The Governator

Well folks, it was a pretty fun birthday. As previously mentioned, Marshall, Will, Nevin, Emmett, and I went to some kind of public forum with Governor McDonnell. Honestly, I didn't even know the name of our governor before today. But it was fun and I saw lots of people from school there as well, even Thomas. It was extremely interesting and it made me feel like I was doing something for society. Plus we got an AP point.

Anyway, the thing started out with a few people talking and introducing the Governor. One of these fine gentleman was my neighbor, Senator Obenshain. McDonnell opened with how glad he was to be in Harrisonburg and all that other politician bullcrap. It turns out his daughter attended JMU, so kudos for us. After this he began a power point on how he wants to free ABC stores from governmental control. Sale of all "distilled liquor" is controlled in a monopoly by the government. Virginia is one of only 18 other states to sell spirits like this. McDonnell wants to get rid of this monopoly because it would promote public spending and the money gained (mostly in taxes) could go to the public benefit, mostly transportation stuff.

When he finished monologuing, he took a few questions from the crowd. My own mother was the first person to go and she asked a question that pertained to small business, I am not too clear on the details. About fifteen people came up to a microphone and asked their questions. There was one guy named Bishop who would just not let an issue go. he was talking about how we are trying to utilize more electricity, but not doing much to solve the problem of cars using fossil fuels. Bishop has apparently never heard of an electric car. He was being quite rude and very unprofessional.

The last person ask a question was a young Hispanic (PC right there) girl who wanted to know what our good governor was going to do about the dream act. She said she was undocumented and her parents forced her to come to America when she she was six years old. She then grew up to graduate from Turner Ashby with a 4.0 (not bad for the county) and graduate from EMU in three and a half years. Unfortunately, she is illegal and that is just not legal. It is a terribly sad story, but Governor McDonald (The Magnificent) said he can't turn a blind eye to breaking the law. He basically said he would not support the Dream Act. I assume the Dream Act is something to do with making children of illegal immigrants legal.

At this point the crowd was practically in an uproar. She had many friends with her who stood up with posters supporting the Dream Act and emotions were flaring. But the calm cool and collected Governor took it all in stride. People were getting all riled up and I almost expected a fight to break out. But there was no fight and order was restored. it was very easy to tell who was on the side of the girl and who favored the (did I mention handsome as well?) Governor. Well it certainly was an interesting night and the next 365 better be too.

Random Politics!

The town of Kennesaw, Georgia has required its citizens to own a firearm and ammunition since 1982.