuccinelli might be: somehow defending these widows is “liberal,” as opposed to just simple justice when you actually understand the merits of this whole thing. “Chained CPI” is a totally phony issue when it comes to the deficit. Totally. It is strictly a way to make poor widows and the like, unable to defend themselves, pay a lot of money they can’t really afford. I hate to say it: But it is cruel and unusual punishment.
So let me raise this point. Why is it that Democrats have so much new passion for issues that never bothered them before – and so little for these widows whose husbands fought the wars, manned the factories, bled for the country, the working family base of the party? Dr. King remindedd us that a society is judged by how it treats the weak, not the strong.
These widows can’t give a lot of money to political campaigns and they don’t march in the street, thus they aren’t an organized political force. They also didn’t cause the deficits or the fiscal mismanagement. Politically, however, they are actually a sleeping giant. I became a Democrat in large part to help them.
The President is taking a huge 2013 risk for Virginia here. At 200 proof, we aren’t impressed by qualifiers on things, saying you will only do X if you get Y. A bad idea isn’t somehow better because you package it with a lot of other bad, even good, ones. The Chained CPI issue is a 200-proof loser for whomever is seen as insufficiently opposed to do it. There will not be an easier slam dunk made tonight in the NCAA finals.
But the threat to our world comes not only from tyrants and their tanks. It can be more insidious though less visible. The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.
Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world’s environment will be perhaps the greatest test of how far we can act as a world community. No-one should under-estimate the imagination that will be required, nor the scientific effort, nor the unprecedented co-operation we shall have to show. We shall need statesmanship of a rare order…
We have become more and more aware of the growing imbalance between our species and other species, between population and resources, between humankind and the natural order of which we are part.
In recent years, we have been playing with the conditions of the life we know on the surface of our planet. We have cared too little for our seas, our forests and our land. We have treated the air and the oceans like a dustbin. We have come to realise that man’s activities and numbers threaten to upset the biological balance which we have taken for granted and on which human life depends.
We must remember our duty to Nature before it is too late…
Lots more on the “flip,” including her praise of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and specifically its report on climate change, as a “remarkable achievement.”
I want to pay tribute to the important work which the United Nations has done to advance our understanding of climate change, and in particular the risks of global warming. Dr. Tolba and Professor Obasi deserve our particular thanks for their far-sighted initiative in establishing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The IPCC report is a remarkable achievement…
…The real dangers arise because climate change is combined with other problems of our age: for instance the population explosion; – the deterioration of soil fertility; – increasing pollution of the sea; – intensive use of fossil fuel; – and destruction of the world’s forests, particularly those in the tropics…
…But the need for more research should not be an excuse for delaying much needed action now. There is already a clear case for precautionary action at an international level. The IPCC tells us that we can’t repair the effects of past behaviour on our atmosphere as quickly and as easily as we might cleanse a stream or river. It will take, for example, until the second half of the next century, until the old age of my [ Michael Thatcher] grandson, to repair the damage to the ozone layer above the Antarctic. And some of the gases we are adding to the global heat trap will endure in the Earth’s atmosphere for just as long.
The IPCC tells us that, on present trends, the earth will warm up faster than at any time since the last ice age. Weather patterns could change so that what is now wet would become dry, and what is now dry would become wet. Rising seas could threaten the livelihood of that substantial part of the world’s population which lives on or near coasts. The character and behaviour of plants would change, some for the better, some for worse. Some species of animals and plants would migrate to different zones or disappear for ever. Forests would die or move. And deserts would advance as green fields retreated.
Many of the precautionary actions that we need to take would be sensible in any event. It is sensible to improve energy efficiency and use energy prudently…to develop alternative and sustainable sources of supply; it’s sensible to replant the forests which we consume; it’s sensible to re-examine industrial processes; it’s sensible to tackle the problem of waste. I understand that the latest vogue is to call them ‘no regrets’ policies. Certainly we should have none in putting them into effect.
And our uncertainties about climate change are not all in one direction. The IPCC report is very honest about the margins of error. Climate change may be less than predicted. But equally it may occur more quickly than the present computer models suggest. Should this happen it would be doubly disastrous were we to shirk the challenge now. I see the adoption of these policies as a sort of premium on insurance against fire, flood or other disaster. It may be cheaper or more cost-effective to take action now than to wait and find we have to pay much more later…
…These figures underline why a joint international effort to curb greenhouse gases in general and carbon dioxide in particular is so important. There is little point in action to reduce the amounts being put into the atmosphere in one part of the world, if they are promptly increased in another. Within this framework the United Kingdom is prepared, as part of an international effort including other leading countries, to set itself the demanding target of bringing carbon dioxide emissions back to this year’s level by the year 2005. That will mean reversing a rising trend before that date…
…Targets on their own are not enough. They have to be achievable. Promises are easy. Action is more difficult. For our part, we have worked out a strategy which sets us on the road to achieving the target. We propose ambitious programmes both to promote energy efficiency and to encourage the use of cleaner fuels.
We now require, by law, that a substantial proportion of our electricity comes from sources which emit little or no carbon dioxide, and that includes a continuing important contribution from nuclear energy.
Wow, can you imagine the reaction Margaret Thatcher would get if she delivered that speech today, to the Teapublican-controlled House of Representatives and ignoramus-filled U.S. Senate (e.g., climate science deniers like the heinous Jim Inhofe)? It’s truly astounding how far right the “conservative” movement (actually more of a John Birch Society nowadays) has lurched since Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were in power. They would certainly not be welcome by the Rand Pauls, Marco Rubios, and Eric Can’tors of today.
P.S. Needless to say, I am NOT a Thatcher fan, but a lot of right wingnuts are. Let’s see them experience some cognitive dissonance (e.g., watch their heads explode a bit) when they read Thatcher’s call to action on climate and clean energy. Political jujitsu, anyone? 🙂
*The end of majority rule? (“Universal background checks are supported by 91 percent of Americans. Yet there is enormous resistance in Congress to passing a strong bill to keep arms out of the wrong hands. What does ‘rule of the people’ mean if a 9-to-1 issue is having so much trouble gaining traction?”)
*McCain: ‘I Don’t Understand’ Why GOP Would Filibuster Gun Legislation (It’s very simple: despite 90% support by the American people for background checks and majority support for other measures, Republican Congresscritters care a LOT more about what the extremist NRA thinks on the issue.)
*Cuccinelli denies conflict of interest claims (“Virginia’s newly enacted restaurant smoking ban had been in effect five months when Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli responded to a legislator’s request in an April 2010 advisory opinion stating that the law doesn’t apply to electronic cigarettes.”)
*Too chummy for comfort (“Gov. Bob McDonnell allowed his relationship with a business executive to become inappropriate with free jet trips and noshes for his daughter’s wedding.”)
Lee District Democratic Committee (Southern Fairfax) Opening Day event with all statewide Democratic primary candidates speaking. I think this is a fair comparison of all 4 candidates, outside on a great spring day. Listed in the order they spoke.
Mark Warner: “My hope and prayer is that on this issue of civil rights, and on this issue of basic constitutional rights, Virginia will not be one of the laggards but one of the leaders. And part of the way you do that is by having a legislature that is reflective of the face of Virginia face, a face that is increasingly diverse, a face that’s no longer just white and black but a whole lot of other folks…And for all the challenges we’ve got in the Democratic Party, and all of the flaws, we still look more like the face of Virginia as a political entity than the other guys…”
Before I start, I just want to make clear that this is my own, personal endorsement, based on my own, independent observations and analysis of the Virginia Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor, my own interviews of the candidates, etc. With that, here’s my reasoning for endorsing Aneesh Chopra for the 2013 Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia.
1. I interviewed both Aneesh Chopra and Ralph Northam. Both candidates did well, and I enjoyed talking to them both, so it is not a “negative” in any way against Ralph Northam that I was highly impressed with Aneesh, both in terms of being a strong Democrat, but also in terms of his detailed knowledge of the issues facing Virginia. That was an area, honestly, where I had some doubts, given that Aneesh had never served in the Virginia General Assembly. That’s one of the reasons why I decided to ask him where he stood on a wide range of legislation that was being debated in the General Assembly at the time. His answers were excellent, but as I wrote at the time, “What I found most impressive here was that Aneesh – who isn’t a member of the General Assembly – was familiar with every bill I mentioned, didn’t even need me to read a full description before he answered immediately ‘yea’ or ‘nay.’” Very impressive. Also highly encouraging was that the answers were all “correct” from a progressive, Democratic perspective, again without any hesitation on any of them, and without any prompting of any kind. Again, very impressive.
2. To date, I’ve been highly impressed with the Chopra campaign, pretty much in every way – management (a very well-run campaign), fundraising (he’s kicked butt on this front), social media (he’s used it in creative and effective ways), field, etc. In contrast, the Northam campaign has been…well let’s just say a bit shaky. After getting off to a late start (Sen. Northam initially wasn’t planning to run, then changed his mind and decided to do so), the Northam campaign’s been significantly outraised – and I’d argue outhustled – by the Chopra campaign. I also hear they just fired all their field staff, they’re on their second campaign manager in a couple months, and let’s just say I’ve heard other stories about the state of the Northam campaign the past couple months that don’t give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Bottom line: given that we want the strongest candidate to go up against the Republicans this summer and fall, to me the quality of the campaigns is a significant reason in and of itself to endorse Aneesh Chopra over Ralph Northam for the nomination. (Note: for more on this topic, see the astute Virginia Democrat/political strategist Danny Barefoot’s endorsement of Aneesh here, particularly paragraphs 3-6).
3. Clearly, one of the keys to Democrats winning this November will be changing the electorate from a typical odd-year/off-year Virginia electorate (skews older, whiter, and more Republican). To do that, we need candidates who first and foremost understand the importance of changing the electorate more towards the “Obama coalition.” Aneesh Chopra clearly “gets it” on that front. As he said in our interview, “the formula is clear” – we need to turn out the coalition that came out for President Obama and Tim Kaine in 2012. Why he feels he can do that is because: a) as he says, “I reflect the values of the 2012 coalition that reelected President Obama;” b) he understands that “it’s also about smarter campaigning, as we did in 2012,” including the use of new media and today’s cutting-edge communications tools and technology (note: Aneesh is an expert at this stuff) to reach voters; and c) because he believes Obama voters need to see a candidate who reflects their values, and he believes (and I tend to agree) that he is that person.
4. Both candidates are qualified for the job, they’ll just bring different skill sets and emphases to it. In Aneesh’s case, he served in the Kaine Administration (as Secretary of Technology) and in the Obama Administration (as the country’s first Chief Technology Officer). He wasn’t just a “techie,” though, in the sense of only caring about tech for tech’s sake. Instead, Aneesh employed technological tools for the purpose of improving people’s lives. For instance, at a time when equal pay for equal work legislation appeared stalled out in Congress, Aneesh worked with Labor Secretary Hilda Solis to help open up salary data and make it easily accessible, so that women anywhere in the country who felt they were being paid less than a man for the same type of job could have the information they needed to challenge that unfairness. Aneesh also worked to make it easier for firefighters, police officers, and other first responders to communicate with each other over the same frequency; not something that was necessarily a simple matter. I could also see Aneesh’s skills coming in handy with regard to setting up health care exchanges in Virginia, or perhaps in something like electronic health care records. The point is, technology is powerful if used to help improve people’s lives, and Aneesh Chopra not only understands that, he’s an expert in making it happen. I find that exciting.
5. The last point is somewhat of a “ding” at Sen. Northam, but I was not at all pleased with his February 21 appearance on the John Fredericks Show. First, note that John Fredericks is a diehard Republican, very conservative, planning to vote in the Virginia Republican convention, etc. So, the first thing that struck me was at about 38 minutes in. Fredericks went out of his way to praise Northam as “moderate” and “centrist,” which is not in and of itself a problem, but he followed that up by contrasting Northam to what he (bizarrely) called the “far-left-wing candidate,” Aneesh Chopra. Of course, that’s utterly absurd Republican framing of Democrats in general – we’re all “far left wing” supposedly. As for the LG primary, to date, I haven’t heard of a single policy difference between Sen. Northam and Chopra, so who knows what Fredericks was saying, but for sure he was completely wrong. The problem is, Sen. Northam not only didn’t push back against that absurd characterization of a good, mainstream Democrat, but he said “I appreciate that question.” Ugh. Making matters worse, at around 42:40, Fredericks talked about how “really fired up” he was to vote in the Republican convention on May 18, and then just a few weeks later how he – and “Republicans like me” – were going to vote AGAIN in the June 11 Democratic primary. Clearly, that’s legal, but it’s totally not cool for a diehard Republican who is 99.999999999% likely to vote straight Republican in November to be messing with the Democratic Party’s primary. And a Democratic candidate for statewide office should say exactly that. Instead, Sen. Northam’s response was…well, I’ll just quote it verbatim and let you decide what you think:
Northam: “That’s great John, you know what, I look forward to it. If you want, I will come up and pick you up and I’ll take you to the polls. I think it would be a good day for both of us…”
Fredericks: “I’m going to take you up on that…Ralph Northam going to pick me up and my family, right?”
Northam: “That’s right, yes I will, we can have a van, bus, whatever you need, we’ll come get you.”
Fredericks: “I’m going to vote in the Democratic primary, I’m getting picked up, my whole family on June 11 by Dr. Northam; we’re going to take pictures, put it on the internet, I’m so excited I’m beside myself.”
Blech.
So, what’s the answer a Democratic candidate should give? How about, “You know, John, I welcome any Virginian who believes in moving our state forward, who opposes Ken Cuccinelli’s extreme/divisive agenda, and who is sincerely open to voting Democratic this November, to come vote in our primary. If not, I’d say that they should stick to the Republican convention and not interfere with our process of selecting our party’s nominee.”
Anyway, I don’t want to end this on a negative note, as my endorsement of Aneesh Chopra is overwhelmingly a positive one, FOR Aneesh, and would have happened even without item #5 above, for all the reasons I’ve discussed. In sum, if you want a dynamic candidate who can help bring out the “Obama coalition” voters, who will bring a unique and impressive skillset to the Lieutenant Governor’s office, who strongly believes in moving Virginia forward, and who has been running a top-notch campaign during the primary that will carry over into the general election campaign, then I encourage you to vote for Aneesh Chopra on June 11. Thanks, and go Aneesh!
National Geographic News recently posed a somewhat puzzling question: Is Canadian crude oil (also known as tar sands oil) worse than other types of crude? The question was posed in the wake of the disastrous and all-too-predictable ExxonMobil oil spill “across an Arkansas suburb” a week ago. National Geographic’s question is puzzling because it really misses the point of what many Americans truly wish for: a move away from fossil fuel energy.
As I hinted at above, Exxon’s pipeline rupture and subsequent massive oil spill hardly comes as a surprise for those of us in the land of reason. For instance, it’s reasonable to assume that if the flow rate of a pipeline, say the existing Keystone pipeline, is 410 barrels a minute across a series of pipes hundreds or thousands of miles long, an accident is bound to happen, and that “accident” will dump over 6,000 gallons of crude IF TransCanada is accurate in their 15 minute-flow cut off time (a big IF!). If this flow cut off time is higher, say by 5 minutes, an extra 2,000 barrels of oil will be spilled, adding an even bigger insult to an already preventable injury.
So far, I’ve seen a number of oil spill figures cited, ranging from “a few thousand barrels” of spilled crude to twelve thousand. Of course, none of these spill figures take into account the damage that has been wrought upon the communities who have to live and deal with the aftermath of this “accident.” But think for a moment about how you would feel if thousands of barrels of crude oil was spilled in your community? How would that affect you psychologically? How would it affect your property values? How much time would you have to spend making sure that the company that spilled the oil thoroughly cleans up the mess they have made? And finally, how long will the stigma of the oil spill ‘stain’ the community, so to speak?
Then there are the environmental consequences of any oil spill that have to be taken into consideration (and yes, tar sands oil may be more detrimental to organisms in the environment than “other forms of crude”).
To my mind, the question of whether or not tar sands oil is worse than other forms of crude is like asking how many angels can stand on the eye of a needle? The question is utterly pointless and absurd. The right question to ask is: when are we going to get serious about investing in and using renewable energy in America?
As we know, Ken Cuccinelli’s reign (of incompetence, warped priorities, divisiveness, etc.) as Virginia’s Attorney General has been a case study in how not to focus on the right things, how not to set priorities, and how not to use taxpayer dollars effectively. With that in mind, you certainly won’t be surprised – although you won’t be happy! – to know that Cuccinelli has done it yet again.
by Paul Goldman
Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Monday, April 8.
