Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Sunday, March 10. It’s now Daylight Savings Time, so make sure to set all your clocks ahead an hour!

*Gun Ownership Rate Has Fallen in U.S. Homes Over 4 Decades

*Lobbyists get ready for fight over tax reform (“Momentum has quietly been building toward a once-in-a-generation push to overhaul federal taxes, and that has Washington’s influence industry preparing for battle.”)

*Is the Filibuster Unconstitutional? (“The Founding Fathers might not approve of today’s Senate”)

*Friedman: No to Keystone. Yes to Crazy. (Interesting, but the problem is there’s no sign of a “grand bargain” on the table, or even being seriously talked about.)

*Admiral calls Climate Change top security issue … (So where are the supposedly strong-on-national-security Republicans on this one?)

*Medicaid expansion divides both parties in Virginia

*Funding a key factor as Bolling nears a decision on governor’s race

*Bolling faces high hurdles if he runs

*Forbes to talk religion at CPAC

*Schapiro: McDonnell gets it from the right for wrong ideas

*Giffords urges greater gun controls in Richmond appearance

*Crowd greets Cuccinelli as he opens office here

*State officials hope stricter rules will curb oyster poaching

*Weighing Norfolk’s plans for hotel conference center

*Interstate 66 may get express lanes to ease congestion

*Falls Church pushes to be freed from Voting Rights Act restrictions

*Report: Current design would lengthen travel time through bypass interchange

I just thought I’d do a short blog post to highlight some of the best and most entertaining Republican infighting the past few days regarding that burning issue of drones (yes, that was snark: personally, I’d put drones around #100 on my list of most important issues facing the country, with global warming #1 and the long-term competitiveness of our economy #2, but what do I know?).

First, we had John McCain call three Republicans – Sen. Paul Rand (R-Ky.), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich) – “wacko birds” whose views are not “reflective of the views of the majority of Republicans.”

Next, we had Newt Gingrich (see video above) saying: “I’m really disappointed in John McCain, and I’m very saddened by it…The idea that he’s now lecturing the next generation because they have the guts to stand up, which is I – I would have thought John McCain we do have applauded them…I don’t know what’s happened to John McCain, but I find this very sad.” Great stuff.

Finally, see the “flip” for John McCain saying that Rand Paul doesn’t live in the “world of reality,” and responding to Newt Gingrich’s criticisms of him as some sort of “angry old man” (which he certainly seems to be much of the time, I much say). Anyway, gotta love it. Now, can we have a lot more of this in Virginia? We can start with Bill Bolling candidacy for LG, which could be announced this Thursday. Stay tuned…

Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Saturday, March 9. Also, check out President Obama’s weekly address, in which he urges Congress to end the sequester to keep growing the economy.

*Eric Cantor touts Gov. Jindal’s voucher policies during New Orleans visit

*Conservative Media Star James O’Keefe Pays $100,000 Settlement For ACORN Pimp Sting

*McDonnell does a full flop on not raising taxes

*How right is too right for GOP? Virginia is next battleground

*Radtke behind anti-McDonnell ad in Iowa

*Dems ask Cuccinelli to say if he would repeal transportation funding deal

*Ken Cuccinelli: Keeping my promise to Virginia

*Sen. Warner Assists in Marriage Proposal on Twitter (“U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., facilitates Brett Wanamaker’s marriage proposal to press secretary Beth Adelson.”)

*Sen. Adam Ebbin: Why I voted against Virginia’s transportation bill

*ACLU urges Bob McDonnell to block bills allowing college groups to discriminate

*Give port stability, not new operator

*Will Springfield’s Dave Grohl join NoVa’s list of Oscar winners?

*Alexandria advances a do-over on waterfront redevelopment

*Statement from Governor Bob McDonnell on Trooper Walker

*Thousands remain without power in Central Virginia

After reading this, even a science-denying cretin like Ken Cuccinelli should be convinced that urgent action is needed to prevent climate disaster. Of course, he won’t be convinced: as Upton Sinclair famously said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” In the case of Cuccinelli, substitute “campaign contributions” for “salary” and you’ve pretty much got it.

( – promoted by lowkell)

Of the various remarks Justice Scalia made during the recent Supreme Court hearing on the Voting Rights Act, the one that drew the most fire from people who care about justice more than Scalia appears to was his scornful characterization of the law as a perpetuation of a “racial entitlement.

That was not only offensive morally, but also defective in intellectual terms.  There’s nothing preferential about the VRA.  On the contrary, its intent is to assure that members of a minority group –that has historically been deprived of their rights– are not cheated of those fundamental rights of citizenship by the dominant majority group.

Rachel Maddow’s much-quoted response to this offensive remark deserves to be quoted again:

He’s a troll. He’s saying this for effect. He knows it’s offensive and he knows he’s going to get a gasp from the courtroom…He’s like the guy on your blog comment thread who is using the n-word. … He’s that kind of guy!

But there was something else in Scalia’s remarks that unmasked Injustice Scalia still more:  the dismissive manner in which Scalia dealt with the judgment that Congress has made, repeatedly, and as recently as 2006, by a vote of 98-0, declaring that this law, which Scalia evidently wants to strike down, remains necessary.

Justice Kagan reminded the Court:

It was clear to 98 senators, including every senator from a covered state, who decided that there was a continuing need for this piece of legislation”

Scalia then chimed in:

‘Or decided that perhaps they’d better not vote against, that there’s …none of their interests in voting against it.

Scalia later added:

I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any senator to vote against continuation of this act. … They are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act. Even the name of it is wonderful: the Voting Rights Act. Who is going to vote against that in the future?

Not only is this contemptuous dismissal of Congress unsustainable in terms of reason and facts –after all, we know that political figures these days go around passing voting laws to suppress minority voting, so one would hardly expect that political calculation alone would explain a unanimous vote– but it exposes the utter hypocrisy of this supposedly high-powered, supposedly conservative, supposedly strict constructionist judge.

If Scalia thinks his point –even if it were valid– has any relevance to the role the Supreme Court is supposed to play, if he thinks that it’s up to the unelected judges to replace the judgment of elected officials in the making of constitutionally permissible laws, I would like to see this hypocritical “strict constructionist” show me where in the Constitution it says so.

Where do the Framers indicate that they don’t want the democracy they’ve set up to be responsive to the desires of the electorate?

As one commentator says, this injudicious judicial conduct may not be considered grounds for impeachment, but it should be. A Supreme Court judge who apparently has no respect for anything above his own opinions, or prejudices, is a menace to the nation.

Andy Schmookler, an award-winning author, political commentator, radio talk-show host, and teacher, was the Democratic nominee for Congress from Virginia’s 6th District.  He is the author of various books including The Parable of the Tribes:  The Problem of Power in Social Evolution.  

Last night at the monthly Brigades meeting (at Neighbors Restaurant in Vienna), new Democratic Party of Virginia Executive Director spoke to the group, and also answered questions, for about 1/2 hour. After introducing herself, including a joke about how her holidays with her Tea Party parents are “super fun,” and her background working for Gabby Giffords and the Ohio Democratic Party, she laid out her thoughts for DPVA in 2013 and beyond. Among other things, Harmon said the Democratic campaigns this year will truly be coordinated. According to Harmon, there will be 170 field organizers this year, “in every corner of the Commonwealth,” at a cost of $2.5 million. There will also be a focus on analytics (Harmon added that the analytics team will be headed up by person who worked on President Obama’s analytics) and motivating “drop-off voters” – ones who tend to vote in presidential elections but not in state elections – to come out this year. My favorite quote of the evening: “our communications team, we’re going to have one person focused on just beating the snot out of Ken Cuccinelli all day long – Brian Coy.”

Finally, Harmon talked about building up/investing in the party, to come out of 2013 “not just with a Democrat in the governor’s mansion” and more Democratic seats in the House of Delegates, but with DPVA “in a strong and sustainable financial position so that we can start capitalizing on our year-to-year gains.” According to Harmon, “we can’t just plan to come out of this not able to plug a coffee pot in at the Democratic Party headquarters, that’s not how you run an organization…we’ve got to look to 2020, we’ve got to look to redistricting, because that’s the only way that we’re going to be able to build a long-term majority for the Commonwealth…because they are gerrymandering the hell out of those districts, and we all know it.”  Good stuff, now let’s make it happen!