Shaun Kenney

Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly (VA-11) wants some stimulus money in the worst way.  How bad?  So bad he can smell it:

“I want to be there with all four paws and snout in the trough.”

Awesome, Gerry. You do that.

But what’s this? Connolly’s staff says it’s not so and claims to be talking about House Minority Whip Eric Cantor instead:

You used a portion of Rep. Connolly’s quote to blur the identity of whose snout was firmly shoved in the trough. In fact, the full quote and context of the statement show quite clearly that he was referring to House Minority Whip Eric Cantor’s snout.

I’ll let the gentle reader decide what other sights-and-sounds of the farm Connolly’s statement reminds one of. Or as the NRO’s Jim Geraghty puts it:

I’ll let readers decide whether the pig metaphor for Eric Cantor is… well, you know… Kosher.

Oink… er, ouch.

Craig Ferguson of “The Late Late Show” has probably one of the most pithy quick reads on why American culture is so messed up right now:

What happened was, in a strange kind of quirk of fate, youth began to be celebrated by society. This was in a way that it had never been at any time in human history. What used to be celebrated was experience, and cleverness. But what became valuable was youth — and the quality of youth was being a consumer.

I know what you’re thinking, you’re saying “but wait a minute, Craig, in Ancient Greece they deified youth.” No they didn’t. They deified beauty. Different.

What happened is youth became more important and became more important. Society started to turn on its head. Because youth has a byproduct — inexperience. By the nature of youth you don’t have any experience. It’s not your fault. You’re just kind of stupid.

Worth reading it all, and it’s not terribly long.  Still, he makes an excellent point on beauty vs. youth.

Now this is odd.  Just weeks after conducting a poll and just after a series of brusing poll numbers from SurveyUSA and Rasmussen, the Dems are going in for another round of expensive polling, this time through PPP (Public Policy Polling).

Why?

Look to Washington for that answer.  Obama’s had another consecutive week of bad press and mishaps, Deeds most memorable line is about emasculating animals, and McDonnell and the entire GOP ticket in Virginia are enjoying double-digit leads.

Ostensibly, the PPP poll will come back with narrower margins across the board.  One would have to doubt very seriously if the poll shows some evening up (though that looks better for the RCP averages).

Deeds isn’t in freefall just yet, but when someone is constantly checking the temperature of the patient, that’s not a sign that Democrats internally are thinking surge — they’re trying to stop the bleeding.

UPDATE: Don’t like those early poll results?  Well, just keep polling ’til you get something you like!  God bless Twitter.

…and as your next Governor, he will put that kind of experience to work for the Virginia economy?

I kid you not — this was the “experience” that Deeds offered to Virginia’s farmers during a candidates forum today.

Deeds is in serious trouble.

Now this should anger you too. Seems as if a lobbying firm is astroturfing their grassroots in targeting Congressman Perriello:

In a letter notifying Perriello’s office about the matter, Freilich said he was “offended” by Hegyi’s characterization of the forged letter as a “mistake.”

“This was not a ‘mistake,’” wrote Freilich, who is also legal director of the Immigrant Advocacy Program of the Legal Aid Justice Center. “This was a deliberately and carefully forged letter that used the logo, address and name of Creciendo Juntos without authorization. Additionally, I understand from Ms. Hegyi that our organization was not the only Charlottesville-area organization whose reputations were used in an unauthorized manner to try to influence Congressman Perriello on this particular vote.”

After being notified of the bogus Creciendo Juntos letter, staffers in Perriello’s office realized that the wording of the letter sounded familiar.

The staffers dug through the stacks of thousands of letters, e-mails and faxes Perriello received about the bill — the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 — and found five more forged letters, these purportedly from the Albemarle-Charlottesville branch of the NAACP.

M. Rick Turner, president of the local NAACP branch, said he checked his organization’s roster and found none of the five people who signed their name to the five faked letters.

Now that’s ridiculous… “mistake” isn’t enough.

UPDATE: Waldo Jaquith piles on:

This is just an evil thing to do. Such missives from constituents are important to legislators. They shouldn’t have to question whether those letter-writers actually represent the organizations that they claim to represent (or even exist). The amount of work that would necessary to verify such communications would be enormous, a huge waste of government resources. Can you imagine if Perriello had been moved to vote against this bill because of one of these letters—and if his vote was the deciding vote—only to later find out that this group that he knows and trusts felt completely the opposite about the issue? I have to wonder if laws aren’t being broken here. If this isn’t illegal, it should be.

I believe we have a name for this sort of misrepresentation — fraud.

This matters. India is showing a commitment to making the Indian Ocean their sphere of influence, a sphere that will be contested in the long run by the People’s Republic of China.

100 new ships, just to put it in perspective, would bring their total complement to 256. To give this even greater perspective, the PLAN has over 1200 naval vessels, of which 633 are warships, the vast majority of which are amphibious landing craft and coastal vessels in preparation for the “million man swim” to Taiwan, should the need arise.

The United States Navy currently maintains 435 warships.  The Royal Navy has 88, while the Russian Navy has 91 and the French Navy having 41.  Nearby Australia has 51 ships, eight of which are frigates and four are guided missile frigates.

One can assume there is a good deal of modernization going on.  Still, the overwhelming planned sizes of both the Indian and PRC navies tells you the Pax Americana (inherited from the Pax Brittanica) may very well be short lived.

FINALLY!  Something Seth Godin writes that I agree with!

One person will email to ask me for a favor or a connection, and I’ll point out that just yesterday, I got three emails, all spam, from three different people at the organization either selling me something irrelevant or sending me a press release I didn’t ask for.  And the unsubscribe button doesn’t work. And I’ve unsubscribed ten times before. When I pointed this out, he said, “Oh, that’s those guys. I’m not related to them, all I do is work here. If you don’t like getting that stuff, you should take it up with them.”

…

The reason your brand is falling apart is because so many of your colleagues are saying the same thing, denying the same responsibility. Consumers don’t believe (or care) that there are warrens and fiefdoms and monarchies within your company. All they know is that you leverage that brand name every day, as you have for decades, but now, instead of using that brand to polish your reputation as an individual, you’re being forced to accept responsibility for the actions of others.

Amen, and it holds true for families, businesses, campaigns, or any other social construct.

OK, yes I’m about to make fun of the guy, but I couldn’t help but notice the sort of short breaths and quick-jerks back-and-to-the-right during the entire interview:

What is this choppy stutter back and forth? The good congressman’s communication style seems like a cross between Pat Schroeder and Barney Frank.

And petrodictators, Tom?  Seriously?  You mean petrodictators such as these?

I mean, I don’t know what this sort of kowtowing tells anyone else out there, but petrodictators? Either that’s a sweeping generalization, or I’d sure like to hear Perriello’s thoughts on Obama’s accommodation of said petrodictators (unless Perriello really meant Big Oil — in which case the term means something quite different and I’m back to picking on his communication style).

This isn’t good news for the Dems, and you know it’s really bad when folks like Bob Holsworth are rattling the cages:

(T)he Democrats will need to do a far better job in understanding and responding to the problems that the Governor’s dual role as DNC Chair has raised for them.  Bob McDonnell is simply pounding them by linking Kaine and Deeds to every unpopular national Democratic initiative.

And, finally, maybe the Democrats will recognize that it is not very gubernatorial to offer a transportation “plan” without details  because you do not want step on the prerogatives of the legislature.

Welcome to Virginia, fellas.

Of course, the Democratic blogosphere in Virginia has been quick to point out that gubernatorial wannabes such as George Allen and Tim Kaine were all light years behind their opponents.  Not sure how that washes with examples like Mark Earley or Don Beyer… but I’m sure we’ll be enlightened.

The killer here is that all three candidates are back by double digits, and what’s more the GOP attacks are starting to stick.  Shannon isn’t ready, Wagner got us into the mess, and not only does Deeds not have a plan for transportation or economic growth, he refuses to pledge not to raise taxes — something Deeds’ previously vanquished Democratic challenger Terry McAuliffe pledged repeatedly not to do.

via First Pitch Breakdown.