Tag Archives: Kerry Dougherty

Hey NCAA, Let JMU Go Bowling!

by Kerry Dougherty

File this under “Even A Blind Squirrel Finds A Nut Occasionally”:

Louise Lucas, one of the worst members of Virginia’s General Assembly and the ringleader of the obstructionist “brick wall” in the state Senate that blocked chunks of Gov. Glenn Youngin’s popular agenda, is on the right side of an issue.

For once.

She recently posted this on X, the website formerly known as Twitter:

Let me remind the @NCAA that they are required by their charter to follow state laws where they operate. If they continue to hold @JMUFootball hostage to a technical rule and stop them from competing in the postseason they will face a very unfriendly future from our legislature.

I’m not sure there’s much to her veiled threat of “unfriendliness” from Virginia’s General Assembly, but her heart’s in the right place on this one. Until she brings race into it. As she always does. Sigh.

She’s one of many Virginia politicians – Republicans and Democrats – who are lobbying the NCAA to allow James Madison University to become bowl-eligible this year.

Let’s back up. In 2022 JMU moved up to Division 1 football after dominating the FCS for many years. This week the Dukes broke into both the AP and Coaches’ Polls national rankings in the 25th spot. The only Virginia college football program in the top 25.

No surprise, considering that after seven games, the university in Harrisonburg remains undefeated.

For most football programs, hitting six wins promises an invitation to play in one of the 41 bowl games. Seven wins? It’s a lock.

But NCAA rules prevent programs from participating in bowl games until they’ve been in the higher division for two seasons.

Continue reading

Erica Ausch: The Last Holocaust Survivor in Hampton Roads?

Erica Ausch flanked by daughter Jodie Woodward and granddaughter Liza Woodward

by Kerry Dougherty

More than 80 years ago the Nazis began “cleansing” Europe of Jews. The reign of terror began with hate and harassment. It moved on to expulsion and finally to the death camps. Initially the rest of the world didn’t know what was happening.

By the time they noticed, six million Jews were dead.

Maybe, if the world had seen what happened to the Reisner family in an idyllic Austrian town at the start of the Holocaust, many lives could have been spared.

The horror of what happened two weeks ago in Israel is a raw reminder that there are those in the world who still want to eradicate Jews.

As a result, 89-year-old Erica Reisner Ausch is worried.

This cheerful and energetic Virginia Beach resident, who teaches water aerobics in the summer and plays Mahjong with her friends all year long, has spent the last two weeks fretting about what the deadly attacks on innocent Israelis means for the future.

Erica Ausch was a married woman with children before she learned the truth about her family: They were not refugees from Austria as she’d been told by her parents who wanted to protect her from the truth, but Holocaust survivors. She was two years old when Germany annexed Austria and when the Nazis stormed her little town of Kittsee. Continue reading

What’s Going On with Rep. Kiggans?

by Kerry Dougherty

It’s a good, old-fashioned clusterfart in our paralyzed House of Representatives as Republicans fruitlessly bicker over a replacement for Speaker Kevin McCarthy who was deposed recently by eight GOP agents of chaos without a plan for what comes next.

Early on, it appeared that Louisiana’s Steve Scalise would be the consensus candidate to replace McCarthy, but when his bid failed on a floor vote, it was the more conservative Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan who got the nod.

Yet Jordan failed to reach the magic 217 needed to lead House Republicans. When a second vote was called he lost again.

Many in Virginia’s 2nd District were shocked to see Rep. Jen Kiggans, who flipped the district from blue to red in 2022, among the “no” votes.

The backlash was swift and nasty. My emails and Twitter feed were full of livid Republicans saying they were “done” with Kiggans.

“What’s the difference between Kiggans and Elaine Luria?” one wanted to know.

For one, Kiggans doesn’t vote in lockstep with Nancy Pelosi, I replied.

“She’s another Lynn Cheney,” Tweeted a disgruntled Republican.

“Jen just voted against Jim Jordan for Speaker. Everyone needs to remember this day and never vote for this traitor again.”

Traitor?

Calm down, please. You may not agree with this former helicopter pilot and Navy vet but she is anything but a traitor. Continue reading

No Parole for Killers, No Matter How Old

by Kerry Doherty

Autumn, with its crisp temperatures, pumpkin spice and vibrant colors, seems to be everyone’s favorite season.

Not Paige O’Shaughnessy’s.

In fact, each year when the season changes she’s reminded of the hellish fall of 2000. That was the year her husband, Timothy O’Shaughnessy, 40, was murdered in his downtown Norfolk office.

It was Tuesday, November 7, when he was killed by an unhinged former employee bearing a grudge, a golf club and a gun.

Paige O’Shaughnessy was left alone to raise their four sons, ages 9 months, 2 1/2 years old, 4 1/2 years old and six.

The killer was stockbroker Joseph Ludlam. He beat the man who’d fired him from his job five weeks earlier and when the golf club broke, he stabbed O’Shaughnessy with the shaft and then shot him. Twice.

Ludlam stole O’Shaughnessy’s wallet, car keys and car and sped to his parents’ house in South Carolina where he holed up for 18 hours. He was finally arrested and charged with capital murder.

After numerous delays, Ludlam’s murder trial was finally set. But on Columbus Day of 2002 then-Commonwealth’s Attorney for Norfolk, Jack Doyle (now a retired circuit court judge), contacted the widow and said Ludlam had agreed to plead guilty to first degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony in return for a prison term of no more than 40 years.

She’d be spared the ordeal of a trial, the state would be spared the expense and the murderer would be locked up for a very long time.

Mrs. O’Shaughnessy recalls the prosecutor reassuring her that, “He’ll be an old man when he gets out.”

“This gives us an assured conviction, and he waives his rights to appeal,” Doyle told The Daily Press at the time. “Forty years is virtually a life sentence.”

Not exactly.

There was one factor no one mentioned: geriatric parole. Continue reading

Lose the Masks

by Kerry Dougherty

Last Saturday’s horrors of Hamas were followed here and abroad with another kind of horror. There were anti-Israel rallies at colleges and in major cities across the nation. These heartless people were demonstrating for just one reason: to show support for the barbarians who had just invaded a country, slaughtered innocent people, raped women and children and grabbed hostages.

Frankly, I had no idea how widespread anti-Semitism was in the U.S. until I saw these shocking images.

Take a gander at their hatefests and tell me what you notice:

https://x.com/TBifford/status/1712577727071666607?s=20

https://x.com/therealmrbench/status/1712827303732932693?s=20

https://x.com/kerrydougherty/status/1713351767134466364?s=20

Yep, masks.x.com/…ugherty/status/1713351767134466364 Continue reading

Jew-Hating Student Groups Crop Up Like Cockroaches. Virginia Is No Exception.

by Kerry Dougherty

As the world gapes in horror at the atrocities committed against the people of Israel malignant clots of the perpetually disgruntled appear, like cockroaches.

These brainwashed fans of Hamas cheer the murder of Jewish babies, the rape of Jewish women and the taking of Jewish hostages. They wave the Palestinian flag. They spew anti-semitism cloaked in something they call decolonization.

And where are these ghoulish fans of Islamic death cults found? College campuses, where else?

Many are oblivious to the fact that their nose rings, purple hair and non-binary existence would get them tossed off a tall building by the Islamists in the Middle East.

First out of the box were 31 student organizations at Harvard voicing support for the Palestinians. Not wanting to be outdone by the Cambridge brain trust, chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine at Stanford, Georgetown, Columbia, Swarthmore and George Washington University joined in the bloodthirsty, morally bankrupt cacophony. Then knots of nuts at the state schools jumped in: Florida State, University of Michigan, and the University of Illinois.

It didn’t take long for this nasty virus to infect Virginia. Misfits at William and Mary showed their solidarity with the Islamic rapists after the weekend bloodletting in Israel by harassing Jewish students who were raising relief funds for terror victims. And deranged hatred of the Jewish people crawled out of its hole at the commonwealth’s flagship: The University of Virginia.

In Charlottesville of all places!

Anyone else remember the national disgust over the white nationalist marchers in 2017 who carried torches and chanted “Jews will not replace us” and other Nazi slogans on the vaunted grounds of the university? Continue reading

Stop All Aid to Palestinians and Other Terrorists. Every Bit of It

by Kerry Dougherty

On Saturday morning Hamas terrorists unleashed Hell on innocent Israelis. As Israel’s ambassador to the US pointed out, given the population of Israel 600 dead Israelis is the equivalent of 20,000 dead Americans.

This was Israel’s 9-11. Their Pearl Harbor. Some say it was the most deadly day in history for the Jewish state.

And all I can say today, after this weekend of horror in Israel, is thank God for Elon Musk.

Had Musk not spent a chunk of his personal fortune on Twitter, many of us would not have seen the horror Hamas inflicted on innocent Israelis. No way Jack Dorsey’s crowd of left-wingers would have allowed citizen journalists to tell the real story, the unfiltered truth, about the unimaginably grotesque attacks throughout Israel.

We wouldn’t have seen the graphic videos of these fanatical men driving around in a Jeep with the dead body of a young woman in the back like a slaughtered animal, stopping to allow cheering bystanders to spit on her mutilated corpse.

We wouldn’t have seen the bloodied woman – clearly a rape victim – being dragged by her hair into the street by men screaming about Allah and then shoving her into a car overloaded with men who were grabbing for her. God rest her soul. Chances she survived the next few hours are slim.

We wouldn’t have seen the bawling children being shielded by their parents as they were savagely herded into cars and taken as hostages.

We wouldn’t have seen the stacks of bodies.

Nope.

All we’d have is sanitized references to “Hamas militants” – as if this is a regular army – and criticism of “Israel’s right-wing intelligence” for failing to thwart the unprovoked attack on civilians. Oh and lots of whataboutism about how hard life is in Gaza for Palestinians and that Israel is to blame. Continue reading

Youngkin’s “Bromance” with Petersburg’s Mayor

by Kerry Dougherty

They tried. Lord knows they did their best to find fault.

But even the leftie Washington Post was forced to hold its nose and admit that Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s commitment to his signature program — “Partnership for Petersburg” — is genuine and getting results.

For more than a year, Youngkin has been working with local and state officials, the private and public sectors and especially with Petersburg Mayor Sam Parham to turn that city’s fortunes around.

Petersburg is a city in distress. It’s riddled with crime, grinding poverty and the worst-performing schools in the commonwealth.

A hopeless example of urban decay, some would say, and on the decline.

In a lengthy story this week, The Post wrote about the friendship that has blossomed between Youngkin and the African-American mayor of that troubled city. Continue reading

New Yorker Tops Virginian as Dumbest Member of Congress

by Kerry Dougherty 

In 1974 a story in a Washington DC magazine listed the 10 dumbest members of Congress.

Numero uno?

 Sen. William Scott of Virginia.

Scott was infuriated and called a press conference to deny the allegations, drawing attention to the article in an alternative magazine and proving to many that he really was dumb.

Continue reading

Glenn Youngkin. The GOP’s Red Vest Savior?

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

Early Voting Starts Today: Bank Your Vote

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

Navy Ditches Drag Queen Recruiting Videos

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

Will Dove Get the Bud Light Treatment?

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

A Race to the Bottom Everywhere

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

Dems Nominated an Online Porn Star for House of Delegates

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