2013 archive

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.