It looks like the Privileges and Elections Committee of the Virginia House of Delegates is about to kill very popular bills concerning bipartisan redistricting, no-excuse in-person absentee voting, recounts, registration receipts and election machine audits. They’ve scheduled a 7am session tomorrow, in which five members of the committee can kill each of these bills in an unrecorded voice vote. See Vivian Paige’s writeup for details and suggestions for action.
Crossposted to RK.
Back in August, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) was one of the votes for expanding the Administration’s surveillance powers without any substantive oversight. And now, today, he voted for providing retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that helped the Administration engage in illegal spying on Americans. This was a basic question of whether you support the rule of law or not, and Webb failed it.
They always disappoint in the end, don’t they?
Other Democrats who value the telecom companies over your Constitutional rights and the rule of law include:
- Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
- Evan Bayh (D-IA)
- Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
- Tim Johnson (D-SD)
- Herb Kohl (D-WI)
- Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
- Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
- Mark Pryor (D-AR)
- Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
- Ken Salazar (D-CO)
- Tom Carper (D-DE)
- Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Bill Nelson (D-FL)
- Kent Conrad (D-ND)
- Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Updated: Atrios says something worth considering:
While one can’t discount
legalized briberycampaign dollars entirely, I do think too often we assume they’re the reason lawmakers do the “wrong thing” when the simpler explanation that they believe the wrong thing is in fact the right thing is the answer.Too many Democrats simply don’t have the values we imagine they do, and it lets them off the hook too much to assume they’re simply craven people who need to get re-elected instead of bad people who don’t share our values.
I wouldn’t go so far as to characterize them as “bad people”, but I think this generally gets it right. I’m not interested in a monoculture party with perfectly harmonized values, but I do expect a shared core. One that includes the rule of law and respect for the Constitution.
. . . why I love my neighborhood).
Each photo links to its flickr page (with more sizes available). A few more shots of the Clarendon Mardi Gras parade here.
Don’t forget, Clarendon throws its very own Mardi Gras parade tonight at 8pm. Beads, but no bare chests. However, it does carry the vibe that every other Arlington event does – good people and good times (and floats!). Details here.
“Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character.”
– (Confederate) General Robert E. Lee
Is this a joke? If it isn’t, Arlington County apparently expects me to prominently display a sticker on my car featuring that quote. Serving as the background to this quote is a waving American flag, with the Pentagon superimposed. Are you )(*&@#ing kidding me?
Now, a bit of background for the 99.5% of my readers not living in Arlington. Arlington County residents pay a property tax on their cars every year, and a decal is issued as evidence of payment of this tax. These decals are placed in the center of the windshield of the car. The Arlington County Treasurer, some number of years ago, decided to hold a competition for the yearly design change. Local high school students submit proposed designs, and then (I believe) Arlington residents who bother to send in a ballot from the Arlington Sun-Gazette or go to the Treasurer’s website vote on it. Some years this yields a rather ugly result, other years it’s fine. This is the current sticker, featuring the new Air Force Memorial. Nice enough.
I find this new design unbelievable on a number of levels, including the fact that it actually garnered the most votes from Arlington residents. I’m going to choose to believe that those voting for it simply couldn’t read the quote, and just liked the American flag and Pentagon (which is located in Arlington). That’s ugly, but fine. But what in the world made Arlington Treasurer Frank O’Leary think that a design featuring a Confederate general’s quote about submitting to authority with the flag and Pentagon in the background is appropriate for Arlington? Sure, the final designs were voted on by Arlington residents, but the pool of finalists was selected by his office in the first place.
That quote – which, by the way, comes from here – is something you’ll never see on my car. I – and I hope you, if you live in Arlington – will be in touch with Mr. O’Leary soon.
Note: as soon as I can find a graphic of the decal, I’ll post it here. Until then, the first link to the Sun Gazette story is the best place to find a picture. Also, while I find this an unacceptably inappropriate design for a public application, I don’t mean to criticize, in any way, the student that came up with it.
Update: I just got off the phone with Mr. O’Leary (you can’t fault Arlington government for being inaccessible). The short version: There are no plans for an alternative design, but Arlington residents are free to cut out the picture/quote from the center of the sticker. So long as the number is displayed, he views it as a valid sticker and isn’t aware of any ordinance to the contrary. Is that enough? Or should Arlington be reconsidering whether this is what we want to pay to have manufactured and displayed on every car in the county? We’ll see.
Update II: This is the sticker (thank you to MJ) –
Bill Stewart auctions off one of the old Dremo’s beer taps. The final semi-public night for the place had Bill and Andrew auctioning off most anything in sight. It was a curious mix, with the majority of attendees apparent onlookers, a few serious buyers (at least a couple of people were clearly buying for other bars), and a number of folks interested in specific low-value items (that would be me).
The first sale of the evening was a new Camel-branded metal ashtray for 25 cents. Notable sales included $250 for the metal silo (known as the Sin Bin, for those of us recalling the Bardo days), $15 for the (ex) parrot, and $100 (plus an unknown amount in transport costs) for the Dremo’s totem.* Ridiculous little items went, too, including a $1 paper Spaten flag, menus, etc. Surprisingly, none of the pool tables sold (if you’re willing to spend between $500-800, I suspect you could get them to part with one between now and Thursday). Much to my annoyance, a Dremo’s employee beat me out on the sole item I was interested in, but I did end up with a bit of classic Bardo art (I’ll have to take a picture and post, sometime).
Greg Kitsock (WaPo beer critic, among many other things) was there and taking notes (as well as winning a Foggy Bottom poster for the princely sum of $3), so I’m sure you’ll soon be able to read more about it.
(The last night actually open and serving was a brief affair, for me. Saturday turned out to be a long sad day after a great but long Friday night, and it was all I could do to haul us into Bardo’s for one last drink. The final round consisted of Dremo’s James Brown Ale and Dogfish 60 Minute IPA (they were out of Racer 5). After I noticed the fifth girl with glitter on her face, I realized that there were probably more people in the bar that had never been than not. This bittersweet fact turned to a bit of pleasure when we exited to find a long line of Clarendon Ballroom refugee tourists shivering on the sidewalk, waiting to be let in.)
*The Dremo’s totem was rescued by a long time customer who “just didn’t want to see it in the dump”, and will soon be making its appearance in his backyard (as soon as he figures out how to get it there). He told me that if they want it back when (if?) they reopen, they can have it.
Today brings us new Federal guidelines related the REAL ID Act. Passed in 2005, the Act purports to “prevent terrorism, reduce fraud, and improve the reliability and accuracy of identification documents that State governments issue.” Well, that’s how the Department of Homeland Security puts it, anyway. And how is it going to accomplish that? Well, by essentially turning your state-issued driver’s license into a Federal national ID card. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m rather opposed to national ID cards, for a number of reasons:
So, what can you do?
A Mr. Kajuan Cornish appears to have pulled off the very impressive feat of drawing a $1000+ abusive drivers fee for “recklessly operating” his 18 Speed Huffy on Warwick Boulevard in Newport News, VA. What did he do? Well, it seems Officer George Evans had to slow down, or he would have hit Mr. Cornish. Thus a $1050 fine. Yep, that’s right. The cyclist may well have done something stupid, but . . . even if the stupid started with his riding, it certainly didn’t end there.
Yesterday was absolutely beautiful. The very best I could ask of from a January day in DC. So, instead of working, I went for a ride. Titles come up when you mouseover frame (but not photo, it seems):
Try it yourself, some time.
DC area readers will recall the incident last February, in which Metrobus Driver Victor Kolako killed two women crossing with the light in a crosswalk. One of the women’s family has released a video, taken by the National Archives Building security camera, that shows the entire event. WaPo’s Marc Fischer linked the video, with the appropriate warning that even though it’s shot from a distance, it’s still hard to watch.
I’m linking it here, too, for a couple of reasons. First, I hope this will serve as a reminder to my fellow pedestrians and cyclists that we absolutely cannot trust our lives to the assumption that a bus driver (or any driver, really) will obey traffic signals. Second, I post this as a reminder to everyone else that Metro needs to face some serious public pressure over the safety training and basic quality of its bus drivers. This is the video.
The driver received one year in jail.
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