Bobby McDonnell and the Cooch go to Koch convention

These types of events at the surface level seem pretty straight forward…very powerful people get together and discuss how they can get more money and pass laws that would benefit all of the powerful people in attendance. A more charitable reading of the event might be to say that these men and women are helping to steer our nation’s financial and economic system in a manner most beneficial to our nation’s overall prosperity. That would be pretty darn charitable of me though.

Bobby (Pic | commons.wikimedia.org)

The pilot describes the summit as follows, “It marked at least the eighth time McDonnell has attended one of the Koch conferences, which typically bring together about 200 conservative business titans and dignitaries hand-picked by the Koch brothers and their operatives to discuss free-enterprise conservative causes and raise millions of dollars in contributions to political groups such as Americans for Prosperity, and other non-profits favored by the Kochs.”

The last Koch summit netted almost 50 million dollars in pledged contributions to conservative causes and candidates… certainly nothing to sneeze at. However, my real issue with these events is not that it propels conservative movements around our nation (even though that also bothers me a bit), but rather that it makes clear for all to see the divide between the democracy we have and the one we imagine ourselves to have. Right now in Vail Colorado men and women are blatantly parading the fact they hold disproportionate power in our democracy. “One person one vote” is a phrase rendered completely valueless in the face of such obvious political and financial engineering by 200 people at a resort. We really should be bothered by these types of things. We should reject candidates supported by “summits” like this–conservative and liberal alike.

If you still don’t care then consider how far events like this go towards convincing people about genuineness of the Illuminati. That alone should be enough to get your ire up.

Apparently Virginia is incredibly dependent on France for developing our economy

After last week’s hoopla over Virginia Delegates taking 10k dollar trips to France we now have more elected officials in the land of the baguette. This time, rather than being wined and dined on a one sided fact finding mission designed to buy their support for uranium mining, our delegates are trying to bring home some jobs. Members are trying to lure manufacturing jobs to Southwest VA and I certainly hope it works.

Endorsements are picking up and most people could care less

Endorsements are touted as feathers in the cap of aspiring politicians, but most all data on the topic shows that they matter very little unless someone big like Abe Lincoln endorses you. On state level races this odd publicity of endorsements is even less effective as the average voter needs a second to remember the name of their state delegate and senator, so why on earth would they know the name of the distinguished delegate from Northern Virginia?

Certainly there are internal party mechanisms that make endorsements important like, for example, now as the republicans ready for their entirely undemocratic party nominating convention on July 9^th. Endorsements matter when you are not going to let people vote for their candidate because the party wants to know who they will bother if they don’t select a certain candidate. In fact that might be a better way of presenting these lists of endorsements…let’s title them, “People you will piss off if you don’t support me.”

Necessary? (Pic | commercialappeal.com)

In the end though, it seems the best endorsement you can get is still Jesus. However, this is really shaky ground as Jesus and God rarely seem willing to comment publically on a lot of these races. Candidates still do their best though to strongly suggest their race has been endorsed from on high. Take this for example from a local candidate:

“…Saturday nights are ‘God and Country’ nights. They go to church at Star of the Sea Catholic Church in Virginia Beach and afterwards go shooting at the local gun range.”

***The first person to post in the comment section which candidate this is will get something really cool.***

On the national level just this week it seems God was willing to break with tradition and go ahead and endorse in the republican primary as well.

Virginia number 1 for Business and bottom of the list for employee protection and unions

Once again the Commonwealth has received the top ranking for businesses, but certainly not the people who work at them. Virginia’s “right to work” status, vast array of anti-union laws, and low corporate taxes make Virginia an ideal place to locate your company. However, these same factors lead Virginia to have some of the least amount of protections for workers and union membership in the United States.

Virginia is the third least unionized state in the United States while topping the charts for businesses. This is not a spurious correlation and makes you wonder why we celebrate a statistic that is best for the rich among us but in reality means that the average worker in our state has a difficult time of it?

Even the CNBC study detracted points from Virginia’s overall score noting, “The number of uninsured residents in Virginia has risen steadily in recent years,” something they tie directly to the quality of life.

Homebuilders Association is suing the EPA because they hate the Chesapeake Bay

Surprise! The Homebuilders association is not a fan of desperately needed environmental protections that might erode their bottom line.

Luckily the Army Corps of Engineers cares about the Bay

The first paragraph of the Pilot’s article pretty much sums this up perfectly:

“Instead of spending nothing and doing little this year, Virginia and the Army Corps of Engineers have reached a compromise of sorts over how to help restore oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, state officials said Tuesday.”

Uranium Mining?

Again this piece says it better than I ever could:

“And if Gov. Bob McDonnell can’t see oil derricks go up in his old backyard of Virginia Beach, he’d probably settle for a uranium mine in someone else’s.”

Food Not Bombs (Pic | earthcare.org)

Hackers hit Orlando website over the arrest of Food not Bombs members

While I don’t agree with the destruction of anything real or electronic as a means of protest I understand the motivation here. I shared this story two weeks ago, but could use repeating.

People were feeding the homeless and they were arrested for doing it under a law that was pretty much drafted specifically to keep them from feeding the homeless. Given how callous and completely devoid of empathy this paints Orlando as being I think a website hack is getting off easy.