Category: Politics
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Transparency for Thee But Not for Me
In response to attacks from left-wing critics, the Charles Koch Foundation said last week that it will post all future multiyear agreements with universities online. The Foundation is one of the nation’s most generous contributors to higher education in the United States, ladling out $90 million in gifts in 2017. Among the biggest beneficiaries has…
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Irony: Clean Money Group Donates More than Power Company
The Virginia Public Access Project has updated its list of largest campaign donors in Virginia, and the results making good reading. My money is cleaner than yours. Perhaps the most fascinating tidbit is that Charlottesville-based Michael Bills, founder of Clean Virginia and scourge of Dominion Energy Virginia’s influence on state politics, has injected more money…
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Updates: Money, Power and Politics (Oh, My)
The following are updates on earlier Bacon’s Rebellion stories of mine. Clean Virginia Files First Report Clean Virginia Fund, the political action committee that is trying to buy legislators’ loyalty away from regulated utilities, has filed its first report with the State Board of Elections. Charlottesville financier and hedge fund magnate Michael D. Bills is…
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The Va. Political Class in Action: Tidewater Edition
From the Daily Press: Federal prosecutors say they have evidence of congressional candidate Shaun Brown, a Democrat running as an independent, of “lying to an investor and falsifying campaign finance information to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).” Brown currently faces charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and causing false records, wire fraud, theft of government…
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Saul Trumpinsky – Donald Trump and Saul Alinsky
Yes Virginia, there is a United States. Most posts published on this blog are dedicated to Virginia-specific issues. This post is an exception. It is an attempt to understand the unexpected popularity of Donald Trump. While all states are impacted by the federal government and national politics, Virginia is perhaps the most affected state. The proximity…
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AP’s Latest Hit Piece: Journalism or Polemic?
Here we go again. The Associated Press’ Alan Suderman has popped out another context-free article making an issue of Dominion Energy’s tenfold increase in lobbying expenses over the past year to more than $1 million. That spending, writes Suderman, “came during a period when the company successfully pushed through legislation that could lead to substantial increases…
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“Pterodactyl Tim” Kaine Watch: Lying about SCOTUS Nominee
The Age of Innocence. Tim Kaine was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, but grew up in Overland Park, Kansas. All that folksy Midwestern-ness seemed to imbue Kaine with a decency and honesty that people noticed. One imagines a young man so innocent and naive that he would sneak behind the barn and do nothing. Kaine…
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Revisiting Virginia’s Public Accommodation Laws
Virginia is for lovers haters. A sad scene unfolded in Lexington, Va., last Friday evening. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, President Trump’s press secretary, tried to enjoy a meal with her family at the Red Hen restaurant. The owner, a New York transplant named Stephanie Wilkinson, asked the Sanders party to leave the restaurant after starting their appetizers.…
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The Strings On The Money Revealed
And now, from our You Can’t Make This Stuff Up Department, come two Richmond lobbyists providing strong evidence that the money really does have strings and you only get it if you play along. We had no idea, right? First, see the story on Blue Virginia, with newly-elected Del. Dawn Adams, D-Henrico, sharing a recent…
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Will the Real Corey Stewart Please Stand Up?
Minnesota Confederate? Corey Stewart was born in Duluth, Minnesota. He grew up in Minnesota attending St. Olaf College before transferring to Georgetown University to finish his BS degree. He then went back to Minnesota to attend law school before moving permanently to Northern Virginia. So it comes as something of a surprise that this transplanted Minnesotan…
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Remembering Tim Kaine’s Caribbean Vacation
by D.R. Rippert Rolexes in Paradise. Ask most people about former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and the first thing you’re likely to hear is, “You mean Governor Rolex?” or some other reference to his trial and conviction on bribery charges. The fact that the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned the conviction doesn’t matter. McDonnell’s once promising…
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Virginia Is for Psychos
I don’t know how good the social science is, but this is too good to pass up. A study by Ryan H. Murphy, an economics professor at Southern Methodist University, has ranked the 48 contiguous U.S. states by “psychopathy,” or anti-social behavior. It is disconcerting to see the Old Dominion ranking No. 10 on the…
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The Scalia School: a Bastion of Conservative Thought
The Scalia School of Law at George Mason University has significant disadvantages in the scrabbling for prestige among American law schools. Founded in 1979, it’s a relatively young institution, which means graduates have had less time to accumulate wealth, donate, and leave bequests than their counterparts at older institutions have done. As a result, the…
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A Trump-Stewart Republican Party?
What do we make of Corey Stewart’s nomination as Republican candidate to run against Tim Kaine for the U.S. Senate seat? Does Stewart’s narrow victory portend a reshaping of the Republican Party of Virginia along more populist, Trumpian lines? I think a fundamental political realignment could be occurring, but the outcome hinges on events yet…
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Conservative Values + Money + Authenticity
Thirty years ago the Republican Party threw in the towel and nominated a candidate who had no chance to beat Charles Robb for the U.S. Senate and really no chance of giving Robb a semblance of a race. The same thing probably happens again Tuesday, especially if the predictions of a Corey Stewart victory in…