Will Dave Marsden’s Quick Move Move Him To The Senate Or Backfire?

News in the two Virginia Senate special elections is heating up. In the 37th district, which is open due to the election of Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli, Democrat Delegate Dave Marsden is being pressured to resign his House seat now that he is officially campaigning for the Senate. The reason: If elected, he will leave the 41 district delegate-less in the House for a good portion of the 2010 General Assembly while yet another special election is called. Marsden refuses, but there is another twist: Marsden doesn’t live in the Senate district, so he is taking a room in the home of a supporter who lives in an overlapping  precinct. It gives new meaning to carpetbagging. It may solve (cheesily) the technical residency requirement, but it’s brazenness may alienate voters.

In Commentary, Thomas D. Segel looks at a doctor shortage that will get worse under Obamacare, Star Parker writes about D.C.’s new homosexual friendly city council, and Henry Lamb weighs in on property rights. Meanwhile, the AP’s Tom Raum analyzes the Federal Reserve’s massive liquidity policies that are cheapening the dollar and sinking the economy further, faster.

News:

Kaine: ‘Not out of the woods yet’ on economy (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Officials seek ways to deal with budget shortfall (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

GOP asks Marsden to resign House seat (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog)

Health care divides Senate hopefuls at GOP forum (Norfolk Virginian-Pliot)

8th Senate District GOP primary may go nasty — and quick (BearingDrift.com)

National News:

FBI: More anti-religious, anti-gay hate crimes reported (AP/Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

Schumer: Dems ready to go-it-alone on health care (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Senate Democrats at odds over health care bill (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Mammogram guidelines spark debate over health bill (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Palin dines, prays with Rev. Billy Graham in NC (AP/GOPUSA.com)

RI bishop asked Kennedy in 2007 to avoid Communion (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Analysis:

Fed under fire as public anger mounts (Tom Raum/AP/GOPUSA.com) 

Commentary:

Where Have All The Doctors Gone? (Thomas D. Segel/GOPUSA.com)

U.S. Capital Going The Way Of Sodom (Star Parker/GOPUSA.com)

They’re Still After Your Water (Henry Lamb/GOPUSA.com)

Give Me Character Over IQ Any Day (Doug Patton/GOPUSA.com)

Getting into the swing are some of Virginia’s best known institutions of higher learning. William and Mary’s new administration, sadly, teased the public with a fig leaf of deference, only to pull it back. Yes, the sex show returns. See Delegate Brenda Pogge’s (R-96, Yorktown) news release below (see her letter last year to then-W&M President Gene Nichol).

Not to be outdone, football-less George Mason University, best known for its Economics Department featuring the likes of Dr. Walter E. Williams and Dr. Don Boudreaux (also see here and here) not to mention Nobel winners, and for its hoops team’s run to the Final Four a few years ago, had its annual Homecoming Basketball game this past weekend. It elected a boy homecoming queen. See the Washington Post’s account here.

Not just any boy: a transvestite. As it turns out, not just any queen either: He works as a drag queen in D.C. area bars. Fantastique! Laissez le bon temps rouler!

Here’s what’s so instructive about the whole situation, as reported in the Post:

“Officially, the university is ‘very comfortable with it. We’re fine,’ spokesman Daniel Walsch said. The school does not require participants in the Mr. and Ms. Mason pageant to compete along precise gender lines, he said.”

So why even have “Mr.” and “Ms.” contests? Why not a “Homecoming Student” contest? Open it up. Truth in advertising. If it does not matter, then GMU officials should end the contest as is immediately, and simply have a generic “Homecoming Student” vote. Students could enter as they wish to have their personhood identified: homosexual, heterosexual, male, female, dean’s list student, frat boy stud, jock, regular Joe or Jane, beauty contestant, whatever.

At least there’s this, from The Post:

“But others say it is an embarrassment at an inopportune time when Mason is trying to revamp its image from commuter school to distinguished institution of higher learning.”

Meanwhile, back at the academic seat of the western point of the Historic Triangle, on March 23, students can learn all about a potential professional field upon graduation. According The Daily Press:

“The show — which features strippers, prostitutes and other sex workers performing and discussing their work. …”

will be paid for by student activity fees because, as new President Taylor Reveley, said:

“The elected representatives of the student body approve the use of student fees for these events, not administration. This experience in self-government is part of the learning process.”

Self government? Or the inmates running the asylum? But who cares? It’s Mardi Gras. Laissez le bon temps rouler! Let the good times roll!

POGGE Expresses Disappointment with Repeat of Sex Show

February 3, 2009

YORKTOWN, VA — Today Delegate Brenda Pogge, in response to an article in today’s Daily Press,released a letter sent last week to William and Mary President, Taylor Reveley concerning her deep disappointment at the possibility that “The Sex Workers Art Show” would go on at the College.

The letter, dated January 30 made the request that, “given the controversy that this show created last year and in years past, I am humbly requesting that this year the show not go on.”

The letter went on to say, “One of the tests that the Supreme Court used in defining obscenity is does it violate community standards. I submit to you on behalf of the majority of the citizens of my District, that it does.” Delegate Pogge is opposed to the return of “The Sex Workers Art Show” to the College of William and Mary and today stated, “In my opinion the inclusion of the word “Art” is a vain attempt to put lipstick on a pig.”