Focus | Morton: A ‘principled conservative’
Fifth District GOP candidate builds support toward run for party nod
Story by Chris Graham
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The Fifth District is a living laboratory to Fluvanna County biology teacher Feda Morton, a veteran Republican Party activist seeking the GOP nomination to run for Congress in the Fifth. All Morton has to do over the course of the next 11 months is dissect a seven-candidate field in a June primary and then get to the heart of the Tom Perriello phenomenon that turned the Fifth blue in ’08.
“I’m very concerned about the economy, about states’ rights, about the people’s rights. I feel that our constitutional rights are being run roughshod over, and that we need to have principled conservative leadership in Washington to get back to what the founders meant for this country to be, and for the free-market and free-enterprise system to be stabilized so we can prosper. And Tom Perriello is not a match for the Fifth District, and is not voting the will of the people of this district,” said Morton, who has been working to build a campaign strong both at the grassroots and at the top, picking up the endorsements of Republican National Committee members Morton Blackwell and Kathy Hayden Terry. Read more
Slower turn toward recovery?
Staff Report
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Most turnaround professionals predict a hard slog toward economic recovery in 2010 as businesses weighed down by debt hit rough patches and credit markets shun them.
Nearly half (49 percent) the respondents to the Turnaround Management Association’s distressed industries forecast think durable economic improvement is unlikely until at least the second half of 2010. About three out of 10 think the worst is over, but nearly 20 percent suggest the economy has yet to hit rock bottom. Read more
The case for a strong estate tax
Column by Brian Miller
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On New Year’s Day the estate tax, an essential part of the U.S. tax system for nearly 100 years, will disappear because Congress failed to act in December. Congressional leaders now are pledging to act in early 2010 to reinstate the federal estate tax retroactive to Jan. 1. In the meantime, rhetoric over the estate tax will heat up while Congress grapples with what to do now. Read more
Biscuit Run to become state park
Former largest planned development in Albemarle history to be preserved as open space
Staff Report
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Gov. Tim Kaine on Wednesday announced the purchase of approximately 1,200 acres in Albemarle County known as “Biscuit Run” to be held by the state as a site for a future state park.
“When developed as a state park, this extraordinary piece of land will benefit the citizens of Albemarle, Charlottesville and the Commonwealth for recreation, natural resource protection and the preservation of open space in a fast growing area,” Gov. Kaine said. “This property is a real jewel and I am very pleased to add it to the long list of properties preserved during my Administration.”
This purchase will add to the goal of 400,000 acres of open space preserved during Governor Kaine’s Administration.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the state to acquire such a valuable property which offers spectacular mountain views, abundant flora and fauna and is in the viewshed of Mr. Jefferson’s Monticello estate and farms,” said Secretary of Natural Resources L. Preston Bryant Jr. Read more
Trash heap
Column by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
It started when the second trash can blew away – at least I assume it blew away – before the big snowstorm of a couple of weeks ago.
I say I assume it blew away because, you know, who would steal a big green outside trash can?
I also say I assume because I walked a good radius around my house, and there was no trace of the trash can, its contents, nada.
The thing just vanished. Read more
The Rant | Free market forces, sure
Video Essay by Chris Graham
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Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine wrote this week in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the payday-loan industry is “an obvious consequence of free market forces responding to consumer demand.”
AFP editor Chris Graham points out other examples of free-market forces responding to consumer demand that are just as harmful as payday lenders in the course of shedding light on the hows and whys of the watered-down payday-lending reform effort in Virginia. Read more
Letter | McDonnell’s claims on drilling ‘tenuous at best’
Posted December 31, 2009
Letter from J.R. Tolbert, Richmond, Va.
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On the subject of jobs Mr. McDonnell cites a 2005 “study” that claims more than 2,000 jobs would be created by drilling operations. The fact of the matter is that, as cited in the Dec. 30th Wall Street Journal, the author of this report did not consider any Virginia specific data and only looked at examples in Louisiana and Canada. Read more
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