Life under the Regency category archive

The yoghurt is getting deeper.

Gov. Bob McDonnell’s friends want to help out with his legal bills.

Some of his Hampton Roads supporters have formed a political group to raise money for legal expenses he incurs due to the gift controversy around him.

Wonder whether they plan to pay the lawyers in Rolexes or in shopping sprees at Bergdoff Goodman or perhaps in rental properties?

It’s a long and winding road from State Rape to Real Estate.

Let Rachel guide you.

Via The Richmonder.

Read the review of their latest release, Bedroom Eyes.

Via The Richmonder.

They have certainly worked magic for The Regent.

Never let it be said that the Regent doesn’t follow the rules.

Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell (R) and his family received another unreported $120,000 from the head of a dietary supplement company he promoted, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

“The rules that I’m following have been rules that have been in place for decades,” McDonnell told a radio interviewer on Tuesday. “These have been the disclosure rules of Virginia. I’m following those. To, after the fact, impose some new requirements on an official when you haven’t kept record of other gifts given to family members or things like that obviously wouldn’t be fair.”

Really.

I thought I lived in Virginia, but I now realize that I live in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Gov. Bob McDonnell has reimbursed the state nearly $2,400 for food and supplies taken by his children from the Virginia Executive Mansion kitchen since he took office in 2010.

Most of the items — cold cuts, Gatorade, paper products, laundry detergent and other pantry staples — were given to three McDonnell children when they returned to college after weekend or holiday visits. Some also was packed for vacation outings or, in one case, a trip by the parents to visit their sons.

Ever wonder what happens when a shoplifter says to a cop, “Let me get out my checkbook, okay?”

(Hint: Sounds like, “Assume the position.”)

Afterthought:

It’s not like he’s underpaid.

H/T to The Richmonder for keeping a weather eye on the Regent.

With a Rolex, no less:

A prominent political donor purchased a Rolex watch for Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, according to two people with knowledge of the gift, and the governor did not disclose it in his annual financial filings.

The $6,500 luxury watch was provided by wealthy businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the people said.

(snip)

Williams bought the watch at the urging of Maureen McDonnell, who admired Williams’s own Rolex and suggested that he buy her a similar one she could give to her husband, the people said. Her proposal occurred moments before the meeting she had arranged with the state official, according to one person familiar with the request.

Timeline at the link.

Via the print edition of my local rag.

More stuff you can’t make up.

Rachel outlines how the Regency went to the dog.

All this, of course, while Cooch was AG.

You can’t make this stuff up. And, frankly, you wouldn’t.

There’s a pettiness about ripping off the public for vet supplies that is quite stupefying.

Via The Richmonder.

Oh, my. And he thought the bill was a SNAP.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is blaming the surprise defeat of the bill on Nancy Pelosi even though she publicly warned Republicans not to count on Democrats. The fact that Cantor actually believes that blaming Democrats for defeating a bill loaded with unpopular cuts to food assistance programs for the poor will make Republicans look better is rather hilarious, but that’s today’s GOP for you.

The Regent doesn’t.

Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) and his wife, Maureen, have used taxpayer money for a range of small personal items they should have paid for themselves under state policy, according to spending records.

The McDonnells have billed the state for body wash, sunscreen, dog vitamins and a digestive system “detox cleanse,” the records show. They also have used state employees to run personal errands for their adult children. In the middle of a workday, for example, a staffer retrieved Rachel McDonnell’s newly hemmed pants at a tailoring shop nine miles from the governor’s mansion. Another time, a state worker was dispatched to a dry cleaner 20 miles away to pick up a storage box for Cailin McDonnell’s wedding dress.

More small stuff at the link.

Via AmericaBlog.

Well, not me. I expect the worst from the Cooch.

But this judge:

A federal judge said she is shocked that an assistant Virginia attorney general has been helping two natural gas companies, one a major donor to Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s gubernatorial campaign, defend themselves against charges they bilked landowners out of royalties.

The tale of the Regent’s romance with a company that makes a series of dubious “dietary supplements” is getting more like a soap opera every day (emphasis added).

The documents, released to The Washington Post under a Freedom of Information Act request, provide new information about the circumstances that led the governor and his wife to open the mansion to Star, whose chief executive had paid $15,000 for the catering at the wedding of McDonnell’s daughter three months earlier.

The emails show that McDonnell attended the luncheon at the urging of his wife, Maureen, catching his own advisers off guard the day before the event. The governor found time to make an appearance while his office was consumed with a series of crises, including a rare earthquake and a powerful hurricane that hit the state in the week before the reception.

Efforts that the McDonnells undertook to boost Star are now the focus of an FBI inquiry. Both the governor and his wife attended the Star lunch, which was cited by investors in online postings as a reason to believe in the company despite its shaky finances.

Besides the catering, Star and its chief executive, Jonnie Williams Sr., have given McDonnell and his campaigns more than $120,000 in disclosed gifts and campaign contributions.

The implication that the Regent was henpecked into the whole thing is really just too too much, but how very Republican.

Addendum:

The Richmonder.

PoliticalProf reviews how Cooch and the band got the Republican nomination for governor. It was an inside job:

See, Cuccinelli was not nominated in a primary of all Republican voters in Virginia. He surmised — probably correctly — that in an open competition among all Republicans, the narrowly conservative point of view he articulated might not win the nomination. He guessed that he would split the vote with other conservatives, or that voters might not wonder if he was too conservative to win in what is trending-Democratic state. (Certainly so in presidential elections.)

In either case, Cuccinelli suspected he likely would not win a primary. So he and his supporters engineered that he be nominated by a party convention. Party members from around the state traveled to a meeting to nominate their Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General candidates.

The thing is, only truly committed activists are likely to give the kind of time and effort needed to attend a state convention well away from their jobs and families. Ideologically motivated people are likely to o so; moderates aren’t.

So, naturally, Cuccinelli won the nomination, as did arch-conservatives for both Lt. Gov and AG.

PoliticalProf goes on to explain how he does not think this bodes well for the Cooch’s prospects in the general election.

I think the good professor has a point. Our current governor, the Regent, knows how to comport himself so as to appear (as my old doctor used to say of test results) “within normal limits.”

The Cooch doesn’t know that dance.

Via C&L.