Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is catching flak for his demand that reporters’ tapes be confiscated. See the Poynter Institute’s blog.

Will the Senate cave? That’s the question that will be asked this weekend and answered Tuesday. Reports from around the state (here, here, and here) provide conflicting evidence, but certainly the Governor has made noises that suggest he would accept the House “compromise” plan, which is not a compromise at all, at least not one midway between where the House and Senate started.

Del. Harry Parrish (R-Manassas), responding to a question posed by Commonwealth Commonsense during his Washington Post online chat yesterday, said the House bill 5018 does not solve the long-term revenue problems of the state.

Accepting it will only mean we’ll be back next year and the year after that (with a new Governor) trying to figure how we’ll fund the future.

Governor Mark Warner so far is being cagey. What do we make of his saying: “All of the members who are supporting a compromise, none of them have questioned my support for this effort. I’m strongly urging members to vote for this bill.”?

This bill should not be the final answer, or we’ll be having the same arguments next session.

A Washington Times report this morning names the 17 “renegade” Republicans supporting HB 5018, but The Post has their pictures!

The Times story also tells us that so far, the House intransigence has cost taxpayers $53,245 expenses stemming “from the stipend that 61 of the 100 delegates take on the days they are in session.”

Check out this web site. You got to love the name at the very least.

The summary of the Newport News town meeting is here.

Del. Ben Cline (R-Rockbridge) says this is the way to spend state money wisely: “If it’s in the yellow pages, use the private sector to get it done.”

Cline also thinks somebody’s playing dirty “tricks.”

ODU is raising tuition. The cost of college could be a big Democratic issue in ’05, especially in growing areas of the state.

And as some of those areas of Virginia grow, there will be a lot of voters who aren’t familiar with Virginia politics and don’t care for plastic fetuses or ineffective leadership.

Other areas will want leaders who can help it grow, instead of cutting taxes.

Opportunity knocks for Kerry Donley & Co. And now’s the time to recruit.

Good editorial on the car tax here.

Quote of the Day: “The [Republican] party itself is not fractured. It is very united with the citizens of Virginia.”
Kate Obenshain Griffin, Va. GOP Party Chairman

Do Virginians like the SOL tests?

Oh no, one of the big guys is going to bat for a Norfolk baseball team.

Just a reminder that we’re below the Mason-Dixon line.

Va. Speaker of the House Bill Howell (R-Fredericksburg), Dels. Robert Orrick (R-Thornburg), Ryan T. McDougle (R-Mechanicsville), Mark Cole (R-Fredericksburg) and Sen. John Chichester (R-Stafford) declined to attend the town hall meeting in Stafford County last night.

Sen. Chichester sent a written statement to the group of more than 200 people who gathered in the auditorium at Massaponax High School. In the statement, he justified the Senate budget plan he authored. Organizers of the meeting were uncertain as to why he didn’t attend, though one reason was thought to be his involvement in continuing budget negotiations now that the House of Delegates is set to vote on a plan that raises about 25 percent of what the original Senate plan proposed.

As for the Speaker and his delegates, they apparently had better things to do. Without being specific, Howell told one of the organizers he had to be in Alexandria last night. Several speakers expressed disappointment at the delegates’ absence, including one of two speakers who expressed concern about rising taxes. He was asked to attend by one of the missing-in-action delegates. Even that speaker said the 42 speakers who were willing to raise taxes had legitimate points.

Read more about it here.

Howard Stern is sophomoric. He coarsens public discourse. He is crude, lewd and socially unacceptable.

I’ve heard only a few minutes of Stern’s radio program. I can’t change the channel fast enough when I come upon his show on TV. I get a chill up my spine when I think that this guy is so popular.

I wish everyone would follow my example. If enough people turn him off, he goes away. Poof, he’ll lie among the cancelled. I figure I have the right, as a consumer, to vote him into oblivion.

I’d also like to cost the stations that carry him millions.

And I’d like to take the CEOs of the companies that syndicate his program and whip them upside the head with the U.S. Constitution that they so piously cite when chastised by the moral majorities.

So why am I now on Stern’s side?

Because I can do turn him off, and you can do, too. But the FCC can’t. What Powell Jr. is doing is intimidating media companies because the Bushies don’t like what Stern has to say. (I didn’t either, until I heard he was criticizing Bush; but even then, I couldn’t bring myself to listen to him.)

This administration is off the deep end. Next, Stern will wind up in Guantanamo, a victim of the Patriot Act. The FCC didn’t do this, really. I’ll bet the order came from higher up, if you can call anything in the Bush administration higher.

“The Constitution of the United States is extraordinary and amazing. People just don’t revere it like they used to,” said Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. I guess he wasn’t including the freedom of speech and of the press.

…Get revenge.

…here.

ALEXANDRIA
Thursday, April 8, 7-8:30 p.m. at Patrick Henry Elem. School Auditorium, Taney Ave.
Organized by Del. Brian Moran (D-Alexandria)

FAIRFAX
Thursday, April 8, 7:30 – 9:00 at the George Mason Library in Annandale on Little River Turnpike
Organized by Del. Vivian Watts (D-Fairfax)

NEWPORT NEWS
Thursday, April 8, 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. at NN Public Schools Administration Building, 12465 Warwick Boulevard. Invited are Dels. Hamilton, Oder, BaCote, Rapp, Williams and Locke and Sen. Norment
Organized by Newport News Public Schools. Moderator: Joel Rubin. Meeting will be televised live on Newport News Cable Channel 47

STAFFORD COUNTY
Thursday, April 8, 7-8:30 p.m. at Massaponax High School
Organized by the Virginia Education Association. Invited are Senators Edd Houck (D-Frederickburg), John Chichester (R-Stafford) and Speaker of the House Bill Howell (R-Fredericksburg)

The FARMVILLE public meeting scheduled for today has been POSTPONED.

Sen. John Kerry, while infinitely better than Dubya as a choice for president, is being dishonest with his carping about “Benedict Arnold” companies. Sure, we shouldn’t use tax policy to make it more profitable to move jobs abroad, but it is profitable principally because overseas labor is cheaper.

Meanwhile, insourcing, jobs in the U.S. created by foreign companies, has provided 170,000 Virginians with jobs as well as 6.4 million Americans across the county, according to a Richmond Times Dispatch story today.

A better policy than protecting jobs that increase the cost of goods to Americans and protect dying industries would be one that articulates a transition for displaced workers. Some workers, too old to be profitably re-trained, may need hand-outs over the short-term and their retirement plans fully funded by the federal government. Middle aged workers would need brief financial support and then re-trained (perhaps partly at taxpayers’ expense) for the jobs coming to the U.S. and the ones for which this country can maintain a competitive edge. Younger workers must find affordable education.

And all of us need to realize the costs. If you prop up dying industries, be prepared to pay more for their goods and services. If you don’t, be prepared for a generation of workers who must accept a lower standard of living or find illegal sources of income. A better alternative, of course, is an education that will train them for sustainable jobs or give them the tools to enterprise.

But punishing companies that move overseas in the long run costs us all.

You can find more about the study the RTD story is based on here.

Del. Harry Parrish (R-Manassas), who has been in the Assembly a long time and chairs the House Finance Committee, said in his online discussion today that the House compromise bill will NOT address the long-term fiscal issues facing the state.