The Gun Reform Battle Plan for 2018: Target Republicans

As students and other advocates for meaningful, common sense gun control laws march in Washington, D.C. today and in other cities across the country - Norfolk and Newport News have marches - a column in the New York Times reminds students and others of what the next step needs to be: targeting pro-NRA Republicans in competitive congressional districts.  March in those districts and get involved in supporting challengers to Republicans bought and paid for by the NRA and the gun manufacturers who hide behind its facade.  Here in southeast Virginia, Scott Taylor of the 2nd District needs to be defeated.  The same goes for Rob Wittman of the 1st District.  If students want to make change happen, they and their families and friends need to change who holds seats in Congress.  Here are column highlights:

It has been 38 days since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.; 174 days since the shooting at a concert in Las Vegas; 1,011 days since the killings at a church in Charleston, S.C.; and 1,926 since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Ten days ago, students organized a nationwide school walkout to demonstrate their outrage about these and other shootings.

On Saturday they plan to amass in Washington to pressure a Congress that has done nothing meaningful to protect American children in classrooms, movie theaters, churches, malls — because, thanks to the National Rifle Association, many of their elected representatives are too busy protecting their re-election.

My advice to the students? When you finish marching on the mall, march into the specific congressional districts where you can actually make a difference.

The midterm elections are in eight months. . . .  in this election there are more than 40 truly competitive districts, including many where you can make a real difference by helping replace an incumbent who consistently supports the gun lobby with a challenger who won’t.

Go to the suburbs of Philadelphia, where Representative Ryan Costello (who has an A rating from the N.R.A.) is being challenged by several Democrats, including Chrissy Houlahan, a former Air Force captain who supports closing the loophole on sales at gun shows and renewing the federal assault weapons ban, among other steps. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s redrawing of the state’s district lines has transformed Mr. Costello’s already competitive district from one that was almost evenly split between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to one that supported Mrs. Clinton by 9 points.

March to the southern tip of Florida, not to vacation in flip-flops but to flip a district. There, Representative Carlos Curbelo (who has a B+ rating from the N.R.A. and an “N.R.A. lap dog” label from the Brady Campaign) is also being challenged by several Democrats, including Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, whose father was shot to death when she was 24.  Ms. Mucarsel-Powell supports banning the sale of military-style weapons like the AR-15 used in the Parkland shootings and would strengthen background checks so that domestic abusers, those affected by mental illness and terrorists can’t purchase guns.

Try the suburbs of Minneapolis-St. Paul, specifically the Second and Third Congressional Districts. Mr. Trump was virtually even with Mrs. Clinton in the Second and lost to her in the Third. Representative Jason Lewis supported concealed-carry reciprocity, and opposed universal background checks and any ban on semiautomatic weapons. His neighbor, Representative Erik Paulsen, shares the same position on concealed-carry reciprocity and universal background checks. Both have A ratings from the N.R.A.; both have opponents supporting sensible gun security laws.

You can canvass in the shadows of the Catskills in New York, in the suburbs of Denver and in Fairfax, Va. You can phone-bank in the competitive districts in Orange County, Calif., as well as the northern San Joaquin Valley, northern San Diego and eastern Los Angeles County. Ask your peers to show up at campaign events and town halls in the exurbs of Chicago and in Iowa.

You don’t have to win every district. Replacing just a handful of incumbents in districts that are highly competitive while also offering a vivid contrast in positions on guns could bring the larger change you need and deserve.

Why? Because there’s nothing on Capitol Hill more clarifying than watching colleagues pay the ultimate political price for their positions. Seeing a colleague defeated because of a hard-core position tends to soften the resistance of those who survive.

You can stage marches and school walkouts, but then walk into the swing congressional districts that matter. In the end it’s not about standing up to be heard. It’s about changing who sits in Congress.

It is long past time that NRA lap dogs be driven from office and a strong message sent that voters, not a front group for gun manufacturers are what should matter.

The GOP Is Incapable of Governing

If the federal government shuts down after today, the fault will lie directly on congressional Republicans who (i) cannot even agree among themselves, and (ii) continue to push proposals that contain no compromise.  Yes, disingenuous liars like Paul Ryan - perhaps the most dishonest man in Washington after Der Trumpenführer himself - and Mitch McConnell will try to blame Democrats, but I suspect that the public other than brain dead Fox News viewers will see through the lies.  The bottom line is the GOP controls both houses of Congress and the White House.  The buck stops with them. And yes, Trump bears much blame as well.  One can only hope that a majority of voters will take it upon themselves to fix the situation by handing control of Congress back to Democrats in November. A piece in the Washington Post looks at the GOP's inability to govern and even pass a basic budget. Here are excerpts:

The federal government late Thursday faced increasing odds of a partial shutdown, the culmination of a long period of budget warfare that has now imperiled what most lawmakers agree is the most basic task of governance.

 

[T]he impasse raised deeper questions about the GOP’s capacity — one year into the Trump administration — to govern. Never before has the government experienced a furlough of federal employees when a single party controls both the White House and Congress, but that’s what will happen after midnight Friday if a spending bill fails to pass Congress.

 

While Democrats criticized Republicans for failing to do what was necessary to win their support to keep the government open — a responsibility that has historically fallen to the party in charge — even some Republicans acknowledged there had been a profound breakdown in how Washington is run.

 

The 30-day extension, passed by the House but expected to be defeated in the Senate, would have been the fifth temporary funding measure in the past year, a period during which Republicans had failed to put in place a long-term budget plan.

 

Unlike almost any president or administration before him, Trump has fanned the flames of a shutdown.

Trump has repeatedly mused about the prospects of halting federal operations, saying at one point that the government needed a “good shutdown” to teach Democrats a lesson. The budget he proposed last year was so sparse on key details that the Congressional Budget Office said it could not analyze its impact on revenue.

His aides have not hashed out a broader spending agreement with GOP leaders or Democrats, and the White House and GOP leaders have remained split on how much money to appropriate for the military.

Senate Republicans spent the second half of 2017 immersed in tax negotiations, spending little time focused on how to pay the government’s bills this year.

The Senate Appropriations Committee, which votes on spending bills, has held just one full committee hearing since July. . . . The House Budget Committee, meanwhile, has had three different chairmen in 14 months.

Senate Republicans aren’t expected to vote on a budget resolution at all this year, a move that would have been unthinkable in recent years, as they said it was a cornerstone of good governing.

These continuing resolutions have made leaders from both parties restless and increasingly defiant heading into the November midterm elections, when Democrats see an opportunity to wrest control of one or both chambers of Congress.

Republicans have said that even though they control the White House and Congress, Senate rules make it impossible for them to pass spending bills without bipartisan support.

But there are no signs that Republicans are united behind their own budget proposals. . . . several Republicans have said they won’t support the spending bill. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is battling cancer and isn’t expected to be back in time for a vote on Friday, and they need 60 votes to proceed.

As congressional leaders searched for a solution Thursday, Trump upended the process by renewing his demand that the U.S. taxpayer fund construction of a border wall with Mexico and saying he opposed reauthorizing a health care program for children as part of the short-term spending bill — a stance that he later reversed.

The president’s rapidly fluctuating positions have frustrated Republicans who are working to blame the budget problems on Senate Democrats. Even though Democrats have their own divisions, especially between those from conservative states and other, more liberal members, they appear to be uniting because of Trump’s changing demands.

Those Twitter posts emboldened Democrats and infuriated a number of Republicans who were hoping to patch together enough votes to avert a shutdown.

Democrats, who also have major differences on spending bills, have used the GOP disunity to unite. They have insisted that any spending bill must take action to prevent the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.

Trump had appeared open to that idea early last week, but his approach changed.  . . . . “The President’s repeated statements urging a government shutdown are beneath the office and have heightened the budgetary dysfunction,” Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, Virginia Democrats, said in a joint statement. Virginia would be hit particularly hard by a government shutdown, in part because of the large number of federal employees who live there.

Today’s budget dysfunction has many of its roots in the election of a tide of conservative tea party members in 2010. . . . . But the Republican Party never fully united during the Obama administration, with some members pushing for dramatic spending changes and others wary of slashing benefits for the elderly and the poor.

In 2017, Republicans took control of the White House and both chambers of Congress and they no longer had Obama to blame for budget disagreements.

After one year of complete GOP control in Washington, the government’s budget picture has only worsened. It now has roughly $21 trillion in debt. The U.S. government spent $666 billion more than it brought in through revenue last year, and that figure is expected to grow this year because of the deep tax cuts that went into effect Jan. 1.

Republicans are now pursuing a deal that could add close to $250 billion in new spending for military and nondefense programs. In addition, lawmakers have looked at adding another $80 billion in spending to address hurricanes, wildfires and other natural disasters that occurred in 2017.

But these negotiations have stalled repeatedly and are one reason that Congress kept passing short-term spending bills until lawmakers this week showed signs they had enough.

It goes without saying that a federal government shut down will hit Hampton Roads particularly hard given its large number of federal workers - things will be only worse in Northern Virginia.  One can only hope that the wake up to the fact that the only solution is voting Republicans like Scott Taylor and Rob Wittman out of office in November.  

Trump's Transgender Military Ban is "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" All Over Again.

Among the countless disgusting things that Donald Trump has done is to make a pact with Christofascists and evangelical Christians whereby in exchange for their support, he would reignite the culture wars against LGBT Americans. Sadly, keeping his promises to these hate merchants has been one of the few campaign promises Trump has kept.  The sudden diktat this week that transgender troops are unwelcome in the U.S. military is but one example of this poisonous alliance. Another is Jeff Sessions' filing of an amicus brief in a civil lawsuit where the government is not a party to argue that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 affords no protections to LGBT citizens. Yet another cloud over LGBT Americans exists in the form of the pending bill in Congress which would grant Christian extremists the right to discriminate at will against LGBT individuals in accommodations, services and even medical treatment if they cited religious belief as the motivation for their bigoted actions.  A column in U.S. News and World Reports looks at this slide back towards hate and bigotry. Here are excerpts:

It was with a familiar sickness of heart that I watched as President Donald Trump launched an all-out assault on the LGBTQ community and active duty service members by tweeting that he is reinstating a transgender military service ban. You see, I've been there. . . . . I was discharged because I am gay. I still mourn the loss of the career I had aimed for, serving the country I love.

Sadly, Trump's heinous and disgusting action – which could lead to the discharge of as many as 15,000 transgender Americans serving our country at this critical time – is "don't ask, don't tell" all over again. Trump's nakedly political aim to isolate, target and discriminate against transgender troops courageously serving our country has, in a few hundred Twitter characters, threatened to return us to a deeply shameful policy that weakens our military. Discharging thousands of highly trained and talented troops just because of their gender identity would be unconscionable.

I was just out of college when I decided to enlist, after the tragic events of Sept. 11. Though I was proud to honorably serve my country in the U.S. Marine Corps, after re-enlisting for another four years, I knew I could no longer go on pretending I wasn't gay.

I wanted to continue to serve, but the law said I was suddenly unfit for duty, simply because of who I am. A huge burden was lifted off of my family's shoulders when "don't ask, don't tell" was finally repealed under President Barack Obama, allowing my Marine husband to keep his distinguished career. He's now serving a year-long deployment in one of the world's most dangerous areas.

All of our brave troops – including my husband, who is currently serving in harm's way – are counting on us to have their backs, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.

Instead, since the day he set foot in the White House, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have appointed anti-LGBTQ extremists across the government and sought to roll back our rights at every turn. It's bad enough that Trump and Pence oppose marriage equality, that they endorse license to discriminate laws, that they defend anti-LGBTQ measures like North Carolina's HB2, that they appoint anti-equality justices and that they campaign with anti-LGBTQ hate groups.

It is a new low to target thousands upon thousands of actively serving transgender members of the U.S. military, and impugn the honor of tens of thousands more who have served with valor and distinction — including more than 134,000 transgender veterans who are alive today. This attack undermines military readiness and harms the military's ability to recruit and retain the best and the brightest, regardless of their gender identity.

We enlist and commission to protect our most fundamental values: freedom, justice, equality under the law. It is an outrageous tragedy that our commander in chief has decreed transgender troops – who are fighting for those ideals we all share – should be treated so shamefully.

Trump and Pence are hardly the only anti-LGBT Republicans in Washington.  In the northern portions of  Hampton Roads Congressman Rob Wittman - a man who the best I can tell never served in the military himself - is supporting the ban on the pretext that the military needs to save money (this is a portion of a statement I secured from Wittman's extremely nasty press person): 

Rep. Wittman voted in support of an amendment offered by Rep. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri that would have prohibited the use of taxpayer dollars for gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy for members of the U.S. military. Mr. Wittman's belief is that the job of the U.S military is to fight and win our nation’s wars but that the current, ill-conceived, transgender policy will most likely lead to increased costs, decreased readiness, and decreased lethality.

Naturally, Wittman has no problem with the fact that the military spends ten times as much money on Viagra prescriptions than it does for transgender health service.  And, of course, he has no problem with the millions wasted every weekend when Trump travels to Florida or one of his golf resorts at taxpayer expense.  Hmm . . .  why do I think of the word hypocrite? 

Don't get me started on "friends" who voted for this toxic regime.

RNC Chair Praises Hate Groups and Reiterates GOP Opposition To Same-Sex Marriage

Election Day in the 2014 midterm elections is less than a month away and Reince Priebus, RNC chairman, just sent a reminder to LGBT Americans and all fair minded people who believe in the separation of church and state that the GOP and its candidates are the antithesis to life. liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans.  Worse yet, Priebus praised hate group leaders who not only are leading hate merchants in the Christofascists' war on LGBT Americans, but who also would subvert the U.S. Constitution in favor of a far right Christian theocracy.  What should decent people do who support the Constitution and religious liberty for all do?  Get out and vote Democrat on election day and get as many of your family and friends to do so as possible. Here in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia that means voting against Ed Gillespie, Scott Rigell, Bob Wittman, and Randy Forbes.  Think Progress reports on Priebus' disgusting statements.  Here are excerpts:

Twenty-four hours after the Supreme Court announced it would not consider appeals of lower court rulings legalizing same-sex marriage in five states, effectively paving the way for couples to marry in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, Colorado, and Wisconsin, the head of the
 Republican National Committee warned that these unions could undermine American society. 

Appearing on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown on Tuesday, Reince Priebus reiterated the GOP’s support for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, before arguing that social conservatives like David Lane and Tony Perkins are “right to be concerned about what’s happened here in this country over the last couple of years.” Preibus also seemed to support Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) push to introduce a constitutional amendment prohibiting the federal government from changing state marriage laws.

Suggesting that the nation is hurt by same-sex families and quoting men who claim that if gays are permitted to marry “America will ultimately collapse,” is at odds with the GOP’s promise to be more tolerant toward gay people. 

But both David Lane of the American Renewal Project and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council lead or are affiliated with organizations that the Southern Poverty Law Center considers “hate groups.” Perkins has described gay people as “vile,” while Lane has called for “war” against the “pagan onslaught imposing homosexual marriage.”

In close elections, the LGBT community and its allies can make a difference between winning and losing in.  But we have to ALL get out and vote to keep the enemies of equality from winning elections.  I urge all readers to get out and vote AGAINST every GOP candidate on the ballot and, if you are interviewed in an exit poll, to state why you voted a straight Democratic ticket. 

Why Four GOP Virginia Congressman Are Ready to Ignore Boehner

As noted yesterday, four Virginia GOP Congressman, Scott Rigell, Rob Wittman and Randy Forbes, from Hampton Roads, and Frank Wolf, from Northern Virginia, are ready to throw John Boehner, Eric Cantor and the Tea Party lunatics under the bus.  Unlike their Kool-Aid drinking brethren in the GOP, they understand that slashing government spending is not always a good thing, particularly in their districts.  And it also seems that some of them have finally grasp the fact that the nation and Virginia have changed and that to survive politically, they need to change as well (although Randy Forbes sadly continues to prostitute himself to "family values" hate groups).  A column in the Richmond Times Dispatch looks at the willingness of these four to commit heresy in the eyes of the fever ridden, ignorance embracing GOP base.  Here are excerpts:

They are the Four Virginia Republicans of the Apocalypse. Their apostasy on reopening the federal government likely guarantees their survival in districts between the Washington suburbs and the Virginia Beach seacoast. Perhaps the same can’t be said for their party.

Scott Rigell, Rob Wittman and Randy Forbes, all from Hampton Roads, and Frank Wolf, a Northern Virginian, account for one-half of the eight Republicans in the state’s U.S. House delegation. Unlike the other half, they favor a no-strings-attached funding measure to end the shutdown that began Oct. 1. It idled thousands of federal workers, many of them in the aforementioned congressmen’s districts.

Rigell, Wittman, Forbes and Wolf — names largely unrecognized beyond their districts — are among 22 House Republicans who would vote with the Democratic minority, apparently assuring passage of an unencumbered bill to resume financing the government.

It’s a scenario the Republican leadership claims is baseless. It’s a scenario that puts these four Virginians crosswise with one of their own: Eric Cantor, the gentleman from Henrico and the House majority leader.

No other state is as heavily represented among the Republican defectors as Virginia. That is because few other states have become the federal suckling Virginia is. Washington largesse, which accelerated here during World War II, transformed Virginia from rural Southern backwater preoccupied with race to a multihued Mid-Atlantic suburban dynamo.


The reinvention of Virginia is evident in the Rigell, Wolf, Wittman and Forbes districts. There, Virginia politics also is being reinvented.

More than a quarter of the state’s economy is attributed to Washington’s beneficence, military and civilian.


In overall federal spending, Virginia — at $17,008 per person — is second only to Alaska. On purchasing, the federal government is the biggest customer in this state. Because of its rich Uncle Sam across the Potomac River, Virginia leads the nation in procurement funding, per capita, and it is third among all states in federal salaries and wages.

Defense spending, per person, is higher in Virginia than any state . . .

Before sequestration became a reality, Virginia got a sense of its possible sting. In 2010, the Obama administration recommended shuttering the Joint Forces Command in Hampton Roads, threatening 5,800 military and civilian jobs. Pushback by the congressional delegation and state and local government forced a partial retreat by the Pentagon. There still were casualties: about 1,900 jobs.

Randy Forbes was particularly high-profile — dare one say, uncharacteristically bipartisan — in the fight to save the Joint Forces Command. He had to be. Ordinarily the only thing to the far left about Forbes is the part of his hair.

Scott Rigell is sui generis among the rebels. He was the only House Republican to oppose the caucus’s initial gamble with Obama: a funding bill that defunded the president’s health care reform. Rigell then became the first Republican in the Virginia delegation to urge a clean spending measure.

As if that didn’t signal Rigell might be angling for something bigger — say, the U.S. Senate or governor — the former car dealer pressed for a bipartisan remedy to the fiscal crisis during an appearance on “The Daily Show,” the political comedy program.  At least Rigell knows where the votes are. No joke.

On November 5, 2013, Virginians will have an opportunity to send the national GOP a strong message that this extortion and effort to destroy Virginia's economy need to stop.  How?  Vote a straight Democrat ticket and  send Ken Cuccinelli, E.W. Jackson and Mark Obenshein all down to a crushing defeat.  And better yet, tell exit polling folks why you voted anti-GOP.

Four Virginia GOP Congressmen Abandon Tea Party And Call For A "Clean CR"

Perhaps realizing that the GOP saboteurs in the House of Representatives are not only a threat to America and our constitutional form of government but also dangerous to their own political careers, four Republican Congressman from Virginia have announced that they will not go along with the GOP/Tea Party extortion attempts to destroy the Affordable Health Care Act and the U.S. economy along with it.  The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the move by Randy Forbes, Scott Rigell, Rob Wittman, and Frank Wolf - all of whom represent districts being savaged by the government shut down.  Here are story excerpts:

Chuck Todd reported this morning on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown, that there are now four Republican congressmen who have broken with Speaker Boehner and publicly announced they would support a continuing resolution that would fund the government without concessions by President Obama. Journalists who cover The Hill have long been reporting there are up to 20 House Republicans who have said off-the-record that they would join the 200 Democrats in passing a continuing resolution, but the names of who they might be have always been harder to come by.

Representatives Randy Forbes, Scott Rigell, Rob Wittman, and Frank Wolf have all publicly broken with House leadership. All four are all from Virginia, a state hit hard by the government shutdown due to its large number of military contractors. The move seems to support the prediction of former Virginia Congressman Tom Davis, who told the New York Times that the government shutdown “will clearly knock out the Republicans in northern Virginia,”

Also feeling the heat from the shut down? Our old Virginia pal Ken Cuccinelli, who is trying to keep his head above water in his floundering gubernatorial campaign. Cucinelli has been doing everything he can to distance himself from the Washington shutdown over Obamacare, a feat made all the more daring in that Cuccinelli is rabidly against it himself. In fact, he used to brag about being the first attorney general to file suit over Obamacare.

The Morning Joe talking heads were all atwitter about a report that Cuccinelli snubbed Ted Cruz at the Family Foundation Gala Saturday night. . . . . Cuccinelli avoided being caught on camera with Cruz, and did not mention him in his ten minute Family Foundation address.
Political strategists are watching the upcoming Virginia election as a clue to what the mood of the voters might be in the congressional elections next year. Because of the shutdown, many Washington watchers are entertaining an idea that was unthinkable just a few months ago; that the House will be in play.

By their decision to abandon the Cruz ship, Virginia House members Randy Forbes, Scott Rigell, Rob Wittman, and Frank Wolf have shown they’re worried too.

Let's hope that the House is in play.  The Tea Party and its Christofascist allies need to be driven from the political scene permanently.

Virginia to Lose 90,000 Jobs As U.S. Funds Ends

 

Closer to home, Virginia is going to take a major hit from sequestration.  A fact that the idiots - including many locally in Hampton Roads who grab on to slogans without knowledge of the issues, or pro-gun nuts, or religious extremists who allow themselves to be manipulated - seem to have forgotten when they submitted their ballots in November and returned individuals like Scott Rigell, Randy Forbes and Rob Wittman to the House of Representatives.  As is the case with the folks in Kansas in the prior post, many are about to rue their foolishness and gullibility.  A piece in the New York Times looks at what faces Virginia.  Here are excerpts:

The Washington metropolitan area, especially Northern Virginia, is in line to experience the largest economic hit of any region from the $85 billion in spending cuts that President Obama made official late Friday. 

Because the automatic cuts, known as sequestration, fall unevenly across the country, many Americans are greeting them with a shrug. Their nonchalance is heightened because the 2.4 percent lopped from a federal budget of $3.55 trillion is relatively small and will not happen all at once. Moreover, Congressional Republicans have accused the White House of exaggerating the impact for political gain. 

But in Northern Virginia the cuts will be deeply felt, economists said, assuming there is no political deal to undo them, a dimming prospect. The White House said the Defense Department would furlough 90,000 civilian employees based in Virginia, the most of any state, reducing their salaries by 20 percent this year. 

The ripple effect, as those employees pare expenses, put off car purchases and delay buying a home, is expected to be large. Some economists predict that Virginia will slip into recession.

Virginia employment rose in December by only 0.8 percent, half the growth in the nation as a whole, said Christine Chmura, an economist in Richmond.   “If the sequester occurs as it’s currently stated, I would expect the state of Virginia to go into a recession,” she said. 

“the real worry are the young ones,” she added, lower on the government pay scale and living paycheck to paycheck.  Matthew Bourke, a public affairs specialist with the Army, fits that description. He is looking for a part-time job to make up the loss to his salary. “I’m talking the restaurant business, a server, a food runner, anything,” he said. “If you know something, let me know,” he said before jumping on his bus. 

Come November I hope these folks remember that the GOP has brought this on them and that they get out and vote against the GOP in Virginia's 2013 elections.  They can send a strong message to the GOP by voting out Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly and giving control of both houses back to Democrats.  Now that's a message the GOP in Washington would understand.

Hampton Roads Faces Economic Blow Due to GOP Obstruction

UPDATED: Per a new Virginian Pilot story, ship repair employees could be amoung the first to be laid off:

BAE Systems Ship Repair sent letters Wednesday to employees in Norfolk and four other states saying that they may have to lay off more than 3,500 people if the Navy cuts $4.6 billion in ship repairs and other expenses this year.  As many as 1,625 BAE workers in Norfolk could be laid off. The layoffs would affect skilled ship workers as well as administrative staff.

Who voted for sequestration? Virginia House of Representatives members who voted "YES" to SEQUESTRATION:
Rep. ERIC CANTOR (R)
Rep. Scott Rigell (R)
Rep. Rob Wittman (R)
Rep. Robert Hurt (R)
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D)
Rep. Frank Wolf (R)
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R)

Somewhat belatedly people in Hampton Roads are beginning to wake up to the reality that the region is about to take a severe economic hit if, thanks to the GOP obstructionists and economic saboteurs in both houses of Congress allow sequestration to begin on March 1, 2013.  Senator Tim Kaine and Congressman Bobby Scott were in the region yesterday meeting with the military and major employers like Newport News Shipbuilding to address the likely impacts which will harm thousands of workers who face furloughs or worse.  When interviewed, the always despicable Scott Rigell - one of the three local GOP saboteurs in the House (the others are Randy Forbes and Rob Wittman) - Rigell sought to blame the impending economic harm on the U. S. Senate, conveniently omitting the fact that its due to his GOP cohorts Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell and other members of the GOP in the Senate that no solution to sequestration has been reached.  Like most GOP religious extremists, Rigell has no problem lying through his teeth on a constant basis.  Here are excerpts from the Virginian Pilot on the approaching economic harm:

With Congress in recess while two deadlines draw near for the start of major federal budget cuts, including deep defense reductions, two of Hampton Roads’ federal lawmakers were telling constituents Tuesday that significant consequences loom.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott warned constituents during a forum in Newport News that the automatic cuts that begin March 1 would hurt the region’s defense industry and lead to significant cuts in a range of federal services – from meat inspectors to special education programs to air traffic controllers.

Scott argued that new sources of revenue have to be found or Americans will receive fewer government services and the region’s defense-based economy is going to suffer.

The Navy has said it will have to cut $4.6 billion, including ship repair and construction projects, if the budget isn’t increased.

Leaders of the Virginia Ship Repair Association told Kaine on Tuesday that the cuts could result in thousands of layoffs in Hampton Roads and damage a local economy that relies on military spending for almost half its revenue.

Craig Quigley, executive director of the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance, told Kaine and the ship repair executives who met at a Portsmouth hotel that most residents don’t understand how hard the cuts will hit.  “When real people start getting pink slips in the not-too-distant future, then I think it will finally hit home,” Quigley said.

Scott noted there are several sources of new revenue that could be considered to avoid the cuts, including taxing capital gains and dividends as income, levying an extra tax on those with annual incomes larger than $1 million and getting rid of some tax breaks. Scott has long argued that people would rather support new revenue than cutting favored federal programs and national security.

“Everybody is talking about how bad sequestration is, but if you replace sequestration with $1.2 trillion in other cuts, you have different damage,” he said.  “You can’t cut $1.2 trillion of the budget without cutting Social Security and Medicare.”

One can only hope that as furloughs begin at Newport News Shipbuilding that the cretins who had  Romney and Rigell signs in their yards in neighborhoods near the shipyard are among the first to receive their pink slips (ironically, most of the higher end homes in these very same neighborhoods had Obama signs in their yards).  People need to be calling and e-mailing Messrs. Rigell, Forbes and Wittman and reading them the riot act.