Wow, tough choice!  

Dear Lowell,

Last year, we kicked off our first “Turkey of the Year” award to honor the Virginian who acted the biggest fool. For this year's award, the race comes down to Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and our reigning turkey, Governor Gob McDonnell. It's too close to call so we need your help! Both Bob McDonnell and Ken Cuccinelli have made picking a winner a real turkey shoot – but we need to know which was the worst for you. So vote (again) today:

• Vote for Ken Cuccinelli – The Attorney General's a strong contender for this year's Turkey, based on his record of manipulating his office and the law for his own partisan political agenda. Bullying the State Board of Health in an attempt to shut down women's health clinics and limit access to safe and legal abortion has earned him a spot on our ballot.
• Vote for Bob McDonnell – Our reigning Turkey took the top prize last year for his outrageous budget gimmicks. This year's nomination isn't too far off that mark: 3 years into his term, Virginians are still waiting for the transportation solutions McDonnell promised. While we're sitting in traffic, he's maxed out the state credit card and proposed tolls on I-95. Is it enough to earn him the top prize two years in a row?

Just because the robocalls and campaign ads are over doesn't mean you have to stop voting. Combat your post-election withdrawal by casting a ballot for our “Turkey of the Year.”

Vote now and tell us why McDonnell or Cuccinelli is your “Turkey of the Year!”

Anna Scholl
ProgressVA

Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, November 9.

*Warmer still: Extreme climate predictions appear most accurate, report says (Uh, guys? We need to do something about this NOW! “Skeptics” and “deniers?” Go f*** yourselves.)

*Let’s Not Make a Deal (To say the obvious: Democrats won an amazing victory,” except for the House. On that front, “President Obama has to make a decision, almost immediately, about how to deal with continuing Republican obstruction. How far should he go in accommodating the G.O.P.’s demands? My answer is, not far at all. “)

*Republicans start review to find out what went wrong (Uhhh…your party’s seen by many Americans as extremist, intolerant, misogynistic and nuts?)

*GOP’s rejection of higher tax rates an obstacle to debt deal (Speaking of extremist and nuts…)

*Republicans To Obama On Taxes: Let’s Compromise By Not Raising Taxes (Ditto.)

*State of denial (“The real blow to Republicans may be not that they failed to take the White House, but that they did not lose more heavily.” So true. The question is, are they like Germany after World War I?)

*A new America speaks

*The emerging America (“While Wattenberg’s party, the GOP, has taken to looking at this new America with anxiety and fear, he was right. What the world saw this week was a picture of America at its best: edgy, experimental, open-minded – and brilliantly diverse.”)

*McAuliffe confirms he’s in the 2013 race for governor (Get ready for lots and lots of Bill Clinton next year – and Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, George Clinton…well, maybe not the last two, but you get the idea.)

*Warner likely to stay in Senate with McAuliffe making second Virginia governor run

*Warner: There are 70 votes in U.S. Senate for debt deal (We’ll see. Meanwhile, what about the Teapublican House?)

*Bolling on ’13: ‘Firebrand’ can’t win Virginia (Bolling’s argument against Cuccinelli clearly has to be electability, plus experience and the backing of key Republicans like Bob McDonnell. I still don’t think he can beat Kookinelli, but what other choice does Bolling have other than run again for LG or quit?)

*McDonnell wants agencies to find potential budget cuts

*Seventh time’s the charm? Virginia senator tries again for early voting (Nope, the Republican House won’t pass this, but thank you for trying Senator Howell!)

*McDonnell holds off on state health care exchange (“Says information lacking; D.C., Maryland push to meet target” #FAIL)

*Will Rick Boucher be the last Democratic congressman from Southwest Virginia? (Sadly, it’s possible…ugh.)

*Editorial: Victories for marriage equality (“Voters went 4 for 4 Tuesday on same-sex couples. Sadly, Virginia will not soon follow.”)

*Editorial: Don’t leave your vote in limbo (“Voters who cast provisional ballots should visit their registrar before noon.”)

*Richmond officials grilled on Redskins deal

*Opponents of $80m Arlington pool cry foul

*Police Prevent UVA Students from Attending Public Board Meeting

With the election (thankfully, finally!) over and President Obama reelected (hallelujah!), it’s time to start focusing on priorities for a second term. In my mind, other than the country’s economy and fiscal situation, the #1 item on the “to-do” list for the next four years is clearly dealing with climate change. This isn’t just a “special interest,” it’s a grave threat to the planet we all call home. The fact is, if we don’t take strong action very soon, we’re going to be witnessing a lot more storms like Hurricane Sandy, along with melting ice caps, rising sea levels (and acidification of the oceans), mass extinctions (eventually including our own if we’re not careful), and other outcomes too awful to contemplate.

Fortunately, we can do something about all this, and it’s a huge undertaking, but it’s not really that complicated. Simply stated: we need to switch from an economy powered by the carbon-based fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) of the 18th and 19th centuries to one powered by the non-carbon-based energy sources (solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, wave, and of course energy efficiency) of a modern, 21st century economy. The broad question, is mankind capable of rising to this enormous, existential challenge before it’s too late? More specifically, is the our country’s political system capable of doing anything this big?

Here’s the question posed by one of the best thinkers on all this, David Roberts of Grist:

President Obama made a nod to climate change in his reelection victory speech, but does he actually intend to act on the issue in his second term? Will he follow up on his 2008 promise to slow the rise of the oceans, or will he stick with his oil-, gas-, and pipeline-loving “all of the above” energy strategy? And could he get anything through Congress anyway?

My answer: an “all of the above” energy strategy may sounds good to focus groups, but it doesn’t keep the planet inhabitable for generations to come. It’s time we get serious and stop goofing around here, which is what we’ve been doing.

Thus, in the first term, we had a convoluted effort, hijacked in large part by fossil fuel industries, to put a price on carbon in a convoluted, roundabout way, with massive subsidies to fossil fuel corporations thrown in to sweeten the deal. This was the  core conservative idea, now bizarrely demonized by conservatives, called “cap and trade.” Unfortunately, although there’s a lot to say for that conservative idea, once it got into the “sausage factory” of our political system, it turned into something truly ugly. And then it didn’t pass anyway. Lose-Lose.

So, why didn’t we just put a price on carbon directly, via a carbon tax, revenue neutral or not? Simple: neither party wanted to say the word “tax,” let alone be seen by voters as imposing one on them. Ergo, the smoke-and-mirrors cap-and-trade scheme (a too-clever-by-half move idea from conservatives if we’ve ever seen one), which Republicans quickly relabled as “cap and tax,” thus putting the dreaded “t” word in there and turning it into political poison, despite all the convolutions. In sum, “cap and trade” turned into the worse of all worlds – overly complicated, too many giveaways to corporations, labeled a “tax” anyway, AND didn’t pass! Well, that idea’s dead and buried now, so what next?

My proposal is simple: let’s go back to the core concept here and not get overly complicated: simply put a TAX on the bad stuff you don’t want (e.g., pollution), while lowering taxes on the good stuff you DO want (e.g., savings, income). Thus, a carbon tax, one which can be 100% revenue neutral if we want (just give back all the proceeds from the tax in a fair manner to the American people), or partly revenue neutral (e.g., only give back money to those making under a certain income threshold, let’s say $250,000 a year, while using the rest of the money for clean energy R&D, home and business energy efficiency, etc.).

But wait, you say, wouldn’t anti-taxers like Grover Norquist oppose this, and wouldn’t this violate Barack Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on those making under $250,000 a year? On the first point, let’s face it, Norquist isn’t likely to support anything reasonable on any subject, as he’s a my-way-or-the-highway extremist. We simply need to marginalize that guy – and others, like the Chamber of Commerce, who do the fossil fuel industry’s bidding – to the extent possible. But for reasonable, sane Republicans, the concept of taxing a “bad,” making polluters pay, and correcting a clear market failure (by internalizing a massive externality), should be eminently reasonable and consistent with conservative philosophy (note: there used to be reams of environmentally responsible Republicans, from Teddy Roosevelt through Richard Nixon through George HW Bush…).

As for Obama’s won’t-raise-taxes-on-the-middle-class pledge: as stated above, there’s no reason why people earning under $250,000 per year can’t be given back every penny of the carbon tax – whether in cash and/or in subsidies for solar panels, home energy retrofits, etc. – so that it’s NOT a net tax increase. So much for that problem.

Three final points. First, in addition to saving earth’s environment from certain catastrophe, putting a price on carbon will send tremendously powerful signals to entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investors, corporations, etc. that clean energy – wind, solar, etc. – is the way to go, while dirty energy – coal, oil, and to a lesser extent natural gas – are far less so. This should jump start a massive explosion in clean energy – an industry that’s already doing well regardless – that will quickly transform our economy to one powered by clean, domestic, inexhaustible, job-creating, non-carbon-emitting energy sources. Second, in the context of reforming our country’s tax structure, we should use carbon as the model for taxing “bads” (e.g., pollution, shipping jobs overseas, sprawl, wahtever) and rewarding “goods” (clean energy, building businesses in America, smart growth). Finally, we should seriously consider using a carbon tax as a way to simultaneously slash our country’s deficit while investing in the clean energy economy of tomorrow. That would be a tremendous win-win-win, giving us a cleaner and healthier, more secure, and more economically prosperous country for the foreseeable future. Other than the entrenched fossil fuel interests and the politicians they’ve bought and paid for, who would be against this? Got me.

No gray in THIS guy’s world (or his “dear friend,” Virginia Governor “Bobby” McDonnell), that’s for sure! LOL

Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, November 8.

*Barack Obama: celebration time – then straight back to work for the president

*Romney wraps up amid questions about campaign

*Republican Reckoning Begins After Revealing Defeat (Grab some popcorn, this should be fun!)

*Great moments in polling and punditry: 2012 election edition (Among other things, I will NEVER care about another poll by Suffolk University after its polling director said they’d already painted Virginia and Florida “red” a little less than a month from the election. Totally unprofessional, also totally wrong! To quote C-Lo, “forget you!” And Rasmussen? Well, let’s just say nobody should have taken them seriously BEFORE this election, and they certainly shouldn’t take them seriously AFTER this election. Total hacks.)

*Historic showing by Latinos helped propel Obama to win

*Obama again dominated Virginia population centers

*Inside Gallup’s Epic Fail (Yikes, they really need to correct this or they’re going to lose all respect.)

*Va. to use federal health exchange option – for now

*Tim Kaine plans to join “Common Ground Caucus” in Senate

*Editorial: Choosing moderation over extremism (“In electing Tim Kaine to the U.S. Senate, Virginia voters favored collaboration over obstruction.”)

*Mark Warner for governor? It could happen (“Mark Warner appears to be giving serious thought to a run for governor in 2013, according to multiple sources.”)

*Kaine urges Warner to stay in the Senate

*Where does Cuccinelli fit in a blue Va.?

*Va. measure may affect building plans

*George Allen’s chances in politics again? The answer is blurry.

*Will Democrats ever again set foot west of Radford?

*Jeff’s Notes: Winners and losers

*Kaine: Virginia’s Still Purple (“McDonnell congratulates Kaine and Obama, says GOP must look like a ‘fun team to join'”)

*Va. Gov. McDonnell says GOP must broaden its base (Ya think?)

*Martin O’Malley bests Bob McDonnell when it counts

*Governor Who Supported Mandatory Ultrasounds Says GOP Did Poorly in Getting Women’s Votes (Who could have ever predicted THAT?!? LOL)

*Kaine already calling on Congress to avoid ‘fiscal cliff’

*Reeling conservatives face ‘recalibration’ at their core

*Finding meaning and moving on

*Voter turnout wasn’t unprecedented, so what was to blame for delays? (Thank you voter ID law!)

*Mix of factors led to long voting lines in Virginia

*Day after election, Baliles holds slim lead in bid for council seat

*Hurt says he’ll continue his commitment

*A record number of voters turned out in Arlington, county confirms

*Virginia Beach quietly pursuing NBA team for proposed arena