Political Cartoon for the Day

From The Christian Left (hat-tip to lowkell at Blue Virginia).

Watch the Take Back the American Dream Conference

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Rachel Maddow's Segment on How Wrong-Wing Bigots Try to Stir Up Majority Voters

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President Obama's First 1.5 Years: He's Accomplished More than You Think

The Dems New Ad




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcyxAzdMAn8&feature=player_embedded

Whistleblower Rats Out Health Insurance Company

Finally, Some Fun! Jody Wagner's Excellent New Ad

The GOP's Insult-Everyone Path to Marginalization: Why Rural Voters Should Bail on the GOP

Cross Posted at Blue Commonwealth and Daily Kos

(I am (finally) fired up and ready to go. Consider this the first installment on this subject of how out of touch today’s GOP is, especially in Virginia. It will take four posts to address the various issues in the references I will cite. My next installment will address the assertions about the business community and their reactions to Creigh’s message. The third article will address Dems and the rural vote. The fourth will show why Bob McDonnell is not qualified and does not deserve the support of even the GOP base. Here goes the first. Fired up. Ready to go.)

If you want to understand how out of touch today’s Republican Party is, how chauvinistically it holds its rural vote, and how undeserving of it the GOP really is, you have only to look at some recent incidents. First, a major Republican, Tom Davis, suggested that a rural Virginian, with a stellar record, a law degree from a much more respected university than his opponent (Wake Forest v. Regent, come on!), and a much stronger legislative record of accomplishment isn't qualified to be governor.

Let this clip from WAPO here set the stage for a the Davis Politico interview.

“At a recent candidates forum with business leaders in Northern Virginia, Deeds talked about living upstream from the home his ancestors built in 1740. He mentioned the struggles of Virginia families in South Hill and Martinsville. He told the defense contractors, lawyers and investors in the room how much worse off rural Virginia is than the suburbs of Washington. He was halfway through his 20-minute speech before he talked about a centerpiece of his economic plan: to provide tax breaks for businesses that create jobs.

And this was Tom Davis’s reaction:

"He doesn't speak the language," said former Republican congressman Tom Davis, who works at Deloitte Consulting. "He doesn't understand it. That's just not the mold he comes from. He comes from a different world. It's okay. But it doesn't qualify him."

Davis does not react to the need for jobs in rural Virginia, to the plight of real Virginians. Rather, he disses them as being from a different world? This is the “he’s not one of us” turned on its head. Allow me a translation: He’s saying that rural Virginians are “unqualified.” To Creigh's plea for the plight of deserving fellow citizens, Tom Davis gives that? This is a metaphor for the Republican Party. It pours root killer down into its withering tree-stump, deep into its own roots. And it is too ignorant to realize it has killed itself off.

Folks like Davis probably thought Madison Marye (one of the smartest men I have ever known) was “unqualified.” A Democrat, he was so good at his job and so beloved in an otherwise Republican learning district that the Republicans, led by Morgan Griffith, had to gerrymander him out of a district to get rid of him. The voters never would. Madison has a heart of gold and a mind just as worthy. He was as intelligent, effective and savvy as any NOVA Dem. So too is Creigh Deeds.

In the Politico interview, Davis said:

Politics has been defined by culture over the last few cycles, and we've become a rural party and a Southern party. We've been losing inner suburbs and the like. A lot of this was the policies of the Bush administration." Furthermore, as the GOP increased its focus on cultural issues, it also caused a widening education gap:

Davis added: "The high education areas Obama carried -- 78 of the 100 counties with the highest education. McCain carried 88 of the 100 counties with the lowest education. As we move to cultural politics, that's been the shift."

{Kathy’s aside: Is it any wonder Republicans want to defund education?} Davis is right about one thing. Many recent elections have been largely about “culture.” They shouldn’t have been, but that’s the reality. And the GOP knows how to make it about “culture.” Concoct a brew of “culture,” disinformation, hot-button issues, and complete ongoing deprivation and you can get some of the people some of the time. But the depravity of the message and tactics have their limits, and we have approached the bounds of them. The GOP seems hell-bent on riding that wave into oblivion.

You no doubt remember the recent outrage caused by State Republican Chair, Pat "[Mullins], who

“ ended his talk with a story about a Wise County insurance office that had to close two offices, not due to lack of work or the economy, but because it couldn't find employees. He said the employer tried to recruit employees at a nearby college campus. 'They preferred to be on welfare,' Mullins said." (The Record, 7/30/09, here.

I have heard this kind of prejudice before. The supposition is that someone who is “plain spoken,’ who speaks with a twang, or who just doesn’t’ sound as slick or as deceptive as as (say) the current Republican candidate for governor, should be rejected. So, someone who better reflects both the values and the agenda most Virginians want is dissed because, despite the fact that he earned his law degree at the best law school in the state, he uses straightforward language, unspun, unslickified, unlike the FAUX moderate from real other world of FAUX newsland extremists. The thing is, when Creigh is Creigh he does very well. A single clip following the recent debate notwithstanding, Davis and the GOP seriously underestimate both Creigh and the electorate.

I am the daughter of a farm boy, who happened one day, as life would have it, to become a mostly self-taught “master designer” (as the president of a major corporation once said of him). He went on to found its first patent office, and become a corporate vice-president. All his life he spoke humbly and considered himself a farm boy. When he retired he moved away from the hubbub of Southern California to the then mostly rural central Coast. To his last days, he treasured riding past cattle farms, orchards, strawberry fields and vineyards. For him it was like going home, which increasingly this quiet man spoke of in his later years. To understand the GOP’s peril you have to know a bit about my Dad. He was a registered Republican who dined one table away from Ronald Reagan at a presidential fundraiser in 1980. He broke ranks to vote for Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry. Had he lived to 2008, I believe he would have voted for Barack Obama because he had little patience for John McCain. Besides, he told me more than once he’d never vote for Republicans again. (Did I mention he also voted for Senators Feinstein and Boxer! Now there’s a story--and many a voter to be tapped.)

I did not grow up on a farm, far from it. But I have lived not just in a large suburb of Los Angeles; but also in medium-sized city in the northwest, surrounded by wheat fields; and in the rural north, hours from a major city. Farms were just down the road in both directions. Amish buggies rolled down my road too. And today in my planned development, with its walking trails, basketball courts, clubhouses, and 2 swimming pools, I have farmland on three of five sides of me. From one side, the Obenshain farm (now farmland in perpetuity via the New River Land Trust), I hear cows through my open window. I see them as I get my mail outside. Over the years I’ve noted the cows' group behavior and come to watch for them each time I head out of my neighborhood. They silhouette our sunset from finger-like western rays sweeping over Brush Mountain from the northwest. I walk past the Virginia Tech sheep farm and the Heth cattle farm too. Every time I leave the surrounds of my town I am surrounded by farmland, hours of it as I pass mostly rural landscapes on my trips to visit far-flung family. Though I am not a farmer, I know enough to respect what farmers and other rural workers do. They defy stereotype. They are our neighbors, our fellow citizens. They are us... We are of many one, not just here in my my town, or in my family, but across this nation. Jim Webb knew as much. And he showed the way. Mark Warner too. I disagree with Mark Warner about many things, but not about this.

Today's Virginia Republicans show abject disrespect for their base, confound us with their over-the-top bigotry and stereotyping, and (well) appall us with their ignorance. They think they have something up on rural folks, the people all around us, who grow our grain, vegetables and fruit, who raise our cattle and poultry. There's no respect for the teachers, nurses, shopkeepers, construction workers, miners, plumbers, doctors, and mechanics. The GOP does not not have a clue, except how to stoke emotional, rote calls to arms over “values” these Republicans don’t actually practice in real life. Half of the state lies beyond the suburbs of NOVA and Hampton Roads. And the GOP disses all of it.

That pretty much would have eliminated Abe Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and most other early US patriots as well. Regarding buttons, Tom has succeeded in pushing mine. And if I have anything to say about it, we won’t stop giving him and the GOP grief over such bigotry for the rest of this race and on into the future. The GOP has marginalized itself from minorities, women, and now rural voters? Who’s left?

The GOP is, finally, the Party of No and of No one. On the other hand the Democratic Party of Virginia, including and especially, the the Webb wing of the Virginia Democratic Party has some instructing to do. So, let's get the word out about how today's Republicans disrespect rural voters and see how long rural voters continue to support FAUX candidates like Bob McDonnell. Fired up. Ready to go.

Making Negatives Out of Positives in Sotomayor's Rulings

By most accounts Judge Sonia Sotomayor has a well-qualified resume. Except from conservative ideologues, she brings broad support to her confirmation hearings. Nevertheless, as the hearings approach, the Washington Post's Jerry Markon weighs in. And it appears he's trying hard to turn positives into negatives.

I’d like to ask: Since when is thoroughness a liability? If you're the Democratic nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. In a recent Washington Post article, Jerry Markon purports to analyze Sotomayor’s rulings. Said, Markon, she “delivered those rulings with a level of detail considered unusual for an appellate judge.” She has made herself an expert on a number of issues. However, we are told she does a “granular” analysis of every piece of evidence. How very wrong of her (snark)!

When it comes to analysis, I might question that done by the author—and his main source, So. Carolina political scientist, Donald Songer. First, he used a database of 5400 cases with labels of “liberal” or conservative,” depending on whether one ruled for the defendant (“liberal”) or the prosecutor “conservative”). Think about this: The operational definition here is strikingly stereotypical, and ideological itself. If one's operational definition is flawed, the research cannot show what the researcher claims it does.

Whether one rules for or against a defendant should have nothing to do with whether one is a liberal or conservative judge. And labeling a judge so means nothing, except politics. And what this prejudice (and is a prejudice) suggests is that those who believe such a thing cannot afford a defendant a fair trial. But from this operational definition and "analysis," Songer says “I don’t think it’s possible to classify her as tough on crime.” But being tough on crime does not mean that every prosecutor is right. It has nothing whatever to do with which side one finds for. But that is one way “tough on crime” politicians have tried to hijack our legal system. We want our prosecutors to enforce the law by bringing criminals to trial. But don’t’ we expect them to play by the rules? And if they do not, don’t we expect the courts to deal appropriately with prosecutors who don’t follow the law, or who violate due process? Don't we expect the process of the trial to be examined on appeal? Not everyone expects that, of course. For some are concerned, you can hear almost hear the derision of “technicalities” as justification for retrial. But there's more...

In one paragraph, the author makes sure to mention she supported the First Amendment. Isn’t that what all justices must do?

When she threw out one case to set free a convicted murderer, she is dissed by the WAPO writer because she didn’t base her ruling on his guilt but on the appropriateness of the charge he was brought up on. I am not a lawyer, but isn’t serving as arbiter of the process a primary task of the appellate level?

Of particular note, Republicans were furious when Sotomayor handed out a federally mandated minimum sentence, but simultaneously railed that the guidelines are an abomination. She explained later that her ire came from an aspect of the guidelines that Congress has now changed. But that's no excuse (snark!).

In another study reported on NPR this morning (story not available online till later today), she actually convicted more often than her peers, AND she gave longer sentences for both white collar and other criminal violations. But our intrepid WAPO reporter doesn’t see fit to use such considerations. There’s a frame to be made.

Despite the fact that the writer acknowledges that “Her decisions are filled with citations of law and precedent,” he hangs around her neck the infamous “court sets policy" bruh-ha-ha), which she has clarified. But it is a fact that the appellate court does address how court cases should be tried (policy for that). The author also rips Sotomayor for obsessively immersing herself in facts, and then cites a fellow Democratic appointee who criticizes Sotomayor for "disregarding the judges "role as finder-of-facts."

Then the author says her style is "consistent" even when she finds against defendants. With bias and a negative frame such as Markon's, she cannot win. Honestly, this is how to smear and take apart a candidate, inch-by-inch. There’s more at the above link (ad nauseum). Suffice it to say, Mr. Markon was out to find in the negative for Sotomayor. And that’s mostly what he did. No lemonade from lemons here, only rotten lemons, faulty assumptions, and a biased case.

Sarah Palin Was Allegedly AWOL from her Governorship, But Claims Higher Calling

Sarah Palin was allegedly AWOL from her governorship, but claims a "higher calling ." Thus begins the newest excuse for playing hooky and then resigning her job as governor of Alaska. She's only nominally served two of the 2.5 years because much of 2008 was focused on national ambitions. She was laying the groundwork before August 2008. Indeed all of that seemed more important than staying home to safely deliver the her latest child.

Among all the other curiosities concerning the bizarre departure announcement by Sarah Palin is this: She’s not been all that engaged in her job anyway. According to MSNBC, Sarah Palin had “gone fishing.”

So, what of this "higher calling”? Is she trying to tell us (ala GWB) that "God" whispered in her ear? God also ate her homework, apparently. Palin claims this "higher calling" to unite the country along conservative lines. So now God wants the country to be run according to conservative lines. Evidently, Palin doesn’t know what the Bible really says about humility, much less the poor, the meek, the hungry. And, btw, perhaps God takes a dim view of loading your selves up with designer clothing from a shopping spree on someone else's dime (or rather $150,000).

In the last few months, Palin had laid the groundwork for a possible presidential run, establishing a political action committee, SarahPAC. She has a very lucrative (especially for someone who is not all that literate) book deal. Of course, she has a co-writer. And she is moving forward to whatever she is up to.

The recent Vanity Fair piece here shows the extent of her unpredictable, even erratic, behavior. It’s a sobering look at one who could have sat in the second highest office in this country. Our nation's near-peril was trifled with by a GOP which ironically only wanted to win and reflexively dismissed the larger issue of fitness to serve.

What is once again evident is that far too many people fail to vote with a grasp of the facts, knowledge of candidate inconsistencies and fabrications, and fitness for office. Too many were and are willing to fall into line if their buttons are pushed and the right ideological buzzwords uttered. It’s a frightening thought and not at all comforting as we await the Barracuda's next move.

The responsibility for the crisis belongs with candidates such as John McCain, who don’t thoroughly vet their choices; with candidates such as Sarah Palin, who care more about power and little about serving the public; and with the voters who vote for senseless candidates because they think she is “Godly” or “pro-life” or a “values” candidate, when she really none of these. Her notion of valuing "life" is so one-dimensional it would be laughable if it weren't so appalling.

When citizens fail their precious duty, to vote with knowledge and thoughtfulness, we become our nation's gravest hazard. The sad thing --and the outrageous thing--is we had just been there, with a know nothing and no-nothing George W. Bush. Along with his VP he formed a two-person wrecking crew. How soon we forget?

In her repeated tantrums, her anger, her fulminating at the media, she saw everyone else as to blame. And it becomes clear that, sadly, Sarah Palin cares only about herself. That is her legacy (to herself). America will have to, must, look elsewhere. But in Evansville, IN, this spring, Sarah Palin brought out thousands to the local civic center. We write off this dangerous political figure at our--and our nation's-- peril.

Howard Dean on Bipartisanship Lost on Obstructionists

Real Health Care Reform (With a Government Option) NOW!

Dick Cheney's Ongoing Revisionism Tour

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Here We Go (Again)

Divisiveness is endemic to the new GOP ticket for Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General. With the Republican state caucus behind them, candidates for governor (Bob McDonnell), LG (Bill Boling) and AG (Ken Cuccinelli)bring to Virginia what Lavar Stoney (Executive Director of the Virginia Democratic Party) called "the most divisive ticket in modern Virginia history." Indeed. The state Republican Party seems to dig a deeper hole for itself every time.

Here's more of what Stoney said:

The Republican Party of Virginia held their State Convention today in Richmond and as expected they have nominated the most divisive ticket Virginia has seen in the modern era.

If elected, we can expect Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling and Ken Cuccinelli to put their far-right-wing agenda ahead of the needs of Virginia's families. They will do everything they can to turn back the clock on the progress we've made under Governors Warner and Kaine.

The Republicans' choices just give us another reason to go out and work hard again this year to elect sensible, pragmatic leaders that will continue moving Virginia forward.

It's laughable that Bob McDonnell says he'll be a "jobs" governor. Not only is he the antithesis of a jobs candidate, with no plan to do that, but he flunked the first real test--by urging Virginia's legislative body to reject the stimulus for extended unemployment benefits. This ticket cares nothing about real men and women who are without work. Instead, they rely on ideological utterances and empty slogans. It seems the Virginia GOP, like it's national org just doesn't listen (or care) what America needs. More on what's wrong with the Bob McDonnell ticket as we move toward November. Suffice it to say that anyone but Bob will be our mantra. Any of the Democratic alternatives would do a better job of bringing Virginia's economy back from the brink that the party of Bush-Cheney-and Bob McDonnell brought us.

Using case of Dan Choi, Jon Stewart and John Oliver Satirize and Show the Idiocy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT)

In this video Jon Stewart and John Oliver rip into DADT and show it for the absurd policy it is.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Dan Choi Is Gay
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Deeds Campaign Gets Defensive/Aggressive: And Reveals Something About Itself

Analysis

The overall capable and energetic Deeds campaign staffers have done a very good job in the campaign so far. However, the campaign’s apparently creating controversy where there is none. In so doing, it has created a problem of its own. And you have to wonder whether they shouldn’t have just staked out the record and let that be that. Instead, in its railing against McAuliffe about payday lending and falsely claiming that
McAuliffe “attacked” Democrats Warner and Kaine, the Deeds campaign revealed its own shortcomings. First, a little history...

This appeared in the Virginia Pilot in the fall of 1999 (11/17/1999).

The battle over whether triple-digit ``payday'' loans should be more available in Virginia will resurface in the General Assembly next January, the state's banking commissioner and consumer advocates predicted Tuesday.

But the influence of federal banking regulations have made it more difficult for Virginia and other states to curb questionable lending practices, including these high-interest loans to cash-strapped consumers, said Joe Face...

Payday lending, which resulted in usurious rates to borrowers and exploited them into graver financial peril, has been a runaway train since the bill allowing it was passed in Virginia in 2002. Indeed the claims by Deeds of “regulating” in the 2002 bill involved some word-smithing.

Whether or not the bill was marginally better than nothing was debatable. However, it was in its aftermath that the real flood of storefronts began saturating Virginia. While, in the effort to repair the damage, incrementalists, such as Deeds, all well-meaning (they even include the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, the NAACP and the Virginia Poverty Law Center, all stellar non-partisan organizations), ultimately (in 2002) opened the floodgates to extremely usurious rates—which would have been criminal only a decade ago. Calculated at an annual rate, interest rates of 391% were average. So, efforts in 2002 were both reactive to anticipated problems in Virginia following national bank deregulation, but also permissive.

Unless they voted against the original bill, though, Democrats don’t have much high ground on this particular issue. Again, saying so is not attacking them. Some of them wised up. Some of them, such as the well-intentioned Creigh Deeds, have sought to first improve and, finally, to reverse course.

The fact is, though, they didn’t do it soon enough. And so it’s pretty extraordinary that when Terry McAuliffe became the first to call for the end to payday lending (all other candidates followed in quick pursuit), the Deeds campaign tries to portray this as a liability for McAuliffe. The fact is Terry led on the issue.

In as much as Democrats were involved in the whole nuanced mess, I say, own up to it and fix it. A simple idea. Instead, on May 5th, the Deeds campaign issued a press release blasting Terry McAuliffe with a headline as follows:

TERRY MCAULIFFE ATTACKS MARK WARNER, TIM KAINE, AND GENERAL ASSEMBLY DEMOCRATS IN NEW RADIO AD
McAuliffe ad hurts Democrats' efforts to win back the House of Delegates, breaks positive campaign pledge, and gives false information

The campaign continues:

CHARLOTTESVILLE – Yesterday, Terry McAuliffe released a new radio ad that criticizes Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, and Democratic leaders in the General Assembly on payday lending reform, which is the same negative attack that Jim Gilmore used against Mark Warner in the 2008 U.S. Senate race. Instead of targeting Republicans who have stood in the way of payday lending reform, Terry's ad actually attacks the entire General Assembly, including the Democratic-controlled Senate and Democratic members of the House of Delegates.

You can listen to the audio of the McAuliffe ad here. Then, using the the text below, Joe Abbey purports that Terry McAuliffe has “attacked” Mark Warner and Tim Kaine (when he did not).

In Terry's ad, the announcer says: “But some loans come at too high [of] a price because legislation that was passed in Richmond in 2002 allowed predatory payday lenders to do business in Virginia. The legislation even allowed lenders to make loans with annual percentage rates as high as 391 percent. In these tough economic times, the legislature is finally working towards fixing this problem, but why has it taken so long to stop these lenders from preying on Virginia’s most vulnerable families? ”

And then this:

"The McAuliffe campaign's claim that Terry is the only candidate who supports a ban on payday lending is an outright lie. Every Democrat in this race has pledged to end payday lending in Virginia, but Creigh Deeds is the only one who stood with Tim Kaine earlier this year to pass meaningful payday lending reform to protect our families."

Not exactly. The McAuliffe ad did err that, in the time since McAuliffe first announced support for an abolition of payday lending, the other two candidates followed suit. But they only did so when one-upped by the McAuliffe campaign. In fact, had McAuliffe not staked out this position, it is doubtful the other two would have. We'll never know.

Then this week (May 14) the Deeds campaign released a radio ad which protracted this argument and further strained credibility. Here’s the text:

RADIO AD - "Disappointed"
Female: Disappointed.
Male announcer: Yep, disappointed that McAuliffe is attacking his opponents.
Female announcer: Even after he promised not to say anything negative?
Male announcer: And he's even attacking Mark Warner and Tim Kaine record’s in a new radio ad.
Female announcer: Really?
Male announcer: Yep, McAuliffe wants you to believe Warner, Kaine and Democrats in the legislature went easy on those payday lending companies.
Female announcer: That’s the same attack Jim Gilmore tried against Mark Warner.
Male announcer: It didn’t work then and won’t work now.
Female announcer: Kinda strange for someone like Terry McAuliffe who made millions in the high interest credit card business himself to use this deceptive Republican attack.
Male announcer: Well, it's a good thing we have a friend like Creigh Deeds fighting for us.
Female announcer: I know, it was State Senator Deeds who stood With Gov. Kaine to pass new laws that crackdown on payday lenders.
Male announcer: And Deeds is the most qualified Democrat to carry on the Warner-Kaine agenda.
Female announcer: That's why leaders like Senators Yvonne Miller, Louise Lucas and Henry Marsh are supporting Creigh Deeds for Governor.

Here the campaign goes negative while claiming the other guy is. The ad is also extremely misleading. The history of Deeds on payday lending is a lot more nuanced. The Deeds campaign claims “2002: In the initial legislation, Creigh voted for the original language to regulate payday lending in 2002 (HB940).” Previously, the loans would have been considered usurious. But, as I said earlier, the 2002 bill not only “regulated” the loans, it permitted them in the first place. In 2002 the legislature performed either the unthinkable or the good, depending upon whom you believe. Here’s the bill. The wording amended the state’s previous anti-usury laws. And here’s a summary of the law (along with other laws passed that year) From the Virginia Legislative Service back then here.

The payday lending bill was an exploitative mess. Yet since then incrementalists have taken baby steps to fix it. Rather than 1) never voted it into law in the first place, or 2) repealing it altogether, our General Assembly took the easy path, Dems and Republicans. They were so loathe to cut short a fledgling “industry” they would not do what was necessary. On April 3rd Terry McAuliffe called for an end to payday loans. Said the Richmond Times Dispatch at on April 3rd:

McAuliffe's two foes in the June 9 primary echoed his proposal, though both Sen. R. Creigh Deeds of Bath County and former Del. Brian J. Moran of Alexandria voted in 2002 to open Virginia to payday lenders.

So Deeds got “religion” on the subject echoing McAuliffe. Bandwagons are nice, but they don’t count for being the courageous first one to openly take on the wrath of the payday lending “industry.” Then on May 8th, the Deeds campaign included the the chronology in a press release:

2002: In the initial legislation, Creigh voted for the original language to regulate payday lending in 2002. [HB940]
2003: Creigh voted to support “truth in advertising” legislation for the payday lending industry in 2003. [HB1769]
2004: Creigh voted for stricter regulations on payday loan paperwork. [HB688]
2005: Creigh voted to prohibit payday lenders from lending to military personnel or their spouses if a base commander has declared a location restricted. [HB1156]
2007: Creigh voted to create an internet database of loan holders to ensure that a payday lender could not hand out anymore loans to individuals with multiple outstanding loans. [SB1014]
2008: Creigh supported legislation to cap interest loans for payday loans at 36% and to put strict regulations on the payday lending industry. [SB588, HB12]
2009: Earlier this year, Creigh co-patroned legislation to crackdown on payday lenders, which was signed into law by Governor Kaine. [SB1470]
CREIGH DEEDS ON APRIL 8, 2009: Creigh Deeds joined Governor Kaine in supporting a major crackdown on payday lenders in Virginia. [SB 1470, 4/8/09]

The upshot is that Deeds was right about one thing: There was a factual error in McAuliffe’s ad. Terry’s ad should have stated that he (McAuliffe) was the first to call for an end to payday lending. He wasn’t the only one opposing it. Yet the error hardly justified what has come next. Then, instead of just requesting a correction, the Deeds campaign tried to contrast Deeds new complete opposition to payday lending with McAuliffe's raising money (while Deeds was taking on payday lenders McAuliffe was raising money). This erroneously implied that McAuliffe supports payday lending and that Deeds was “to the rescue,” while McAuliffe was not. Then, Deeds campaign upped the ante even more, falsely claiming in both a press release and an ad that McAuliffe attacked Tim Kaine and Mark Warner. It’s possibly an act of desperation. And the Deeds campaign doesn’t need to stoop to this stuff.

This blog has been cross-posted from BlueCommonwealth.com

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George Allen Can't Help Himself: Starts Anti-New Energy Org to Mislead and Obstruct Real Energy Change


George Allen wouldn't know sound energy policy if it bit him in the butt. But that hasn't' stopped him from starting a company to (mis) educate folks about energy. Here's the video with the Virginia Gubernator's smirking announcement.

McDonnell's Campaign Director (Bushie Gillespie) Shoots Himself in the Foot (But Doesn't Even Know It).

Sad Spectacle of Republican "Leadership"



Video from NLS blog.