Here are a few Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, February 9. Also, check out the video about consummate insider/influence peddler Willard “Mitt” Romney, corporate tool par excellence.

*Adoption law ‘conscience clause’ advances in Va. Senate

*Legislators consider special session later this year

*Tim Kaine splits with Obama on birth control rule for religious groups

*Jeb Bush to help sell McDonnell’s K-12 agenda

*Va. House passes a bill that could delay this year’s primary

*Cuccinelli speaks in Sterling, honors Reagan (The Reagan who exploded the deficit, grew the federal government big time, signed a major “illegal immigration amnesty” into law, raised taxes multiple times, etc? Yeah, that Reagan.)

*Provision to remove Va. from Potomac River commission axed

*Virginia GOP shows its hypocritical side on abortion (“Republicans (including Ms. Vogel) went ballistic when the federal government enacted legislation requiring people to buy health insurance. Now they have ginned up their own mandate, which will force women to pay hundreds of dollars for an unneeded test.”)

*Editorial: Contraception and the church (“Catholic-run institutions should not be able to skirt an employer mandate.”)

*Jeff’s Notes: A governor’s clout

*Panel halts bill on health exchange

*Bill limiting use of GPS tracking heads to House floor

*Bill to expand eligibility for capital murder defeated in Senate committee

*Teacher contract bill headed to full House

*Chambers dispel talk of Virginia toll authority

*‘Castle Doctrine’ bill advances in House

*Deal offered to Portsmouth lawmaker could ease tolls

*Suffolk weighs ban on students wearing cross-gender clothing

UPDATE: Almost forgot to mention Eric Cantor under fire for STOCK Act tweaks, in which Can’tor certainly looks like a corrupt politician, walks like a corrupt politician, and quacks like a corrupt politician. Let’s see…looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, do you think he might be a duck?

OK, so some of the pictures of President Obama visiting the White House Science Fair are reminiscent of the hilarious Barack Obama feigning interest at mundane things. But when he’s shown a home-made marshmallow cannon, he reacts the same way any other red-blooded American guy would: AWESOME, LET’S DO IT! LOOK OUT, EVERYBODY!

Check out Obama’s face the moment the cannon fired:

The latest Congressional scorecard from the League of Conservation Voters flunks every single Virginia Republican, including House members like Scott Rigell, Rob Wittman and Frank Wolf who’ll be trying to sell themselves as moderate in November. Committed opponents of clean air & water, public health, and wildlife like Eric Cantor, Randy Forbes, Bob Goodlatte, Morgan Griffith and Robert Hurt all scored in the teens. Meanwhile, Virginia House Democrats Gerry Connolly, Jim Moran and Bobby Scott all scored 100%. On the Senate side, both Sen. Mark Warner and Jim Webb scored 100%, though given that both support oil drilling off Virginia’s shores and Webb has opposed clean air regulations, neither is perfect on conservation.

What drew the LCV’s ire? Every single Republican voted for the House Republican budget resolution to gut the Clean Air Act & Clean Water Act, to protect billions in tax giveaways for oil corporations that banked $137 billion in profits in 2011, and to weaken offshore drilling safety rules even as they pushed to bring oil drilling to the Virginia coast:

As always, we love to point out rank Republican’t hypocrisy. In this case, it’s their issue du jour, that President Obama is somehow “hostile” to (or even “declared war on”) religion because his administration has stated that contraceptives should be covered under the health care law, with exemptions for churches but not for church-affiliated hospitals, universities, etc. Well, as it turns out, this “war on religion” also is taking place in notoriously liberal Georgia, as well as under Romneycare in Massachusetts. But not here in religion-respecting Virginia, right?

Uh oh.

Accident and sickness insurance; denial of benefits for prescription contraceptives prohibited. Requires any (i) individual or group accident and sickness insurance policies providing hospital, medical and surgical or major medical coverage on an expense incurred basis; (ii) corporation providing individual or group accident and sickness subscription contracts; and (iii) health maintenance organization providing a health care plan for health care services, whose policy, contract or plan, including any certificate or evidence of coverage issued in connection with such policy, contract or plan, includes coverage for prescription drugs on an outpatient basis, to provide in each such policy, contract, plan, certificate, and evidence of coverage that such benefits will not be denied for any drug approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for use as a contraceptive. Each such policy, contract, plan, certificate, and evidence of coverage must also include coverage for a variety of federal Food and Drug Administration approved prescription contraceptives. If the patient’s physician determines that none of the methods designated by the policy, contract, plan, certificate, or evidence of coverage is medically appropriate for the patient, the plan must also provide coverage for another medically approved prescription contraceptive method prescribed by the patient’s physician.

This new section will not require coverage for experimental contraceptive drugs not approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration or coverage for prescription drugs in any contract, policy or plan that does not otherwise provide such coverage. These provisions will not apply to short-term travel, or accident-only policies, or to short-term nonrenewable policies of not more than six months’ duration.

This provision would apply to individual or group accident and sickness insurance policies, contracts, plans, certificates, and evidences of coverage providing outpatient prescription drugs, pursuant to §§ 38.2-4214 and 38.2-4319, on and after July 1, 1996.

Note that there are no exemptions – none, nada, zilch – for religious institutions of any kind mentioned in this Virginia law. Also note that this passed the State Senate 27-12 (Bill Bolling voted “nay,” while several Republicans voted “yea”), passed the House of Delegates 86-12 (“Nay” votes cast by Eric Cantor, Morgan Griffith, Bob Marshall and…Bob McDonnell), and was signed into law by (drum roll please) Governor George “Felix” Allen!

So, what’s with George Allen’s “war on religion” (snark) anyway, especially given that Allen went contrary to conservatives like Eric Cantor, Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling and Bob Marshall on this one? Perhaps this is something that Bob Marshall might want to ask him when they debate? Should be fun.

P.S. Allen also signed into law a health provision covering state employees which says, “The plan shall include coverage for prescription drugs and devices approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for use as contraceptives.”

UPDATE: Hahahahaha; Allen recently said, “my view is that this unprecedented mandate by the Obama administration is an abhorrent overreach that violates the very liberty and religious freedom that our country was founded on.” Look in the mirror, dude! Allen also called the Obama administration’s action “unprecedented;” in fact, it had numerous precedents, including Romneycare, Georgia, and…Virginia under Gov. George Allen. Ha.