Wonderful

One has to imdagine that most of these individuals are affiliated in some way with the University of Virginia.

If so, this is Exhibit A for defunding that institution.  Clearly, the taxpayers of Virginia aren't getting their money's worth.

British Sub Runs Aground

Yet another story for the unfortunately-named file.

Sadly, the officer in charge of this vessel apparently failed to acquire the attributes of the vessel's name: HMS Astute.

Krystal Ball: "Exhibitionists Deserve Representation, Too"

Well, it was inevitable: First District Democrat candidate for Congress, the unfortunately-named Krystal Ball, is playing the victim card.  "lowkell" at Blue Virginia calls it "fiery," and "passionate."

"Delusional" would be more accurately descriptive.

It's actually a pretty amazing piece, especially insofar as it reveals Mrs. Ball's woeful lack of qualification for public office.  Or as someone with a firm grasp of reality, for that matter.

She invokes California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, and the campaign of Jerry Brown, which was apparently preparing to peg her as a "whore" with the approval or at least acquiescence of the candidate, without managing a word of condemnation for Brown himself.

Of particular interest is this section:

[T]hese photos were released by a right-wing smear blog with close ties to my opponent. I don't believe these pictures were posted with a desire to just embarrass me; they wanted me to feel like a whore. They wanted me to collapse in a ball of embarrassment and to hang my head in shame. After all, when you are a woman named Krystal Ball, 28 years old, running for Congress, well, you get the picture. Stripper. Porn star. I've heard them all. So, I sat in my husband's arms and cried. I thought about my little girl. I couldn't stand the idea that I had somehow damaged the cause of young women running for office. I couldn't stand the idea that I might shame my family, my friends or my supporters in some way.

The tactic of making female politicians into whores is nothing new. In fact, it happened to Meg Whitman, one of the world's most accomplished business women, just last week. It's part of this whole idea that female sexuality and serious work are incompatible. But I realized that photos like the ones of me, and ones much racier, woeuld end up coming into the public sphere when women of my generation run for office. And I knew that there could be no other answer to the question than this: Society has to accept that women of my generation have sexual lives that are going to leak into the public sphere. Sooner or later, this is a reality that has to be faced, or many young women in my generation will not be able to run for office.

Let's deconstruct this a little.  "[T]hese photos were released by a right-wing smear blog with close ties to my opponent."  "right-wing smear blog"?  Ball is non-specific, so it's a little unclear about whom she is talking.  I first saw them on Black Velvet Bruce Li, and then, Virginia Virtucon (those have since been removed).  I may even have been referred to the former by no one's Republican, Ben Tribbett (with the wonderful title, "KRYSTAL BALL PICTURES AS CHRISTMAS DOMINATRIX RELEASED!").

Now, I myself have on occasion pegged BVBL as a "smear blog" (ask Faisal Gill), but so far as I know, it hardly has "close ties" to Rob Wittman's campaign.  Virginia Virtucon?  Well, maybe close ties, but "right-wing"?  I guess only in the fevered imagination of the moonbat far Left, where everyone to the right of Teddy Kennedy is "far right," and which finds so appropriate a representative in Krystal Ball (witness her references to "marriage inequality [code for defining "marriage" as, well, marriage], failing schools [oblivious to or ignoring the fact that the far Left and its teacher-union allies have controlled them for decades], an often-tainted food supply [whatever she is talking about; perhaps eggs distributed during Obama's administration?]," etc.

After all, she writes as though the Great Prevaricator's impeachment was about someone's "private life," rather than the truth: that it was about a President's perjury and obstruction of justice.  Ah, if only Richard Nixon had been so shameless!  She writes about how the Great Prevaricator's wife's "expression after she had to face the entire country with her private life exposed for the world to see."

Mrs. Ball represents the far Left's penchant for revisionist history, too, apparently forgetting that Hillary Clinton, too, was shamelessly lied to by her husband, even if you accept for a moment that her response after he finally came clean wasn't all about maintaining her proximity to power.

"they wanted me to feel like a whore."  I guess Krystal Ball actually owns a crystal ball.  Either that, or she's engaging in the far Left's tried-and-true tactic of attacking the motivations of her opposition, and attributing the motives that serve her interests.

Perhaps, just perhaps, dear Mrs. Ball, they wanted to point out that you're irresponsible: irresponsible for that behavior; irresponsible for allowing it to be photographed; irresponsible in your choices about those with whom you associate.  Perhaps Howard Stern should run for Congress, too.

And please don't try to wrap yourself in the mantle of "female sexuality," and fevered femi-Nazi caricatures of Conservatives.  I truly believe that most Conservatives don't give a rat's rear-end about your private sexual behavior, or that of most people.

Which raises the question: from where did the photos come?  Who released them?  Who had them in their possession?  Ball asks "How did this happen?," but on a broader level, complaining that "Politics is a nasty game," without expressing any interest in who it was who actually brought them into the public sphere.  No; she'd rather attack the messenger.  And as "nasty" as at least one party she attended?  Hmmmmm.....

And surreal in the extreme is her assertion that:

[P]hotos like the ones of me, and ones much racier, would end up coming into the public sphere when women of my generation run for office. And I knew that there could be no other answer to the question than this: Society has to accept that women of my generation have sexual lives that are going to leak into the public sphere. Sooner or later, this is a reality that has to be faced, or many young women in my generation will not be able to run for office.

Really?  That's quite a commentary of women of Ball's generation.  Are so many of them really equally irresponsible and exhibitionist?  After all, I recall the news in the Eighties when a hard-core porn star won a seat in the Italian Parliament, but that was Italy, after all, and her campaign, if memory serves, was more of a lark, akin to Mary Carey's run for California Governor in the Gray Davis recall.

And as the father of a 25-year-old stepdaughter, I somehow doubt "that women of [Ball's] generation have sexual lives that are going to leak into the public sphere."

But Ball expresses no interest in "how" it happened, instead trashing her enemies broadly, playing the victim card.

Perhaps the real lesson here is that Ms. Ball chooses her "friends" as wisely as she chooses her behavior.  And in both cases, neither commends her for a seat in the United States Congress.

Now, an internship in the Clinton White House?  That's another question entirely.

Is Debbie Wasserman Shultz The Most Obnoxious A**hole In Politics?

One could certainly draw that conclusion from Shultz's (D-FL) interrupting performance against Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor on this morning's Fox News Sunday.  I was hoping to link to the video, but when I Googled her name and "Fox News Sunday," one of the first things that came up was a transcript of another rude, interrupting performance by the Congresswoman from March.

Perhaps she has just been channeling Algore.

On the other hand, perhaps it's just another indicator of Democrat desparation.

Yes, Amending The Constitution IS Possible

Apparently, Virginia's moonbatosphere is in high dudgeon over Governor Bob McDonnell's endorsement of a constitutional amendment permitting two-thirds of the states to reject or "nullify" a Federal law or regulation.  The moonbats over at "Blue Virginia" (AKA "Don McEachin's Press Office"; can't do an effective link, but just search "McEachin" using the site's search function) opine "So much for Bob McDonnell understanding what the Civil War was all about."

Recall, of course, that this was the same site that --- indeed, the same author who --- savaged Bob McDonnell for daring to point out that:

McDonnell said he did not include a reference to slavery because "there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.

Here's how "lowkell" responded to that bold and controversial statement:

WTF?!? Slavery wasn't one of the "most significant" parts of Virginia history? My god [sic, unless, of course, "lowkell" is referring to his god, i.e., big government"), what did they teach this guy at Pat Robertson's law school?

In response - and rightly so! - "The proclamation was condemned by the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus and the NAACP. Former governor L. Douglas Wilder called it "mind-boggling to say the least" that McDonnell did not reference slavery or Virginia's struggle with civil rights in his proclamation." I agree strongly with the Legislative Black Caucus and Doug Wilder; McDonnell's airbrushing of slavery and the civil rights struggle is completely outrageous, shameful, and unacceptable.

Funny, but I missed "lowkell's" reference (at least back in April) mentioning that nullification was "what the Civil War was all about."  Perhaps he was "airbrushing" it at the time.

And so much for --- huge surprise here --- moonbats "understanding what the [Constitution] is all about."  Perhaps, when you have judges who are willing to defy the plain language of the Constitution to enact your policy goals, you forget that amending the document is the anticipated way of doing things.

Article V of the Constitution specifically provides:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; ...and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Soooo, amending the Constitution is permissible --- and was even anticipated --- by the Framers.  Indeed, many of them were in the first Congress, which proposed twelve amendments, ten of which were adopted as the Bill of Rights, and one of which was eventually adopted as our latest amendment.

Whether the proposed amendment is a good idea is an eminently debatable point, and a different question entirely.  And as constitutional conservative, I am skeptical of any effort to amend the basic law of the land.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the moonbats from the far Left bothering to address the issue on the merits.