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Police Rough up Journalist at Campaign Rally in Annandale Virginia

RVA Staff | November 1, 2017

Topics: Annandale Virginia, Ed Gillespie, governor's race, NowThis Politics, Shareblue

A journalist working for the Democratic media site Shareblue was roughed up by police at a rally for Republican candidate Ed Gillespie. A video surfaced on NowThis Politics an hour ago, which shows the reporter being thrown to the ground while four police officers scramble to keep him pinned down. One officer can be seen putting his knee on the journalist’s head as he screams, “I cannot give you my hand. My hand is stuck beneath me.” The video goes on to show the police telling the journalist to let go of his hand, while he responds by saying, “I can’t.” At least four officers are seen with their knees on the man.

Before the confrontations started, the journalist in the video, Mike Stark, can be seen filming a parade Gillespie was attending. At that point, a police officer tells him to “stay on the sidewalk.” Stark is then seen telling the officer that he’s just doing his job, at which point the scuffle breaks out. Stark was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and, according to the video, was eventually freed on a $3,000 dollar bond. Gillespie’s campaign has had run-ins with Stark before, the journalist having been removed from another post-debate press scrum after pressing Gillespie on racism in his campaign messaging.

Republican Backlash Over Latino Victory Fund’s Anti-Gillespie Ad was Fierce. But Was It Justified?

Landon Shroder | November 1, 2017

Topics: Ed Gillespie, governor's race, Latino Victory Fund, Ralph Northam, virginia

The political backlash from Virginia Republicans to an ad released by the Latino Victory Fund (LVF’s) was swift, and it was fierce, so much so that the advertisement was pulled only a day after it was released. The minute-long ad shows a menacing white man driving a pickup truck with a “Don’t tread on me” license plate and a Confederate flag flying. The man then proceeds to terrorize minority children in some nondescript suburban neighborhood. As the ad closes, it is revealed that the children are only dreaming, as a voice-over monotonously states, “Is this what Donald Trump and Ed Gillespie mean by the American Dream?” Images of Nazis marching through the streets of Charlottesville play on the television as the ad closes.

LVF Political Ad

There is so much to unpack in all of this. Where does one even begin? Virginia’s governor’s election is now a race to the bottom, pandering to the worst excesses of both bases. Did this ad unfairly characterize all Gillespie supporters? Probably. But only because contemporary politics is a zero-sum game and an exercise in mutually assured destruction. Was the Democratic mailer linking Gillespie to Trump and the white supremacists in Charlottesville a little bit over-dramatic? Probably. But only because modern political campaigns are more likely to draw from the scorched earth tactics of Genghis Khan than be an honest articulation of policy positions.

All politics is theatre, and in the US, that theatre is a non-stop reality show we are all forced to participate in – willing or unwillingly. Nonetheless, Republicans have excelled at fear-mongering in this election by taking a page out of President Trump’s playbook and keeping the rank and file’s gaze averted from the critical issues plaguing the Commonwealth. Instead of focusing on sea level rise, infrastructure development, Medicaid expansion, and criminal justice reform, we have MS-13, saving Confederate heritage, and giving fright over Governor Terry McAuliffe’s felon rights restoration program – widely considered to be a model for other states to follow.

A Washington Post Scholar-School Poll released yesterday found that 51 percent of all Virginias believe Gillespie is running a negative campaign compared to the 37 percent who believe the same of Northam. This is what makes Republican outrage over the LVF’s ad such an obvious sham. In a statement, the LVF has said, “We held a mirror up to the Republican Party, and they don’t like what they see.”

Latino Victory Fund Statement

It is hard to argue the LVF’s sentiment when Ed Gillespie’s flagship political ad was designed to scare white suburbanites and voters in rural spaces by parading images of Latin gang members’ tattooed faces with the words “rape, kill, control” plastered over them. Nor is the messaging the LVF ad brings to bear particularly missing the mark. Not when UCLA just published a report finding that stress, anxiety, and hostility is peaking in public schools throughout the US due to the political environment fostered by Trump and, by default, the Republican Party. The study, titled: Teaching and Learning in the Age of Trump: Increasing Stress and Hostility in America’s High Schools, has, among other things, found that 80 percent of all students were frightened for their well-being due to concerns over immigration, travel-bans, LGBTQ rights, and the environment. An additional 40 percent also said these concerns made it hard for them to focus on their education and even harder for them to go to school.

According to the Washington Post, the report cited a teacher from Ohio who said, “I had students stand up in the middle of class and directly address their peers with racial slurs.” She went on to say, “This is not something I have seen before.”

The messaging execution of the LVF’s ad could have probably been more succinct and less ethereal, but the overall message is not wrong. Which is why pulling the ad was an ill-advised strategy. It surrendered the moral and ethical high ground of the message to the worst excesses of the Republican Party – excesses that have prioritized fear-mongering and racist dog whistles throughout this campaign season. Those excesses were on full display yesterday via Facebook, where the Virginia GOP condemned the ad as racist (against who?) and went so far as to get six minority members of the party to demonstrate their full outrage – a tried and true tactic that always appeases the conservative base. However, pushing a narrative that white people are somehow the victim of racism is the foundation by which white nationalists, supremacists, and the alt-right continue to grow their movement.

That this narrative has become an open mainstay of the Virginia GOP should deeply concern everyone. Yet in an election cycle where the violence perpetrated by white supremacists is on the forefront of everyone’s mind, being able to divert the conversation away from the root causes of hate and bigotry is how the Republican Party has been able to shirk their share of the responsibility for its growth. This is also how they have been able to hijack the conversation Democrats should have been leading for all Virginians.

Virginia GOP Response to LVF Ad

Virginia is one week away from the election, and whatever the outcome the levels of rhetoric, divisiveness, and fear-mongering will have irreparably shaped the face of modern Commonwealth politics. Given the atmosphere which has been created by this election cycle, it is unlikely that Virginia will be able to reconcile overmuch. Everyone has now taken a side and as a result, entrenchment and intractability is the status quo everyone should expect for the next four years in Virginia.

 

Virginia Politics Sponsored by F.W. Sullivans

 

President Trump Tweets Support for Ed Gillespie, Says Ralph Northam Supports MS-13

RVA Staff | October 6, 2017

Topics: Commonwealth, Donald Trump, Ed Gillespie, governor's race, Ralph Northam, Virginia Elections

In a tweet posted at 10:00pm, President Donald Trump chided Democratic nominee Ralph Northam for supporting the Central American gang MS-13. The tweet simply said, “Ralph Northam, who is running for Governor of Virginia, is fighting for MS-13 killer gangs & sanctuary cities. Vote Ed Gillespie!”

This tweet comes on the heels of a recent attack ad by Republican nominee Ed Gillespie, who claimed that Northam, “voted in favor of sanctuary cities that let dangerous illegal immigrants back on the street, increasing the threat of MS 13.”

MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, is a criminal gang that has a presence in the Northern Virginia and Washington DC area. Trump’s remarks and Gillespie’s attack ad are entirely misleading, however, since the majority of MS-13 violence has been committed by American citizens who are members of the gang. Additionally, their violent activities only make up around one percent of total gang activity in the US.

This is the first time that Trump has seriously weighed in on the Virginia gubernatorial election. The governor’s election, which is one of only two in an off-year election season, is widely considered to be a referendum on Trump’s presidency to date. Gillespie was originally elusive on courting support from the president, but after a near loss to populist primary challenger Corey Stewart – a former Trump surrogate – Gillespie slowly started to switch strategies in the direction of the president. Regardless, polling on the governor’s race varies, with some having Northam up by about 13 percent, while others have the contest closer to 5 percent.

Mayor Levar Stoney & Lt Governor Ralph Northam support removal of Confederate statues

RVA Staff | August 16, 2017

Topics: anti-racist, Confederate monuments, Democrats, governor's race, Ralph Northam

This is a developing story.

The debate over whether Virginia’s monuments should be preserved in museums or preside over public streets just took a sharp turn. Both Democratic candidate for Governor Ralph Northam and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney released statements today signaling their support for the removal of Richmond’s Confederate statues.

In his statement, Northam said that as governor he would work with localities on the contentious issue over Confederate monuments, but ultimately concluded with, “I believe these statues should be taken down and moved into museums.”

Richmond’s Mayor Levar Stoney echoed a similar sentiment in a Facebook post only a short time ago, stating, “These monuments should be part of our dark past and not of our bright future. I personally believe they are offensive and need to be removed. But I believe more in the importance of dialogue and transparency by pursuing a responsible process to consider the full weight of this decision.” He concluded his post with, “Effective immediately, the Monument Avenue Commission will include an examination of the removal and/or relocation of some or all of the confederate statues.”

Mayor Stoney’s Facebook Post

Support for the removal of Confederate monuments has reverberated throughout the South after last weekend’s domestic terrorist incident at the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. This attack left counter-protestor Heather Heyer dead and 19 others wounded. Since then, there have been repeated calls for the removal of these monuments from public spaces including one from Norfolk’s Mayor Kenny Alexander today. This followed a Tuesday vote in Baltimore’s City Council where they unanimously agreed to remove their Confederate monuments. The work was carried out under the cover of darkness, finishing in the early hours of Wednesday morning – four in total were removed. 

*Will McLeod and Landon Shroder contributed to this report. 

 

 

 

 

Supporting marijuana decriminalization in Virginia

RVA Staff | August 1, 2017

Topics: decriminalization, Ed Gillespie, governor's race, prohibition, Ralph Northam, weed

One of the ever-present issues in 2017 is the debate surrounding marijuana decriminalization and legalization. As support for marijuana increases nationally, legislators have been forced to respond by modernizing their positions.

Republicans used to be united in their opposition to drug legalization, but it has become a divisive topic in the conservative ranks, especially with more Libertarian-leaning Republicans like Senator Rand Paul calling for an end for the war on drugs. Democrats have already been in favor of marijuana reform for some time, due to known racial disparities in arrests and what is seen as an misappropriated use of police resources away from violent crime.

Ralph Northam, the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia and current Democratic nominee for Governor has come out much more in favor of marijuana reform than his GOP counterparts, although not as progressive as his primary election opponent Tom Perriello – according to a report card released by The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).

Nonetheless, according to the MPP report card Northam’s Republican opponent Ed Gillespie, scored a solid D, while he received a respectable B only falling short of Perriello due to a lack of detailed responses to the whole questionnaire.

Based on statements made by Northam, his understanding of the issue is not just predicated on his experience as a medical doctor, but also in acknowledging the disproportionate arrest rate of African Americans at a rate of almost 3 to 1.

In an interview with RVA Mag’s Transmission series during the primary, he came out in strong support of decriminalization of marijuana, claiming, “There are far too many people who use marijuana who end up in our courts, jails, and penitentiaries…there is also an inequality out there. African Americans are 2.8 times more likely to be arrested and put in jail for marijuana. So I’m all about decriminalizing marijuana.”

                 

The Gillespie campaign denied RVA Mag’s requests for information on the Republican nominee’s stance towards marijuana. However, the MPP gave him a D rating because he, “opposes decriminalization and adult-use, and his position on medical marijuana is unknown.”

Regardless, Gillespie’s communications director, David Abrams, claimed that the candidate is in favor of, “exploring reforms to make sure that penalties align appropriately to the offense committed,” and “is evaluating whether legalizing medicinal marijuana is right for Virginia and talking to people about it before deciding his policy.”

Despite this, planks related to marijuana decriminalization don’t appear anywhere in the issues section of his campaign website, and it appears that this statement is one of a very few on drug policy.

However, understanding how decriminalization and the reform needed to implement it works, requires a deeper understanding of the issue beyond just campaign talking points. In April, Virginia’s State Crime Commission agreed to undertake a study that assesses weather Virginia should decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.

The Virginia branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (Virginia NORML) is based in Richmond and has been one of the most stalwart proponents of marijuana legalization for decades.

Yet Jenn Michelle Pedini, executive director of the organization, believes that Virginia is making progress on marijuana reform, although slowly.

In March of this year, Gov. Terry McAullife signed two marijuana reform bills, one which allows discretion in suspending people’s drivers licenses who are caught with small amounts of drugs, while the other allows pharmaceutical companies to manufacture and produce cannabidiol oil and THC-A oil to treat epilepsy – a first step towards potentially legalizing medicinal marijuana.

“It is limited only to one condition, which is intractable epilepsy,”said Pedini. “So we do not want to follow the route that other states have taken, where they have to come back year after year after year, and revise their code, wasting legislative hours and thousands of dollars trying to decide which patients deserve access this year and which patients still deserve jail. That’s nonsense; we don’t do that with any other healthcare issue.”

Medicinal Marijuana Oil. Photo by Medical Marijuana Exchange

This sentiment was reinforced up by Daniel Rouleau, the organization’s communications director. He explained that despite over half of the 50 states having access to medical cannabis, “we… [Virginia] still criminalize legal medical access and any adult access.”

The racial dynamics of how marijuana enforcement is implemented throughout law enforcement also remains a priority for NORML. Similar to the viewpoint of the Democratic candidates, Pedini addressed the disparity in arrests despite it being well known that people of all races use marijuana at equal rates.

“While we know across the racial spectrum, people use cannabis at similar rates, in Virginia, African-Americans are three times more likely to be arrested for possession than whites are,” said Pedini. “In some municipalities, it’s as high as eight times as much…and we do understand that this is simply an exercise in implicit bias. The reason we know that, is because even post-decriminalization, while the number of arrests will decrease drastically, the disparity rate will not change.”

The implicit bias Pedini refers to is the way the police interacts with the community. Rouleau explained that, “If all the police go to a certain area in town, then they’re going to catch stuff that happens in that part of town more often.”

This is tied to a history of housing discrimination that has confined low income people and communities of color to certain areas. He further described a situation in which police will often wait outside of these communities and wait for people to come outside and smoke marijuana, allowing them to be easily targeted.

Crime Graph from Washington Post

“Guess who’s easy to catch? People who are standing outside,” said Rouleau. “If you’re in a wealthy area, you can go to your garage, to your parents’ shed, to your buddy’s house. And it’s kind of tied to properties.” He continued, If you’re lower income, it’s easy policing. Let’s go to where everyone’s standing outside. So we don’t have to get this Fourth Amendment search, we don’t have to proceed through all these constitutional barriers because people have to expose themselves.”

Rouleau said that this strategy is “essentially lazy policing.”

Cindy Cutler, a prominent leader of Decriminalize Norfolk, has always had an interest in criminal justice reform and has been with the organization for almost two years. After reading some articles in the Washington Post and Huffington Post, she discovered that Norfolk had one of the highest arrest rates in the country for people of color.

Speaking with Norfolk Sheriff Joe Baron, she found that all but five out of 86 of the inmates in Norfolk arrested for marijuana possession were African American. When she brought this up to Mayor Kenneth Alexander, he promised to work on marijuana reform with her.

“[Alexander] invited the Speaker, Senator Norment to their annual legislative dinner last year, and that’s where he made a statement [supporting decriminalization],” said Cutler. She said that her organization has 100 percent of the City Council’s support.

Cutler supports Northam’s campaign for governor and his policies on marijuana reform.

This has translated into support for the Democratic nominee for Governor. “I’ve been following Ralph Northam for the last 10 years,” she said. “He’s been a great senator, a lieutenant governor, and he’ll make a great governor. He was the first of all the candidates, including the Democratic candidates, to state that we should decriminalize.”

Cutler recounted Northam’s background as a physician and the first of the gubernatorial candidates, including the Democratic ones, to champion the need for doctors to recommend medical cannabis. She sees this as proof of him knowing what he is talking about and his dedication to working for decriminalization. On the other hand, she sees Gillespie as being a step backwards on drug policy.

“I don’t believe that Gillespie agrees with decrim or medical,” she said. “I think he was the only [gubernatorial candidate] that didn’t agree with anything.”

Read more of RVA Mag’s coverage on marijuana reform below:

“The Highs and lows of weed decriminalization in VA via Radio IQ”

*David Pettyjohn and Landon Shroder contributed to this article. 

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