Winners and Losers column by Chris Graham
LOSERS: Payday lenders
Just as I have said that it appears that the feds will eventually get it that they need to do something about illegal immigration because they see local governments in Virginia taking action on their own, I see the same thing happening with the Virginia General Assembly with respect to the payday-loan industry.
Local governments in Staunton and Charlottesville are taking the initiative to do something to rid their communities of payday lenders.
Will it take every single city, town and county governing body doing something to finally force legislators’ hands?
With elections on the horizon two months hence, I shouldn’t think that it would.
LOSERS: Smart-growth advocates in Albemarle
Thirty-one hundred new homes in Biscuit Run – that’s what the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors approved early this morning.
And you thought Charlottesville-Albemarle had already gotten too big for its britches …
LOSER: Former Cavalier Daily cartoonist Grant Woolard
OK, so it wasn’t bad enough that Woolard even thought up a cartoon featuring naked black men attacking each other with various objects.
And then decided to name it “Ethiopian Food Fight.”
And then went ahead and submitted it for his then-regular cartoon strip.
No – he had to protest when people on Grounds started calling for his head after seeing it in the paper.
And then to make matters worse he invoked – yes, you guessed it – the First Amendment in his defense.
Chris Graham is the executive editor of The Augusta Free Press.