Category Archives: Politics

Crazier and Crazier: America’s “Activist” Class

Posted on February 19, 2019 by | 10 comments

Outsiders. mostly of the leftist persuasion, seem to be taking an intense interest in Virginia these days. Some examples from today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch:

  • Michelle Renay Sutherland, a New York activist, was arrested for indecent exposure yesterday after she exposed her breast when recreating the state seal on the capitol grounds. Sutherland, who goes by “Sister Leona,” belongs to a group called Radical Matriarchy. She was demonstrating in support of Virginia’s ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
  • A California man was charged with misdemeanor vandalism and littering Monday after police say he threw red dye into a fountain on the state Capitol grounds. Patrick E. Talamantes, of Sacramento, had joined activists marching to demand the resignation of Governor Ralph Northam.
  • Internet inventor and polar-bear advocate Al Gore and the Rev. William J. Barber II, a North Carolina civil rights leader, visited the Union Hill community in Buckingham County to protest Dominion Energy’s proposed compression station. (I’ll have more about them in a follow-up post.)

Continue reading →

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What? You Want Us to Be Consistent?

Posted on February 15, 2019 by | 5 comments

The rule maker, Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment, gets to decide the exceptions to the rule.

by Richard Hall-Sizemore

In 2014, Sen. Philip Puckett, a Democrat from far Southwest Virginia, was in a quandary. His daughter was vying for a juvenile and domestic relations court judgeship, to which she had already been appointed as a substitute judge. However, Republicans in the Senate, led by Sen. Tommy Norment, R-James City, were holding up her election, not based on any objection to her qualifications, but because of a tradition of not supporting family members of sitting Senators for judgeships.

Fast forward to 2019. Until yesterday there was a vacancy pending on the Virginia Supreme Court. A Republican senator from far Southwest Virginia is, according to newspaper reports, lobbied his fellow senators to elect his sister, currently a member of the Virginia Court of Appeals, to the higher post.  Norment said that situation was different because the senator’s sister had already been elected to a judgeship before her brother had been elected to the Senate. Continue reading →

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Posted in Courts and law, General Assembly, Politics

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More Ralph-Northam Hypocrisy from the Left

Posted on February 14, 2019 by | 7 comments

Ibrahim Samirah

Two weeks ago Ibraheem Samirah, a second-generation Palestinian running for an open seat in the 86th district of the House of Delegates, joined other Democrats in calling for the resignation of Governor Ralph Northam for appearing in black face in 1984. Now, it turns out, Samirah has to answer for some intemperate remarks he made five years ago about Jews.

Samirah has kinda-sorta apologized for saying on Facebook that sending money to Israel is “worse” than sending money to the Ku Klux Klan, that Israeli teenagers used Tinder to “cover up the murders in their name,” and that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would burn in hell — assuming that calling the charges against him a “slander campaign” constitutes an apology. Continue reading →

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Posted in Politics, Race and race relations, Scandals

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Race, Hypocrisy and Bare-Knuckle Politics

Posted on February 14, 2019 by | Leave a comment

Wes Bellamy at Richmond rally

A group calling itself Virginia Black Politicos rallied near the Governor’s Mansion yesterday and called for the resignation of Governor Ralph Northam. Prominent among the speakers was Charlottesville City Council member Wes Bellamy, who, according to WVIR TV, said it was time for the governor to step down so that Virginians can heal.

“What will we tell them that we did in regard to stand up for white supremacy?” Bellamy said. “What will we tell them and their colleagues and their pupils in school that we did in the year 2019 when our governor decided to make fun of our people.”

This is the same Wes Bellamy who was called out in 2016 for making racist comments of his own. As the Washington Post summarized the controversy back then, the then-30-year-old stepped down from a position on the Virginia Board of Education when it was revealed that in 2011 he had tweeted gay slurs, made light of sexual assault, and made anti-white comments.   Continue reading →

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Posted in Politics, Race and race relations, Scandals

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Virginia’s Two-Faced Democrats

Commentary - Posted on February 8, 2019 by | 14 comments

A very bad week. One can only assume that Virginia’s Democratic Party is very happy to see this week draw to a close. The Democratic Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General are facing deep scrutiny over revelations that came to light this week. While the specifics of each scandal remain hazy the sudden evaporation of moral outrage from fellow Democrats is crystal clear.

Northam: the expendable man. Govenor Ralph Northam was the first to fall under a thick cloud of disrepute as pictures from his personal page in his med school yearbook surfaced with people dressed in blackface and Klan outfits.  Democrats moved quickly to condemn Northam and call for his resignation.  Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner were joined by the Virginia Black Caucus, former Governor McAuliffe, national Democrats and (most interestingly) Attorney General Mark Herring in calling for Northam’s resignation. Appearing in blackface is intolerable they all wailed in unison. Blue Virginia touted the calls for Northam’s resignation as proof of the ” … VAST moral difference between Virginia Democrats and Republicans …” Continue reading →

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Posted in Commentary, General Assembly, Governance, Politics, Scandals, Uncategorized

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Tommy Norment’s Turn in the Yearbook Whipsaw

Posted on February 7, 2019 by | 22 comments

Da Bomb. The Virginia Pilot is reporting that Tommy Norment, R-Williamsburg, Republican majority leader of Virginia’s State Senate, was an editor for a VMI yearbook called The Bomb that printed “racist photos and slurs, including blackface”.  The yearbook in question was published in 1968.  African Americans were allowed to enroll at VMI in the Fall of 1968, presumably just after the “Norment yearbook” was published.

Full disclosure. The VMI 1968 yearbook included a statement authored by Norment in his position as an editor. His missive included the somewhat ironic line, “Work on the Bomb has permitted me to release four years of inhibitions.”  Hmmm …  Maybe sometimes remaining inhibited isn’t such a bad thing.

Judgement lapses. While it’s fair to debate whether including pictures of white people in blackface in a 1968 yearbook was a lapse in judgement or a sad practice of the day, Mr Norment has been no stranger to continuing controversy.  He was charged with DUI, attempted to chase reporters off the senate floor (where they had worked for a century), exposed as a customer of the adultery website Ashley Madison, and had an inappropriate “relationship” with a lobbyist. Norment hasn’t faced a competitive election in three senate campaigns but still receives large campaign contributions from “the usual gang of suspects”.

— Don Rippert

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Posted in General Assembly, Money in politics, Politics, Race and race relations

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Virginia Voters Should “Clean House” this November

Posted on February 7, 2019 by | 25 comments

State of affairs / affairs of state.  Multiple scandals have rocked Virginia’s state government this week.  All three of our state’s top officials stand accused of substantial wrongdoing.  Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring have admitted to dressing in blackface during their college / medical school days. Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax is being accused of sexual assault.  The stories have become national news – read the New York Post article here. Given this chaos one wonders how the good people at Amazon feel about their decision to put one-half of their new headquarters in The Commonwealth of Virginia. I’m guessing we’ll hear more about that in the near future. In the meantime, Virginians need to ask two key questions – how did we get here and what can we do about it.   Continue reading →

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Posted in Education (K-12), Elections, General Assembly, Politics, Public corruption, Scandals

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Why Virginia Democrats Are Pushing Ralph Northam to Resign

Posted on February 5, 2019 by | 19 comments

by Peter Galuszka

Virginia Democrats were on a roll politically until a story broke Friday that a photograph on Gov. Ralph Northam’s (D) 1984 medical school yearbook page showed a man in blackface and a man in Ku Klux Klan garb.

Democrats had seemed to be in a good position to win control of both the state Senate and the House of Delegates in this November’s General Assembly elections.

A strong anti-Trump spirit showed up in last year’s congressional elections in which three moderate Democratic women won. A court recently ruled that the latest Republican-led redistricting disenfranchised African Americans. Demographic changes seem to be making make the state less conservative. Continue reading →

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Posted in Politics, Race and race relations, Scandals

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Who Is the Dude in the Plaid Pants?

Posted on February 5, 2019 by | 8 comments

Who is the dude in the plaid pants?

This angle on the Northam blackface story is at least two days old — it appeared Sunday in Zerohedge — but it has yet to be reflected in any of the reporting I have seen on the controversy by Virginia mainstream media, so I summarize the details here. (I’m just back from traveling out of town, so I may have overlooked some reporting. If so, my apologies.)

Some resourceful Internet sleuth — I’m not sure if it’s Zerohedge blogger Tyler Durden or someone else — noticed the remarkable resemblance between a pair of plaid pants worn by Blackface Guy in the infamous 1984 yearbook photograph that threatens to take down Governor Ralph Northam and a pair of pants worn by an unidentified blond guy standing in front of a car below the title “Hi-Y,” the name of a YMCA high school program. A caption below the Hi-Y photo indicated that Northam was the group’s president.

The plaid-pants connection raises the interesting possibility that Blond Guy and Blackface Dude are one in the same, which would rule out the theory that Northam was the man in blackface — supporting his strained, widely mocked contention that he was not in the photo. Continue reading →

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Posted in Politics, Race and race relations, Scandals

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Facts? We Don’t Need No More Stinking Facts!

Posted on February 4, 2019 by | 25 comments

As Donald Rumsfeld famously said of the Iraq War, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns — things we know we don’t know, and things we don’t have a clue we don’t know. The same thing could be said of Governor Ralph Northam’s now-infamous medical school yearbook photo of a young man in black face and another in KKK attire — either one of whom, or neither, may be Northam himself.

Northam told the nation in a press conference that he believes he was not in the photo, and he doesn’t know how the photo came to appear on his personal page in the yearbook. No one appears to be paying much attention to his denial, which conflicted with an earlier apology and was undercut by his own admission in the press conference that he had appeared in black face during a Michael Jackson dance contest — in other words, that he’d dressed in black face, just not in the particular photo in question.

Democrats made up their minds about Northam’s irredeemable guilt even before the press conference. Almost every conceivable Democrat-affiliated group from the Democratic National Committee to the Virginia League of Democratic Dogcatchers has demanded his resignation. Republicans, only too happy to kneecap a Democratic governor, have called for the same.

Here’s what’s extraordinary about the episode: No one seems terribly interested in finding out if Northam’s version of events holds water. With minds already made up and political commitments made, no one is thinking about what we know, what we don’t, and what entirely unexpected evidence might be lurking out there. In another moment in our political history, people might say, “Yeah, this sure looks bad, but Northam says he’s innocent, so let’s sort through the facts.” What we hear now is, “Facts? We don’t need no more stinking facts. We’ve got all the facts we need.” Continue reading →

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Can We Step Back And Ask, Why Not Forgive?

Posted on February 3, 2019 by | 29 comments

I want to believe Ralph Northam, but I don’t know which statement to believe.

I want our political discourse to recognize everybody has made mistakes, everybody has at least one clay foot and most of us two, all who judge shall themselves be judged.  But the American political arena now resembles the blood-soaked sand of the Roman Coliseum, with the crowd cheering each subsequent execution.   Continue reading →

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Five Virginia Politicians Thwart the People and Democracy in Marijuana Reform Legislation

Commentary - Posted on January 24, 2019 by | 18 comments

We the people elite.  A number of proposed bills to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana were put forth in the ongoing General Assembly session.  These bills were systematically killed in subcommittee by a tiny fraction of the General Assembly.  Generally speaking, five Republican Delegates decided that the proposed marijuana reform bills should not reach the full committee let alone the entirety of the General Assembly for a vote.  These five legislators know, or should have known, that the vast majority of Virginians (in poll after poll) favor the decriminalization of marijuana. Continue reading →

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Posted in Commentary, Crime and corrections, Elections, General Assembly, Politics, Uncategorized

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Virginia’s economy continues to sputter

Commentary - Posted on January 2, 2019 by | 30 comments

Blue state blues.  The Associated Press is summarizing Virginia’s latest Comprehensive Annual Financial Report regarding the economic health of The Old Dominion.  The news is bleak.

“Personal income grew 4.1 percent in Virginia compared to 4.5 percent in the U.S. Housing prices in Virginia rose 5 percent compared to 6.8 percent nationally. Virginia also lagged behind the national average in employment growth and the number of new building permits for privately owned housing.”

It sees that as Virginia continues to turn from red to blue politically it is also turning from red hot to icy blue economically.  Coincidence?  Perhaps.  However, to the victors go both the spoils and accountability for results.  Democrats have won every state wide race in Virginia since 2009.  Perhaps it’s time to start asking the Democratic politicians some hard economic questions. Continue reading →

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Posted in Commentary, Economy, Infrastructure, Politics

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Crazy Time in Virginia

Posted on December 5, 2018 by | 10 comments

David Toscano

Del. David Toscano, D-Charlottesville, is an old-school, moderate liberal Democrat. He consistently earns low ratings from conservative groups (only 7% from the American Conservative Unions) and high ratings from core Democratic constituencies (100% by the Virginia Sierra Club and 100% from the Virginia Education Association.” But, like many old-school Democrats, he’s fairly pro-business. The Virginia Foundation for Research and Economic Education (Virginia FREE) gives him a lifetime rating of 72%, and even the fiercely small-government National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) gives him 50%.

Sally Hudson

And that, it seems, is just too darn conservative for some Charlottesville-area Democrats. Sally Hudson, an assistant professor of public policy, education and economics at the University of Virginia, announced Tuesday that she intends to run against the House Minority Leader in the Democratic Party primary next year, reports the Daily Progress.

Hudson’s campaign said it’s time for the area to send someone with “more progressive values” to Richmond.

“I think Charlottesville is ready for new leadership, and Charlottesville is ready to lead,” Hudson said in a press release. “We’re one of the strongest Democratic districts in Virginia. We should be setting the agenda. We should be setting the bar.”

Bacon’s bottom line: With the mauling of Corey Stewart in his bid for Sen. Tim Kaine’s U.S. Senate seat and what many think is the inevitable transfer of power from Republicans to Democrats, the Republican Party of Virginia is in severe disarray. The GOP doesn’t know if it’s the populist party of Donald Trump or the party of traditional conservative principles. Republican morale is in the basement.

Meanwhile, with electoral and funding strongholds in Northern Virginia and Charlottesville, the Left in Virginia is stronger than it has ever been. And the Tom Periello wing of Virginia’s Democratic Party doesn’t have much more patience with old-school liberals like Toscano (or Ralph Northam) than it does with Republicans. If there’s anything that can reinvigorate Virginia’s GOP, it’s a Leftist purge of old-school Democratic Party politicians such as Toscano, and the elevation of candidates who make Republicans look tame and moderate by comparison.

Stay tuned. The 2019 House and Senate elections will get more interesting than you think.

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Marijuana arrests and racism in Virginia (especially Arlington County)

Commentary - Posted on December 3, 2018 by | 14 comments

Reefer madness.  The upcoming debate in the Virginia General Assembly over decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana may have racial overtones.  VCU Capital News Service studied the data for marijuana arrests in Virginia from 2010 through 2016.  African Americans were 3.2 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana crimes than whites.  At the same time separate research shows almost no difference in marijuana use between white and black Americans.  Across America it’s even worse.  Nationally, a black person is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for a marijuana crime than a white person.

Location, location, location.  VCU Capital News Service breaks down the data by locality.  You can find the numbers here.  The only jurisdictions where the per capita arrest rate for whites is higher than blacks are those counties where the population is so low that a single arrest can make a statistical difference.  Highland County, for example, averaged 13 African American residents over the study’s time period and none of the 13 were arrested for marijuana crimes.  Two white people (out of about 2,200) were arrested for marijuana crimes in Highland County.  In all of Virginia’s populous localities the African American arrest rate was notably higher than the corresponding rate for white people.  In Hanover County for example, blacks were arrested at a frequency 6.3 times that of whites.

Libtopia.  Anybody who has ever been to Arlington County knows that safe spaces are mandated by the building codes, snowflakes can be seen in July and rainbow colored unicorns prance in the bike lanes.  It’s a progressive paradise.  So it probably comes as a surprise that African Americans were more than eight times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana crimes in Arlington from 2010 – 2016.  Arlington County’s Board has five Democrats, no Republicans and no independents.  The lone independent (John Vihstadt) was defeated in November.  How is it possible for the Lions of Libtopia to turn a blind eye to rampant racism occurring in their social justice warrior wonderland?

The Hook is dope.  If you do want to posses marijuana you ought to consider residing in the City of Charlottesville (25 total arrests per 100,000 residents) rather than the City of Emporia (1,595 total arrests per 100,000 residents).  You are 64 times more likely to get a reefer bust in Emporia than in Charlottesville.  Does anybody think that the people of Emporia use marijuana 64 times more often than the people in Charlottesville?  In fairness, I95 comprises about 1/2 of the border of Emporia so many of the arrests may be people using that highway.  However, Falls Church (51) vs Fairfax City (589) makes one wonder.

Unfair at any speed.  As the General Assembly considers decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana it should also consider the fairness of the present system.  Vast differences are observable in the enforcement of marijuana laws across race and location.  In locality after locality you are more likely to be arrested for marijuana if you are black vs white.  The City of Charlottesville (pop 45k) made 11 marijuana related arrests from 2010 through 2016, fewer than 2 per year.  The City of Danville (pop 43k) made 354 arrests over the same period, over 50 per year.

— Don Rippert

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Posted in Commentary, Courts and law, Crime and corrections, General Assembly, Politics, Race and race relations

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