RogueBelle

Welcome, Harry Potter fans, to the Virginia HP Meetup. We are conveniently based in Staunton, VA, at the intersection of I-81 and I-64. All ages and levels of fan are welcome to join and attend activities. We can’t wait to share in the magic with you.

This is a thing Dylan and I started! If you’re a Virginian or Virginia-adjacent and interested in Harry Potter, you should totally join!

(Source: vawizards)

maehemsez:

flowerpotrhinos:

Dear Charniele Herring and the Democratic Party of Virginia,

Before I begin, I want to say that this letter comes out of over two year’s worth of frustration and disappointment. You see, I used to be an intern at the DPVA. I enjoyed my time there, the people, and the experience. I am grateful and I learned a lot about the inner-workings of state-level politics. I held my tongue out of respect for those who gave me that opportunity, but now I cannot be willfully silent any longer.

I saw your interview on Rachel Maddow the other night, and something really struck me as being off. You mentioned that TRAP showed us just how important voting for McAuliffe will be in November. But where was the DPVA during the TRAP hearings? Why was there no DPVA assistance, promotion, or outcries against Cuccinelli’s politicizing of the Board of Health? How come NO Democrat lawmakers showed up to the Board of Health? Two Republican Senators were there advocating for the adoption of these policies. Was it too early in the morning?

How dare you force local activists to put 100% of the effort into fighting these regulations, only to use our efforts and ultimate defeat as a platform to promote the Democratic Party. How do you expect us to vote Democratic in November when we’ve seen no REAL attempts to fight for women’s rights?

On April 12, 2013, the Board of Health (now stacked with political allies of gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli) voted on regulations they knew would shut down at least 17 of the 22 abortion clinics in the Commonwealth of Virginia. According to polls, 58% of Virginians opposed TRAP regulations. The ONLY contribution that the members of the DPVA provided to help us was a joint letter from Senators informing the Board of Health that the Attorney General’s opinion on grandfathering was wrong.

This is not the first time you and the DPVA have done this. I’ve seen your and your colleagues’ interviews on the local and national news countless times after demonstrations that WE engineered. During the 2012 General Assembly, my friends and I marched 1000+ people into the Capital TWICE in protest of anti-abortion bills. Again, you all were the ones on TV speaking over b-roll footage of our efforts- efforts the Democratic Party did NOTHING to assist, promote, or even encourage until after they proved beneficial. We asked for your help. We wanted your participation. Instead, we were met with what amounted to “Good luck, we’re rooting for you!”

Virginia has been completely overrun with Republican conservatives sending us back decades on voting rights, minority equality, environmental protection, prison reform, and of course women’s reproductive rights. You blame your lack of seats as reasons for why you’re so powerless to stop these bills. I blame your lack of spine, conviction, and willingness to fight for a cause through to the last minute.

It’s time to take the white gloves off and loosen your neckties. It’s time to stop playing trivial political games on Twitter and Facebook to please your donors. You’re going to lose this election, and you’ll lose it because no one counts on someone who does nothing, despite their good intentions.

I vote. My friends vote. We just don’t know who for anymore.

Signed,

William Carino
Local activist and organizer
Co-operator of Active-RVA

Cosigned with enthusiasm. 

11 hrs in - Staunton, Va

Okay, so, my phone doesn’t want to send me my pictures so I can post a full set, but the snow is getting ridiculous, and it’s only been going on for, like, three and a half hours. If this keeps up all day tomorrow (with even heavier snow predicted from about now through 9am), it is going to be truly absurd. We’ve got 3-4” easy already. Maybe 5” by now, I dunno, I haven’t been outside in about 45 minutes, but it’s coming down at better than an inch an hour. But not in a scary way! It’s such a calm, gentle snow, but just totally thick and heavy and constant. It’s a fucking winter wonderland out there. Looking out the window is like living in a snowglobe.

I’m excited, okay? We haven’t gotten a decent snow in a few years.

I have to go to bed now. Can’t wait to see what I wake up to.

2.5 hrs in - Staunton, Va

I must thither to the grocery store, to purchase milk and bread, for I hear the song of my people, and it compels me.

victorianhouses:

Victorian house. Old Towne Leesburg, VA.

submitted by: thetomletter

Meant to post this yesterday, but I got so caught up in the Tumblr Update Debacle that I totally forgot.

• According to an email I got from the McAuliffe campaign, “the Koch Brothers (the people who’ve spent tens of millions advancing the Tea Party agenda), Foster Friess (the Rick Santorum mega-donor who said that in lieu of birth control women should put aspirin between their knees), and Phyllis Schlafly (who doesn’t think women should work outside the home)” are all funding Ken “the Cooch” Cuccinelli’s gubernatorial campaign. Good. That shouldn’t make his deranged views any harder to keep out of the Governor’s Mansion.
• New Mexico Rep Cathrynn Brown has proposed legislation that would criminalize abortion in cases of rapes. Yes. Criminalize. As “destruction of evidence”. Y’know what, Rep. Brown? The tissue’s DNA will stay the same and can be preserved out of the woman’s body. (And I will always be flabberghasted that there are women who can do this to other women).
• VA state Sen. Dick Black of Loudoun compares abortion clinics to Auschwitz and governments that allow abortion to Nazi Germany. I can’t even. Oh and btw he did this on Tuesday, the 40th Anniversary of Roe v Wade, when there were pro-repro rights protesters (including yours truly!) at the Capitol. Also includes a rambling story about the Viet Cong which is somehow supposed to prove a point about the sanctity of life? The video there has a severe high blood pressure warning on it.
• This article on violence against women sums up just a whole bunch of depressing/infuriating things, really.

demnewswire:

Virginia Republicans’ bald-faced power grab

IN A SNEAK ATTACK notable more for its deviousness than its strategic acuity, Virginia Republicans engineered a bald-faced power grab Monday that would radically redraw the state’s electoral map without so much as a “yea,” “nay” or “maybe” from anything so trivial as a voter.

Taking advantage of the absence of a single Democratic state senator, GOP lawmakers in Richmond rammed through a radically gerrymandered map designed to hand them control of the 40-member state Senate, which is now split evenly between the two parties.

They were able to do so, on a vote of 20 to 19, because one Democratic senator was in Washington to attend President Obama’s inauguration. Touche, Republicans! Count that as a new low for hyper-partisanship, dirty tricks and the unaccountable arrogance of power.

The Republican move was executed in the style of a putsch, arising from a conspiracy and with no warning, public input or debate. Pressing their momentary numerical superiority, GOP lawmakers amended a routine House bill by tacking on a new map, devised in secret. Although this is one of the most partisan redistricting plans in Virginia’s history, the Republicans then cut off debate after 30 minutes.

Fortunately, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican who counts as a grown-up amid the sneaky schoolboys who dominate his party in Richmond, correctly saw the ruse as an invitation to political Armageddon — and a threat to his own legislative agenda. “I certainly don’t think that’s a good way to do business,” said the governor.

Mr. McDonnell should immediately announce his intention to veto the map. If the redistricting is allowed to stand, it would radically reshape politics in Richmond. Unlike the GOP-dominated House of Delegates, the Senate has been in Democratic hands or closely divided since 2007.

Read more

Heard about this at the rally today, and I’m just disgusted. Beyond being completely unethical, it’s also, well, just tacky. Not that this should surprise me from the Virginia GOP. If McDonnell has a sense of either self-respect or self-preservation left, he will veto this egregious maneuver, and he’ll do it fast.

• The VA Health & Education Senate Committee votes 8-7 to kill two important pro-repro rights measures: to repeal the mandatory ultrasound and to repeal the TRAP laws. (On the bright side, for once in the history of the internet, the comments at source are actually pretty encouraging).
• Another committee blocks the repeal of Virginia’s dumbass “marriage protection” amendment. (This matter of disgust is certainly not female-specific, but I felt it warranted mentioning).
• There are only four doctors left in the US who provide late-term abortions. Late-term abortions account for less than 1% of all abortions, but when women seek them, it is because they are desperately needed. (Comments at Jez are why I would like to ban the phrase “I’m pro-choice, but” from existence. I got into a Someone Is Wrong on the Internet there and I really shouldn’t have).
• Rush Limbaugh is still someone with access to the airwaves and who can impact public opinion.
• Forced birth advocates in Alabama have apparently decided it’s cool to sing “Happy Birthday, Dead Baby” to women going into a clinic. I literally do not know how people can have this little compassion and basic human decency. Fuck these fucking fucks. (Apparently one woman had a literal dead baby — her wanted fetus had died in utero and she had to go to this clinic to have the dead tissue removed so it didn’t turn septic and poison her. The father had to be restrained from taking a swing at one of the protesters, and I don’t blame him one fucking bit).
• Utah has passed legislation that could potentially make miscarriage a criminal offense.
• Bolivian politician caught on tape raping an unconscious woman on the floor of Parliament. No, seriously.
• More reports about women being jailed or institutionalized for doing things while pregnant that would raise no eyebrows if they did it not-pregnant.

But on the bright side:

• The VA Health & Education Senate Committee did manage to kill legislation that would have severely impacted low-income women’s ability to seek abortions for severely deformed fetuses.
• Del. Jen McClellan’s bill to strike a 30-day waiting period for those seeking sterilization made it out of the House panel 16-0! Under current law, the waiting period depends on whether or not you’ve already had a child. It’s total bullshit — more of the patronising “oh well you might change your mind” nonsense. Same issue I have with abortion waiting periods — once you’ve walked into that office, you know pretty damn well what you want to do. So now it will go to full GA for debate.