Madoff Pleads Guilty

Well, Bernie Madoff pleaded guilty today to all eleven counts against him and was promptly carted away to the New York Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he rots like the worthless bloated sack of humanity he is. 

I don't want Madoff to go to prison. In prison, he'll have food and shelter for the rest of his life; this guy should lose absolutely everything. A much better punishment for Bernie Madoff would be to have every penny he owns taken away and given to his victims. Then he should be forced to take a minimum wage job at Wal-Mart and pay for a crappy apartment with bugs and a leaky roof. He should also be assigned a predatory loan that he can never possibly pay off. He should have to live on that for the rest of his life with no outside assistance whatsoever. The same thing should happen to everyone who colluded with him--I'm guessing that means his wife and sons as well.

Fun fact: for his next scheme, contraband! His cellmate has already turned a button and some string into moonshine and a whole pack of Marlboros! 

Breaking News: Goode to Run Again

Virgil Goode has filed with the State Board of Elections to run for the 5th District seat in 2010. This doesn't really come as a surprise--I think a lot of people have seen this coming, and there have been plenty of rumors emanating from those close to the Goode camp. My money's on Tom, especially if Virgil runs the same kind of campaign he did in '08. Which brings me to my next point...

If Virgil's running, will he even get the nomination? I personally think there are much more capable Republicans that could run, and the GOP seems to have a few of those guys in mind. They may not be too keen on a defeated incumbent upsetting whatever apple cart they've put together.

Yet Another Reason Why the School Systems Should Merge

There was an article in yesterday's Martinsville Bulletin that should trouble you deeply if you live in this area. The Martinsville City school board passed a budget Monday that eliminates the JROTC and landscaping programs and abandons the MHS vocational building. The school board holds out hope that Patrick Henry Community College will pick up the vocational building's costs and that city students will be able to participate in JROTC programs at county schools.

Please don't misunderstand; this is not meant to be a criticism of the school board's budget. I don't know enough about how these cuts were devised to point fingers at Scott Kizner or anyone on the board. All I know is that the economy is in chaos--I don't doubt for a minute that something had to be cut, it was never going to be pretty, and the board did the best they could with an outrageously crappy situation.

But this highlights an issue that I've been known to preach about from time to time--and by "from time to time," I mean "constantly." This is even more evidence that we as a city/county community can no longer afford to operate two separate school systems. It made very little sense even before the national meltdown, but now it's directly undercutting our attempts to renew this community--how are we supposed to make the case that our workforce is trained and educated when we're forced to cut vocational programs? Moreover, what are the former JROTC students going to do? I was never a member of JROTC, but I was involved in the marching and jazz bands and I learned more about life from those experiences than I did in most of my other classes--if I had lost that, it would have deadened my high school experience. For JROTC students, there's the added benefit of experience that could help them advance through the ranks if they were to pursue a military career. Our inability to work together has now cost some of our students one of their opportunities to succeed.

Hey, I know it won't be easy or fun. I was a Bulldog and I don't want to see that go. But the longer we put off at least a school system merger, the more we shoot ourselves in the foot and the more we simply prolong the agony. If we want to survive as a community, we have to make some tough decisions--and we have to do it now.

World Baseball Classic

And now for a leisurely Sunday night blog that has nothing to do with politics. Imagine my surprise when I woke up for work Thursday morning and got to watch baseball while I ate my breakfast--it was Japan and China, playing at 7 PM local time in Tokyo for the World Baseball Classic. I watched the Classic in 2006 for its inaugural year, and I can honestly say it was some of the best, most exciting baseball I've ever seen. I followed the whole tournament and found myself watching the championship game at 2 AM in a study lounge at U.Va.'s Gooch-Dillard Residence Hall--Japan beat Cuba in what I recall as a thriller. These guys are playing for national pride, and you can tell, as it makes for some exceedingly sweet games. 

The USA team features Kevin Youkilis, Derek Jeter, Chipper Jones, Brian McCann, Adam Dunn and a host of other MLB stars. Yesterday they beat Canada 6-5 in a nail-biter after losing to Canada in 2006. As I write this, they're beating Venezuela 8-3; if that holds, the USA is going to round 2, where Japan has already clinched a spot. If you consider yourself a baseball fan or an American, you have no excuse not to watch this series. Sure there's March Madness, but with the 'Hoos out of it, what's the point? Oh yeah, and I think there might be one other Virginia team that likely won't be making an appearance...maybe from the Blacksburg area...anyway, watch the World Baseball Classic. You won't be disappointed.

The games are on ESPN, ESPN2 and the MLB network.

Predatory Trade: The Other Side of the Equation

This article in the Washington Post fleshes out the other end of an equation that has decimated industry in Southside--"free" trade and what it really does for the people it's supposed to benefit. 

Whatever the talking points about how great it is to lower trade barriers and provide jobs for poor countries trying to develop their economies, "free" trade as practiced by U.S. government and Western business interests over the last twenty years is nothing more than greed disguised as altruism. What's more, I think this article shows that it's completely unsustainable, and here's why: 

The constant search for greener pastures always ends up the same way--U.S. Textile Company wants to save some coin on labor costs, so they move their factories to Emerging Country where they can pay a fraction of the cost in wages and benefits. Emerging Country's government wants to, well, emerge, and they're thrilled to get some jobs.  Emerging Country benefits for a while (even though the people who work in those factories are living on scratch) and skylines start to pop up. But then something happens--either the economy tanks or Textile Company finds another place where people will work for even less, and the factories go there. Emerging Country's poor factory workers are right back where they started, and in the end no one really benefits. 

Meanwhile, U.S. Textile Company's former employees back home are out of work, but many of them only have a high school diploma and several years of manufacturing experience. They start looking for other factory jobs, but it turns out U.S. Furniture Company has also shipped its jobs overseas, so they're stuck with all their living expenses and no income. They have to get by somehow, so they turn to credit, take predatory loans and dig themselves in even deeper because they don't feel they have a choice. Since they're scraping by on nothing, they stop buying the material goods they normally would have bought. No plasma screens, no new cars, no vacations, and the companies that sell them start to hurt--that's trickle-up economics, boys and girls.

Take that story and re-tell it in every small town across America and you start to see what a bad idea it is for the largest economy in the world to completely sell out its middle and lower-middle class in the interest of short-term gain. I'm not an economist, but I think that in a nutshell is why the whole world economy is going down in flames.

In times like these, we always hear economists extolling the virtues of world trade and warning us about the dangers of protectionism. To be fair, we live in a global economy whether we like it or not, and as long as globalization stays at a manageable pace and is handled responsibly, we actually can benefit. Here's an example of what I mean: In their economic collapse following World War II, the Japanese government made a conscious decision to support certain industries, namely automotives and electronics. The thinking was that if Japan offered high-quality exports, Americans would buy them. The Japanese built their manufacturing sector on indigenous labor, and yes, there was a high degree of government involvement in this endeavor. Where top graduates from American colleges often seek high-paying Wall Street jobs, top Japanese graduates went into the bureaucracy to plan export strategy, and it seems to have worked--you're probably reading this on Japanese-made hardware, and I'm thinking my next car might be a Toyota Yaris. 

Japan went from total devastation to economic boom in a little more than a decade because of this strategy; Korea and Taiwan took a similar approach. If Japanese labor makes a better car or computer for a better price, sign me up. As long as they're not siphoning off American jobs, I don't see anything wrong with buying their product. They're creating a middle class that can then go and buy American exports as well. It's fair competition, and that's what capitalism is supposed to be about. 

But the WaPo story shows what happens when capitalism is left in the hands of the short-term-profit, deregulate-everything now crowd--they do more to hurt it than any protectionist trade policy ever could.

Lessons for Martinsville

In an editorial last week, the Danville Register & Bee praised Danville and Pittsylvania County for cooperating on a mega-industrial park to be built near the North Carolina border. When it's finished, the site will contain 3000 acres of pre-graded land, ready to host industrial tenants. Obviously, this is a big step forward in terms of inter-locality participation, and it's very good news if it actually attracts big employers--the only caveat being that the tobacco/textile/furniture experience taught us never to depend too much on any one factory, industry or type of economic growth. But overall, this project gets the 220 South seal of approval.

And it also brings up a good point. Pay attention Martinsville-Henry County: this is what can happen when localities cooperate instead of having to call in U.N. peacekeepers. The two local entities have cooperated on things like the Patriot Center industrial park, and it brought good things. But now Martinsville is on a mission to try and compete with the Patriot Center at their Clearview Business Park. They also would like to revive the old Martinsville Novelty factory to shop around to potential businesses--even though it's a 70-year-old dilapidated mudhole that was an eyesore twenty years ago.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to create jobs within the city limits--after all, the city has the highest unemployment in the state. But the idea that somehow the city, which is basically landlocked, can find enough space to compete with the Patriot Center and other county-based industrial parks is redundant, backward-looking lunacy. Industry should be the realm of the county, because they have the space to accommodate it. So what is Martinsville's economic niche? As far as I'm concerned it basically depends on two things: Uptown Martinsville and the New College. If Uptown becomes a thriving community with offices, residences, shops and restaurants and the New College develops into a four-year residential college or university, these two factors will have positive impacts on each other. 

As for the battling egos and turf wars between the city and the county? They're toxic. This is Virginia--not Serbia.

Liberty to Remain Gun-Free; Slingshots, Jawbones of Asses Still OK

Okay, I saw this one and couldn't pass it up. LIberty University, aka Wingnut Hogwarts, has abandoned a proposal to allow students and faculty to carry weapons on campus. The idea was sponsored by Liberty's chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, who say that packin' heat will prevent school shootings--bad guy walks in, all the SCCC kids with concealed weapons jump up and pop him, or so the theory goes. But alas, Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. doesn't support it, and the Trustees have said "Thanks But No Thanks" as well. 

However, students were encouraged when the board left open the possibility of opening the seventh seal to pour out fury on would-be shooters. In addition, Students for Plagues and Wonders celebrated the decision, noting that the board did not rule out the use of boils, locust swarms, or gadflies.

Take it away, Drew!

Limbaugh Dethrones Bush as Democrats' Best Recruiter

There's a great dialogue going on at Dem Bones surrounding the exchange between Rush Limbaugh and new RNC Chair Michael Steele over the past few days. It started when Steele made what I thought was a pretty innocuous comment on D.L. Hughley's show about Rush being an entertainer who sometimes makes "incendiary" statements. Here's a video clip:

Then Don Rushbo called in the heavy artillery, accusing Steele of betraying conservatism, being complicit with Obama, and essentially being a mere figurehead with a title as opposed to the rightful heir, Rush Limbaugh with his mafiosi-like grip on the Right. So what does Steele do? He apologizes to the guy who just undermined his authority in the public square.

I blogged recently about Steele's ring-kissing in the talk radio circuit and why it will end up hurting his party. Here's the basic civics lesson that parties seem to forget once they're out of power: most of this country is moderate. The moderates are the ones who decide elections--those of us who operate partisan political blogs and work on campaigns are the freakish exceptions, and if we're the only ones who stay on board with our party, that party has some serious issues. So when your spokesman is an abrasive jackass from the fringe of your party, you will lose elections. I think the Republicans won in 2002 & 2004 in spite of Rush--he kept the base riled up, but there were other compelling symbols of the party brand. Let's not forget that back then, Dubya still had decent approval ratings and a strong enough campaign to focus his party's message in a way that appealed to centrists. By contrast, John Kerry was a fairly weak candidate with a weak campaign who seemed to be overshadowed by Michael Moore. Sorry Moore fans, but it's hard to see how Fahrenheit 9/11 did the party any favors with the broad middle of the spectrum.

If Michael Steele doesn't grow a backbone--and soon--Limbaugh (the wine and cheese of crazy) and Glenn Beck (the bootleg absinthe of crazy) will continue to dominate the conservative message in a way that turns off moderate voters. The right would do well to learn from Virginia's own Too Conservative--I don't often agree with their views, but they're reasoned, principled and well-spoken. Then again, I guess that's not what gets listeners on the EIB Network. 

Props to Blacksburg

As much as it pains my Wahoo heart to say good things about anything involving Hokieland, I have to give the Blacksburg Town Council some props. Last week the Virginia Supreme Court upheld the town's right to keep out big box retailers. A few years ago, Blacksburg entered into an agreement with Fairmont Properties to build a shopping center--the development has been built and is profitable, and everyone was thrilled. But then Fairmont wanted to build a big box store that pretty much everyone seems to believe would have been a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Blacksburg nixed it on a zoning ordinance, Fairmont sued, a lower court sided with Fairmont, and Blacksburg appealed to the Virginia Supremes. Blacksburg's victory last week is the biggest one in the anti-supercenter movement that I'm aware of, though I wouldn't be surprised to see this case or one like it end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

If you're unclear why I'm so staunchly opposed to Wal-Mart, a simple experiment is in order: go to your nearest Wal-Mart Supercenter and try to find five products that were made in the United States. My guess is that you'll be looking for quite a while. Wal-Mart is nothing more than a conduit for Chinese goods that could have been made by Americans. On top of that, Wal-Mart is one of the leading causes of the bland, forceful homogenization of small-town America--when Wal-Mart shows up pushing "low prices" (read: it's cheaper because we're complicit in child labor and look the other way at abhorrent working conditions), it crushes local entrepreneurs and obliterates the historic downtown areas that give our towns character and personality. Instead, you get large strips of land eaten up by chain stores and pretty soon every place in America looks like every other place in America.

As an aside, I think this is an important case study in why we should never, under any circumstances, elect the judicial branch. Virginia is one of the only states that still does not elect judges by popular vote, and it's a practice we should absolutely continue. Once they pass the initial hurdle of appointment and confirmation, Supreme Court justices and judges in general are uniquely insulated from the political process. They don't--and they shouldn't--have to worry about how popular their decisions will be or how they will pay for their next campaign, but only whether their decisions will be the right ones. It would be interesting to see how this issue would have played out if it had been left up to legislators who do have to stay popular and pay for their campaign--I don't need to remind anyone of how often we hear of elected officials who cast votes that conveniently pay off for their financiers.

Way to be, Blacksburg--let's hope this sets a precedent for other towns to stand up for themselves.

Very Sad News

Vito Perriello died yesterday morning. 

To say that it's a very sad day would be an understatement. Having worked on Tom's campaign for six months, I feel like I got to know Vito, his wife Linda, and the rest of the Perriello family pretty well during that time. There are a lot of things floating around the blogs about Dr. Perriello--see Dem Bones, Blue Commonwealth, Blue Virginia, and What Is Right--and I just wanted to add a few of my thoughts.

At the end of my fourth year at U.Va., I signed up for a fellowship with this up-and-coming young guy's congressional campaign. He was a Mark Warner/Tim Kaine style moderate who wasn't afraid to talk about his faith and didn't sound awkward in the process. He had been to Sierra Leone, where he worked for international justice and worked to end the widespread use of child soldiers. He believed very strongly in the power of young people to take ownership of their future through the political process, and he was looking for a few good organizers. This Perriello guy sounded like the real deal, and although I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, I knew I wanted to do more than cast a ballot in 2008. This fellowship would give me two months' experience working in my home district for a candidate I could actively support.

On that morning the first week in June, I walked into a classroom in downtown Charlottesville for the week-long training session. Of the twenty people in the room, I only knew two. Then I noticed that everyone seemed to be gathering around a table in the corner, where there was coffee, orange juice, fresh fruit, and a tray of bagels--we slowly began to realize that all of it had been delivered to us by our candidate's parents, Linda and Vito. After a few hours of learning names, talking politics, meeting Tom and doing some training, we got to meet Tom's parents as they brought in our lunch, which they would do every day for the rest of the training week. As the afternoon drew to a close, we began discussing what we would each do for dinner--we were mere steps from Charlottesville's downtown mall, where surely we could find somewhere to eat. But the Perriellos had another idea, and they invited all of us--the sixteen new fellows, as well as the regular campaign staff--to their house for barbecue dinner. 

But it wasn't just that Linda and Vito had voluntarily subjected themselves to feeding sixteen college kids for a day, it was that they had welcomed us. They welcomed us into their home and into their family. When we got to their house, it was as if we were just more brothers and sisters who had been there before and had always belonged--we met Tom's nieces, nephew, brothers, sisters and in-laws, and we played volleyball with them in the backyard. I looked around at people I had known for less than twelve hours, and it was as if we'd known each other for years. It was only the first time I would get that feeling--the Perriellos made sure that we always knew their house was open to anyone on staff who needed a place to stay, and there were many nights like that first one. I think their house was full pretty much every night of the campaign, and they never showed any signs of minding. 

We saw Tom's family often, right up until Election Day and in the weeks after. No matter how stressful the campaign trail became, no matter how good or bad things looked, Vito was always the same guy--he always greeted me by name, with a handshake and a smile. He and Linda even got to know who my relatives were. I'm not sure what else I can really say, but if you've ever been impressed with how friendly and welcoming the Perriello family is, then you've seen Vito's handiwork. Tom and his siblings are carrying on the charitable, caring example that Dr. Perriello set throughout his life. It's what made Tom who he is--it's what made a bunch of college kids give up their summer to work long hours knocking on doors, and it's what made me believe in this campaign strongly enough to stay on after the fellowship ended.

You couldn't ask to meet a man with a bigger heart than Vito. My thoughts and prayers are with Tom, Linda, everyone in their family, and anyone else who was ever fortunate enough to have known Dr. Perriello.

Vito Perriello: 1941-2009