Seems to me this ridiculous display once again of Republicans' irrational spitefulness should be the subject of strong LTE's to community and local newspapers and media in every area affected, to be repeated when these clowns come up for re-election, especially for Speaker Howell.  This gleeful negativism is breath-taking--- beyond high school level and descending to that of a grade school vendetta. Let's keep bringing it up wherever remotely appropriate, and burn it into voters' minds.

Goes to show, as with Clinton and the GOP Congress v. Bush and the GOP Congress, that it takes a Democrat executive to get Republicans to act like conservatives since none of those programs are any of the state government's business.  If the Republican actually exercise fiscal restraint, then Kaine's election will be good thing (since Bush makes one pine for a Gore presidency).

This mornings Wash Post article on Va Budget approval is filled with Michael Shear's right wing spin. He adds:

And he goes on:

more....

....the Post did put some accomplishments in the continuation of the article on the inside pages, but Shear's  basic message that Kaine didn't do too well  was conveyed on the front page. I realize that the Post is not the mouthpiece for the dems as it shouldn't be, but it's hard to get a message out when you have the Washington Times and Fox news type of organizations 95% in the GOP corner, and you have SO CALLED mainstream publications that have conservative think tank reporters and editors IMPLANTED at them to muddy the waters--the end result being the Dems message is diluted, and the GOP with the help of the Times and Fox news of the world come across looking cohesive and on message. Folks the GOP has been working on this strategy in the media for years.

Lost in all this is the GOP efforts to veto out good ideas that Kaine had, just because the GOP didn't want Kaine to get any of the credit on an important issue. I don't remember the Dems playing these kind of stupid games when they were in control. How utterly pathetic are some of those GOP delagates like Dave Albo (R) who are willing to play these childish political games so that Virginians won't get the benefit of new transportation legisulation. And shame on the Washington Post's Michael Shear for pretending to be a neutral reporter when he ALWAYS chimes his opinion in. Hey Michael good reporters are supposed to report the facts dude, just the facts.

What the hell is the government even thinking when it considered using my hard-earned tax dollars to throw even more useless art into some museum in Virginia when we have a "transportation crisis"?

OK I didn't get the quotes in, here's try #2.

This mornings Wash Post article on Va Budget approval is filled with Michael Shear's right wing spin. He adds:

His plan for tax increases to finance those improvements, presented six days into his term, stalled after he misread the  resolve of his adversaries and overestimated public pressure for improvements

And he goes on:

He failed to win passage of his boldest proposal, a new law letting local government turn down development if nearby roads area inadequate.

more....

By pushing for the higher taxes, he also prompted the state's worst budget stalemate, which ended four days shy of a deadline that threatened to shut down the government and cause a constitutional crisis.

....the Post did put some accomplishments in the continuation of the article on the inside pages, but Shear's  basic message that Kaine didn't do too well  was conveyed on the front page. I realize that the Post is not the mouthpiece for the dems as it shouldn't be, but it's hard to get a message out when you have the Washington Times and Fox news type of organizations 95% in the GOP corner, and you have SO CALLED mainstream publications that have conservative think tank reporters and editors IMPLANTED at them to muddy the waters--the end result being the Dems message is diluted, and the GOP with the help of the Times and Fox news of the world come across looking cohesive and on message. Folks the GOP has been working on this strategy in the media for years.

Lost in all this is the GOP efforts to veto out good ideas that Kaine had, just because the GOP didn't want Kaine to get any of the credit on an important issue. I don't remember the Dems playing these kind of stupid games when they were in control. How utterly pathetic are some of those GOP delagates like Dave Albo (R) who are willing to play these childish political games so that Virginians won't get the benefit of new transportation legisulation. And shame on the Washington Post's Michael Shear for pretending to be a neutral reporter when he ALWAYS chimes his opinion in. Hey Michael good reporters are supposed to report the facts dude, just the facts.

The staff has long been semi-liberal.  The management moved to neo-conservatism a long time ago.

Put it to you this way, The Washington Times and Fox news organizations help the GOP more than the Washington Post helps the Democrats--which gives the GOP the advantage. The neo conservative think tanks have been for years educating their reporters and getting them into papers like the Post. That ain't conspiracy dung, it's a fact--Read David Brocks, The Republican Noise Machine. The GOP controls the media--they get the best of both worlds they knock it as liberal and then use it to muddy the waters to make the dems look indecisive--on that point I give the GOP credit, they're some crafty ass dudes.

The media sided with the GOP when congress voted to pass a purely cermonial piece of legisulation to "stay the Course"with Bush's failed Iraq strategy. The media went on to say the Dems were fighting among themselves and weren't together at all--so the media presented the whole thing in a positive way that made Bush look good because all his GOP friends were willing to jump over the cliff with him. The media couldn't put it in a positive way for the dems, like they were trying to find away out of this quagmire that Bush has gotten us into. Everyone forgets we didn't have to be in this position if Bush wouldn't have listened to his inner child make the decision. ie the media could put the dems effort in a more positive light.

Is the Chamber of Commerce/Washington Board of Trade

I am very saddened that the Republicans in our community chose to kill the bill in which Gov. Kaine allocated funds to prevent 1,900 families from losing child care subsidies in Fairfax and other counties. As a single mother who works five days a week and goes to graduate school at GMU at night, I am now at risk of losing my child care subsidy.  If I am cut, I will have to stop working, drop out of school and most likely have to apply for welfare.  Pushing more people on welfare and forcing them to drop out of school and stop working is no way to better our community as a whole considering that child care in this county on a full-time basis a month is right along there with college tuition.  I am deeply troubled that the needs of hard-working citizens in the community were not as important than more money for transportation, but once again I am not surprised.

Shamila