This new feature, Around the NovaHood, will appear periodically, containing brief items of interest from the greater Northern Virginia area.

FORMER SASLAW CAMPAIGN WORKERS GET JAIL TERMS

A former lawyer has been sentenced to over 7 years in prison for embezzling more than $1.6 million from groups including the campaign fund of Virginia Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw. David H. Miller, 71, was convicted of fraud and other counts last year. Prosecutors say he embezzled not just from Saslaw’s campaign but also from a Canadian business and an autism organization. His wife, Linda Wallis, was Saslaw’s campaign treasurer. She was sentenced to nearly 5 years in prison after pleading guilty to her role in the embezzlement scheme. The embezzlement from Saslaw’s campaign exceeded $650,000.

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HAVE THEY NO SHAME? GUN GROUP MOCKS SPEAKER RE: 1996 CARJACKING

It would seem that in today’s General Assembly, where bills are being passed on issues that never had a chance before last year’s election, GOP gun wackos will use anything to smear Democrats. Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn’s being unarmed during a 1996 carjacking is evidently appropriate fodder. A photo of the Speaker appeared on the official social media feed of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, showing her saying that she was not armed during the crime, adding it was very scary! I am getting laws passed so you will be unarmed too and can share my fear…..” Sleazy is too nice a term for such comment.

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PRINCE WILLIAM TO CONSIDER TRUMP ALLY FOR JAIL BOARD

Although Democrats elected a majority of the Board of Prince William County Supervisors, one member has nominated an ally of President Trump to the board that oversees the regional jail. The ostensible reason and attraction is the fact that the nominee is committed to continuing the program begun in 2007, authorizing local law enforcement to detain alleged illegal immigrants for ICE. In light of the advent of a number of gaming establishments in the Commonwealth, one wonders about the odds for the nominee’s success. Signals from majority members on the Board strongly point in the negative.

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LOUDOUN SCHOOLS LGBTQ BOOK DISPUTE

A few months ago, a group of parents in Loudoun County mounted a campaign to remove a number of LGBTQ books from the school curriculum. Under a diversity program, the district had introduced 80 books into the curriculum. The administration caved to remove five books but later “re-leveled” two of them to upper grades. Most recently, two other books were approved to be made available in the curriculum.

In 2008, administrators pulled And Tango Makes Three from libraries after a staffer complained about the book, which describes love between two male penguins. A few weeks later, facing outcry from parents and bloggers, the district reversed itself and restored the text to elementary school shelves, where it remains.

Parent and Child Loudoun, the group spearheading the initial protest, denounced­LGBTQ books as unsafe, “leftist propaganda” and “moral corruption.” “They’ve removed everything with a Christian influence. . . and replaced it with smut and porn,” one parent complained. How a gay penguin couple fits that paradigm remains a puzzle, linguistically and pictorially.

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Categories: gun control, Immigration, Issues, LGBTQ, Local