Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, March 8. Also see the video of President Obama and Vice President Biden delivering remarks yesterday, before the signing of the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization.
*Playing politics with health care (“McDonnell should stop meddling with a Medicaid deal and leave the decision to the next governor and legislature.”)
Ken Cuccinelli (Cuckoo) is really smitten with himself now that he’s found a real issue against Terry McAuliffe. Terry had the nerve to Tweet a wish for Virginians’ storm safety while he was away.
“Please stay safe in the snowstorm tonight & tomorrow.For more info on preparedness, visit @VDEM’s website: vaemergency.gov/readyvirginia
You know, he shoulda been back in VA. Never mind that those supposedly in charge spend their time posturing to be be Oh! so important to the 2016 selection (err-election); gerrymandering, rigging and cheating to keep Democrats from ever winning again; making Virginia a laughing stock; and, of course, losing Virginia’s once-superb bond rating. See Dan Sullivan’s article on the bond rating.
But worse, Terry was at a fundraiser! Do you believe it? Cuckoo never, ever does such a monstrous thing. Bad, bad, Terry. Only Cuckoo is allowed to raise money for his race to pretend to lead the Commonwealth of Virginia.
And as for voters…I mean can’t they see that the party of the 1% of the 1% (the .001-ers) cares more about Virginians than Terry? Can’t they take responsibility for themselves as Mitt Romney keeps telling them to do? Remember, the Virginia GOP candidate, like all Republicans, will move heaven and earth to really care about you and you and you, unless you are poor, get sick, are a child, or are old.
So, I am talking to you. Can’t you see that, because McAuliff went to FL, that he has no right hoping his fellow citizens are safe? Shouldn’t it be illegal for anyone from another state, or visiting one, to wish any friend facing bad weather safety and good health? Maybe that’s an issue for a current AG. (Aside: I’d better stop here so I don’t give the Virginia run-away Attorney General any ideas.)
Certainly Cuckoo has no shortage of bad ideas. Besides battling “Obamacare,” climate science, the EPA,and women, he gives the newly insane neighboring NC General Assembly more bad ideas and inspiration. Once Cuckoo persecuted the state climate scientist, why, NC legislators realized they could forbid any state scientists from studying rising sea levels. And that’s only a fraction of of the cuckoo-ism that’s spread south of Virginia’s border. Perhaps Cuckoo’s problem is he doesn’t leave the state often enough.
Given how sniveling, pathetic and whacked is the GOP candidate, the real problem is that the state would be better off if he traveled 365 days of the year…the further away the better.
PS Thanks to the Washington Post for creating Faux News-like “importance” for the “sin” of Terry’s traveling in a free country to raise legal money to run in a supposedly free election.
Try as he might, Governor McDonnell has been unable to stem a rising tide of debt despite claiming budget surpluses each year he has been in office. Gimmicks like underfunding the Virginia Retirement System and the attempted liquidation of the ABC stores were smokescreens. This will be the McDonnell legacy.
The sorry fact is that Governor McDonnell has added billions to the debt of the Commonwealth. Holding him responsible only for the two full fiscal years that he owns completely (2011 and 2012), debt has risen $ 4.29 billion from $ 31.8 to $36.1 billion. That is a whopping 13.5% increase in only 2 years. And his budgetary genius will continue to daunt the Commonwealth for the next two fiscal years. That could mean that McDonnell would leave office with the legacy of a full one-quarter of all Virginia debt obligated during his single term. Who is a burden on our children’s future?
The next Governor faces a situation that was a red herring in the last gubernatorial race: increased costs of elevated debt rising from a reduced bond-rating. While there is no reliable metric for determining the risk threshold for bond ratings, the ratio the state has used to mitigate that risk is sounding a warning that that threshold is about 2 years out. As Republicans like to say, the market will be the final arbiter. And as Democrats in Virginia have learned, the consequences of Republican policy always occur on the Democrats’ watch (See Mark Warner).
What that means is that despite a victory of sorts for the transportation funding, other areas of government spending will remain tight until the economy improves dramatically unless we continue to borrow or we raise taxes. Increased taxes are probably not going to happen before any calamity. Of course, borrowing will lead directly to breaching the bond rating threshold, increasing the cost of debt and threatening the funding for already underfunded programs; a vicious cycle.
With the threshold two years away and limited influence over the budgets for the intervening fiscal years, Terry McAuliffe wants to deal with this mess? And what exactly would Cuccinelli do? The prospects are onerous.
Leesburg – Democratic candidate for Attorney General State Senator Mark Herring (Loudoun & Fairfax) released the following statement today following President Obama signing the Violence Against Women Act:
“I applaud President Obama for his leadership in getting the Violence Against Women Act reauthorized by Congress. Signing this bill into law sends a clear message that we are committed to reducing domestic violence, protecting women from sexual assault and securing justice for victims of these heinous crimes.
“Virginia deserves an Attorney General who will stand up for women every day, someone who will advocate on behalf of those who are victims of sexual and domestic violence. As a member of the state Senate, I passed legislation to strengthen penalties for strangulation, one of the most lethal forms of domestic violence, and I proudly served on the Governor’s Domestic Violence Response and Advisory Board. As Virginia’s next Attorney General, I will do everything in my power to make sure law enforcement and prosecutors have the tools they need to keep our families safe.”
Ken Cuccinelli is: “pro life, anti gay, and a climate change denier…[he’s] equated Medicare to mugging the sick and elderly…he has sued the EPA, he has suggested that gays are not protected by the 14th amendment, and he has said your Social Security number is being used to track you.” What a guy, huh?
Very interesting, Sen. Warner says that it can’t “be the position of the United States government that any institution should be too large to prosecute.” According to Sen. Warner’s website, he “had the gavel today as the Senate Banking Committee questioned financial regulators about their failure to date to pursue criminal prosecutions for big banks that have violated the law.” It’s good to see. Even better would be appropriate action against the appropriate people.
(Good for Aneesh for calling out this jerk. – promoted by lowkell)
By Aneesh Chopra
It’s more important than ever to expand access to Medicaid in Virginia. We must get this done. Governor McDonnell’s March 5th letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius is a troubling sign for what many thought was a deal on Medicaid expansion.
“Some media outlets and elected officials have labeled this as approving Medicaid expansion in Virginia,” wrote McDonnell in the letter. “This is absolutely incorrect.”
It’s time for Democrats and Republicans to come together and renew the pressure on the Governor to expand Medicaid. It’s too important to let this opportunity slip away. We can’t let partisan extremists put the health of hundreds of thousands of Virginians at risk.
An example of this extremism came today when Republican Lieutenant Governor candidate Pete Snyder claimed that “it's actually better to be uninsured than to be on Medicaid.” This claim is simply not true, and shows the lengths to which the current field of candidates will go to push their agenda.
The truth is that expanding Medicaid means 300,000 fewer uninsured Virginians — a reduction of more than 37%. It also means those 300,000 people would gain access to preventative care. That access will not only improve people's quality of lives, it also will save lives.
We need leaders who will put the health of Virginians ahead of partisan agendas. That’s how we will move the Commonwealth forward and that’s what I will do as Lieutenant Governor.
You don’t get any more ignorant, irresponsible, or heartless than this. Of course, Virginia Republican LG candidate Pete Snyder is just pulling this stuff out of his butt, making stuff up out of whole cloth, etc. What else is new? Oh, and as an added bonus, “Snyder also elevates the suspect $902 million price tag claim to ‘$902 billion,’ in an apparent typo in that post {on Bearing Drift}.” Meh, being off by a factor of a thousand, what’s that for a businessman? I mean, if one if his employees says, “hey boss, can I have a $1 million raise,” does Snyder think it’s the same as $1,000 and say “sure!”? LOL, sounds to me like a perfect pick for the Teahadist nomination!
P.S. Perhaps Synder should debate Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican who “begged reticent GOP lawmakers – many of whom showed up in black to protest Brewer’s decision – to look past politics and understand the human and financial toll that failing to pass the [Medicaid] expansion would instill on Arizonanas. “The human cost of this tragedy can’t be calculated,” Brewer said.”
On the John Fredericks Show this morning tore into Ken Cuccinelli, on several major grounds: 1) Cuccinelli’s been a lot more focused on politics than on problem solving, and “that’s the wrong approach for Virginia’s families”; 2) Cuccinelli “went after and persecuted a UVA professor he disagreed with on climate change…[Cuccinelli] used the full powers of the office of Attorney General to go after this scientist, because he disagreed with his science, which is absolutely outrageous and an abuse of power and downright unAmerican…Thomas Jefferson would be spinning in his grave”; 3) the persecution of Professor Mann “turned out just to be a pattern of abuses,” 4) because of Cuccinelli’s “brand of extreme politics, it will be harder and more expensive for Virginia women to receive health care.”
In stark contrast, Sen. Herring said that when he’s Attorney General, he’ll be focused on “making voting easier, not harder;” “mak[ing] sure the law is working for Virginia families and that we are protecting the rights of people to make their own personal choices about health care and contraception;” “doing what we can to help keep Virginia safe;” “giving law enforcement the tools they need, like updating the laws on designer drugs;” and “that we’re doing everything we can to protect women from domestic violence and abuse.”
Sen. Herring also noted that most of Cuccinelli’s lawsuits have not been successful (e.g., his failed lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, a failed lawsuit against the EPA), while being very expensive to taxpayers.
Sen. Herring corrected John Fredericks on what is at best utter ignorance, at worst an egregious, outright lie. According to Fredericks, “overall government spending in the state of Virginia has gone up dramatically…if you go back to a 6-year period.” In fact, as Sen. Herring points out, the general fund budget today was about equal in 2011 to when Herring took office, in 2006. Also, according to PolitiFact, Tim Kaine was correct that “the general fund budget was smaller at the end of his gubernatorial term than at the start.” But don’t believe a Democrat, how about Gov. McDonnell, who brags that “[o]ver the past two years we have eliminated $6 billion in budget shortfalls, and set spending back to nearly 2007 levels.” So what on earth is John Fredericks talking about? Sadly, it’s the myth that Republicans constantly push, that “spending is out of control,” and it’s just flat-out false.
In other news, Sen. Herring discusses his vote for Gov. McDonnell’s transportation package. The main reasons? Transportation gridlock has been hurting Virginia’s ability to grow our economy; to maintain (let alone enhance) our quality of life; to maintain our attractiveness to businesses thinking about coming to our state and our ability to recruit potential employees to places like northern Virginia, etc. In addition, this transportation funding will help fund rail to Dulles and keep tolls from skyrocketing on the Dulles Toll Road. Of course, Herring points out, the bill’s “not perfect,” but “on balance it does a lot more good than harm.”
Herring was asked whether he believed in government transparency, and he responded that he’s “a huge believer in open government.” That includes doing a better job of putting budget information online. Surely, Herring says, we can do that in the “internet capital of the world.”
On the issue of drones, Sen. Herring said we “have to be careful about how law enforcement uses drones, and I’m concerned…that we completely lose our sense of freedom and privacy due to someone looking around through drones…that is a legitimate concern.” Having said that, “there are also probably important times when the unmanned vehicles could probably, in a particular law enforcement action…can save lives…might be an appropriate use of unmanned vehicles, but we’ve got to be real careful about how and when law enforcement goes about employing those types of tactics.”
Finally, Sen. Herring discussed his campaign for AG, including his long list of endorsements and his view that it would be ideal for both Democrats and Republicans to have a primary to select their nominees in June.
Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, March 7.
