IN THE NEWS: Mobilized and Politicized: Governor Glenn Youngkin is sending 100 National Guard troops to the southern border in Texas next month, a move that will cost milions every month, and which critics say is politically motivated. The Budget Standoff Continues: Everyone involved in the negotiatons for Virginia's budget amendment is waiting for the June 20th primary deadline to pass...and with many state reps involved in active primary fights, the Democrats reluctant to give Youngkin a win, and both parties hoping for a shake-up that'll bring the next General Assembly in their favor, it's unlikely we'll see a deal in the next few weeks at all. The War of Wireless Aggression: The Prince William County Board of Supervisors is considering a huge data center next door to the Manassas Battlefield, a proposal that is raising alarm among people who are concerned about urbanization of rural land. Others say data centers bring in huge revenue for local governments. At the Watercooler: - The Mountain Valley Pipeline may well move be moving forward after all--eminent domain and all - Six Virginia newspapers are moving from a daily model to three days a week

Episode Transcript

Michael Pope  

I'm Michael Pope. 

Thomas Bowman  

I'm Tom Bowman. 

Michael Pope  

And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast that has only two weeks until the primary. Thomas, Can you believe it's only two weeks away?

Thomas Bowman  

I cannot believe that it's only two weeks away. This is going to potentially be an earth-shaking primary. As we heard from our last interview guests.

Michael Pope  

Yes, yes, it's going to be quite the primary one to remember. So that's right around the corner, and stick with Pod Virginia because we will have all the results after the primary. So, for now, let's get to the news. 

Mobilize and politicized Governor Glenn Youngkin is sending 100 Virginia National Guard troops to the southern border in Texas next month. A move that critics say is politically motivated. But he's not the first Virginia governor who used his powers as commander-in-chief in a way that still invites controversy. Shortly after world war two, workers at the Virginia Electric and power company wanted better working conditions, so they organized a strike. The governor at the time was a lawyer from Halifax County named Bill Tuck, a Bryd machine governor who decided it was a threat that demanded action.

Governor Bill Tuck  

The Virginia Electric Power Company served about two-thirds of the state, including the capital, and it was essential for those lights to stay on.

Thomas Bowman  

That was former Governor Bill Tuck reminiscing about the VEPCO affair about 20 years later. His solution to the problem was to conscript the employees of VEPCO, now owned by Dominion Energy, into the state militia.

Governor Bill Tuck  

We had an unorganized militia in Virginia, which in an emergency — and certainly an emergency existed, and I declared one to exist, which I had a right to do under the law — that in an emergency the governor could draft every male person between 16 and 55 into the unorganized militia to meet the emergency.

Michael Pope  

And that's exactly what he did, threatening all the potentially striking workers with a court martial if they failed to show up for work. Now that might have been a legally suspect way of doing things, but the threat worked because the strike never materialized. And Governor Tuck followed it up the following year with the infamous right-to-work law, which forever undermined the power of unions in Virginia. Thomas, we've talked about the Bryd machine on this podcast many times. If you want to know more about the VEPCO affair, you can buy my book because I have a whole chapter about it. But there is a really interesting similarity here between the way Governor Tuck handled conscripting people into the state militia to handle this labor issue with Governor Youngkin sending 100 Virginia National Guard troops to the southern border. 

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, and Michael, I've been checking in with friends and family who are in the National Guard or active military just to see what they think about this. And pretty universally. People are horrified that the governor is ripping these guardsmen away from their families for a political stunt. These people have to be deployed. 100 of them are going. They don't get a choice; obviously, they're shipping out, and they're going to, I guess, service. The governor has political aspirations and ambitions for a made-up crisis in Texas...

Michael Pope  

To the tune of $3 million, like a month. I mean like this, this is not cheap. I mean, this is these are lives that we're disrupting and money that we're spending. The governor says there is this Fentanyl crisis; there is a Fentanyl crisis. And this is one way to combat the crisis. I'm not. I'd like to see some more data on that. I mean, I'm not exactly sure sending 100 Virginia National Guard troops to the southern border will do anything for the Fentanyl crisis.

Thomas Bowman  

No, it won't. But what would help the Fentanyl crisis would be to? I don't know; legalize marijuana so people have a nonopioid form of pain reliever. Yeah. Fentanyl is absolutely serious, absolutely hollowing people out. But, Michael, I don't know how well you've looked into some of these claims. But many of them are manufactured.

Michael Pope  

Also, keep in mind when the governor of Texas, Republican governor of Texas, did this call out for troops to be sent to the southern border. It was with the expectation that the post-pandemic change to immigration would send this flood of people to the southern border. Well, that never materialized. And yet we're sending people anyway. The timing on this seems really weird because like everyone was worried about this huge crisis and this huge number of people showing up at the border. And then we learned, oh, maybe this crisis that we expected to happen isn't actually happening after all. And now, after all of that is said and done. At that time, the governor wants to send 100 troops. I mean, the timing on this is kind of strange.

Thomas Bowman  

It is strange. But it's less strange when you realize that just a little while ago, what was it about a month ago, Ron DeSantis sent 800 troops. So Youngkin has to at least get his in so that he can stay viable or pretend like he wants to be a viable candidate, even though he's got absolutely no operation right now in the early stages.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, this sort of DeSantis versus Younkin, kind of low-level conflict, will be kind of a theme for this podcast because we're going to talk about this in a different circumstance here in a second, but you have to kind of feel for Youngkin because he's trying to appeal to the space and he's got the Republican governor of Florida can send 800 troops where he's only sending 100. You get the sense that he wants to be part of the game here. He wants to be part of the discussion. But so far, it's a much smaller part of the discussion than Ron DeSantis.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, for multiple generations, Virginians have been very clear. We all want to do things the way Florida does them, or any other state in the Deep South; Virginia and North Carolina are very similar in that way. And I have a feeling that Glenn Youngkin is going to eventually learn this lesson the hard way. Virginians don't like this type of crap.

Michael Pope  

Well, let's move on to our next story. 

The standoff continues. When Tim Kaine was governor, members of the General Assembly went down to the wire with budget negotiations that resolved at the last possible minute, only a few hours before the new fiscal year on July 1st. Now, in a biblical turn of phrase, I guess you could say that Kaine was able. Kaine's former Chief of Staff, Bill Leighty, appeared on our recent podcast. He details that experience in the case administration in his new book Capital Secrets, explaining that the time crunch really shaped the contours of the deal.

Bill Leighty  

It influences things greatly, especially from the perspective of the governor's use of the veto pen and amendments. Because we knew we couldn't amend or veto anything because it would require it to go back to committee in the House. So we just had to sign the budget.

Thomas Bowman  

Now the current governor is waiting for senior members of the money committees to send over their amendments to the current budget. Former Republican Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling says that the current standoff is driven in part by the governor's own presidential ambitions.

Bill Bolling  

As long as Youngkin is talking about possibly being a presidential candidate in 2024, Democrats don't want to give him any victories that he can carry to Iowa or New Hampshire potentially and talk about what a great job he did in giving tax relief to the people of Virginia.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, so the budget negotiations seem to have stalled for now. And no action is expected until after the primary. So there's actually not a huge window. The primaries are on June 20th, and the fiscal year ends on June 30th. So they got about 10 days after the primary if they want to meet that July 1st deadline. But that July 1st deadline might come and go with no action at all. In a previous podcast, you heard some members of the General Assembly say, we don't mean that July 1st deadline is the beginning of the new fiscal year. But that's not the only opportunity to amend the existing budget. They could come back around and amend the budget in September if they wanted to or in October. 

Thomas Bowman  

There's not a lot of incentive right now for Democrats to try to negotiate. If you think about the Republicans having the House and the executive branch. Democrats have the Senate, and think about the upheaval we're looking at in the Senate. You've got the chairman of Senate Finance, Janet Howell, retiring. You've got George Barker, who wants to be chairman of Senate Finance...

Michael Pope  

Oh, he wants it, and Louise Lucas also wants to be chair. 

Thomas Bowman  

Both of which are in a fight for their political lives. This primary season so, you know, they're not working on the budget. They're trying to get reelected so they can continue working on future budgets. Michael, you've also got Creigh Deeds and a primary with Sally Hudson. John Edwards is retiring. David Marsden was also in the fight for his political life. Jennifer McClellan is gone; in Congress now. You've got Tommy Normant on his way out. Chap Peterson, we just heard from his opponent on Thursday, again, in a fight for his political life. Saslaw is on his way out, retiring. Vogel is on her way out, retiring. So that's the Senate Finance Committee, almost every single member of it, with a few exceptions.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, I would imagine a significant number of those people that are on the current Senate Finance Committee, as you pointed out, a significant number of them are in very competitive primary elections right now. And so their time and attention is kind of distracted, and then you got a bunch of people who are leaving. So the dynamics of the next Senate Finance Committee will be different. However, assuming that there is a deal, it's going to be these lame-duck members that are going to make the decision on this, right?

Thomas Bowman  

Well, that would be the traditional way of doing things; yes, you're absolutely right, Michael. But we also got a clue from that same interview with Senator Surovell that they may not have a deal until even after the general election. So why could that be? Well, think about this, what I just mentioned, how stacked the leverage is or how little leverage, kind of everybody has in this situation right now to get what they want. And so we're gonna see how the primary shakes out in a couple of weeks. And then, depending on how that goes, the members may or may not feel like cutting a deal. And also, they may want to wait until after the general election. If the gamble among the Democrats is they think that could take the House chamber, too. And that would really weaken the bargaining position of House Republicans.

Michael Pope  

You know, I was also taken by what former Lieutenant Governor Bolling said in that interview that, you know, there's another layer of this, which is young and running for president. So the Senate Democrats do not want to give him any wins where he can go on the campaign trail and say, look how all these taxes that are lowered. And so there's another layer of this, which is they're just Senate Democrats who want to deny Youngkin the ability to have a win here, right?

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, that's also true. This is the Washington Association of Virginia politics that a lot of political old-timers have been dreading. But they're effective. It's Newt Gingrich who pioneered it in Washington. And now these tactics are coming back to bite everybody. 

Michael Pope  

One win that Younkin can score for the victory books is that the sweater vest look has really taken off. Thomas, did you see Governor DeSantis wearing a sweater vest branded with his campaign logo last week?

Thomas Bowman  

Yes. And one reason that might be happening is that Jeff Rowe of Axiom Strategies moved on to team DeSantis.

Michael Pope  

Hmm, it's the sweater vest primary, ah.

Thomas Bowman  

Almost like it's a planned strategy to humanize people who are completely out of touch by putting in what everybody knows that only douchebags wear sweater vests. 

Michael Pope  

Well, no, that's not true. I'm sure there are. They're entirely upstanding people that wear sweater vests. I don't want to disparage an entire group of people.

Thomas Bowman  

Well, okay, hold on. Think about Florida when you live there. How big of a market for sweater vests can there possibly be in Florida?

Michael Pope  

Actually, when I moved to Virginia from Florida, I owned exactly zero sweaters. I mean, forget about sweater vests for a second. I just I'd never. I didn't know any sweaters. There were none in my wardrobe. But you know where they are useful, though, is Iowa and New Hampshire.

Thomas Bowman  

Ahhh, that's right. And so that's what they're trying to do. This plays into a bigger strategy around sweater vests, and you know, I'm still kind of hungry for the idea of a Pod Virginia sweater vest, but that'd be fun. 

Michael Pope  

So hungry. You're making a meal out of this.

Thomas Bowman  

Well, Michael, I think we should move on to the next story because there's no way we have anything productive to say after that.

Michael Pope  

The war of wireless aggression. The Prince William County Board of Supervisors is currently considering a huge data center next to the Manassas Battlefield, a proposal that's raising alarm bells among people who are concerned about the urbanization of rural land. Others say data centers bring in huge revenues for local governments, that again, All's fair in love and war-related national landmarks. Kyle Hart is a Program Manager at the National Parks Conservation Association.

Kyle Hart  

It was an extremely significant location that caused it to become this site and have to have these different battles. Unfortunately, in today's modern times, the DC area continues to grow. That puts Manassas National Battlefield at sort of the forefront of really bad development ideas.

Thomas Bowman  

Honestly, rapid development is a real pain in Manassas. Earlier this year, members of the General Assembly considered a bill that would have asked state regulators to take a close look at data centers for things like stormwater runoff and the potential drain on the power grid. That bill was opposed by Governor Glenn Youngkin. Local governments, industry captains, and one labor group even said this in a committee hearing,

Lou Spencer  

Lou Spencer, United Association Local Union Number 5. We oppose the bill because we really enjoy building data centers.

Michael Pope  

They're making it sound fun like you're building a Lego set or something. So next door in Fairfax County, the Board of Supervisors is considering new rules about where data centers can be constructed and what kind of requirements are needed, essentially tightening the rules to prevent data centers. So we've talked, Thomas; you and I have talked about data centers before; this is already a huge issue and will clearly continue to be a huge issue for a long time to come. Northern Virginia is the global capital of data centers all over the world. And there's, there's no shortage of the need here. As people become increasingly tied to their phones and their computers and all of the other accessories that use the internet, they will need all this data. So it's one of those classic sorts of not-in-my-backyard things like you need the data centers, but you don't want them in your backyard or, in this case, adjacent to a Civil War battlefield.

Thomas Bowman  

Right, and Michael, this is a situation where the federal government is driving the development agenda here. If you think about who these data centers generally are for the end user, no matter who the intervening companies are, the end user in Northern Virginia tends to be the defense industry or a defense adjacent industries. Also, in finance, you want to be close to a big city because you got a hub in Washington, DC, where all you know, it's a mecca of power. You've got plenty of financial gurus there. They can't, or they need these data centers close to them physically. So there's this weird trade-off where they're doing with actuarial tables, some, some calculation that tells them okay, well, if we can put it in this plot of land over in, let's say, Fairfax, or Loudoun County, then we can still get the low latency requirements we're looking for via proximity and service our clients in the DC area. So that really makes Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William ground zero for a lot of these data centers. And we're just running out of green space. So some of the last green space we're looking at is adjacent to these battlefields. 

Michael Pope  

This is a really important battlefield. I mean, I think Gettysburg is probably the most famous battlefield of the Civil War. But this is like the second most famous battlefield. So it's like very, very important for, you know, people who are into preserving these battlefields that this particular battlefield be preserved. And you know, this is not the first time this has happened. Years ago, there was a developer that wanted to build a mall there, the Williams Center Mall. Well, the battlefield advocates one, and there is no William Center Mall today. And then a few years later, there was a proposal for a county Parkway, and then the battlefield advocates said, well, the battlefield advocates, and they fought it. And so it's really interesting here the First Battle of Bull Run here, the battlefield advocates one, and the Second Battle of Bull Run, the battlefield advocates also one. So if the past is prologue, this data center might not have a good time.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, we'll see. I still put the odds on the federal government getting their way in the long run, or if not the federal government, big powerful companies and industries like the defense industry, or like Amazon; a lot of these are Amazon web servers, data centers, the mountain valley pipeline, or another one you could book data centers. Yeah, they're gonna win in the long run, most likely, but then I would also throw in there Michael, as somebody who grew up actually right around the corner from Bull Run battlefield. My parents still live there. How many people who are under 40 Really actually care about preserving battlefields, specifically Civil War battlefields that end up being a monument to an at least in this state often don't wind up being a monument to the South? A lot of us don't really want that. So I can tell.

Michael Pope  

You are one person who's under 40 who cares about this quite a lot, and her name is Delegate Danica Roem.

Thomas Bowman  

Who represents people who are over 40. And she's doing her job. But as far as the individuals go, not a lot of people under 40 really care about preserving these types of sites. So this is my prediction. I don't know how long this will take to play out. But I think this is going to be less and less impactful of an argument. But in the meantime, there is a lot to consider in the conservation space. And I think the eventual solution will be in the building code itself, right. So people don't really object to a data center.

Michael Pope  

That's what Fairfax County is doing. They're putting all kinds of rules about, like, the proximity to a battlefield and the power requirements and the stormwater runoff that's involved.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, so they'll sort that out. There are a couple considerations there. So, we care about what these data centers look like, look like on the outside. That's just exterior work that you know, so okay, we don't want a big old monolith structure. That's an eyesore for the community that has to see it. All right, so you just design one in a way that's not going to be an eyesore. Did you know that there are power stations hidden in Arlington and Alexandria that are wrapped around with structures that make it look like they're inside of a building, or there's a building there where there's not really a building there? This is something that we actually do in urban development a lot. But Fairfax County, the way Fairfax got developed and loud and got developed, was parceled off dairy farms, you know, piecemeal. And so there was not really any central plan to the development there until more recently, and so now that's what they're working out, and fossil fuels, by the way. Specifically, natural gas winds up powering a ton of these data centers. Just far and away, these things around the country are powered by the natural gas industry. Some of these new data centers are being powered by 100% renewable energy because those big companies like Amazon, Meta, Google, and Walmart even, they are demanding that the power that supplies these data centers come from clean energy, and that's helping the rest of us out on the grid. 

Michael Pope  

Well, there are two companies that have a business interest here, Compass Datacenters and QTS Data Centers. Those are the two companies that have this proposal next to the Manassas battlefield. And we will be following this here in terms of what happens with the Prince William County Board of Supervisors and what happens with this particular data center and future data centers because I know this is going to be a topic that will be on the agenda for years to come. Alright, let's take a break. When we come back, we will play around with trivia and read your tweets.

All right, we're back on pod Virginia, and it's time to play a round of trivia. So last week, we asked you about the state insect. I hope that question didn't bug you. So Thomas, what is the state insect?

Thomas Bowman  

The answer is the Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly. 

Michael Pope  

Oh, wonderful, wonderful-looking butterfly. So you know this particular insect is also the state insect for the Carolinas and Alabama. But I guess the streak ends with Mississippi.

Thomas Bowman  

Where the state insect there is a football

Michael Pope  

And we have a winner Jessica Schneider. Thanks for playing, and thanks for giving us the correct answer, which is the Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, actually, a lot of people got this one right, but only one person got it right first. I also had some really funny responses to this one. John Brown suggested that the official insect of Virginia should become the union bug which I loved.

Michael Pope  

Yes, the union bug. That's great. That's a joke that has the right to work out. I also love the suggestion from Hope Nelson that the official state insect should be the Arlington hissing cockroach.

Thomas Bowman  

Aren't all the cockroaches in Arlington hissing?

Michael Pope  

Fun fact about Florida. Cockroaches in Florida have wings; they can actually fly.

Thomas Bowman  

Just when you thought Florida was the craziest state, it just keeps getting weirder. And proving why Virginians don't want to be in Florida.

Michael Pope  

Floridians are also called the Flying cockroaches, or Palmetto bugs, which is actually just a kind, the more polite way of saying cockroach. So it's just kind of making them seem a little more pleasant because you got to live with the damn things. So, you know, we would love to have prizes for people that get the correct answer. So Jessica Schneider, you know, I guess she won our trivia contest, but so we want to give her a prize. Sadly, Thomas, I think our lawyers are still looking at this. They're so slow for our legal team; we really need to have a faster legal team. So we do have some options, though, in terms of the prizes. Option one is the sequel to Natalie Portman's V for Vendetta; it's called V Four Vetoing.

Thomas Bowman  

Option two. All right, and we've asked our lawyer to look at this one. A deed to build a data center in the middle of Shenandoah National Park.

Michael Pope  

That one's gonna get caught up and legal for a long time, I think. All right, so option three is a Holland Oats CD single about Arlington cockroaches because your hiss is on my lips. 

Thomas Bowman  

Nice.

Michael Pope  

Alright, so let's move on to our trivia question for next week. All right, we're on a roll here with the official state symbol. So let's move on to a fun one. What is the official State Liquor of Virginia?

Thomas Bowman  

That's right. Virginia has an official State liquor.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, it's actually the official word is spirit. It's the official, it's the Virginia spirit, the official spirit of Virginia. But yes, Virginia does indeed have a State liquor, and fun fact; I actually had some of this official liquor last weekend to celebrate a birthday of a good friend of mine. 

Thomas Bowman  

Wait, hold on a second. The spirit of Virginia sounds really familiar. Where have I heard the spirit of Virginia before?

Michael Pope  

You know, that's based on Spirit in the Sky, which is one of his campaign songs.

Thomas Bowman  

 Alright, well, this one might involve some personal investigation. I think I'm gonna have to try a lot of the liquors and spirits, I should say, that are made in Virginia.

Michael Pope  

Yes, definitely, well, I'll meet you at the bar. But before we do that, let's check out some listener mail. All right, Thomas. Go ahead and open up that Pod Virginia mailbag. What are our listeners talking about? 

Thomas Bowman  

Endorsements? 

Michael Pope  

Of course, they are. 

Thomas Bowman  

Our discussion of endorsements last week really sparked a lot of discussions online. 

Michael Pope  

Yes, it did. Yeah.

Thomas Bowman  

And one of our listeners was interested in our discussion of endorsements in the primary between Senator Creigh Deeds and delegate Sally Hudson; usually, House members endorsed the house candidate, and senators endorsed the Senator.

Michael Pope  

Yes, that's usually how things work. House members endorsed their friend, and the House candidate senators endorsed their friend, the Senator, but that's not how things are working in this race. Senator Deeds has a much longer list of endorsements from House members. So that's a really interesting development you want to watch. Perhaps the most important distinction between these two rival groups of House candidates is the deeds that have the support of former Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn. And Hudson has the support of House Leader Don Scott.

Thomas Bowman  

Our listener texted us to point out last week that Sally Hudson was part of the queue that unseated Eileen Filler-Corn from the leadership.

Michael Pope  

Some hard feelings aren't going around here.

Thomas Bowman  

It could be that she just decided to run for the Senate after House Democrats rejected her bid for caucus chair. 

Michael Pope  

He also pointed out that two of the people endorsing Hudson are running for the Senate, Clint Jenkins and Jennifer Carroll Foy. So things could get really awkward. If so, imagine this scenario here Deeds ends up winning the primary, and it becomes, under one scenario Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. We talked earlier about how Barker wants to be Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Louise Lucas wants to be chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. There is a scenario where Deeds could end up being Chair of the Senate Finance Committee. So imagine this scenario. This is a very awkward scenario. Deeds ends up Chairman of the Finance Committee. And then you've got Senator Clint Jenkins or Senator Jennifer Carol Foy, who endorsed Sally Hudson; things could get really difficult for them around budget time. 

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, really hard as to our discussion about whether endorsements matter. And, you know, we should probably mention that we did a Twitter poll on this, and it was about 60/40. 60% of people will say that participants have never changed their vote once. They always knew who they were going to vote for. And then about 40% of people, technically 41% of people, again, of our Twitter followers. So this is not necessarily scientific. This is just the people who are listening to Pod Virginia. Then they said that, in at least one instance, it did change who they voted for so as to do the discussion about whether or not those endorsements matter. Pod Virginia superfan and Delegate Marcus Simon said this, he finds that voters are risk averse. They're afraid of accidentally voting for someone that's an impostor or an extremist endorsement from local electeds, he says specifically, is very valuable to voters who don't listen to Pod Virginia, which I can't imagine why there'd be any of them. 

Michael Pope  

I know really listened to Virginia, crazy. 

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah. And he finishes by saying they count on those of us who do guide them.

Michael Pope  

Well, true Pod Virginia listeners of the world unite. So another person that chimed in was Adam Short, who said this quote, people underestimate the impact of the principle that voters are reluctant to vote for a candidate they haven't heard of before, even if they know the person represents their party. That's why even when you're unopposed, you still need to introduce yourself to voters.

Thomas Bowman  

Amen to that. That Lincoln agreed with that sentiment, saying that from what he's seen out on the campaign trail this year, people are more likely to vote for someone who's known and liked locally versus someone new with a ton of endorsements from out of town

Michael Pope  

Out-of-town endorsements and out-of-town money are always fodder on the campaign trail. Max Shapiro chimed in with this quote, people who give money are the most likely to care about endorsements. Also, odds are any voter who knows the random state or local elected making the endorsement come with resources, which properly employed can affect the outcome.

Thomas Bowman  

That's true. Yeah. If you got endorsed by a group that didn't come with money, you might want to ask for their email list or to send out some fundraising emails to their email list. But speaking of endorsements, Michael, people loved our fake commercial for the Endorsement Emporium. 

Michael Pope  

Wait, that was fake. 

Thomas Bowman  

At least for now. Trivia contest winner Jessica Schneider posted this. You're cracking me up with the Endorsement Emporium spot. Seriously though, can we make this a thing, but only if it comes with money? Thanks for the laugh, guys.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, that endorsement. The important thing was really great. Shout out to our Advertising Sales manager, David O'Connell, whose voice you heard in that ad.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, also shout out to our friend, Sage Houston, who has joined us here at Jackleg Media, specifically helping Pod Virginia to help read some of the funnier lines that you hear in our podcast. All the

Michael Pope  

All the funny ones if you hear one. That's not funny. It's one of us. But if you hear something that laughed at her, so she also wrote the joke prize for the trivia contest last week where we talked about the sweater vests, so we had a joke about one of the potential prizes being a sweater vest for ERIC that said, Get out while you're Youngkin, yeah, that was pretty funny.

Thomas Bowman  

And because, No, we aren't that clever normally. Thanks, age.

Michael Pope  

All right. Well, if you like her jokes, please give her a shout-out on Instagram; you can find her @Sage of Innocence. And that brings us to a new segment that we call the rapid report, where we take you around the Commonwealth in 90 seconds.

Thomas Bowman  

Yes, once again, thank you, Sage. 

A VMI-associated paper. The cadet isn't hot water after one a journalistic integrity or that it may be didn't deserve. That's okay. It can always apply to the imaginary journalistic award, where you don't even need to cite sources.

Michael Pope  

Governor Youngkin continues to deny he's running for president in 2024. Despite many actions, Democrats are calling political stunts. Youngkin responded with what a political stunt never before, turning to the camera, giving a wink, and kissing a baby.

Thomas Bowman  

A school in Shenandoah County just finished paying the IRS $140,000. It was received by accident. Virginia is the only state where public schools fund government and not the other way around.

Michael Pope  

Coal in Roanoke is being sued by the Justice Department for ignoring over 100 violations. The company's owned by West Virginia Governor Jim Justice and his son Jay Justice. Honestly, this family just loves Jays so much, but they might be adding one more jail.

Thomas Bowman  

Nice. Thanks, Sage.

Michael Pope  

All right, let's head over to the water cooler. Thomas, what's the latest? You're hearing around the water cooler.

Thomas Bowman  

Michael, it looks like we might get stuck with the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia because they just signed that deal as of our recording last night.

Michael Pope  

Crazy. You know, it's really one of those things where the stakes were so high that it was impossible to say no to that deal because you didn't want to tank the economy. And yet there's this thing in it that a lot of your constituents don't like. And you know, keep in mind the mountain valley pipeline. In order to make it happen, you got to take people's land with eminent domain. And the land we're talking about here is low-income people who live in Appalachia. And so you're taking land from low-income people who live in Appalachia for fossil fuel pipelines so that corporate leaders can make a lot of money. I mean, the whole thing just was crazy.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, this one doesn't make a ton of sense to me. I don't know all the details of the pipeline. So yeah, we'll start there. But I will say this, right. So the Mountain Valley Pipeline is a great source of union labor jobs; they're gonna get 30 years of work off a mainline pipeline easily. But another consideration in my understanding of the mountain valley pipeline is that it's just a shortcut on the existing network. Unlike the Atlantic Coast pipeline, which was really creating new, narrow opinion, critical infrastructure that also the Obama administration said it wanted and it didn't happen. So I guess the federal government doesn't necessarily always win, but it looks like it's winning here. All right. Well, what about you, Michael? What are you hearing about the water cooler?

Michael Pope  

Newspapers. This is a really depressing Six newspapers in Virginia owned by Lee Enterprises are ditching their daily editions and moving on to a model where they publish three days a week that includes the Bristol Herald Courier, the Culpeper Star Exponent, the Danville Register & Bee, the Martinsville Bulletin, the Waynesboro News Virginian, and here's the kicker, this is the kick in the gut here. The Charlottesville Daily Progress. Think about this, Thomas; the Daily Progress will be publishing three days a week. I mean, like, this is a really sad, really sad if you're in the newspapers the way I am. This is a very, very sad development and not a good sign for the future of the news business in Virginia.

Thomas Bowman  

No, and Michael, I think our competition is cannibalizing itself. So now you can actually get a full week of news between Pod Virginia and some of these local papers. Yeah, well, we

Michael Pope  

Yeah, well, you and I have a media company Jackleg Media that is hoping to have other future podcasts under our umbrella. So if you're at one of these newspapers, and you want to move to a model that moves from newspapers to podcasting, hit us up because we would love to tell our listeners what's going on in Culpeper and Danville and Martinsville and Waynesboro and in Charlottesville where they will no longer have a daily, no longer have a daily newspaper in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, you know what? We didn't plan this, but we might as well put a call out there. One of the things we've talked about is bringing in correspondents who can cover more of this Commonwealth so that Michael and I don't need to be experts on what's going on everywhere. So that if that's something that you might be interested in, hit us up at Pod Virginia at Jackleg media.com. All right. Let's