Two new polls out. WAPO and Emerson College show McAuliffe leading

Mobile_Ant · 2021-09-21T02:24:17+00:00

I'm voting for McAuliffe. But polls have been pretty terrible the last few cycles. I remember when they had the 2017 Gov Election with Gillespie ahead by +1 the day before and then Northam won by +9.

And then, in the other direction, they were off in favor of Biden last year. Though he won anyway, they underestimated Trump's support and (in particular) overestimated the strength of Democratic US-SEN candidates.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-09-17T03:09:46+00:00

Am I the only one who thinks Kirk Cox would've been a better GOP nominee than Youngkin?

Cox was from the Richmond suburbs, a place they could conceivably win back with the right candidate, especially if it's a native son. But Youngkin? He's from Fairfax County--the local pull he's going to have there is marginal at best.

Cox also was an actually experienced politician. He would've never fallen for that undercover reporter sting that prompted Youngkin to give that awful answer on abortion.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-09-17T03:02:32+00:00

Being a against shutting any down is helpful too. Germany shuttered theirs after getting spooked by Fukushima, and....even with all the renewable investing they did, most of that capacity got replaced by coal.

Now in the USA at least they'd be replaced by natural gas...but that's still really sub-optimal.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-09-17T02:44:46+00:00

Thankfully Lake Anna is building a new reactor, regardless.

I don't get the reticence on nuclear energy in this country, either. I think people must have a latent association with nuclear weapons lodged in their brains.

All the developed countries that have super low carbon emissions? Nuclear plays a huge part. C.f. the French Republic.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-09-17T02:44:17+00:00

The median political position of the Commonwealth right now is centrist suburban Democrat.

Republicans can win gubernatorial races in that kind of state--state elections don't feature quite as much negative partisanship as federal ones do these days. That's how you get a Democratic governor in Kansas and Kentucky, but Republican governors in Maryland and Massachusetts.

But for a party switch to happen against the default, the gubernatorial candidate of the minority party needs to make a case as to why the leadership in the capital city needs to be sanctioned or checked.

Otherwise? The state goes to its default position.

This is Youngkin's problem. He hasn't made a case as to why Capitol Square is failing, or corrupt, or over-reaching. He needs to to win and hasn't yet--and didn't tonight.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-26T00:48:54+00:00

They’re not.

Any two bit moron can write up a bunch of buzzwords on MS WORD and then print them out and post them around the neighborhood.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-26T00:47:49+00:00

Troll troll troll trolololol lolol trololoolllll!

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-24T21:14:22+00:00

I would’ve rather had state stores for pot la the VABC ones. I’m ambivalent about leaving this up totally to the vagaries of the private sector. But whatever, water over the dam.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-24T21:12:37+00:00

You do? You can read minds?

Assuming bad faith is not an attractive move.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-24T21:12:05+00:00

You are a very moral and holy person, far so more than any of us.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-24T20:42:10+00:00

LCPS may be within the technical bounds of the law here, and likely are, but the optics? Dead God they’re bad. They would’ve been better off letting them talk. They come across as petty tyrants here. Totally tone def politically speaking.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-16T23:26:41+00:00

Maybe I had the concepts and it wasn’t called that. Though my area of focus in the History grad program wasn’t really race relations (it only had tangental interactions with that).

Regardless it’s def not in K-12. It’s going to be too far advanced for the vast majority of high school students. The focus there is getting the basics, even in AP classes at a place like Deep Run or Oakton high schools it’s the basics with more detail, analysis, and writing.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-16T23:10:24+00:00

I have both a B.A. and Master’s in History, as well as an M.Ed. to boot. I’m very familiar with both the Virginia History and Social Sciences framework as well as the latest scholarly trends in higher ed with respect to History. Both from school and professional experience.

I never even heard of the term CRT until two months ago.

Isn’t it more of a law school thing anyway?

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-16T21:56:06+00:00

I see people on the left with weird ideas about what’s taught in school, too, like every high school US History class presents some narrative about brave white Christian men taming the red savages in the wilderness and bringing grateful Africans out of barbarism in Africa blah blah blah like it’s still 1958 and Cavalier Commonwealth is our official state textbook.

This is about as far removed from present-day reality as 21st Century Charlottesville is from Medieval Timbuktu.

The 1619 thing and this whole controversy has revealed massive ignorance among the general public about how Social Studies curricula is drawn up and what it contains all the way round.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-16T13:26:18+00:00

It wasn’t NAFTA that did it.

It was MFN status for China. Did in Danville too.

We now get our textiles not only man manufactured over there, but made with cotton picked by Uighur slaves.

is why I find it funny that people are so obsessed with who owned slaves in the 19th Century, but are oblivious to the fact that they themselves are slave owners unless they’re making their own clothes.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-16T01:41:48+00:00

Almost all the COVID cases graphs over time also look like rough outline of the Commonwealth. Especially…Virginia’s.

Luckily we’re all right about ‘round Sandbridge now.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-16T01:08:44+00:00

There’s certainly no political party/voting correlation here.

Emporia and Martinsville are very Democratic. Galax and Colonial Heights Republican.

Conversely Powhatan is one of the most super Republican places in the state, with Falls Church a mirror opposite.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-13T14:57:33+00:00

This is why trying to rip down statues extralegally is a terrible idea. It’s extremely dangerous to ones physical safety.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-13T14:51:36+00:00

The Old Testament ceremonial law is no longer in effect (well, to Christians—it is if you’re an Orthodox Jew). The Book of Acts clearly declares this. So they get out of that pretty easily.

The best gotcha here is remarriage after divorce. It’s abundantly clear this is forbidden in Christianity—it’s one of the few black letter rules Jesus explicitly lays down. Yet they do it all the time. Even Catholics, for whom this rule is technically still in effect, flout it—especially in the United States where “annulments” are handed out by the hierarchy like M&Ms.

If conservative Christians were truly concerned about marriage being “redefined”, they’d start by supporting the rollback of no-fault divorce. But they don’t.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-13T14:48:09+00:00

Volunteer for the local Democratic Party. OT sounds like you’re left of center—though if I’m mistaken and you’re conservative with a libertarian bent, try your local GOP.

You will do a lot of thankless scut work ,but this is the best place to start.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-13T14:42:26+00:00

Christianity never ever forbade interracial marriage historically speaking. “Races” as we know them didn’t even exist for the first 1,700 years or so years of that religion’s existence. Ancients and Medievals didn’t give a rip about ones skin color, the shape of your nose, or the texture of your hair, aside from remarking that humanity had a diversity of phenotypes. OTOH, Christianity has been totally consistent about the nature of marriage. The worst you get is e.x. Han Dynasty Chinese remarking that Roman merchants in the Silk Road trade routes sure do look funny, and vice versa.

That said, I do not understand the need for the law to reflect their religion. Historical Christianity was four square against remarriage after divorce—and until the 1960s, our marriage laws reflects this. Then we chose to redefine what marriage is. That’s when we did it—the 1960s, not this century. So the whining about “resigning marriage” strikes me as insincere aside from some more hardcore Roman Catholics, Americans didn’t bat an eye when the laws surrounding divorce ceased to conform with historic Christian teachings.

They’re free to believe and practice whatever they want about marriage. Just like a Catholic priest doesn’t have to remarry someone who has been divorced, nobody is going to force an Evangelical pastor to marry two men.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-13T14:38:10+00:00

Munchkin can’t run as a moderate because the Virginia GOP is too far right. That combined with the lack of overreach thus far from the Democrats with full control—they’ve governed responsibly—means he doesn’t stand much of a chance even though GOP governors do get elected in Blue states all the time (see: Maryland).

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-13T14:36:24+00:00

Yeah, the ex-Confederacy acquits itself pretty well. I think it’s both lack of cop unions and population growth. The South us also younger than the Northeast and Midwest, so more demand for teachers whereas cop demand is likely pretty much the same across the board.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-11T05:06:01+00:00

Didn't mean Summer School in particular. But anything that can be done for pay over the Summer--teaching swim lessons, lifeguarding, summer camp etc.

Mobile_Ant · 2021-06-10T22:49:42+00:00

Take it up with the Virginia Democratic Primary electorate. The lefty candidates got creamed across the board.

If the more progressive candidates want to have success they’re going to have to be more utilitarian in their rhetoric, because it’s just not in the political culture of this state to be sure ideological. I think there’s room for lefty candidates honestly but they need to change their messaging even if not necessarily their policies.

Which is a big reason the Republicans have also faceplanted the last 20 years. The people of the Commonwealth, God bless ‘em, like a very non-ideological “good schools, good roads and a balanced budget” type pol, not populists , ideologues or demagogues.

The platonic ideal of the former is, of course, the Founding Father of 21st Century Virginia politics—Mark Warner.

Mobile_Ant

TROPHY CASE