Do we all remember four years ago when the Halifax County Board of Supervisors self-immolated over a set of internal issues that have never entirely been explained to this day, and created a bitter, months-long 4-4 split on the board? Yeah, good times.

Here it is, the start of a new year, and all the crystal balls in the world have been hit with a cut-off notice. Translated: who the heck knows what lies ahead in 2020? It’s a tradition in this space to sally forth into January with our Fearless Forecast of the Future®, but there’s fearless and then there’s clueless, and I’m not so clueless as to look back over the past year and think any of it could have been predicted beforehand.

Here it is, the start of a new year, and all the crystal balls in the world have been hit with a cut-off notice. Translated: who the heck knows what lies ahead in 2020? It’s a tradition in this space to sally forth into January with our Fearless Forecast of the Future®, but there’s fearless and then there’s clueless, and I’m not so clueless as to look back over the past year and think any of it could have been predicted beforehand.

A 17-year-old got his hands on a gun this weekend, other young people are dead as a result, and the rest of us are left to mourn and wonder why.

The response to the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement that has taken rural Virginia by storm is truly impressive from a political point of view — massive turnouts at local meetings, virtually unanimous support among local officials, a string of formal declarations by county governments, and a fast-paced reddening of the state map.