His campaign said during his gubernatorial run, "As Governor, Bob McDonnell will provide an additional dedicated revenue stream for essential transportation needs by tolling travelers coming into Virginia at the North Carolina border on I-95 and I-85." The Federal Highway Administration approved the I-95 plan last month, but federal regulations allow the state to only use tolls on one interstate at a time. Federal officials also want toll funds to be spent mainly where the tolls are installed.
The Bob-O-Meter found, "His communications chief says McDonnell knew back then that federal regulations allow Virginia to toll only one Interstate at the time and the candidate was hopeful of changing the rules. The regulation remains in place, however, and the McDonnell administration has not lobbied to alter it."
Evidently not all toll roads lead to campaign promises.
The Virginian-Pilot of Hampton Roads reported Friday that the city's top prosecutor has asked the state to audit the Hargrove paper trail. The Commonwealth's Attorney's office doesn't think there was any criminal wrongdoing, "but an audit wouldn't be a bad idea with the situation."
What makes this case bizarre is that Hargrove's management company had never charged for speaking engagements before. Portsmouth social services wasn't aware that he didn't charge for such events, and they simply researched how much NFL players often charge for these services, as well as compensating for his family to travel with him.
To quote Mayor Kenny Wright when the story broke originally last month, "Woah, are you kidding me?"
Cantor, R-7th (Richmond, Culpeper, Orange), told the ironically named Voters Values Summit in Washington on Friday:
"This administration's failed policies have resulted in an assault on many of our nation's bedrock principles. If you read the newspapers today, I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country. And believe it or not, some in this town, have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans. But you sent us here to fight for you and all Americans."(He also vowed to defund abortion providers. Because that will create jobs, or something.)
Cantor is Mr. 1%: His personal wealth is upwards of $7.5 million, and his fundraising committees took in $2 million from real estate, investment, and securities companies last year. The Washington Post detailed in July how Cantor has embraced the tea-party wing of the GOP not because of its cause but for gamesmanship to protect his corporate benefactors. So it's no surprise he'd be defending Wall Street.
Yet, others in his position haven't taken his side. Republican Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress that he understands the OWS protests: "I would just say very generally, I think people are quite unhappy with the state of the economy and what's happening. They blame, with some justification, the problems in the financial sector for getting us into this mess, and they're dissatisfied with the policy response here in Washington. And at some level, I can't blame them." Even Cantor's colleague Rep. Robert Hurt, R-5th (Charlottesville, Danville, Martinsville), who is anything but an enemy of Wall Street, told The Daily Progress of Charlottesville on Friday:
"The protests in New York I think reflect what the American people are feeling, tremendous frustration about the fact that we have 9.1 percent unemployment. ... To the extent that there is corporate greed, to the extent that there are Wall Street rip-offs, those are things that I think are properly within the function of government to make sure that we have transparent markets, markets that are honest and that you don't have people being stolen from."However, Cantor had no problem pretending to commiserate with the tea party during a 9/12 rally two years ago. He said on stage that those protesters were "fighting on the fighting lines of what we know is a battle for our democracy." He added, "People are beginning to wake up and see a country they don't really recognize." The only people pitting Americans against Americans are brazen opportunists like Cantor, who doesn't have to worry about his life being turned upside down in the name of "austerity."
Majority Leader Eric Cantor, 100% hypocrite and fraud, today's Worst Virginian in the World!
