Life under the Regency category archive

Melissa Harris Perry:

Know them by the company they keep.

Know them by the company they keep.

Oh, my.

Watch the video at the link. Note that the speaker does not once identify the glorious cause for which he recruits.

Also, if you go to the organization’s website (no link–find it yourself), you will find that the home page says nothing about what the organization stands for, though there are links to some stupid.

Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms is crossing the partisan divide to endorse Democrat Terry McAuliffe for governor, joining a list of more than 30 noteworthy Republicans now supporting his candidacy.

Sessoms is expected to formalize his endorsement today when McAuliffe tours the Virginia Beach Advanced Technology Center along with Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim, a Democrat also supporting McAuliffe.

This is big news in the Commonwealth.

Mayor Sessoms is nominally a Republican, although city elections are officially non-partisan (it is to laugh), but this is a resort town. For all practical matters, “Republican” and “Democrat” don’t matter all that much. What matters is “in the pocket of developers” and “not in the pocket of developers.”

Mayor Sessoms is certainly in the pocket.

His endorsement shows the division in the chart I posted yesterday between the “Corporate Cons” and the “Theocons.” I can’t say that I like his development-at-all-costs orientation, but at least he operates in the real world of trying to get practical things done.

The more our pols operate in the real world, whatever may be their party, the better off we are.

In recent years, the Commonwealth’s Attorney-General post has become a post sought by persons who want to become Governor. In the past, they have resigned when they commenced the gubernatorial race.

Not so the Cooch, and it has led to some difficulties. The Roanoke Times outlines a few:

By staying put, he (The Cooch–ed.) has exposed himself and his campaign to several unflattering conflict-of-interest accusations since March, forcing him to disengage his office from several legal matters since March.

He’s recused his office from civil and criminal cases that involve Star Scientific Inc., a Henrico-based nutritional supplements manufacturer, and turned them over to private law firms.

Likewise, Cuccinelli’s office had to back away as the prosecutor in a felony theft case it launched against the former chef to Gov. Bob McDonnell and his family at the Executive Mansion.

It has been scorched more recently by questions about the role the office played in allegedly helping a major energy company fighting a lawsuit filed by far Southwest Virginia residents who allege it is extracting gas from their land without paying them for it.

The Richmonder sees no exit:

Ken Cuccinelli can’t escape the consequences of his past actions; he cannot escape his conflicts of interest. every time another bill is released, the story of Ken Cuccinelli’s many conflicts of interest will be splashed across the newspapers of the Commonwealth of Virginia–even the Richmond Times Dispatch won’t be able to avoid publishing them.

Via The Richmonder.

Emphasis added.

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has moved to put aside questions about gifts he received from a business executive by writing a check for that amount to a Richmond-based charity.

“I made the decision to send the check because it is the right thing to do, plain and simple,” he said Tuesday.

Cuccinelli has received gifts amounting to $18,000 from Jonnie Williams, chief executive of Star Scientific, a diet supplement company that is contesting a $1.8?million tax bill from the state.

Right for efforts to salvage his image, that is.

Via The Richmonder.

The Regent is stimulating the economy.

The state tab for private attorneys hired to represent Gov. Bob McDonnell amid political scandal eclipsed $143,500 through June, including $90,068 for work that month.

The Richmonder has more; read it carefully.

Jonnie Williams, he of the magickal nicotine pills, expensed many of his “grifts” to the Regent as business expenses.

Really.

Life for the Regent, aka Governor Ultrasound, is getting more and more interesting.

His claims of being an innocent buystander bystander, an unknowing victim caught in a shower of unnoticed largess from a smooth-talking marketeer wanting favors from the Commonwealth, seem to be getting shakier and shakier.

Instead, they try to trump women’s rights by playing the Weiner card. (Wait for it–it’s right at the end of this short clip.)

Because, when you cut through the “family values” rhetoric, it’s all about wiener über Frauen.

Via Mother Jones.

“I’ve never before supported any Democrat,” (Republican consultant Boyd–ed.) Marcus said in a statement issued by McAuliffe’s campaign, “but this election Terry is the clear choice for mainstream conservatives.”

The message clearly stung.

“Some people will do anything for 30 pieces of silver,” Chris LaCivita, a strategist for Cuccinelli, tweeted.

That bid to undermine Marcus’ credibility, the continual smearing of anyone who dares to disagree, is indicative of the general approach taken by Cuccinelli’s primary and general-election campaigns. And it’s counterproductive.

Virginia values an appearance of gentility, even amongst the most decidedly un-genteel.

What distinguised The Regent* from many of his like-minded politicos is that he knew how to behave in public, to create an appearance of reasonableness even as he promoted the unreasonable.

Cooch and the Cuckoos lack the Regent’s cloaking device.

With them, the crazy is always out front.

____________________

*Proponent of state-mandated penetration of women with devices, something not quite genteel.

F. T. Rea seems to have had the same text book that I had.

The resident curmudgeon at my local rag goes where I feared to (I guess that’s one of the perks of being a curmudgeon): Regency Wedlock.

My local rag has had enough of the Regent.

For the good of his office, of the state and of every Virginian – and for the good of his family and of himself – McDonnell should resign.

I doubt he will, but it is notable that one of the two most important papers in the state (the other being the Richmond Trash-Disgrace) is fed up.

The Letters to the Editor should be interesting the next few days.