As he has in the past, Sen. Mark Warner will be hosting his “Almost Annual” Pig Roast in conjunction with the quarterly meeting of the DPVA’s State Central Committee. This year, the event falls on 9/11, and Warner is acknowledging the anniversary by asking for contributions to the Pentagon Memorial Fund.

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"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

The Commonwealth of Virginia has defaulted on a lawsuit.

You read that right. The commonwealth, along with James Madison University, has defaulted on a tortious interference case in New York. We’ll know next week how much it’s going to cost you and me.

Here’s what happened: A guy named Matthew Brady was the men’s basketball coach at Marist College in Dutchess County, N.Y., for four years. He had a contract with Marist that ran through 2011.

He took a job with JMU. According to the lawsuit Marist filed, JMU and the commonwealth tortiously interfered with that contract. Also, Brady went after some of the kids he had recruited for Marist, which was an alleged breach of fiduciary duty to Marist, “intentionally induced” by JMU, according to the suit.

Procedurally, Marist filed in state court, the case was removed to federal court, where JMU and the commonwealth answered and filed number of pleadings to get the suit kicked. The suit was remanded to state court. Marist moved for default a few months after the suit was back in state court.

Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States 150 years ago. Within six months of the election, 11 Southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. Soon North and South were plunged into a ghastly civil war that resulted in losses proportionally comparable to the European nations during the world wars.

What caused such a national calamity? Why did Southerners react so radically to a presidential election? Those questions have been raised from the moment the guns went silent the spring of 1865. With the Civil War sesquicentennial commemoration fast approaching us, the debate has begun anew.

The Obamas seem particularly ignorant of what it is exactly that holds a nation together.

The Anchorage Daily News is reporting that a small plane carrying at least eight people, possibly including former Sen. Ted Stevens, crashed last night near Dillingham, Alaska. Search parties have been sent to the scene of the crash and the story is still developing, but many news sources are now reporting that the former Senator was in deed on the plane that crashed.

Tokenism refers to a policy or practice of limited inclusion of members of a minority group, usually creating a false appearance of inclusive practices, intentional or not. Typical examples in real life and fiction include purposely including a member of a minority race (such as a black character in a mainly white cast, or a woman in a traditionally male universe) into a group. Classically, token characters have some reduced capacity compared to the other characters and may have bland or inoffensive personalities so as to not be accused of stereotyping negative traits. Alternatively, their differences may be overemphasized or made "exotic" and glamorous.

The laws of the United States must be executed. I have no discretionary power on the subject—my duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution. Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their execution, deceived you—they could not have been deceived themselves. They know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the execution of the laws, and they know that such opposition must be repelled. Their object is disunion, hut be not deceived by names; disunion, by armed force, is TREASON.

In short, the constitutional rights of children not to be discriminated against in school admission on grounds of race or color declared by this Court in the Brown case can neither be nullified openly and directly by state legislators or state executive or judicial officers, nor nullified indirectly by them through evasive schemes for segregation whether attempted "ingeniously or ingenuously."

No state legislator or executive or judicial officer can war against the Constitution without violating his undertaking to support it. Chief Justice Marshall spoke for a unanimous Court in saying that: "If the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery . . .

Democrats and union officials are seldom pleased with House Minority Whip Eric Cantor. But today they're particularly unhappy.

In attacking President Obama's economic policies yesterday, Cantor asked, "So as President Obama prepares to take another victory lap, who exactly is [he] celebrating with?"

The answer: auto manufacturers. Whoops!

[McDonnell] also fielded questions about how to deal with the problems of illegal immigration, the influence of lobbyists, losses in education funding, the placement of electricity-generating windmills and the constitutional question of "nullification."

While complimenting the questioner on his knowledge of the Constitution, McDonnell declined to say whether he backed that notion, a legal argument that a state may invalidate or nullify a federal law it believes violates the 10th Amendment's delegation to the states or the people all rights not designated to the federal government.

Senator McEachin Reminds the Governor that

Nullification has been Deemed Unconstitutional

Richmond – Today, Senator A. Donald McEachin (D-Henrico) responded to Governor McDonnell’s comments in Roanoke yesterday (as quoted by the Roanoke Times) that he “declined” to express an opinion on the legitimacy of nullification. Senator McEachin said, “I am extremely dismayed and concerned that our governor has apparently neglected to review recent American history or leading Supreme Court cases. Not even sixty years ago, in a response to attempts to ignore Brown v. Board of Education in which African-American children were first given the opportunity for an equal integrated education with white children, the Supreme Court ruled on Cooper v. Aaron. In this extremely significant case, the Court ruled that because the Supremacy Clause of Article VI made the United States Constitution the Supreme law of the land and Marbury v. Madison gave the Supreme Court the final power of judicial review, then all states are bound by federal law and bound by Supreme Court decisions.

“But even if the Governor has forgotten these Constitutional law principles, he should surely recall the amount of blood spilled, families and homes decimated and young men killed the last time states made foolish decisions based on nullification. Surely, as governor of Virginia which is criss-crossed with battlefields and graveyards of those who died fighting in that war and those who died trying to protect their homes and families and the numbers of slaves and free blacks who died trying to protect their loved ones and their few and meager possessions, he should know that no good can come of this kind of foolish and dangerous talk.

“We are Americans, proud to be part of the greatest democracy on earth, and if we disagree we have legal, political and legislative means to resolve those disagreements. Living in a democracy means that if we don’t like what is happening we will have an election and we can peaceably, within our Constitutional procedures and rights, address those grievances.

“Finally, like every other elected official, Governor McDonnell took an oath to uphold the US Constitution and all the Articles and clauses within that document. Nullification is not legal and declining to respond is not acceptable. I expect our governor to uphold the law and the Constitution and to refute unconstitutional and illegal drivel when he hears it.”

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