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Political flip-floppery

Democrat Terry McAuliffe is drawing fire from Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli’s campaign over his . . . shall we say, updated? . . . views on Atlantic offshore drilling for oil. …

The third time may be charmed

Roanoke City Council on Monday agreed to sell the old YMCA building on Church Avenue to the same developer fast at work modernizing the Crystal Tower on Campbell Avenue. …

It’s a date, at last

Two years after it sued the Virginia Department of Taxation, Star Scientific Inc. finally will get its day in court to contest a 2002 state sales and use tax assessment on tobacco-curing barns it owns in Mecklenburg County. …

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Secretary Bill Hazel

Health care reforms for the elderly and disabled should lead to expansion of Medicaid for the uninsured.

Legislators appointed to a commission to make sure Medicaid reforms are moving forward should arrive for their first meeting next month with their boots pulled on tight. That horse is already out of the barn and galloping down the road.

Years of work by Bill Hazel, Virginia’s secretary of health and human resources, and his team have come to fruition this spring with initiatives offering better care at more affordable costs for the most difficult patients to serve — low-income elderly and disabled individuals as well as those with mental illnesses.

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GOP candidate E.W. Jackson doesn’t speak for all Virginians of faith.

E.W. Jackson says he will make no apologies for past statements that might offend. Like calling gay people perverted and “very sick.” Pronouncing the Democratic Party agenda as “worthy of the Anti-Christ.” Denouncing Planned Parenthood as “far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was.”

Now that Jackson is the Republican Party candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia, he sees no reason to temper his views. They reflect religious beliefs that are dear to him. Fair enough. People can judge his candidacy accordingly.

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Ed Elswick

Supervisor Ed Elswick’s property rights proposal reflects a basic misunderstanding that should worry residents this election year.

The damage to logic being done by ICLEI conspiracy theorists was on full display at the last board of supervisors meeting in Roanoke County.

Whether the county eventually suffers the ill effects might depend on this year’s elections.

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Franklin County schools still face painful cuts despite a little more money from supervisors.

Public pressure prompted Franklin County supervisors on Tuesday to kick in $300,000 more in support of public schools. The small gesture came with big strings: Supervisors would like the school board to restore middle school sports and send bright freshmen to the governor’s school, and they’d like for people to stop blaming them.

Supervisors are not callous villains. No. But they aren’t heroes of public school education, either. Nor when they squander children’s potential are they very good stewards of the county’s resources.

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The attorney general and gubernatorial candidate is covered by the state sunshine law whether he thinks so or not.

Virginia’s top lawyer is not above the law. Nor is Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli just doing his constituents a favor when he responds to requests for public records.

Cuccinelli’s startling epiphany that he is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act came at a convenient moment. He is running for governor while being pelted with questions about his relationship with a businessman who has a pending dispute over state taxes.

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The next governor is likely to be under pressure to end a moratorium on mining the radioactive ore.

Foes of uranium mining in Virginia say they’ve met with Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the party’s presumed gubernatorial candidate, who has assured them he opposes it — though his campaign says his position hasn’t changed.

In the past, he has said he would “need to be certain” it could “be done safely and cleaned up completely” before a state moratorium could be lifted, and “So far I have not seen that.”

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Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli

The convention produced a GOP ticket that lacks mainstream leadership.

When he dropped his bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination late last year, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling said the GOP “has to decide what it wants to be.”

“Are we going to be a party that engages in a great ideological debate, or are we going to be a party that’s more focused on winning elections, earning the right to lead and leading responsibly?” Bolling asked.

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Picking up litter and picking off litterbugs.

Virginia’s Adopt-A-Highway program is a mess. Records are shoddy. Volunteers aren’t honoring their pledge. Last year, litter was picked up as often as required along fewer than 400 of the state’s nearly 75,000 miles of highway. Even a Virginia Department of Transportation group that included the agency’s commissioner fell short.

Cleaning the shoulders of the road is a public service and one that the public isn’t too enthused about pitching in to accomplish.

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Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy calls attention to limits others have in controlling their fate.

Angelina Jolie disclosed to the world last week in a New York Times op-ed that she had both of her breasts removed out of a very real concern that they would one day kill her. At a young age, Jolie’s mother had breast cancer and died of ovarian cancer, as did her mother before her. Family history clues that their cancer, like a small percentage of breast and ovarian cancers, was triggered by a genetic defect.

Jolie learned that she, too, had a defect on what is called the BRCA1, or breast cancer 1, gene, meaning that she had an 87 percent chance of developing breast cancer and a 50 percent chance of developing ovarian cancer. Those are terrible odds, but in knowing them, Jolie writes, she was empowered to flip them.

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