From Louise Lucas’s Twitter Feed, courtesy of Virginia Political Newsletter
Sen. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) has taken a page out of Donald Trump’s playbook. She is resorting to assigning insulting nicknames to those who will not go along with her and trying to negotiate by social media using all capitals in her complaints.
As recently reported by the Virginia Political Newsletter, the budget negotiations seemed to be going well until this morning when Lucas, Gov. Abigail Spanberger, and Del. Luke Torian (D-Prince William), the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, met. When Spanberger and Torian pressed Lucas on what she wanted to do with the additional revenue that would be generated by repealing the sales tax exemption on data centers, Lucas got frustrated and left the meeting.
Lucas later released this statement, “Just when I thought Chairman Torian and I were getting close to agreeing on a budget, we had a meeting with Data Center Diva [Spanberger] this morning and she agrees with Amazon Don [Don Scott (D-Portsmouth), Speaker of the House] who doesn’t want to impact the richest corporations in the country.” Later, on social media, she declared, “Amazon Don and Data Center Diva, you are making a MONUMENTAL MISTAKE! Maybe you should ask Glenn Youngkin how that worked out for him!”
At this point, the plan seems to be to report a “skinny budget”, one that will fund just core services, which could prevent a government shutdown on July 1.
Virginians for Safe Communities needs to broaden its outlook.
In a recent article on this blog, the organization pointed out that the number of offenses against persons in Arlington/Falls Church and Fairfax Co/Fairfax City had increased significantly from 2019 to 2025. It linked those increases to the policies of the Commonwealth’s attorneys in those jurisdictions, claiming they had “legalized crime.”
The organization went on to claim that, while crime increased in those Northern Virginia jurisdictions that happen to have Democrat Commonwealth’s attorneys, “it fell everywhere else.” That’s not quite true. As shown in the table below, the number of offenses against persons increased quite significantly in three traditionally conservative, Republican counties. If Commonwealth’s attorneys are to be blamed for increases in crime, the prosecutors in those jurisdictions have some explaining to do.
When former University of Virginia President Jim Ryan recently sat for a friendly interview with Cville Right Now, he sounded delighted to be off the clock. He described mornings spent writing a leadership book; afternoons kite surfing, skiing, golfing, biking and traveling; and he joked, “I’m really good at not working.” The joke lands differently once his sabbatical benefits are understood.
Ryan’s contract explains why he can afford to “not work” so enthusiastically. When he resigned in June 2025 under pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice — after multiple civil rights investigations into UVA’s DEI practices — he exercised a contractual option to return to the law faculty at 75% of his presidential salary, or $825,000 a year. As I pointed out in RealClearEducation, that figure is so far beyond what other UVA law professors earn that it likely violates the Internal Revenue Code’s prohibition on private inurement, which bars tax exempt institutions from enriching insiders with unreasonable compensation.
But the sabbatical is even more revealing. Section F.6 of Ryan’s employment agreement states that during his sabbatical he “shall receive his last existing presidential Annual Salary.” That salary was about $1.1 million. The same provision gives him an office, staff support and an annual budget of $50,000 “to be used for research and travel expenses.” In plain terms, UVA is paying Ryan more than a million dollars this year, plus a $50,000 research and travel fund, while he skis, surfs, golfs, travels and writes a trade press book about leadership.
Sabbaticals are supposed to support serious scholarship. Nothing about the book Ryan describes requires a seven-figure salary and a $50,000 research budget — unless he is paying someone else to write it for him, which I doubt. What it does require is a Board of Visitors willing to treat the university’s resources as a cushion for a powerful man’s soft landing.
More details have emerged about the Southern Poverty Law Center’s funding the right-wing extremism it purported to fight. Here’s the updated account, contained in a superseding indictment filed by the Department of Justice, of SPLC Employee-3 who helped organize the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. — JAB
The SPLC Secretly Paid F-37 More Than $300,000 in Donor’s Money
i. F-37 was not involved in an extremist organization before F-37 reached out to the SPLC seeking employment.
ii. While receiving payment by the SPLC, F-37 made multiple racist posts on social media accounts under the supervision of SPLC Employee-3.
iii. In 2017, F-37 was a member of the online leadership chat group that helped plan the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. SPLC Employee-3 directed F-37 to attend this event in which one woman and two law enforcement officers were tragically killed. F-37 assisted in arranging transportation for others involved in the movement to the event.
iv. The SPLC extensively covered the “Unite the Right” rally on its various media platforms, both at the time of the rally and in the following years. The “Unite the Right” rally led to a massive fundraising windfall for the SPLC with open-source media reporting that the SPLC more than doubled their previous year’s reported revenue from private and corporation donations following the “Unite the Right” rally. The SPLC did not disclose to its donors that it used donors’ money to pay F-37.
The truth slowly emerges about what UVA leaders knew about the Health System scandal.
by The Jefferson Council
A bombshell disclosure in a recent FOIA proceeding reveals that UVA’s Board of Visitors, led by Robert Hardie, quietly retained Williams & Connolly (W&C) as “special counsel to the BOV and the Audit, Compliance, and Risk Committee of the BOV” regarding issues with UVA Health on May 23, 2024 — four months before the September 5th correspondence in which 128 physicians signed a no-confidence letter in UVA Health leadership. You can read the never-previously-disclosed letter of engagement here.
That timing is significant. By May 2024, the Ryan administration had already received years of complaints, resignation letters, and HR filings involving patient safety, retaliation, and leadership culture. On May 6, 2024 — just seventeen days before W&C was retained — at least three faculty members filed formal reports with Human Resources, resulting in hours of subsequent interviews. UVA certainly did not request special counsel because everything was fine.
Yet the Ryan administration publicly insisted that UVA Health was being managed responsibly and was in “the best shape it has ever been in.” When the physicians’ no-confidence letter –- documenting significant issues with UVA –- became public on September 5, President Jim Ryan dismissed it two days later as a “strategy” built on “generalized and anonymous claims,” suggesting that a few faculty meetings were sufficient to address the concerns being raised. He accused the physicians of “besmirching” the reputations of UVA Health leadership and casting an unfair “shadow over the great work of the entire health system.”
I admit it. After decades in the news business I’m jaded.
Bored, too.
Especially with the tedious, fear-inducing fluff pieces that news outlets sprinkle throughout the year as their reporters obediently attend press conferences and act as stenographers for bureaucrats.
You know, the stories with ridiculous “safety precautions” published year after year at Halloween that turn trick or treating into a weird evening of parents hovering around kids and forbidding them to eat at single M&M until Mommy and Daddy can examine their sugary booty. (You do know that there’s never been a verified case of a razor blade in apple, right? Yet this single urban legend is trotted out annually.)
Every July we get the usual warnings about the dangers of backyard fireworks for Independence Day. Apparently, somewhere out there, someone still needs to be told not to look down the business end of a bottle rocket.
Every August we get the same self-evident tips on surviving a heat wave: dress in light-colored clothing, drink water, stay out of the sun.
Yep, somewhere in America there must be idiots who dress in black, march around at noon and refuse to drink water when the temperatures are in triple digits.
And this, being the first week in June, means state officials will issue stern warnings about hurricane season, which technically started on Monday and lasts until November 30, even though we rarely see a major storm before August. Continue reading.
Dodging FOIA bullets a la Matrix. Image credit: Grok
Bob Morris, a Virginia Military Institute alumni activist, has filed suit in York County Circuit Court against VMI alleging the withholding, redacting, and even altering public records. Here follows a Chat GPT summary based upon a media backgrounder provided by The Cadet, a VMI student newspaper with which Morris is closely affiliated. — JAB
Core allegations
The lawsuit alleges that VMI officials and members of its Board of Visitors:
Conducted public business through “reply-all” emails and text-message chains that effectively functioned as secret meetings, in violation of Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Withheld, redacted, or failed to produce public records related to controversial governance decisions at VMI.
Failed to produce records from board member Donald Hall, who allegedly described himself as the “principal negotiator” with state officials regarding VMI matters.
Withheld records involving former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, call logs, voicemails, and certain email metadata.
Altered a public-records portal entry to conceal the involvement of VMI’s FOIA officer in creating a records request for an outside journalist.
The Norfolk Police Department added toilet and shower partitions in its women’s locker room after a trans-identified recruit ogled an undressed female officer.
by Jordan Jantz Republished with permission from IWFeatures
Instead of protecting female-only spaces, the Norfolk Police Department in Virginia has spent $57,424.95 to “provide toilet partitions, shower drying area partitions and related finish work at shower area of NPD Women’s Locker Room,” allegedly in order to accommodate trans-identified individuals, according to communications obtained by IW Features.
Previously, the department locker room had only transparent shower curtains, Norfolk Officer Meghan Grabow previously told IW Features. The renovations added dividers and walls to create privacy, but those additions also took up floorspace and divided an already small locker room.
The renovation came after an alleged incident in the Norfolk PD when a transgender-identified male recruit entered the women’s locker room and stared at Grabow when she was undressed, as IW Features previously reported. The department also allegedly demanded that officers address the male recruit as a female and use female pronouns. When officers attempted to gain clarity, the department reportedly retaliated by suspending officer Grabow and firing officer Martin Powers when he stood with female officers.
The UVA BOV will have their Quarterly Board Meeting on Thursday and Friday, June 4-5. UVA still has *NOT* published the agenda or Board materials, only a schedule. You can find that here.
The Quarterly Board meeting will be followed by a retreat on Saturday at Morven, with sessions on: *Accountability & Aligned Governance – Board Transition/Governance *Affordability & Accessibility–AccessUVA Funding *Athletic Competitiveness–Athletics and Funding *Advancing Patient Care & Saving Lives – UVA Health – Strategy and Patient Care
Here’s an idea. How about a session on Transparency and Restoring Public Trust? — JAB
A university program with ties to terrorist organizations gets to influence public school classrooms.
Image credit: Restoration News
by Victoria Manning
What if a program with ties to terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood trained your child’s teacher using taxpayer resources? That’s not hypothetical. It’s been happening for years at Virginia’s Shenandoah University—largely operating under the radar.
The Center for Islam in the Contemporary World (CICW) at Virginia’s Shenandoah University has ties to multiple terrorist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. CICW founder, M. Yaqub Mirza, was formerly a leader of the SAAR Foundation, a fundraising operation linked to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda. Mirza died in 2025, but the current chairman has his own extremist ties.
Antisemitic rants, support for terror
Anti-Jewish Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is the CICW chairman. The day after the October 7th, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas, Ibrahim sided with Hamas terrorists saying, “The confiscation of Palestinian land and property is done relentlessly by the Zionists. As a result of this injustice, hundreds of innocent lives were sacrificed. Malaysia remains in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people.” Just weeks later Ibrahim led a large “Malaysia Stands with Palestine” rally and called Hamas “freedom fighters.” He urged media outlets not to call Hamas “terrorists.”
Here’s what John G. Rocovich, former rector of Virginia Tech, wrote to Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger last Thursday:
“Virginia Tech deserves better than to be made a political football. I have given too much of my life to this institution to stand by silently while its independence is threatened — regardless of which party holds the Governor’s office.”
That’s the last line in this missive. A political football. Everything that precedes that last line amounts to a primal scream. The letter is easy to find online and worth reading.
Another line catches your attention: “In the 154-year history of Virginia Tech, dating to its founding in 1872, no Governor of the Commonwealth has ever removed a member of the Board of Visitors for cause.”
He’s effectively urging a public discussion. He’s right on that. It’s overdue.
On Friday morning, at 2:35, a charter bus on I-95 south in Stafford county failed to slowdown for a work zone and plowed into an SUV. That SUV rammed an Acura sedan, carrying a family of four. Four other cars were also hit by the bus, before the larger vehicle flipped over, injuring many of the passengers.
The entire Doncev family was killed in the crash. This family of four were on their way from Massachusetts to a wedding with their Acura trunk full of homemade desserts. Their car burst into flames and the parents, the 13-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son were incinerated.
The driver of the SUV, a 25-year-old woman, was also killed.
Forty four people were injured, including the driver of the bus, who is facing so many criminal charges that if convicted, will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.
About that driver.
We’re told that the man driving the bus from New York City to Charlotte was 48-year-old Jing S. Dong, a Chinese native who is a naturalized American living on Staten Island.
Here’s the “worse” part of the story. According to WJLA, Dong is due in a Maryland courtroom TODAY on speeding charges. He was recently stopped doing 72 in a 50 zone.
There are so many questions about this tragedy.
First, why was Dong allowed to continue driving a commercial vehicle while reckless driving charges were pending? Continue reading.
To be clear, there is no evidence that Virginia’s professional forecasters manipulated the numbers. The Commonwealth has earned a well-deserved reputation for responsible revenue forecasting, and when collections exceed expectations, forecasts should be updated accordingly. In fact, the Jefferson Forum has noted how Virginia’s economy is more resilient to federal changes than it once was, and the forecasts have become overly pessimistic by not taking this fact into account.
But the coincidence on the amount of revenue added in the reforecast should not obscure a more important question: what kind of additional revenue are we talking about?
Just as Governor Spanberger and the General Assembly appeared deadlocked over how to fund competing budget priorities, Virginia’s latest revenue reforecast requested by Governor Spanberger arrived with welcome news: roughly $1.5 billion in additional projected revenue through Fiscal Year 2028.
The timing and the reforecast increase in revenue are both remarkable.
The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….
This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.
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