Tag: virginia

Virginia Democrat Moves to Squash Oversight of Nonprofits After Somali Fraud Scandal

A Virginia state Democrat introduced a bill that would bar the state from verifying eligibility to receive federal taxpayer benefits.

“No state agency responsible for the administration of federal funds shall impose a requirement on a nonprofit charitable organization providing a federal public benefit to determine, verify, or otherwise require proof of eligibility of any applicant for such benefits,” the one-page bill stated, which was proposed by state Delegate Jessica Anderson.

The Dominion State Democrat’s bill was introduced as the nation has increasingly scrutinized the misuse of taxpayer funds. The Trump administration has moved to clamp down on fraud across many federal benefit programs.

Billions of dollars of taxpayer funds have been lost due to fraud related to Minnesota’s Somali community.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) charged at least 78 people as part of the “Feeding our Future” scandal, named for a Somali-linked nonprofit that bilked taxpayers of $250 million.

Those accused reportedly faked invoices, attendance records, and the distribution of meals in low-income and other areas in Minnesota.

Keep reading

Taxing Lawnmowers, Gym Passes, And DoorDash Proves Dems Actually Hate ‘Affordability’

“Affordability” was the word of the year in Virginia politics in 2025.

“Affordability takes center stage in New Jersey, Virginia governor races,” ABC News‘ Benjamin Siegel wrote on November 2, 2025.

“Spanberger turns Virginia governor’s race into a test of Trump’s economy,” Politico’s Erin Doherty and Brakkton Booker wrote on October 29, 2025. “Spangberger has stuck to a message on the economy, specifically the cost of life for Virginians.”

“It’s not about inflation or the economy — the election instead delivered a ‘wake-up call’ on affordability politics, top pollster says,” Fortune’s Jason Ma wrote on November 8, 2025.

And Democrats won on this message.

Abigail Spanberger beat incumbent Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears while Democrats picked up seats in the state legislature. A post-election poll conducted by CBS News found that “‘economy’ voters voted for Abigail Spanberger over Winsome Earle-Sears by more than 20 points.”

Affordability carried the day — until Democrats actually got into office. Within weeks of Election Day, Virginia Democrats have made clear that “affordability” was never more than a campaign slogan.

House Bill 978 would dramatically expand Virginia’s sales and use tax to cover a ton of everyday services. Under the bill, taxes would be applied to gym memberships and fitness classes, dry cleaning, laundry services, pet care, home repairs and cleaning services, car repairs, delivery and shipping services, digital services and event planning.

In other words, the things that normal Virginians pay for to live their lives may soon cost more.

The revenue, meanwhile, is earmarked for transit authorities while another portion would be distributed on the “basis of the high-need student population in the locality.” The formula for “high-need student” includes students in social programs, special education, or English language learners.

Then comes Democrats’ anti-lawn crusade.

House Bill 881 would “Provide[s] that any locality with a population density of at least 2,500 persons per square mile may by ordinance prohibit or regulate the use of gas-powered leaf blowers.”

Yet at the same time, House Bill 557 would establish “a separate classification of tangible personal property for electric-powered landscaping equipment in a trade or business and used to maintain commercial, public, or private gardens, lawns, trees, shrubs, or other plants, including lawn mowers, edgers, trimmers, leaf blowers, and chainsaws.”

In other words, Virginia Democrats are trying to ban gas-powered leaf blowers while raising the tax on electric landscaping equipment.

Keep reading

Virginia Democrats Pass Amendment for Abortions Up to Birth

Virginia Democrats have pushed through a radical constitutional amendment to enshrine abortions up to birth in the state constitution, sending the measure to voters in a November referendum after party-line votes in the General Assembly.

The amendment, which would establish a so-called “fundamental right to reproductive freedom,” advanced quickly in the Democrat-controlled legislature. It cleared the House on party-line votes after committee action on January 14, and the Senate followed suit.

Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax, a key sponsor, framed the amendment as protecting health care and contraception, even though it would allow killing babies up to birth for any reason.

Republicans opposed the amendment unanimously. Some attempted amendments to preserve parental consent laws or ensure care for babies born alive, but these were rejected by extreme Democrats who want no limits on killing babies before birth.

From a pro-life perspective, the amendment represents a grave threat.

Virginia’s Catholic bishops, Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington and Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond, condemned it as “extreme and deadly,” warning it would enshrine virtually unlimited abortion at any stage of pregnancy.

In their joint statement following the passage, the bishops called the fast-tracked approval “truly shocking to the conscience” and said the measure “would go far beyond even what Roe v. Wade previously allowed” by providing “no protections whatsoever for preborn children.”

They highlighted risks to Virginia’s parental consent law for minors, health and safety standards for women, conscience protections for healthcare providers, and restrictions on taxpayer-funded abortions.

Keep reading

Virginia Dem Goes Nuclear on Kaine, Warner With Sexually Profane Tirade

A Democratic leader in Virginia launched a public and profane attack on two of her party’s most prominent figures over redistricting plans, as intraparty tensions flare ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, as reported by The Independent Journal Review.

Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas blasted U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner in a series of social media posts Saturday, accusing them of meddling in state-level redistricting and dismissing their input in crude terms.

The outburst followed action by Virginia Senate Democrats, who on Friday approved a proposed constitutional amendment allowing the General Assembly to redraw congressional district maps mid-decade.

The move comes as both parties nationally are positioning themselves for the 2026 midterms, with redistricting increasingly used as a tool to gain or protect control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

After the amendment advanced, Lucas posted an image of a McDonald’s worker asking, “Would you like fries with that?” before turning her attention to Kaine and Warner in a follow-up post.

“I have the utmost respect for Senator Kaine and Senator Warner but we do not need ‘coaching’ on redistricting coming from a cuck chair in the corner,” Lucas wrote.

“How about you all stay focused on the fascist in the White House and let us handle redistricting in Virginia. 10-1.”

Keep reading

Jay Jones Sworn in as Virginia Attorney General, Despite Leaked Texts Fantasizing About Children of Conservatives Being Murdered

Jay Jones was sworn in as Virginia’s new attorney general on Saturday at the state Capitol in Richmond after winning the race despite leaked texts in which he fantasized about the children of conservatives being murdered.

Jones was sworn in at the inauguration of Democrat Governor Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA agent.

President Donald Trump had called for Jones to drop out of the race after the texts were made public, but Democrats rallied behind him.

In one shocking exchange, Jones fantasized about putting “two bullets to the head” of then-Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert in a hypothetical scenario comparing him to dictators like Hitler and Pol Pot.

Jones didn’t stop there; he went even further, expressing a twisted wish that one of Gilbert’s children would die in a school shooting to change Gilbert’s stance on gun control.

“I wish one of his kids would get shot up at school and die. Then maybe he’d change his mind,” Jones wrote, adding grotesque details about imagining the child “lying lifeless in their mother’s arms.”

Vice President JD Vance also called for Jones to step aside.

“The Democrat candidate for AG in Virginia has been fantasizing about murdering his political opponents in private messages,” Vance wrote in a post on X during the election season. “I’m sure the people hyperventilating about sombrero memes will join me in calling for this very deranged person to drop out of the race.”

At the inauguration ceremony, the judge asked, “You ready?”

“Yeah, baby,” Jones responded, before being sworn in.

Keep reading

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger IMMEDIATELY Repeals Youngkin Order Requiring Local Law Enforcement to Comply with ICE After Swearing in Ceremony

Newly sworn-in Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, as one of her first actions in the governor’s office on Saturday, implemented a sanctuary state policy, ending local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities. 

Spanberger was sworn in as the 75th Governor of Virginia on Saturday.

Later in the afternoon, Spanberger signed ten executive orders, including one that ended Virginia’s cooperation with federal law enforcement. Her new executive order rescinded an order by her predecessor, Glenn Youngkin, that required state police to participate in the federal 287(g) program and enforce ICE detainer requests for illegal aliens in custody. The order further gave police the authority to assist ICE with apprehensions and created a “State Police Task Force of federally deputized troopers to assist in the identification and apprehension of criminal illegal immigrants who pose a risk to public safety throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

Now, Virginia will just release illegal aliens who are convicted of crimes back onto the streets.

“State and local law enforcement should not be required to divert their limited resources to enforce federal civil immigration laws. It is a responsibility of federal law enforcement,” Spanberger said before signing the order. “Virginia state and local law enforcement officers must be able to focus on their rapport, responsibilities, investigating crime, and community policing.”

Keep reading

Virginia Democrats Move To Establish Limitless Abortion, Ban Guns, And Gerrymander Districts

The Republican-run government of Virginia has four days left in office, and Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., along with Democrat majorities in the Commonwealth’s legislature, are going to start the ball rolling with expanding abortion, making sure felons can vote, and implementing gun restrictions.

Responsible political leadership in Virginia might be focused on answering things like the housing affordability crisis, which has been made much more acute with the importation of foreigners to the most populous areas of the state.

Democrats coming into power in Virginia will hold a 21-19 majority in the state Senate and a 64-36 majority in the House of Delegates. Their top priorities include four proposed constitutional amendments: To expand abortion even later in the pregnancy and make it impossible to restrict (Virginia already allows most abortion up to 26 weeks — the most permissive in the entire South); to enshrine homosexual unions as a right; to automatically restore voting to felons who have completed their sentences; and to allow for mid-decade congressional redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms, where Democrats could nuke up to four Republican-held seats through gerrymandering.

Keep reading

Virginia’s Deep State Deepens Under Spanberger

Virginia’s Democratic Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger has displayed incredible audacity with her nomination of Stanley Meador to be the next Virginia secretary for public safety and homeland security. The choice provides a jarring indication of the radical agenda that Spanberger, a former CIA agent, intends to pursue in her administration. Stanley Meador was the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, office that issued the infamous FBI memo targeting “radical-traditionalist Catholics.”  

In June, Meador was one of many agents fired, demoted, or put on leave by new FBI Director Kash Patel. The New York Times rushed to their defense, of course, characterizing the dismissals as “retaliation” and “politicization” of the Bureau. The Times story on June 5, 2025 claimed that the agents were targeted on an “enemies list” of FBI employees who were being purged for not being personally loyal to Donald Trump. Here are the opening paragraphs of the Times story, titled “As Ousters Continue, F.B.I. Singles Out Employee Over Friendship With Trump Critic:

The F.B.I. has targeted another round of employees who ran afoul of conservatives, forcing out two veteran agents in Virginia — one of whom is friends with a critic of President Trump — and punishing another in Las Vegas, according to several people familiar with the matter.

Two of the men, Spencer Evans and Stanley Meador, are senior agents who ran F.B.I. field offices in Las Vegas and Richmond, Va. The third, Michael Feinberg, a top deputy in the Norfolk, Va., office, had ties to a former agent whom Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, identified in his book as part of the so-called deep state.

The moves add to the transfers, ousters and demotions that have rippled across the F.B.I. as Mr. Patel and Dan Bongino, his No. 2, promise to remake the country’s premier law enforcement agency. The wave of changes, current and former agents say, amount to little more than retaliation, underscoring what they describe as the politicization of the F.B.I. as its leaders seek to mollify Mr. Trump’s supporters.

Naturally, the Times’ spin purposely ignores the facts concerning the agents’ egregious actions, including their participation in the illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral weaponization of the FBI against President Donald Trump and his advisors, appointees, and supporters. More on that down below, but first, back to Governor-elect Spanberger.

Keep reading

Trump Administration SUES Virginia for Giving Illegal Aliens In-State Tuition While American Taxpayers Foot the Bill

The Trump administration has launched a sweeping federal lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Virginia, accusing state leaders of openly defying federal immigration law by granting illegal aliens discounted in-state college tuition while forcing American citizens from other states to pay dramatically higher rates.

In a civil complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the Department of Justice argues that Virginia’s tuition scheme blatantly violates federal law and must be permanently shut down.

The lawsuit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to block the enforcement of Virginia statutes that classify illegal aliens as state “residents” for tuition and financial aid purposes.

At the center of the case is a law passed in 2021 and effective since 2022, which allows illegal alien students who meet specific residency and high school graduation criteria in Virginia to pay in-state tuition regardless of their immigration status. They can also qualify for state financial aid.

Meanwhile, American citizens from neighboring states—or even military families temporarily stationed elsewhere—are forced to pay out-of-state tuition rates that can be tens of thousands of dollars higher.

The DOJ complaint states plainly that Virginia’s policy gives preferential treatment to illegal aliens over U.S. citizens, calling the practice “squarely prohibited and preempted by federal law.”

“In direct conflict with federal law, Virginia law permits an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States to qualify for reduced in-state rates and state-administered financial assistance based on residence within the state but does not make United States citizens eligible for such benefits without regard to whether the United States citizens are Virginia residents,” the lawsuit reads.

Keep reading

Virginia to Enforce Verification Law for Social Media on January 1, 2026, Despite Free Speech Concerns

Virginia is preparing to enforce a new online regulation that will curtail how minors access social media, setting up a direct clash between state lawmakers and advocates for digital free expression.

Beginning January 1, 2026, a law known as Senate Bill 854 will compel social media companies to confirm the ages of all users through “commercially reasonable methods” and to restrict anyone under sixteen to one hour of use per platform per day.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

Parents will have the option to override those limits through what the statute calls “verifiable parental consent.”

The measure is written into the state’s Consumer Data Protection Act, and it bars companies from using any information gathered for age checks for any other purpose.

Lawmakers from both parties rallied behind the bill, portraying it as a way to reduce what they described as addictive and harmful online habits among young people.

Delegate Wendell Walker argued that social media “is almost like a drug addiction,” while Delegate Sam Rasoul said that “people are concerned about the addiction of screen time” and accused companies of building algorithms that “keep us more and more addicted.”

Enforcement authority falls to the Office of the Attorney General, which may seek injunctions or impose civil fines reaching $7,500 per violation for noncompliance.

But this policy, framed as a health measure, has triggered strong constitutional objections from the technology industry and free speech advocates.

The trade association NetChoice filed a federal lawsuit (NetChoice v. Miyares) in November 2025, arguing that Virginia’s statute unlawfully restricts access to lawful speech online.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

The complaint draws parallels to earlier moral panics over books, comic strips, rock music, and video games, warning that SB 854 “does not enforce parental authority; it imposes governmental authority, subject only to a parental veto.”

Keep reading