Here at RK, we've obviously been focused heavily on today's presidential primary in Virginia. Believe it or not, however, there IS other news out there. For instance:
*The Washington Post has its "Winners & Losers from JJ Dinner" list. I was surprised they put Mark Warner on the "losers" list; personally, I thought he and his staff were big winners at JJ for their presence, professionalism and enthusiastic hard work. What do you think about the other "winners" and "losers" on the list?
*Jim Webb tells the Huffington Post that "legal action against the Bush administration may be needed if the president pursues a long-term military presence in Iraq without Congress' approval."
*The Virginia General Assembly is about halfway through its 2008 session, and the Washington Post reports that "[t]he Virginia home-building industry offered a compromise Monday that would exempt Tysons Corner and the Reston Town Center from a Senate bill that would dramatically change the way developers contribute money for roads, schools and other services."
*Also in the General Assembly, the Washington Post reports:
The House also tentatively approved an immigration bill that would allow employers to fire workers for misconduct if they speak a language other than English at work. House members also tentatively agreed to increase penalties for some serious driving offenses after earlier voting to repeal the costly and unpopular fees on abusive drivers that passed last year as part of a landmark transportation package. In addition, the House passed a bill to further regulate payday lenders, while the Senate continued to work on its own proposal.
*The Republican-controlled Virginia House of Delegates rejected a pedestrian safety bill that "would have required that drivers stop, rather than yield, to pedestrians in crosswalks." Why would anyone oppose this?!?
*Virginia's budget deficit could reach $1 billion. Not good, obviously.
*Winds, fire, and power outages continue to pose problems for tens of thousands of Virginians following a powerful cold front that brought Arctic air to the state.
*The fight over the proposed Wise County coal-fired power plant continues, with supporters of the plant bizarrely claiming that "[t]he DEQ should listen to local residents instead of "wealthy" environmentalists." Wealthy environmentalist? Is that supposed to be a sick joke? Have these coal supporters met the young, low-paid (but passionately committed) staffers for groups like the Chesapeake Climate Action Network? Have they compared the (nearly unlimited) financial resources at the disposal of Dominion on the one hand with the shoe-string, grassroots environmental groups? Give us all a break!
I thought Hillary's speech was well read, but that's the key -- it was read. Obama's speech was delivered, and there's a big difference. Hillary said a month or two ago, in apparent defense of her clunky speeches, that you may campaign with poetry, but you govern with prose. Well, Barack was nearly poetic, and Hillary was depressingly prosaic. I should note, in the interest of some sense of balance, that Hillary is actually quite effective when she speaks extemporaneously, as in a debate or a town meeting. But she is really pretty bad with a set speech most of the time.
I completely agree with the Webb as loser tag. How hard is it to travel down to Richmond, eat some dinner, grip'n'grin with a bunch of people, and speak for a few minutes? It didn't even have to be a great speech - just a "Hello, great to be here, hope y'all are having a good time, lets kick the Repubs out of power in Nov" sort of thing. But he couldn't even make it for that????? And people are talking about him being a VP candidate? I'm sorry, he's going to have to put in A LOT more effort if he wants that sort of job.
The one time I bought tix (2004) we had a family emergency and couldn't go. What a waste.
1/5 of all pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriage (medically this is called spontaneous abortion). And the way the theocrats are headed, women may have to fear even getting pregnant. Otherwise anything they do (work, exercise too much or too little, eat this or that, or even have th wrong hobbies) might be grounds to file charges against them.
Thank God for the Senate, which knows an outrage when it sees one, turned Jones down last time. But he's B-A-A-CK.