Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli can keep on with his lawsuit against the federal government over health reform, a judge ruled today. Cuccinelli makes a Tenther argument against health reform, saying that the U.S. government has no right to penalize people for not buying health insurance.

In ruling that Virginia can indeed sue the federal government over health reform, Judge Henry E. Hudson wrote: "While this case raises a host of complex constitutional issues, all seem to distill to the single question of whether or not Congress has the power to regulate -- and tax -- a citizen's decision not to participate in interstate commerce. Neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor any circuit court of appeals has squarely addressed this issue."

Careful watchers of Cuccinelli will remember that Judge Hudson has sided with Cuccinelli before. Ben Tribbett of Not Larry Sabato pointed out a 2007 decision (pdf) by Hudson for Cuccinelli, who'd sued to overturn Virginia's open primaries law. That Cuccinelli got another yes today, however preliminary, from the same judge is no great surprise.

UPDATE: HuffPo finds that Judge Hudson is an investor in a campaign firm whose client list includes Cuccinelli.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell says he's proud to be leading the nation's Republican resurgence. Now he appears to be leading it right into the ditch, rolling out the Governor's Commission on Government Reform and Restructuring with Fred Malek as chairman. Malek served President Richard Nixon by counting the Jews who worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics to make sure there weren't too many.

In 1988, Malek resigned his deputy chairmanship of the RNC after his Nixon-era work came to light. Ben Tribbett writes:

Some people might ask- what is the statute of limitations on a mistake someone made like this 40 years ago? I don't think such a thing exists when you are talking about identifying and counting the number of Jews in government positions less than 30 years after the Holocaust.. It's petrifying that this could have happened in this country.

More recently, in 2003, the Washington Post reports that Malek's firm paid a civil penalty of $150,000 to settle SEC allegations of fraud involving Connecticut state pension money and a friend of the state treasurer. Malek himself paid a civil penalty of $100,000. And then there's this, which is strange and awful. From WaPo columnist Colbert I. King, who reaches back to 1959:

One of the men arrested in the incident, in which a dog was killed, skinned, gutted and barbecued on a spit, was Frederick V. Malek, 22, of Berwyn, Ill.

Charges of cruelty to animals were later dismissed against Malek and three other men after Andrew P. O'Meara testified that he had struck and killed the dog with a piece of 2-by-4, and that he alone had skinned the animal and tried to cook it. O'Meara said he was trying to show Malek and the others something about living off the land.