Category: Virginia

Bonds? You don’t have to pay those things off do you?

Oh — you do? You sure? Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Virginia lawmakers are divvying up $1.4 billion in bricks-and-mortar projects and handing an unexpected goody to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine: an appointment to the powerful agency that oversees corporate Virginia.

In unanimous votes, the House of Delegates and Virginia Senate yesterday endorsed a plan to finance through the sale of taxpayer-back bonds 75 construction projects over the next six years.

The bond bill will provide building funds for colleges, mental-health facilities, parks and state offices.

The projects include the purchase of an office tower in downtown Richmond to house the tax department and a replacement for the art deco-era hospital on the medical campus of Virginia Commonwealth University.

Elsewhere, the package includes $110 million to replace Western State Hospital, a state psychiatric facility; and $82 million to improve mental-health facilities.

Repeat after me: $1,400,000,000.00

Time to execute some POSes.

FOX News:

The Supreme Court upheld the most common method of lethal injections executions Wednesday, clearing the way for states to resume executions that have been on hold for nearly 7 months.

The justices, by a 7-2 vote, turned back a constitutional challenge to the procedures in place in Kentucky, which uses three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill inmates. Similar methods are used by roughly three dozen states.

The governor of Virginia lifted his state’s moratorium on executions two hours after the high court issued its ruling.

I say we start with John Allen Muhammad and Paul Warner Powell. (Yes, I know they both have pending appeals.)

Classy: “We are past the point of debates.”

Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Former Gov. Jim Gilmore has rejected a call by Del. Robert G. Marshall of Prince William County to hold five debates before Republican delegates choose the party’s U.S. Senate nominee at a convention May 31.

“We are past the point of debates,” Gilmore spokeswoman Ana Gamonal said. “Seventy-five percent of the delegates already have been elected, and they know where Jim Gilmore stands.”

[…]

Marshall said debates would be useful because Gilmore has taken inconsistent positions on such issues as abortion and illegal immigration. He said there have been no more than six joint appearances.

“This is a disservice to Republican voters,” Marshall said.

Why schools in Virginia suck…

Because they don’t teach this stuff called “reading, writing, and arithmetic”.

AP via Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Fishel’s recent presentation at James River High School was one of many being held in classrooms this school year across Virginia, the first state to mandate that public schools offer Internet safety classes for all grade levels. It’s one of many measures being taken nationally to protect young Web users.

Virginia’s requirement initially stemmed from concerns about sex offenders preying on children online and a general increase in Internet-based crime, including spamming and phishing. More than half of the world’s Internet traffic flows through Virginia, as America Online and MCI have major operations in northern Virginia, according to Attorney General Bob McDonnell.

Texas and Illinois are among states that subsequently passed Internet safety education laws, but unlike Virginia, they don’t make the courses mandatory. And others are considering similar legislation, said Judi Westberg Warren, president of Web Wise Kids, a nonprofit group funded by corporations such as Verizon and Symantec and the federal government to provide schools with no-cost Internet safety lessons for 11- to 16-year-olds.

Can someone explain to me why schools are supposed to be a substitute for parents nowadays?

Case in point: In 2006, a local Delegate, whose a school teacher, decided to introduce a bill that would require school administrators and teachers to measure students’ BMI (body mass index) and send the information home to parents. Because, you know, teachers don’t have anything more important to do (and parents can’t tell if their kids are fat [or skinny]).

If it isn’t their own safety teachers and administrators have to worry about, it’s SOL testing, school accreditation, No Child Left Behind, etc., etc.

Now they’re expected to teach “internet safety classes” and if a certain Delegate had his way they would be checking their students’ BMI.

Priorities, priorities, priorities…

Remains of Virginia soldiers recovered at Chosin Reservoir, Korea.

Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The remains of two Virginia soldiers lost more than 57 years ago in one of the bloodiest battles of the Korean War have been recovered and returned to their families, the Department of Defense said today.

Army Capt. Edward B. Scullion of Norfolk and Pfc. Elwood D. Reynolds of Schoolfield at Danville were killed in late November 1950 in intense fighting with Chinese troops who attacked the Americans near Chosin Reservoir in North Korea, the Army said.

Despite America’s continuing strained relations with North Korea, a small U.S. military unit that searches for long-lost troops was allowed to excavate parts of old North Korean battlegrounds from 2002 to 2005.

The remains of Scullion and Reynolds were found during an archaeological dig of a defensive position of the 31st Regimental Combat Team of the 7th Infantry Division during the Chinese attack. Both men were members of A Company, 32nd Infantry Regiment, which was attached to the 31st at the time.

[…]

Reynolds will be buried April 18 in Danville. Scullion will be buried this summer in Arlington National Cemetery. Neither family could be reached yesterday for comment.

The United States is the only country that actively scours old and far-flung battlefields for its lost troops.

Pass the buck Republicans in the General Assembly.

AP via WTOP:

GOP House leaders emerged from a private hour-long discussion Wednesday with the Democratic governor resolute against new statewide taxes.

“For whatever reason, they’re insisting on bringing in this maintenance problem using facts, using information that I think is dubious at best,” said House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford.

“It makes you wonder if, in fact, this is all to put it off to the 2009 election” and try to use the issue to attack GOP House candidates, Howell said.

[…]

“We are all opposed to tax increases for statewide maintenance if the speaker can furnish us the names of the contractors that he has found that will pour the asphalt and the cement for free,” an indignant Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax and the Senate Majority Leader, said after the meeting.

[…]

Many Republicans want local governments within the regions to impose the taxes, the only way that they say blocks the General Assembly from diverting receipts collected in their regions to other uses in times of tight budgets.

Democrats say that approach unfairly shifts the political burden of imposing a menu of fees and taxes onto local elected leaders. They prefer using the General Assembly’s own unquestioned taxing power to generate the revenue.

See, the Republicans in the General Assembly aren’t against a tax increase — they just don’t want to be the ones imposing it!

Ryan McDougle to run for Attorney General?

That would be your representative to the Senate of Virginia for you simpletons out there (you know I love you through). :)

The Shad Plank:

Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, a conservative Republican from Fairfax County, is holding a press conference at this hour to discuss his political future, and it looks like he’s running for attorney general in 2009.

A new web site is up and running to promote his candidacy. Next year’s race could attract a number of Republican candidates. Among those mentioned as possible contenders in the blogs and in the press are Del. Rob Bell of the Charlottesville area and Sen. Ryan McDougle of Hanover County.

Interestingly, Bill Bolling was the previous representative for the 4th Senate District before he ran for and won the Lieutenant Governor’s race in November 2005. McDougle won the senate race the following January in a special election (he had been representing the 97th House District [Chris Peace won another special election a couple weeks later for the 97th House District and is the current representative]). If both McDougle and Bolling win, that means there would be two statewide elected officials that have represented the 4th Senate District.

More expert leadership in Virginia…

So much for Virginia’s prisons being overcrowded. NBC12:

Despite Virginia’s own corrections crunch, Wyoming is sending up to 300 inmates to the state prison system.

The transfer over two years is part of a contract that could pay Virginia $18.5 million.

The Wyoming inmates will be held at the high-security Wallens Ridge State Prison in Wise County and the state’s new medium-security Pocahontas State Correctional Center in Tazewell County.

Last year, Virginia officials warned that the number of state prisoners projected to be added to the system would require a new 1,000-bed prison each year for the next six years.

Virginia corrections spokesman Larry Traylor says that forecast has not changed.

He says the alternative to contracting for out-of-state prisoners could be closing prisons and laying off employees.

No, the alternative should be putting more money into the “corrections” system and cut money for student centers or whatever pet (corrupt) project some Delegate or Senator has.

Privatizing the special tax on poor people?

That would be the Virginia Lottery by the way. Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The odds of winning the Virginia Lottery may be better than chances that the state turns it over to private business.

But that’s not stopping some politicians, policymakers and plutocrats from discussing the idea, particularly when the declining economy has Virginia scrounging for dollars.

“If we’re not going to raise taxes and we’re not going to cut expenses, then we have to find a third way,” says Del. David E. Poisson, D-Loudoun, a proponent of a privately run lottery.

Poisson’s legislation to put the 20-year-old lottery in private hands was ignored by the 2008 General Assembly. It went no further than a House committee, where it died without a public hearing or vote.

Poisson’s bill did not specifically mandate the sale or lease of the lottery; rather, it required the five-member board that oversees the game to study options for privatization by July 2010 and make a recommendation to the General Assembly.

Such a shift would be of particular interest to the lottery’s primary beneficiaries, the state’s public schools, which last year shared $437 million in game profits on sales of $1.3 billion. Educators and their allies in the legislature would likely demand guarantees that privatization does not threaten profitability.

So, only 33.62% of the money goes to education? I thought all the money was supposed to go to schools. I guess like any government agency 60% of the money goes to “administration”.

[…]

Paula I. Otto, the new director of the Virginia Lottery, says the reluctance of American lotteries to privatize may be rooted in an important selling point for players: that the games are public.

“Because lotteries have been operated by government, at least modern lotteries, there is a trust factor, there is an integrity factor that for the public feels right,” says Otto.

Yes, sure, we trust the government.

[…]

Virginia law prohibits the lottery from using promotions that could be seen as inducing people to play. Instead, radio and television commercials, bus and highway billboards and point-of-purchase displays can be only informational.

Um…yeah, sure, I’m buying that. Those Bacardi advertisements on your television are for “informational” purposes only too. Ditto for the Marlboro and Newport ads in magazines.

While we’re talking about privatizing stuff, why don’t we privatize Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC)? Why is the government in the business of selling booze in the first place?

And don’t give me the story about how the government is better able to stop underage persons from buying booze. I see just as many ABC employees getting arrested for underage sells as private employees when ABC does their sting operations.

Here’s my solution: Privatize the sells/business portion of ABC and move the enforcement portion into the Virginia State Police (VSP).

Of course, I’m sure the ABC agents would love that since they get along so well with VSP.

Tell ’em to “suck it up”.

Profiles in Leadership: Bob McDonnell

Yes, I’m being sarcastic, as usual.

Richmond Times-Dispatch:

“I don’t have a particular plan or vision,” said McDonnell when queried yesterday in a conference call with reporters on how he would fix the 2007 transportation plan gutted last month by the Virginia Supreme Court.

And then there’s the lying:

The state Supreme Court threw out as illegal a provision of the transportation plan — modified by Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine with the consent the then-GOP controlled legislature — that would allow an unelected regional authority in Northern Virginia to impose taxes to finance bonds for highways and mass transit.

“I was not consulted on those amendments,” McDonnell said of the governor’s revisions.

Kaine spokesman Gordon Hickey has said the attorney general was told of the changes.