Free Republic

On Saturday, Winsome Earle-Sears, a Black Republican woman, took the oath of office to become Virginia’s 42nd lieutenant governor. She is Virginia’s first female lieutenant governor and the first immigrant to win statewide office in Virginia. But being Black and Republican is what’s gotten a lot of attention — even though that’s not as unusual as many believe. Sears is actually Virginia’s third Black lieutenant governor, and she succeeds another Black lieutenant governor. Boyd Rutherford and Mark Robinson are also Black Republican lieutenant governors, serving in Maryland and North Carolina, respectively. And Black Republican women — Jenean Hampton, Jennette Bradley...

Imagine sitting in a classroom and being told that you don’t belong in a big house, can only be expected to communicate non-verbally and emotionally, or are responsible for the racial supremacy that teachers say oppresses your classmates, simply because of your skin tone. This is what middle-school students from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds learn in Albemarle County, Virginia. After parents from five families heard their children’s distress and confusion, they raised concerns with school officials only to learn that they could not opt out of the indoctrination. Faced with sending their children into an environment that subjects them...

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) has only been in office for a few days but he and his administration have already gotten down to the business of trying to fulfill campaign promises to voters, starting by working to clean up the messes Gov. Ralph Northam (D) left, which is causing hurt feelings and an increase in demands for truckloads of smelling salts among Democrat/media elitists in the state who prefer the “business as usual” way of doing things. One area where there has been predictable friction between Youngkin and his critics on the left and in the media is on...

On Thursday, yet another Virginia school district decided to, at least for now, disregard Gov. Glenn Youngkin's (R-VA) executive orders on lifting a mask mandate for school districts throughout the commonwealth. Such an order was part of his "Day One Promise" executive orders issued on Saturday, hours after he had taken office. The school district in question is Chesterfield County Public Schools, located close to Richmond, and is very much a swing district. Tina Ramirez, whom Townhall has featured before in articles about when she had announced a run in the 7th Congressional District, to challenge Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA),...

I hope Gov Youngkin realizes that the race-based education crisis that permeates Virginia Schools goes so very, very far beyond history classes taught according to Critical Race Theory. Meet Dr. Kendria Boyd. She works in Fairfax County Public Schools as assistant principal who oversees special education. It's difficult to allege she was hired to eliminate white teachers from Edison High School, because attributing motives is always uncertain. But her (publicly available) doctoral thesis from the University of Pittsburgh was a survey of a handful of non-Black teachers which it found, horror of horrors, that they didn't realize that they were...

When Glenn Youngkin first stepped out of the C-suite to joust with the windmill that was the Virginia governorship, he looked like just another Miracle Whip Republican ready to bland his way to gentlemanly failure. But he did not fail. He won, against all odds. And he did it not by tacking to the squishy center and trying to please the Washington Post, but by ignoring the consultant consensus that he should disregard issues the people were concerned about and focus on the same losing platform that these hacks haven’t changed since 2005. And then he followed up by keeping...

[52:05 video] "Newly-inaugurated Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) speaks to a joint assembly of the Virginia legislature."

[LOUDOUN COUNTY] School board votes to implement local mask policy, countering Governor’s order

Virginia Beach police used forged documents that linked people's DNA to a crime to get them to confess or cooperate with investigators, Virginia's outgoing attorney general announced Wednesday. The city's police department has changed its policy in the wake of the state's probe, Attorney General Mark Herring said in a statement. In a separate statement, the city said it had ended the practice in May after conducting its own investigation, but called the tactic legal. Virginia Beach police serve a city of about 450,000 people along the state's coast. Officers used fake reports purporting to be from the Virginia Department...

A communications representative for a public school system in Virginia accidentally responded to a reporter seeking information used in their decision to continue with its mask requirement and what the district plans to do if Gov. Glenn Youngkin's (R) executive order allowing an opt-out of school mask mandates is followed. Arlington Public Schools communications director Frank Bellavia, intending to recommend that his colleagues not respond to an email from a Daily Caller reporter, mistakenly replied instead to the reporter, who sought the data used to determine the district's claim that masks are effective in mitigating COVID transmission. "FYI I recommended...

There was a time not too long ago when Democrats hid the fact that they hate parents and want the state to raise all children. In fact, it’s only been a couple of decades since Democrats actually believed parents should have a say in the upbringing of their children. But the modern Democrat Party holds no such perspective. To them, your children belong to the state and how dare you think you should have a say in what they learn, how they’re cared for, and what values are instilled into them. New Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin addressed the state assembly...

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...

"Governor Blackface-Klansman Ralph Northam pardoned a Democrat who was jailed for underage sex crimes in his final act as Virginia governor. Northam pardoned Democrat state senator Joe Morrissey, who was charged for having a sexual relationship with his 17-year-old law firm receptionist. In 2014, Morrissey, who was 57 years old at the time, was sentenced to 12 months in jail for engaging in sex acts with a 17-year-old. Morrissey married his receptionist after she turned 18 and they now have four children. ..."

Governor Blackface-Klansman Ralph Northam pardoned a Democrat who was jailed for underage sex crimes in his final act as Virginia governor. Northam pardoned Democrat state senator Joe Morrissey, who was charged for having a sexual relationship with his 17-year-old law firm receptionist. In 2014, Morrissey, who was 57 years old at the time, was sentenced to 12 months in jail for engaging in sex acts with a 17-year-old. Morrissey married his receptionist after she turned 18 and they now have four children.

In July 2021, McLean Bible Church (MBC) in Vienna, Va., which is pastored by David Platt, was sued by five of its members (current and former) for allegedly barring them on illegal grounds in June of 2021 from voting in an important congregational meeting to approve new church leaders. MBC’s constitution says that elders must be approved by a three-quarters majority, but on June 30, 2021, the vote failed for the first time in the church’s history. Platt accused some MBC members of organizing a planned effort to thwart the election in a Sunday sermon, saying that a small group...

For decades, Republican Party elected officials have tried to make nice with their Democratic Party colleagues, the liberal media and deep state bureaucrats. Instead of acting like courageous conservative leaders, they ended up delivering policies that were Democrat-lite. This capitulation led to the catastrophe the country is now facing under the Biden administration. President Joe Biden entered office after a disputed election, with no voter mandate, but that did not stop him from launching the most left-wing agenda of any administration in American history. His first year in office has been an utter catastrophe, the worst start of any American...

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.

Did you see it? Like a bolt of lightning, some major changes occurred. The tale of two cities lives! It is the best of times, and worst of times. This weekend Glenn Youngkin was sworn in as The Commonwealth of Virginia’s 74th Governor since 1922. And before I could write these words he’s already done much to make his state one of the freest in the Union. Upon inauguration, he kept three campaign promises. He undid the mask mandates, he undid vaccine requirements, and he banned the teaching of racism in public schools—bringing to an end the teachers’ union’s unhealthy...

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...

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...