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Bob McDonnell Rolling the Dice, But A Lesson Learned for the Rest Of Us

By: Thad Hunter (Diary)  |  February 23rd, 2012 at 09:45 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

 For now I’m inclined to give Gov. McDonnell the benefit of the doubt on this one.  However, if the Virginia Senate does not pass a compromise, then that is going to be an unrecoverable problem for him.

 A compromise is still progress.  The lesson here is that we relied on a legislative majority and failed to adequately present a coherent public rationale.  Even obvious hypocrisies like Planned Parenthood requiring ultrasounds came out too late.

 We must continually remind people that the state’s interest in preventing abortion is because another person’s rights are being unjustly violated. While these one-offs may seem odd, because of Roe v Wade, legislative actions like this are all that we can do within the rule of law, even an unjust law.

 This bill saves lives.  Thousands of people are alive today because their mother made the right choice when confronted with the humanity of another person.

COMMENTS

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  • Tim Griffin@griffinelection

    but I strongly disagree.

    We did our job. We elected a pro-life governor. We elected a working pro-life majority in the legislature. I have written articles pressuring McDonnell to make the right call and contacted his office.

    For a week, the MSNBC lineup has been hammering away at our ultrasound bill.

    We elected Bob McDonnell to be the leader of our party. Rather than leading and coming out in defense of a bill he championed, he remained silent while the bill was repeatedly struck like a pinata.

    This bill was supposed to be a foregone conclusion with the real fight being over the personhood amendment. McDonnell failed to lead. He failed to get the message out.

    This legislature got enough votes for this thing. It is McDonnell’s fear of offending the media and stunting his future ambitions that has failed this bill.

    He doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. He deserves for Virginia republicans to turn their back on him, as he has turned his back to us along with over 60 brave delegates and 20 Senators who had pledged their support.

    • http://DefeatTimKaine.com Thad Hunter

      You make a perfectly valid point and you may be right.

  • Tim Griffin@griffinelection

    but I strongly disagree.

    We did our job. We elected a pro-life governor. We elected a working pro-life majority in the legislature. I have written articles pressuring McDonnell to make the right call and contacted his office.

    For a week, the MSNBC lineup has been hammering away at our ultrasound bill.

    We elected Bob McDonnell to be the leader of our party. Rather than leading and coming out in defense of a bill he championed, he remained silent while the bill was repeatedly struck like a pinata.

    This bill was supposed to be a foregone conclusion with the real fight being over the personhood amendment. McDonnell failed to lead. He failed to get the message out.

    This legislature got enough votes for this thing. It is McDonnell’s fear of offending the media and stunting his future ambitions that has failed this bill.

    He doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. He deserves for Virginia republicans to turn their back on him, as he has turned his back to us along with over 60 brave delegates and 20 Senators who had pledged their support.

  • Scope

    I posted a few days ago that McDonnell and Bolling would call on some state Senators to take one for the team. I was exactly right. A Democrat Senator proposed to send the bill back to committee, and a Republican Senator Norment voted in agreement. The bill is dead for at least another year according to this article. It has been killed “for the year” which conveniently takes the pressure off of McDonnell until after the 2012 Presidential elections. No surprise there.

    Tim, I agree, the VA Republicans believed they were voting for a strongly pro-life Governor. VA Republicans were so proud to have elected a trifecta of conservatives with the Gov., the Lt. Gov. and the Atty Gen. Unfortunately we found out that the only one who has kept up his end of the bargain has been Atty. Gen. Cuccinelli. I fear he will be taken down with the rest of the Republicans who call themselves Republicans, but act otherwise.

    One of the people who voted to shelve this bill was state Senator Frank W. Wagner. McDonnell can always count on Wagner to take any heat away from himself, and Wagner gives him cover to support what can only be seen as liberal positions and initiatives.

    Senator Wagner was elected to the Senate in 2001, and until McDonnell has only ever served in the Senate under Democrat Governors. Dem Gov. Warner took office in 2002 and served through 2006. Next up Dem. Gov. Tim Kaine who served from 2006 through 2010. Since Senator Wagner has gone along with every liberal position since his time in the Senate, it’s more than time to put a D after his name, and just get it done with already. I would go so far as to say that Wagner ran on the Republican ticket only to thwart any Republican initiatives.

    Sen. Wagner recently was the author of the bill called “The Tax Fairness Plan.” As you can see with this article Wagner worked closely with McDonnell, and Amazon to impose a sales tax on on- line Amazon sales for VA residents. This should have every VA resident screaming, and don’t think this is going to start and end with just Virginia. Wagner et al pushed this tax as a way of being “fair” to store fronts in VA who must collect VA sales taxes on all their sales, in this case in particular any Amazon sales in the state.

    McDonnell and Bolling managed to attract Amazon to open 2 “fullfilment centers” in VA. They created jobs in VA, and that’s great, but I doubt Amazon was aware that they were going to have to act as state tax collectors from their on-line sales from around the country. For those that have knocked Gov. Perry for using a fund set up to attract businesses to their state, that is exactly what McDonnell has been doing to attract businesses to VA. The way I see it, any fullfillment center, or distribution center will now be required to act as VA sales tax collectors.

    If you are a VA resident, and you order something on-line from any company who has locations within VA, even if you item’s are coming from another state, you will be charged VA sales tax. Remember when you order things from catalogs or on-line, if you are not a resident of that state you are not charged sales tax. When you file your state tax return, you are supposed to record the total out of state purchases, and then pay what is called “use” taxes. How many people are so totally honest that they keep a record of out of state purchases, and then pay the use taxes to your state at year end? I would bet very very few. This taxation method, now imposed so far just on Amazon purchases, “saves you the headache of paying those use taxes” is one way this plan was sold. Gee, thanks for the help. You can see in the linked article McDonnell stated that he is working with other state Governors to implement this plan nationally. McDonnell is the current Republican Governors Assoc. chair. In other words, we Republican Governors are so helpful and we will make paying your taxes so much easier.

    Senator Wagner was also one of 4 R state Senators that voted against closing the VA state primary elections. That is a travesty to everyone who understands the problem with Democrats crossing over and voting in Republican primaries in order to get the weakest Republican as the nominee. I promise there will be plenty of Democrats voting for Ron Paul in the March 6 primary. If/when Paul wins VA, the Republicans will get the slap down they deserve.

    Senator Wagner voted, again recently, to not allow the police to ask for proof of citizenship when stopping someone for another possible offense. Prince William county was one of the areas that had piloted the ICE program, working in conjunction with the police in order to cut crime. There was a 35% crime rate drop as a result of this program. Senator Frank W Wagner just voted to kill that effort.

    Senator Frank Wagner is the chair of the Energy committee. Wagner has been working on alternative fuel initiatives since 2007 at least, when Democrat Gov. Kaine was seated, and at a time when Global Warming was yet to be proven fraudulent. He is a very big proponent of wind and solar energy, and has been working with Ken Salazar to erect a wind mill farm off VA coasts. He agreed with Salazar that there wasn’t enough “infrastructure” in the state to go forward with the VA desires to drill 50 miles off the VA coasts. He prefers wind and solar, and has successfully convinced Gov. McDonnell to go along with the alternative fuel efforts.

    If you live in R Senator Frank W Wagner’s district which includes VA Beach, please send his arse packing when he comes up for re-election.

    For Virginians, please check out one of the best VA conservative sites for current information on legislation. There is a list posted on the left side of the page listing the RINOS serving in the VA House and Senate. Thankfully Senator Wagners name is on that list. Also remember, Gov. McDonnell has gone along with every thing these RINOS have pushed. So what does that make the possible Romney VP choice?

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    and any other who killed the bill hear the cries of any aborted babies whose mothers might have changed their minds. It’s just mind-boggling what power does to people once they’re elected.

  • Scope

    on the abortion reductions as a result of VA passing the law that requires abortion clinics to be regulated as hospitals. Before that legislation even passed, there were articles here about several abortion clinics closing down because they could not afford the cost to upgrade the clinics to meet the new regulation standards. Ken Cuccinelli was a major factor in that happening. VA has also voted to defund PP. I guess no new reports or statistics have been put out since the legislation hasn’t been in place long enough. I’d read that the closed abortion clinics would likely scoot across the border to North Carolina.

    McDonnell has been a huge disappointment especially on the Personhood legislation as no one ever doubted his strong pro-life stance. I seriously doubt Wagner could give a dang, he is a liberal with an R after his name.