The GOP transportation package has severe deficiencies that warrant chopping off its head and mounting it on a spike, but the notion purveyed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and others that it would short-change Virginia’s school children is not one of them. The Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance has produced the following chart that compares K-12…

Chairman of the RPV, Ed Gillespie, motored a long way for the Hampton Republican Committee fellowship breakfast on Sat. 24 Feb. He had to hurry home for his daughter’s basketball game. It was a long round trip to hear voices he, apparently, hasn’t heard in Richmond or NoVa. Mike Wade, Chairman of the Hampton Committee…

What Would Tim Do? About Transportation in Virginia. Rumor from Richmond is that Governor Tim Kaine will offer a “Democratic Plan for Transportation”. That seems a bit far-fetched so late in the GA session. The more likely course is the word our Democrat Governor will do everything he can to kill whatever comes of conference…

The great news today is that Sen. Russell Potts (RINO-27) is retiring. He is quitting in the face of two primary challengers. Which leads us to His Lordship Sir John Chichester (RINO-28). He has from Feb. 27th to March 27th to declare how he wants to be re-nominated. Except the recent court decision said the…

We take this station break to plug our favorite charity, the Families of the Wounded Fund. Since 2005, the fund has been donating 100 percent of its proceeds to the families of wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The all-volunteer organization spends nothing on administrative staff and overhead. Our soldiers get excellent medical care…

For all the talk around BR about growth and planning, what does a community do when it’s in decline? A new piece in Governing takes a look at Youngstown, Ohio, a city that’s lost over half its population in the last 30 years. How have city leaders responded? Unlike the industrialists who bolted from Youngstown…

We’re a day late, but better late than never. You can check out the February 20, 2007, edition of the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine here, and you make sure to never miss an issue by subscribing here. Transportation AbominationMutant offspring of a tortured political process, the transportation compromise before the General Assembly will do more harm…

Good news today! One of the Right WingNut e-newsletters has noted Bacons’ Rebellion at the top of its list of “The ‘Right’ Blogs” We were a little concerned that this would tarnish Jim Bacon’s pledge to provide all sides of every issue. Then we heard that one of the leading Left WingNut e-newsletters was going…

Sorry, folks, I had to attend to a family medical emergency over the weekend. Not only did I have to suspend blogging, but I have to delay publication of the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine. With luck, we’ll be back on track tomorrow.

Today’s Daily Press (Sunday Feb. 18, 2007) reports the following about the Transportation plans in the General Assembly: “That plan also proposed a variety of fee increases and set up regional funding approaches for Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia.” Actually, the ‘regional approaches’ are called a ‘political sub-division of the Commonwealth’ in the bills –…

That some conservatives have become disillusioned with the GOP both in Virginia and nationally is no secret. The reasons are many and they seem to be growing with each passing day. But what to do about it? In this American Conservative piece, Paul Weyrich and William Lind say there’s a whole heap of things to…

The Virginia State Bar, the body that regulates state attorneys, wants to erase an ethics rule “that for a half-century has prohibited the state’s legislators from being employed alongside lobbyists at the commonwealth’s largest law firms,” reports Michael Shear at the Washington Post. Virginia’s rule is stronger than that of many other states, where lawmakers…

A million dollar waste of your tax money ends March 1st in Newport News (Daily Press Feb 13, 2007). The ‘Jump Over Jeff’ bus service ends. A Federal grant and some city money paid for service between two new urban shopping/living districts, Port Warwick and City Center which are maybe a mile apart – ‘jumping…

Now the Transportation Abomination will be considered by the House and Senate conferees. Reconciling the House and Senate bills will be up to the following individuals: House of Delegates:Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights)Morgan Griffin (R- Salem)Algie Howell, Jr. (D-Norfolk)Tim Hugo (R- Fairfax)Chris Jones (R- Suffolk)Terry Kilgore (R-Scott) Senate:Thomas Norment (R- James City)Philip Puckett (D-Russell)Ken Stolle (R-…

It looks like the General Assembly will pass some kind of legislation calling for the Virginia Retirement System to divest its holdings in companies doing business in Sudan, although the final details have yet to be worked out. (For a recent update, see this article in the Virginian-Pilot.) The cause is unquestionably just: The Sudanese…