Freedom Line Blog

In an interview with CFIF, Bart Hinkle, Editor and Columnist with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, compares the ideological shifts in the two major political parties and the legal challenges facing Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell.

Listen to the interview here.

The Atlantic magazine tallied billions of dollars of corporate welfare pocketed by the NFL and its teams through stadium subsidies, taxpayer-funded workout facilities and other handouts. Gregg Easterbrook, the author of the piece, pointed out the hypocrisy of Bob McDonnell, Virginia’s supposedly fiscally conservative governor, who “took $4 million from taxpayers’ pockets and handed the money to the Washington Redskins, for the team to upgrade a workout facility” while the legislature was out of session. The move benefited the Redskins’ billionaire owner, Dan Snyder.

Other recent state and local handouts to NFL teams highlighted in the article include:

• More than $1 billion dollars in federal, state and local tax dollars to build and later renovate the Superdome, home of the New Orleans Saints;
• As much as $950 million courtesy of Santa Clara, Calif., taxpayers to build the San Francisco 49ers new stadium;
• $506 million to the Minnesota Vikings to subsidize a large portion of the cost of the team’s new stadium (even though the state was facing a $1.1 billion deficit);
• $390 million of Washington State taxpayers money to underwrite construction costs of the Seattle Seahawks stadium that opened in 2001; and
• $4 million a year from the state of Hawaii to entice (bribe) the NFL to schedule the Pro Bowl in Honolulu.

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The National Science Foundation awarded the Smithsonian Institute a $443,010 grant to study tree biodiversity in China, CNSNews.com found.

According to the project’s grant abstract, the nearly half-million dollar grant is justified because it “advance(s) understanding of how tree biodiversity determines the functional aspects of forests and to test hypotheses concerning the resilience of forests to global change.”

The Smithsonian Institute did not respond to numerous requests by CNSNews.com to answer questions about the taxpayer-funded grant (probably because the Smithsonian Institute knew that the project is a total waste of tax dollars).

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The Netflix original series, “House of Cards,” reveals the dirty underbelly of Washington politics. It seems disturbingly fitting that the show pockets millions in handouts and tax credits at the expense of Maryland taxpayers to film the series in the Old Line State.

Southern Maryland News Net reports that Governor Martin O’Malley demanded state lawmakers increase the handouts available to film productions such as “House of Cards” during the 2013 legislative session — even after he raised taxes an astounding 40 times.

The award-winning show may be downright offensive to many of the taxpayers who subsidize its production. “House of Cards” routinely contains enough nudity and coarse language to make Hugh Hefner blush.

The Washington Times quotes some GOP operatives as saying the culturally conservative Virginia governor could provide the link to the conservative base Romney needs while not upstaging the presidential candidate on the stump (an apparent consideration given the rhetorical abilities of other possibilities Chris Christie and Marco Rubio).

I don’t know much about McDonnell’s tenure as governor or his political chops, and the Times article may just be a puff piece doing McDonnell a favor by keeping his name in the mix and on Drudge Report where I first saw the article.

But since Quin has weighed in on McDonnell as a possible vice presidential candidate – sort of – I wonder what he thinks about the potential for a Romney-McDonnell ticket.

Quin, thoughts?