The Push Continues

(pay wall)

Glenn Youngkin Is Playing a Dangerous Game

It’s obvious. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican governor of Virginia, wants to be president.

Within months of taking office, Youngkin had already established two political organizations, Spirit of Virginia and America’s Spirit, meant to raise his profile in national Republican politics with donations and assistance to candidates both in his home state and across the country. In July, he met privately with major conservative donors in New York City, underlining the sense that his ambitions run larger than his term in Richmond.

Youngkin, a former private equity executive, is on a tour of the country, speaking and raising money for Republican candidates in key presidential swing states. And as he crisscrosses the United States in support of the Republican Party, Youngkin is neither avoiding Donald Trump nor scorning his acolytes; he’s embracing them.

In Nevada last week, Youngkin stumped for Joe Lombardo, the Trump-backed Republican nominee for governor who acknowledges that President Biden won the election but says he is worried about the “sanctity of the voting system.” In Michigan, Youngkin stumped for Tudor Dixon, the Trump-backed Republican nominee for governor who has repeatedly challenged the integrity of the 2020 presidential election. And later this month, in Arizona, Youngkin will stump for Kari Lake, the Trump-backed Republican nominee for governor who accused Democrats of fraud in the state and says that unlike Gov. Doug Ducey, she “would not have certified” the 2020 election results.

Whether Youngkin agrees with any of this himself is an open question. In the 2021 Virginia Republican primary, he flirted with election denialism but never fully committed. What matters, for our purposes, is that Youngkin believes he needs to cater to and actually support election questioners and deniers to have a shot at leading the Republican Party.

You can sense, in conversations about the present and future of the Republican Party, a hope that there is some way to force the party off its current, anti-democratic path. You could see it in the outrage over Democratic Party “meddling” in Republican primaries. As the conservative columnist Henry Olsen wrote for The Washington Post in July, “True friends of democracy would seek to build new alliances that cross old partisan boundaries.”

What Youngkin — a more polished and ostensibly moderate Republican politician — aptly demonstrates is that this is false. The issue is that Republican voters want MAGA candidates, and ambitious Republicans see no path to power that doesn’t treat election deniers and their supporters as partners in arms.

There is an analogy to make here to the midcentury Democratic Party, which was torn between a liberal, Northern, pro-civil rights faction and a reactionary, Southern, segregationist faction. The analogy is useful, not because the outcome of the struggle is instructive in this case, but because the reason the liberal faction prevailed helps illustrate why anti-MAGA Republicans are fighting a losing battle.

In 1948, the mayor of Minneapolis — 37-year-old Hubert Humphrey — called on the hundreds of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia to add a strong civil rights plank to the party’s national platform. “To those who say we are rushing this issue of civil rights,” Humphrey said, “I say to them we are 172 years late.”

“The time has arrived for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights,” Humphrey added.

As the historian Michael Kazin notes in “What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party,” both “the speech and the ebullient, and quite spontaneous, floor demonstration that followed helped convince a majority of delegates — and President Truman, reluctantly — to include the civil rights pledge in the platform.”

But there were dissenters. A small number of Southern delegates left the convention in protest. Calling themselves the States’ Rights Democratic Party, they organized a challenge to Truman with Gov. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina at the top of their ticket.

These “Dixiecrats” were anti-civil rights and, for good measure, anti-labor. “We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race, the constitutional right to choose one’s associates; to accept private employment without governmental interference, and to earn one’s living in any lawful way,” reads the States’ Rights Democratic platform, unanimously adopted at their convention in Oklahoma City the next month. We favor, they continued, “home-rule, local self-government and a minimum of interference with individual rights.”

Of course, this meant the maintenance of Jim Crow, the subversion of the constitutional guarantees embedded in the 14th and 15th Amendments, and the continued domination of Black Americans by a tyrannical planter-industrial elite.

From its inception in the late 1820s as the movement to elect Andrew Jackson president, the Democratic Party relied on the Solid South to win national elections. Now it had a choice. Democrats could reject their new civil rights plank, accommodate the Dixiecrats and fight with a unified front against a hungry and energetic Republican Party, shut out of power since Herbert Hoover’s defeat in 1932. Or they could scorn the so-called States’ Rights Democrats and run as a liberal party committed to equal rights and opportunity for all Americans.

They chose the latter and changed American politics forever. And while much of this choice was born of sincere belief, we also should not ignore the powerful force of demographic change.

From 1915 to 1965, more than six million Black Americans left their homes in the agrarian South to settle in the cities of the industrial North, from New York and Chicago to Philadelphia and Detroit and beyond.

Their arrival marked the beginning of a tectonic shift in American political life. “The difference in laws between the North and the South created a political coming-of-age for Black migrants,” the political scientist Keneshia N. Grant writes in “The Great Migration and the Democratic Party: Black Voters and the Realignment of American Politics in the 20th Century.” “Seeing political participation as a badge of honor and hallmark of success in northern life, migrants registered to vote in large numbers. Northern parties and candidates worked to gain Black support through their election campaigns, and the parties expected Black voters to turn out to vote for their nominees on Election Day.”

For a Democratic Party whose national fortunes rested on control of urban machines, Black voters could mean the difference between four years in power and four years in the wilderness. With the rise of Franklin Roosevelt, who won an appreciable share of the Black vote in the 1932 presidential election, Northern Democratic politicians began to pay real attention to the interests of Black Americans in cities across the region.

By 1948, most Black Americans who could vote were reliable partners in the New Deal coalition, which gave liberals in the Democratic Party some of the political space they needed to buck Jim Crow. Yes, the Dixiecrats would withdraw their support. But for every white vote Harry Truman might lose in Alabama and Mississippi, there was a Black vote he might gain in Ohio and California, the two states that ultimately gave him his victory over the fearsome former prosecutor (and New York governor) Thomas Dewey.

Not only did the Dixiecrat rebellion fail; it also demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that Democrats could win national elections without the Solid South. The segregationists were weaker than they looked, and over the next 20 years the Democratic Party would cast them aside. (And even then, with the Dixiecrat exodus, Truman still won most of the states of the former Confederacy.)

There is no equivalent to northern Black voters in the Trumpified Republican Party. Put differently, there is no large and pivotal group of Republicans who can exert cross-pressure on MAGA voters. Instead, the further the Republican Party goes down the rabbit hole of “stop the steal” and other conspiracy theories, the more it loses voters who could serve to apply that pressure.

In a normal, more majoritarian political system, this dynamic would eventually fix the issue of the MAGA Republican Party. Parties want to win, and they will almost always shift gears when it’s clear they can’t win with their existing platform, positions and leadership.

The problem is that the American political system, in its current configuration, gives much of its power to the party with the most supporters in all the right places. Republicans may have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, but key features in the system — equal state representation in the Senate, malapportionment in the House of Representatives and winner-take-all distribution of votes in the Electoral College (Nebraska and Maine notwithstanding) — gives them a powerful advantage on the playing field of national politics.

To put it in simple terms, Joe Biden won the national popular vote by seven million ballots in the 2020 presidential election, but if not for roughly 120,000 votes across four states — Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — Donald Trump would still be president.

Which is all to say that someone like Glenn Youngkin is only doing what makes sense. To make MAGA politics weak among Republican politicians, you have to make MAGA voters irrelevant in national elections. But that will take a different political system — or a vastly different political landscape — than the one we have now.

Seeming Hypocrisy

"Conservatives" consider a mandate coming from a centralized federal government to be an affront to the states' rights to self-determination.

But then they turn around and ignore their own stated principle when it comes to a mandate from a centralized state government that negates county and local jurisdictions' rights to self-determination.

And that really does seem to be the problem. Broad, sweeping pronouncements are made about how this or that principle is so universal that it's crazy-stupid obvious, and only a complete dolt would argue with it, but when something they demand everybody go along with pops up, then it's all "let the cherry-picking and goal-post-moving commence".

(pay wall)

Virginia will block schools from accommodating transgender students

In a major rollback of LGBTQ rights, the administration of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) will require that transgender students in Virginia access school facilities and programs that match the sex they were assigned at birth and is making it more difficult for students to change their names and genders at school.

Under new “model policies” for schools’ treatment of transgender students released Friday evening, the Department of Education is requiring that families submit legal documentation to earn their children the right to change names and genders at school. The guidelines also say teachers cannot be compelled to refer to transgender students by their names and genders if it goes against “their constitutionally protected” free speech rights.

And the guidelines say schools cannot “encourage or instruct teachers to conceal material information about a student from the student’s parent, including information related to gender” — raising the prospect that teachers could be forced to out transgender students to their parents.

School districts must adopt the new state guidelines or “policies that are more comprehensive,” after a 30-day comment period that will begin on Sept. 26, the Education Department said. The Board of Education will not have to vote to adopt the policies.

Do we really need any more evidence that Republicans know their shit policies are shit? If your ideas for better education are so fuckin' great, let's hear what the pros on the board have to say about them.

“These 2022 Model Policies reflect the Department’s confidence in parents to prudently exercise their fundamental right under the Fourteenth Amendment and the Virginia Constitution to direct the upbringing, education, and control of their children,” the guidelines state. “This primary role of parents is well established and beyond debate. Empowering parents is essential to improving outcomes for children.”

The model policies reverse guidelines published in 2021 by the administration of Gov. Ralph Northam (D). Those guidelines mandated that transgender students be allowed to access restrooms, locker rooms and changing facilities that match their gender identities, stipulated that schools let students participate in sports and programs matching their gender identities and required that school districts and teachers accept and use students’ gender pronouns and identities without question.

In their own guidelines, Youngkin administration officials wrote that Northam’s guidance sought “cultural and social transformation in schools” and “disregarded the rights of parents.” The Youngkin guidelines state the Northam-era policies are dead: they “have no further force and effect.”

The Northam guidelines were developed in accordance with a 2020 law, proposed by Democratic legislators, that required the Virginia Education Department to develop model policies — and later required all school districts to adopt them — for the protection of transgender students. The law does not define the specific nature of these policies but says they should “address common issues regarding transgender students in accordance with evidence-based best practices” and says they should be designed to prevent bullying and harassment of transgender students.

But — in a move that is likely to draw legal challenges — the Youngkin administration has used that same law to issue its own version of the Education Department guidelines. The 20-page document released Friday states it is being issued “as required under” the 2020 legislation.

The Youngkin administration is also attempting to repurpose the period of public scrutiny the Northam-era rules were subjected to. Those guidelines, as is typical, were posted for weeks online so the public could share their reactions.

The Friday document states that Youngkin’s guidelines were developed by “taking into account the over 9,000 comments received during the public comment period” for the Northam-era policies.

“The 2022 model policy posted today delivers on the governor’s commitment to preserving parental rights and upholding the dignity and respect of all public school students,” Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said in a written statement. “It is not under a school’s or the government’s purview to impose a set of particular ideological beliefs on all students.”

The reaction from Democratic lawmakers was swift.

“These new policies are cruel and not at all evidence based,” tweeted Del. Marcus Simon, who was a co-sponsor of the Northam-era law. “If enacted these policies will harm Virginia children. Stop bullying kids to score political points.”

Allies of the governor praised the proposal. “Thank you @GovernorVA for fixing one of the most overreaching and abusive uses of a ‘model policy’ that I’ve seen,” tweeted GOP Del. Glenn Davis. “This new standard ensures all students have the right to attend school in an environment free from discrimination, harassment, and bullying.

There is no language more deceitful than what Glenn Davis has used for stating his position in favor of denying students their rights, disguising obvious potential for subjecting those students to the very discrimination, harassment and bullying he's pretending to protect those kids from.

What's happening here is the attempt to force kids into strict social compliance because some parents can't handle the reality of progress.

Letters To Governor Trumpkin

Haven't heard any "official" word yet, but the rumor mill says it's going about as well in Virginia as that stoopid thing they did in Texas with the abortion tip line.

Governor Trumpkin

"Conservatives" always walk in with a mouthful of "the supremacy of the individual", and "self-reliance" and "independent blah blah blah" - but when it's time to make real decisions on behalf of real people with real problems, they surely do love 'em some good ol' top-down authoritarian Daddy State bullshit.

Their specious nonsense about the absolute evils of collective action in the interest of doing what's best for the most has put them in a corner so tight, that when they find themselves in positions of power, they can't do anything that doesn't expose them as flagrant hypocrites.

exempli gratia:

Glenn Youngkin spent a lot of campaign time saying Ralph Northam had no right to mandate masks in schools (in the name of public safety), and then - on his first day in office - he issued an Executive Order mandating armed cops in schools (as a matter of public safety).

WaPo: (pay wall)

Opinion: Glenn Youngkin’s awful first moves are already sparking a rebellion

Glenn Youngkin pulled off a remarkably clever trick en route to becoming the first Republican governor of Virginia in almost a decade. He energized supporters of Donald Trump but kept those appeals under the radar, while running as a center-right businessman-turned-politician offered up in what has become his trademark “cheerful suburban dad” packaging.

But this balancing act is already facing its first big governing test. How Youngkin manages it will be highly illuminating with regard to how much space there is inside the GOP for a politics that isn’t relentlessly shaped around the preoccupations and pathologies of Trumpism.

In the coming days, one of Youngkin’s first big moves will likely face a sustained legal and political challenge. Youngkin just rolled out a new executive order that ends masking requirements in schools, instead stating that any parent can opt out without providing a reason.

But numerous Virginia school districts immediately announced that they will continue requiring masks in accordance with previous policy. Some said they will remain aligned with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Opinion by James Downie: Youngkin cares more about sound bites than solutions

Youngkin talks Va. schools, critical race theory and vaccines in first state address

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) delivered his first address to the Joint General Assembly in Richmond at Virginia’s State Capitol on Jan. 17. (The Washington Post)

As of now, school districts in counties with a total of several million people in population have indicated they will likely continue the mask requirement in the face of Youngkin’s executive order. These include Fairfax, Henrico, Prince William, Arlington and Loudoun.

“We will fight it to the end,” Jason Kamras, the superintendent of Richmond Public Schools, told me.

What makes Youngkin’s move particularly ugly is that he’s hinting he’ll follow the path of fellow Republican governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. DeSantis threatened to withhold funding from school boards that kept mask requirements in defiance of his effort to bar them and sought to punish them in other ways.

Youngkin is making similarly menacing noises. He vows to “use every resource within the governor’s authority” to force school districts into compliance, while piously insisting it’s time to “listen to parents,” as if all parents monolithically want an end to mask requirements and only school boards want them.

But Youngkin’s effort to paint school districts as power-mad bureaucrats trampling on the rights of parents is running headlong into a counterargument: Though the legal issues here are complex, the school districts might have the law on their side, and Youngkin might be the one abusing his power.

Youngkin’s stance might be legally vulnerable

Here’s why: As some of the school districts continuing mask requirements argue, a state law passed by the General Assembly and signed by the former governor may well require them to implement mask requirements.

That law requires school boards to adhere “to the maximum extent practicable” to strategies protecting schoolkids from covid-19 that have been “provided” by the CDC. As it happens, the CDC does advise universal masking in schools and backs up this position by citing various studies showing that such policies are effective.

C'Ville Today

This morning in Charlottesville

One of the organizers of that Unite The Right mess here in my hometown in August 2017 - Richard Spencer - is among the defendants in a civil suit brought by victims of the violence that these assholes perpetrated.

Glenn Youngkin (that's his bus) is the GOP candidate for governor.

I have to allow for some probability that these folks aren't who they appear to be, and are doing this in a sarcastic/ironic kinda way, but this one very large fact says otherwise:

Youngkin tells the MAGArubes he's down with Trump, but then he lies about it when he goes amongst the far less-rabid "independent or undecided voters" in the big squishy middle. That tells me this is almost exactly what's to be expected.

Is Glenn Youngkin a Q-addled racist Trumpster asshole? We really don't know, but he's got strong support from a whole big bunch of Q-addled racist Trumpster assholes who apparently believe him to be one of them. So - yeah. That.

Election Day is this Tuesday (11-2). It's going to be a nervous 4 days.

BTW, here's a partial transcript of a Richard Spencer meltdown (the night of 08-12-2017) posted on Twitter in a long thread by Molly Conger:

This shit is not over - even when it's over, it ain't over, Yogi. Our dads and grandads stomped on these pricks until there was nothing left but greasy spots on sidewalks around the world, but they'll always be with us in one iteration or another. No matter how we beat them down, they'll be back - at some point, they'll be back.

And then it'll be up to our children, or their children, to beat them down again.

'Twas ever thus

and ever thus 'twill be

I Got Questions

Is Glenn Youngkin a Nazi shitheel?

I don't know, because of course, I can't tell what's in his heart of hearts.

But it doesn't really matter if he's a Nazi shitheel or not - he was happy to be on a Nazi shitheel radio show, hosted by a Nazi shitheel, with an audience chock full of Nazi shitheels.

So while there's nothing truly definitive we can conclude about Glenn Youngkin actually being a Nazi shitheel himself, it's obvious he's being supported politically by whole big bunches of Nazi shitheels - who very probably believe him to be a Nazi shitheel.

Right Wing Watch:

Republican candidate for governor Glenn Youngkin appeared on Sebastian Gorka’s “America First” radio show in a clip posted to Gorka’s website Monday night.

Gorka, a former Trump White House official turned Salem Broadcasting radio host, has a long history of Islamophobic comments, once saying that taking Muslim refugees into America would be a “national suicide.” A Nazi-linked Hungarian group—whose pin Gorka wore to Trump’s Inaugural Ball in 2017—says that he is one of their sworn members.

Gorka has been trying to get Youngkin to come on to his show in recent weeks, suggesting that Youngkin was a RINO—Republican in name only—and needed to convince his viewers otherwise.

Thanking Gorka for having him on his show, Youngkin launched into his pitch, vowing to “get critical race theory out of our schools” and to “invest in law enforcement instead of getting them defunded.” He began criticizing Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe before Gorka cut him off.

“He’s one of the most reprehensible politicians in America,” Gorka said. “You are speaking to millions of Trump supporters across the nation; there’s no concern amongst them that Terry is bad news and will be bad news for Virginia. What they want to hear from you is that you support the America First agenda, that you support making America great again, and that you won’t be just, as somebody labeled you, potentially another Mitt Romney for Virginia. What can you do to reassure Trump supporters that is not who you are?”

“The president knows that I am a Virginia first governor’s candidate, I’m going to stand up for Virginians,” Youngkin said, touting his endorsement from the former president. He went on to claim that President Joe Biden is dispatching the Department of Justice to silence Virginian parents as he tried to bring the focus of the conversation back to the right-wing movement’s attacks on school boards for teaching about racism in U.S. history and LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum. “We’re going to make Virginia the best state in America. We’re going to save it.”

“He came on the show, give him credit for that. Look him up, go to Glenn Youngkin, go to his campaign site,” Gorka said. “We need to save America, and that includes the commonwealth. Thank you, Glenn Youngkin.”

Youngkin has tried to portray himself as a moderate, but the Republican nominee’s appearance on Gorka’s show is just his latest effort to court extreme figures and organizations. Last week, Youngkin spoke at the religious-right “Pray Vote Stand” conference held by Family Research Council—an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center has deemed a hate group. The week prior, he attended an event for the Family Foundation, a virulently anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice group.

Like Grandma said:

People are gonna know you

by the crowd you run with.

COVID-19 In Virginia

We're currently dodging the big bullet here in the middle piedmont - mostly IMO because we have a real doctor in the governor's chair, and Dem majorities in both houses of the state legislature, which means the decisions are being driven by the consensus of healthcare professionals instead of dumbass politicians.

But don't get cocky. This is some bad shit, and if we let our guard down, it's just going to get even worse than what Cult45 continues to let it become.

Weirdly, since it's been around for a good 8 months, and because we pretty much know that there's a high probability that the number of actual cases could be 10 times that of confirmed positive tests, there's also the probability that 50-70% of us have already been exposed and/or already had a mild case without really knowing it - something 45* has been using as a weapon to minimize the whole thing.

But again - don't get cocky. We still don't know jack shit about it, and ignorance gets us killed.

New Democracy Stuff

Virginia put the Dems in charge, and we're finally making some progress towards that more perfect union.

2 really big ones, IMHO are Drivers License reinstatement and Voting.

License restrictions were closely tied in with other obvious and corrupt attempts at voter suppression. And the items that expand voting, especially the one making Election Day a state holiday - comprise a very healthy package of democracy.

BTW, "conservatives" benefit from all of this too. You're welcome.

Hundreds of new laws in Virginia go into effect Wednesday, July 1 that could affect your life.

The laws reflect the Democratic majority in the Virginia General Assembly and the governor’s mansion.

More than 1,200 bills cleared the legislature, and were signed by Gov. Ralph Northam, with most taking effect Wednesday. Others, including a minimum wage increase, to $9.50 per hour won’t become law until 2021. A law banning holding a cellphone while driving will go into effect Jan. 1, 2021.

Abortion

New legislation rolls back a 24-hour waiting period and the requirement that a woman undergo an ultrasound and receive printed counseling materials before having the procedure.

Casinos

Lawmakers voted to legalize casino gambling in five cities, including Richmond, if voters give their approval in local referendums. The four other cities would be Bristol, Danville, Norfolk and Portsmouth. Sports betting will be legal, regulated by the Virginia Lottery. Betting on games with in-state colleges will be prohibited.

Confederate statutes

As of July 1, localities will have the ability to decide the fate of Confederate statues in their jurisdictions. Previous Virginia law made it illegal to remove war monuments. Under the new law, localities can remove, relocate or contextualize monuments on public property.

Driver’s license suspensions

Drivers will no longer have their licenses suspended for unpaid fines and court costs. Last year, lawmakers approved a budget amendment proposed by Northam, which reinstated 600,000 suspended licenses to Virginians.

Education

New laws eliminate the requirement that school principals report misdemeanors committed at school to police. Parents will get at least 24 hours’ notice before a school holds a lockdown drill.

Guns

Several new laws go into effect July 1, including a ban on the possession of firearms by a person subject to a restraining order. New requirements call for a background check on all firearm sales and a limit on handgun purchases to one a month. A lost or stolen gun will need to be reported within 48 hours.

Health insurance

Health insurers will be limited to charging a maximum of $50 per month for insulin. Virginia is creating a state health insurance exchange, rather than relying on the federal marketplace.for people to buy health insurance.

In-state tuition regardless of citizenship status

Students living in the U.S. without documentation, but who still meet Virginia residency requirements will be eligible for in-state colleges and universities. Under the law, a student will have to show proof of filing taxes, will have to have attended high school in Virginia for two years or been homeschooled there or passed a high school equivalency test before enrolling.

LGBTQ

Furthering the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that protects lesbian, gay and transgender people from discrimination in employment, Virginia added sexual identity and gender identity to its protected classes, making it illegal to discriminate in housing, employment and public accommodations. In addition, conversion therapy on minors will be banned.

Marijuana

As of July 1, people found in possession of under 1 ounce of marijuana will face a $25 civil fine. There will no longer be jail time or a criminal conviction. Criminal records of simple possession will be sealed, and employers and schools will be banned from asking about prior simple possession convictions.

Transportation

Lawmakers raised the gas tax by 7.6 cents a gallon and created the Central Virginia Transportation Authority, to oversee and finance transportation projects in Richmond, Ashland, and the counties of Charles City, Chesterfield, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, New Kent and Powhatan.

Voting

Starting Wednesday, voters will no longer need to show a photo ID at polls, but will be required to show other documents that show the name and address of the voter. For absentee voting, voters will no longer be asked to state an excuse. Election Day will be recognized as a state holiday, with the elimination of Lee-Jackson Day, which paid tribute to Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

Sorry Ralph

Full statement demanding that Governor Northam resign immediately. pic.twitter.com/XEf0H6HvOf

— Virginia Democrats (@vademocrats) February 2, 2019

Gov Ralph Northam (D-VA) will have to resign. Stay tuned for all hell breaking loose if he doesn't.

The statement:

And I don't really care about all the tearing at clothing and the gnashing of teeth going on in the halls of power as the operatives try to position things in a way that minimizes the damage and squares things up with blah blah blah. Stop it. Just stop that shit.

Northam fucked up. 35 years ago - when he was 24 years old. I fucked up in somewhat the same way. A lot of us fucked up like that. We told and retold "black jokes", and laughed our asses off, and we tho't using the N-Word meant we were "just keepin' it real". We believed we weren't being the racist assholes we were actually being. 

"It was just a joke".

All of that is by way of explanation and not excuse. Because there is no excuse, because there can be no excuse.

I can say oops, and try to do better, but I'm not the Governor. I'm not the guy everybody has to be able to count on not to be that racist asshole - and not to have been a racist asshole - and at least to have not covered up being that racist asshole.

Seriously - when do these "political smart guys" finally learn that it's the cover up that comes back to fuck 'em?

The feeling of betrayal will never go away. Some will artificially nurture it as a useful political weapon, but for the people who matter - the people who believe public service is an honorable thing - they won't forget or forgive. And they shouldn't.

Northam is done.

And I think we'll be OK with Justin Fairfax.

Number 48

Tom Garrett (aka: Trump's Bitch) says he won't run for re-election this fall - cuz he's an abusive drunk.

WaPo:

RICHMOND — Rep. Thomas Garrett (R-Va.) announced Monday that he is struggling with alcoholism and will abandon his run for a second term in Congress so he can focus on recovery and his family.

Garrett, a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, is the 48th Republican to retire or announce they will not seek reelection to the House this year, according to a list maintained by the House Press Gallery.

Many are leaving in anticipation of a strong Democratic performance in congressional races this fall and out of frustration with partisan politics in Washington.

Garrett, 46, was facing a robust challenge from his Democratic opponent, journalist and author Leslie Cockburn, who had raised more money and had more cash on hand than he had. In recent days, unnamed former staffers had accused him and his wife of mistreating staff who worked in his congressional office.

But in a videotaped statement, Garrett, a former Virginia state senator, said his departure from politics was spurred by his addiction.


That's 48 House Members total, with 32 giving up their seats for reasons other than running for some other office or being tapped into 45*'s "Administration" - they're just bailing out.

This is going to be a tough pull - better get goin'.

Leslie Cockburn's Campaign

A Town Hall - VA05

Tom Garrett is a Daddy State clown of the highest order.

Follow him on Twitter. Listen to his speeches. Watch the YouTube videos. And then troll the fuck out of him.  Nobody deserves a good old-fashioned slagging more than this guy.

My comment at YouTube:

(and you might have to hurry - no telling how long his media people will allow criticism to stay in place)

Your "logic" is that banning bump stocks wouldn't save all that many lives, so why bother? Because - long guns? Well, what's the number, Mr Garrett? How many Americans do you need to see murdered before you get up off your ass and do something? 50? 500? How many? 

Then you turn around and say we have to spend enormous amounts of time and energy and money to solve the problem of immigrants involved in 3% of traffic deaths. 

You're an ideologue. You insist on taking every circumstance and smashing-fitting it into your narrow preconceptions. And the kicker is that you insist on using the most obviously ham-handed debate tactics, most often heard in a middle school cafeteria:

eg: "As someone who respects the Bill of Rights..." - what grade are you in now? 

Everybody respects the Bill of Rights, dopey - nobody is saying anything about tearing it up except you, when you're using it as a false premise. 

There is no honor in your outlook, or in your intellectually lazy presentation, or in your blatant attempts to impose your Daddy State agenda on us. 

You need to go.

Governor Ralph Northam

Northam's inaugural:

A Map

Just wanted to throw this one up and look at it for a while.

(WaPo)

I don't do colors very well, but to me, this looks a lot like Virginia has seen a significant shift towards the Blue end.

Even all that wide open space in the western and southwestern parts don't have that deep red thing going on like before.

But what's really odd is the purpling of places like Fredericksburg and The Tidewater (Norfolk etc) because of the fairly heavy National Security presence in those areas.

I guess it's possible that the GOP's insistence on the belt-tightening fiscal regime that eventually led to the choking effects of Sequestration is making life difficult in places that depend a lot on federal money. We heard a little of that leading up to Tuesday's elections.

I dunno.

Once upon a time, a friend who knows about such things told me the reason most US Military people have been way more inclined to vote Republican is that the Democrats were the ones who sent them to war in stupid places, for stupid reasons - Korea, Vietnam, etc - while cutting their budgets and talking shit about them, but now they're drifting to the Dems because it's the GOP who's been doing all that lately.

I dunno again.

It's pretty weird, and getting weirder - Bob Goodlatte (R-VA06) just announced he's not running in 2018, which makes him like the 20th Repub to bail - so I think it doesn't start getting un-weird for a while yet.

The more we learn, the less we know - just keep watching I guess.

Sounds About Right

Vox:

The gubernatorial primaries in Virginia on Tuesday were supposed to be about the fight over the Democratic Party’s soul.

National profile after national profile of the race (including Vox’s) focused on the battle between Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam and former Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA). Did it represent a Bernie Sanders versus Hillary Clinton rematch? Or a key test run for the populist progressive movement?

Then the election was held, and a different storyline caught the political world off-guard. Northam, with the overwhelming support of Virginia Democratic officials across the state, crushed Perriello by 14 points. What shocked observers instead was the Republican primary, where Corey Stewart — a Confederate sympathizer and onetime campaign official for Donald Trump — came within just 1.2 points of beating former Republican National Committee Chair Ed Gillespie.

Like Jeb Bush in the Republican presidential campaign, Gillespie entered the race with massive advantages in spending, official endorsements, and name recognition. By contrast, Stewart attacked Gillespie online as a “cuckservative,” accused his opponent of treating “Donald Trump like he had typhoid,” and vowed to crackdown on immigrants and protect Confederate monuments if elected. It was quite a comeback: This fall, Stewart was fired from his position as Trump’s Virginia campaign chair after calling the RNC “establishment pukes” on Facebook.

And he almost won...
--and--

The theory didn’t prove to be true that there were thousands and thousands of populist, angry Democrats who would be willing to take a chance on somebody who hadn’t — prior to announcing his campaign for governor in January 2017 — spent more than two years in Virginia elected public life. And who, since then, had been out of the country most of the time.

Perriello’s mistake was that Perriello himself was not enough to win — there needed to be more relationships; there needed to be more connections; he had to know local Democratic committees and local Democratic officials.

At the end of the day, one reason Northam won was because you couldn’t go to any Democratic committee — or any Democratic chair or any elected Democrat in the state — who didn’t know Northam and hadn’t talked to him. At the end of the day, that makes a difference.

Perriello simply didn’t have those kinds of relationships. There was a lot of “energy” behind him, but it really wasn’t enough because Perriello hadn’t been working the Democratic electorate like Northam had been for more than a decade.
It's still the ground game that matters. The spread of the establishment's tendrils in the body politic is wide and deep throughout both national parties (we knew that - nuthin' new there).

The difference remains though:

Dems seem to be voting against their candidates by either staying home or by voicing their strong discontent, which makes it more likely for others to stay home.

Repubs have done the same in the past, but it looks like they've gotten to the point where the Tribal Loyalty thing has recently been strong enough to get them out to vote even when it's obvious to everybody else that voting for "their candidate" is voting against their own best interests.

Now, maybe we're seeing a natural backlash on the GOP side, where people woke up badly hungover and found themselves in bed with nothing but torn condoms and a sore butthole. When the Trump guy craps out in Virginia, it could be a very good sign.  But like the Vox piece says, he came a pretty close second.

Perriello got squashed by 14 points, but he was running on a "Progressive Agenda" that just makes too much sense - people love to squawk about wanting a common sense approach to governing, but when somebody steps into the ring with almost exactly what they say they want, they see it as radical and it scares 'em off (?)  Plus, "Progressive" is a dirty word to "conservatives".

Skipping to the chase - given the concentrated fervor of Radical Right Republicans for almost any kind of Trump-ish insurgency, Stewart losing by less than 2 points could be seen as a blowout in favor of restoring some level of sanity on GOP side.

And Perriello getting blown out by 14 when he has no infrastructure in place and no support from any of the top 10 Virginia Dems (and let's face it - the guy has a charisma rating somewhere between Droopy Dog and day-old guacamole) - that one starts to look a lot closer than the numbers are showing.

It ain't over, kids.

The Virginia Effect

I'm putting up "The Virginia Effect" as a term of art in politics because today's Dem primary could be a harbinger (ya heard it here first)

Vox:

Almost every profile of the Perriello-Northam race has cast Perriello as the progressive, populist outsider insurgent and Northam as the moderate, centrist creature of the establishment.

But in several critical respects, this binary breaks down on closer inspection. Perriello has run as a “Bernie Democrat” determined to get big money out of politics; in reality, his campaign is being backed by Wall Street’s biggest liberal donors.

Perriello has been said to be running against “the establishment,” and, when it comes to Virginia’s Democratic establishment, that’s true. But Perriello received the blessing of national Democrats who certainly have clout, including John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chair.

The two candidates’ voting records also don’t make much of a proxy battle between the party’s left and center-left factions. Both men support a $15-an-hour minimum wage; both have made opposing Trump and defending undocumented immigrants central themes of their campaigns; both have robust plans to expand the state’s community colleges and state infrastructure. “Policy-wise, there really isn’t that much difference,” Kidd said. (The major difference between the two candidates is over the construction of a proposed pipeline through the state; Perriello opposes it, and Northam has drawn ire from environmental groups by refusing to condemn it.)

2 things basically:

First, it'll be a "divided party thing" almost any way it turns out because that's what most of the Press Poodles have been selling.

But second, I'm really just hoping it doesn't degenerate into a re-enactment of 45* vs Hillary, with all the stoopid politically ignorant sniping and tantrum-throwing between the Bernie Bros and the HilBots. Especially if the Dem loses and there's this whole piss-n-moan thing after the fact.

The only thing that bickering does is to sour more people on the whole process.  And guess what - the more people you push out, the easier you make it for the Daddy State.

Grow the fuck up, kids. There's no purity to be had here - this has to be about yanking the "center" away from the far right, and putting it back in the goddamned middle where it belongs.

Polling Here At Home

Blue Virginia:

Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton holds a 9 percentage point lead over Republican Donald Trump among likely voters in Virginia (45%-36%), according to The Roanoke College Poll. Libertarian Gary Johnson trails with 7 percent of likely voters, while Independent Evan McMullin and Green Party candidate Jill Stein each garner 1 percent. Ten percent of likely voters remain undecided. In a two-way matchup, Clinton’s lead extends to 13 points (51%-38%). Clinton led by 7 percentage points in the September Roanoke College Poll (44%-37%).

The Roanoke College Poll interviewed 814 likely voters in Virginia between October 2 and October 6 and has a margin of error of +3.4 percent. The poll was conducted after the first presidential debate and prior to both the second debate and the release of the videotape of Donald Trump making vulgar comments about women.

Virginia's looking like a bellwether - a leading indicator kinda thing.  Increasing buzz going on about how If HRC's lead goes up a lousy two points here in The Old Dominion over the next coupla weeks, we could be in for a regular tsunami.

About That Flag

Some knuckleheads down in Richmond decided a while back to put up the CSA Battle Flag because they tho't it was a good way to show their...uhm...American Pride(?)  Yeah, that one still eludes most of us graced with the sense the good lord gave the average okra pod.

Anyway, they've put up another one, but there seems to be some real push-back goin' on (or at least a little wishful Photoshoppin'):

And BTW:

hat tip = Addicting Info

Happy Birthday, Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia officially ratified the Constitution of the United States and became the 10th state of the United States on June 25th, 1788.

About The Cantor Thing

Eric Cantor lost his primary against a nobody yesterday - and I imagine you've prob'ly heard all about it already, so I don't need to rehash it.

But there's not a lot of celebrating going on at VA-GOP HQ today, cuz here's the thing most Teabaggers just don't get:

Because of Eric Cantor's position as House Majority Leader, Virginia's 7th District has been the 2nd most powerful Congressional District in all of USAmerica Inc.  Out of 435 voting districts, only John Boehner's (OH-08) has more clout and influence than VA-07.

Guess what happens now?  Almost 600,000 Virginia voters are about to get shuffled to the bottom of the deck.

I think that's not necessarily a bad thing - if power doesn't change hands once in a while, we get some pretty shitty results (kinda like what we've been seeing for the last 20 years or so).  Just keep in mind that in politics, even when you get what you want, you don't always get what you want.

hat tip = Balloon Juice

Ah, Virginia

Hard to believe sometimes that Virginia is where America started; the birthplace of presidents; among the first places where 'commonwealth' was adopted as a governing philosophy.

4 out of the first 5 presidents of this amazing country were sons of Virginia, but lately, we've had Vaginal Bob McDonnell and Kenny the Kooch Cuccinelli and now - just so the Dems don't feel left out (and also too, so pundits and press poodles can propagate the "both sides" meme), we get Phil Puckett.

Former state Sen. Phillip P. Puckett, D-Russell, said Monday that his daughter’s future as a judge was a large reason behind his decision to resign.

Senate Republicans had balked at backing Puckett’s daughter, Martha P. Ketron, for a full six-year appointment to a juvenile court judgeship in Southwest Virginia, saying they oppose giving judicial appointments to family members of sitting legislators.

“She cannot be confirmed into the position permanently as long as I serve in the General Assembly,” Puckett said. “My colleagues on both sides of the aisle acknowledge that she is fully qualified for the position.

“At this point in my life, I feel that I cannot allow my political career to hamper my daughter’s future and her desire to serve the families and children of our area on the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.”

--and--

Puckett’s resignation ignited a firestorm by effectively giving the Republicans a 20-19 majority in the previously Democrat-controlled chamber. It altered the landscape of deadlocked negotiations over a new state budget and whether the spending plan will include Medicaid expansion.