Tag Archives: Kerry Dougherty

Glenn Youngkin. The GOP’s Red Vest Savior?

Posted on September 29, 2023 by | 101 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

To properly judge the level of disillusionment after Wednesday’s GOP debate, get a load of this bright red headline on Drudge Thursday:

That teases to a Washington Post opinion piece, “GOP Donors Yearn For a Trump Alternative. They Think They May Have Found One.”

According to Post reporter Robert Costa, high-roller Republican donors are meeting in two weeks at the Cavalier Hotel for a two-day closed meeting dubbed, “Red Vest Retreat.” The well-heeled donors assured the writer that the money is there, the only question is whether the governor is willing to jump in.

Some of the biggest Republican donors in the country will converge next month at the historic Cavalier Hotel in Virginia Beach for a two-day meeting to rally behind Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The closed gathering, named the “Red Vest Retreat” after the fleece Youngkin wore during his 2021 campaign, will begin Oct. 17 and be focused, officially, on the Republican effort to win full control of the General Assembly in Virginia’s upcoming elections. But unofficially, several donors tell me, it will be an opportunity for them to try to push, if not shove, Youngkin into the Republican presidential race.

It’s worth remembering that the Cavalier is Virginia Beach developer Bruce Thompson’s baby. In 2013, Thompson was Terry McAuliffe’s Hampton Roads finance chair. In 2021 he switched sides, serving as Youngkin’s state campaign finance chief.

The choice of venue for this political retreat is no accident. Continue reading →

101 Comments

Posted in Elections, Politics

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Early Voting Starts Today: Bank Your Vote

Posted on September 22, 2023 by | 67 comments

And there’s no need to leave the house!

by Kerry Dougherty

This may be my autumn of living dangerously.

Heck, I may roller skate down a flight of stairs. Without a helmet. I may drive on the interstate. Without a seatbelt. Shoot, I may even give gas station sushi a try.

If I don’t make it till Election Day? Who cares?

I’m voting by mail.

My vote will count, whether I’m dead or alive!

Yep, conservatives and libertarians are late to this game, but it’s time we all joined in. Gov. Glenn Youngkin launched SecureYourVoteVirginia.com in July, urging Republicans and Independents to do what Democrats did to great success in the last election:

Bank those votes.

That way, unforeseen emergencies – illness, car problems, hurricanes – can’t disrupt your plan to get to the polls.

Mail-in voting makes a difference. And there are 45 days of it in Virginia this year. Beginning today.

Consider what happened in the whisker-close Kevin Adams vs. Aaron Rouse special election in January to fill the state senate seat Jen Kiggans vacated when she was elected to Congress.

Rouse, a Democrat, won. With about a 1% margin or just 696 votes.

Yet Adams took the in-person vote on Election Day and even the early, in-person voters.

Adams was slaughtered, however, in the mail-in vote. Continue reading →

67 Comments

Posted in Elections

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Navy Ditches Drag Queen Recruiting Videos

Posted on September 21, 2023 by | 55 comments

Norfolk naval base

by Kerry Dougherty

Whoa. Stop the presses. Big news out of Washington.

Navy brass has confirmed that it’s scrapped its ingenuous recruiting tool. You know, the one we wrote about last spring: drag queens.

Yep, Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, a non-binary sailor who likes to dress up like a woman and prance around on stage as drag queen Harpy Daniels, will no longer be featured in Navy recruiting videos.

We wrote about this sailor last May.

This is a stunning about-face. Who could have predicted that fishnet stockings and lipstick wouldn’t be an irresistible lure to bring in the sort of sailors we need in the modern American Navy? Who knew that drag queens would rather be reading to pre-schoolers than twerking to serve their country? Continue reading →

55 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Defense

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Will Dove Get the Bud Light Treatment?

Posted on September 19, 2023 by | 48 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Does the name Morgan Bettinger sound familiar?

Perhaps not.

She’s just another victim of fake hate at the University of Virginia. A girl who was wrongly labeled a racist and who suffered as a result of a relentless, mean-spirited campaign to drive her out of school.

Meanwhile, the person who accused her of racism, Zyahna Bryant, went from BLM activist to the spokeswoman for the Fat Liberation Movement who just landed a partnership with Dove. Continue reading →

48 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Culture wars, Education (higher ed)

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A Race to the Bottom Everywhere

Posted on September 18, 2023 by | 37 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Great news!

Beginning today, members of the U.S. Senate will be indistinguishable from bums.

Axios reports that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is “relaxing” the dress code for members, allowing them to be on the floor of the Senate dressed like they’re headed to Walmart. Or rather, like John Fetterman of Pennsylvania who has the sartorial taste of a hobo and finds putting on a suit and zipping his fly too much trouble.

Instead of censuring the jerk from the Keystone State and barring him from floor votes until he puts on business attire, Schumer is scrapping hundreds of years of tradition and decorum to allow this fool to continue to disrespect the people who elected him, and his colleagues. Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Democracy and Western Civilization, Elections, Ethics, General Assembly, Politics

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Dems Nominated an Online Porn Star for House of Delegates

Posted on September 13, 2023 by | 67 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

I can’t decide which is more shocking: that Virginia Democrats nominated a porn star for the House of Delegates or that The Washington Post committed an act of journalism that hurt a Democrat.

Shoot, we know what to expect of Democrats. This news doesn’t register on the political shock-o-meter. What’s truly stunning is that The Post published a story that reflects badly on someone they normally would have endorsed.

The adjective “blockbuster” is overused when describing big news stories.

Not this time.

On Monday, The Post had an actual blockbuster: The paper revealed that Susanna Gibson, a 40-year-old nurse practitioner, married mother of two and the Democrats’ choice for the open 57th District House of Delegates seat, has been engaging in smutty online sex with her husband.

The couple begs for tips before performing requested lewd acts.

Classy. Continue reading →

67 Comments

Posted in Ethics, ethics, General Assembly, Politics, Scandals

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A Tale of Two Governors

Posted on September 12, 2023 by | 98 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Why is anyone surprised that the governor of New Mexico has decided that a spike in crime constitutes a public health emergency that warrants suspension of 2nd Amendment rights of the people to carry a firearm?

When Americans merrily surrendered their civil rights three years ago during a health emergency, could they not foresee a perpetual state of emergencies, with tyrannical despots infringing on constitutional rights using the flimsiest of excuses?

I hate to say “I told you so,” but some of us tried to sound the alarm in the winter of 2020, but too many Americans were hiding under their beds to listen to us.

Now this:

On Friday, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, declared a public health emergency in Albuquerque and nearby Bernalillo County citing high crime rates and issued a 30-day ban on the carrying of firearms. She said she was likely to extend the order.

“I have emergency powers,” Grisham crowed. “Gun violence is an epidemic. Therefore, it’s an emergency!”

Never mind that of the five shooting incidents Grisham cited when suspending the Second Amendment, only two were in the Albuquerque area and chances are neither would have been thwarted by her unconstitutional ban. Continue reading →

98 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Ethics, Gun rights, Individual liberties, Leadership, Politics

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Virginia Deserves a Parole Board that Puts Public Safety First

Posted on September 5, 2023 by | 26 comments

Patricia West

by Kerry Dougherty

When Terry McAuliffe was governor he found a loyal Democrat lawyer to appoint to head Virginia’s parole board.

That was Adrianne Bennett, a failed candidate for the House of Delegates in 2011 and undoubtedly the most controversial parole board chair in Virginia history. She was a success if you believe, as McAuliffe apparently did, that the job of that board is to spring murderers and make Virginians less safe. Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Governance, Law enforcement, Politics, Public safety & health

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Labor Day: A New Start

Posted on September 4, 2023 by | 12 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Labor Day. America’s most ambiguous national holiday.

Think about it. On other special days – Memorial, Independence, Veterans, Thanksgiving, Presidents, Martin Luther King and Christmas – we pause, however briefly, to honor a beloved person or a historical event.

We have parades, visit cemeteries, blast fireworks, give thanks, recite a famous speech or watch It’s a Wonderful Life.

Not on Labor Day.

Take a peek at the festivities scheduled this weekend. Wait. What festivities? The Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon has moved on, so there’s nothing to do today other than hit the beach and cook out.

Swimming and eating burgers has nothing to do with Labor Day’s grittier, trade union roots.

And that’s a good thing.

I’m not sure anyone wants to mark Labor Day by dragging a picket sign to the beach or by joining a national scavenger hunt to look for Jimmy Hoffa’s body.

Does anyone plan to watch Norma Rae today? Or gather the family together for a few choruses of “The Ballad of Joe Hill”?

Anyone inviting the repulsive Randi Weingarten to their cookout?

I didn’t think so.

On Labor Day, it’s not what we do, it’s what we don’t do – labor. Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Freedom, Labor & workforce

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Schools Shouldn’t Open Before Labor Day

Posted on August 30, 2023 by | 41 comments

Oceanfront, Virginia Beach. Photo credit: Kerry Dougherty

by Kerry Dougherty

Better sit down, youngsters. Did you know you’ll only get OUT of school two days earlier than last year? Yep, your last day of classes is June 14, 2024. Last June you finished up on June 16th.

Joke’s on you. Oh, and the teachers who pushed for the new schedule believing they’d get an early start on summer.

Until 2019, Virginia’s public schools were prohibited from beginning before Labor Day. The law, nicknamed the “Kings Dominion Relief Act” was passed in 1986 to boost Virginia’s tourism industry, giving teens with summer jobs a chance to work through the traditional end of summer. Continue reading →

41 Comments

Posted in Economic development, Education (K-12), General Assembly, Labor & workforce

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Virginia Beach School Board Gives Parents the Middle Finger

Posted on August 24, 2023 by | 22 comments

Jen Franklin, Virginia Beach School Board member

by Kerry Dougherty

Virginia Democrats.

Has there ever been a more arrogant bunch?

In 2020 they were convinced that they had turned Virginia bright blue. They believed there would never be another Republican in the Governor’s Mansion. They believed they had a license to implement a smorgasbord of far-left policies.

For example, they wanted to allow boys who pretend they are girls into school areas previously reserved for females only.

They wanted to make sure that boys could shower with the daughters and granddaughters of Virginians in high school locker rooms. They wanted boys prowling around girls’ bathrooms and tampons in boys’ rooms.

Worse, they wanted schools to alienate children from their parents by allowing troubled kids to switch genders in school without telling parents. They wanted to force teachers to use whatever wacky pronouns students desired.

The all-blue General Assembly wanted to make sure that these radical school policies were implemented in every corner of the commonwealth, not just in the liberal metropolitan areas.

So they blithely passed 22.1-23.3 Treatment of Transgender Students. Continue reading →

22 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12)

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Beach School Board Votes on Parents’ Rights Tonight

Posted on August 22, 2023 by | 5 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Tonight’s the night, Virginia Beach. A chance to show the leftist school board members that parental rights matter in the Resort City.

There are several ways to do it: flood school board members with emails, sign up to speak at tonight’s board meeting (you have until noon) or just go to the meeting that starts at 6 and frown when the leftists start wringing their hands about the “rights” of troubled teens to keep their gender confusion secret from their parents.

Last month the Youngkin administration put the finishing touches on its new transgender model policies for schools. What they came up with is a rational, reasonable approach that allows students to change their gender in school WITH PARENT APPROVAL.

The way it should be handled. Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12)

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Leftist Media Canonizes Another Killer

Posted on August 21, 2023 by | 38 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Ronald Albert Barnes.

That was the name of the Southampton County Correctional Center guard who died in March of 1975 after being beaten and stomped by two inmates, including convicted rapist Tony Lewis.

If you read Sunday’s Virginian-Pilot, maybe you were moved by the front-page valentine to “Tony The Tiger,” as he was affectionately known by his family, who are trying to get him out of prison after 50 years behind bars.

The story – “A Pursuit Of Freedom Blocked At Every Step” – is what journalists used to call a “Sunday thumb sucker,” a long-form piece dedicated to a heartwarming topic.

Perhaps you, too, read yesterday’s drivel about how this poor guy from Hampton – grew up fatherless in the projects, blah, blah, blah – and has been incarcerated since he was 16. His first conviction was for a 1973 rape (absolutely zero details on THAT crime) and later for his part in the murder of the prison guard, an escape attempt and other crimes associated with a deadly prison riot.

Inches and inches of ink about a killer. Yet the newspaper couldn’t be bothered to print the name of the man he murdered.

Color me unsurprised.

Let’s be honest, giving the dead man an identity might turn Tony the Tiger into Tony the Ruthless Killer and dilute the sympathy The Pilot is trying to gin up for the inmate. Continue reading →

38 Comments

Posted in Correction, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Ethics, Media

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Raw Working-Class Anthem By Farmville’s Oliver Anthony Goes Viral

Posted on August 14, 2023 by | 62 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Move over, Jason Aldean, there’s a new country singer on the move.

Meet Oliver Anthony of Farmville, Va., a former factory worker whose plaintive, working-class anthem, “Rich Men North Of Richmond,” went viral in just two days, catapulting this unknown country Virginia singer from obscurity into a viral sensation. It went to #1 on the iTunes chart last week, moving faster than Aldean’s, “Try That In A Small Town.”

I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away
It’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin’ in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond, Lord knows they all
Just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do
‘Cause your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end
‘Cause of rich men north of Richmond

Continue reading →

62 Comments

Posted in Culture wars

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Details of Newport News School Shooting Make Horrific Case Even Worse

Posted on August 11, 2023 by | 70 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Just when we thought we knew all of the horrific details of the shooting of Abby Zwerner we get more revelations.

Chilling ones.

You remember Miss Zwerner. She’s the 25-year-old Newport News first-grade teacher who was almost killed by one of her students in January.

She’s suing school officials for $40 million and they refuse to settle the case with her. Instead, these heartless “educators” pretend that getting shot is just an occupational hazard of teaching – sort of like paper cuts – and she was injured in the course of her daily responsibilities.

If they can persuade a court of this lunacy they will be off the hook for monetary damages.

And the woman who’s endured surgeries and God-knows-what-trauma will collect a few dollars from Virginia’s workman’s compensation fund.

If you’re the praying type – and I am – be sure to bombard the Almighty with petitions for Ms. Zwerner. The courts need to use common sense and give her the green light to sue the ever-loving crap out of a school district that ignored multiple warning signs and tolerated a psychotic child in class with normal kids and a devoted teacher.

Make no mistake. The school board, former superintendent and Richneck administrators set the table for this bloody mess: Continue reading →

70 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12)

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