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Barack Obama: Many Paths to 270 Electoral Votes in 2012

By
lowkell
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3



Barack Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, explains a few of the many ways (he says there are “over 40 different pathways”) for Obama to get to 270 electoral votes in 2012. I particularly like the Virginia/North Carolina path, but I also see no reason why President Obama can’t carry any or all of the following states next November: Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, Florida, Ohio, and even Arizona (note: according to a new Pew poll, Latinos strongly favor Obama over Romney).

Meanwhile, for Republicans, the map is much more difficult, as they basically have to run the table, including in states with seriously unpopular Republican governors, like Ohio and Florida. Plus, Willard “Mitt” Romney gets to spend the next year explaining to the 99% of Americans why “corporations are people,” why his work for Bain Capital buying up companies and laying off workers would be a good model for the country, why his flip flops away from universal health care, from strong action on clean energy and climate change, from a woman’s right to choose, from LGBT rights, etc. mean we should trust him as far as we can throw him on anything. Answer: we shouldn’t, and we won’t. Sorry Willard (er, “Mitt”)!

Virginia News Headlines: Thursday Morning

By
lowkell
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1

Here are a few Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, December 29. Also, break out the popcorn, as Jon Huntsman rips into Ron Paul in a new ad in New Hampshire.

*A deeper shade of purple

*Wealthy businessman drops out of Va. senate race

*Coal, labor boosted their spending on Va. elections

*McDonnell does not support shifting transportation costs to localities

*Coast Guard to study the future of Atlantic traffic and wind farms

*Effort made to get more GOP hopefuls on Virginia primary ballot

*Virginia: If it’s wrong to exclude Gingrich and Perry, can they get on ballot?

*In Virginia, Kaine, Allen in dead heat for Senate

*Exit interview, Part I: Senate candidate Tim Donner withdraws from race

*Tax will increase commuter costs, could jam area roads

*Too dense to get on Virginia ballot, but you want to be prez?

*Mackowiak: The Political Winners of 2011

*In Washington area, African American students suspended and expelled two to five times as often as whites

*Suspect in slashings flees to Peru

Gingrich claims fraud!

By
cvllelaw
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1

(C’mon, Attorney General Coochy, do your job and prosecute this guy!!! – promoted by lowkell)

Newt Gingrich has a new reason why he didn’t make the ballot — fraud on the part of someone he hired.  He is claiming that he hired someone to get signatures who forged or made up 1,500 signatures.  See the story here.

I heard on the news tonight that Newt was blaming poor staff work — sort of a class-less move but hardly surprising.  So now we have an allegation of fraud.

I wonder if anyone will prosecute?  I mean, it’s a crime to submit petitions fraudulently.  At the bottom of the form is this language:

I understand that falsely signing this affidavit is a felony punishable by a maximum fine up to $2,500 and/or imprisonment for up to ten years.

See Va. Code 24.2-1016.

So let’s get those prosecutions going!  I want to see the perp walk!

When will AG Cuccinelli prosecute Gingrich for voter fraud??

By
CleetusMaggard
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0

Speaking in Iowa today (28 December) Newt Gingrich admitted that his campaign committed voter fraud in Virginia.

“We hired somebody who turned in false signatures. We turned in 11,100 – we needed 10,000 – 1,500 of them were by one guy who frankly committed fraud.”

http://politicalticker.blogs.c…

Now, as we know, the GOP is death on voter fraud even to the point of introducing legislation in 31 states in an attempt to stem voter fraud.  Never mind that they can’t find any instances of voter fraud — an ounce of prevention, you know.

So — now that Newt has admitted fraudulent activity on the part of his campaign, when will AG Cuccinelli open an investigation into this case of voter fraud?

Virginia GOP Imposes “Loyalty Oath” for Presidential Primary

By
lowkell
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22

Although they have only two candidates on the ballot – Willard “Mitt” Romney and Ron Paul – the Virginia Republican Party apparently feels it needs to work even harder to reduce turnout for its presidential primary.

At the request of the Virginia Republican Party, the State Board of Elections voted 3-0 today to close the March 6 presidential primary and require a loyalty oath for participation.

That means anyone who wants to vote must sign a form at the polling place pledging to support the eventual Republican nominee for president. Anyone who refuses to sign the pledge will be barred from voting.

So much for Democrats flooding the polls en masse – not that this was ever likely to happen, but whatever – to vote against McDonnell’s/Bolling’s favorite, Mr. “Corporations are PEOPLE!” Gotta love these guys.

P.S. In related news, RPV Chair Pat Mullins says he followed the rules “by certifying the candidates who met the statutory requirements.”

UPDATE: Too Conservative blog writes:

This is really turning into a freak show with the late return of “THE PLEDGE”.  RPV is demanding that voters in the Presidential primary sign one of their ridiculous pledges, and the SBE, chaired by longtime RPV fixture Charles Judd, voted to allow this.  Unfortunately, as pointed out by Vivian Page, this is supposed to happen 90 days prior to the election date and may not be enforceable.  Looks like another lawsuit coming down the pike.

The more I see of this whole process the more it stinks of an establishment push to help Romney at the expense of the other candidates.

Top 30 Blue Virginia Stories of 2011

By
lowkell
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5

Courtesy of Google Analytics, here are the Blue Virginia stories which received the most “page views” in 2011. All stories are by yours truly, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks to everyone who contributed diaries and/or comments to Blue Virginia in 2011, and also thanks to all our readers. Next year should be a fascinating one, with Barack Obama and Tim Kaine on the ballot, plus many other important races, plus the 2013 General Assembly session, plus Kookinelli’s latest kookiness, etc, etc. Stay tuned to Blue Virginia as it unfolds in 2012!

1. Maps of New Virginia Senate and House Districts (maps by Dave Leichtman)

2. Why Virginia Democrats Lost the State Senate (by Peter Rousselot)

3. Eugene Delgaudio: Radical Homosexual Pirates Invade Tampa; Loudoun County Next?

4. Loudoun Republican Urges People to Thank Communist Soviet Veteran?!? FAIL!

5. George Allen: “Macaca” Was a “Made Up Word”

6. Virginia Polls are Closed: Results Thread

7. Small Earthquake Felt in Northern Virginia (by The Green Miles)

8. Top 10 Ronald Reagan Myths

9. Too Conservative Blog: Loudoun Republican Party “Goes WAY Too Far” on President Obama

10. Major Flooding Paralyzes Northern Virginia (by The Green Miles)

11. I Just Got One of the Weirdest Phone Calls of My Life (I still can’t believe this actually happened. WTF?!?)

12. Winners and Losers: Election 2011

13. Why I Really Left Diaspora* (by ycompanys)

14. Polls are Closed: Results Thread

15. Virginia General Election Day 2011: Open Thread

16. Video: Thinking Camera’s Off, George Allen Whines About How “Torturous” It Is to Speak to Voters

17. Winners and Losers: Primary 2011 Edition

18. Former Arlington County Democratic Chair: Saslaw/Whipple Redistricting Plan “should be repudiated” (by Peter Rousselot)

19. Rep. Eric Cantor’s “Strategic Sneer” at America’s Economy (by The Green Miles)

20. Senate Democrats Release Proposed Redistricting Plan

21. Jaime Areizaga-Soto Announces for State Senate; Sen. Whipple Visibly Displeased

22. Tea Party Leader Gloats Over Tucson Massacre (by The Green Miles)

23. Loudoun County Democratic Committee Imploding?

24. Only 15% of Virginia House of Delegates Seats Being Contested? WTF?!?

25. Barbara Favola Gets $2.5k Donation, Votes 5 Days Later to Give Towing Industry $250k More per Year

26. Does Saying You’re A Democrat Make You a Democrat?

27. Stan Barry for Fairfax County Sheriff Re-election Kick Off (by DanielK)

28. 10,000 Activists in Washington to Discuss Crucial Issue to Mankind; Media Barely Covers It

29. GOP embrace of violent rhetoric: A chicken coming home to roost by aznew)

30. Earthquake! AP Reports Pentagon, Capitol Being Evacuated [UPDATE: Magnitude 5.9]

Virginia News Headlines: Wednesday Morning

By
lowkell
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0

Here are a few Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, December 28. Also, I disagree with Paul Goldman on this issue, but here he is making his case on NBC12 last night.

*The year in electoral absurdity (The funniest is 7a — Bill Bolling says “We do not believe the government creates jobs,” yet goes around calling himself Virginia’s “Chief Jobs Creation Officer.” Basic Logic FAIL!)

*Va. Senate control still in dispute

*Legislators poised for a fight over K-12 money

*Coalition of conservative groups (More like “Coalition of Anti-Environment Groups.” By the way, Anita Kumar is now seriously referring, without irony or quotation marks, to Bill Bolling’s propaganda bull**** of him being “the state’s chief jobs creation officer.” Apparently, that’s what passes for “objective” news these days at the Kaplan Post. Ugh.)

*Corporate interests fuel group’s desire to shape Va. legislation, critics say

*Hampton Roads lags in governor’s push for new jobs in Virginia (Again, don’t Republican’ts say that government can’t create jobs? So how can Gov. McDonnell “push for new jobs in Virginia?” Isn’t he part of the government?)

*Editorial: Don’t give Gingrich a do-over (I agree: “Virginia should consider revising eligibility rules, but not in the middle of a presidential contest.”)

*Perry only submitted 6 thousand signatures to VA Board of Elections (Not even close!)

*Cox on chances of changing GOP ballot access: “zero to none”

*Editorial: Restoring voting rights (Good for Greg Habeeb on this one; I can’t believe Virginia doesn’t do what the vast majority of states do already — automatically restore your voting rights once you’ve “done your time” and “paid your debt to society.”)

*WILLIAMS: Va. needs to relax ballot rules, but not just for Newt

*Va. unlikely to change law to allow Gingrich write-in

*Cuccinelli, Gingrich must stop whining

*Gilmore seeks new tax code (After driving Virginia’s budget nearly into the ditch, Jim Gilmore’s now attempting to do the same for the rest of the country. Boy, are we in trouble now!)

*Nelson Retirement Threatens Democratic Senate Majority (On the one hand, good riddance to phony “Democrat” Ben Nelson, but on the other hand, we need to try and hold that seat if we want to keep control of the Senate next year. It’s Bob Kerrey or bust, apparently.)

*A dedication to donkeys (And not the political kind, either. :))

*Christmas Tree Recycling Free to Washington DC Metro Area Residents

Rick “Missing Village Idiot” Perry Campaign Sues Republican Party of Virginia

By
lowkell
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10

Will the whining by these whiny waaaaaambulance-chasing Republican’ts never cease? First, we had megalomaniac Newt Gingrich comparing his failure to get on the Virginia Republican primary ballot as analogous to the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor (Tora! Tora! Tora! Incoming from the pissed-off Newt-ster at 12 o’clock!). Now, we’ve got the Missing Village Idiot joining the fray:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry filed a lawsuit today in the Eastern District of Virginia challenging the validity of a state statute that keeps him from appearing on the primary ballot, a news release from his campaign said.

Perry’s Complaint for Declarative and Injunctive Relief names three members of the Virginia State Board of Elections, plus Republican Party of Virginia Chair Pat Mullins as defendants, claiming that they somehow violated Perry’s “freedoms of speech and association protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.”  Of course, Rick Perry is a quasi (or not so “quasi?”) secessionist who fancies himself as a fierce defender of another Amendment – the Tenth – and a champion of “states’ rights.” How does Perry square his fidelity to the Tenth Amendment, which would presumably give Virginia and its Republican Party the right to set its own rules for primary ballot access, with his newfound support for the Fourteenth Amendment, which “protects a person’s civil and political rights from being abridged or denied by any state”? Got me, but if asked, Perry would undoubtedly come up with three reasons, at least one of which he wouldn’t be able to remember, and the other two of which he wouldn’t understand. Gotta love the Republican’t field for president this cycle, huh? Definitely NOT the “A Team,” let’s just put it that way.

P.S. This is also idiotic because Perry’s most stupidest candidacy should be long gone by Virginia.

It’s Called a Conscience: How Matt Taibbi Describes What the Banksters Lack

By
AndySchmooklerforCongress
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0

( – promoted by lowkell)

Here’s an excerpt from Matt Taibbi’s article, “A Christmas Message From America’s Rich” (which appeared in ROLLING STONE on December 22) followed by a comment from me:

“What makes people furious [at some of these Wall Street bankers] is that they have stopped being citizens.

“Most of us 99-percenters couldn’t even let our dogs leave a dump on the sidewalk without feeling ashamed before our neighbors. It’s called having a conscience: even though there are plenty of things most of us could get away with doing, we just don’t do them, because, well, we live here. Most of us wouldn’t take a million dollars to swindle the local school system, or put our next door neighbors out on the street with a robosigned foreclosure, or steal the life’s savings of some old pensioner down the block by selling him a bunch of worthless securities.

“But our Too-Big-To-Fail banks unhesitatingly take billions in bailout money and then turn right around and finance the export of jobs to new locations in China and India. They defraud the pension funds of state workers into buying billions of their crap mortgage assets. They take zero-interest loans from the state and then lend that same money back to us at interest. Or, like Chase, they bribe the politicians serving countries and states and cities and even school boards to take on crippling debt deals.”

My commentary:

Taibbi hits the nail on the head when he says, “It’s called having a conscience.” Meaning, we’ve got a problem here of great power being wielded in America without being restrained by the usual moral demands of an internalized sense of what right requires.

But I would bet that these banksters, in their private lives, are not all that different from other people. I doubt that they behave shamelessly, more than the rest of us, or that they treat their friends more shabbily, or that they don’t clean up after their dogs.

People get caught up in the forces operating around them in their culture. In this case, the “culture” includes “the corporate culture” of the financial world. It also includes the “political culture” of our emerging plutocracy.

Conscience is often represented as something that is internalized. But history shows that a great many people –probably most people– absorb their sense of rightness, and their degree of involvement in the very issue of what’s right, from their surroundings on an ONGOING basis.

The problem thus should be regarded less in terms of the despicable nature of individuals than in terms of the moral corruption in the culture.

And these subsidiary cultures –the corporate, the overall power system– in turn are embedded in the evolving “moral culture” of American society. It may well be that something has gone wrong in America, of a still more general systemic nature, that makes has opened the door for this amoral tendency –this opportunism and sense of entitlement, that Taibbi describes– to become so prevalent in America in this era.

It’s as though the body politic has suffered a weakening of the “immune system” –by which morality protects a society from infection by corruption– and allowed such shameless and amoral subcultures to develop, to become so powerful, and to do so much damage in today’s America.

**********************

Andy Schmookler is running for Congress in the 6th Congressional District of Virginia, challenging the incumbent Congressman, Bob Goodlatte.  An award-winning author, political commentator, radio talk-show host, and teacher, Andy moved with his family to Shenandoah County in 1992.  He is a graduate of Harvard University and holds a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.  

*****************************************************

To learn more about Andy, please go to his website. You may also follow Andy on Facebook and on Twitter.  

Video: Newt Gingrich Makes Conservative, Moral Argument for Individual Mandate

By
lowkell
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0



Needless to say, Ken Kookinelli wouldn’t agree with Newt Gingrich – or with the many other (large majority of?) conservatives who, over the years, have (strongly) supported the individual mandate for health insurance. But sorry, Ken, you’re wrong and Newt’s right. Listen and learn, as Newt Gingrich – in his previous incarnation, prior to his run for the Loony Tunes Party presidential nomination, as a serious, sane human being – explains why the individual mandate is fundamentally conservative, moral, and absolutely necessary.

I think you’ve got to require everybody to either have insurance or to post a bond. But the fastest growing section of the uninsured is people over $75,000 income, who are making a calculated gamble that if they get sick, you’ll take care of them. And I think that’s just immoral…I understand the libertarian argument that says, well, if somebody really would rather run the risk of dying; that’s not gonna happen! So what’s gonna happen is you’re not gonna take care of yourself, you’re gonna be in a motorcycle accident or a car wreck or you’re gonna have a stroke, we’re gonna go to extraordinary measures to take care of you, you’re gonna turn out to have no insurance, and then given your attitude you’re gonna try to avoid paying…

Any further questions? Good, I’m glad to see that Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi all agree on something! 🙂

P.S. Also, here’s Newt in 2006, arguing that “our goal should be 100% insurance coverage for all Americans,” that “we agree strongly with this principle [of the individual mandate],” and that “[t]he health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system.”  

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