Friday, April 18, 2008

More Brownlee articles

Here are other articles about John Brownlee moving on, from the BLT, Rocktown Weekly, the Roanoke Times, the Richmond paper, and The Hook.

I discussed this over breakfast at Bodo's with Dana. She said that if he runs in 2009, she will let me put up a sign for him in the front yard.

Where's Waldo?

We're in Charlottesville this weekend, but didn't make it anywhere near the Rotunda, or wherever it is that Waldo Jaquith does his webmastering.

Instead, we're roughing it out here at the Boar's Head, up from Birdwood.

Years ago, I was playing golf with Scott Michaux at the newly-opened Birdwood course, when he made his first eagle on the second hole or whatever is the first par 5 alongside the lake, but he said the joy of the moment was somewhat dulled by the fact that I scored a 12.

If you're quick enough, you can check out this latest column from Young Scottie.

UPDATE: On Saturday, we went down to the Grounds, and ambled through all ten of the Pavilion gardens, where all was in bloom, and in the process snuck behind "Hotel A," which is where Waldo J. actually works.

And that's good, one less thing - no interruptions over there from Cavalier Man on Saturdays in the fall - like that time he smote the Yellow Jacket in the Dome Room, with the aid of The Coach.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Brownlee to resign

The Roanoke paper reports that John Brownlee is moving on from his position as U.S. Attorney. The article does not say what he plans to do next.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

End the moratorium

The Supreme Court has ruled on the lethal injection case that has been holding up death penalty cases in Virginia and elsewhere, the opinion issued today in Baze v. Rees (argued on January 7) is here. And, the vote was 7-2, or maybe it was 2-1-2-1-1-2.

So, I guess the Governor's moratorium, based on the pendency of Baze, will be undone.

UPDATE: Undone it was, according to the Attorney General, Bob McDonnell, who says this:

“The Supreme Court has rejected a procedural challenge to Kentucky’s administration of lethal injection. Now that the Court has ruled, the Governor has rightly lifted his moratorium on executions in Virginia. This office will continue, as always, to defend the Commonwealth's authority to carry out the sentences handed down by Virginia courts, and the constitutionality of Virginia’s duly enacted statutes.”

Monday, April 14, 2008

The "coalfield" article in today's WSJ

I've seen a few articles like this one in other places. It begins: "The race for the Democratic nomination hinges on a handful of states where coal is still king," and goes on to make some point about the Virginia City power plant.

Not much going on here

I've got the trial coming up in June in the Buchanan County RICO case, and so it consumes much of my waking hours.

But - I have written a few more Wikipedia entries. Some of them are on this partial list of delegates to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901-02. A more complete list of the delegates is here.

That Convention included a high-powered bunch of past, present, or future U.S. Senators, Congressmen, Governors, judges of the Virginia Supreme Court and lower courts, Attorneys General of Virginia, and more than a half-dozen Virginia State Bar Association presidents. It was, so far as I can tell, a collection of the best and the brightest of Virginia's lawyers, for that time. The far Southwest Virginians included Rufus Ayers, Preston W. Campbell, James B. Richmond, and Henry Carter Stuart, plus a Gillespie from Tazewell, a Lincoln from Marion, a Summers from Bristol, and Judge Orr from Lee County. They got together for the main purpose of doing away with the voting rights of black people. They accomplished their purpose by means of the literacy test and poll tax, and the like. When they were done, figuring that black voters would be opposed, they declared the new Constitution ratified, without a vote of the people.

And, racism was only part of it, the other part was to keep down the Republicans and the ex-Readjusters who had been getting the black vote.

I guess I knew all that, but it seems more real to me than before I started picking at it.