If you had any doubt that Grover Norquist was a fanatic, evil little troll, check out this video. I’m not sure how you can come to any other conclusion that this guy is a menace to our nation. What should Virginia politicians do regarding Grover Norquist’s demands? Very simple: raise your middle fingers, tell Grover where to shove it.
( – promoted by lowkell)
The Virginia General Assembly will soon wrap up its work on the 2013 legislative session. Renewable energy advocates began the session with high hopes for a series of bills that promised to reform our renewable energy law, expand net-metering, and open up new opportunities for financing solar systems and small wind turbines.
So how did we do? Well, this is Virginia. Progress is slow, the utilities are powerful, and half the legislature doesn’t believe in climate change. On the other hand, they do believe in business. Under the circumstances, we did okay.
Renewable Portfolio Standards: bye-bye, bonuses
Readers of this blog already know the long, miserable tale of Virginia’s weak and ineffective, voluntary renewable portfolio standard (RPS), which has enriched utilities with tens of millions of dollars in incentives without bringing any new renewable energy projects to Virginia. This year the legislature went halfway to fixing the problem. Legislation negotiated between the office of the Attorney General and the utilities will deprive utilities of future ill-gotten gains for meeting the RPS law, but won’t change the pathetic nature of the law itself.
Stripping out the RPS incentives was only part of a bigger, more complex bill that sweetens the deal for utilities in other ways, so it’s hard to judge whether the legislation as a whole marks a victory for consumers. Skeptics will note that Dominion’s stock price has actually gone up several percentage points since the deal was announced, which you wouldn’t expect if the AG were correct that the bill will save consumers close to a billion dollars over time.
What is clear is that the RPS remains as voluntary and as crummy as it ever was, but the utilities can no longer use it to rip off ratepayers while pretending to be good citizens. Some environmental groups consider stripping out the incentives a bad thing, on the theory that only by giving utilities a bonus can we expect them to meet the goals. Other groups (including the Sierra Club) believe Dominion, at least, will want to maintain its greenwashed public image by continuing to meet the RPS goals, and that ending the consumer rip-off is worth celebrating.
Sure, if the goals had brought wind and solar to Virginia, the Sierra Club would have considered the incentives a tolerable price to pay. As it happened, Dominion and the other utilities continuously rebuffed efforts over the years to improve the RPS. Had Dominion approached the RPS as an opportunity to bring real renewable energy to Virginia rather than as a cash cow to be milked for its own advantage, the company would have saved itself a public relations fiasco and likely kept its bonuses, too. Surely, someone at HQ should be out of a job right now.
Taking the long view, it is also worth noting that getting rid of the free money is a necessary first step towards a mandatory RPS in Virginia, which would unleash market forces for renewable energy that don’t emerge with a voluntary law. Utilities would oppose such a move more vigorously if they still had incentives to protect that were available only under the voluntary program.
. . . but reform efforts fail again
These views all assume the legislature will someday pass a bill to improve the goals and bring wind and solar projects to Virginia, without which the RPS is meaningless anyway. Surely legislators must recognize how pointless it is to have an RPS that can be met with out-of-state, pre-World War II hydro, plus some trash and wood-burning and a few assorted projects that put no power on the grid. (Even without the performance incentives, utilities remain entitled to pass along to customers the cost of meeting the RPS goals.)
Bills to improve the goals should have passed the legislature this year as part of the reform package. HB 1946 (Lopez) and SB 1269 (McEachin) even received the support of Dominion Power for provisions that would limit most future purchases for the RPS to high-quality projects like wind and solar. What killed the bills seems to have been a combination of opposition from vested interests and sheer cussedness on the part of some Republicans, who were engaged in partisan maneuvers that had nothing at all to do with renewable energy.
As usual, we are left hoping for better luck next year. Meanwhile, however, a couple of other RPS bills made incremental progress. Most notably, HB 1917 (Surovell) adds solar thermal energy to the definition of renewable energy; as of this writing it has passed the House and is on the Senate floor.
A loss for more honest competition among fuels
There are more ways to support renewable energy than through an RPS, of course. One of my favorite bills would have required utilities and the State Corporation Commission to consider the long-term price stability of fuels used in electric power generation. HB 1943 (Lopez) would have helped price-stable wind and solar compete against notoriously price-volatile natural gas. It’s an idea that should appeal to fair-minded conservatives, so it’s a shame it hasn’t gained traction since first being introduced in 2012. However, it died in committee in the face of opposition from Dominion Power, which doesn’t want any interference with its plans for new natural gas plants.
Power Purchase Agreements get a “pilot”
Two bills passed the legislature to allow some third-party power purchase agreements (PPAs) for wind and solar within Dominion’s territory. Under a PPA, an installer retains ownership of the solar equipment, with the customer buying the electricity that is generated. This arrangement has two primary advantages: the customer can “go solar” with no money down and no responsibility for the equipment; and in the case of a tax-exempt entity like a church or a university, it provides a way to access federal tax credits worth 30% of the system cost.
The bills were designed to prevent a recurrence of a dispute that erupted in 2011 when a Staunton-based solar company, Secure Futures, installed a large solar system at Washington & Lee University under a PPA. Dominion issued “cease and desist” letters insisting that only it could sell electricity in its assigned territory. Although Virginia law is unclear on this point, the university and the solar company capitulated in the face of massive litigation costs. Since then Dominion’s army of lawyers has proven as effective as any statute in stopping further efforts to use PPAs in Virginia.
This year’s bills, SB 1023 (Edwards) and HB 2334 (Yancey), were originally written to allow third-party PPAs wherever customers can currently install renewable energy systems that they own themselves. They were significantly scaled back to win acceptance from Dominion Power. (AEP and the coops wouldn’t play at all, so legal ambiguity remains the rule in their territories.)
The bills allow up to 50 megawatts’ worth of solar and wind installations using PPAs, in Dominion territory only, as a pilot program. Whether net-metered or not, they will be counted against the current net-metering cap of 1% of the utility’s generation. Tax-exempt entities can have a facility of any size up to 1 megawatt (500 kW if they net meter); taxable entities must have a minimum size of at least 50 kW (so no homeowner need apply). PPAs that do not meet the requirements are expressly prohibited in Dominion territory.
Agricultural net metering, yes; community net metering, no
A bill to allow agricultural net metering also passed this year. HB 1695 (Minchew) allows the electricity from a single solar, wind, or digester gas facility to be attributed to two or more electricity meters as long as they are all on the same property and have the same owner. Thus, for example, a farmhouse, barn and other out-buildings can all share in the benefits of solar panels on one of the buildings, even if each building is separately metered.
Originally the bill would also have enabled community net metering, sometimes known as solar gardens, but the utilities opposed it. Bowing to political reality, Delegate Minchew scaled it back. The bill is notable, however, for making progress without including any provisions that seem capable of doing mischief.
A note about all the bills: In Virginia, the governor can sign a bill, veto it, or send it back to the legislature with amendments of his own, so none of these bills are final as of this writing.
You know, it’s bad enough that the newspaper I read in “dead tree” form every day (the Washington, aka “Kaplan” Post) increasingly bites the big one. But the New York Times? Since I was a kid, I’ve always viewed that newspaper as the be-all, end-all of newspapers, la creme de la creme, “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” you name it. But a few more miserable days like today, and I might have to start questioning that long-held view of mine.
Exhibit A: An embarrassingly abysmal column, by NY Times business reporter Joe Nocera, entitled How Not to Fix Climate Change. Over at Daily Kos, energy guru Adam Siegel has done a superb job demolishing Nocera’s idiocy, so no need to repeat it here. In sum, though, the guy clearly has no clue what he’s talking about when it comes to: a) energy; b) economics; c) mathematics; or d) politics. Other than that, he’s spot on! (snark) Also, since when did the NY Times feel that it was ok for one of its leading columnists to resort to ad hominem attacks – in this case against climate and clean energy champions Bill McKibben, Michael Brune, and James Hansen, all of whom are making a gazillion times more of a difference than Joe Nocera ever will – in place of an actual argument?As Adam Siegel puts it, the NY Times should be embarrassed, but sadly it probably won’t be. Sigh.
Exhibit B: In its own way, Is There Room for Varied Approaches to Energy and Climate Progress? by NY Times “Dot Earth” blogger Andrew Revkin is even more cringe-inducingly lame (if that’s humanly possible) than Nocera’s article. While Nocera simply demonstrates utter ignorance, which is bad enough, Revkin doesn’t even realize how pathetic he comes across, as he desperately tries to be a “Very Serious Person,” aka “Reasonable Man.” Those latter two phrases come from David Roberts’ epic skewering or Revkin, seriously one of the best blog posts I’ve read in a long time. In short, Roberts takes “a calm look at the Reasonable Revkin take on Keystone activism, representative as it is of a certain VSP consensus,” and very seriously, totally reasonably, demolishes it. I strongly recommend it.
OK, so one last comment and I’m done bashing the corporate for the day (no worries; the thrashings will resume tomorrow!). Check out this story, in which a former CNN producer lifts the curtain a bit on the the warped priorities, not to mention almost complete lack of “information with redeeming value,” of the leading cable “news” channels (CNN and Fox, in this case). But then again, we knew that right?
See the “flip” for a transcript. The bottom line is that Democrats have offered a compromise plan to avoid the sequester, one that is balanced between revenue increases (e.g., by closing tax loopholes which benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations) and smart – not meat cleaver, like the current sequester calls for – spending cuts.
Unfortunately, Republicans are being…well, the usual (for them, that is): rigidly (anti-tax, anti-government) ideological, refusing to raise revenues one dime, no real plan of their own to rein in entitlement spending (unless you count Paul Ryan’s plan to gut/privatize Medicare a “plan”). ‘
Anyway, I’m happy to see President Obama dispensing with the false equivalence and “both sides” nonsense, and instead calling out Republicans for their wildly irresponsible, reckless, harmful behavior. Now, if only the Bob McDonnells of the world would do the same, and stop pretending that this problem isn’t overwhelmingly the fault of his own party, beholden as it is (and as HE is!) to Grover Norquist, the Koch brothers, etc.
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON THE SEQUESTERSouth Court Auditorium
10:50 A.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. (Applause.) Please have a seat. Well, welcome to the White House.
As I said in my State of the Union address last week, our top priority must be to do everything we can to grow the economy and create good, middle-class jobs. That’s our top priority. That’s our North Star. That drives every decision we make. And it has to drive every decision that Congress and everybody in Washington makes over the next several years.
And that’s why it’s so troubling that just 10 days from now, Congress might allow a series of automatic, severe budget cuts to take place that will do the exact opposite. It won’t help the economy, won’t create jobs, will visit hardship on a whole lot of people.
Here’s what’s at stake. Over the last few years, both parties have worked together to reduce our deficits by more than $2.5 trillion. More than two-thirds of that was through some pretty tough spending cuts. The rest of it was through raising taxes — tax rates on the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. And together, when you take the spending cuts and the increased tax rates on the top 1 percent, it puts us more than halfway towards the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists say we need to stabilize our finances.
Now, Congress, back in 2011, also passed a law saying that if both parties couldn’t agree on a plan to reach that $4 trillion goal, about a trillion dollars of additional, arbitrary budget cuts would start to take effect this year. And by the way, the whole design of these arbitrary cuts was to make them so unattractive and unappealing that Democrats and Republicans would actually get together and find a good compromise of sensible cuts as well as closing tax loopholes and so forth. And so this was all designed to say we can’t do these bad cuts; let’s do something smarter. That was the whole point of this so-called sequestration.
Unfortunately, Congress didn’t compromise. They haven’t come together and done their jobs, and so as a consequence, we’ve got these automatic, brutal spending cuts that are poised to happen next Friday.
Now, if Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take place, it will jeopardize our military readiness; it will eviscerate job-creating investments in education and energy and medical research. It won’t consider whether we’re cutting some bloated program that has outlived its usefulness, or a vital service that Americans depend on every single day. It doesn’t make those distinctions.
Emergency responders like the ones who are here today — their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded. Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced. FBI agents will be furloughed. Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go. Air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, which means more delays at airports across the country. Thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off. Tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find childcare for their kids. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings.
And already, the threat of these cuts has forced the Navy to delay an aircraft carrier that was supposed to deploy to the Persian Gulf. And as our military leaders have made clear, changes like this — not well thought through, not phased in properly — changes like this affect our ability to respond to threats in unstable parts of the world.
So these cuts are not smart. They are not fair. They will hurt our economy. They will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls. This is not an abstraction — people will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again.
And that’s why Democrats, Republicans, business leaders, and economists, they’ve already said that these cuts, known here in Washington as sequestration, are a bad idea. They’re not good for our economy. They’re not how we should run our government.
And here’s the thing: They don’t have to happen. There is a smarter way to do this — to reduce our deficits without harming our economy. But Congress has to act in order for that to happen.
Now, for two years, I’ve offered a balanced approach to deficit reduction that would prevent these harmful cuts. I outlined it again last week at the State of the Union. I am willing to cut more spending that we don’t need, get rid of programs that aren’t working. I’ve laid out specific reforms to our entitlement programs that can achieve the same amount of health care savings by the beginning of the next decade as the reforms that were proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission. I’m willing to save hundreds of billions of dollars by enacting comprehensive tax reform that gets rid of tax loopholes and deductions for the well off and well connected, without raising tax rates.
I believe such a balanced approach that combines tax reform with some additional spending reforms, done in a smart, thoughtful way is the best way to finish the job of deficit reduction and avoid these cuts once and for all that could hurt our economy, slow our recovery, put people out of work. And most Americans agree with me.
The House and the Senate are working on budgets that I hope reflect this approach. But if they can’t get such a budget agreement done by next Friday — the day these harmful cuts begin to take effect — then at minimum, Congress should pass a smaller package of spending cuts and tax reforms that would prevent these harmful cuts — not to kick the can down the road, but to give them time to work together on a plan that finishes the job of deficit reduction in a sensible way.
I know Democrats in the House and in the Senate have proposed such a plan — a balanced plan, one that pairs more spending cuts with tax reform that closes special interest loopholes and makes sure that billionaires can’t pay a lower tax rate than their salary — their secretaries.
And I know that Republicans have proposed some ideas, too. I have to say, though, that so far at least the ideas that the Republicans have proposed ask nothing of the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations, so the burden is all on first responders or seniors or middle-class families. They double down, in fact, on the harsh, harmful cuts that I’ve outlined. They slash Medicare and investments that create good, middle-class jobs. And so far at least what they’ve expressed is a preference where they’d rather have these cuts go into effect than close a single tax loophole for the wealthiest Americans. Not one.
Well, that’s not balanced. That would be like Democrats saying we have to close our deficits without any spending cuts whatsoever. It’s all taxes. That’s not the position Democrats have taken. That’s certainly not the position I’ve taken. It’s wrong to ask the middle class to bear the full burden of deficit reduction. And that’s why I will not sign a plan that harms the middle class.
So now Republicans in Congress face a simple choice: Are they willing to compromise to protect vital investments in education and health care and national security and all the jobs that depend on them? Or would they rather put hundreds of thousands of jobs and our entire economy at risk just to protect a few special interest tax loopholes that benefit only the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations? That’s the choice.
Are you willing to see a bunch of first responders lose their job because you want to protect some special interest tax loophole? Are you willing to have teachers laid off, or kids not have access to Head Start, or deeper cuts in student loan programs just because you want to protect a special tax interest loophole that the vast majority of Americans don’t benefit from? That’s the choice. That’s the question.
And this is not an abstraction. There are people whose livelihoods are at stake. There are communities that are going to be impacted in a negative way. And I know that sometimes all this squabbling in Washington seems very abstract, and in the abstract, people like the idea, there must be some spending we can cut, there must be some waste out there. There absolutely is. But this isn’t the right way to do it.
So my door is open. I’ve put tough cuts and reforms on the table. I am willing to work with anybody to get this job done. None of us will get 100 percent of what we want. But nobody should want these cuts to go through, because the last thing our families can afford right now is pain imposed unnecessarily by partisan recklessness and ideological rigidity here in Washington.
As I said at the State of the Union, the American people have worked too hard, too long, rebuilding from one crisis to see their elected officials cause yet another one. And it seems like every three months around here there’s some manufactured crisis. We’ve got more work to do than to just try to dig ourselves out of these self-inflicted wounds.
And while a plan to reduce our deficit has to be part of our agenda, we also have to remember deficit reduction alone is not an economic plan. We learned in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was President, nothing shrinks the deficit faster than a growing economy that creates good, middle-class jobs. That should be our driving focus — making America a magnet for good jobs. Equipping our people with the skills required to fill those jobs. Making sure their hard work leads to a decent living. Those are the things we should be pushing ourselves to think about and work on every single day. That’s what the American people expect. That’s what I’m going to work on every single day to help deliver.
So I need everybody who’s watching today to understand we’ve got a few days. Congress can do the right thing. We can avert just one more Washington-manufactured problem that slows our recovery, and bring down our deficits in a balanced, responsible way. That’s my goal. That’s what would do right by these first responders. That’s what would do right by America’s middle class. That’s what I’m going to be working on and fighting for not just over the next few weeks, but over the next few years.
Thanks very much, everybody. Thank you, guys, for your service. (Applause.)
END 11:05 A.M. EST
( – promoted by lowkell)
This article appeared this past weekend in the Northern Virginia Daily and, in a shorter version, in Staunton’s Virginia News Leader.
What are we to believe about the size of government and the level of government spending?
Republicans say that the U.S. government has become way too big and that Americans are grossly overtaxed. Is that true?
In the United States, the rate of taxation is lower, and the size of government in relation to the size of the economy is smaller, than in just about every other nation like ours-rich, free, capitalistic, democratic societies.
Our peers around the world have decided that the best balance between the things that can be bought by people separately in the market and the things we have to buy together through tax dollars means having a government as big as ours, or bigger. So if Republicans are right, and government and taxation are too big, then not only are Americans foolish — every other society like ours is foolish.
In the Declaration of Independence, our Founders called for “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind.” And dismissing as foolish the judgment of dozens of advanced societies like ours hardly seems in keeping with that “decent respect.”
The attempt to discredit government and reduce its size may serve some interests but not the people. For example, government is the only entity strong enough to serve as a check on the huge agglomerations of private power in our big corporations.
The issue shouldn’t be the size of government but how wisely and justly we use it.
When Republicans call for cuts in spending, they take the position that we need to cut back on social programs and, indeed, on virtually every aspect of non-defense discretionary spending. But they strongly oppose cuts to defense spending. Is this the way to make America the best that it can be?
Republicans have in recent years encouraged the habit of boasting about our country, “We’re number 1.” And when it comes to defense spending, we are indeed far and away number 1. The United States spends almost as much on defense as the rest of the nations of the world combined. And most of the other large defense budgets are in countries that are our allies, not our enemies.
Is military spending the part of the budget where more spending will do most to help this nation fulfill its potential?
We’re also number 1 of all the nations on earth in how many of our people are in prison, number 1 among the 20 major advanced nations in the rate of infant mortality; in income inequality; in the proportion of our people, especially our children, who live in poverty; in how much we spend per person on health care, while also having the most people who go without health care because of cost.
Shouldn’t these be the kinds of areas where we invest?
Among advanced nations, we have the highest homicide rate; the second-highest high school drop-out rate; the highest rate of obesity; and the lowest rate of social mobility (the ability of people to climb up to a higher economic level than that into which they were born).
In tests of students from around the world, in various subjects, America’s children come out far from the top.
Are you satisfied with this picture? I’m not.
What does it say about a political party if it protects that part of the budget where we’re already fat, and wants to trim areas where we are hurting and deficient?
What kind of patriot brags about his country’s greatness while advocating policies that undermine its true strength?
*******************
A reminder that I will be talking tomorrow evening — presenting a political strategy for Democrats in heavily Republican districts — at the University of Virginia, at 6 PM, in Room 108 of Clark Hall.
by Paul Goldman
I know there are Virginia Bar rules against the firm of Morrissey and Goldman, LLC advertising for clients. But in the case of Cuccinelli vs Cuccinelli for Governor, the easy $10 million verdict, considering the legal fee, is worth the risk. We will promise to give 33% of the fee to worthy charities if the bar insists. Heck, we will do it anyway: this is easy money, it is almost shameful to get paid for this case.
It is said “silence is golden.” Says who? In politics, on this issue of a record Gas Tax Increase, silence is like the money Bob Marshall wants Virginia to mint. IT IS WORTHLESS POLITICALLY. Indeed, silence has cost Cuccinelli big time. Malpractice Zone time.
Take This To The Bank: There is no scenario where any candidate running for Governor this year helps himself by supporting the Record Gas Tax Increase that passed the Senate. NONE, AS IN NO ONE, NOT UNDER ANY POSSIBLE POLITICAL SCENARIO.
Therefore: Cuccinelli’s stance on the Record Gas Tax Increase defies political logic on any level.
Senate Democrats have given him weeks to lead the fight against a record gas tax increase. Now, even rival Bill Bolling is FOR IT.
For an underdog, it has been the gift that should have kept on giving. For a campaign in need of an issue – any issue to draw attention for a social agenda way too conservative for swing voters on an historical basis – the Gas Tax issue was a God send. I thought Republicans believed in GOD. Maybe not so much after all.
I DEFY ANYONE IN EITHER PARTY, TO EXPLAIN HOW A CONSERVATIVE NOMINEE OF THE GOP COULD POSSIBLY BACK A RECORD GAS TAX INCREASE THIS YEAR. Yes, even if the Governor and the Speaker and House Republicans go crazy and back it.
The price of gas has gone up roughly 100% since this time in Warner’s last term. It is on the high side again right now. The average swing voter is paying $1400 more to fill up the tank. Even using inflation adjusted numbers, the hit is $1,100.
Anyone seen by the public as adding to the price increase risk a big backlash. The operative word in politics here: “seen” as in perception. Backing even a penny increase in the gas tax has a lot more than a penny’s worth of political risk.
Like it or not: When you run for Governor, it is always 200-proof politics. Some hide it better than others, some are more honest about it than others. But the winners ALL do it. Terry has to oppose a record gas tax increase. Only a non-serious candidate like Bolling can possibly back it.
Which brings me back to Cuccinelli: It takes a month to think about whether the campaign is going to oppose a record gas tax increase? This is one piece of the transportation puzzle that IS A NO BRAINER THIS YEAR.
Which means: Cuccinelli has wasted a month, wasted day after day when he could be out there, on the side of the public, fighting a record increase in a tax the average working Virginian really, really doesn’t like.
But liberals say: It doesn’t really add much to the increase in the price of gas. Go try to make that argument to the voters. Put that in a TV AD. Normally, I would say Cuccinelli would pay for it. But who knows, he might be running one of his own.
My legal opinion: It has been nothing less than POLITICAL MALPRACTICE for the Cuccinelli campaign to have blown this opportunity. The law firm of Morrissey and Goldman handle all kinds of malpractice actions. We don’t discriminate on sexual orientation, race, religion, politics, whatever. If you need justice, come to us.
Depending on the facts I figure we could win Cuccinelli a $10 million verdict given how much money he is going to waste because of it. Maybe $20 million.
In all my years in Virginia politics, his campaign’s refusal to lead the fight against a record gas tax increase is the most baffling gubernatorial election strategy in my experience.
My email is Goldmanusa@aol.com. If you can provide a worse case of campaign malpractice by a campaign for the presumptive nominee of a major party in Virginia, please email. Moreover, this is not a case of 20-20 hindsight as reader’s of this column on 200% proof politics know.
(Interesting endorsement, nice “get” for Aneesh Chopra no doubt. I’m not convinced that endorsements make a lot of difference in most cases…except when they do! LOL. Anyway, we’ll see whether this one helps Chopra. – promoted by lowkell)
Aneesh Chopra, Democratic candidate for Virginia Lt. Governor is proud to announce that he has received the endorsement of former Rep. Tom Perriello.
About the endorsement, Perriello said:
“Today, Virginia faces a choice – whether to be defined by our promising future or the divisions of our past. I’m endorsing Aneesh Chopra for Lieutenant Governor because he understands that politics is about coming together to tackle our most difficult problems and win the race for tomorrow’s jobs, education, and technology. He has lived his professional life at the cutting edge of innovation and economic growth, and will bring great energy and vision to the tasking of creating a stronger Commonwealth for future generations.”
Chopra, who served as Virginia’s Secretary of Technology under Governor Kaine, and as U.S. Chief Technology Officer under President Obama, is excited to have Perriello’s support:
“Tom Perriello has spent his career dedicated to the principles of equality and fairness. I am honored and humbled to receive his endorsement. Tom believes, like I do, that politics must be about coming together to find ways to make our government work better for all. I look forward to working with Tom, and all Virginians, to move the Commonwealth forward.”
Tom Perriello is the President and C.E.O. of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. From 2009 until 2011, Perriello represented Virginia’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
This post has been cross-posted from Richmond Progressive Examiner.
The man of the people (of Virginia) Ken Cuccinelli, the commonwealth’s attorney general, needed robust security for his book signing at the Barnes and Noble in Tysons Corner according to Blue Virginia’s Lowell Feld.
Now imagine if Ken Cuccinelli became the next governor of Virginia. How much security would he surround himself with then?! Let me wager a guess and say enough security to fend off a lot of angry Virginians.
From all indications, Ken Cuccinelli gets a kick out of pissing Virginians off who don’t stand on the same ideological razor’s edge as he does. He seems to think it’s a game of realpolitik, ideological zealotry, and just a dash of fun spread into the mix.
Cuccinelli’s in-your-face political style is hardly what Virginia needs in their attorney general, let alone their governor. Compromise, compromise, what is compromise?!
Furthermore, Cuccinelli’s hour-long book signing at Barnes and Noble on Saturday is representative of what a Cuccinelli governorship would look like: short on ideas, high on himself, surrounded by security, and readily accessible only to those individuals who stand on his political side of the fence.
Somehow, a sizable number of Virginians see Cuccinelli as ‘their guy’, the individual who can finally infuse government with…anti-government policies.
But the issue is not government itself. The issue that America truly needs to address is bad governance. And bad governance starts with prohibiting government from filling the spaces that the private sector will not, cannot, or should not fill itself (i.e., Veterans benefits; Medicare; Medicaid, etc.).
Our current political imbroglio’s are not between anti-business and pro-business enthusiasts. Our current political dilemmas are between those who see the necessity of a public-private symbiotic relationship and those who find mutual exclusivity between the two spheres of life in America.
For the Cuccinellis of the world, government is a beast that must be tamed. The irony is, of course, that Cuccinelli is the one who has volunteered to seat himself on the saddle of government, a position he is unlikely to use to put that horse to sleep.
Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Tuesday, February 19.
*Obama To Call On Congress To Avert Mandatory Spending Cuts – Again (“The president will endorse Senate Democrats’ plan to avoid the sequester.”)
*Navy officials warn cuts could hurt fleet, forces, safety, morale (Same thing on the civilian side of the government, of course.)
*Senate shelves constitutional amendment on state takeover of failing schools
*House, Senate swap revised road proposals
*VA Gov. Bob McDonnell: Sequester Could Force Virginia Into Recession (He’s just figuring that out NOW?!? My god…)
*Democrats say GOP wants to make voting harder (Republicans wage war on voting in Virginia, for absolutely no good reason, simply for their own political benefit. The Justice Department needs to step in on this one.)
*Smith’s budget transparency bill dies quietly in the House
*Editorial: A cure for failing schools (“Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proposal threatens to expand in scope but he has yet to offer adequate funding.”)
*Virginia House panel votes down teacher salary bill
*Another attack on women’s health care (Sen. Mark Herring: “It is outrageous that McDonnell is continuing to play politics with the health of women. I strongly urge the governor to re-think his amendment and instead work to ensure that every Virginia woman has the comprehensive and accessible health care she needs.”)
*Pro-uranium radio ad asks McDonnell for support (They certainly aren’t giving up easily!)
*Bill penalizing straw buyers of guns advances
*General Assembly: First, do no harm
*Last bicycle tailgating bill dies in Virginia House (Why do Virginia Republicans hate cyclists?)
*Defy Obamacare, LG candidate tells Republicans (EW Jackson is stark raving mad.)
*LG candidate touts support in new ad
*Kaine to speak out on defense cuts at shipyard (“Scott holds community event on sequestration”)
*Discriminatory bill needs a veto
*Concussion bill progressing in Va. General Assembly
*Va. Assembly approves bill on parental access to dead child’s Facebook
The Virginia Republican war on cyclists continues. First, it was Sen. Chap Petersen’s attempt to protect cyclists from car “dooring.” Now, it’s bill SB 1060 (patroned by Sen. Bryce Reeves), that would have banned tailgating bicycles. This bill passed the Senate by an overwhelming, 30-9 vote (Republicans Carrico, Garrett, Marsh, Martin, Obenshain, Ruff, Stanley, Stuart, Watkins voted no), but was killed in the House of Delegates on a 55-42 vote, with almost all the “no” votes being Republicans (actually, I don’t consider Johnny Joannou to be a Democrat, so that only leaves Joseph P. Johnson, Jr.; other than that, it was all Republicans).
