Tag Archives: Shaun Kenney

End the Subminimum Wage for Disabled Virginians

Posted on February 8, 2022 by | 34 comments

Virginia is top ranked as a business-friendly state. How we treat employees with disabilities in the workplace matters.

by Shaun Kenney

What are the hallmarks of a business-friendly environment? Competitive wages, opportunities to build wealth, support for entrepreneurial endeavors, freedom to create and innovate, dignity of work, and economic independence and sustainability – to name a few.

There’s a law on the books in Virginia that legislators and advocates on both sides of the aisle argue stands in direct contrast to many of these principles. It goes back to 1938.

According to Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers with a 14(c) certificate from the Wage & Hour Division of the Department of Labor are legally permitted to pay wages below the minimum wage to employees with physical, developmental, cognitive, mental or age-related disabilities. Continue reading →

34 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Labor and Workforce

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Restoring Process Over Politics

Posted on January 26, 2022 by | 19 comments

by Shaun Kenney

Over the last eight years, Virginia Democrats have been swift to impose their will in violation of political process — a fact that continues to frustrate Virginia Republicans on fronts as wide as economic shutdowns, mask mandates, the tearing down of history and war memorials, the imposition of Critical Race Theory in government schools, and the enforcement of gender ideology in state government.

The list is long and needs to be truncated quickly.

Republicans acted in November, and with the election of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin there was the hope that incoming Republicans would act with the swiftness and speed demonstrated by the Democrats.

Yet Youngkin has walked into a few checkpoints. Rather than run over top of them, Youngkin has chosen not to de-escalate but adjust on at least two fronts — namely Northam’s cap-and-trade schematic under RGGI and on repealing the mask mandates.

But notice the play here. Continue reading →

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Posted in Politics

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Meritocracy Against the Wokes

Posted on January 17, 2022 by | 24 comments

Progressive Democrats are awfully riled up about the term “meritocracy” in Youngkin’s EO 1 — and they ought to be.

by Shaun Kenney

Poor Democrats — they haven’t been this ruffled about Republicans taking over Richmond since 1865.

Truly, it’s hard to feel much sympathy for the Virginia Democrats, whose lust for power and the damage they did in just two years was something to behold. What they deemed progress consisted mostly of bulldozing history, embedding outright racism into our classrooms and bureaucracy, and institutionalizing mental illness to the degree where if such things are questioned you are swiftly beaten out of the public square — or worse, the Twitter mob is followed up by a media no one reads and you are marched off to your own private gulag.

Yet I digress.

This morning’s brass ring for the left is Youngkin Executive Order 1, which repeals by fiat much of the Critical Race Theory embedded into state government by the Northam administration, and does so in such a way that any challenges will be in the face of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The offending passages? Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars

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Youngkin’s Ministry of All Talents

Posted on December 23, 2021 by | 43 comments

by Shaun Kenney

The Daily Caller has an article on how Republican governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s new selection for Secretary of Education was the founder and CEO of Data Quality Campaign (DQC) — an organization which collected data on public schoolchildren, including their class schedules, grades, and other data in order to provide metrics to enhance student performance at a policy level.

The firm was so successful that Bill Gates threw $26 million at DQC, which like most corporate firms included some hat-tip to the wokeisme — my new favorite word — drive for equity. Which might offend me if not for the fact that every institution seems to have bent the knee to these modern-day Jacobins in order not to be cancelled, looted, spat upon, and so forth.

Obviously, The Daily Caller wants me to be outraged.

Equally clear is that “data” and “reason” are two very scary words for woke progressives who believe both to be inherently racist functions of the white patriarchy. Continue reading →

43 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12)

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Burning Flags OK, Burning Smut Bad

Posted on November 11, 2021 by | 12 comments

BLM/Antifa domestic terrorists in Portland, Oregon burning Bibles and American flags during the August 2020 riots. source: Twitter/Flopping Aces

Just because “33 Snowfish” gets printed doesn’t make it literature… but we can know that only if we contrast smut against actual literature.

by Shaun Kenney

“Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.”
“Thus, where men burn books, in the end they will also burn men.”
     — Heinrich Heine, Almansor: A Tragedy (1823)

Since we are all clutching pearls at the idea of burning books quite suddenly, let’s take a moment to remind ourselves when progressive Democrats are entirely complacent about the actual practice of book burning — yes?

For instance? When progressive rioters in August 2020 engaged in BLM and Antifa’s favorite pastime — only instead of burning out small businesses they instead burned Bibles in Portland, Oregon — the Democrats initially denied that it happened… until video evidence verified that the BLM/Antifa rioters actually did burn Bibles.

Even Snopes rated the claim true, despite the legacy media and the perpetually offended Democratic Party offering barely a single word of objection. One has to wonder whether they would have been as blasé about the whole thing if it was a Holy Quran or The Vagina Monologues or even a copy of The Turner Diaries.
I digress.

Of course, just days after parents threw the Democratic Party out of their high church of Virginia state government, they have found a new bogeyman — where the Spotsylvania County School Board has issued an ultimatum to its school superintendent to conduct a survey of objectionable books. Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12)

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Earning the Right to Govern

Posted on November 9, 2021 by | 16 comments


by Shaun Kenney

Now that a solid week has passed between Virginia and the November elections, the sobering up can begin in earnest. With a Republican sweep that gave Youngkin 50.59% of the vote, Sears 50.72%, and Miyares 50.36%, it is clear that rhetoric caged in the spirit of a Roman triumph is a touch overstated. With a 52-48 Republican majority in the House of Delegates, what should be clear to most conservatives is that November doesn’t seal the deal.

If we want Virginia back, we are going to have to fight for it.

Which means the level of intensity directed against heavy-handed school boards and local administrators cannot — and by all appearances, is not — going away anytime soon. Nor are the progressives shying away from a fight on this and many other questions they have forced during their four-year reign of shame.
Which is why governing is going to be critically important, on precisely two fronts. Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Politics

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Miyares Seeks to Override Progressive Prosecutors

Posted on November 5, 2021 by | 31 comments

by Shaun Kenney

Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares announced Thursday that he’s looking to pass legislation that will override “social justice” commonwealth’s attorneys who refuse to prosecute entire categories of crime.

Miyares said his plan has the support of Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin.

Fox News reports:

Under current law, the AG’s office can prosecute a case on behalf of a commonwealth’s attorney – Virginia’s version of a district attorney (DA) – so long as the DA requests it.

The new bill “would essentially say, if the chief law enforcement officer in a jurisdiction — either the chief of police or the sheriff — makes a request because a commonwealth’s attorney is not doing their job, then I’m going to do their job for them,” Miyares said. “I’m thinking specifically, some of the so-called ‘social justice’ commonwealth’s attorneys that have been elected, particularly in Northern Virginia. We’re obviously aware of some pretty horrific cases” where these DAs have not pursued justice. Continue reading →

31 Comments

Posted in Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement

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Dying for a Photo Op

Posted on October 15, 2021 by | 8 comments

Lieutenant H. J. Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates

This post has been excerpted from a longer column published in The Republican Standard. — JAB

by Shaun Kenney

Two things have always bothered me about Charlottesville 2017.

First, that the political Left never mentions that three people died that day. Yes, we all know the name of Heather Heyer.

But you never see the left or the media mention Jay Cullen and Berke Bates.

Why?

They don’t mention Cullen or Bates because they were Virginia State Police officers who died in the line of duty.

That leads me to the second thing that has bothered me ever since. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement

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McAuliffe: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Posted on September 29, 2021 by | 18 comments

by Shaun Kenney

Remember the old adage — the goal isn’t to win the debate, but to make sure you don’t lose the debate.

Former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe was pressed on graphic textbooks — and I mean graphic — of a sexual nature being included in government school libraries, and McAuliffe exploded with rage.

Not towards school districts, mind you — but towards busybody parents who had the audacity to look into what their children were actually being taught in the classroom.

That’s when McAuliffe decided to say the quiet part out loud:

That sound you heard last night was the simultaneous squealing of wheels on the mental pavement of a million Virginians. Continue reading →

18 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12), Elections, Uncategorized

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Forced Unionism Is Back on the Menu

Posted on September 13, 2021 by | 14 comments

by Shaun Kenney

First things first. Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin’s internal polling has him showing a slight lead against Democratic former governor Terry McAuliffe 48-46.

What Afghanistan giveth Texas shall taketh away…

Yet with the 2022 Generic Ballot showing the environment at D+0.3 at present? Those numbers can only improve Republican hopes moving forward, as new polls indicate that both Winsome Sears and Jason Miyares are building on their existing leads.

Even National Review is getting in on the game as Virginia Democrats are debating whether or not to double-down on defunding the police:

Vulnerable Democrats in the House of Delegates seem to share Youngkin’s intuition about crime and the political consequences of their party’s record on the issue, and are feverishly working to reverse themselves as a result. Continue reading →

14 Comments

Posted in Elections, Politics

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Why Is Northam Doling Out Public Cash at Partisan Events?

Posted on July 14, 2021 by | 32 comments

by Shaun Kenney

Michael Martz with the Richmond Times-Dispatch writes on Governor Ralph Northam’s hamfisted attempt to use the public trust for partisan gain with a $350 million rescue package paid for by John and Jane Q. Taxpayer.

The proposed package also includes the help requested by Virginia Tourism President Rita McClenny, who appeared before the House and Senate budget committees this year to make the case for aid to the tourism and hospitality industry.

Those businesses employ about 10% of workers but represent 45% of the jobs lost during the pandemic, she told Senate Finance in May. “We want to prepare our communities to open their doors to visitors.”

Of course, the commonwealth is awash in federal COVID relief to the tune of $4.3 billion dollars. One might even be encouraged to think that Northam — true to the spirit of pandemic — might even be inclined to treat the public relief as a public opportunity to show public solidarity with all Virginians.

Instead, Northam and the Virginia Democrats chose to turn a taxpayer-fueled bailout into a partisan romp. Continue reading →

32 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Economic development

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Maybe VMI Needs to Close on Our Terms

Posted on April 10, 2021 by | 24 comments

A modest proposal

by Shaun Kenney

The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is a hallowed institution to many. VMI men have a certain command presence that is rooted in realism yet rarely if ever accepts impossible as a status quo.

The things that make VMI such an institution are the intangibles. VMI’s storied Honor Code, her graduates such as General George S. Patton, the 1864 Battle of New Market, and the gallows humor that seems to prevail among most alumni. “They can’t kill you and they can’t send you back to the rat line” is a common refrain

This thicket of intangibles — honor and tradition — are what makes institutions such as VMI unique and truly Virginian. Continue reading →

24 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (higher ed)

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Virginia Dems Have More Problems Than They’re Letting On

Posted on April 6, 2021 by | 9 comments


by Shaun Kenney

Let’s start first and foremost with the obscene amount of cash that Clean Virginia — the Michael Bills front group that has donated to many Democratic and even a few Republican candidates — is pouring onto the campaigns of Delegate Jennifer Carroll-Foy, D-Prince William, for Governor and Delegate Jay Jones (D-Norfolk) for Attorney General.

Carroll-Foy is rumored to be closing in on the presumptive Democratic nominee and former governor Terry McAuliffe. More interesting is the scuttlebutt in Richmond where, despite McAuliffe’s presumed lead, it is Jay Jones’ candidacy that is not only closing in on Mark Herring but demonstrating a sort of strength that leads just about every insider TRS has spoken with on both parties to conclude that Herring is in serious and abiding trouble.

Did we mention that Ralph Northam has endorsed Jay Jones as well?

That’s right folks.

The Democratic civil war is on in a big way. Continue reading →

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Posted in Politics

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A Tale of Three Virginias

Posted on February 5, 2021 by | 64 comments

Source: UVa Weldon Cooper Center; statchatva.com

by Shaun Kenney

For those who have taken the opportunity to get to know the Old Dominion, one would be well served to drive the Colonial Parkway.

Built by the Rockefeller family in the 1930s, the road is designed in such a way that you could travel the length from Jamestown through Williamsburg and to Yorktown without even so much as noticing the colonial capital.

This is by design, of course. Yet it is also a way of understanding how unique Virginia is among her sister colonies turned states. Whereas New England built townships upon the rocky yet rich black soil, Virginians built farms and plantations upon cheap land, pushing further west when the soil gave out or new opportunities arose.

Townships and cities were the oddities.

For almost 400 years, this concept of Virginia was Virginia. We were an agrarian society of farms and farmlets, ranchers and miners, fishermen and merchants. True, we built a great manufacturing city in Richmond and a great port at Hampton Roads — our own Athens and Piraeus — but much like our Colonial Parkway, these major ports could go unnoticed. Continue reading →

64 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Demographics, Politics

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