Author: Bob Rayner
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Early Voting Starts Today: Bank Your Vote
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…
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Navy Ditches Drag Queen Recruiting Videos
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…
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Giant Utility Rejects Net Zero Power; Big Fight Follows
by David Wojick Dominion Energy, Virginia’s big electric utility, is telling the state it does not foresee complying with the 2045 net zero power target in the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). The preferred option in Dominion’s latest Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) retires no fossil-fueled power generators, other than the few old ones that are…
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Fear and Loathing in Harrisonburg
by Joe Fitzgerald Fifteen months ago, I wrote the following about last year’s Harrisonburg City Council elections: We need people, independent or party, who value pragmatism over ideology. And we need people who know the difference between pragmatism and cynicism, and the difference between opportunity and opportunism. This would be the year for people who…
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Thunder in the Pulpits
by Michael Giere “But this was not always so. In fact, for much of our history, it has been just the opposite. Godly men and women who were fearless, bold, strong, and savvy have been central to the American experience.” There has never been anything in history like the US Constitution, signed on September 17,…
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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…
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Voyeurism Isn’t Good for the Soul (or Politics)
by Shaun Kenney The scandal of the week involving Susanna Gibson is an indictment of our politics. Shame on us all for participating in it. HAMLET Get thee ⟨to⟩ a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it…
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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…
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Virginia’s Top and Bottom Local School Divisions, 2023
by John Butcher Professor Excel is glad to sort the Division test results so let’s look at the top and bottom performers. But first: On average, Virginia’s economically disadvantaged (ED) students pass at about 20% lower rates than their more affluent peers (Not ED). Thus, the overall division averages are affected by the relative percentages…
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Virginia’s “Runaway” Budget Negotiators
by Derrick A. Max (This column was first published by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy) Fear of commitment is a common theme in Hollywood — where romantic comedies are replete with characters that sidestep long-term commitment primarily out of fear that someone better may come along. Think of Runaway Bride, where Maggie, played…
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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…
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Fairfax School Board Ignores the Rule of Law
by Emilio Jaksetic On July 18, 2023, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) issued “Model Policies on Ensuring Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for all Students and Parents in Virginia’s Public Schools” (Revised Model Policy). A copy of that policy is accessible at https://www.doe.virginia.gov/Home/Components/News/News/308/ On August 15, 2023, Michelle Reid, Ed.D, Superintendent of the Fairfax County…
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Petersburg: Paradigm of VBOE Fecklessness, the 2023 Update
by John Butcher Despite nineteen years of “supervision” by the Board and Department of Education, the Petersburg schools marinate in failure. Va. Code § 22.1-8 provides: “The general supervision of the public school system shall be vested in the Board of Education.” Va. Code § 22.1-253.13:8 provides: The Board of Education shall have authority to…
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Sex, Lies and Virginia Law: The Susanna Gibson Case
Republished with permission from the Liberty Unyielding blog. “Susanna Gibson, a House candidate in Virginia, had sex with her husband in live videos posted online and asked viewers to pay them money in return,” notes USA Today. A recent video shows the Democratic candidate for Virginia’s House of Delegates doing sex acts. She allegedly also…
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Former Roanoke Mayor Switches Parties
From The Roanoke Star (Editor’s Note: Below is a Set. 11, 2023 statement released by David Bowers, who served as the Democratic mayor of Roanoke from 1992 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2016. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor as an independent in 2020.) On this Patriot Day, September 11, 2023, after months of reflection,…