Life under the Regency category archive

No doubt the Regent considers this merely collateral damage.

When Mohamed Mejri, a Tunisian immigrant with a limousine business here, first learned that the State Department of Motor Vehicles refused to issue him a new driver’s license, he thought it was a mistake.

After all, he had been a licensed driver in Virginia for years.

But last fall, the department stopped accepting his federally issued work permit, a document that was his main proof that he was in the country legally, because he does not have a green card.

Now, five months later, his business is collapsing, and bill collectors are calling.

Virginia changed its policy in September after an illegal immigrant from Bolivia was charged with hitting and killing a nun while driving drunk in Prince William County.

Via Blue Virginia.

Background: Seatack is an older, poorer, predominantly black neighborhood with a growing sense of identity a few blocks inland from the south end of the beachfront.

As has been common in these and other parts, the desires of the citizenry in older, poorer, predominantly minority neighborhoods are frequently ignored. Such neighborhoods are often not so much served as they are imposed on.

I am not a fan of Virginia Beach City Council member Bill DeSteph’s politics. He’s leans too right for me.

I am, however, a fan of his consistent refusal to come when Mayor Sessoms beckons:

The City Council was about to buy a $700,000 property for a new homeless day shelter when a councilman spoke up.

“Have we talked to the community about this?” Councilman Bill DeSteph asked.

An awkward silence followed, and a vote was postponed.

Now, residents of a historically black neighborhood near the Oceanfront targeted for the shelter say they don’t want it. They’re outraged the city didn’t ask their opinion.

Read the whole thing.

Afterthought:

In a resort town, “left” and “right” don’t usually mean as much as “in the hip pocket of developers” and “not in the hip pocket of developers.”

In Delaware, he’s just “Joe.”

The vice president of the United States, along with 100 other Delawareans, reported for jury duty this morning at the New Castle County Courthouse, but by midday he had been dismissed without being called to serve on any jury.

Joe Biden, a former Delaware senator, arrived just before 9:30 a.m. and sat in the jury assembly room amid all the other prospective jurors, answering when his name was called during the roll.

Meanwhile, back in Virginia:

Because they perform such a vital public service, Virginia law exempts police officers from jury duty.

But what about firefighters?

They’d be exempt too under a bill proposed by Del. James E. Edmunds II, R-South Boston, and endorsed last week by a House subcommittee.

HB1527 also would apply to emergency medical technicians, rescue squad members and arson investigators.

Edmunds said the bill is “a small token of appreciation for those who serve.”

Jury duty can be a chore, but it is also fundamental to our legal system and a duty of citizenship. No one ever said that duties should be fun.

Our system of justice is admittedly imperfect, but it’s the only one we have. Exempting persons from jury duty as a “token of appreciation” devalues it and says something about Mr. Edmunds’s opinion of the jury system.

The St. Petersburg Times details the rise and disappearance of “Bobby Thompson” and his fraudulent “U. S. Navy Vets” charity scam. A nugget:

A telemarketing company in Southfield, Mich., funneled the Navy Veterans most of its income.

Associated Community Services, which uses 1,000 cold-calling telemarketers, raised millions for the Navy Veterans and kept millions more for itself. Of each dollar donated, ACS kept 60 cents, and a related company that collected donation checks and prepared them for bank deposit got 25 cents. The Navy Veterans got 15 cents.

The telemarketer’s fundraising contract, filed with several states, was signed on behalf of the Navy Veterans by its CEO, Capt. Jack Nimitz, and by the national secretary, Brian Reagan.

Neither man is real, nor is there evidence that any of the dozens of officers whose names are on other Navy Veterans documents exist, according to Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray.

One of the disturbing conclusions of the article is that there is almost no regulatory oversight of “non-profit” organizations, because there’s no potential revenue in policing fraudulent non-profits and existing investigators already have too much to investigate.

No money except for the political contributions.

If you wonder why so many folks are able to believe the lies spouted by the Teabaggers and other factions, look no further.

It’s quite one thing for two persons of good will to interpret events differently. And it is true that we tend to interpret the past in the light of the present. One hopes that greater distance breeds greater objectivity, though it doesn’t always do so.

It’s quite another when even the events are wrong:

In the version of history being taught in some Virginia classrooms, New Orleans began the 1800s as a bustling U.S. harbor (instead of as a Spanish colonial one). The Confederacy included 12 states (instead of 11). And the United States entered World War I in 1916 (instead of in 1917).

These are among the dozens of errors historians have found since Virginia officials ordered a review of textbooks by Five Ponds Press, the publisher responsible for a controversial claim that African-American soldiers fought for the South in large numbers during the Civil War.

This is quite frankly appalling.

Afternitpick:

New Orleans was a French possession in the early 1800’s.

Addendum:

It gets worse.

The problem is that, if the basic facts (names, dates, who said and did what) are wrong, any conclusions drawn from them are wrong, leading Virginia to end up like Texas, which consciously uses its textbooks to warp its students understanding of the past.

Up the road a piece, the city of Lexington turned down a request from the Sons of Confederate Veterans to festoon the city in Confederate flags on January 10-15, 2011, in honor of the Virginia holiday, Lee-Jackson Day (Dennis G. has written extensively of the SCV at Balloon Juice). The city agreed to allow the display on January 10-13, but not on 14-15, when plans already existed to display United States and Virginia flags in honor of Dr. King.

Some folks felt that flying it on Martin Luther King Day was inappropriate. Imagine that.

Apparently the SCV felt that it had already conceded enough in voluntarily not displaying the Confederate Battle Ensign (what most folks think of as the “Confederate flag”) and cannot understand why some would object to flying Confederate flags on the day set aside in remembrance of Dr. King. (Here is a good rundown on the various Confederate flags.)

Dorsey’s reaction to the council’s alternative plan included a charge that officials continue to exhibit “prejudice against the flying of Confederate flags.” He described the council’s response as a cagey way to skirt a permanent federal injunction issued in 1993 that prohibits the city from denying the rights of individuals or groups to display Confederate flags.

Given the adoption of the Confederate flag as the symbol of most of the representatives of hatred and bigotry (the Anti-Defamation League brands it as a “general racist symbol“) in the United States since 1865, I don’t wonder at the objections. When most persons see the Confederate flag, they think of the Klan in the same thought. It’s display bears connotations that the SCV is aware of, but which they choose to ignore.

Unlike the eagle of ancient Rome, the Confederate flag is not a symbol whose meaning is lost in the past. That meaning lives, and it lives odiously. And those who display it know that.

My ancestors wore the grey, and I don’t like seeing the Confederate flag in public display because of those who would display it.

The St. Petersburg Times has a long story based on interviews with Bobby Thompson’s lawyer.

Bobby Thompson (not, as they say, his real name–it was a stolen identity), you may remember, was the fellow who duped lots of folks, including pols, including our very own Ken Cuccinelli, into thinking he ran a charity.

Here’s a nugget:

Then there were the receipts. Wright said some looked altered. Most were not from Connecticut but from the Tampa Bay area, where Thompson lived. Many were for Natural Ice beer.

Something to do with not being able to see through all the transparency:

Paul Lanteigne got right to work for his new company.

Within days of stepping down as Virginia Beach sheriff in December, he began exchanging e-mails and documents with former subordinates about a multi million-dollar contract that would soon be up for grabs.

Some of the information high-ranking officials in the Sheriff’s Office passed onto their former boss was available to anyone. But some was not, such as drafts of bid specifications for the contract, which Lanteigne received weeks before other competitors, e-mails and other documents obtained by The Virginian-Pilot show.

No laws were broken. According to the story,

Procurement experts interviewed by The Pilot agreed that providing early bid specifications to one company doesn’t violate Virginia law but said it’s not consistent with industry standards and discouraged the practice because it could provide competitive advantage.

er, yeah.

Locally,

Foreclosures in Hampton Roads edged up last month despite declining statewide and across the country, according to a report to be released today.

The number of foreclosure auctions and repossessions in the region rose to 1,680 in October, up nearly 5 percent from the previous month and 59 percent from the 1,055 reported a year ago, according to RealtyTrac, a foreclosure-monitoring service based in Irvine, Calif.

Meanwhile, Virginia AG Cuccinelli stops fighting against science he doesn’t like long enough to do some some actual attorney-generalling:

The state is asking a court to stop another company from promising worried homeowners it can halt their mortgage foreclosures. It’s also seeking to force the company to pay back $950 fees to its customers.

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli alleges the American Neighborhood Housing Foundation – which has offices in Chesapeake and Richmond – violates Virginia’s consumer-protection laws. His office filed a lawsuit last week in Circuit Court.

The Seatack Community Civic League is filing a complaint that voting machines appear to have switched votes.

From the cover letter, a copy of which I received via email:

The Seatack Community Civic League, on behalf of two African-American citizens and voters of our community, do hereby request a full and complete Virginia State Board of Election investigation into the attached voter complaint of voter machine “altering / automatic vote switching, without voter’s knowledge”, by touch-screen voter machine used in City of Virginia Beach, on October 30, 2010 at an Early Voting DVM site, located on First Colonial Road, in the City of Virginia Beach. Victim voter, a 90 some year old elder citizen of our community, as witnessed by her niece and the DMV Voting official. My civic-community investigative affidavit, under penalty of perjury, herewith attached in support of this request for investigation by Virginia State Board of Election.

You can download a copy of the Civic League’s press release here (PDF).

My two or three regular readers know that I am skeptical of the electronic voting movement; I’m not agin’ it, but I fear too little attention is being paid to security. (Brad Friedman follows the security issues closely.)

I should also have been concerned about quality.

Hampered by delays, defective batteries and too little room for storing and testing the machines, the (Virginia Beach) city’s board of elections decided to forgo electronic poll books this year.

Virginia Beach will be the only South Hampton Roads city not using the electronic poll books on Nov. 2.

The story goes on to explain that the Commonwealth decided to show its reverence for the vote by buying refurbished computers.

The boxes don’t seem to have been refurbished enough.

To make the deal affordable, the state opted to use refurbished laptops, and that’s where some of the problems have cropped up, said Alfred Giles, voting technology coordinator for the Virginia State Board of Elections.

The recent shipments of used computers from the vendor, TechTurn, a Texas-based company, have suffered from a high number of defects, Giles said. The state has returned about 250 defective laptops, a large number from Richmond and Virginia Beach, to TechTurn in recent months, Giles said.

Darryl Lease discusses the new “Virginia Is for Lovers” iPhone app and foretells the future in today’s local rag. A nugget.

“Oh, look, a photo of Monticello! I love Jefferson. He was such a brilliant man! Flawed but brilliant.”

“Yeah, but the tea partiers downgraded him over that whole separation of church and state thing. He’s sort of the Pluto of the Founding Fathers now.”

“But wasn’t George Allen a Jeffersonian Republican?”

“That’s passe.´ I think he’s a Gandhi Republican now. Um, why is there a little icon of a man in a suit in front of Monticello?”

“Oh, that’s the lieutenant governor. It’s part of the app’s ‘Where’s Bill?’ game. It’s kind of fun. There’s also a ‘What’s Cuccinelli Suing the Federal Government for Now?’ game.”

Via TPM.

In our previous episode, a retired state judge called on to rule on the case bounced it into the next county.

In episode two:

Cuccinelli has appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court.

The current filing from Cuccinelli was issued Sept. 29 in conjunction with the continuing probe. It is more narrowly crafted to target one state grant – a $214,700 award – in which Mann had a role.

I am beginning to believe that wingnuts oppose science because knowledge is inimical to their mythology.

Once you know the sun is umpty-ump miles away, you can no longer believe in Icarus.

They want to keep believing in their Icarus.

Kook-kook-a-choo

Steve Benen wonders about Eric Cantor’s (R-Cloud-Cuckoo Land) statements on the federal deficit:

(Cantor’s statement–ed) “We’ve got to stop this cycle of spending money we don’t have. This spending and debt we’ve incurred over the last two years has exceeded that which this country has incurred over the last 200.”

I can’t say with any confidence whether Cantor actually believes this nonsense. I’ve never met him personally, and it’s possible that he repeats claims he knows to be false because he thinks of his supporters as fools.

And in some ways, I really hope that’s the case, because I’d much prefer Cantor to be a shameless conman than a congressional leader who’s deeply confused about one of his own top issues.

For the record, since President Obama took office, the U.S. has added $2.8 trillion to the national debt. That same debt was $10.6 trillion the day the president was sworn in. (Dear Eric, 10.6 trillion is significantly larger than 2.8 trillion. Sincerely, Steve)

. . . of the saga of Cooch and the Mooch?

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has finally decided where to send the $55,000 he got in tainted campaign cash from a shadowy veterans organization that is under investigation in lat least four states.

Cuccinelli was by far the largest Virginia beneficiary of the group, the U.S. Navy Veterans Association. Cuccinelli announced last month that he would donate the cash after months of political pressure. Gov. Bob McDonnell rid himself of the donations in the spring when word started to spread that the group run by “Bobby Thompson” might not be legitimate.

There’s still very little known about the man and Cuccinelli’s release even identifies him “man who donated as Bobby Thompson” probably because there are identity fraud questions.

One thing that really hasn’t been made clear is why a local Commissioner of Revenue needed to lobby the state legislature.

There have been vague mumblings and hints of “additional funding for the office,” but I’ve seen no clear statement of “We needed this,” unless “this” was to get out of Norfolk, which doesn’t seem very plausible to me.

Richmond is a nice town; so is Norfolk. Neither is hardly Wildwood as a resort spot.

Inquiring minds are perplexed.

Addendum, the Next Day:

Today’s local rag reports that the Mayor of Norfolk has a theory: Because it was there.

“Sharon felt once she had a travel budget, it was an entitlement,” he said.