Tag Archives: Kerry Dougherty

One Surprise on Virginia’s Primary Ballot

Posted on January 24, 2024 by | 97 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

I’d almost forgotten that last summer I signed up to be an absentee voter.

Until this arrived in yesterday’s mail, that is.

Yep, it’s a Republican primary ballot. Early voting starts Friday for Super Tuesday and Virginia is one of 15 states participating in what promises to be an essentially empty exercise on March 4.

Trump is building an insurmountable lead and his opponents are bowing out. Nikki Haley didn’t totally embarrass herself last night in New Hampshire, yet she lost by almost 12 points in the state many thought was most friendly to her brand of conservatism.

Her home state of South Carolina is next. Prospects for her are bleak there. It’s likely there will be a strike-out through her name too by the first week in March..

But one big question remains: who the heck is Ryan L. Binkley, the second name on Virginia’s GOP ballot? Continue reading →

97 Comments

Posted in Elections

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Like It or Not, Solar Farms May Be On Their Way

Posted on January 23, 2024 by | 37 comments

by Kerry Dougherty 

I know it’s winter and Virginia is not looking her best. But if you have nothing else to do this weekend, may I suggest you take a drive into the rural corners of the commonwealth and soak up the bucolic scenery.

Check out those cotton fields along Route 58 west toward Danville, even though most of the cotton has been harvested. Check out the farmland of the Middle Peninsula and the Northern Neck. Then head out toward Lexington and north to the orchards of the Shenandoah Valley. Don’t forget to take a drive up the Eastern Shore past the thousands of acres that in summer give us potatoes, tomatoes and corn. Lastly, zip out to Pungo where the fields will be full of strawberries in a few months

While you’re driving, take a gander at the beautiful old growth forests that blanket much of the Old Dominion.

In fact, take a good, long look. Drink it in. Vow to never forget the beauty that was once Virginia.

Because next time you pass through these areas you may see nothing but the glare of solar panels. The wildlife that once inhabited the land? The birds that nested in the trees? The produce that flourished in the fields? Gone.

If Democrats in Richmond have their way, that is. Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Central planning, Environment, General Assembly, Land use & development

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Loudoun County Schools Defy FOIA Requests

Posted on January 18, 2024 by | 76 comments

Insignia, Loudon County Public Schools

by Kerry Dougherty

Luke Rosiak is the best investigative reporter in Virginia. There isn’t a close second.

Several years ago, The Daily Wire reporter uncovered Loudoun County Public Schools’ attempts to hide serial bathroom sexual assaults from the public.

Rosiak’s reporting ultimately resulted in the firing of former school superintendent Scott Ziegler. And the election of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who made parents’ rights a cornerstone of his campaign.

Rosiak is tracking down another potential blockbuster, but school officials in Loudoun are not cooperating. Apparently, they never learn.

The Daily Wire is now headed to court to try to wrench documents from the hands of secretive Loudoun school officials. These documents will reveal just how much public money the county’s school district blew in recent years settling embarrassing lawsuits.

So far, school officials are playing cute with FOIA, pretending that certain so-called privacy laws allow them to keep that information secret. Continue reading →

76 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Transparency

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Public Health Covid Rules Were Nothing But Voodoo

Posted on January 12, 2024 by | 194 comments

Ralph Northam

by Kerry Dougherty 

We tried to tell you. Those of us with common sense were attacked for it though.

Back in 2020, when we were being accused of wanting to kill grandma because we knew the “rules” coming from our public health officials were — for lack of a better term — unconstitutional bullshit, we were voices in the wilderness.

Everywhere we looked, previously intelligent people were running around with silly bandanas on their faces — if they were crawling out from under their beds at all. They were acting like you had leprosy if you stood closer to them than six feet and they were begging the government to stomp on even more civil rights.

Their wishes came true. Most Americans complied with insane rules like wearing masks into restaurants, taking them off to eat, putting them on to walk to the restroom and taking them off when seated again.

Those of us who pointed out that it was as if the entire country was part of a silly SNL skit were vilified.

Continue reading →

194 Comments

Posted in Freedom, Government Oversight, Health Care

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Republican Rock Star Campaigns with Kiggans

Posted on January 8, 2024 by | 15 comments

Rep. Jen Kiggans in Virginia Beach. (Photo by Kathy Sargent)

by Kerry Dougherty

An enthusiastic, overflow crowd crammed into a ballroom at the Marriott Oceanfront on 42nd Street Sunday afternoon to kick off Rep. Jen Kiggans’ re-election campaign. I’m not good at crowd estimates – plus I’m short and didn’t have a good vantage point – but there had to be 500 or more people in the room.

Present was a who’s who of GOP Virginia politicians from former Governors George Allen – who introduced Kiggans – and Bob McDonnell to Attorney General Jason Miyares, former members of Congress Thelma Drake and Randy Forbes and former Del. Glenn Davis, who resigned his seat in the General Assembly to become Director of the Virginia’s Department  of Energy, Del. Barry Knight and Sen.-elect Danny Diggs.

Kiggans ticked off an impressive litany of bills passed by the slim Republican majority in the House, including one that would have stemmed the flow of immigrants entering the country illegally.

“We used to call it a crisis on our Southern border,” Kiggans said, “Now we call it a catastrophe.”

Kiggans noted that the 2nd District seat was one of just six that the GOP managed to flip in 2022 to take control of the House. The Democrats desperately want to flip her seat back into the D column next year and have been running negative ads against Kiggans since last summer. The congresswoman said she hates the “lies” that are told about her, but is willing to take the abuse to continue serving the 2nd District. Continue reading →

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Posted in Elections, Politics

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Hey Virginia: Hands Off Those Cake Pops

Posted on January 5, 2024 by | 8 comments

Photo courtesy of Kelly Phillips

by Kerry Dougherty

There’s a reason Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s approval rating in the latest Mason-Dixon Poll perches at a lofty 58 percent in this once-blue state, despite Republicans losing control of the legislature in November’s election.

Youngkin gets it.

On X, he wrote:

“We’re going to fix this, Virginia will always be the best place to live, work, and bake cake pops!”

Like everyone else who heard about Kelly Phillips’ cake pop conflict, the governor immediately saw this for what it was: one more example of government overreach, punishing an enterprising Richmond woman with a small business for no good reason or public benefit.

According to The Virginia Mercury, cake pops are Ms. Phillips’ side hustle. Her day job is as a manager in a financial planning firm. But what began simply as irresistible treats she made for birthday parties and baby showers grew into a little cottage business.

Phillips now sells her gorgeously decorated confections mostly at craft fairs. If Richmond regulators have their way, she’ll have to stop.

Virginia’s stringent food safety regulations, designed to protect folks from unsanitary practices, make exceptions for small craft bakeries. But ridiculous regs, such as the one that allows these homemade goodies to be sold at farmer’s markets but not craft fairs make absolutely no sense.

“What is the difference between a farmers market and a craft show?” Phillips asked The Mercury.

Gee, I don’t know. A roof? Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Central planning, Entrepreneurialism, Regulation

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Fairfax School Board Chair Takes Oath of Office on Stack of Porn

Posted on December 18, 2023 by | 98 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Ah, December. That marvelous holiday month, when Jews and Christians celebrate joyous holidays.

Of course it’s also the season when those who loathe religion spring into action. This is their moment too.

This year’s crop of religion haters is especially ugly.

According to the New York Post, Harvard University officials — who have done almost nothing to protect Jewish students who were threatened and harassed by pro-Hamas radicals — told a rabbi that he could light a menorah on campus but warned him to take it down and hide it at night, lest those who hate Jews vandalize it.

On our campus in the shadow of Widener Library, we in the Jewish community are instructed, ‘We’ll let you have the menorah, you made your point, OK. Pack it up, don’t leave it out overnight because there will be criminal activity we fear and it won’t look good’, Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi said at a Hanukkah lighting Wednesday night.

Zarchi, the founder and president of Harvard Chabad, said the university has asked the group to take in the menorah each night since the first Hanukkah lighting on campus.

And in the Iowa State House last week, The Satanic Temple erected an altar to Satan alongside a nativity and menorah, claiming they had a right under the First Amendment to slap their hideous Satan-worshiping abomination alongside the religious ones.

As if THAT was what the Founders had in mind when they penned the founding documents that established  America’s principle of freedom of worship.

A Navy vet and devout Christian beheaded the statue of Satan and knocked down the altar before turning himself in to authorities. The man has been charged with a misdemeanor criminal mischief.

In Hanover County, a parent has objected to the Bible being in the school library because of the stories contained therein.

You couldn’t make this garbage up.

More madness in Fairfax County — where else? — where several school board members, including the chair, mocked those who take the oath of office with their hand on a Bible, Koran or other holy book by pledging their oaths on stacks of secular books or porn. The Washington Post points out that all 12 of the new board members elected in November are Democrats. Color me unsurprised. Continue reading →

98 Comments

Posted in Culture wars

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Racism Comes in All Colors

Posted on December 15, 2023 by | 48 comments

by Kerry Dougherty 

What follows here is fiction. Totally imaginary. Still, picture this with me:

The mayor of Virginia’s largest city — that would be Virginia Beach, population 458,000 — decides to hold a holiday party for city council members on city property.

The mayor — and let me remind you this is hypothetical, it did not happen — sent out invitations characterizing this in some kind of strange pidgin English as a party for “white electeds,” which meant that the four black members of council were not welcome.

Because of their skin color.

What would the reaction be when the whites-only party became public?

I can tell you.

There would be loud cries of “racism”! Calls for the mayor’s immediate resignation. There would be  protests in the streets, with both whites and blacks denouncing the mayor’s shocking behavior. The local newspaper would call for the mayor to be removed from office and the editorialists would lament that Virginia hadn’t progressed from the days of Jim Crow.

The news would make national headlines and no doubt state and federal prosecutors would be looking at the civil rights violations in an exclusive, all-white Christmas party for elected officials.

It would be — pardon the expression — a poopstorm.

Odd then, that when something similar actually happened, not in Virginia, but in the largest city in Massachusetts, Boston — there is just a mild outcry. And lots of folks defending the move.

Could it be because the Boston mayor excluded whites, not blacks? Continue reading →

48 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Media, Politics, Race and race relations

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Sorry, Senator. Zalenskyy is No George Washington

Posted on December 13, 2023 by | 68 comments

Sen. Tim Kaine

by Kerry Dougherty

Tim Kaine jumped the shark.

Get a load of the nonsense this United States Senator – from VIRGINIA – Tweeted on Tuesday:

President Zelenskyy spoke to the Senate today about the critical role of American support for Ukrainian democracy. He stood beneath a portrait of George Washington, who helped birth an America free from domination by a great power. A moving moment.

— Tim Kaine (@timkaine) December 12, 2023

Seriously, senator?

No member of Congress should ever compare America’s first president with this little corruptocrat.

This is the problem when Virginians vote for a Kansan to represent them in Washington. He missed fourth grade Virginia history and apparently they didn’t teach American history in the schools he attended either.

If they had, the senator would know that Washington was a humble man who fervently believed in freedom and the rights of man. He was an educated, measured leader who stepped down after two terms in office and refused to allow himself to be set up as anything more than a man of the people.

In his farewell address, Washington warned against foreign entanglements.

Presidents have been ignoring Washington’s admonitions for decades, unfortunately. Continue reading →

68 Comments

Posted in Budgets, Defense, Democracy and Western Civilization, Immigration, Politics

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Online Porn Star/Democrat Candidate Continues to Play Victim

Posted on December 12, 2023 by | 45 comments

Susanna Gibson at work

by Kerry Dougherty

Let me get this straight. A married mother of two, a Democrat, who engaged in smutty livestream sex for money with her husband, is still playing the victim card because she lost her bid to represent Virginians from the 57th House District.

Politico just featured a laughable Q and A with the “victim” headlined: “Her Online Sex Life Was Exposed. She Lost Her Election. Now She’s Speaking Out.” In which Gibson basically said that the only people who cared about her escapades were aging Republicans.

The cool kids — you know, millennials like her — know that abortion rights are way more important than anything she did on her side hustle with “Chaturbate.”

“Younger voters don’t care. Very, very few of them, I would say. My age and younger, maybe even mid-40s up to 50 or so, didn’t care. I’m a millennial, I’m the oldest possible millennial — 90 percent of millennials have taken nude photos. So, I think we all understand.”

So, the entire younger generation is morally bankrupt? Good to know.

While it may be true that 90% of millennials have taken nudies, that’s not smart or a sign of good judgment. Still, there’s a difference between a nude snapshot and live-streamed sex acts for cash. Continue reading →

45 Comments

Posted in Politics

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Hardest Job in Virginia: Making Aaron Spence Look Good.

Posted on December 7, 2023 by | 16 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

We tried to warn you, Loudoun County.

We told you that Virginia Beach School Superintendent Aaron Spence was trouble. That he was one vote away from being sacked by the newly elected Beach school board when he decided to bolt for greener pastures. That he was a devoted wokester.

We even pointed to his wife’s crude New Year’s Tweet from January 2020 where she hurled a profanity at then-President Trump as she posted a photo of herself draped over her greasy-looking husband.

Spence was pressured to apologize. And he did, twice.

The Fun Couple is your problem now, Loudoun.

Shoot, the new school year was barely underway before news broke that Spence failed to inform parents – FOR 20 DAYS – that kids were overdosing on fentanyl in one Loudoun high school. He dodged pesky reporters and television cameras with the nerve to ask why he delayed.

In short, Spence is a public relations nightmare.

So it should come as no surprise that the superintendent’s brought one of his old mouthpieces up from Virginia Beach to run interference for him.

Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12)

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Norfolk Hipsters & Lefties Try to Block a Military-Themed Brewery

Posted on December 6, 2023 by | 28 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Now is the time. If you believe that cities ought to be open for business, regardless of the viewpoints of the business owners, if you support the military and don’t consider flag-waving a provocative act, you might want to let Norfolk’s City Council hear from you.

On December 12th it is scheduled to vote on the application of Armed Forces Brewery to open its doors on the same premises that housed O’Connor Brewing in the so-called Railroad District of Norfolk.

The business was lured to Virginia by Gov. Glenn Yougnkin who helped the founders secure tax incentives to open their craft brewery in Norfolk rather than in Florida. The owners have pledged that 70% of their employees will be veterans.

Normally, that would be seen as good news in this military town. Continue reading →

28 Comments

Posted in Consumer protection, Culture wars, Economic development, LGBQT, Politics, Regulation

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Williamsburg Street Festival Engages in Ugly Antisemitism

Posted on December 5, 2023 by | 40 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

A monthly street fair in Williamsburg is making national headlines for all the wrong reasons: over the weekend news broke that the organizers banned a rabbi from a menorah-lighting ceremony. Unless the rabbi would light the candles under a banner demanding a ceasefire in Israel, that is.

Which raises the question, what is WRONG with the organizers of 2nd Sunday Art and Music Festival in Williamsburg?

According to its website, 2nd Sundays are street celebrations held on the second Sunday of every month from March through December.

These fairs feature about 150 musicians, artisans and entertainers and until now appeared to steer clear of controversy.

Rabbi Mendy Heber of Chabad Williamsburg said he had already been a part of the festival, offering loaves of challah as a vendor, and that plans for the menorah lighting were suddenly scrapped last month.

The Daily Press reports:

According to Heber, the planning for the original event to be held Dec. 10 was well underway when organizers abruptly reversed course in November, informing him that they would not move forward.

“We had started the discussion and they showed extreme interest and excitement in moving forward with it” until they pulled back, he said. Continue reading →

40 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars

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Slasher Ordered to Reimburse Medical Bills of his Victim

Posted on December 4, 2023 by | 21 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Several things strike me about this crime and restitution story out of Patrick County.

First, after Larry Puckett nearly stabbed Justin Hawkes to death in the fall of 2019, Mr. Hawkes  incurred about $120,000 in medical bills.

Because the injured man was indigent, Medicaid stepped in and negotiated the price down to $22,000.

If this former English major’s math is correct that’s just under 20% of the original bill.

Does this suggest there’s some padding in medical bills? You bet it does. In fact, receiving any medical procedure is a lot like buying an airline ticket. Everyone on the flight pays a different amount for the privilege of squeezing into a tiny seat and arriving at the exact time. Some folks spent a fortune for their tickets. Others got a cut-rate price.

Same goes for medical bills, although many of those are accompanied by an emergency that leaves no time to shop around for a better price.

Face it, medical care is a racket. Dare to ask why that Tylenol they gave you in the hospital cost 15 bucks and you’ll get a verbal tsunami of indignation and gibberish. Just pay it, they say. You have insurance.

In this case, according to the Virginia Mercury, the judge ordered Larry Puckett to repay Medicaid for the injuries he inflicted on Mr. Hawkes once he completed his prison sentence:

Puckett was convicted by Patrick Circuit Court of malicious wounding. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, with eight years suspended, and ordered to complete five years of probation and pay … the cost of the medical services as restitution. The restitution was to be paid in $50 increments each month following his release from prison.

I like it! Continue reading →

21 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Health Care, Law enforcement

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Anyone Know Where Sen. Ghazala Hashmi Lives?

Posted on November 13, 2023 by | 27 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

mmm. Looks like things just got interesting — instead of merely horrifying — in last Tuesday’s election.

If Luke Rosiak of The Daily Wire is correct, one Democrat member of the Virginia State Senate may be fighting to stay out of jail rather than taking her seat in the Capitol come January.

In a story headlined “Virginia Dems Could Lose Control of State Senate Because One Of Its Members May Have Lied About Her Residence,” Rosiak claims that Ghazala Hashmi may not live in the 15th Senate District, rendering her ineligible to occupy the seat she won just last week.

Worse, Rosiak reports that Hashmi may have lied on the Certificate of Candidacy Qualifications that she signed last March. In it, she claimed to live in an apartment in Chesterfield while she may have been living in the $600,000 home in Midlothian where she has resided for decades. If these accusations are true, Hashmi could be facing a maximum fine of $2,500, up to 10 years in prison and she could lose the right to vote.

Rosiak reports that, before redistricting, Hashmi’s Midlothian home was in District 10. She represented that district when she was elected in 2020. When the boundaries moved, however, Hashmi found herself living in District 12. Oddly enough, instead of running for that seat, Hashmi entered the race for District 15 and listed an apartment there as her dwelling place.

As it happens, District 12, where Hashmi reportedly DOES live, is a GOP stronghold, which was won by Republican Glen Sturtevant, who garnered 54% of the vote. Continue reading →

27 Comments

Posted in Elections, ethics, General Assembly, Politics

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