Watch Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, as he rescues Attorney General Eric Holder from bizarre and rambling questions by Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas and a Tea Party favorite. And yes, Gohmert really did say what’s in the headline, right around 8:58.

h/t to Scott M!

You got to hand it to Heather Whitney of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. She was in favor of expanded background checks for gun purchasers. When that failed in the U.S. Senate (even though a majority of senators supported it) she took to the phones. Among the “nay” senators she called was Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. Listen to the call, below.

Listen to this gibberish from Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, as he tries to use the Bible as a justification against immigration, after he gets schooled by a pastor during a Congressional hearing. What’s that business about the First Amendment and religion, anyway? That Congress shall make no law that respects the establishment of religion?

Diliff | Wikimedia Commons

Note from Dan: Regular poster Wayne Goodman has been around the block in politics, so to speak. Here’s his prescription for alleviating the mess in Washington D.C. we see now. What do you think?

By Wayne Goodman

Our political system is broken and needs to be revolutionized — if we want a system that actually responds to the people and their needs instead of being entrenched, obstructionist, and only concerned for reelection. Here are some suggestions.

1. Limit everybody (Senators, Representatives, and Presidents to twelve years in office.)

2. Elect Senators every four years instead of six.

3. Public fund all elections ( no outside contributions permitted).

4. Limit election cycle to six months ( three months for the nominating process and three for the election campaign). Read more »

Shot by Dan, in 2009, on the Tuesday Night Ride.

Since at least 2002, and probably earlier than that, bicycle riders have gathered at the Virginia Museum of Transportation for a weekly celebration of pedal power.

Known widely as the Tuesday Night Ride, or the Tuesday Night Beer Ride, it’s a 20-mile loop that includes 8 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway, one of the best bike-riding roads anywhere. An average of 40 riders participate, but on warm evenings those numbers can swell to 75 or 80.

Afterwards, many of the riders gather for food and fellowship and beer upstairs at The Cornerstone, a bar on Campbell Avenue. It’s a fun time.

Full disclosure: Though I haven’t participated in a few years, I was one of the Tuesday Night Ride’s earliest organizers. It’s been an official ride of the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club since at least 2003 or 2004, and I was president of that organization in 2006. (I’m no longer a member).

The ride normally kicks off the first Tuesday following daylight savings time, which is today. But last week, Blue Ridge Bicycle Club President Chris Berry pulled the plug, after months of back-and-forth with Blue Ridge Parkway authorities and Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s office.

There is no longer any club-sanctioned Tuesday night ride on the parkway, Berry wrote to members. Why? Because parkway authorities have hauled out an old regulation and are suddenly attempting to enforce it in a way that could quickly bankrupt the 175-member club.

This was spelled out in a February letter from parkway Superintendent Phil Francis to Goodlatte.

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.

Wikimedia Commons

On Friday, a candidate for to the federal bench nominated by President Barack Obama withdrew from consideration. Her name is Elissa Cadish and she’s a state judge in Nevada.

The nomination wasn’t going anywhere. Though recommended by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, it was being blocked by Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nevada. Why?

From the Associated Press:

Heller took issue with Cadish’s response on a 2008 election season questionnaire about the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Cadish wrote that she did not believe it was a constitutional right.

Proababy the AP overgeneralized what she wrote on that questionnaire. What Cadish most likely wrote was that she did not believe there was an individual right to keep and bears arms under the Second Amendment.

Until 2008, with its 5-4 ruling in Heller, the U.S.. Supreme Court had pretty much held the same thing for 100 or so years. So such a statement would not at all have conflicted with mainstream legal thought. Previous to Heller, the court had considered that the right to keep and bear arms existed within the context of a “well-regulated militia,” another well-known phrase in the Second Amendment.

In spite of that, the five justices in the Heller majority who evidently believed there is an individual right to guns were still confirmed. Whatever beliefs they had expressed on the Second Amendment prior to their ascension to the Supreme Court were not viewed as any kind of disqualification.

Yet now, with a judge who had expressed the opposite opinion, it seems more or less taken for granted that it’s a disqualifying factor. Which means now we’ve got a new litmus test, and a double standard to boot.

Note from Dan: Yesterday the White House released reports estimating the impact of the sequester on all 50 states. Specific cuts from the report on Virginia are below. To read the entire briefing sheet on Virginia, as well as some national impacts, click here (pdf).

VIRGINIA IMPACTS

If sequestration were to take effect, some examples of the impacts on Virginia this year alone are:

Teachers and Schools:
Virginia will lose approximately $14 million in funding for primary and secondary education, putting around 190 teacher and aide jobs at risk. In addition about 14,000 fewer students would be served and approximately 40 fewer schools would receive funding.

Education for Children with Disabilities:
In addition, Virginia will lose approximately $13.9 million in funds for about 170 teachers, aides, and staff who help children with disabilities.

Work-Study Jobs:
Around 2,120 fewer low income students in Virginia would receive aid to help them finance the costs of college and around 840 fewer students will get work-study jobs that help them pay for college. Read more »

AP Photo

“The state of our union is strong.”

So what do you think about President Obama’s speech?

Good?

Bad?

Effective? Or not?

AP Photo

Note from Dan: Tom Callaghan is a lawyer, former semi-pro poker player and self-employed investor who was active in the movement to run Richard Nixon out of office back in the early 1970s. He lives in Washington, D.C., and he’s the brain behind the blog Wednesday Wars.

By Tom Callaghan

When Chuck Hagel walks through a metal detector at an airport, he sets it off. He carries shrapnel in his chest from wounds suffered from his service in Vietnam.

Now, multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson and the Right Wing of the Israel Lobby (RWIL), which he finances, are trying to defeat Hagel’s nomination to be Secretary of Defense by inflicting on him the slow death of a thousand cuts.

The RWIL does not have the votes in the Armed Services Committee or in the full Senate to defeat his nomination. Nor do they have the votes necessary to sustain a filibuster. Their only option is to prolong the process by having Republican members of the Armed Services Committee, hungry for Adelson cash, file requests for additional information. Information that has not been required of other nominees for Secretary of Defense.

The resulting delay gives the RWIL slime machine more time to throw as much of their product (outright lies, distortions, rumors and quotes from unnamed sources) against the wall to see if they can get any of it to stick.

It’s Washington at its absolute worst. Read more »

Every now and then a columnist touches a nerve. Sometimes that nerve already has been plucked by a congressman. Such was the case with Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem.

Shortly after his victorious re-election bid, the former freshman sent out a 7-question survey to his 9th Congressional District constituents.

Most of the questions were so overly simplistic and leading that they seemed insulting. So I had a little fun with them in a Jan. 8 column.

The response from readers was swift and severe. Most of it was aimed at Griffith.

Michael Bentley of Salem didn’t get the survey, but he responded to Griffith anyway:

“The wording of the survey that others received was . . .biased to produce responses that aligned with the views of right-wing extremists,” Bentley wrote. “Perhaps you need to hire a reputable pollster to supervise your next survey.” Read more »