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Thorne-Begland and the Mishnory Road
As a rule, appointments to state general district courts do not make national headlines. So the nationwide uproar that ensued last week when the Virginia General Assembly shot down the nomination of Tracy Thorne-Begland because he is gay has the look about it of a watershed moment. The question now is whether the lesson drawn will be narrow or broad.
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Katz: War on terror after Iraq and Afghanistan
On Sept. 11, 2011, the War on Terror entered its second decade. Despite the death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, the War on Terror continues — with no end in sight.
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Loving: JPMorgan scandal did not have to happen
The trading scandal at JPMorgan Chase is a unique example of how times have changed since the 1970s. The scandal came about because of a serious erosion in the values and standard of ethics that used to prevail in America.
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Will: The diversity of Elizabeth Warren
Blonde, blue-eyed Elizabeth Warren, the Senate candidate and Harvard professor who cites "family lore" that she is 1/32nd Cherokee, was inducted into Oklahoma's Hall of Fame last year. Her biography on oklahomaheritage.com says she "can track both sides of her family in Oklahoma long before statehood" (1907) and "she proudly tells everyone she encounters that she is 'an Okie to my toes.' " It does not mention any Cherokee great-great-great-grandmother. A DVD of the induction ceremony shows that neither Warren nor anyone else mentioned this.
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Marcus: Freedom from our own devices
Google executive Eric Schmidt offered some seemingly simple advice in his commencement address at Boston University last weekend: "Take one hour a day and turn that thing off."
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Burger: City proposes outrageous water charges
The City of Richmond has again proposed raising the minimum monthly charge for water and sewer service. This would raise the minimum fee for this service in Richmond to an outrageous $49.40 per month — that's before you use the first drop of water.
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Stevenson and Wolfers: The economic case for same-sex marriage
The national discussion about same-sex marriage is heating up.
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Williams: Should black people tolerate this?
Each year, roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered. Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person.
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Lehman: Obama's winning strategy for Iran
Let's play the game where I give you a word, and you think of the first word to come to mind. Iran. Did you think of "bomb"?
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Pitts: Tough-on-crime sentencing tough on justice, too
So the people got sick of it, all those criminals being coddled by all those bleeding-heart, liberal judges with all their soft-headed concern for rights and rehabilitation. And a wave swept this country in the Reagan years, a wave ridden by pundits and politicians seeking power, a wave that said, no mercy, no more. From now on, judges would be severely limited in the sentences they could hand down for certain crimes, required to impose certain punishments whether or not they thought those punishments fit the circumstances at hand. From now on, there was a new mantra in American justice. From now on, we would be "tough on crime."
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Hinkle: Gary Johnson marches up another mountain
"When researchers announced the discovery of a mountain taller than Everest on the asteroid Vesta, Gary Johnson had already climbed it." So said "Gary Johnson Facts" on Twitter a while back, after noting that "A duck's quack does not echo. Gary Johnson is solely responsible for this phenomenon."
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Will: A nightmare in Tewksbury
Russ Caswell, 68, is bewildered: "What country are we in?" He and his wife, Pat, are ensnared in a Kafkaesque nightmare unfolding in Orwellian language.
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Parker: Faux-raging for a story
What a difference four years make.
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Casey: An oath betrayed – by a third of the House
During the recent debate on the judicial nomination of Tracy Thorne-Begland for appointment to the General District Court bench, social conservative members of the House of Delegates repeatedly claimed that Thorne-Begland was unfit to serve as a judge because he had violated his duty to his country when he chose to declare his sexual orientation while in active military service.
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Foster: New math SOLs set higher standard
Virginia schools are at the height of the testing season as students in grades three to 12 take Standards of Learning tests in English, mathematics, history and science.
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Hanson: History warns: don't rile Germany
The newly elected French Socialist president, Francois Hollande, is warning Germany that Mediterranean ideas of "growth," not Germanic "austerity," should be the new European creed.
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Defenses of same-sex marriage based on contradictions
There are two ways to defend gay marriage. Argument A is empathy: One is influenced by gay friends in committed relationships yearning for the fulfillment and acceptance that marriage conveys upon heterosexuals.
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Will: Student loans and the menace of bipartisanship
Bipartisanship, the supposed scarcity of which so distresses the high-minded, actually is disastrously prevalent.
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Clark: Honor fallen police heroes by preventing gun violence
This week marks National Police Week, when we commemorate law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. Across America, law enforcement and families of fallen officers, along with civic leaders, lawmakers and members of the public, honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including the 163 officers lost in 2011. In Virginia we mourn five of those officers — Adam Bowen, Deriek Crouse, Cameron Justus, Timothy Schock, and William Stiltner — as well as Michael Walizer, who was lost this year.
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Hinkle: The case for a Romney-Paul Ticket
If he has proved nothing else, Ron Paul — the last of the GOP's not-Romneys to drop out of the campaign — has proved Calvin Coolidge right when Coolidge said "nothing in the world can take the place of persistence." Every other challenger to Mitt Romney pulled an Icarus — soaring into the stratosphere only to crash and burn. Paul, meanwhile, just kept plugging along below the radar.
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Greenberg: Gay marriage and all that…
Let us now praise Barack Obama. The president has finally come out and said what everyone — except maybe himself — knew he believed all along: He's for allowing homosexual couples to marry. That's nice. Now he can tick off another item on the list of must-dos for an orthodox liberal/progressive/libertarian.
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Marcus: Is John Edwards a criminal?
The prosecution has rested in a case that should never have been brought: the ghastly soap opera better known as the criminal trial of John Edwards. The testimony has been salacious, mesmerizing and revolting. Edwards has been proved to be what everyone already knew beyond a reasonable doubt: an egocentric cad.
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James: Richmond celebrates bike month with commuter challenge
May is National Bike Month, and the City of Richmond's Bicycle, Pedestrian and Trails Commission is organizing the city's first Bike Commuter Challenge to introduce Richmonders to the benefits and pleasures of commuting by bicycle. Promoting bicycling for transportation is an especially effective way to encourage a more active lifestyle because it makes physical activity part of everyday routine.
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Five jurisdictional points equal one star destination
Today, the Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau (RMCVB) celebrates National Travel and Tourism Week, which serves to champion the great impact of travel on local communities. The U.S. travel industry has much to celebrate. Just last month, Brand USA, the organization formed by Congress to market the United States to world visitors, unveiled America's first-ever comprehensive marketing campaign, with the goal of increasing foreign leisure, business and scholarly travel to the United States.
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Danish: I love a parade
In 1932 Harold Arden wrote the following lyrics for a song:
Deal of the Day
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Republican Record: Civil rights
When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came to a vote, Republicans were...
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here in Richmond recently...
Thorne-Begland and the Mishnory Road
As a rule, appointments to state general district courts do not...
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