From the Archives: Former Senator Rick Santorum says homosexuals deserve protection

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on March 8, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Former Senator Rick Santorum says homosexuals deserve protection

Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Penn.), who was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 and a likely candidate for the same job in 2016, placed sixth in the annual CPAC straw poll last month, behind Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Dr. Ben Carson, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Santorum also garnered sixth place in the 2014 CPAC straw poll.

Despite his poor poll showing, Santorum's still-unofficial presidential campaign had a visible presence at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference), which took place in suburban Washington, D.C., and attracted more than 11,000 participants.

On February 27, after hosting a townhall-style meeting for about 250 supporters and potential supporters, Santorum spoke briefly with members of the news media. During the press gaggle, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner posed two questions to the former senator, both on foreign policy issues.

'Obligation to protect all people'

First, Santorum, who is well known for his socially conservative positions with regard to gay rights, was asked whether it is appropriate for the U.S. Department of State to defend the rights of homosexuals in foreign countries where their lives might be threatened by anti-gay governments.

“We have to defend human rights everywhere,” Santorum replied. “If someone's life is threatened because of race, sexual orientation, or other [reasons], I think we have an obligation to stand up and defend that human right. I don't have a problem at all, if people's lives are in jeopardy, then we have an obligation to protect all people and their freedoms.”

'A different threat'
Second, the former Pennsylvania senator was asked whether Middle Eastern or Islamic terrorism poses a greater threat to the United States today than the Soviet Union did during the Cold War.

“I think it's a different threat,” Santorum said.

Islamic terrorism, he explained, is “a threat that is in some respects is more difficult to understand and to respond to.”

Rick Santorum at CPAC 2015

In contrast, “the Soviet Union was in many respects a predictable animal. Remember, we had policies like Mutual Assured Destruction, and we did it because we knew how they would behave, how they would act.”

“In fact,” he added, the Soviets “were very predictable. That doesn't mean they weren't evil, that doesn't mean they weren't oppressive, that doesn't mean they weren't everything that Reagan and others said about them.”

Today, he explained, “the complexity of dealing with radical Islam – and the fact that there are 1.5 billion Muslims around the world – makes this a much more difficult issue and one that, if you look historically, [is] a more intransigent problem for the West than the 50 years of the Cold War.”

The “other war” against Islamic terrorism, he concluded, almost as an afterthought, has lasted “a thousand years.”

Video of this press gaggle with likely GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum is available on YouTube.

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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/former-senator-rick-santorum-says-homosexuals-deserve-protection

From the Archives: Think-tank head Jason Grumet reacts to Obama's mandatory voting idea

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on March 19, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Think-tank head Jason Grumet reacts to Obama's mandatory voting idea

Speaking in Cleveland on March 18, President Barack Obama raised the idea that compulsory voting could improve the U.S. electoral system.

“In Australia, and some other countries,” the President pointed out, “there’s mandatory voting. It would be transformative if everybody voted... that may end up being a better strategy in the short term.”

The next day in Charlottesville, the president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, Jason Grumet, spoke about Washington's dysfunctional politics at the Virginia Festival of the Book. He was featured on a panel sponsored by local non-profit Charlottesville Tomorrow called “Bipartisanship and Everybody Loves Jefferson” along with Louisiana State University historian Andrew Burstein.

Aspirational, not practical
Grumet described his 2014 book, City of Rivals: Restoring the Glorious Mess of American Democracy, and, in a post-panel interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, he reacted to the president's idea of making voting mandatory, under the threat of punishment, for American citizens.

“There's a constitutional issue,” he said.

Compulsory voting, he explained, is “more of an aspiration than a practical solution. Like everything, there are pros and cons.”

Grumet conceded that “it would be terrific to have greater participation in a participatory democracy” but he pointed to problems in the country identified by President Obama as a potential model.

In Australia, he said, experience has shown that “the downside is a lot of people are essentially forced to vote who have no desire to participate in the process, no information about the process, and so there's a question about whether you dilute the quality of the voter pool.”

There are good and bad levels of participation, he continued.

“Having 20 percent participate [or] having 100 percent participate probably also has some problems,” he said. On the other hand, “60 to 70 percent would be great.”

Gerrymandering 'doesn't matter'
During the interview and the panel discussion, Grumet also addressed a widely-held electoral concern – legislative redistricting.

“Gerrymandering is a concern,” he said. “It is undermining to the democracy to have politicians choosing the voters as opposed to the voters choosing the politicians.”

However, he added, “it just doesn't matter as much as a lot of people think. The high water mark for redistricting reform would be the tenor of the U.S. Senate. There are no districts in the Senate [yet] it is not exactly a venue of great collaboration.”

Nationwide, he explained, “we have essentially sorted ourselves so that no matter how you draw districts, we are still going to have a diminishing number of competitive” elections.

While Grumet continues to believe there should be efforts to create “bipartisan redistricting commissions and get away from some of these crazy, gerrymandered districts but,” he cautioned, “in and of itself [that] is not going to be the solution to the fractious nature of our democracy.”

Independent redistricting
He noted a case now being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the redistricting commission in Arizona, which was created by voter initiative to bypass the state legislature.

That case, he said, poses “an interesting question because the essence of it, as I understand it, is that the legislature was basically taken out of the redesign process.”

Arizona has “an independent commission and there's a question about whether, in fact, it is constitutional to have redistricting happen without legislative prerogative. That doesn't mean that you couldn't have redistricting commissions that have three Democrats and three Republicans. It wouldn't eliminate the capacity to seek better efforts when it comes to redrawing lines but it could limit a certain type of redistricting commission.”

As to the ultimate ruling in the Supreme Court case, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, Grumet quipped, “If I could tell you the outcome of that case, I could also tell you the price of oil in a month.”

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Former Senator Rick Santorum says homosexuals deserve protection

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/think-tank-head-jason-grumet-reacts-to-obama-s-mandatory-voting-idea

From the Archives: Poultry industry is trade-talk pawn of South African government, says analyst

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 5, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Poultry industry is trade-talk pawn of South African government, says analyst

In the run-up to the recent introduction of bills in the U.S. Congress to reauthorize the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which has broad bipartisan support because of the benefits gained by both African and American economies, there was a minor glitch owing to objections in South Africa to potential sales of U.S. poultry products in that country.

According to Kevin Lovell, CEO of the South African Poultry Association, the dispute stems from the United States “not selling chicken at the right price. They’re trading unfairly by dumping their chicken in our market. And that makes competition impossible for us to compete fairly.”

Senators Chris Coons (D-Delaware) and Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia), who represent major poultry-producing states, disagreed with Lovell and obtained a provision in the AGOA renewal bill (sponsored by Senate Finance Committee chairman Orrin Hatch) that requires a 30-day review of poultry policy in South Africa.

"It's not fair for them to continue to get” AGOA benefits, said Coons, ranking member of the Senate Africa subcommittee, “when they aren't playing fair with American exports.”

In a press release, Isakson stated that he and his colleagues “believe passionately in AGOA’s value and support its long-term renewal, but believe it unfair and inappropriate that the country that benefits from the law the most — South Africa — continues to maintain unreasonable tariffs on American poultry.”

Playing Chicken
One South African analyst sees something bigger at stake in the dispute.

After a presentation about South Africa's economy at the Cato Institute in Washington on May 4, the CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations, Frans Cronje, suggested that this “playing chicken (literally)” represents a significant and troubling trend within South Africa's policy making circles.

In an interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, Cronje -- author of A Time Traveller's Guide to Our Next Ten Years (2014) -- explained that “South Africa is recording a trade deficit with every major region and country in the world except the United States and non-energy Africa, and that's only because of the generosity of AGOA.”

In the AGOA negotiations, he said, what we saw “was the chicken producers being used as a pawn by South Africa's Department of Trade and Industry.”

That is because, Cronje explained, “within the Communist left that has such influence over policy formulation in South Africa now, there is a drive to limit the influence and exposure of Western countries in the South African economy, even if that comes at the price of growth.”

From his point of view, “the chicken producers have been used as a pawn in this respect, to create stumbling blocks” that work to the advantage of left-wing factions within the South African government.

“Should South Africa see the benefits it draws from AGOA being limited, the chicken farmers can always be blamed by government as having caused this,” he said.

At the same time, “the government will accept that situation because it gives them one thing they don't have at the moment, which is a high-level excuse to explain our weak economic performance. They can say, 'Well, look at how the West is starting to treat us.'”

'Carcass' of economy
The attitude showed toward the United States in the AGOA negotiations has precedents, he noted.

The hostility that South Africa has “displayed on AGOA,” Cronje said, “is the same hostility we showed eighteen months ago in unilaterally canceling bilateral investment treaties with fifteen European countries.”

The result of that decision, he explained, is that “if that investment continues, South Africa will welcome it, but it's going to be on the terms and conditions set by the left of the South African government. Should the investment leave, to put it quite directly, the leftists will prefer to have absolute control over the carcass of the South African economy than to progressively lose control over a high-growth economy.”

The House Ways and Means Committee has approved H.R. 1891, the AGOA Extension and Enhancement Act of 2015, and the Senate Finance Committee has approved a companion bill, S. 1009. Both bills are expected to come to a vote on the floor of the House and Senate in June.

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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/poultry-industry-is-trade-talk-pawn-of-south-african-government-says-analyst

From the Archives: Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders stumps for support in Charlottesville

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 13, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders stumps for support in Charlottesville

White House hopeful Bernie Sanders spoke to an enthusiastic audience in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Monday, May 11, laying out his policy vision and contrasting it directly with that of the Republican Congress and indirectly to that of his opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sanders delivered his remarks to an overflow crowd at Trinity Episcopal Church, whose sanctuary has chairs for just 100 people. Another 175 or so squeezed into a basement room and the narthex.

The event, which was billed as a town hall meeting on the federal budget, had been announced in April, before Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats on Capitol Hill, had declared his intention to seek the Democratic party's nomination for president.

In what is likely to become his standard stump speech, self-defined Socialist Sanders addressed a range of issues that were only related to the budget in the sense that they are items the government spends money on, such as free college tuition for students in public institutions and a multi-trillion dollar program to improve transportation infrastructure. He decried the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case and proposed public financing for federal election campaigns.

Health care and free trade
Sanders proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour and creating a single-payer health care insurance program to replace the Affordable Care Act (so-called Obamacare), or what he called “universal Medicare.”

Sanders also took aim at the Obama administration's support for free trade agreements in the Pacific Rim, pointing out that the minimum wage in Vietnam is about 50 cents an hour.

“All of us, I know, want to see poor people around the world do better. We all do, but there are ways that we can do that without engaging in a race to the bottom in this country,” he said. “Our job is to uplift the poor people around the world, not sink the working people of this country.”

Sanders said he voted against NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement), and permanent normal trade relations with China, “because these were all trade agreements that were pushed by corporate America, the big monied interest, and I intend to play an active role in defeating the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

Asked later by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner whether he supports renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which expires in September 2015, Sanders offered no position, saying: “You know what? To be very honest, I've been focusing more on the TPP than that.”

'Perpetual warfare'
In a question and answer session following his prepared remarks, Sanders contrasted himself most explicitly with Clinton (without ever mentioning her name) in his discussion of foreign policy.

On foreign policy, he noted that when he was first elected to Congress back in 1991, one of his first votes was against the first Gulf War. His wife predicted that vote would earn him a short congressional career, a remark met with laughter from the audience.

With regard to the war in Iraq that started in 2003, “I had serious doubts about what [President George W.] Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney were saying and I had serious concerns about the kind of destabilization that would take place and, sadly, much of what I feared has in fact taken place. I not only voted against that war, I helped lead the opposition to it and, unfortunately, we were not successful.” (Hillary Clinton, then a senator from New York, voted in favor of the Iraq War.)

“Where we are right now is in a very difficult world and I wish I could tell you otherwise but as all of you know, there are terrorists out there who want to do us harm,” he said, adding “we've got to be vigilant in protecting this country against them.”

Sanders continued: “What I would also tell you is that, while some of my colleagues apparently have no idea of what the war in Afghanistan has meant, what the war in Iraq has meant. Some of these guys seem to be itching for another war. I fear very much that, if we don't stand up, we could be in perpetual warfare in the Middle East.”

Referring to the so-called Islamic State (sometimes called ISIS or ISIL), the Vermont senator said that group should be opposed. “Here, I think, is the main point: the United States and Western countries should be very, very supportive but at the end of the day, the only way, in my view, that the war against ISIS is won, is when the Muslim countries stand up themselves and lead that fight.”

Senator Sanders' budget town hall in Charlottesville was the third and last in a series. The other two took place in Maryland and Washington, D.C.

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Original URL:  http://www.examiner.com/article/presidential-candidate-bernie-sanders-stumps-for-support-charlottesville

From the Archives: 'Open-minded, pragmatic' Republican Anson Parker enters race for City Council

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 30, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

'Open-minded, pragmatic' Republican Anson Parker enters race for City Council

Anson Parker, a 37-year-old web developer who has lived in Charlottesville for two decades, was nominated by the local Republican Party on Saturday, May 30, to be a candidate for City Council in the November election.

Acknowledging that it is a “reasonable statement” to describe his approach as more technocratic than ideological, Parker told the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner in an interview following his nomination that “I want to be open-minded in a lot of ways. I want to be pragmatic.”

Only one Republican has been elected to Charlottesville's city council in the past 30 years, suggesting that GOP candidates face a difficult challenge. Parker brushed aside concerns that running as a Republican is an obstacle to his election.

“I think it's an opportunity because when I tell people I'm running as a Republican," he said, "it blows their minds."

Not national but local
People told him that he should run as a Democrat because of the city's voting record but “I say, no, my goals are conservative.” When they ask what kind of conservative he is and whether he's running on issues like abortion or gay rights, he says, with emphasis, “It's no, no, no. This is about local issues.”

Gay rights and abortion, he explained, “are not even local issues. Those are state and federal issues.”

For Parker, the campaign “is about what we do in Charlottesville and fiscal conservatism in Charlottesville is broadly accepted,” he said.

“There are a multitude of people who are liberal at a national level who don't like to see their money wasted locally.”

As a result, he noted, “I've actually found that being Republican to be a great talking point. I'm conservative locally and this has nothing to do with a national audience. This is Charlottesville.”

Infrastructure gaps
Parker explained that he was motivated to run for City Council because “there are a lot of gaps in the technical infrastructure, and since I'm a web developer I felt I could bring something to the table to help.”

He said that technology can improve government transparency and, in turn, improve citizens' views of city government workers.

He gave the example of a cell phone app that helps identify potholes needing repairs: It can both nudge the repair process forward and provide a way to acknowledge the hard work of the city employee who fixes it.

“I want to look at this as an opportunity for the city to show off what good work it does,” Parker said, “because 99 percent of the time that's what's going on [but] people aren't really appreciated. It's the one percent of the time when people aren't doing good work that gets a lot of press. I'm hoping that by making a more transparent system we can improve city relations” with residents.

The Democratic Party will nominate its general election candidates for City Council in a primary on Tuesday, June 9. There are five candidates seeking three slots: Wes J. Bellamy, Kathleen M. Galvin, Lena M. Seville, A. Michael Signer, and Dede L. Smith. Incumbent Mayor Satyendra Huja chose not to seek re-election.

Independent candidates who want their names on the November ballot must file their paperwork, including petitions with a minimum of 125 signatures, by June 9 at 7:00 p.m., the same time the polls close in the primary election.

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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/open-minded-pragmatic-republican-anson-parker-enters-race-for-city-council

From the Archives: Virginia Congressman Robert Hurt speaks out for free trade in Charlottesville

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 13, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Virginia Congressman Robert Hurt speaks out for free trade in Charlottesville

Appearing at the monthly Albemarle County Republican breakfast on June 13, Congressman Robert Hurt (R-VA5) vigorously defended his vote in favor of the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) in the House of Representatives on June 12.

Noting that opposition to the TPA and related bills (Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP) comes largely from labor unions and left-leaning liberals like Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Hurt said that support for free trade is a conservative principle that “would make Ronald Reagan proud.”

In an interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner immediately after his breakfast remarks, Hurt explained what the TPA does and what it does not do, and emphasized that there is not yet an agreement for the Trans Pacific Partnership – that the TPP is still being negotiated.

“What we voted on yesterday was the Trade Promotion Authority, also known as TPA,” Hurt said. The bill “passed with a large Republican majority in support.”

Framework and authorization
He explained that TPA sets up a framework and gives authorization to the President “to finish negotiating trade agreements” that have been under consideration for years. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, he noted, “was begun under George Bush, so this is not like this is Obama's idea. This was initiated under a previous president.”

Hurt pointed out that “in order for us to even consider a free trade agreement – which was not on the floor – in order for us just to consider it, we had to pass a Trade Promotion Authority to give the president the ability to finalize the negotiations with the other 11 countries (in the case of TPP) and, not only that, but it gives Congress and the American people a tremendous amount of transparency” that would not be available without the TPA in place.

The congressman said that “as it is now [the President] doesn't have to share anything with Congress. That's why the negotiating text of a free trade agreement that does not exist is classified. That's because the Administration has the power to control that negotiating text and doesn't have to do anything with Congress.”

Under TPA, he said, “the President not only has to give us access to it currently and in the future, [he] also has to make it publicly available before anybody votes on anything for at least two months prior to it is even considered by Congress so that our constituents can hear and can look at every single word and see what the agreement does and what it doesn't do.”

Hurt explained that since he has been in Congress, he has voted for two free trade agreements (with Colombia and Panama) and voted against another (with South Korea).

“The devil's always in the details,” he said. “For people who are getting so upset about this bill, I think there's some misunderstanding that somehow what we voted on Friday was a free trade agreement. It was not a free trade agreement.”

Asked whether a trade agreement like this would get pushback from conservatives if it were promoted by President Romney rather than President Obama, Hurt demurred.

“Great question,” he said, adding “I don't know. It's hard to say. It's hard to attribute motive.”

That question makes the point, he suggested, that “this President has so soured any reasonable relationship with Congress and he is so distrusted among so many of the American people because of his abuse of the rule of law in this country that people push back for that reason – but this vote yesterday had nothing to do with President Obama.”

Hurt stated that he does not “trust President Obama to follow the rule of law. He's demonstrated again and again that he cannot.”

Setting that aside, he said, the TPA does not give the President “any authority to do anything that he cannot already do. It gives him restrictions in negotiating objectives that are in TPA but it doesn't give him any additional power to make any law.”

'Hogwash'
Hurt cited Internet rumors like “'this means we're going to give the president the authority to change immigration law!'” Those, he said, are “just totally, 100 percent false. It does not.”

He explained that, contrary to those rumors, “in order for any law of the United States to change, it has to come through Congress.”

Moreover, he said, “if it's pursuant to a free trade agreement, it has to come through Congress twice, because it has to be adopted as a free trade agreement and, secondly, the actual change of the law has to be adopted through implementing legislation, which would be a second shot at the apple.”

Taking aim at the Internet rumor mill, Hurt asserted that “the idea that this President can affect any of our laws unilaterally or that we're going to submit to some international tribunal is just hogwash.”

Hurt also emphasized how free trade will benefit his constituents in Virginia's Fifth Congressional District.

As a legislator, he said, “I have to look at the economy of the Fifth District the way it is in 2015, not the way it was in 1980 or 1990 or 2000. Our economy has changed a tremendous amount” over the past thirty years.

He pointed out that “agriculture is huge,” the largest sector in Virginia's economy, with $75 billion in output each year. The Fifth District has 23 counties and cities and “with the exception of Charlottesville and Danville, it is mostly rural, mostly agricultural.”

'Opportunities for growth'
“There are huge opportunities” in agriculture, he said, “but let me tell you this: There are opportunities for growth. There are opportunities for our manufacturers to access these foreign markets and sell our products that we make here there and we get their cash.”

If the Trans-Pacific Partnership is finalized – a prospect that Hurt says is a year or more in the future “I will look very carefully and make my best judgment as to whether or not this is good on balance for the people I represent.”

If, by his consideration, the agreement is not good on balance for the Fifth District, “I'll vote against it and work for its defeat. If it is good, on balance, for the people I represent, [if it] creates jobs and opportunity and growth and it projects American strength in a very sensitive area geopolitically, in the shadow of China,” he said, he will vote for it.

As to free trade in general, Hurt concluded, “I think it's consistent with Republican principles, consistent with conservative principles. It would make Ronald Reagan proud.”

Note: the full audio of this interview with Congressman Robert Hurt is available as a podcast from Bearing Drift.

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Former Senator Rick Santorum says homosexuals deserve protection

Original URL:  http://www.examiner.com/article/virginia-congressman-robert-hurt-speaks-out-for-free-trade-charlottesville

From the Archives: Federal judge rules Virginia can prohibit Confederate flags on license plates

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 6, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Federal judge rules Virginia can prohibit Confederate flags on license plates

According to a news release from the office of Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring distributed on August 6, a federal judge has decided that the Commonwealth may ban Confederate symbols on specialty license plates, setting in motion a process by which the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will begin to recall all such vehicle tags displaying the Confederate battle flag.

Original decision
Back in 2001, federal Judge Jackson L. Kiser ruled that specialty license plates “conveyed the speech of the driver” and that the state could not deny the application of Sons of Confederate Veterans for a license plate that included the Confederate battle flag. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Kiser's decision and Virginia chose not to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

In light of this year's Supreme Court decision in Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., which “reached the conclusion that specialty license plates represent the state’s speech, not the driver’s,” Kiser vacated his original order from 2001 and lifted the injunction that prevents the Commonwealth from prohibiting Confederate symbols on vehicle license tags.

In issuing his ruling, Kiser wrote that “When the Supreme Court speaks, district courts must listen. In light of the ruling in Walker, the primary rationale for the 2001 judgment and injunction in this case is no longer good law. Specialty license plates represent the government’s speech, and the Commonwealth may choose, consonant with the First Amendment, the message it wishes to convey on those plates. The Commonwealth’s rationale for singling out [Sons of Confederate Veterans] for different treatment is no longer relevant. According to the Supreme Court, the Commonwealth is free to treat SCV differently from all other specialty groups. Because the underlying injunction violates that right, I have no choice but to dissolve it.”

Herring's reaction
In reaction to Kiser's decision, Attorney General Herring said it “will allow Virginia to remove a symbol of oppression and injustice from public display on its license plates.”

He added that "Virginia state government does not have to and will not endorse such a divisive symbol. I appreciate Governor McAuliffe's leadership in calling for the removal of the flag and those on my team who moved quickly to get it done."

Kiser's order came in Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc. v. Holcomb in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia.

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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/federal-judge-rules-virginia-can-prohibit-confederate-flags-on-license-plates

From the Archives: Virginia elections board halts changes to voter registration form

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 12, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Virginia elections board halts changes to voter registration form

Virginia's State Board of Elections (SBE) has withdrawn a controversial proposal for revising voter registration forms in the face of widespread criticism by election officials and the public.

As explained on the political web site Bearing Drift by Brian Schoeneman, former secretary of the Fairfax County Electoral Board, the proposal included “fundamental changes to the material omissions policies that are codified in Virginia law and that help to both prevent fraudulent voter registrations and to provide law enforcement with information they may need to prosecute registration fraud.”

The proposed changes would have eliminated the requirement that potential voters check boxes next to statements regarding their statuses as eligible American citizens and non-felons. Instead, they could simply sign a general statement at the bottom of the form attesting to their eligibility, saying that nothing disqualifies them from registering to vote.

Objections
SBE meetings are generally quiet affairs that draw little attention from the press or public, but last month’s meeting in Midlothian attracted a standing-room-only crowd and unrelentingly negative comments about the proposed changes in the form. Members of the General Assembly encouraged their constituents to attend the meeting and also to register their objections on line. (There were eventually 1,259 comments about the proposed regulatory changes.)

In an email message distributed to electoral boards and general registrars dated August 11, SBE chairman James Alcorn wrote: “As Chair of the Board, I have reviewed the public comments submitted regarding the voter registration application and associated regulations. (http://goo.gl/UqgvWg) In response to the substantive concerns raised, I am pulling the proposal from the Board’s September agenda.”

The proposal, Alcorn explained, “needs substantive work before the Board can review any potential changes and this issue requires more time for proper analysis. I am asking staff of the Department of Elections to work in a collaborative fashion with the broader elections community to develop any future changes to the voter registration application and associated regulations.”

Applications denied
Alcorn also explained the scope of the problem that the Board was trying to address:

“Since 2011, Virginia general registrars have denied over 100,000 voter registration applications due to missing information. A person’s ability to register to vote should be judged on their legal qualifications and not on their ability to complete an administrative form.”

That problem, he said, “persists and we should work together to make it easier for all qualified Virginians to participate in the electoral process.”

Alcorn invited electoral board members and registrars to submit their “ideas about how to address this issue that affects too many Virginians.”

Further study
Finally, the SBE chairman indicated that the proposal will be studied further to determine what action should be taken, if any.

“To facilitate this discussion,” Alcorn said, “I am asking the Department of Elections to conduct an analysis on the rejection of voter registration forms; to provide findings to the Board at a future meeting; and to release the data and findings via the Department’s website so it is easily accessible to all stakeholders.”

Revisions to the voter registration application form and other types of forms are probably inevitable. For instance, the absentee ballot application, which has become particularly unwieldy as more and more excuses are approved by the General Assembly, will eventually need to be changed. This is even more likely as such documents gravitate to on-line rather than paper forms.

If this decision by the SBE to halt the revision of the voter registration form shows anything, it is that when citizens and public officials raise objections loudly and voluminously, those criticisms are heard and heeded.

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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/virginia-elections-board-halts-changes-to-voter-registration-form

From the Archives: Chinese hackers attack University of Virginia email, cause IT shutdown

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 14, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Chinese hackers attack University of Virginia email, cause IT shutdown

Late breaking news from the University of Virginia arrived just as the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner joined radio host Coy Barefoot on WCHV-FM to discuss current affairs on Friday afternoon, August 14.

A message to the University community from executive vice president and chief operating officer Patrick D. Hogan said: "The University of Virginia has confirmed that sophisticated attackers originating from China illegally accessed portions of the University's information technology systems. Federal authorities had alerted the University of a possible cyber attack, and this was confirmed by the University on June 11. Upon becoming aware of the attack, the University engaged Mandiant, an internationally recognized cybersecurity firm, to immediately help the University identify the nature of the attack and take corrective action. This action included enhanced security measures to further fortify University data and systems."

Two targets
While no personal data like Social Security numbers or credit card accounts was accessed by the hackers, it appears the breach was intended to find emails from specific individuals within the University whose work focuses on China.

According to a report by Daily Progress correspondent Dean Seal, published nearly simultaneously with Hogan's University-wide announcement, "The attack specifically targeted the email accounts of two employees whose work is connected with China, university officials told The Daily Progress. However, the identities and departments of those employees have not been released. They remain employed at the university, officials said Friday."

Who did it?
Although it was not clear that the cyberattack had originated from the Chinese government, speculation aired on Coy Barefoot's "Inside Charlottesville" radio program suggested that the employees may be faculty members or researchers who work on democracy issues or human rights in China, or perhaps are involved in some business activities.

Chinese hackers have previously invaded U.S. businesses' computer systems in order to uncover trade secrets. They also recently harvested information from a decades-old database of U.S. government employees maintained by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

The cyberattack did not target the UVA hospital or health system. Those divisions' email, web sites, and databases remain operational.

University officials estimate that it will take approximately 48 hours to install the security fixes needed to protect the emails of faculty, staff, and students. They recommend that, once the system is running again, individuals should change their email and other passwords for additional protection.

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WINA radio host Coy Barefoot assesses the Perriello-Clark congressional debate

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/chinese-hackers-attack-university-of-virginia-email-cause-it-shutdown

From the Archives: Congressmen Bob Goodlatte and Robert Hurt comment on WDBJ-TV killings

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 26, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Congressmen Bob Goodlatte and Robert Hurt comment on WDBJ-TV killings

Two Virginia television journalists were murdered during a live broadcast on Roanoke station WDBJ on Wednesday morning. The killer, Vester Flanagan, a former employee of the same TV station, was chased across the state and died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds in a Northern Virginia hospital.

Two Members of Congress who represent the area covered by WDBJ-TV offered messages of condolence.

In a statement issued by his office, Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA6), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said:

“The horrific murders that occurred this morning have impacted the entire Roanoke community. Maryellen and I offer our condolences to the families of Alison Parker and Adam Ward during this very difficult time"

Goodlatte noted that he "had the great opportunity to work with Alison and Adam, and they will be dearly missed by those in our community as well as their loved ones and colleagues at WDBJ. I continue to keep the WDBJ family as well as Vicki Gardner, who was wounded this morning, in my thoughts and prayers."

Gardner was being interviewed on the air as a spokesperson for the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce.

Goodlatte continued: "As we continue to learn more about this terrible tragedy, I am thankful for the coordinated efforts of multiple federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies in responding quickly."

Congressman Robert Hurt, whose Fifth Congressional District is near Roanoke, offered a similar message in a news release distributed by email to reporters.

“I am deeply saddened by the horrific act of violence that occurred in Franklin County this morning," Hurt said. "Our prayers are with the families of Alison Parker and Adam Ward and the entire WDBJ team."

Hurt also mentioned that Vicki Gardner was in his prayers and he thanked "the local, state, and federal law enforcement personnel who worked diligently to apprehend the suspect and prevent further harm to our communities."

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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/congressmen-bob-goodlatte-and-robert-hurt-comment-on-wdbj-tv-killings

From the Archives: DC-area expatriates rally to provide assistance to storm-damaged Dominica

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 31, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

DC-area expatriates rally to provide assistance to storm-damaged Dominica

A direct hit by Tropical Storm Erika last week wreaked havoc on the small Caribbean island nation of Dominica. In response, a team of volunteers in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States is coordinating relief efforts for the survivors among Dominica's population.

The Commonwealth of Dominica has just 70,000 people but at least 20 of them were killed by flooding and mudslides in the wake of Tropical Storm Erika, with another three dozen still missing or unaccounted for. Smaller in territory than New York City, the rugged and mountainous Dominica is the northernmost of the Windward Islands in the Eastern Caribbean.

In an exclusive interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner on August 30, Adella Toulon-Foerster, a spokesperson for the new organization, Rebuild Dominica, said that the situation has “been crazy. There was no advance warning for this one. The island is accustomed to getting tropical storms and hurricanes. Tropical storms usually come and dump some water but people just generally stay inside and wait it out.”

Landslides and devastation
What made Tropical Storm Erika worse, she said, is that it came after previous rains had softened up the soil, making the island already waterlogged and prone to landslides, which caused so much devastation.

The village of Petite Savanne, she pointed out, had the most casualties and has been completely cut off from the rest of Dominica. It is accessible only by helicopter.

The island's infrastructure has been badly damaged, said Toulon-Foerster, a Dominica native who was briefly a resident of Charlottesville about ten years ago and currently lives in Northern Virginia.

“At least three bridges have been washed away, completely destroyed,” she explained. “Many villages are cut off from each other. Cell phone service is limited, cell towers were washed away. People are going by boat to get water and relief and just the basics to people.”

Neighboring island countries that were not hit by Erika have already come to Dominica's aid, she added.

“There have been a lot of volunteers from the French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, going by boat to get people water and to get sick people out of villages that have been cut off.”

Help has also come from Barbados and from Antigua and Barbuda. “The Eastern Caribbean has been pouring out their help to us,” Toulon-Foerster said.

'Rebuild Dominica'
A group of Dominican expatriates in the Washington area met on August 29 to create an ad-hoc relief organization, Rebuild Dominica, which is arranging for collections of necessities that will be shipped to the island this week.

The short-term plan, she said, “is to get needed relief items to the island as soon as possible: food, clothing, shoes, medical supplies. We put together a group in charge of logistics. Our first shipment goes out Wednesday.”

Items to help families in Dominica are being collected at Evangel Assembly of God, located at 5900 Old Branch Avenue in Temple Hills, Maryland. The Government of Dominica has also set up a special bank account that can accept monetary donations by wire.

Nationwide relief efforts
Toulon-Foerster said that other relief committees have emerged throughout the United States.

“We have heard from people in Texas, New York, Florida, in Alaska, in New Jersey,” she said. ”In every single major metropolitan area of the country, we've seen an outpouring of relief efforts. People are rallying. It's really overwhelming.”

According to a news release distributed by Rebuild Dominica, “More information about the new organization is available on its web site at http://RebuildDominica.org, through the Twitter handle @RebuildDominica, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/RebuildDominica.”

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Congressmen Bob Goodlatte and Robert Hurt comment on WDBJ-TV killings
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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/dc-area-expatriates-rally-to-provide-assistance-to-storm-damaged-dominica

From the Archives: House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte is 'sympathetic' to Kim Davis

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on September 7, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte is 'sympathetic' to Kim Davis

The chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee says he is "sympathetic" to Rowan County clerk of courts Kim Davis but also believes she is obliged by law to do her job and that no government official is "above the law."

At the annual Labor Day festival in Buena Vista, Virginia, Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA6) spoke to the crowd and spoke separately with members of the news media.

Offering an enthusiastic endorsement of local Delegate Ben Cline for re-election to the Virginia General Assembly in his speech to voters from Buena Vista and surrounding Rockbridge County, Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and an attorney by background, also answered questions about current events.

Kentucky contempt
One question posed by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner concerned the situation in Rowan County, Kentucky, where clerk of court Kim Davis was jailed for contempt of court when she refused to issue marriage licenses or allow her staff to do so.

Davis claims her religion forbids her to endorse same-sex marriages, so she halted all marriage licenses in the county in protest of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. That ruling, in late June, declared that laws prohibiting marriages between gay or lesbian couples are unconstitutional.

Davis, a Democrat elected to her post in 2014, was jailed for disobeying a federal court order to issue marriage licenses in Rowan County, a standard and expected service normally provided by county clerks.

“I certainly am very concerned about the Supreme Court decision” in Obergefell, Congressman Goodlatte said, and “did not agree with that decision.”

He added: “I respect people who want to take that personal step but [Kim Davis is] a government official and, unfortunately, because she is a government official, she is required to uphold the law and that is to do what the law and the courts require of her.”

'Above the law'
The situation in Rowan County, he said, is “very, very difficult,” noting that he is “very sympathetic to her position. I agree with her position on this but I don't think she can use a governmental office for that purpose.”

“No one is above the law,” Goodlatte added, explaining that “you can certainly use your religious position as a private citizen or a private business owner or a member of a church – in your private life – to reflect your values of traditional marriage and belief that marriage should be between one man and one woman.”

The judiciary committee chairman said he shares that belief in traditional marriage, “but when a court enters an order, a clerk who has been sworn to take an oath of office does not have the option of not choosing to uphold her oath in that public office that she has been elected to or appointed to.”

Buena Vista's Laborfest marked its 45th consecutive year. In addition to Congressman Goodlatte, speakers included Delegate Cline (R-HD24) and attorney Ellen Arthur, Cline's Democratic opponent in the November election for the 24th district seat in the House of Delegates.

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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/house-judiciary-committee-chairman-bob-goodlatte-is-sympathetic-to-kim-davis

From the Archives: Former Senator George Allen 'stunned' by Donald Trump's popularity in GOP

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on September 12, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Former Senator George Allen 'stunned' by Donald Trump's popularity in GOP

Arriving at the Doubletree Hotel in Charlottesville for the monthly Albemarle County GOP breakfast on September 12, former Virginia governor and U.S. senator George F. Allen offered some comments on real estate mogul Donald Trump's bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

In 2006, Allen's re-election campaign was derailed by an off-hand remark to a Democratic party video tracker, using the then-unknown word “macaca,” which to some people sounded like a pejorative term used in North Africa, where Allen's mother grew up. Allen – then not only heavily favored for re-election but widely touted as a likely leading 2008 presidential candidate – lost narrowly to Democrat Jim Webb, and lost again in 2012 in an attempted comeback against former governor Tim Kaine.

In light of that, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner asked how Donald Trump's daily offensive, misogynistic, racist, and xenophobic statements did not hobble his campaign but rather led to rising poll numbers.

'Stunned'
“Anybody who has run for office is just stunned” by Trump's performance so far, Allen replied. “He'll say something [offensive] in a debate” or an interview “and he'll go up in the polls.”

Reaching for an explanation for Trump's popularity in the face of such offensiveness, Allen suggested that “people are so frustrated with the lack of attention to anything that matters [to them from] folks in Washington.”

Voters like “the fact that he is not a politician,” the former governor said, even though “they may think that some of the things he says are not diplomatic or impolitic.”

While some of the people involved in Trump's campaign are long-time Republican activists, Allen said, Trump is also drawing in “a lot of new people who have gotten active and who just say, 'You know, yeah, he may not know everything but gosh darn, I just want to send a message up to them in Washington.'”

He said that “while the things Trump says, I think, are harmful, and he doesn't need to be making some of those statements, people do want to send a message.”

Allen noted that “Donald Trump is a longtime family friend, believe it or not, from the days of the USFL – the United States Football League. My father had the Chicago Blitz and Arizona Wranglers and Donald had the New Jersey Generals.”

The USFL team owners, he explained, all worked together in signing players to the new league, such as Jim Kelly, who joined the Houston Gamblers, Steve Young of the LA Express, and Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker, who joined Trump's team, the New Jersey Generals.

'That's the Donald'
Allen smiled as he related an anecdote about asking Trump for a campaign contribution fifteen years ago.

“One time I called him up – this is when I was running for the Senate in 2000, and the contribution limit then was $2,000 – so we're doing some sort of reception/fundraiser up in New York City and I called up Donald Trump and we reminisced over the USFL days and I asked, 'Can you contribute $2,000 to me?' and he said, 'Oh yeah, sure, I'll do that.' I asked, 'Can you come to the reception?' And he said, 'If you want me at the reception, I'll give you $1,000.' He says, 'What do you want, one thousand or two thousand?' I said, 'I'll take the two thousand, you don't need to come to the reception.'”

“That's the Donald,” said Allen.

While Allen has not yet decided which of the several Republican presidential hopefuls he will endorse, he does have a list of criteria that the best candidate must meet.

“I'm looking for someone who has a positive, constructive agenda to create more opportunities in our country – in specifics, not a bunch of superlatives and so forth,” he said.

'Distrust, dismay, and anger'
Among the topics it is important for the right candidate to talk about, Allen explained, are “tax policy; reining in these unelected, unaccountable bureaucracies; [and] unleashing our energy resources, to make our country more competitive internationally.

“Americans want to be the best. We ought to have a government that allows them, with the right policies, to be at their best,” he said.

A second point, Allen added, is that he wants “to see if they respect the rights and prerogatives of the people, of the states, [and] that all decisions don't need to be in Washington. Generally,” he said in an aside, “a lot of times, government at no level should be involved, but government closest to the people is the Jeffersonian principle.”

The final question Allen asks about a potential nominee is, “does their past record evince an integrity that they'll actually keep their word once they're in office?”

That last point is important, he said, since voters “are looking for integrity because there's a lot of distrust, dismay, and anger with the way government operates.”

Allen went on to talk about these themes in remarks to the Albemarle County Republican Committee. About 60 people were in the audience, several of whom engaged the former governor in questions about how Washington works and what can be done to bring more conservative ideas into the policymaking process.

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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/former-senator-george-allen-stunned-by-donald-trump-s-popularity-gop-1

From the Archives: 'They won and we blinked' says former Sen. George Allen on Iran deal

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on September 13, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

'They won and we blinked' says former Sen. George Allen on Iran deal

Former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator George Allen spoke in Charlottesville on Saturday, September 12, at the monthly breakfast of the Albemarle County Republican Committee. His message to the gathered activists was one of inclusion, saying that political parties win elections by addition, not subtraction.

Before he delivered his remarks, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner asked him about some foreign policy matters that are in the news. Allen said that, if he were still in the Senate, he would vote against the proposed deal with Iran on nuclear technology. He also said that the best solution to the refugee crisis in the Middle East is to build a “safe haven” in Syria rather than encourage migrants to come to Europe or the United States.

'Sanctions worked'
One aspect of the agreement with Iran that bothers Allen is the unfreezing of assets.

“One of the things I worked on when I was in the Senate,” he explained, was the issue of people who had been held hostage, injured, and killed by Iran over the years.

Going back to the Carter administration, he said, there were court judgments in favor of those injured parties that could be paid out of frozen Iranian assets in the United States and elsewhere.

“We have all these assets,” Allen said, “and they ought to be able to get their judgments paid out of those assets. Those assets are being released back to [Iran], going back to a regime that's going to use that money to support Hamas and Hezbollah and all sorts of terrorist organizations around the Middle East.”

On the nuclear aspect of the agreement, he said, “People will argue over the verification and so forth of that, and you can argue endlessly. But here's the other point: they are a state sponsor of terror and in five years the arms embargo is off. Then in seven or eight years the ballistic missile sanctions are removed.”

Iran, he said, is “a dangerous force and they can be even more dangerous after this when they can get more arms and they can get more missile technology.”

Acknowledging that the agreement will go forward, Allen said “I hope that I'm wrong but I see no evidence to evince any sort of confidence that this theocracy will change its ways and will only be stronger. In fact,” he added, from Iran's perspective, “they won and we blinked.”

Stated flatly, he concluded: “Sanctions worked. What we ought to do is keep the sanctions on but these other countries” that are party to the agreement “are all capitulating because they want to go [into Iran] to make a little money.”

'Safe haven'
On the matter of the refugee crisis in the Middle East – over four million refugees from Syria are now in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan but the United States has promised to take in just 10,000 – Allen was reluctant to suggest that the United States should commit to receiving more asylum seekers.

“I think the best solution to all of this is to create an area, a safe area, in Syria, maybe along the Jordanian border,” he said, “and just create a safe-haven city so that the folks from Syria don't have to leave their country on risky boats going to Greece.”

That solution, he said, “would be a whole lot less expensive to our government, to the governments of Europe and the world, to create that sort of a situation rather than having them so desperate to live and get food they have to make these risky trips. To me, that's the solution to it rather than creating this diaspora from” Syria in the United States and Europe.

Noting that he understands asylum laws and how they affect refugees from conflict zones, Allen concluded that “to me the solution would have been, and should be, and in fact, can still be, to create a safe haven for them in Syria.”

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Virginia Congressman Robert Hurt speaks out for free trade in Charlottesville

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/they-won-and-we-blinked-says-former-sen-george-allen-on-iran-deal

From the Archives: Virginia Film Festival features classics, documentaries, and Larry Kramer

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on September 29, 2015, about one month before the Virginia Film Festival opened in Charlottesville.  The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Virginia Film Festival features classics, documentaries, and Larry Kramer

America's civil rights movement is the focus of several documentary films that will be screened at the 2015 Virginia Film Festival, while festival director Jody Kielbasa is pleased to host “change agents” among the event's speakers and panelists.

Kielbasa spoke to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner on September 29, after announcing this year's festival program at the Jefferson Theater. The 28th Virginia Film Festival will take place over the weekend of November 5-8.

This year's documentaries make up “a really interesting mix,” Kielbasa said, ranging from Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot, presented in partnership with the UVA Center for Politics, to “films that are made by film makers here, like Monroe Hill,” which looks at local Charlottesville history, and Polyfaces, a documentary about Virginia farmer-activist Joel Salatin, “made by two Australian film makers – go figure!”

“The fascinating thing about the documentaries that we screen,” Kielbasa added, “are the opportunities to engage with the local populace on topics and subject matter that really resonate and are important to this community.”

Civil rights chronicle
Another film with a civil-rights theme is Stanley Nelson's recent release, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution.

“When you look at the work that [Nelson has] done,” Kielbasa explained, including films like “Freedom Riders and then last year's Freedom Summer and now The Black Panthers,” one can see how Nelson has been “chronicling the history of the civil rights movement in our country. It's extraordinary to be able to screen these films.”

The Virginia Film Festival will also screen Bound: Africans versus African Americans, directed by Kenyan-born Peres Owino, and Aviva Kempner's Rosenwald, which will be presented as a tribute to civil-rights leader and former University of Virginia professor Julian Bond, who died this summer. Director Kempner, poet Rita Dove, and Bond's widow, Pamela Horowitz, will speak on a panel following the film's screening.

“We lost Julian Bond this past year,” Kielbasa noted, “and we have a film that focuses on his having gone through one of Julius Rosenwald's schools as a young man [and] the impact that that had on his life.”

The film also includes figures like Washington Post editor Eugene Robinson and other individuals who were educated in Rosenwald schools “and the impact that that's had on their lives,” he added.

“To me,” he said, “that's really significant.”

In addition to these documentary films, the Virginia Film Festival will include screenings of The Maltese Falcon and D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, curated by special guest Leonard Maltin. There will also be appearances by actress/director Meg Ryan, director Oliver Stone, and novelist/playwright Larry Kramer.

'Change agents'
Kielbasa described Kramer as one of the “change agents” whose appearances on the Virginia Film Festival stage make the festival nearly unique.

Kramer, he said, is “a gentleman who started screaming at the top of his lungs in the early 80s when nobody would pay attention to the AIDS crisis. He wrote this phenomenal play [The Normal Heart] that suddenly made it, somehow, almost acceptable to care and accessible to an audience out there. Suddenly the dynamic began to change, entirely through his kind of activism, his 'angry man' kind of activism – but at that point somebody had to get the attention of our country and the world. And he was responsible for a lot of that.”

Kielbasa also pointed out how both the quality and quantity of films made in the Commonwealth or by Virginia film makers have improved over the past six years that he has been the festival's director.

He said “the number of high quality films that are coming to us all the time that were made here or made by Virginians is extraordinary.”

Featuring over 100 films, the 2015 Virginia Film Festival will include screenings at several new venues, including the Violet Crown cinemas on the downtown mall and the former Vinegar Hill theater. Tickets go on sale through the film festival's web site on Friday, October 2.

SUGGESTED LINKS

Gov. Terry McAuliffe touts Virginia film industry at Charlottesville movie fest
Library of Congress collects pornographic films, violent video games
Porn king Larry Flynt defends free speech in Charlottesville
Filmmaker Stanley Nelson on ‘Freedom Riders,’ the news media, and civil rights
Va. Film Festival to feature politicians from Goldwater & LBJ to Nixon & Bush

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/virginia-film-festival-features-classics-documentaries-and-larry-kramer

From the Archives: Charlottesville write-in voters honor former candidates, South Park characters

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on November 4, 2015, following Virginia's general election.  The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Charlottesville write-in voters honor former candidates, South Park characters

Local radio hosts Rob Schilling and Joe Thomas proved they have followers by winning dozens of write-in votes on Election Day in Charlottesville. The two talkers got write-ins in all five contests that were on the ballot.

The November 3 election featured uncontested races for state Senate and the Virginia House of Delegates, five candidates competing for three seats the Charlottesville City Council, four candidates for four seats on the city's School Board, and three candidates for two open positions on the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District.

According to unofficial write-in totals released by the Charlottesville Electoral Board, WINA-AM's Schilling, a former City Council member who was elected as a Republican in 2002, got seven votes in that contest while WCHV-AM & FM's Thomas got nine. Schilling also got four votes for state Senate in the 25th District (which was won by incumbent R. Creigh Deeds with 90.5 percent of the vote) while Thomas got six. In the House of Delegates race won by House Minority Leader David Toscano (with 89.95 percent), Schilling had six votes and Thomas had three.

Thomas outpaced Schilling in the write-in votes for School Board by six votes to one. Schilling had two votes for Soil and Water District Director to Thomas' one vote.

Thomas Jefferson remembered
It is often said that in the Charlottesville area, founding father Thomas Jefferson is often spoken of “as if he just left the room,” and the Sage of Monticello was written in by voters in every contest on Tuesday: four votes for state Senate, four votes for his former seat in the House of Delegates, and one vote each for City Council, School Board, and -- in the district named for him -- Soil and Water District Director.

City Council member Dede Smith, who failed to win renomination by the local Democratic party in the June primary, received 121 votes from supporters who wanted to see her retain her seat. She also received three votes each for School Board and Soil and Water District Director.

Previous City Council candidates Brandon Collins, Mike Farruggio, and Charles “Buddy” Weber received four, three, and four votes, respectively, in that contest.

Weber and Farruggio both received one vote in the race for state Senate, as did T. J. Aldous, who was the Republican nominee for that office in 2011. Former Charlottesville City Council candidate Jon Bright got nine votes in that contest as well as two in the 57th District House of Delegates race. Tom McCrystal, who was the Republican nominee for that delegate seat in 2005, received two votes.

Sabato, Lark, and Parker
Local celebrities who received votes for state Senate included political scientist Larry J. Sabato , former national chairman of the Libertarian Party James W. Lark, former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate James Webb, 2016 Fifth District congressional candidate Jane Dittmar, and 2015 Republican City Council candidate Anson Parker. So did Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner Rick Sincere.

Former independent candidate for the House of Delegates Robert Brandon Smith III and local GOP activist James Neale both received votes in the 57th District delegate race.

Lena Seville, who ran for the Democratic City Council nomination in the June primary, received two votes in that contest, while Peter Kleeman, who ran for that office as an independent in 2007.

Willa Neale, who chose not to run for another term on the School Board, received two write-in votes.

South Park fans may be pleased to learn that Kyle Brofloski, Eric Cartman, Stan Marsh, and Kenny McCormick all received votes for School Board, as did PC Principal and “Mr. Garrison.”

Suggested Links

Charlottesville write-ins reflect voters' loyalty to Perriello, Hurt
Few though colorful write-in votes cast in Charlottesville in Election 2012
Charlottesville write-ins reveal voters’ allegiance, impishness
UVA political scientist analyzes 2012 election, looks toward 2016 GOP nominee
Georgetown philosophy professor Jason Brennan explores ethics of voting

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/charlottesville-write-voters-honor-former-candidates-south-park-characters