He told a jobs roundtable in Richmond this week, "We don't agree on more stimulus money," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Thursday. "We don't believe the stimulus worked last time. We don't believe we ought to incur hundreds of billions of dollars of additional debt now again to get the same result."
The initial Obama plan would actually be funded with a half-percent surtax on incomes topping $1 million, starting in January 2013, to cover $35 billion to help states rehire teachers and first responders. If Cantor, R-7th, opposes the plan because it raises taxes, he should just say so.
But on a broader point, Cantor has parroted one of the biggest lies about the Obama presidency: that the original Recovery Act stimulus "failed" or didn't create any jobs. In fact, Cantor in May said the stimulus "failed to get people back to work," a statement PolitiFact found False. A handful of independent analyses found that the stimulus created or saved millions of jobs, with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finding that the plan is responsible for up to 3.6 million jobs.
If the majority leader thinks that the public will start to believe a blatant lie if it is repeated often enough, Democrats can do their part by telling voters that Mr. Cantor's head is made of green cheese.
Trying to mask the obvious and inherent religiosity of Scripture by associating it with legal or historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence or Constitution in a government-sponsored forum is nothing new. However, The Roanoke Times reported Wednesday that Giles came up with a new legal strategy: A private citizen was intended to erect the display, and no public funds or employees were designated for it.
The Supreme Court would not be amused. The court ruled in 1980 in a similar case,
"The pre-eminent purpose of posting the Ten Commandments, which do not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, is plainly religious in nature, and the posting serves no constitutional educational function. That the posted copies are financed by voluntary private contributions is immaterial, for the mere posting under the auspices of the legislature provides the official support of the state government that the Establishment Clause prohibits."The Giles board also tried this month to unmask the anonymous plaintiffs in the case. The plaintiffs sought anonymity because of the heated acrimony over the case in the community and attacks on the civil liberties groups who helped bring the case to court. The chairman of the county Board of Supervisors himself said, "We won't let an anonymous coward tell us how to run our business."
The fact that this lawsuit has brought out the worst in people demonstrates why the Constitution forbids government-sponsored religion. If they had any sense, the school board members would do away with its Ten Commandment policy and instead consider implementing a world religions elective class in high schools for students to objectively learn about religious philosophies and ideas. But that "if" may be asking for too much.
UVa's honor code and enforcement are among the strictest in the nation: Any students accused of academic dishonesty face expulsion after a trial by their peers. The Daily told its readers in an editorial on Sept. 12 that an unidentified Daily writer was exposed as a plagiarist, using entire copy from other media sources verbatim without attribution.
However, revealing the plagiarism and saying that the matter had been referred to the Honor Committee got the top managers in trouble. A week later, five top Daily student officials were charged by McKenzie, a Centreville native, with violating UVa's Standards of Conduct procedural confidentiality rules. Soon thereafter, the charges against all the managers but Editor-in-Chief Jason Ally were dropped. Ally's charges were dismissed on Tuesday when the University Judiciary Committee found that it had no jurisdiction to decide the case, citing a clause in the body's constitution that says it "shall not have jurisdiction over the exercise of journalistic and editorial functions by student groups." The Executive Committee, however, would not dismiss the charges.
The very idea that independent student media – or any independent journalistic entity for that matter – can face serious retribution from governing bodies or their executives for reporting the truth chills the whole notion of freedom of the press. The Student Press Law Center and ACLU said McKenzie's actions smack of censorship. Additionally, an SPLC attorney argued that the the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, upon which the Honor Committee's confidentiality policy is founded, does not apply to student media. The Cavalier Daily defended its decision in a Tuesday editorial: "It was necessary for the managing board to publish the editorial about recently uncovered plagiarism incidents because the paper strives to remain accountable to readers for the accuracy and authenticity of the content that appears in its pages." Indeed, any newspaper's subscribers or advertisers would value the honesty and accountability of its production and product. Editorial decisions are also often business decisions.
Subsequently, the Daily is worried about how this case will hurt student organizations' relationship with enforcement bodies. In a Thursday editorial, editors expressed concern about the jurisdiction and bureaucracy:
"The policy that the UJC embraced in the case against The Cavalier Daily allows for any future jurisdiction questions to be settled in trial. If the administration cannot clarify jurisdiction matters prior to that stage, however, then limitations provided in the constitution are effectively meaningless since they can be altered by any trial panel. This wrests the constitutional amendment process from the student body, doing grave harm to the principle of student self-governance."Hopefully, McKenzie has not set a worrisome precedence and damaged what UVa calls its "community of trust." UVa founder Thomas Jefferson said it best in 1787, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
That's Ann Marie McKenzie, her favorite dish being sacrificial lamb with mint, today's Worst Virginian in the World!
