IN THE NEWS:

Virginia is the capital of gun trafficking in America according to data compiled by the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco showing Virginia has the shortest time to crime ratio. That’s the amount of time between the last known legal purchase of a firearm and its use in the commission of a crime.

Norfolk is considering a proposal to install 35 acres of solar panels on a former landfill.

Governor Glenn Youngkin's campaign against the word "equity" continues, and he's now railing against environmental and social governance on corporate boards, also known as ESG. Last week he told reporters DEI and ESG have gone "off the rails."

At the Watercooler:
- Report cards from the Family Foundation and Repro Rising for the members of the General Assembly.

Episode Transcript

Michael Pope  

Michael Pope.

Thomas Bowman  

And I'm Tom Bowman.

Michael Pope  

And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast celebrating Armed Forces Day.

Thomas Bowman  

Michael, it's America. Isn't every day America Armed Forces Day?

Michael Pope  

America. Yeah. Note Harry Truman created Armed Forces Day back in 1949. It's the third Saturday in May. So it pairs nicely with last week. You will recall we had Military Spouses' Appreciation Day. So now we've got Armed Forces Day. So happy Armed Forces Day. Let's get to the news. We're number one in gun trafficking. Virginia is the capital of gun trafficking in America. That's the conclusion of data compiled by the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco, showing Virginia has the shortest time-to-crime ratio. That's the amount of time between the last known legal purchase of a firearm and its use in the commission of a crime. Philip Van Cleave at the Virginia citizens defense league says the solution to this problem is better law enforcement rather than new laws to prevent gun violence,

Philip Van Cleave  

Put him behind bars, get them off the streets. If you find somebody trafficking guns, lock him up for a long time so they can't keep doing it. That's all you can do. Gun control clearly isn't working here. 

Thomas Bowman  

Rob Wilcox at every town for Gun Safety says the ATF data is from 2017 to 2021, which means most of the period was before Virginia passed sweeping laws that crack down on gun violence. And before President Biden started taking action at the federal level.

Rob Wilcox  

It takes time and effort to implement gun laws and to crack down on road gun dealers. But the laws passed by Virginia will save lives, and the actions being taken by President Biden and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will identify and shut down rogue gun dealers.

Michael Pope  

So Virginia's time-to-crime ratio is 1.6 years, which is the shortest amount of time between the last known legal purchase of a gun and its use in the commission of a crime. So Virginia is leading America in a very bad way, with having the shortest time-to-crime ratio. Other states that have very short-time crime ratios are Michigan, Arizona, Mississippi, and Missouri. Interesting, if you look on the other end of the spectrum, the longest time-to-crime ratios are states like Hawaii, which I guess you would expect because of its isolation, but like Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland, they've got the longest time to crime ratio. So it feels like Virginia is the valedictorian here, the spotlights on us. We must give that stupid speech about following your dreams and persevering through hard times. But maybe in the future, Thomas Virginia could be the salutatorian. And like handover, the honor to Michigan or Arizona?

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, what's interesting about this is Virginia is the absolute worst. And that never goes well. Virginia doesn't like to be number one or number 50. And anything we like to be comfortable in the middle of the pack. And that's a policy that transcends individual issue areas. And so I would think most legislators would be really embarrassed that the so-called completely safe firearms sold in Virginia wind up in a crime about one and a half years later from the time they were sold, on average. I would be trying to cut down on this, but I'm also curious to see what the next set of data looks like. 

Michael Pope  

Yeah, actually, that's really important to point out because this, 1.6 years, is the shortest amount of time in terms of time to crime. However, that's a dataset that goes back from '17 to '21, 2017 to two 2021. So that's, obviously, a period of time before Democrats changed all Virginia's gun laws; it's a period of time before the Biden administration took action. And so, in the future, you would hope that Virginia has time-to-crime ratio would be longer. You point out Virginia does not like to be a leader in most things. And that's true. This is a really horrible thing to be a leader in gun trafficking. But hey, we're number one.

Thomas Bowman  

it had to happen eventually, Michael. And Virginia also has a really key role here in the iron pipeline. If you're not familiar with the Iron Pipeline, it's the route and the United States along 95 that is used to smuggle weapons from the mostly Southern States to the Mid-Atlantic States and New England, particularly those with stricter gun laws like New York and New Jersey. So we've got ports here in Hampton Roads, and the Port of Virginia, hypothetically, smuggling is happening. And so, therefore, it would be coming in through ports like that, naturally. It is shipped on trucks, or individuals are purchasing guns. They are taking it to parts North like New York and Boston, and then they are being sold to a criminal element and used in crimes there. They are guns that would not be illegal in those states due to stricter gun laws. And then Virginia, that's one of the reasons we had one handgun a month law for so long. And I think that got reinstated when the Democrats took power again, and that is going to do a lot to cut down on illegal trafficking because most of that was in handguns.

Michael Pope  

All right, let's move on to our next story. Trashy politics, solar panels on landfills now that's an idea now under consideration in Hampton Roads, where Norfolk is considering a proposal to install 35 acres of solar panels on a former landfill.

Thomas Turner  

This is a revenue opportunity for localities.

Michael Pope  

That's Thomas Turner at Conservative for Clean Energy.

Thomas Turner  

It would be beneficial to help you know to bring in new revenues that could go to whatever the government may need at a time or the school's firefights. Habitat for Humanity is using solar to help build homes and things like that. So it can become a really good tool to lower costs in many aspects.

Thomas Bowman  

Tim Cywinski at the Sierra Club actually agrees; he says that putting solar panels on landfills is a no-brainer.

Tim Cywinski  

The concept has been around for a long time. And there are many tangible benefits of putting solar panels in former landfills. Namely, it doesn't cause any pollution. It's using unused land that is not desirable for any other type of construction. And it's no noise. It's not really an eyesore, and it provides clean, cheap energy.

Michael Pope  

So yeah, if Virginia is going to put on solar panels here to create new energy, it's probably going to need many more acres of solar panels to meet the deadline from the Clean Economy Act, which was to have 100% renewable sources of energy by 2050.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, I love the irony of clean energy on dirty land.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, clean energy on a landfill of all places, and 35 acres of it. A lot of times, Thomas, when I see about solar panel projects, it's like two acres here or three acres there; 35 Acres is a lot of space for solar panels.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah. And you can actually calculate approximately how much electricity this is going to produce. There's a simple rule, it's generally, for every 100 square feet, you get a kilowatt from solar panels. So if you extrapolate that, this 35-acre solar farm should be able to make about 141 and a half megawatt hours of electricity every hour. And that's about 1.24 ish million-megawatt hours annually. So that's a substantial sum.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, and making money off of landfills is a pretty genius idea. It kind of reminds me of Mount Trashmore, some of our listeners might have been to Mount Trashmore is a City Park in Virginia Beach. That is an example of landfill reuse. They've taken this pile of trash, basically, and turned it into a city park where you can go and, you know, have a nice afternoon. So this seems like an interesting corollary here where you've got a landfill, and you're doing something good with it, and at the same time producing revenue for the local government. So like, it's a kind of win-win, win across the board.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, you know, they could really do a lot with this because if the state wants to build more solar panels on other unproductive and undesirable places, they could always try Capitol Square because there's plenty of garbage there, too. 

Michael Pope  

Woo, hi-hoo, all right. Let's get on to our final news story of the day. Off the rails, so when he was on the campaign trail, Governor Glenn Youngkin was critical of the word equity. Then when he became a governor, he took the word equity out of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. So now he is increasingly critical of efforts in the financial sector to improve environmental and social governance on corporate boards, also known as ESG. Last week, the Governor told reporters that DEI and ESG have gone off the rails, but that's an approach that might derail Virginia says US Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, and former Governor.

Mark Warner  

I believe in reflecting Virginia's diversity and making sure it's fully inclusive and making sure it's fair. Yeah, I think there are moral reasons for that. But I think there are plain old business 101 reasons.

Thomas Bowman  

Jatia Wrighten is a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who studies the political behavior of marginalized communities.

Jatia Wrighten  

The issue that Governor Younkin has with equity really ties back into this acknowledgment that our institutions, our opportunities, and our society generally are deeply and forever tied to a system of racism and sexism. 

Michael Pope  

What's really interesting about this is the role of Christopher Rufu. We talked about him last week. This is the guy that injected the debate over critical race theory into the national conversation. The interesting throughline, here are the acronyms, right? So people talked about CRT, this CRT that, if you tune into Fox News, they're always talking about CRT. And then his next target is diversity, equity, and inclusion, which people refer to as the acronym. So first of all, see CRT, then it was DEI. Now the new thing is going after ESG. So there really is something here to these acronyms. CRT, DEI, ESG. What do you make of this war on alphabet soup?

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, enlist for the war on acronyms if you want to have a pointless battle. 

Michael Pope  

For Armed Forces Day. 

Thomas Bowman  

So I guess we should clarify. ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance standards for businesses. And the reason that they're focusing and drilling down on the acronyms is they're counting on you not knowing what ESG actually is. So those ESG - Environmental, Social, and Governance standards they're voluntary guidelines; these guidelines help businesses measure and improve their impact on society and government. And a dirty secret of this is this was a PR invention, probably by some firm like Edelman. But that was definitely working for fossil fuel companies, 

Michael Pope  

The invention of ESG, you're talking about? 

Thomas Bowman  

Correct? Yeah. So it was a way to make dirty fossil fuel companies, specifically oil companies, look like they were actually doing good things that weren't just harming the planet. So frankly, the invention is PR bullshit, then it got adopted by the tech industry and other legitimate uses for ESG. And so, outside of the energy industry, you can really find some excellent examples of ESG. And what it boils down to is HR teams would object to getting rid of ESG because that's how they maintain a welcoming and inclusive workplace that helps them retain those employees. So you know, you want to feel good about where you work; those standards are driven, Michael, by consumer demand; they're not driven by government regulation. So businesses that adopt ESG respond to the preferences of customers, investors, and especially employees. 

Michael Pope  

Well, you know, who thought this idea of attacking ESG was really horrible. It was Senator Mark Warner; I actually asked him if you heard an audio there of me asking him about responding to the Governor's comments on DEI and ESG. And on the financial stuff, Mark Warner is a business guy, and he's on the Banking Committee. And he had a lot to say about the importance of ESG and the financial sector. So clearly, there's pushback to the Governor taking on this new war on acronyms here. However, I will also point out that his rival for the potential presidential nomination in Florida, DeSantis is one of his chief rivals. Here this something that he has put in the spotlight, as you know, is part of his war on wokeism, or whatever it is, he calls it right. So I think the Governor of Virginia has actually kind of, it seems like he's following suit here for what the Governor of Florida has been doing.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, he's another living falling off the cliff, the lemming in front of it, because by attacking ESG, Youngkin is actually attacking the free market, those principles he claims to support. So you know, those standards foster innovation and competitiveness, businesses that adopt ESG they're more likely to develop new products and services that address those social and environmental challenges. And those standards enhance risk management and resilience, which are really key buzzwords in corporate areas. So businesses that adopt ESG standards are more likely to avoid reputational damage and legal liabilities, as they reduce their chance for operational disruptions caused by environmental and social issues. Every Democrat and rival to Glenn Youngkin, who are also Republican, should be attacking Glenn Younkin for him abandoning the free market. This is an attack on business. Michael, I'm a buyer on ESG. Overall, I know we do buy, sell and hold; I'm a buyer because it becomes far more important as the impact of climate change makes itself obvious to the rest of us. I don't know what it's like where you are, but our climate zones are shifting up. So the South is getting hotter and hotter and hotter, and it's not going to be able to sustain life at some point. They're just not comfortable. 

Michael Pope  

All right. Well, let's take a break. Yeah,

Thomas Bowman  

We will be RB which is probably another acronym that Glenn Youngkin is gonna try to kill.

Michael Pope  

BRB, be right back. When we come back, we will play a round of trivia and read your tweets.

And we're back on pod Virginia. And it's time for some trivia. So last week, we asked you which British monarch was the first to call Virginia the Old Dominion. So Thomas, who was the guy who gave Virginia its state nickname.

Thomas Bowman  

The answer, of course, is King Charles II. 

Speaker 1  

King Charles II. Yeah, that's the guy who lives in exile after his father, Charles the First, was executed. That's when Oliver Cromwell ruled Parliament without a monarch for a period of time. So when Charles the Second was restored to the throne in 1660, he called Virginia his loyal Old Dominion. And Virginia has been the Old Dominion ever since.

Thomas Bowman  

appropriate that the answer to our trivia question is about the coronation of the previous Charles, not Charles III, but Charles II.

Michael Pope  

Coronation time. All right, so we also have a winner of this trivia contest. Congratulations to Kevin Saucedo-Broach, the former Chief of Staff to Delegate Alfonso Lopez. He's also a current candidate for an open seat in the House of Delegates in Arlington House District 2. 

Thomas Bowman  

All right, so what is he when? We've got some options that we are still running through legal.

Michael Pope  

Oh, yeah, I've read all the lawyers are still consulting on all this. 

Thomas Bowman  

But what have we proposed? 

Michael Pope  

Alright, so we got a few options here. Option one is a solar-powered car, but don't try to drive it at night because it only works during the day. 

Thomas Bowman  

And option number two is a firearm from a reputable source. Trust me, I know a guy.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, what's the time to crime on that one? Option three is the crown jewels. So Thomas, if you look at King George III's crown. You will see; 3,000 Diamonds, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, and 4 rubies, so that would be a very expensive prize.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, I'm not sure how we can procure that one. But you know, maybe we can colonize it. Option for Scrabble acronym edition. Now with the war on alphabets, including on CRT, DEI, and ESG.

Michael Pope  

Throw us throw in some MSG. Right. So hey, you know, congratulations to Kevin Saucedo-Broach it's worth noting that, you know, he's got a primary opponent on June 20th. And she's raised a lot more money than he has. However, she has not successfully answered one of our trivia questions.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, so the message candidates who compete in our trivia contests, and we get to name-drop you. 

Michael Pope  

It's the best kind of earned media. All you candidates out there, hit us up and answer our trivia question for next week. Which is this. Alright, are you ready? This is our trivia question for next week. What is the official state beverage for Virginia?

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, I don't know what it is. But I think I know what it should be. And I'll save that what I think it should be for next time.

Michael Pope  

wrong answers only for this one.

Thomas Bowman  

Well, somebody should give the right answer.

Michael Pope  

All right, Thomas. Go ahead and open up that Pod Virginia mailbag. What are our listeners talking about?

Thomas Bowman  

Hey, the Arlington Dems gave us a shout-out on Twitter saying this, check out the new Pod Virginia for a discussion of the Arlington County Board Democratic primary. 

Michael Pope  

Yes, I've moderated this primary of six candidates running for two seats in Arlington and spoke about it last week on the podcast. And it was really fun to moderate the debate, and gosh, is this a competitive primary. One thing that drives me crazy with some of these primaries is when candidates all kind of say the same thing, and they've got the same platform of issues, and this slate of candidates in Arlington has a real diversity of opinion about actual policy stuff. So if you are a voter in Arlington, you got a really interesting June primary here. He also heard from @brutal_publicist, this is his Twitter handle at brutal publicist; he heard a discussion with the Governor of talking about the word equity, calling it confusing, and said this quote, funny that Youngkin didn't consider the word equity to be confusing when he headed the Carlyle Group, one of the world's most influential private equity firms. So yeah, thank you, brutal publicist, for pointing this out. Glenn Youngkin's war on equity is really interesting, considering his professional career in the private equity space.

Thomas Bowman  

Well, look, maybe we should be taking Glenn Youngkin at face value. Maybe he does find the word equity confusing because that would really explain why the Carlyle Group fired him.

Michael Pope  

All right, let's head over to the water cooler. Hey, Thomas, what's the latest you're hearing about the water cooler? It's report card time. What are the grades? 

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, this week, we got some report cards back from our friends at Repro Rising. They sent us their legislative scorecard for the General Assembly. Senator Joe Morrissey is a challenger to abortion rights. That's their label. And I guess that's why last year Laschrise Aird was on a tour of the district she calls "Roe not Joe, pro-choice is not a Joe choice." Pro-choice is not Joe's choice!

Yeah, so Repro Rising their scorecard labeled several members as extremist, which is really interesting because the Republicans are, you know, clearly against abortion rights, but they singled out several of them as not just against abortion rights but as being extremists. So one of the looks at those the House members that they are repolarizing labeled as extremists are Jason Ballard, Rob Bell, Kathy Byron, Tara Durant, Nick Freitas, Karen Greenhalgh, Dave LaRock, and Marie March, Repro Rising labeled as extremist Amanda Chase Siobhan Dunnavant Travis Hackworth Stephen Newman Mark Obenshain Mark Peake Bryce Reeves.

Michael, oddly enough, those Republicans are also on the earlier list of states with the most gun trafficking coming in, slightly behind Indiana.

Michael Pope  

So, yeah, like report card time. If you have been on social media, you have seen a lot of people who got a plus on the Repro Rising, sort of letting the world know that their grade has been an A+. And yeah, this is actually really important. As a gosh, I think we had a professor on the show recently, who called it a heuristic, Thomas; I think that's the word that she used. It's a really important heuristic for voters. 

Thomas Bowman  

yeah, the folks at Repro Rising are, of course, really interested in that primary for Senate District 13 Because we've got incumbent Senator Jim Morrissey, who's opposed to abortion rights. Check out this ad from Laschrise Aird.

Youngkin is as pro-life as I am. I'm proud to vote pro-life, and I will side with Republicans in the future on this issue. I am the only Democrat in the state surface pro-life. Hell, I disagree with my party after time. I disagree with abortion. It doesn't hurt me. I'm Laschrise Aird, a candidate for Senate, and I sponsor this ad.

 Using his own words against him. Michael, what do you think about that? Do you think it's going to be effective?

Michael Pope  

Well, I mean, Democratic voters are clearly energized on the issue of abortion rights. And it is so rare that you've got a Democrat who is against abortion rights. In fact, I think you heard audio right there from Joe Morrissey pointing out that it was out of the norm for a Democratic Senator to be opposed to abortion rights. I can't imagine that there would be, frankly, any other issue. I mean, like, this is an issue that for this particular primary on this particular race with these particular candidates, it seems to me like that's the predominant issue of this primary, and Democratic voters want abortion rights, right. I mean, this seems pretty cut and dried to me. 

Thomas Bowman  

To me. I just got drawn out of this district. So I do not get to vote for Laschrise Aird, but I will get to vote perhaps for Ray's cousins in the Open House District.

Michael Pope  

Also worth noting is that Laschrise Aird raised slightly more money than Joe Morrissey. So Morrissey, of course, had his hands tied during the session; he could not raise money during the session. So she spent that time well and raised more money than he did. 

Thomas Bowman  

But they both raised a lot, over $500. 

Michael Pope  

Yeah, that's right. Both of them raised more than half a million dollars. So they're both of them are going into this campaign season. Ready to do battle and see if they could win. All right, so speaking of report cards, we also got a report card from the Family Foundation. So as you might imagine, this is a report card that has a totally different grading curve than the last one that we just talked about. So the folks at the Family Foundation graded members of the General Assembly on their efforts to do things like this rollback of abortion rights and rollback of gay rights, and rollback of transgender rights, and so they gave them all a score they graded from 0 to 100.

Thomas Bowman  

important to point out that the Southern Poverty Law Center actually classifies the Family Foundation as a hate group, especially for their opposition, taking away human rights from people who are LGBT. So Michael, who scored a zero? This is what we want to see who got the zero?

Michael Pope  

Yeah, I'm sure lots of people were eager for a zero 19 House Democrats scored a zero, but only two senators got a goose egg from the Family Foundation, Senator Creigh Deeds and Senator Lamont Bagby.

Thomas Bowman  

All right, well, I imagine there are several Democratic campaigns in the primaries asking their mail vendors to make sure their constituents know they got a zero from the Family Foundation.

Michael Pope  

Were number zero. So there's also the other end of the spectrum where people, some of these general assembly members, scored a perfect 100. So that was a ton like 46 House Republicans got a perfect 100. 10 Senate Republicans got a perfect 100. So yeah, these report cards actually are pretty interesting. And revealing in terms of where people are on their voting record. 

Thomas Bowman  

A perfect 100 oh, now that's the kind of hateful rhetoric you can give to Mom and Dad, and they'll put it on the fridge.

Michael Pope  

Mom and Dad are so proud all the time, aren't they? All right, let's celebrate some birthdays. Oh, holy cow. I'm looking at my calendar, and Thomas, would you believe this? There are no birthdays to celebrate this week. There are no birthdays on the calendar. So gosh, I guess we're gonna have to do something different and consult the Wayback Machine for some important mile markers. Michael, I wonder if this means

Thomas Bowman  

There aren't that many Taurus in Virginia politics.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, nobody was born this week. So I guess we've got fewer Taurus members of the General Assembly. The Taurus sign is known to be reliable and loyal, and down to earth.

Thomas Bowman  

That explains why they're not in politics. Probably not for them, then.

Michael Pope  

All right, well, Tauruses might not be involved in politics. So we've got some other dates that we're going to look at today. May 15th is the 51st anniversary of the day in 1972. That Alabama Governor George Wallace was shot in Laurel, Maryland while campaigning for president

Thomas Bowman  

Tuesday, May 16th is the one-year anniversary of our interview on Pod Virginia with Atif Qarnie, the former education secretary, who explained to us how the Youngkin administration was rolling back efforts of the Northam administration to make sure systemic racism was part of the public school curriculum.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, a great episode and very relevant to what's going on right now. Wednesday, May 17, this the 69th anniversary of the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown versus Board, which would, of course, go on to inspire massive resistance here in Virginia and continues to this day apparently. And then, as we mentioned earlier, Saturday, May 20th, is Armed Forces Day in Virginia.

Thomas Bowman  

We'll need those armed forces for the war on the alphabet.

Michael Pope  

Sunday, May 21st is the 96th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh arriving in Paris, his destination, after flying alone 4000 miles from New York City, which was a flight that lasted 34 hours. So Thomas, Charles Lindbergh makes a brief appearance in my book The Bryd Machine of Virginia, available wherever fine books are sold. You can read about how Governor Bryd welcomed Charles Lindbergh to Virginia when he was Governor. His plane, Charles Lindbergh's famous play in the Spirit of St. Louis, landed at Byrd Field in Richmond. And there's a hilarious story in the book of how Charles Lindbergh took Governor Bryd up in his plane up in the famous plane Spirit of St. Louis for a very uncomfortable white knuckle flight over the capitol in the Spirit of St. Louis. So you can read about that in the Bryd machine of Virginia.

Thomas Bowman  

Alright, so that's it for this week's episode of Pod Virginia. Tune in next week when Michael will plug his book yet again.