Senate Success Records, Queen of Virginia, and Crime Is Down
IN THE NEWS:
On question after question in a televised debate last week, Republican Senate candidate Hung Cao responded by mentioning undocumented immigrants. He also tried to claim that Kaine is a feckless senator based on the number of bills he sponsored that became law--a rate that beats most other sitting senators, including VP candidate JD Vance.
Queen of Virginia is the name of a game that looks similar to a slot machine that can be found at convenience stores across Virginia. Some of them were recently modified so they no longer accept cash, although even those machines are illegal according to a memo from Attorney General Jason Miyares. Governor Glenn Youngkin says reaching a deal to legalize them has become a tall mountain to climb.
According to the latest quarterly report from the FBI, crime rates for the second quarter of this year are down in every category. Violent crime is down 10 percent; robbery is down 14 percent. And murder is down 23 percent. Remember those numbers when political candidates are trying to sell the narrative of a crime wave.
At the Watercooler:
Is Virginia in play after all for the Presidential election
One of the Progressive Prosecutors for Justice is trash-talking an Alexandria judge for failing to impose a harsher sentence. What's going on?
Episode Transcript
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Lauren Burke
I'm Lauren Burke.
Michael Pope
This is Pod Virginia. A podcast that's hanging with lame ducks.
Lauren Burke
Which lame ducks?
Michael Pope
Well, there are so many of them, specifically Arlington County Board Chairwoman Libby Garvey and Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson. Both of them will be leaving office after this election. I'll be sitting down with both of them Wednesday night; that's Wednesday, October 9, at the Schar School campus. The George Mason University Schar School campus in Clarendon.
Lauren Burke
Sounds fun. How do we find out more?
Michael Pope
This is an event sponsored by Advance Arlington and Agenda Alexandria in cooperation with the Schar school. You can visit any of those websites to register and be there in person. Or, you can also live stream it on Zoom.
Lauren Burke
Live on Zoom. Is it free?
Michael Pope
Yes, thanks for asking. It is, in fact, free. Go sign up now. We hope to see you Wednesday night. For now, let's get to the news. One track mind on question after question in a televised debate last week, Republican Senate candidate Hung Cao responded by mentioning immigration, whether the question was about childcare, housing, or even guns. This is part of his response to a question about that ongoing dockworkers strike.
Hung Cao
Is your family struggling to put food on the table? Are you better off today than you were four years ago? The answer across the board is no. The only people better off today than they were four years ago are illegal aliens, criminals, and senators like Senator Tim Kaine.
Lauren Burke
Senator Tim Kaine responded this way.
Tim Kaine
Four years ago, we were in the middle of covid. Hundreds of thousands of people were dying. Businesses were closing, you couldn't find toilet paper on shelves, and we had a president trying to overturn the peaceful transfer of power.
Michael Pope
That debate, that televised debate, took place on the campus of Norfolk State University, which gave Kaine an opportunity to repeatedly criticize Hung Cao for wanting to abolish the Department of Education. That led to this exchange where Cao says the department doesn't do anything important.
Hung Cao
They only pay for things like the teacher's unions. They're not really pushing out what they need to be pushing for the states. Each state knows what they need to take care of for their own-personal states. Education in the state was what led to school segregation.
Lauren Burke
Then, there was this unforgettable moment when Cao tried to make the argument that Kaine is a feckless senator.
Hung Cao
Of the 227 bills that Senator Kaine has proposed, only three of them made it through. That's completely wrong. That's a 99% failure rate.
Tim Kaine
That is completely wrong.
Hung Cao
Okay, sir, there are two truths in the world. Never walk into a Target store wearing a red shirt, and never go against an Asian when it comes to math.
Tim Kaine
What? What does that mean?
Debate Moderator
Gentlemen, we're going to move on.
Michael Pope
They're going to move on, but we're not. Let's go to the tape, as Senator Kaine says. I asked the Cao campaign to explain where they got that number from and where they got the idea that Kaine only had three bills get through. The Cao Campaign sent me a link to the Tim Kaine page on Congress.Gov. If you go to the Tim Kaine page on Congress.Gov and you filter by sponsored legislation that became law, you'll find that he sponsored 373 bills and only three of them became law. If you're looking at the section of Congress.Gov, that says status of legislation, you can filter by sponsored legislation and became law. Here's the problem: 3 out of 373 is actually pretty good. JD Vance has a 100% failure rate. If that's the standard we're using, then the Republican ticket is in deep trouble. If you're using these filters to say the sponsored legislation and became law, if that's your criteria that we're looking at here, Elizabeth Warren has only 1 out of 626; Tom Cotton has only 1 out of 461; Chris Murphy has only 1 out of 473; Joe Manchin has only 1 out of 256. Getting three of your sponsored bills to the President's desk for a signature is actually a pretty good record for the United States Senate. Hong Cao would certainly have a 100% failure rate for a very long time until, maybe, eventually, he could have a 99% failure rate. If he were very, very successful, he might maybe get a 98% failure rate. But I doubt it. Mitch McConnell has 11 out of 1281 so that's a 99.1% failure rate. Chuck Schumer has 34 out of 2365 that's a 98.6% failure rate. Chuck Schumer is the most successful of the senators, having 34, which is a good number. 34 out of 2365 that's a 99% failure rate for Chuck Schumer. If you're if that's the way you're going to calculate it, that's actually not a good way to calculate it. The Kaine campaign argues the real measure of success is much broader than this failure rate, because it fails to consider how the Senate really works. For example, the Center for Effective Lawmaking at the University of Virginia says Kaine was the most effective Democrat in the 117th Congress for getting health legislation passed. Mike Braun was the most successful Republican in getting health legislation passed. That same metric, and speaking of Republicans, Kaine has introduced bills with Republicans that have become law, Republicans like John Cornyn, Joni Ernst, Rubio Marco, and even Ted Cruz. Think about this: Tim Kaine and Ted Cruz worked together on legislation that became law. This is the effectiveness of Tim Kaine. I think that's an argument to say that he's a pretty good senator. He worked with Ted Cruz to get a law passed. Then there are the provisions that Kaine had inserted into laws, like the Jobs and Child Care for Military Families Act, the Fair Care for Vietnam Vets Act, the Data and Public Health Act, and the Supporting Older Americans Act. Then there are the major pieces of legislation, the Long Bridge Act, key among them. If you live in Northern Virginia, you're familiar with the Long Bridge Act. Then there's one of the most important bills in a generation, the Thomasina Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act. This is a major Kaine piece of legislation. This 99% failure rate is not a really great metric. Even Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell have a 99% failure rate. A lot of the senators have a 100% failure rate, such as JD Vance's 100% failure rate. I'm not sure that this metric actually gets Hung Cao all that much, other than being able to use that joke about Asians and math.
Lauren Burke
Yes, Hong Cao is a very interesting character. Just as a general observation, I've worked for two members of the U.S. Senate who were in the leadership in another life, Tom Daschle and George Mitchell. This has always been a very complicated question in the politics that we exist in today; it is extremely difficult for any of these members to pass a bill. The Congress is sort of broken. It was ABC News that did a story earlier this year that this was the least productive Congress in history, which sounds about right. The Senate, in particular, is known for its slow movement. For a member of the U.S. Senate to get to that point where they're standing next to the President and he's signing bills, it's a very difficult thing in general. I would say that when we talk about leadership, and when I worked for members of the leadership, there's always the case, obviously, with Senator Schumer from New York. He gets to, as the majority leader or minority leader, he gets the control to put his name on a lot of legislation, which is why you just referenced the 34 bills, and he has a high number. But at any rate, there's always a problem in this Congress getting anything done. Generally, what has to happen is you have to attach amendments to big bills, something like the Defense Authorization bill, which, of course, Senator Kaine would have something to do with. He's on a committee that has jurisdiction over armed services. Many times, what happens is that members have to attach the smaller bill to the bigger vehicle, and then it passes. Of course, you'd take credit for that. For me, this debate of Hung Cao, I think, had many people face-palming about several things. Chief of which was this reference to members of the LGBT community, and for all our members of the LGBT community who are listening, just know you have allies out here. This idea that this man served in our Navy, the U.S. Navy, as a captain and was supervisory to people and could stand on a debate stage and make the statement that that's not the type of people we want is a shocking statement. That is a shocking statement for anybody, asking the voters of Virginia to give them the responsibility of a U.S. senator. The fact that Hung Cao was proud to say that on the debate stage, you got Wavy T.V. standing there with a roomful of reporters and people; it's telling. It's telling about who the Virginia Republican party puts forth to run for office. I thought they got over these sorts of novelty-type candidates that keep losing, but apparently, they haven't. That, for me, was a moment as well in this debate.
Michael Pope
Yeah, I was struck by how he kept turning back to immigration. After a while, it got kind of comical, I thought, because they asked about gun violence, and he answered in a way that pivoted to illegals. This is the language he always uses, "the illegals'. They would ask him about housing prices, and he would pivot to the illegals. It wasn't every question, but it was almost every question pivoted to the illegals. The campaign strategy is to be afraid, be very afraid. I don't know if that's going to work.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, I don't think that's going to work. What tells us that's not going to work is that this type of candidate has run before in Virginia; their names were E.W. Jackson and Corey Stewart. E.W./ Jackson had some weird obsession with members of the LGBT community. This strain of political candidates in this iteration of the Republican Party, the MAGA Republican Party, vilifies immigrants and members of the LGBT community; they have this obsession. We saw that with Hung Cao. There's no reason to think he's not going to get crushed, just like E.W. Jackson got crushed by Ralph Northam. I'm not sure what Rich Anderson and these people are thinking when they field these candidates, particularly when they do it multiple times. Maybe the first time, you don't necessarily know the candidate is going to say these things about vilifying immigrants. Of course, the irony of that is that Hong Cao's story has an interesting story; he and his family come over here from Vietnam, and he gets into the military. He went to Annapolis; he became a captain in the Navy. He has an interesting story, and yet it all boils down to who I hate and who I want you to hate; that is sad. Now, you'd think the Republicans learned that is not the type of candidate that's appealing to the voters with regard to their win in 2021 and Glenn Youngkin, but apparently, they have not learned. They're going to learn again in 30-something days probably. I'm confused by this type of language in public. He wants you to know who he hates. It's confusing, it's weird. They keep doing this, and they keep losing.
Michael Pope
All right, let's move on to our next story. Illegal machines: Queen of Virginia is the name of a game that looks similar to a slot machine that can be found at convenience stores across Virginia. Some of them were recently modified so that they no longer accept cash. However, even those machines are illegal, according to a memo from Attorney General Jason Miyares. Governor Glenn Youngkin says reaching a deal to legalize these machines has become a tall mountain to climb. Rhena Hicks is Executive Director for the nonpartisan advocacy group Freedom Virginia.
Rhena Hicks
This is taking up too much time and air out of the rooms. It's taking away from focusing on real things that Virginians need. We view these as a regressive tax scheme. They shouldn't be in Virginia, and they prey on hard-working people in our middle and low-income communities.
Lauren Burke
The Attorney General's memo may have declared skill games illegal, but that doesn't mean prosecutors will necessarily take action. Here's Henrico Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Taylor.
Shannon Taylor
I can say as of this date; there has been no case to my knowledge that has been presented to my office regarding any of these machines. Instead, we have various entities who are taking definitive positions without any guidance from the General Assembly or a court.
Michael Pope
Important to point out that a spokeswoman for Pace-O-Matic, the company that has these Queen of Virginia machines. Pace-O-Matic, the spokeswoman, says the company looks forward to defending the legality of these games in court and is ultimately working toward a legislative solution. Lauren, I'm thinking, wow, legislative solution, you made everybody mad. You made Paul Krizek
really mad by acting in bad faith and putting these machines in when the General Assembly told you, No. You've got the Republican Attorney General saying they're illegal, but it's the job of the Shannon Taylors of the world to do something about it. You have the Shannon Taylors of the world saying nobody's brought a case to me; also, we need guidance from the General Assembly. It kind of feels like everybody's pointing a finger at somebody else, and we're waiting for the next General Assembly session to provide some sort of clarity on this issue. My guess is we're going to see a re-run of the same thing: heavy lobbying and no action gets taken. There's this gray area; the machines exist in this gray area. What do you think is going to happen next year with this issue when the General Assembly meets Lauren?
Lauren Burke
I have no idea, but I'm with Rhena Hicks when she says it takes much air out of the room and takes the focus away from real things that Virginians need. It's something that keeps coming up again and again. To me, anything that is an activity that an adult wants to do, such as gambling, is relatively up to that individual. I'm not sure why the government is all that involved in it in the first place. I get there's lobbying. I get the argument with regard to poor and low-income communities being taken advantage of. But as I said before, people do like to have fun gambling; thinking about hitting it rich and the jackpot. The excitement of thinking that it's going to happen. It's the same reason people play Powerball and Mega Millions. The chances of it happening are one in a trillion. But it's the fun of thinking it may happen. I'm not a big fan of the government being involved in every single thing that is going on. But I get it; it's an issue. It'll come up again next session. To your question, I have no idea what is going to happen.
Michael Pope
Heavy lobbying. The one thing that we can expect is a ton of money. These are moneyed interests. We're talking about people who stand to gain a ton of money if they get their way with the General Assembly. I think one thing that we could definitely expect to see is a whole lot of campaign cash flying around.
Lauren Burke
Oh, absolutely.
Michael Pope
We'll keep our eye on that; for now, let's move on to our next story. Crime is down. I'm going to say that again to make sure that you heard it. Crime is down. According to the latest quarterly report from the FBI, crime rates for the second quarter of this year are down in every category. Violent crime is down 10%, robbery is down 14%, murder is down 23%. Sean Weneta at the Humanization Project says this shows criminal justice reform is working.
Shawn Weneta
Perception and reality are oftentimes very different things. We're living in a historically safe time right now. Crime is at historic lows, and crimes have dropped at historic levels, particularly since the very narrow spikes that we had during the pandemic.
Lauren Burke
Chuck Meire at the human-rights nonprofit Julian says people often hear about a few carjackings that happen near their neighborhood and jump to conclusions.
Chuck Meire
People will take that story, and they will apply it and say that crime must be skyrocketing because this one offense we're seeing is skyrocketing when, in reality, violent crime as a whole, especially nationally, is decreasing. It's already at a historical low point.
Michael Pope
Already at a historical low point. I make a habit of looking at these statistics when the FBI releases them. The latest quarterly report that was just released shows crime down in every category. But it's funny because we actually talked about this on the podcast the last quarter when the FBI released the crime data. Lauren, do you remember that discussion that we talked about the last quarter when the FBI crime statistics showed crime down in every category? It happened to be the same day on this podcast that we talked about that report, the same day that Kamala Harris launched her campaign for President.
Lauren Burke
It makes sense that timing happened because Vice President Harris is running against former President Trump. Former President Trump is always trying to get on stage and re-repeat over and over again a connection between immigration, criminality, and crime. This past week, he moved over to the Congo. They did Haiti a few weeks before that. It's people of color; he's trying to brand people of color crime. Which the Republican Party has been doing since the late 1960s. To me, they're assisted by the media, which, of course, is making money off the fact that if you scare people and at least get them to pay attention in the first few minutes of a broadcast with a crime, you know that is what is going on here. The perception is that crime is high, even though the stats do not indicate that.
Michael Pope
Where I live in Alexandria, we recently had two murders. Actually, it's kind of rare that you have a murder in Alexandria. I think many people look at that and say, Oh, wow, we've had two murders in Alexandria. Crime must be up. But if you take the time to look at the FBI stats, you'll see, because it's macro stats that we're looking at here, that crime is down in every category. The one statistic that people are always focused on is a crime that happens the least, which is murder. Of all of your crimes, murder is the least prevalent crime. But people's attention is obviously focused there, for obvious reasons. It's the most dramatic of the crimes. Murder is down 23%. That's actually a huge decline for murder, which did spike during the pandemic, but now it's down. It's really down. You say you blame the media, I will say that my friends in the television news media. If you think about your local channels, when they do the local CBS News, the local ABC News, or the local NBC News, they almost always start with a carjacking, a stabbing, shooting. If it bleeds, it leads. That is the focus that a lot of T.V. news producers have. You could certainly argue that there are flaws to that to that approach. Chief among them is this perception among people that crime is way up when the stats from the FBI are telling us the opposite.
Lauren Burke
There's a huge flaw with that approach on so many levels. The chances of being a murder victim. You mentioned murder specifically. We're a country of 330 million people, and I suspect that the number of murders in the United States a year is coming in somewhere under 22,000 or 23,000. The chances of being a victim are something like, you know, 0.0001 something; it's rare. But of course, the media would never tell you that. They're making money off this; you gotta drive a certain amount of attention to people, to what you're doing to sell ads. That is clearly at play here because nobody ever runs the numbers. We're always talking in percentages. We talk about the actual numbers; it is a very small number. Of course, nobody wants to get caught saying that somebody being killed is not a story because that is a big deal for somebody's life to come to an end. But when you consider the fact that it's driving so much in our politics. We watch the 2023 Republican Party constantly bring this up in every ad. They're tying that into support and lack of support for law enforcement and funding for law enforcement. It's tied to so many things.
Michael Pope
The next time you hear a candidate on the campaign trail talking about crime being out of control, you should keep in the back of your mind that the FBI doesn't say that. The FBI says the opposite. The FBI says crime is down in every category. All right, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll play a round of trivia featuring the 100% labor shop Gibson Print, and we'll head over to the water cooler, where we'll ask whether Virginia is a battleground state. We'll also hear from a progressive prosecutor for justice arguing in favor of mass incarceration.
Michael Pope
Let's play a round of trivia. Last week, we asked you which election featured the bumper sticker for Barry and Harry.
Lauren Burke
The answer was 1964 when Republican Barry Goldwater and Democrat Harry Byrd were both on the ballot. Barry and Harry were cross-party bumper stickers.
Michael Pope
Yeah, Barry lost, but Harry won in that election. Barry Goldwater lost to LBJ, and Harry Byrd won against the Republican candidate in that race Ric, hard May.
Lauren Burke
We have some winners: Andrew Millen, Lauren Kaiser, Pierce Campbell, and Ben Lambert.
Michael Pope
Congratulations to all of our winners. Hey, we would send you a Pod Virginia bumper sticker, but we don't have any. We don't have the budget for it, but if we did, we would give our friends over at Gibson Print a call.
Lauren Burke
Are you talking about the Gibson print that has a 100% union labor show?
Michael Pope
That's the one.
Lauren Burke
Is this the same Gibson Print that can deliver bumper stickers, grip cards, and even direct mail before election day if your order is submitted by October 25? Yeah, that's the one great. I hope Pete Gibson is listening. I have a feeling he is okay. Michael, what's our trivia question for next week?
Michael Pope
Our trivia question for this week is inspired by an important festival that's happening this weekend. This is our trivia question for this week. What is Virginia's official state pony?
Lauren Burke
If you think you know the answer, hit us up on social media. You might even win a prize.
Michael Pope
Hey, let's head over to the water cooler. Lauren, what's the latest you're hearing around the water cooler?
Lauren Burke
I'm scratching my head wondering, is Virginia actually in play? I thought we had decided it wasn't in play. Now I'm feeling like it might be. The only reason I'm feeling it might be is the poll that came out from the Doug Wilder School at VCU, which had things a little closer than I think people expected. Then we had a visit from JD Vance, and it wasn't really that political visit. He went to look at damage from the hurricane Hurricane Helene in Damascus, Virginia, along with Governor Glenn Youngkin. Then, they did a fundraiser in Virginia Beach on the same day. Maybe that didn't mean anything, but I don't know because time is so short. It's less than a month to the end of this campaign, and any visit from one of the principals is a big deal. I think it was a few weeks ago that the second gentleman showed up in Charlottesville, Doug Emhoff. I was a little surprised at that. So I don't know, maybe they're doing it because they're getting the media in North Carolina, which is definitely in play. Or, maybe they're doing it because they're seeing some changes in the polling. I don't know. That's my water cooler. I'm just curious.
Michael Pope
I personally would love it if Virginia was a battleground state. I saw that VCU poll that we're talking about, it did have the Harris campaign slipping a little bit in Virginia. It might be tighter than people think it's going to be; however, if you're asking, is Virginia a battleground state? I think the answer is, well, has Harris campaigned here? Has Trump campaigned here?
Lauren Burke
Right, Trump hasn't been here since the Chesapeake rally, and Harris hasn't been here at all, at least not yet. We'll see, but I doubt it. It is Michigan. It's certainly Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, clearly. These are must-win types of situations. So we'll see, I doubt they'll cruise in but you never know. You never know. What about you, Michael? What's the latest you've heard around the water cooler?
Michael Pope
One of the progressive prosecutors for justice is trash-talking an Alexandria judge for failing to impose a harsher sentence. This is a case involving a 29-year-old in Alexandria who shot and killed two innocent landscape workers. They were just doing landscaping when this guy showed up and shot them for no apparent reason. Apparently, the reasons that he shot the two landscapers were never discerned in this case. Alexandria Circuit Court Judge Jim Clark sentenced this 29-year-old man this Alexandria man to 58 years. He's 29 and 58 years old; he would be 87 when he's released. But that's not good enough for Alexander Commonwealth's attorney Brian Porter. In a written statement issued Friday afternoon, Porter said this quote, the Commonwealth is disappointed the court did not impose the sentence for which the Commonwealth argued, life in prison without the possibility of parole, considering the defendant's potential for rehabilitation is but one factor that should be weighed by the court. Another is the defendant's extreme and unprovoked violence upon innocent people. In my opinion, says Brian Porter, the defendant's horrific actions in the case surely merited a life sentence. So take that, Judge Jim Clark; it looks like the progressive prosecutors for justice are arguing for harsher sentences. 58 years is not good enough. They want life.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, progressive prosecutors are interesting. Very interesting. I'm not sure why that wouldn't effectively be life. The life expectancy in the United States for men is somewhere around the 70s. He would be 87 getting out; it's unlikely that he's going to live to be 87. It's possible but unlikely. I'm not sure why you put yourself out there in public against a judge that you're likely going to be dealing with in the future.
Michael Pope
Yeah, you put my finger on why this attracted my attention, Lauren. This is a judge that he is going to see every single day. His job is convincing this particular judge. There are only three judges on the circuit court, and he's one of them. Porter is going to have to deal with this particular judge day in and day out. To trash talk him in public like this for not imposing a life sentence when he imposed a 58-year sentence is, he's taking, I don't know if it's a risk or a gamble, necessarily, but he's taken the hit here by being and in the back of Judge Clark's mind is; here's this prosecutor standing in front of me who trash talked me in a written statement last week. What am I going to do now? I've interviewed Judge Clark when he was a lawyer, and I think he's probably got the discernment to set that aside and not let that influence his decisions as a judge. But nevertheless, here we've got a progressive prosecutor for justice saying this sentence is not harsh enough. It should be harsher.
Lauren Burke
Well, there's no shortage of folks in our justice system who want to be seen beating their chests and looking tough on crime—no shortage whatsoever.
Michael Pope
Lauren, let's open up that Pod Virginia mailbag. What are our listeners talking about?
Lauren Burke
It looks like Senator Suhas Subramanyam is a listener because he chimed in on the episode about political ads.
Michael Pope
He posted this quote: "I am proud of the real results we've delivered on kitchen table pocketbook issues and fighting rising costs." Then he notes that Ben Tribbett says that the ad theme is the message of the year. This political ads topic is hot, and we had an interesting debate on our previous issue of Pod Virginia with David Ramadan and Ben Tribbett. Lauren, have you seen any political ads that you particularly like, or maybe ones that you think are horrible and worth talking about?
Lauren Burke
It's funny, Vice President Harris, they dropped an ad last week; it was a bunch of young children watching former President Trump talk very negatively. I would say you could define it easily as racist ways about immigrants. You see the kids watching. You see the kids watching, and then the whole sort of ad turns to the Vice President talking positively about people in a much more positive way. It was interesting. It was really interesting the way that it flowed. It was something a little bit different. I think it'll get some attention. There's sort of an overarching theme there of negative versus positive, or joy versus people who always complain about stuff. I think it was an interesting ad.
Michael Pope
We also heard from Laura Martinez, who heard our discussion about cell phones in schools, and posted this quote, if our kids are going to get murdered, which is a when and not an if, the least we can do for them is let them have a phone so they can say goodbye to their parents before they get gunned down, unquote. Wow, that's pretty dark. But I would imagine one of the best arguments in favor of cell phones in schools is probably emergencies.
Lauren Burke
One of the best arguments for common sense gun legislation would be what we just read there. Are you kidding me? The answer to kids getting shot in school is to make sure they have a cell phone. Wow, you want to be talking, skipping over the real the real problem. It's interesting the way our society thinks about certain things, particularly, we get to a point. Sandy Hook, I think was the one that was the moment of truth. The demarcation point with regard to understanding how powerful the NRA is and how powerful money in politics is on literally a life and death issue.
Michael Pope
All right, let's celebrate some birthdays.
Lauren Burke
Today, Monday, October 7, is the birthday of Delegate Irene Shin of Fairfax County.
Michael Pope
Monday, October 7, is the birthday of Joe Dodson of Courthouse News.
Lauren Burke
Thursday, October 10, is the Delegate Otto Wachsmann of Sussex.
Michael Pope
Friday, October 11, is the birthday of Delegate Cliff Hayes of Chesapeake.
Lauren Burke
This weekend is the Chincoteague Island Oyster Festival on ChincoteagueTeague Island.
Michael Pope
Hey, is that the home of the official state pony?
Lauren Burke
Don't tell the wild ponies of Grayson Highlands.
Michael Pope
Please. Whatever you do, do not tell the wild ponies of Grayson highlands that the Chincoteague is the official state pony. All right, anyway, this week also happens to be Coach Appreciation Week.
Lauren Burke
Do you mean like Coach Walz?
Michael Pope
Yeah, as in Coach Walz and also as in House Joint Resolution 27, which was unanimously approved by the General Assembly earlier this year and introduced by Delegate Cia Price of Newport News. Cia Price had a bill earlier this year, that designated this week as coach Appreciation Week. Put that on your calendar. Hey, another thing you want to make sure that you have on your calendars this Wednesday night is that panel discussion with Libby Garvey and Justin Wilson. It's at the Clarendon campus of George Mason University. 6:30 reception, 7:00 o'clock discussion. I hope to see you there.
Lauren Burke
That's it for this episode of Pod Virginia.
