George Allen's attack ad

The unnarrated 75-second spot, entitled “Unabashed,” laments that the nation has endured “35 straight months of unemployment above 8%” and highlights President Barack Obama’s administration’s rejection of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Then, it shows a lengthy series of video clips and newspaper headlines tying likely Democratic nominee, former Gov. Tim Kaine, to the administration’s position and backing the tar sands project:

– “Obama’s decision will cost the U.S. jobs” [Chicago Tribune, 1/19/12]
– “Obama’s Keystone pipeline rejection is hard to accept” [Washington Post, 1/18/12]
– “Obama’s Keystone pipeline nix worries small business” [CNNMoney.com, 1/19/12]
– “Obama’s pipeline decision delays energy security” [USA Today, 1/18/12]

Watch the spot:

The ad ends with the text “Tim Kaine. President Obama’s Senator. NOT VIRGINA’S.”

The claims that the Keystone XL pipeline would be a significant job creator have been widely debunked and the media citations reference stories that relied on flawed information. But even if you believed the industry’s inflated claims of tens of thousands of jobs, is hard to imagine that a construction project nearly 1,000 miles away from even the Commonwealth’s western-most point would put a significant number of Virginians to work.

More likely to benefit, however, would be the big oil and other energy companies whose multi-million-dollar lobbying campaigns have focused heavily on pushing the pipeline’s construction. And, as it happens, that sector has heavily funded former Sen. Allen’s campaign. Though the campaign has refused to disclose the list clients at Allen’s company or what he did for the energy industry as a consultant in the time between his last campaign and this one, ThinkProgress reported last year that Allen founded an industry-tied group to oppose clean energy reforms, spoke at a global-warming deniers hosted by the Heartland Institute, and toured Virginia with the Koch Industries-funded Americans for Prosperity.

A more truthful ad would say: George Allen. Big Oil’s Senator. NOT VIRGINIA’S.

The debate grew heated, and Deputy House Majority Leader C. Todd Gilbert (R) even suggested that women undergo abortions to maintain their “lifestyle.” He later apologized for his remarks:

“Abortion is a sad and deeply serious occurrence,’’ Gilbert said in a statement. “Individuals on both sides of this issue agree that it is tragic for all involved. I recognize that few women undergo the procedure lightly. It leaves scars, both mental and physical, that can last forever. I regret that my comments earlier today on the House floor were insensitive to that reality.’’

Gilbert, who opposes abortion rights, shocked opponents of a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before an abortion when he said: “In the vast majority of these cases, these are matters of lifestyle convenience.”

The state Senate already approved the ultrasound bill, so now it goes to Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), who has already said he will approve the measure.

But two studies have already shown that ultrasounds do not influence women’s decisions on abortions. It is unclear if the GOP-controlled Senate will also approve the personhood measure. Last year, when Democrats controlled the Senate, they voted down a similar measure.

Anti-Islamic Delegate Bob Marshall (R-VA)

One bill, HB825 from Republican Del. Bob Marshall of Prince William County, would have prohibited judges and state administrators from using any legal code established outside the United States to make decisions. [...]

But when legislators started hearing from business groups concerned about how the proposal could affect their dealings abroad and foreign companies located here, they sent the bill back to committee.

“I had some business concerns,” said Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott County, after making the motion Thursday to kick back the bill. “It’s just something that needs some work.”

It’s unfortunate, if far from unexpected, that similar protests from religious groups, both Islamic and otherwise, were not enough to kill the bill. Nevertheless, the emergence of business opposition to these sorts of bills is a very important development.

The first wave of anti-Islamic bills introduced in state legislatures specifically named “Sharia” or Islamic law as off limits to state court judges. Such laws are unambiguously unconstitutional, as the First Amendment forbids any law that exists for the sole purpose of lashing out at a particular faith. Del. Marshall’s bill short circuits this constitutional limit because it does not expressly call out something unique to a particular faith. Instead, it paints with a broad brush by forbidding citations to any legal code that’s not established in the United States.

The problem with this tactic, however, is that there are all kinds of legitimate reasons why a judge may need to rely on foreign legal sources in order to render a decision. Most significantly, contracts between U.S. and foreign companies frequently require any disputes between them to be resolved under a foreign nation’s law. Needless to say, business don’t like it when lawmakers take away an important tool that they need to conduct international business just to push back against some baseless fantasy about judges lining up to replace the Constitution with Islamic law.

So the punchline is that anti-Islamic lawmakers are now in a bind. They can either push a narrow law targeting Islam, and have that law be struck down in the courts, or they can broaden the law, and wind up pushing something with spillover effects that will greatly annoy powerful interest groups.

Or, alternatively, they could simply abandon their anti-Islamic crusade altogether, and devote their attention solving problems that actually exist.

While the president does not weigh in on every single action taken by legislative bodies in our country, he has long believed that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals based on their interest in offering a loving home, not based on discriminatory and irrelevant factors. He recognizes that adoptive families come in many forms, and that we must do all we can to break down barriers to ensure that all qualified caregivers have the ability to serve as adoptive families.

The bill has already passed the Virginia House and will soon be heard by the Senate. The Williams Institute reported yesterday that the state could incur great costs for every young person that remains in the foster care system because of the discrimination the provision allows for.

It’s important to note that this repeal has absolutely nothing to do with protecting the Second Amendment. Although the Supreme Court held in D.C. v. Heller that individuals enjoy a Second Amendment right to “self-defense” — at least within the confines of their own home — it’s not clear why anyone needs to own an arsenal to protect themselves. At the very least, the Second Amendment allows lawmakers to ask Virginians to wait a month before they can dual-wield pistols against a home intruder, and to wait another month before than can do so with an assault rifle strapped across their back.

Nor are Virginia lawmakers content simply to allow real people to pretend like they are characters from a video game. As the Virginian-Pilot reports, a long list of strange NRA fantasies wait behind the bill repealing the one-gun-per-month rule. A short list includes:

• No Permits for Concealed Carry: Del. Mark Cole (R) introduced a bill eliminating the need to obtain a permit before carrying a concealed firearm.
• No Fingerprints: Sen. William Stanley (R) would prohibit localities from requiring a person to submit their fingerprints when they apply for a concealed-carry permit.
• Vigilante College Professors: The infamous Del. Bob Marshall (R) introduced a bill that would enable college professors to carry a concealed firearm on campus.
• Guns In Airports: Del. Richard Anderson’s (R) bill would repeal the prohibition on guns in airport terminals.

None of these bills have anything to do with the Second Amendment either, which allows concealed carry regulation and allows guns to be banned from “sensitive places.”

“If pregnant women should have to get an ultrasound before having an abortion, men should have to undergo additional medical procedures before getting a prescription for erectile dysfunction,” she noted, and introduced an amendment to Vogel’s bill requiring that men “undergo a digital rectal exam” for pills like Viagra:

On Monday Howell expressed her disdain for legislation requiring the ultrasound by proposing an amendment she described as a simple matter of fairness. Her amendment said that before being treated for erectile dysfunction, a man would have to undergo a digital rectal exam and a cardiac stress test.

“We should just have a little gender equity here,” Howell said.

Vogel argued that “erectile dysfunction, in this context, is different from pregnancy,” and the “gender equity” amendment failed in a 21 to 19 vote mostly along party lines. Vogel’s ultrasound bill will receive a final vote today, and is expected to clear the full Senate.

Aware that such measures are a blatant attempt to obstruct and intimidate women from considering their constitutional right to an abortion, Howell pointed out that the ultrasound is also “adding to the cost” and “opening up [women] to emotional blackmail.”

Virginia State Delegate Bob Marshall (R)

Some of Bob Marshall’s greatest hits:

1. Suggested that children born with disabilities are God’s punishment to women who have previously had abortions. “When you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” he said.

2. Warned homosexual behavior “undermines the American economy” in an angry letter to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond after it flew a rainbow flag. The flag “celebrated” homosexual acts, which Marshall said are Class 6 felony in the state. He has also called homosexuality a “disordered behavior.”

3. Warned repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) will “jeopardize our alliances,” especially with Muslim countries, because foreign troops will refuse to fight alongside gay Americans.

4. After DADT was repealed, introduced legislation banning “active homosexuals” from joining the Virginia National Guard.

5. Called the Affordable Care Act “criminal” and an attempt to steal “your soul.”

6. Thinks the best answer to school shootings is to arm professors, sponsoring a bill to “allow faculty members to carry concealed handguns on college campuses.”

7. Advocated unconstitutional bills to allow Virginia to ignore laws passed by the U.S Congress.

8. Sponsored a bill to require schools to designate a 5-minute period each day for students to “read morally or ethically relevant materials.”

9. Sponsored a bill that would make the use of profane, indecent, or threatening language in a personal e-mail a misdemeanor.”

10. Sponsored the “Marshall-Newman” anti-gay marriage amendment in 2006, which was written so broadly that many warned it could “undermine the rights of all unmarried couples to enter into contracts, enforce wills and child custody agreements or receive the protection of domestic violence laws.”

Despite his impeccable right-wing credentials, Marshall will have stiff competition for conservative voters in the race from tea party organizer Jamie Radtke, fringe-conservative minister E.W. Jackson, and businessman David McCormick, who are all running to the right of frontrunner George Allen, the former senator best known for using the racial slur “macaca.”

Del. Bob Marshall (R-VA)

So it’s only a little surprising that Marshall has taken on another crusade — arming college professors:

Less than two months after the University of Virginia strengthened its campus weapons restrictions, a state legislator has introduced a bill that would circumvent the university’s intentions.

The legislation would allow faculty members to carry concealed handguns on college campuses. UVa’s newly adopted weapons regulation prohibits students, faculty and visitors from carrying weapons on university property.

Marshall claims his bill could prevent another tragedy like the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, presumably by enabling some heroic cultural anthropology professor to emerge from his office and gun down an assailant. The facts, however, do not agree with Marshall that concealed firearms prevent crime — indeed, they say the opposite.

Although there does not appear to be any data on whether conscripting academics to dole out vigilante justice at the barrel of a gun is an effective crime fighting strategy, a 2003 study published in the Stanford Law Review examined “shall-issue” laws, a common state law making it easier to obtain a license to carry a concealed firearm. It found that, in the “clear majority of states,” these permissive concealed carry rules “are associated with increases in crime for all crime types.”

Nineteenth Century nullificationist Senator John C. Calhoun

Nevertheless, Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall (R) has now decided to emulate Texas’ disdain for the Constitution by introducing a similar light bulb bill of his own:

The Manassas Republican introduced a bill to allow makers of incandescent lightbulbs to set up shop in Virginia after a federal ban on the bulbs went into effect Jan. 1. [...]

But even if the law passes, Virginia is unlikely to attract any new business, since energy companies have invested millions preparing for the bulb ban, said Joe Higbee, spokesman for the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, or NEMA, an industry lobbying group based in Rosslyn.

“The traditional incandescent bulb is not being made anymore,” he said. “People are still able to purchase incandescent bulbs; they are more advanced and efficient because manufacturers are looking ahead.”

So Marshall’s bill isn’t just unconstitutional, it is also futile. Sadly, however, that is unlikely to stop Marshall’s effort to thumb his nose at the Constitution. Marshall was the lead sponsor of a similarly unconstitutional bill nullifying part of the Affordable Care Act. He responded to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by calling for a ban on “active homosexuals” in the Virginia National Guard. And he once claimed that children with disabilities are God’s punishment to women who had abortions.

As the New York Times editorial board put it, “It used to be that a sworn oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution was the only promise required to become president.” But today, “each pledge they sign undermines the basic principle of democratic government built on compromise and negotiation.”

Now the Virginia GOP is extending the trend to voters, requiring them to sign a loyalty oath to the party before they are allowed to participate in the primary:

The state Republican Party will require voters to sign a loyalty oath in order to participate in the March 6 presidential primary.

Anyone who wants to vote must sign a form at the polling place pledging to support the eventual Republican nominee for president. Anyone who refuses to sign will be barred from voting in the primary.

During a brief meeting Wednesday at the state Capitol, the State Board of Elections voted 3-0 to approve three forms developed by the election board’s staff to implement the loyalty pledge requested by the state GOP.

Those who wish to vote in the primary must sign a form that says, “I, the undersigned, pledge that I intend to support the nominee of the Republican Party for president.” The pledge so impinges on citizens’ fundamental right to vote for whomever they want in the general election that even some Republican lawmakers in the state have come out against it.

This is not the first time Virginia Republicans have tried to implement a loyalty pledge. They backed off their attempts in 2000 and 2008 over concerns about alienating independent voters.

Of course, loyalty oaths have disturbing historical connotations in this country, harkening back to the McCarthy era where many organizations required employees or members to sign loyalty oaths or lose their jobs.