Free Republic

Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Senate Democrats had “a couple of different paths” to pass voting legislation without Republican support.

On his first day, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has eliminated the Office of Civil Rights. Miyares also announced he will prosecute criminal cases in jurisdictions where Soros DAs decline to prosecute, and he has already opened investigations into Loudon County Public Schools. Jason Miyares @JasonMiyaresVA As a candidate, I promised to investigate the scandals at the Virginia Parole Board and Loudoun County Schools. As Attorney General, I am proud to say that the process has begun and the investigations are officially open. Sweet leftist tears… Louise Lucas @SenLouiseLucas I've been told incoming AG @JasonMiyaresVA just FIRED the entire civil...

As “wounded healer” Ralph Northam moonwalks out of the Governor’s Mansion and “cheerful suburban dad” Glenn Youngkin settles in, the Commonwealth of Virginia is back and open for business. The 74th governor, who enters office tomorrow, promises bold change starting on Day One. And the Left is openly seething with rage. Similarly, a divided General Assembly (the oldest continuous law-making body in the New World) will garner attention — especially over cabinet appointment confirmations and Republicans pledging to undo extreme Democratic laws. New House Majority Leader Terry Kilgore (R-Gate City) promised, “We’re setting an agenda that will make it easier...

The judge called the boy’s psychological reports scary The Loudoun County teenager charged with sexual assault at two separate high schools has been found guilty and sentenced to supervised probation in a residential treatment facility. The Loudoun County Juvenile Court had previously found the male student "not innocent" of charges of forcible sodomy and forcible fellatio against a female student in a May 28 incident at Stone Bridge High School. The same student pleaded "no contest" in a separate case to two charges of abduction and sexual battery involving an incident at Broad Run High School on October 6, Fox...

Within hours of taking office, Virginia's newly sworn-in Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) cleaned house - firing dozens of lawyers, including those in the Civil Rights division - and announcing investigations into the Virginia Parole Board and Loudon County Public Schools."I've been told incoming AG @JasonMiyaresVA just FIRED the entire civil rights division in the Attorney General's office," tweeted VA State Senator Louise Lucas.I've been told incoming AG @JasonMiyaresVA just FIRED the entire civil rights division in the Attorney General's office. My bill helped create and expand the authority that this division uses. — L. Louise Lucas (@SenLouiseLucas) January 14,...

Newly-minted Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin started his first day in office with a bang that could reverberate across the nation as a signal to other governors on the fence between the people and the donor class.Signing a slate of executive orders, Youngkin fulfilled some of the biggest promises he made to voters during his groundbreaking gubernatorial run. The orders include:Ending the use of Critical Race Theory in public educationInvestigating “wrongdoing” in Loudon CountyOpening the economy for all businessWithdrawing from previous “green energy” initiatives that have been harmful to Virginia’s economy and bureaucracySlashing “job-killing” regulationsAllowing parents and students to opt out...

Incoming Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares cleans house, reportedly fires entire civil rights division Posted at 5:45 pm on January 15, 2022 by Brett T. It was actually Friday, a day before he was sworn in, that Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares fired the entire civil rights division of the Attorney General’s Office. Local media says that Miyares Friday made 30 personnel changes, including 17 attorneys and 13 staffers. Louise Lucas is president Pro tempore of the Virginia Senate.

The right-wing fight to suppress the teaching of uncomfortable truths in public schools reached a comical new low this week in a Virginia bill that blatantly misstated a basic fact about U.S. history. Wren Williams, a 33-year-old Republican, pre-filed the bill on Tuesday, the day before he was sworn in as a new member of the Virginia House of Delegates. It proposed a new standard for regulating high-school social studies curricula in the state, including a requirement that students learn about “the first debate between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.” This was a clear misunderstanding of the 1858 “Lincoln-Douglas debates,”...

RICHMOND, Virginia — Republican Glenn Youngkin became the 74th Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia Saturday at a noon ceremony on the steps of the Capitol building in Richmond. As the new governor took the oath of office, his words were punctuated by Howitzer artillery blasts and a military flyover.

Glenn Youngkin, the first Republican to win the state of Virginia since 2009, was sworn in as the state’s 74th governor on Jan. 15. Within hours of his inauguration, he signed 11 executive actions including lifting the mask mandate in Virginia schools and “ending divisive concepts, including critical race theory, in public education.” He also signed an executive directive rescinding the vaccine mandate for all state employees. The 55-year-old former business executive, in his inauguration speech at Richmond, emphasized a “common path forward” with “our deep and abiding respect for individual freedom.” Youngkin vowed to strengthen and renew the “spirit...

Attorney Gen.-elect Jason Miyares notified about 30 staff members in the office - 17 of them attorneys - that they won't have jobs in his administration. Miyares, a Republican, will be sworn in on Saturday to replace Democratic Attorney General Mark Herring, whom Miyares defeated in the November election. Miyares spokeswoman Victoria LaCivita said the 30 staff members were told Friday that Miyares would be moving in a different direction. "During the campaign, it was made clear that now Attorney General-elect Miyares and Attorney General Herring have very different visions for the office," she said by email for this story....

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issued an eleventh-hour pardon to state Sen. Joe Morrissey, who was convicted in 2014 for a misdemeanor count over a relationship with a 17-year-old receptionist at his law firm who later became his wife. Morrissey, who like Northam is a Democrat, said he learned of the simple pardon Thursday after he sent a petition at the end of November. Morrissey, now 64, left his seat in the House of Delegates eight years ago after being convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He won reelection as an independent in a special election a short...

Youngkin plans to fill key Virginia posts with former Trump aides. In the run-up to his inauguration on January 15, Youngkin has recruited from the ranks of Trump administration veterans, many of whom have faced a difficult job market in the year since the twice-impeached former president left Washington, DC, nearly a year ago. Youngkin's transition team, with the assistance of a search firm, looked for younger Republicans outside the Richmond establishment who had recently served in government, a person familiar with the recruitment process told Insider.

Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin has named two women with track records of opposing “critical race theory” — a once obscure collegiate field that’s become a conservative catch-all term for racial equity and diversity initiatives in public schools — to top posts at the Virginia Department of Education. Jillian Balow, formerly Wyoming’s elected superintendent of public instruction, will take on the same job in Virginia, Youngkin announced in a news release Thursday. Jillian Balow, Virginia’s incoming superintendent of public instruction. (Wyoming Department of Education) Before stepping down to join Youngkin’s administration, Balow supported a proposed Wyoming bill that would require K-12 schools...

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - Days away from a new administration in the governor’s mansion, we’re getting a closer look at what changes to expect for your kids in school. Governor-Elect Glenn Youngkin has promised to rescind the mask mandate on his first day in office. We wanted to get to the bottom of what that will mean for your students. To get straight to the point - expect some changes. But, it may take some time to get clarity on how those changes are implemented for our kids. “I think parents should be empowered to make decisions for their children,”...

Those remarks weren’t just vintage Trump braggadocio. They’re likely also smart politics, as they provide an opening to win back some suburban voters that fled from him toward Biden in 2020. Sixty-seven percent of suburban residents were vaccinated as of August, according to a late summer NBC News poll. That was below the 79 percent of urban residents who got the vaccine, but well above the 52 percent of rural residents, where support for Trump runs deep. Even Biden gave credit to the Trump administration for the development of the Covid vaccine and for getting a booster shot.It’s unclear that...

Of the four restaurants Rick McQuaide owns across several counties in Western Pennsylvania, one is barely making a profit, two are losing money and the fourth has been “temporarily” closed for far longer than he ever anticipated. ... White House and much of the national media .. are wildly out of touch with the struggles of the average American and small business person,” McQuaide adds. “That isn’t political, that is ­reality.” ... there isn’t an aspect of his business that has not been upended by inflation. Fewer people are applying for jobs, driving up wages. Then there is the price...

Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin on Tuesday created an advisory group to help guide the state's response to COVID-19 amid a record surge in cases and hospitalizations fueled by the omicron variant. Youngkin will be sworn into office on Saturday and quickly assume responsibility for the state's public health care system, which is under strain due to the ongoing pandemic. Youngkin's new "Medical Advisory Group" will include several hospital leaders, physicians and public health experts. It will be led by Dr. Marty Makary, a surgical oncologist and professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Makary is critical of...

Aimee Rogstad Guidera, Youngkin’s education secretary pick, is deeply tied to the education swamp on almost every issue.

Virginia's outgoing Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, faced multiple calls for his resignation following a blackface scandal in 2019, with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., demanding Northam step down. Yet Northam did not resign, and Kaine recently said he was "glad" the governor remained in office.