Virginia's Public Square
Virginia's Public Square
The driver of large electric bills is Virginia’s high consumption of the resource in a majority of households, which are in the top ten of consumers in the U.S., behind seven others. The Commonwealth also has the 17th-lowest residential rates, showing that the corruption claims from Clean Virginia against Dominion Energy, Appalachian Power, and other electric utilities colluding with state lawmakers are inaccurate.
Apart from telling people he’s actually seen murder videos that only the CIA has, and that he would arrest the leader of a Middle Eastern nation and throw him in jail, former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe says he’s “seriously considering” challenging President Donald Trump in 2020.
Richmond-based Dominion Energy forecasts that the renewable natural gas project using manure from Smithfield Foods hog farms will prevent “10 billion cubic feet of methane from entering the atmosphere, the equivalent of removing 120,000 vehicles from the road.”
One described last night’s Loudoun County School Board meeting as if it were staged in Portland, Oregon, as jazz hands complemented public comments dedicated as an opposition to the potential weakening of the religious exemption of homeschoolers.
Solar energy is coming back to revive places that were left in the past when coal became a little wanted energy resource, with Virginia near the forefront of the national trend. If completed, the projects would add 1.5 megawatts of solar energy production to the burgeoning industry in the Commonwealth, with more expected to come in the near future.
Delegate Dave LaRock (R-Loudoun) said recently on his campaign website, “[The LCSB] took advantage of the resignation of a conservative member, the absence of another conservative member due to a family health emergency, and some sly language to sneak through some policy positions that should concern all of us.”
As the federal investigation into Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election continues, White House Special Counsel Robert Mueller has interviewed Trump campaign officials who allegedly met with Russian officials offering information on Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Other affiliates like Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort and former foreign policy campaign adviser George Papadopoulos have been charged and convicted in federal court on an array of charges from providing false information to the FBI to engaging in conspiracy against the United States.
On Monday morning, President Donald Trump took to Twitter criticizing the special counsel’s handling of the investigation. The commander-in-chief is demanding that Mueller interview the “hundreds” of other campaign employees and associates involved in the 2016 election who had no contact with Russia.
President Trump said:
“When Mueller does his final report, will he be covering all of his conflicts of interest in a preamble, will he be recommending action on all of the crimes of many kinds from those “on the other side”(whatever happened to Podesta?), and will he be putting in statements from…..
….hundreds of people closely involved with my campaign who never met, saw or spoke to a Russian during this period? So many campaign workers, people inside from the beginning, ask me why they have not been called (they want to be). There was NO Collusion & Mueller knows it!”
Throughout the nearly two-year investigation, President Trump has maintained that a “legitimate legal issue” and conflict of interest that has led Mueller to conduct the “witch hunt” of the investigation. Regardless, the highly criticized investigation has said by Democrats to be threatened by acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker following the ousting of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions three weeks ago after a post-midterm election press conference.
According to a report from Yahoo News, during his 20-month tenure running the now-infamous Russia investigation, Mueller’s Russia probe has resulted in nearly three dozen people that have been indicted on federal crimes, bank fraud, and campaign finances violations. Among the high profile cases were former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Manafort’s second in command Rick Gates, and Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
Recently, high-profile lawyer and common defender of the President, Alan Dershowitz added publicly that the results of the Mueller investigation will be “devastating” to Trump, at least politically.
Days ago, after answering questions sent to him by the special counsel, the President stated that he will refuse to cooperate with the investigation if he is subpoenaed. Trump’s top lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said the questions sent to the White House to be answered were “all very circumspect.”
“Throughout my time in the House of Delegates I have found the committee process to be one of the most rewarding aspects of my job as it allows for a greater understanding of a wide array of issues. As a small business owner I know the importance of cultivating an environment where businesses and entrepreneurs can thrive with as little government interference as possible. The Commerce and Labor committee does important work and I look forward to getting right to work,” Delegate Tony Wilt (R-Harrisonburg) said.
After winning in Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District, congressman-elect Denver Riggleman has continued his quick pace at freshman orientation for the 116th Congress. Although it is a lot to take in before the next session begins, he says “there’s the dinners, and all the good stuff that goes along with this honeymoon period.”
This week, President Donald Trump answered questions given to him by White House Special Counsel Robert Mueller about the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, but reportedly stopped short of answering inquiries into his behavior as commander-in-chief. His lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, stated that the President, in the future, will refuse to cooperate with the Russia probe, even if he is subpoenaed.
“I think that he would not win a legal battle if he did that,” Giuliani said about Mueller, adding that “ I think it would consumer months,” he told Axios.
The questionnaire sent to President Trump “looked like a law school exam,” Giuliani said, explaining that White House lawyers sat with the President in the Oval Office, at the dinner table, and wherever else they could work on crafting official answers to Mueller’s questions.
Reportedly, Mueller pressed President Trump in asking if he knew about the meeting between his son and what was thought to be a Russian with knowledge about then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Trump Tower in 2017, and broadly inquiring about the situation of then-candidate Trump saying at a campaign press conference in July 2016, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing.”
Giuliani told reporters this week that the questions sent to the White House to be answered are “all very circumspect.”
The former prosecuting attorney went on to explain that he does not believe that the special counsel “has any way to compel testimony on obstruction because the argument of executive privilege would be very, very strong.” He added, “[A]ny question he has on obstruction…[t]he president has given [the answers] in interviews, tweets. Other witnesses have given it to him.”
Giuliani, who has advocated to end the investigation in the past, said “the law definitely requires that if you’re going to subpoena a president, you have to show that you can’t get the information any place else,” adding there is no evidence of collusion between the Russia government and the Trump campaign team. The heavyweight on Trump’s legal defense team also expressed doubt that the President’s son, Donald Trump Jr., would be indicted over his connection with the case in the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting.
“The meeting turned out to be a big bust,” Giuliani said.