If you think you already know about all the weird things in Virginia politics lately—well, think again
Just to recap—Democrats Northam and Fairfax and Herring—the governor and the first and second in line to replace him—are all in a heap of trouble. But next in line is a Republican who is House Speaker, Kirk Cox.
But here’s the additional fact (some of you may already know this, but I certainly didn’t) via Chris Cillizza:
…[The Democratic Party of Virginia] has been ascendant in recent years — having held the governorship for all but four years since 2001 and now controlling both of the state’s US Senate seats and seven of the state’s 11 congressional districts…
Cox is speaker solely because Republican David Yancey won a state House seat in early 2018 when his name was picked out of a bowl. Yes, this really happened! (The race was tied. If Yancey had lost the random drawing, the state House would have been split 50-50.)
You can read about it here. 2018 was a very very good year for the state Democrats in Virginia:
Prior to the Nov. 7 election, Republicans had a 66-34 majority in the House, but Democrats flipped 15 GOP-held seats while winning statewide races for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.
Here’s the story of how it came to a drawing for the tiebreaker:
[Republican] Yancey held a 10-vote lead over [his Democratic opponent] Simonds in unofficial results tallied on election night, but the Dec. 19 recount showed Simonds squeaking out a one-vote win. Republicans appeared to concede the seat but went into a final court hearing Dec. 20 armed with a surprise letter from a Yancey-aligned recount official suggesting a ballot that had been discarded should have been counted for Yancey. On the ballot in question, the voter filled in bubbles for both Simonds and Yancey but drew a line through Simonds’ bubble.
Simonds’ lawyers argued the ballot was an impermissible overvote and should be tossed out because the voter’s intentions weren’t clear. The judges sided with Yancey, saying the ballot met the criteria for an exception that allows voters to scratch out erroneous votes to clarify their choice.
And that, folks, could be the thing that ultimately gives Virginia a Republican governor. I very much doubt it, though, because I don’t think all three of the Democrats will resign. But what a long strange trip it’s been in Virginia, and not over yet.
It is curious indeed, that, among the brainless journalists and talking heads in the MSM as well as among powerful Democrats, the wearing of a silly costume forty years ago by one of their own and the posting of offensive photographs almost as long ago by a medical student (note that there is a long history of medical students engaging in various pranks and jokes intended to be macabre or distasteful) have elicited endless amounts of virtue-signalling condemnation, while a credible account of sexual assault by one black Democrat, with no known motive for destroying the career of another black Democrat, receives far less attention.
These power hungry whores will keep the racists and the rapist in place until they can invent a way to have one of them appoint a new governor and then retire. No way they’re letting an R take their ill-gotten gains away from them. F*ck that b*tch!
Progland Ueber Alles!
One wonders why the permissable ballot was discarded in the first place.
Has Simonds’ time-limit for asking for a new recount expired?
https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/07/virginia-follies-a-summary/
Northam says he’s very sorry; also says, “That wasn’t me!”
Fairfax finds the facts unfair, and also says—“Eff that B!”
Bobby Scott knew quite a lot, but chose to “wait and see,”
Unlike the erring Herring, who confessed pre-emptively.
—
By Joe Long| February 7th, 2019
I followed that election and the draw for the seat. Very strange, and sometimes every vote does count.
I don’t think any of the three Democrats will resign, because they can’t afford to cede power to a Republican. They’ll tough it out, and won’t the campaign ads next time be grand!
AesopFan:
That’s really clever.
Neo – American Greatness feature’s Joe Long’s poetry quite often.
It’s kind of like Tom Lehrer’s lyrics without the music, and he’s not quite so clever as the Prof, but usually very much on target with his jabs.
Breaking: – what is it with these Virginia schools?
https://nypost.com/2019/02/07/state-sen-tommy-norment-another-virginia-lawmaker-caught-up-in-blackface-scandal/
“The Republican majority leader of Virginia’s state Senate was the managing editor of a college yearbook featuring photos of people in blackface alongside other racist snapshots and slurs, according to a new report.”
When I go to the barber, which is seldom, and there’s a wait, I’ll check out the Washington Post. Saturday’s Post had multiple entire pages devoted to stories about Jeff Bezos, no surprise there. But the interesting thing was the letters page, which was filled with letters praising Governor Northam and ridiculing the idea that he should resign, one letter in particular complaining that it was just a hard-right fringe that was calling for his resignation.
The Post is nothing but naked propaganda at this point. As jaded as I am, my once in a while perusals of that paper always manage to surprise me which just how awful it’s gotten.
“Democracy dies in darkness” isn’t a warning, it’s a goal.
The Post is nothing but naked propaganda at this point.
Remember it is the house organ for government employees. Bezos learned from Microsoft’s experience. In the early 80s they did not have a lobby shop in DC. The Democrat Congress went after them and they learned that graft makes Washington go round.
But the interesting thing was the letters page, which was filled with letters praising Governor Northam and ridiculing the idea that he should resign, one letter in particular complaining that it was just a hard-right fringe that was calling for his resignation.
We have two Republicans on our friend list who make use of Facebook for political posts. One offers an occasional light-hearted crack and one posts very infrequently. About 90% of the political posts which come over the transom to us are from Democrats. You look at what they say, you realize that street-level Democrats think in stupid memes and are addled by political-historical fictions.
The notion that Northam or Herring should resign for giving Michael Jackson impressions or appearing at costume parties 30-odd years ago is inane. The the dilemma for us normies is that we know perfectly well that if the shoe were on the other foot, they’d be insisting on it.
Remember it is the house organ for government employees.
Federal employees make up about 20% of the workforce in the Washington commuter belt. The federal government’s the most consequential employee in Washington, but there’s a lot else going on there.
My guess about The Post is that what Bezos did was to remove the controlling supervision the Graham clan had exercised over the paper and just let its employees do what they wanted to do as long as they followed certain guidelines in re his business interests.
A while back, Fred Barnes wrote an article reflecting on his experience in the news business, which included 20 years as a newspaper reporter and (at that point) > 15 years as an opinion-monger, first at a dissident liberal publication (Martin Peretz’ The New Republic) and then at a standard-issue starboard publication (Rupert Murdoch’s The Weekly Standard). He offered that by 1995 newspapers were going out of their way to avoid hiring anyone who was discernibly right-of-center in their politics. Someone like Laurie Garrett or the late Sarah Pettit could land handsome positions at Newsday and Newsweek off their time at odd sectarian outfits like Pacifica News Service and Out magazine, but the youths who had had internships at The Weekly Standard were discovering that no one was hiring. An obnoxious, sectarian, dishonest paper is the paper today’s reporters and editors want to produce when they get their way. Dissident voices are understood to be static.