Wilson Fauber has been a well-respected real estate agent and broker in the Staunton, Virginia, area for 44 years, with no professional complaints ever filed against him. That is, until 2024, following an aggressive initiative by a political opposition group intent on damaging Fauber’s reputation by targeting his Christian beliefs.
“In 2015, I posted Biblical quotes on my personal Facebook page,” Fauber said. “Around the same time, Rev. Franklin Graham had created a post, and I re-posted with some additions for emphasis,” said Fauber, who is also an ordained minister. “The post thread contained Bible references and explanations from a minister’s perspective.”
The quotes, posted on behalf of Arise International Ministries from Fauber’s personal Facebook page, emphasized the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. They were made before the Supreme Court had decided or heard oral arguments regarding same-sex marriage in 2015 — meaning that at that time, under law, marriage was between and man and a woman — and well before the National Association of Realtors (NAR) amended its ethics code language regarding hate speech.
Fauber knows of no complaints or claimed offense regarding his posts, until 2023, when he chose to run for Staunton City Council. Coining Fauber “the Hater,” an opposition group targeted his biblical beliefs. The group’s slander caught the attention of the NAR, of which Fauber is a longtime member.
A New Amendment to Code of Ethics
In 2020, the NAR adopted a new amendment to its code of ethics. Standard of Practice 10-5 compels realtors to avoid the use of “harassing speech, hate speech, epithets, or slurs based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.” Suddenly, Fauber’s 2015 comments about marriage in the Bible, reiterated in a 2023 interview, became fair game for an ethics complaint.
“There were those who don’t like freedom of speech and freedom of religion and so they researched my Facebook accounts and found the post from 2015 and then a local reporter met with me to ask me if I still believed in the scripture I had posted,” Fauber said.
Fauber confirmed that he did. Those who filed the NAR board of ethics complaints referenced the front-page story, which showed that Fauber made related comments more recently than in 2015.
No Longer a Free America
The claim was filed in February 2024 and Fauber was notified in May, via email, not a certified letter, a short time before the scheduled hearing in June, he said.
“I had just days once I received an email through [my primary inbox],” Fauber said. “I had days to find an attorney.”
Due to certain ongoing health issues, the hearing was rescheduled and is now set for Dec. 4, when the board will determine whether Fauber violated the NAR code of ethics. If the allegations are proven, Fauber could have his membership suspended, losing access to the critical multiple listing service (MLS).
“It’s pretty much impossible to do the real estate business without the MLS,” Fauber said. “The MLS does more than allow a realtor to find a property, it includes when it’s sold, how many days it’s been on the market and other information, documents and restrictions.”
“When somebody brought him up on ethics charges, the board could have chosen to dismiss them, but they did not,” Cobb said. “We’re really in a situation where if someone’s personal faith posted on their personal Facebook speech becomes hate speech in the minds of an employer or an association, we don’t live in a free America, everyone should be concerned about that.”
“Wilson never injected this into his campaign,” said Michael Sylvester, FFLC litigation counsel. “He has to keep reiterating that he loves and wants to serve all people.”
Before November 2020, when the hate speech clause was adopted, the code of ethics all related to how real estate agents and affiliates worked with clients, Fauber said. Now that has changed.
“The NAR has now given themselves permission to police real estate agents 24/7,” Fauber said. “It’s deeply troubling that an organization like the NAR can police my life, and complaints can be filed against me for reading a passage of scripture, even in church; that a person wouldn’t even have to be present to file a complaint about me. That’s far reaching.”
Not an Isolated Event
Fauber’s case is not the first time the NAR has been accused of anti-Christian action; in Montana this past February, Sen. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell, sponsored legislation to ensure Christian members of the NAR are free to express their beliefs following the fining and suspension of local pastor and realtor Brandon Huber.
In Virginia, phone calls of cases like Fauber’s come pouring in daily, Cobb said, regarding someone who has lost a job or suffered significant harm due to their faith.
The FFLC was founded in response to the state’s liberal legislature that was passing “blatantly unconstitutional” laws like the Virginia Values Act, Cobb said.
“We knew people even more than in the past were about to lose their freedom of speech and freedom of religion,” she said. “We are finding in fact that not just the laws we saw, but in general, there is every day a growing need for legal representation for people who are truly losing their jobs, their livelihoods, as a result of their faith.”
Christian realtor Hadassah Carter recently won her case against the Virginia Real Estate Board, citing harassment and discrimination for her beliefs. Carter included Bible verses and Christian phrases on her website and was subjected to monitoring and accused of violating Virginia’s fair housing statutes by the board due to her religious speech.
‘Society Has Really Reached a New Low’
“The hopeful outcome is that the ethics judges will recognize that Wilson hasn’t violated the rule and has never spoken against anybody in any online space or publicly,” Sylvester said. “In the bigger picture, if quoting the Bible is hate speech then society has really reached a new low. Usually we admire our professionals, but now we are telling our professionals they need to leave their values at the door. One would have thought that this 2020 rule would be to stop society’s greatest evil, but now it is targeting Christian ministers.”
In the meantime, the harm done to Fauber’s reputation may be irreparable.
“I’ve earned an excellent reputation and am well thought of in the community,” Fauber said. “As with any accusation, people wonder if something is there; it creates some doubt. That seed has been planted in the community. After 44 years in the business and an excellent reputation, it’s very disheartening.” Threats of bodily harm against Fauber during the campaign led him to seek protection from the local police department, he said.
“If this can happen to Wilson it can happen to anyone and if we don’t stand up alongside, we may not have anyone stand with us when it happens to us,” Sylvester said.
Ashley Bateman is a policy writer for The Heartland Institute and blogger for Ascension Press. Her work has been featured in The Washington Times, The Daily Caller, The New York Post, The American Thinker and numerous other publications. She previously worked as an adjunct scholar for The Lexington Institute and as editor, writer and photographer for The Warner Weekly, a publication for the American military community in Bamberg, Germany. Ashley is a board member at a Catholic homeschool cooperative in Virginia. She homeschools her four incredible children along with her brilliant engineer/scientist husband.
“We are pleased with the court’s decision recognizing that students can, in fact, challenge unconstitutional policies implemented by school boards in Virginia,” America First Legal attorney Andrew Block told The Daily Signal.
Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern Virginia requires all students to refer to “students who identify as gender-expansive or transgender by their chosen name and pronoun, regardless of the name and gender recorded in the student’s permanent pupil record.”
Conservative public interest law firm America First Legal sued the district on behalf of a Roman Catholic student who believes the policy opposes her religious beliefs. The student believes God made only two genders—male and female—and that to reject one’s biological sex is to reject the image of God within that person.
The school district argued that the student, who was followed into the girls’ bathroom by a boy and is compelled to use preferred pronouns under the school district’s policy, did not have standing to sue. In Wednesday’s hearing, the court overruled that motion, recognizing that students can challenge unconstitutional policies. The court held that the student did not allege “discriminatory purpose or intent.”
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, a Fairfax County mom of three who has followed this issue closely, celebrated the decision.
“I’m joining other parents across Fairfax County today as we collectively inhale the fresh scent of common sense with the court’s verdict,” she told The Daily Signal. “We knew all along that it was tyrannical and completely wrong to try to compel our children’s speech with forced pronoun usage in their public schools. It is such a relief that justice has prevailed this time to preserve our children’s constitutional rights.”
Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Brett Kassabian gave the plaintiff 21 days to file responsive pleadings.
A Republican hasn’t carried Minnesota in a presidential election since President Richard Nixon’s 1972 landslide re-election, over a half-century ago. But a new poll in Minnesota shows a competitive race between President Biden and former President Trump in their 2024 election rematch.
The president stands at 45% support among likely voters in Minnesota, with Trump at 41% in a poll conducted June 3-5 for the Star Tribune, MPR News and KARE 11.
Former President Trump headlines the Minnesota GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan fundraising dinner, on May 17, 2024, in St. Paul. (AP)
Democrat turned independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. stood at 6% support in the survey, with 2% backing “someone else” if the election were held today.
Trump was narrowly edged in Minnesota in the 2016 election by 1.5 points by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. But four years later, Biden carried the state by seven points as he defeated Trump and won the White House.
“We’re going to win this state,” Trump predicted last month in a speech as he headlined the state GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan fundraising dinner in St. Paul, Minnesota’s capital city.
The poll pointed to a significant enthusiasm gap, with 63% of Trump supporters saying they were “very enthusiastic” about casting a ballot for their candidate, compared to 31% of voters backing the president.
Eight hundred registered voters in Minnesota were surveyed in the poll, with an overall sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
Seven crucial swing states that decided the 2020 election (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which were narrowly won by Biden, and North Carolina, which Trump carried by a razor-thin margin) will likely once again in the 2024 rematch. But both campaigns see opportunities to expand the map.
At a closed-door Republican National Committee retreat for top-dollar donors earlier this spring at a resort in Palm Beach, Florida, senior Trump campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita and veteran pollster Tony Fabrizio spotlighted internal surveys that suggested both “Minnesota & Virginia are clearly in play.”
“In both states, Donald Trump finds himself in positions to flip key electoral votes in his favor,” the survey, which was shared with Fox News, emphasizes.
And both states have sizable populations of rural White voters without college degrees who disproportionately support the former president.
President Biden delivers remarks at the Kempsville Recreation Center on Feb. 28, 2023, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Biden’s campaign disagrees that either Minnesota or Virginia are up for grabs.
While noting that they are “not taking any state or any vote for granted,” Biden campaign battleground states director Dan Kanninen told reporters last month that “we don’t see polls that are six or seven months out from a general election, head-to-head numbers certainly, as any more predictive than a weather report is six or seven months out.”
Kanninen highlighted that the campaign has teams on the ground in both states engaging voters.
“We feel strongly the Biden-Harris coalition in both Minnesota and Virginia, which has been strong in the midterms and off-year elections, will continue to be strong for us in the fall of 2024,” he added.
And Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt, pointing to the president’s current fundraising dominance and ground-game advantage in the key battlegrounds, argued that “Trump’s team has so little campaign or infrastructure to speak of they’re resorting to leaking memos that say ‘the polls we paid for show us winning.'”
But the latest Fox News poll in Virginia indicated Biden and Trump are deadlocked in Virginia.
(Fox News)
The survey, conducted June 1-4, showed the Democratic president and his Republican predecessor in the White House each with 48% support in a head-to-head match.
In a multi-candidate race, Biden stands at 42% and Trump at 41%, with Democrat-turned-independent Kennedy at 9% and Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent Cornel West each at 2%.
It’s been two decades since a Republican carried Virginia in the race for the White House. You have to go back to President George W. Bush, who won the commonwealth in his 2004 re-election victory.
“Let’s just begin by remembering where we were in 2020 when Joe Biden won Virginia by 10 points, and the fact that we’re having this discussion is a huge turn of events,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said last week in a Fox News Digital interview in New Orleans, as he attended a Republican Governors Association (RGA) conference.
Youngkin emphasized that “we’re here in June and there’s still a lot of water to go under the bridge, but Virginia looks like it’s in play and that’s pretty exciting.”
When regime-approved “journalists” aren’t pretending election illegalities don’t exist, they’re fomenting unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about Republican voters.
In the months leading up to and following the 2022 midterms, legacy media have run story after story decrying the avalanche of alleged “threats” levied against election workers by GOP voters, whom they cast as extremists seeking to disrupt “democracy.” Predictions of such widespread interference in the 2022 contests have (unsurprisingly) never materialized and numbers from President Biden’s own Justice Department have undermined such a narrative. But nevertheless, the scaremongering from the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” crowd persists.
This seemingly coordinated effort has prompted Democrats in state legislatures throughout the country to base legislation on such election falsehoods. In Virginia, for example, a Democrat state senator filed a bill this month that would classify threatening an individual because of his roles as a current or former election official as a “hate crime.” The bill could also “result in a net increase in periods of imprisonment” for Virginians charged with crimes related to threatening election officials.
And, of course, the bill is written so loosely that any accusation fits their narrative. MORE SOCIALISM.
Threatening election workers is already explicitly prohibited under both Virginia and federal law. SB 364 is currently awaiting action from the Senate Courts of Justice Committee. Despite Democrats’ insistence, evidence does not support the notion that election workers everywhere are facing constant threats from conservatives.
During his August 2022 testimony before the U.S. Senate, Kenneth A. Polite Jr., the assistant attorney general for the criminal division of the DOJ, claimed the agency’s Election Threats Task Force — which was launched in July 2021 to address this alleged “rise in threats” against election workers — had reviewed and assessed roughly 1,000 allegedly “threatening and harassing” communications directed toward election officials. But two days before Polite’s testimony, the DOJ issued a press release disclosing that only about 11 percent of those 1,000 communications “met the threshold for a federal criminal investigation” and that the “remaining reported contacts did not provide a predication” for further investigation. According to an agency press release a year later, the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force had “charged 14 cases involving threats against the election community and secured nine convictions” as of Aug. 31, 2023.
Got that? In a country with a population of more than 335 million people, only about 100 individuals were investigated by the DOJ for supposedly threatening election workers, and only 14 of them were officially charged.
The Conspiracy Spreads
Virginia isn’t the only state where Democrats are pushing legislation based upon the media’s phony “election workers are under siege!” narrative. Leftist legislators in Florida, Missouri, and Washington introduced bills in recent weeks seeking to increase penalties for those convicted of threatening election officials.
Even worse, some elected Republicans have lent credence to this baseless talking point by prioritizing Democrat proposals. GOP legislators in New Jersey and Nebraska joined their respective Democrat colleagues in cosponsoring legislation cracking down on threats towards election workers this year. In South Dakota, Secretary of State Monae Johnson, a Republican, is spearheading a bill that would deem “Any person who, directly or indirectly, utters or addresses any threat or intimidation to an election official or election worker with the intent to improperly influence an election … guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.”
The measure unanimously passed the Senate State Affairs Committee (8-0) on Wednesday, even after Deputy Secretary of State Tom Deadrick told senators that South Dakota “hasn’t yet experienced threats against poll workers.”
Meanwhile, GOP governors such as Joe Lombardo of Nevada and Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma signed respective bills last year into law that similarly increased penalties for threatening election officials. The Oklahoma bill was sponsored by three Republicans.
Much like Democrats’ war against basic election security measures like voter ID, their lying about widespread threats against election officials is a strategy aimed at bringing less — not more — integrity to U.S. elections.
Their strategy of using anecdotal incidents to cast a broader narrative about Republicans isn’t just crafted to scare away independents and moderate voters from the GOP. It’s also designed to dissuade conservatives from partaking in legitimate forms of election oversight, such as poll watching.
Ahead of the 2022 midterms, for example, the Republican National Committee recruited more than 70,000 new poll watchers and workers ahead of Election Day to “help deliver the election transparency that voters deserve.” And of course, Democrats went berserk, parroting the same “threat to democracy” talking point.
Federal law already prohibits individuals from threatening and harassing election workers. Performative proposals to enhance state charges against such crimes are less about protecting people and more about furthering Democrats’ unsubstantiated talking points and scaring away conservatives engaged in the elections process.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
The Virginia Supreme Court unanimously voted Thursday to revive a lawsuit filed by a teacher who was terminated for declining to use male pronouns to refer to a female student.
In 2018, Peter Vlaming was fired from his job of seven years as a French teacher at West Point High School because he would not address a student by biologically inaccurate pronouns. Vlaming “told his superiors his Christian faith prevented him from using male pronouns” for the student. The student complained, leading to a four-hour hearing with the school board, which ultimately voted 5-0 to fire Vlaming for “discrimination.”
“That discrimination then leads to creating a hostile learning environment,” claimed West Point Schools Superintendent Laura Abel. “And the student had expressed that. The parent had expressed that. They felt disrespected.”
Vlaming sued the school board in 2019. After a circuit court judge dismissed the suit in 2021, the seven justices on the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that Vlaming’s case alleging that his rights to free religious exercise and free speech were violated deserves to move forward.
“Peter wasn’t fired for something he said; he was fired for something he couldn’t say,” said Chris Schandevel, a senior defense counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), who represents Vlaming. “The Virginia Supreme Court rightly agreed that Peter’s case against the school board for violating his rights under the Virginia Constitution and state law should proceed.”
In December last year, another teacher represented by ADF filed a lawsuit challenging her termination for refusing to refer to a student by inaccurate pronouns. Ohio middle school teacher Vivian Geraghty was fired over her religious objections to addressing two students by names and pronouns contradictory to their biology.
“Schools can’t force teachers to set their religious beliefs aside just to keep a job and they also can’t force teachers to say things that are untrue and harmful to students,” ADF legal counsel Logan Spena told the Daily Caller.
In California, a Christian teacher was let go for her refusal to conceal students’ attempts to dress and act as the opposite sex from parents. Jessica Tapia was a physical education teacher who would not permit male students to use women’s locker rooms and objected to district policy mandating that teachers hide students’ gender confusion from parents.
“[The district] called me back to work but presented me with various directives, to which I responded I would not be able to comply with some of them based on my beliefs, such as having to call students by their preferred gender/pronoun and withhold that information from their parents,” Tapia told the Daily Caller. “I believe God is love and the most loving thing we can do is affirm one another in who God made us to be.”
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
During his debate with California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday night, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was at his strongest on contentious culture-war issues, such as the merits of transgender medical interventions for kids and parental rights.
The governors from two of the nation’s most populous states offered Americans a preview of a 2028 White House showdown on Fox News, debating red and blue state governance. Both are popular two-term governors presiding over colossal coastal states with overwhelming control of their respective state legislatures, and both are also relatively young (Newsom is 56, DeSantis is 45) and well-funded, with presumably long careers ahead. So, while only one of the men on stage Thursday night is officially running for higher office, both eagerly capitalized on the opportunity to frame up a presidential race that’s still five years out. DeSantis was at his best when topics landed on hot-button cultural issues, from parents’ rights in education to California’s endless sexualizing of children.
Fox moderator Sean Hannity brought up Florida’s parental rights bill — which Democrats dishonestly branded as “Don’t Say Gay” — that DeSantis signed last year. The new law bans teachers from bringing mature sexual topics and transgender propaganda into kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.
“Should schools be focused on reading, writing, math, science, history, computers — and maybe leaving values, considering parents might have different values than teachers at school?” Hannity asked. “What is the role?”
“The role of the school is to educate kids, not indoctrinate kids,” DeSantis said. “It’s not to impose an agenda, it’s to do the basics.”
“What we’ve said in Florida is it’s inappropriate to tell a kindergartner that their gender is a choice, it’s inappropriate to tell a second grader that they may have been born in the wrong body,” DeSantis added. “California has that. They want to have that injected into the elementary school.”
DeSantis went on to highlight a book used to teach kids about gay sex called Gender Queer.
“Some of its blocked out,” DeSantis said with an image held up of a graphic illustrated porn scene. “You would not probably be able to put this on air.”
Gov. DeSantis (R-FL) and Gov. Newsom (D-CA) debate parental rights and book bans.
DeSantis: "This is a book that's in some of the schools in California … This is pornography, it's cartoons"
Newsom: "I don't like the way you demean and humiliate people you disagree with, Ron." pic.twitter.com/Vw63cD0OFq
Newsom sought to justify the salacious content in K-12 classrooms, calling DeSantis’ efforts to sanitize leftist activists’ curricula a “banning binge.” The West Coast governor went on to list a series of authors Democrats falsely claim are prohibited in Florida.
A moment later, DeSantis called out California’s radical efforts to become a refuge for trans-identified kids. Last year, Newsom signed a bill allowing gender-confused teens to seek irreversible medical interventions in the Golden State without parental consent.
“How in the heck is that honoring parents’ rights when you’re bringing people in from out of state to go around their parents’ backs and getting life-altering surgeries?” DeSantis asked. “It’s not for you to decide. It’s for the parents to decide.”
Ron DeSantis SKEWERS Gavin Newsom over his "radical" and "extreme" policy overriding parental rights in the name of "gender-affirming care." His bill prioritizes sterilizing drugs that will medicalize kids for the rest of their lives. #Debatehttps://t.co/PGdw9oRDSLpic.twitter.com/spEvUuGaQe
Newsom turned to emotional blackmail, citing the debunked left-wing talking point that transgender-identifying children are more prone to suicide. The data points to the contrary, however, with individuals more likely to suffer mental anguish when given easier access to transgender medical interventions.
Transgenderism and parental rights in education are winning issues for Republicans. The twin topics let the party go on offense just as the Virginia GOP did in 2021 with statewide triumphs in what had become a blue state.
Recent polls suggest more and more Americans are with Republicans on transgenderism and parental rights. A March survey from Parents Defending Education found, “75% of registered voters support legislation requiring schools to get parental consent before helping a student change their gender identity at school, while only 18% oppose this policy” (emphasis theirs).
A Gallup poll in June found that 55 percent of Americans believe it is “morally wrong” to attempt to “change” one’s sex, up from 51 percent two years ago. An overwhelming majority opposed bending sex requirements for athletic competitions.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
Democrats are finally facing their day of reckoning with black voters, and their waning support for President Joe Biden is only half the story. A recent New York Times/Sienna poll reveals that Biden barely leads among nonwhite voters under 45 in a 2024 election matchup against former President Donald Trump. The same nonwhite voters reported backing Biden by almost 40 points in the 2020 election.
The hidden story is that Trump is capturing more than 22 percent support among black voters. The NYT article said a Republican winning over so many black voters “would be unprecedented in the post-Civil Rights Act era.”
Why Are Blacks Finally Breaking Ranks?
Black Americans are beginning to understand that the years of promises of better days have resulted in decades of broken promises. A recent Wall Street Journal article tells the story of Michelle Smith, who lives in North Philadelphia. She works two jobs as a black single mother with three teenage boys. She describes her disappointment in Biden, whom she supported strongly in 2020. Despite efforts by the Democrats to spend more money on advertising, voter canvassing, and educating voters in black communities, Smith said the Democrats might not be able to convince her to vote. “I think I’m not going to vote, period,” she said.
Smith is not alone. There is a growing recognition that Democrats have duped black Americans. And as they increasingly realize it, Democrats will be left saying, “Katy, bar the door,” because their party will begin to implode.
Ironically, the modern-day Democrat Party has essentially achieved the same objectives as the Civil War-era Democrat Party. It has unfortunately taken 60 years for black Americans to realize what has happened to them and their culture. It’s hard to keep blaming Republicans when Democrats run major cities, school systems, and police departments. In many cases, black Democrats run these institutions.
Black Decline After Civil Rights
The status of black Americans today in Democrat-controlled cities and states is essentially the worst it has been since before the Civil Rights era. For example, during slavery, Democrats restricted access to opportunities that allowed slaves to obtain an education. Today, in nearly every major city controlled by Democrats, literacy rates are abysmal. Local and national Democrat Party leaders have severely restricted access to private or charter schools.
Proponents of apartheid used segregation as a cruel psychological tool. Democrats, however, are bringing segregation back in style. In Democrat Party strongholds, such as American universities, the country is witnessing the practice of segregated dorms and graduation ceremonies.
One of the most devastating changes that the Democrat Party facilitated involves the destruction of the nuclear family in black communities. During the era of slavery, masters would break up families after wives bore children. After the Civil War and for 100 years afterward, most black children grew up in traditional two-parent families.
It wasn’t until Democrats introduced and heavily marketed social welfare programs to black Americans in the 1960s that two-parent families began to erode drastically. Those programs ushered in a cultural transformation. Over 50 years, black families fell from having two parents in 80 percent of homes. Today, approximately 80 percent of black children grow up in fatherless homes.
Democrats Harm Black Americans
For the Democrats, family disruption and government dependency were the objectives from the beginning. If that wasn’t their intention, then why hasn’t there been one national initiative to reverse the trend?
In 1957, Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, D-Texas, then the pro-segregationist Senate majority leader, knew blacks would eventually get the right to vote. When speaking to then-Sen. Richard Russell Jr., D-Ga., regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1957, Johnson said, “These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”
Democrat Party leaders and their left-wing friends in academia and the media convinced blacks (and the general public) that Republicans were the racists. They were, according to the effective narrative, indifferent to poor people. They wanted to keep blacks as second-class citizens. Ironically, Republicans voted to support the Civil Rights Act in greater numbers than Democrats.
Their goal was to have black Americans switch their votes from Republicans to Democrats.
Black Americans Coming Home to the GOP
As we look forward to the 2024 election season, the NYT/Sienna poll is not the only one raising the alarm. A recent Fox News poll revealed that 26 percent of black Americans support Trump for president in 2024 over Biden. In the past 12 months, black elected officials switched from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party in southern states such as Georgia and Texas. For the first time in 140 years, Alabama voters elected a black man to the state House of Representatives as a Republican.
In statewide elections, voters in Virginia and North Carolina elected black Americans to the No. 2 leadership position as lieutenant governors. Although Daniel Cameron did not win his bid for Kentucky governor, we should expect to see more black Republicans running for statewide and federal offices.
Even the legacy media won’t be able to spin and hide this major political shift.
Kendall Qualls is an Executive Faculty-in-Residence at the Crown College School of Business and Founder/President of the non-profit foundation TakeCharge. Qualls was a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor of Minnesota in the 2022 election cycle.
Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., told Newsmax on Monday that the recently opened investigation into alleged terrorist group contributions by American Muslims for Palestine, while also donating to Democrats, including members of the “Squad,” show just how “embedded” the left is with antisemitic organizations.
“I think what it really shows is how embedded on the left anti-Israel and antisemitic organizations have become,” Steil said on “Newsline.” “I’m incredibly concerned about the funding structure that Hamas has. This administration has not done enough to limit the funds that are going, in particular, from Iran into Hamas.
“We have legislation that we’re going to be working on to move forward this week, in particular, as it relates to that, but broadly speaking, I think it really shows how the radicalized left his really driven forward an agenda that’s anti-Israel. It’s not surprising to me that those individuals are funding Democratic members of Congress.”
Virginia Attorney General Jason S. Miyares’ office announced Oct. 31 that it was investigating the AJP Educational Foundation, Inc., which is also known as American Muslims for Palestine, for possibly violating Virginia’s charitable solicitation laws by asking for contributions without being registered with the state and using those contributions “for impermissible purpose” like funding terrorists.
The organization put out a statement denying the allegations and accused Miyares of “smearing” them and inciting hate.
“Instead of working to protect the people of Virginia from the wave of Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian hate sweeping across our nation, Jason Miyares is contributing to the hate with tired Islamophobic tropes and promises of a witch hunt straight from the McCarthy-era,” the organization’s statement read. “American Muslims for Palestine is a duly registered non-profit organization that has stood up for justice here and abroad for over a decade in compliance with the law.”
Newsmax reported that the organization donated money to all four Democratic Squad members: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., but Steil said he is more concerned about President Joe Biden’s administration not clamping down on overall terrorist funding.
“This administration needs to do far more than they currently are to limit the access to funds to Hamas and other terrorist organizations across the globe,” Steil said. “The fact that this administration allowed millions and billions of dollars to be transferred from South Korea to a bank account in Qatar shows you the lack of concern this administration has as it relates to funding for terrorists.”
On a sunny, brisk weekday in Sterling, Va., state senate candidate Juan Pablo Segura is on a world tour of sorts. Andres Ruiz, a pastor who works with Segura’s campaign on Latino outreach, gestured to a block of strip-mall of restaurants with a grin. “See? You can go from Peru to Bolivia, Mexico, and around the corner is Venezuela!”
Segura, a Republican entrepreneur vying to be Virginia’s first Latin-American state senator, is courting the immigrant community in the competitive 31st Senate District, a bid to earn both new and disaffected voters in a population he says Democrats have taken for granted. Last week, it was working.
Control of the Virginia House and Senate hang in the balance in this midterm test of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appeal and record in this purple state. The operation is a test-run of the GOP’s message and its ability to avoid the pitfalls that plagued the party in 2020 and 2022.
It could also be a chance to capitalize on President Biden’s losses among Hispanic voters, where the president’s lead has fallen from 12 points in NYT battleground polling to single digits since September. It’s part of a larger shift among all nonwhite voters since 2020, where Biden has seen almost a 20 percent drop in support. If Republicans can attempt to woo them, it would happen in swing districts like the one where Segura is pounding the pavement.
Twenty-year-old Katie Rivas, working the register at her father’s small Loudoun County market, said she was excited to cast her very first vote for Segura next week at her former high school. Edgar Martinez, an administrator at a local church, said he’s been in Virginia more than 30 years, but this will be his first vote for state senate.
“Republican principles are in a lot of ways immigrant principles,” Segura said, referencing the newly redrawn district’s 14% Latino population, along with double-digit Asian and multiracial segments. “This race is really a microcosm for what the coalition can look like.”
Control of the Virginia House and Senate hang in the balance in this midterm test of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appeal and record in this purple state. The operation is also a test-run of the GOP’s message and its ability to avoid the pitfalls that plagued the party in 2020 and 2022.
Every state seat is up for grabs, but the competitive universe is about seven Senate seats (either party must win 4 for control) and 10 Delegate seats. Republicans currently hold the House and Democrats, the Senate.
Control of the Virginia House and Senate hang in the balance in this midterm test of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appeal and record in this purple state. The operation is also a test-run of the GOP’s message and its ability to avoid the pitfalls that plagued the party in 2020 and 2022.
As Segura walked the district, he chatted in his fluent Spanish with a pair of women enjoying Peruvian chicken as a telenovela played on the restaurant TV, and a group of 20-somethings at a Mexican restaurant’s bar. These voters shared with him a mix of economic concerns, wariness of Democrats on social issues and public safety, particularly among church-going Latinos, and pride in potentially electing a member of the Latin community. Segura is a native Virginian whose family hails from Argentina.
Virginia Governor Glen Youngkin addresses the Economic Club of Washington’s luncheon event at the Marriott Marquis on September 26, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
In 2022, national issue polling showed Republicans with commanding leads in what voters cared about, but the party couldn’t overcome candidate quality issues and a top-down aversion to early voting. The expected red wave never washed ashore.
This year in Virginia, “top issues for Republicans and Independents…are the economy and inflation, at 41% and 30% respectively, while Democrats said abortion is their highest concern, at 25%.”
On a recent weekend, door-knockers with Americans for Prosperity walked pumpkin-dotted porches in Northern Virginia, politely crossing paths with activists for Segura’s Democratic opponent, Russett Perry. Reaching people on the economy, education, and public safety with “policy leaders who believe in freedom and opportunity,” is what voters want, said C.J. Sailor, state director of AFP, who says the organization tallied more than 700,000 voter contacts in the cycle. “It’s so important to connect with voters about what’s at stake.”
Youngkin’s state operation has done three things to prevent a repeat of 2022 and preserve the term-limited executive’s chance at expanding his legislative agenda. They worked on candidate quality, going 10-for-10 in contested primaries where Youngkin backed a candidate.
“We really focused on finding good candidates that could run good campaigns, that could effectively communicate what they want to do in Richmond and who would be good public servants,” said Dave Rexrode, a senior adviser to Youngkin.
The state party rolled out an early-voting effort in July they say got buy-in from candidates, the state party, and local activists. The push has ruffled feathers in Segura’s district, where the area’s liberal prosecutor cease-and-desist letter over having a mariachi band and a taco truck at one of his “early-vote fiestas.” Segura said such events have been attracting hundreds of new and infrequent voters, which is what Republicans must do to win these uphill-climb districts.
“We’re certainly seeing a lot of good progress, and I think it’s gonna pay dividends for us in these targeted races where the margins are going to be incredibly close,” Rexrode said.
Finally, the party’s operation spent money early defining candidates positively while Youngkin himself staked out a “compassionate consensus” position on abortion— a 15-week limit with exceptions— that gave Republican candidates a position to embrace, making it harder for Democratic opponents to claim they want the kind of early bans that risked swing and suburban voters in 2022.
“One of the big lessons learned from 2022 is we can’t just let Democrats get way with their fear-mongering on the issue,” Rexrode said. “We have to clearly articulate where we stand on the issue but also explain where they stand on the issue,” which he said represents only a very small minority of Virginia voters.
Segura and the rest of the battleground candidates also hope to be buoyed by Youngkin’s popularity. Youngkin’s approval rating has been above 50 percent all year and goes as high as 60% with Independent voters. Notably absent from the constant attack ads on Virginia TV and radio are attacks on the governor himself. Instead, many Democrats are running on promises to work across the aisle with the governor.
Youngkin was propelled to the governor’s mansion in 2021 on his own political savvy and a normie-dad vibe, bolstered by a series of missteps by Virginia Democrats. Most notably, former Gov. Terry McAulliffe threw in with teachers’ unions to keep schools closed for more than a year during the pandemic, and pooh-poohed parents’ concerns, making parental rights an issue that still resonates in a place like Loudoun County, which became ground zero for education fights. Joshua Raimundo, strategic director with the LIBRE initiative in Virginia, said education is a top issue for Hispanic voters in the state, who favor school choice in large numbers.
“They (Democrats) have forgotten the Latino,” Martinez said as he showed Segura out of the church lobby and back into the autumn sun. “We are traditional values. I don’t see the Democrats support that anymore at all. We want to see you at the state to help Glenn Youngkin!”
Next week, we’ll find out whether new messengers, a popular governor, and a conversion on early voting can improve on the GOP’s 2022 performance and lay the groundwork for this battleground state in 2024.
Mary Katharine Ham is an OutKick columnist. She is a writer, speaker, and Georgia Bulldog who built patience and resilience waiting 41 years for a national championship and now uses those skills to parent four children. She hosts a podcast called “Getting Hammered.”
The mother of a Virginia teensex-trafficked twice after her school concealed her newly asserted gender identity has filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against school staff and a Maryland public defender who alleged parental “misgendering” and abuse. The complaint was filed Aug. 22 in the Western District of Virginia court on behalf of Michele Blair by the Child and Parental Rights Campaign (CPRC) with support from the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR).
It alleges that the defendants’ actions—first in withholding vital information about the girl’s gender identification and related assault in the boys’ bathroom, then later by falsely alleging abuse to deprive her mother of custody—resulted in the child’s ordeal at the hands of sexual predators not once, but twice. Blair v. Appomattoxet al. will set critical precedents in two areas of roiling national debate: parental notification of gender transition in schools and parental custody relating to gender identity.
Public Schools Hide Kids’ Dysphoria
More than 10 million children this fall returned to public schools that conceal kids’ transgender identities from parents. A California case recently settled for $100,000 is one of several lawsuits filed by parents whose children were secretly transitioned in school.
The Blair suit, however, is groundbreaking for displaying the liability schools risk when secret-keeping results in tragedy. Safely back in her loving home for more than a year now, Sage still suffers persistent nightmares and panic attacks. She is receiving intensive therapy for complexPTSD, her mother reports, a diagnosis related to prolonged helplessness amid extreme trauma.
The reason for the secrecy that prefaced her ordeal no longer exists: Sage has embraced her sex, reflecting in hindsight that she had “just wanted to make friends” at her new school by claiming to be a boy.
How gender identity relates to “abuse” is fiercely debated nationwide. In some states including California, pending legislation categorizes parental non-affirmation of gender dysphoria as abuse. The political cost of angering parents of all backgrounds has begun to affect 2024 campaigns, as demonstrated by California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s unexpected veto of one of these bills.
In 2023, Virginia lawmakers debated “Sage’s Law,” requiring parental notification in schools and clarifying that raising a child according to his or her sex may not be considered abuse. Virginia Senate Democrats killed Sage’s Law, and it has become a campaignissue. In fact, the transgender delegate who vehemently opposed House Bill 2432 is now facing a veteran anti-traffickingleader championing the bill.
“Sage’s story is an absolute tragedy that no child should ever have to endure. But what is even worse is that it was entirely preventable,” said attorney Vernadette Broyles in announcing the lawsuit. “School administrators and public officials alike decided that their authority superseded that of her parents…This is about who has the best interests of the child at heart, who knows that child better than anyone else, and ultimately who must make important personal decisions for a child.”
An ‘Entirely Preventable’ Nightmare
Sage’s heartbreaking story was documented in The Federalist last winter, when Delegate Dave LaRock introduced Sage’s Law in the Virginia General Assembly. She was a 14-year-old freshman at Appomattox County High School in 2021 when her school allegedly reinforced her claim to be male and concealed it from her parents. She was severely bullied, then assaulted in the male bathroom school employees told her to use, according to the complaint.
Sage ran away, leaving a note expressing fear of further violence. She was caught by a predator who drugged and raped her, then drove her into Washington, DC, where other men sex-trafficked her into Maryland.
When the FBI rescued Sage in Baltimore eight days later, a public defender alleged “misgendering” and abuse at home, so a judge withheld custody from Sage’s loving parents for more than two months. Instead, the judge ordered Sage to a Maryland state home in male quarters, where she was assaulted again, the lawsuit says. Sage fled and was once again caught by a predator and raped, drugged, starved, and tortured, this time for months before law enforcement found her in Texas.
Seeking Justice for Sage
The 55-page complaint lays out nine causes of action, seeking “compensatory and punitive damages” plus court costs for “tortious interference with the parent-child relationship, conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, professional malpractice, and other rights” resulting in extreme harm to Sage and her mother. The first four causes of action target Appomattox County High School counselors Dena Olsen and Avery Via, Superintendent Annette Bennett, and the school board.
The remaining causes contain shocking charges against Maryland public defender Aneesa Khan and the school counselors of malpractice, perjury, and conspiracy “aimed at depriving Mrs. Blair of custody of her daughter and keeping [Sage] in Maryland to be affirmed in a male identity.”The complaint alleges the trio knowingly presented false testimony of abuse to Judge Robert Kershaw, and that their success in convincing him to keep Sage from her parents resulted in her subsequent abuse in a state home and in her second, months-long victimization.
Lawsuit: Hiding Info Led to Sex Trafficking
The Appomattox defendants, contends the lawsuit, concealed both the school’s unauthorized “mental health intervention” affirming Sage as male and the resultant student “bullying, verbal, physical and sexual assault.” It alleges they failed to take corrective action or to initiate a Title IX sexual harassment investigation, instead directing the girl into the male bathroom, where she was assaulted.
Among the most damning allegations is the counselors’ egregious disregard for Sage’s history of trauma and mental health concerns. Michele had provided these to the school expecting they would work closely with her like Sage’s previous school had, she described in testimony to Virginia’s legislature.
Sage lost her father as a baby and had been through six foster homes by age two when Michele, her biological grandmother, adopted her. Michele recalls Sage’s unusual silence as a child: she had learned not to cry because adults didn’t respond.
With years of love, she developed into a happy child. Then a wave of mental health issues emerged with puberty, compounded by Covid isolation. As a trained Virginia Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), Michele sought professional help for Sage, including hospitalization the summer before she entered high school.
Despite this known vulnerability, contends the lawsuit, Appomattox kept Sage’s parents in the dark even once reports surfaced of assault in the boys’ bathroom. School personnel met repeatedly with Sage alone, culminating in an emotional session on August 25, 2021 where they threatened she could be sued if she made false allegations against the boys, the lawsuit says. Sage suffered a “psychotic break,” alleges the lawsuit, and ran away that night into the nightmare that followed.
Counselors, Public Defender ‘Conspired’
The night Sage was rescued in Baltimore, she spent hours alone at the hospital undergoing a difficult rape exam into the wee hours of the morning. As she was being driven to a detention center afterward, the complaint alleges, Sage asked that her mother be called to take her home. This request was denied and she was locked in solitary detention. Later that day, Khan was claiming in court that the Blairs were abusive and Sage did not want to go home.
Among the disturbing facts alleged are sudden, mysterious phone calls originating from self-described “mandated reporters” to the Appomattox County child abuse hotline hours after Sage was found on September 3, “before her rescue and location were known to anyone but law enforcement, Mrs. Blair and Ms. Khan.”
Other reports followed, claiming Michele had subjected Sage to “‘conversion therapy’ aimed at changing [Sage’s] gender identity.” This was “factually impossible,” as Michele allegedly only became aware of the gender identity shift the night Sage ran away. In fact, asserts the complaint, Khan conspired with Olsen and Via to “facilitat[e] the initiation of child protective services investigations in Virginia and Maryland.”
There are further allegations of grievous cruelty to a traumatized young rape victim: Sage was never informed her parents were waiting for her right outside the jail; Khan convinced Sage to lie to the court that her parents had abused her; Khan told the child her mother no longer wanted her, and withheld all the gifts and loving letters Michele sent to Sage at the Maryland children’s home.
These “extreme and outrageous actions intentionally aimed at harming…Mrs. Blair’s parental relationship with [Sage]” were allegedly “all because Ms. Khan believed that [Sage] must be affirmed as male,” the lawsuit says. According to a text from Sage to a friend, Khan had the stated ambition of taking her case to the Supreme Court.
Ideology Trumps Care for Trauma
Broylesstated to The Federalist Radio Hour that “ideology overwhelmed everything we know about trauma, about sex abuse victims, about children needing their parents and how they should be restored [to them] immediately…unless there’s actual proof of…abuse.” Instead, a 100-pound, deeply wounded girl with no criminal record was jailed for several days, then housed with troubled teenage boys, “where she was exposed to drugs, further sexual harassment and assault.”
Broyles reasoned Sage was treated “as if she’s a juvenile delinquent…in order to maintain control.” The legal maneuvering in Maryland lasted more than two months, with Judge Kershaw holding multiple hearings that delayed Sage’s return to Virginia required under the Interstate Compact for Juveniles (ICJ).
Khan’s alleged narrative of abandonment fell on receptive ground: Sage told Michele months later how much she’d missed her, but tried not to, because she “knew” Michele didn’t want her. The shame and unworthiness felt by victims of sexual exploitation is well-documented. “Trauma-related shame is an irrational and biological response…connected to the specific reactions of denial, hiding, and running away,” explains one study.
A Critical Precedent on School Secrecy
The school secrecy that allegedly facilitated Sage’s ordeal is an intense national debate. In Virginia, leftist school boards like FairfaxCounty’s are defying Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s new model policies requiring parental notification and use of privacy facilities by sex, not gender identity. California and New Jersey are suing their own constituents, at constituent expense, for the right to deceive them about their own children.
Significantly, records indicate Appomattox staff followed the same principle of instant, uncritical, and secret affirmation dictated by LGBT activist–craftedmodel policies that have infiltrated thousands of schools. The “Schools in Transition” model policy insists “affirming a child’s gender identity is in a child’s best interest,” and that school personnel have “unique insight into the student’s needs without the biases parents can or are perceived to have.”
An Essential Precedent on Children’s Rights
This raises the critical question: does refusal to affirm a child as the opposite sex constitute “abuse” and grounds for removal from parental custody, as Khan advocated in court? Activists are training legalofficials and law students that it does.
A bill California’s legislature passed would transfer children to state custody where, as Sage experienced, the risk of actual abuse skyrockets. Simultaneously, by dictating that foster parents “affirm” kids’ sexual identities, California is reducing the homes available to needy foster kids.
In some states, family custody is alreadydecided on this basis. While all 50 states are bound by the ICJ governing the return of runaway minors, some have passed “refuge” laws preventing the return of children who have run or been taken across state lines for “gender-affirming care.”
The fundamental question in Blair v. Appomattox et al. is whether fit parents or the state rightfully decide a child’s best interests. Sage’s story as described in the complaint shows the devastating potential harm to children when ideologically captured institutions wrest control of a child’s life from parents. While the case will set critical precedents in schools and courts, it also highlights the pressing need for laws reinforcing the right of parents to protect their children from state overreach.
Michele says she’s filing this lawsuit in the “hope…that no parent ever has to go through what [she] did to protect their child.”
Laura Bryant Hanford is a mother of five and is actively involved in school policy and religious freedom issues in Virginia, where she lives with her family. She served from 2015 to 2018 on Fairfax County Public Schools’ Family Life Education Curriculum Advisory Committee. She was the lead congressional staff drafter of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. She also served at the U.S. Embassy in Romania as the officer in charge of human rights, focusing on ethnic minorities, women, and refugees. She is a graduate of Princeton University.
Automatic voter registration (AVR) may sound obscure, but it’s a fast track to permanent Democrat power — so, naturally, activists are working around the clock to pass it in the states and Congress.
Modern elections are usually won by the party that turns out the bigger base. Left-wing strategists believe their victory hinges on astronomically high Democratic turnout. Whether that’s true or not matters less than their perception that it worked to oust President Donald Trump in 2020 and saved the left from catastrophe in the 2022 midterms, even when Republicans won the popular vote nationwide by a bigger percentage margin than Hillary Clinton won in 2016.
Under normal rules, eligible Americans must register to vote on their own initiative, usually at their county registrar or online through the state motor vehicle department. It’s a simple, fair thing to ask people to show an interest in voting and then verify their identity before they cast a ballot; that’s how our country has run elections for nearly 250 years.
AVR transforms that opt-in system into an opt-out mess by adding virtually everyone with a heartbeat to state voter rolls, instantly and dramatically expanding the pool of registered voters for the left to cynically tap into. Don’t want to be added to a publicly accessible list? Too bad — it’s on you to take the initiative to unregister, Democrats say.
How many voters are we talking about? 158 million ballots were cast in 2020. Yet Demos, the think tank of the far left and an AVR champion, estimates there are as many as 77 million eligible-but-unregistered individuals nationwide — folks who couldlawfully vote but may notuntil they’re registered to vote in their respective states. Not every one of them would support Democrats if registered, of course, but even winning a fraction would be enough to ensure Democratic presidential wins for a generation or longer. That’s why AVR is supported by the Brennan Center, the origin of the left’s most odious election “reforms,” and the Center for American Progress, which boasted in 2018 that AVR could add 22 million newly registered voters nationwide in just its first year. Note that Minnesota’s recent election law includes AVR alongside “non-English voting materials” and the pre-registration of 16-year-olds to vote. To hear leftists crow, you’d think the United States never ran a free election in centuries without AVR laws. The LGBT Movement Advancement Project, which dinks red states for their voter ID laws, considers AVR essential to the health of a state’s “democracy.”
Conservatives have been too shortsighted to pay attention, but leftists have been tapping this goldmine for years. Of the 23 states with AVR laws, only three are consistently run by Republicans: Georgia, West Virginia, and Alaska. Michigan enacted AVR in 2018 after a lobbying campaign by the ACLU, Sierra Club, United Auto Workers, and socialist group Our Revolution. In my home state of Virginia, where legislators are capped on the number of bills they may introduce in a single session, Democrats made introducing AVR a top priority when they held total power in 2020. It passed on a partisan split.
Incoming congressional Democrats, fresh from retaking the House of Representatives in 2018, demanded Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, D–Calif., “expand automatic voter registration across the country” as part of their “upcoming democracy bill.” They got their wish with the 2019 “Voting Rights Advancement Act,” then again with the 2021 “For the People Act” and “Automatic Voter Registration Act,” and most recently with the 2023 “Freedom to Vote Act.”
Recall that running elections and maintaining voter rolls are the duty of the states, not Uncle Sam, yet Democrats would force all 50 states to severely bloat their voter files. America’s voter rolls are already in bad shape, despite (mostly red) states’ best efforts to clean them up.
Georgia recently announced it removed 432,000 inactive voters from its rolls since 2021. Virginia removed 114,000 inactive voters in 2021; Oklahoma another 90,000 in 2019; Kentucky dropped 127,000 in 2023; Arkansas may remove 300,000 inactive voters this year; Pennsylvania dropped 180,000 in 2023; and Rhode Island removed another 60,000 inactive voters earlier this year. Texas and Mississippi are weighing bills that would allow them to more aggressively cull inactive voters from their rolls.
States are required by law to keep accurate voter files, to the left’s chagrin. Ohio, which culled 116,000 inactive voters from its rolls in 2021, knows best how much leftists loathe what they call “voter purges.” In 2017, then-attorney general Eric Holder tried to block Ohio from removing inactive voters as one of the last acts of the Obama administration — only to lose the next year in a landmark Supreme Court ruling.
The truth is obvious: Democrats don’t want accurate voter rolls; they want swollen voter rolls. Left-wing NPR admits as much. This is bad election policy, and it isn’t cheap. Nevada’s AVR policy cost taxpayers $4.8 million to implement, plus more to maintain it.
It’s no surprise that the left’s big-money donors are in on the action. We’ve traced hundreds of thousands of dollars since 2017 to implementing AVR in the states from the Tides Foundation, Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, the Joyce Foundation (whose board once included then-Sen. Barack Obama), and the Carnegie Corporation. One six-figure Carnegie grant to the University of Southern California is even tagged for studying “the state-level impact of automatic voter registration … [on] the national Latino electorate.”
For Republicans, fighting AVR is a no-brainer. To the detriment of election integrity, Congress and the states have already made registering to vote and casting a ballot extremely easy. What we need are cleaner voter rolls and more secure elections, not a public subsidy for the Democrats’ get-out-the-vote machine.
Hayden Ludwig is director of research for Restoration of America.
America First Legal demands answers after the Justice Department under President Joe Biden intervenes in a Virginia school district’s adoption of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s policies centering parental rights on transgender issues. Pictured: Attorney General Merrick Garland, head of the Justice Department, speaks Aug. 11 at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—America First Legal is demanding answers after the Justice Department under President Joe Biden intervened in a Virginia school district’s adoption of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s policies that center parental rights in transgender issues.
“The Department of Justice seems to suggest that protecting the constitutional rights of parents and students will lead to ‘hate crimes,’” Ian Prior, senior adviser at America First Legal, told The Daily Signal in a written statement Monday. “Once again, we are witnessing the top law enforcement organization in the land come unglued from reality and unmoored from its core functions, all in the name of opposing anyone that doesn’t approve of its state-approved message.”
America First Legal filed a Freedom of Information Act request Monday demanding Justice Department records related to Virginia’s Roanoke County Public Schools.
On July 27, the Roanoke County School Board discussed the Virginia Department of Education’s model policies on transgender issues, finalized July 18 under Youngkin, a Republican. The state policies require schools to refer to each student by his or her legal name and sex, unless a parent submits a legal document substantiating a change in either. The policies also require schools to use sex, rather than gender identity, as the benchmark for bathrooms, intimate spaces, and sports reserved for boys or girls.
Pro-transgender activists reportedly disrupted the school board meeting. Police arrested two vocal protesters who refused to leave and repeatedly yelled, “Protect trans lives” during the meeting.
Although local law enforcement and the school board were addressing the disruption, Hannah Levine, a staffer at the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, sent a July 31 email offering “conflict resolution services.”
Her agency in the Justice Department “serves as ‘America’s Peacemaker,’ preventing and responding to community tensions and hate crimes, bias, bullying, and discrimination committed on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and disability,” Levine wrote in the email, which The Daily Wire first reported.
“CRS is aware of ongoing community tensions in Roanoke County following the release of the new model policies for transgender students,” Levine said in the email to the Roanoke County school system. “I’d like to connect to see if we might be able to offer support and services as you work to manage conflict in the community related to this.”
America First Legal contends that the email from Levine and the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service is suspicious.
“It is unclear why CRS would inject itself into an issue that is properly one for the Commonwealth of Virginia and Roanoke County Public Schools,” reads America First Legal’s request to the Justice Department for related records. “What is clear, however, is that CRS has positioned itself not as a neutral arbitrator of issues related to transgenders but as a government entity that is fully behind the Biden administration’s radical transgender agenda.”
The Community Relations Service says it trains law enforcement on “engaging and building relationships with transgender communities.” The agency’s home page features the White House’s “fact sheet” on actions “to protect LGBTQI+ Communities.”
America First Legal also noted the Biden Justice Department’s record of opposing parental rights in education.
In October 2021, the DOJ issued a memo asking the FBI and U.S. attorneys to investigate parents who spoke out at school board meetings. The DOJ memo followed a letter from the National School Boards Association comparing parents who protest school district policies to domestic terrorists and encouraging Biden to use the Patriot Act against those parents. Documents revealed later that the White House had worked with the school boards association to draft the letter.
The Justice Department ultimately rescinded the memo and the National School Boards Association apologized for the letter. However, the Biden White House has worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left organization that recently put parental rights organizations on a “hate map” with KKK chapters. America First Legal has demanded DOJ documents citing the SPLC.
Pointing to this history and Levine’s email, America First Legal demanded DOJ documents related to Roanoke County Public Schools and Youngkin’s model state policies.
“Attorney General Merrick Garland doesn’t appear to have learned any lessons after his 2021 memo directing U.S. attorneys and the FBI to investigate parents speaking at school board meetings,” America First Legal’s Prior said in a written statement on the request. “Now, the Department of Justice is seeking to intervene in another purely state and local matter, namely the Roanoke County School Board’s adoption of the Virginia Department of Education’s model policies that prohibit schools from forcing students, parents, and teachers to sacrifice their constitutional rights in the name of transgender ideology.”
“America First Legal will continue to serve as a watchdog over the Department of Justice’s continued attempts to interfere with parental rights on local issues,” Prior added.
The Supreme Court struck down a lower court ruling from earlier this month that blocked construction of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from proceeding. In a short, unsigned order issued Thursday morning, the Supreme Court vacated the July 10 stay orders from the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, in which the lower court sided with plaintiffs — environmental groups Wilderness Society and Appalachian Voices, which had sued to stop the pipeline construction. The 4th Circuit ruling was opposed by the Biden administration, bipartisan lawmakers and the fossil fuel industry.
“Whatever benefit respondents or the court of appeals might believe would be gained by having the agencies again reconsider the challenged actions, Congress has determined that further reconsideration is unwarranted and has prioritized MVP’s ‘timely’ completion over interests addressed by any other federal statutes,” the Department of Justice wrote in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court last week.
“That judgment is for Congress alone,” the brief continued.
In June, President Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which fast-tracked federal permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline and shifted judicial review jurisdiction away from the 4th Circuit. Eco groups have loudly opposed the project. (Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)
The Department of Justice brief was one of numerous briefs filed in the case. Opponents of the 4th Circuit ruling pointed to the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the recent bipartisan debt limit bill President Biden signed in early June, which green-lighted all permits for the MVP project. The debt limit bill also shifted judicial review jurisdiction from the 4th Circuit, which has a lengthy track record of siding with environmental groups, to the U.S. District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals.
Days after the lower court ruling, on July 14, the pipeline’s developer asked the Supreme Court to vacate the stay. The high court gave plaintiffs until Tuesday to file a response.
“The Fourth Circuit judges are not supreme rulers and lawful orders issued by the legislative and executive branches must be followed,” GOP Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., told Fox News Digital on July 19. “Congress was well within its power to restart the Mountain Valley Pipeline construction and usher in a new era of energy independence for the region.”
“Instead of halting the pipeline, I urge the Supreme Court to plug up the ludicrous activism seeping out of the lower court so American families can enjoy lower energy costs, substantial land royalties, and most importantly — law and order in America,” he added.
The Biden administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court in support of the pipeline’s developer last week. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Reschenthaler led a group of seven fellow representatives and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va, in filing a brief in support of the MVP project’s permits. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who played a role in securing the pipeline in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, filed his own amicus brief in the case on July 18.
“The Supreme Court has spoken and this decision to let construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline move forward again is the correct one. I am relieved that the highest court in the land has upheld the law Congress passed and the President signed,” Manchin said in a statement Thursday.
The Laborers’ International Union of North America, a large labor union; GOP West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice; American Gas Association; American Petroleum Institute; Chamber of Commerce; and counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives all filed briefs in support of the pipeline.
According to Equitrans Midstream, the pipeline’s developer, MVP will transport about 2 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas from West Virginia to consumers in the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic. The pipeline is projected to generate $40 million in new tax revenue for West Virginia, $10 million in new tax revenue for Virginia and up to $250 million in royalties for West Virginia landowners.
Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
The top two Democrats in the House of Representatives quietly voted last week against defending the right of Congress to pass laws. The sanctity of democracy and Congress itself has been a major political talking point for Democrat leaders in recent years. But the vote showed the difficulty Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other top Democrats have standing up to the intense pressure they face from left-wing billionaires and the environmental activist groups they run.
The vote dealt with litigation from left-wing environmental groups trying to stop provisions in the recently passed Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), which raised the debt limit. That bill, signed into law on June 5, 2023, contained provisions to ensure the completion of a 303-mile pipeline from natural gas fields in West Virginia to an existing pipeline in Southwest Virginia. Left-wing environmental groups funded by major Democrat donors and a foreign oligarch who finances much of the left’s “dark money” behemoth have fought the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline for years. While most of the pipeline has been constructed, the FRA directed expedited approval of the remaining permits, removal from any court the jurisdiction to review agency actions, and directing the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to oversee any claims challenging the pipeline.
Both Jeffries and Democrat Whip Katherine Clark voted for the legislation. Jeffries publicly stated he did so “without hesitation, reservation, or trepidation.” President Biden, the top Democrat in the country, signed it into law. His Department of Justice began implementing the law. But when the time came to defend both that legislation and the very right of Congress to pass laws, Jeffries and Clark refused.
The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), comprising the Speaker of the House and the leader and whip of each party, “speaks for, and articulates the institutional position of, the House in all litigation matters,” according to House rules. While it has at times been used in a partisan matter, most notably and aggressively under former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, it also routinely sees unanimous votes on key issues about the rights and powers of Congress.
Earlier this year, for example, all five members voted to intervene in an ongoing legal battle between the Department of Justice and Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., over the department’s aggressive efforts to access the conservative member’s phone.
The vote last week was divided on party lines, even though it dealt with an issue that the BLAG had previously worked on twice before and involved a law that both Democrat members had voted for only weeks prior.
Back Story
Blocking an energy pipeline in the region has been a top priority of left-wing activist groups for years. They had successfully asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to block and delay permits and approvals for the pipeline.
Once the debt limit bill passed, the Department of Justice moved to dismiss those cases. It argued that the bill had mooted the controversy by explicitly ratifying and approving all necessary permits and by changing the law governing the pipeline in such a way that it rendered meritless the claims put forth by the environmentalist groups.
The Wilderness Society and an array of other left-wing environmentalist groups opposed what the DOJ was doing and asked the Fourth Circuit to issue a stay. Left-wing Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss “has been a leading source of difficult-to-trace money to groups associated with Democrats,” according to an analysis from The New York Times. He serves on the board of governors of the Wilderness Society. That group argued the bill violated the separation of powers and that the Fourth Circuit remained the right court to hear their objections to the previous legislation. Without explaining its reasoning, a trio of judges on the Fourth Circuit that had previously ruled in favor of the environmental groups’ petitions issued a stay.
The pipeline company filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court to vacate the stays and have the Fourth Circuit dismiss the claims so the pipeline could be completed as directed by June’s legislation.
That’s why the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group voted on an amicus brief backing Congress’ own legislation and the right of Congress to pass legislation.
The amicus brief argues that the Fourth Circuit stays are at odds with Congress’s declaration that “the timely completion” of the pipeline “is required in the national interest.” It also notes that the House has twiceprior defended the power of Congress to enact changes in law that affect the outcome of pending court cases, and the court upheld the constitutionality of doing so both times. Finally, it argues that the stays are erroneous; that nothing precludes Congress from changing laws simply because they end legal challenges to agency actions.
“The jobs at stake are the exact type of jobs – blue collar jobs for skilled workers that provide good wages, health coverage, retirement security, and funding for training of current workers and new entrants to the industry – that are so badly needed in today’s economy,” the union wrote in its brief.
When Clark whipped for the bill she now refuses to defend, she praised Biden for “standing with our veterans, seniors, and working families” during the negotiations.
Neither Jeffries nor Clark responded to The Federalist’s request for comment.
The top two Democrats in the House of Representatives quietly voted last week against defending the right of Congress to pass laws. The sanctity of democracy and Congress itself has been a major political talking point for Democrat leaders in recent years. But the vote showed the difficulty Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other top Democrats have standing up to the intense pressure they face from left-wing billionaires and the environmental activist groups they run.
The vote dealt with litigation from left-wing environmental groups trying to stop provisions in the recently passed Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), which raised the debt limit. That bill, signed into law on June 5, 2023, contained provisions to ensure the completion of a 303-mile pipeline from natural gas fields in West Virginia to an existing pipeline in Southwest Virginia. Left-wing environmental groups funded by major Democrat donors and a foreign oligarch who finances much of the left’s “dark money” behemoth have fought the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline for years. While most of the pipeline has been constructed, the FRA directed expedited approval of the remaining permits, removal from any court the jurisdiction to review agency actions, and directing the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to oversee any claims challenging the pipeline.
Both Jeffries and Democrat Whip Katherine Clark voted for the legislation. Jeffries publicly stated he did so “without hesitation, reservation, or trepidation.” President Biden, the top Democrat in the country, signed it into law. His Department of Justice began implementing the law. But when the time came to defend both that legislation and the very right of Congress to pass laws, Jeffries and Clark refused.
The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), comprising the Speaker of the House and the leader and whip of each party, “speaks for, and articulates the institutional position of, the House in all litigation matters,” according to House rules. While it has at times been used in a partisan matter, most notably and aggressively under former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, it also routinely sees unanimous votes on key issues about the rights and powers of Congress.
Earlier this year, for example, all five members voted to intervene in an ongoing legal battle between the Department of Justice and Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., over the department’s aggressive efforts to access the conservative member’s phone.
The vote last week was divided on party lines, even though it dealt with an issue that the BLAG had previously worked on twice before and involved a law that both Democrat members had voted for only weeks prior.
Back Story
Blocking an energy pipeline in the region has been a top priority of left-wing activist groups for years. They had successfully asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to block and delay permits and approvals for the pipeline.
Once the debt limit bill passed, the Department of Justice moved to dismiss those cases. It argued that the bill had mooted the controversy by explicitly ratifying and approving all necessary permits and by changing the law governing the pipeline in such a way that it rendered meritless the claims put forth by the environmentalist groups.
The Wilderness Society and an array of other left-wing environmentalist groups opposed what the DOJ was doing and asked the Fourth Circuit to issue a stay. Left-wing Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss “has been a leading source of difficult-to-trace money to groups associated with Democrats,” according to an analysis from The New York Times. He serves on the board of governors of the Wilderness Society. That group argued the bill violated the separation of powers and that the Fourth Circuit remained the right court to hear their objections to the previous legislation. Without explaining its reasoning, a trio of judges on the Fourth Circuit that had previously ruled in favor of the environmental groups’ petitions issued a stay.
The pipeline company filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court to vacate the stays and have the Fourth Circuit dismiss the claims so the pipeline could be completed as directed by June’s legislation.
That’s why the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group voted on an amicus brief backing Congress’ own legislation and the right of Congress to pass legislation.
The amicus brief argues that the Fourth Circuit stays are at odds with Congress’s declaration that “the timely completion” of the pipeline “is required in the national interest.” It also notes that the House has twiceprior defended the power of Congress to enact changes in law that affect the outcome of pending court cases, and the court upheld the constitutionality of doing so both times. Finally, it argues that the stays are erroneous; that nothing precludes Congress from changing laws simply because they end legal challenges to agency actions.
“The jobs at stake are the exact type of jobs – blue collar jobs for skilled workers that provide good wages, health coverage, retirement security, and funding for training of current workers and new entrants to the industry – that are so badly needed in today’s economy,” the union wrote in its brief.
When Clark whipped for the bill she now refuses to defend, she praised Biden for “standing with our veterans, seniors, and working families” during the negotiations.
Neither Jeffries nor Clark responded to The Federalist’s request for comment.
Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., introduced legislation earlier this week ensuring that only eligible U.S. citizens are able to vote in federal elections.
Titled the “NO VOTE for Non-Citizens Act of 2023,” the proposed bill includes amendments to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and 2002 Help America Vote Act that seek to clarify states’ authority in maintaining federal voter registration lists and establish that federal election funding cannot be “used to support States that permit non-citizens to cast ballots in any election.”
Under the NVRA, states are required to “ensur[e] the maintenance of an accurate and current voter registration roll for elections for Federal office.” The current version of the law, however, only refers to “eligible voters” and does not include a provision about citizenship requirements.
While the Constitution and federal law stipulate that only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections, several Democrat-led cities in states such as Maryland and California have adopted measures in recent years permitting the practice for their respective municipal elections. In October, for instance, Washington, D.C. passed legislation granting foreign nationals the ability to vote in the district’s local elections. House Republicans’ efforts to revoke the law have been blocked by Senate Democrats.
“Since the Constitution prohibits non-citizens from voting in Federal elections, such ineligible persons must not be permitted to be placed on Federal voter registration lists,” the NO VOTE for Non-Citizens Act reads.
In order to ensure noncitizens aren’t voting in federal elections, Griffith’s bill includes a provision requiring states that permit localities to allow noncitizen voting in their respective elections to place such non-citizens on a voter registration list “separate from the official list of eligible voters with respect to registrants who are citizens of the United States.” The measure further mandates “the ballot used for the casting of votes by a noncitizen in such State or local jurisdiction may only include the candidates for the elections for public office in the State or local jurisdiction for which the noncitizen is permitted to vote.”
While Congress does not possess the authority to manage state and local elections, it can control federal funding that is allocated to these jurisdictions for the purposes of election administration. Griffith’s bill seeks to utilize this authority by reducing any federal payments issued to a state or locality that permits noncitizen voting by 30 percent and prohibiting them from using funds for certain “election administration activities.”
“One of the rights and privileges granted in the U.S Constitution is an American citizen’s ability to vote in our country’s federal elections,” Griffith said in a statement. “If non-citizens are allowed to vote in our federal elections, it could invite foreign interference and dilute the voice of American citizens. The NO VOTE for Non-Citizens Act upholds Americans’ right to vote, preserving our great democracy.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
The Virginia mom of a 6-year-old charged with shooting his first-grade teacher earlier this year has been indicted by a grand jury in connection with the shooting, the Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office announced Monday. Deja Nicole Taylor, 25, is charged with felony child neglect, and a misdemeanor count of recklessly leaving a firearm so as to endanger a child.
FILE: Students return to Richneck Elementary in Newport News, Va., Jan. 30, 2023. (Billy Schuerman/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)
The charges were brought about after an investigation by the Newport News Police Department and the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office.
“Every criminal case is unique in its facts, and these facts support these charges, but our investigation into the shooting continues,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard Gwynn said in a statement.
The Commonwealth’s Attorney has also asked a Circuit Court judge to impanel a “Special Grand Jury” to continue investigating security issues that may have enabled the January shooting. The probe could potentially lead to more people being criminally charged in connection with the shooting.
Abby Zwerner, a 25-year-old first-grade teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, was shot in the hand and chest Jan. 6, as she sat at a reading table in her classroom. She spent nearly two weeks in the hospital and required four surgeries.
Richneck Elementary School teacher Abigail Zwerner sat down with NBC for an interview a couple months after being shot by her 6-year-old student in the classroom. (Screenshot/NBC)
Monday’s indictment announcement comes a week after Zwerner filed a lawsuit seeking $40 million in damages from school officials, accusing them of gross negligence and ignoring multiple warnings the day of the shooting the boy was armed and in a “violent mood.”
The lawsuit names as defendants the Newport News School Board, former Superintendent George Parker III, former Richneck Principal Briana Foster-Newton and former Richneck Assistant Principal Ebony Parker.
In the lawsuit, Zwerner’s attorneys say all the defendants knew the boy “had a history of random violence” at school and at home, including an episode the year before when he “strangled and choked” his kindergarten teacher.
Messages of support for teacher Abby Zwerner, who was shot by a 6-year-old student, grace the front door of Richneck Elementary School Newport News, Va., Jan. 6, 2023. (Family of Abigail Zwerner via AP, File/ AP Photo/John C. Clark, File)
Last month, Newport News prosecutor Howard Gwynn said his office would not criminally charge the boy because he is too young to understand the legal system. Gwynn has yet to decide if any other adults will be charged.
The boy used his mother’s gun, which police said was purchased legally. James Ellenson, the attorney for the boy’s family, has said previously that the firearm was secured on a high closet shelf with a lock.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Ellenson for further comment.
My daughter ‘was terribly bullied, but no one told me. … Please don’t let ideology harm another child,’ pleaded the mother of a 14-year-old girl who was isolated from her parents by school and court authorities and sex-trafficked twice.
A subcommittee in the Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill on Monday that mandates public educators notify parents if their child “self-identifies” as something other than his or her natural sex. Introduced by Republican Dels. Dave LaRock, Tara Durant, and John McGuire, the measure (HB 2432) would provide parents with greater oversight into their children’s lives at school and increase transparency in public education. According to a summary of the legislation, if a school official “has reason to believe” that a student “is self-identifying as a gender different from the student’s biological sex,” said official is required “to contact as soon as practicable at least one of such student’s parents to ask whether such parent is aware of the student’s mental state and whether the parent wishes to obtain or has already obtained counseling for such student.”
Under the bill, school officials, such as counselors and clinical social workers, are barred from “encouraging or coercing a minor to withhold from the minor’s parent the fact that the minor’s perception of his or her gender or sex is inconsistent with the minor’s biological sex” or “withholding from a minor’s parent information relating to the minor’s perception that his or her gender or sex is inconsistent with the minor’s biological sex.”
Monday’s subcommittee vote came along party lines, with five Republicans voting in favor and three Democrats opposing.
Known as Sage’s Law, HB 2432 was introduced after it was revealed that a then-14-year-old Virginia girl ended up in the hands of sexual predators after her school failed to disclose her gender dysphoria to her mother. As The Federalist previously reported, the chain of events began in August 2021 when Sage began identifying as a boy and suffered intense bullying and harassment at school. Eventually, Sage ran away and was “found nine days later in Maryland, a victim of sexual assault.”
Appomattox County High School, which affirmed Sage’s new “identity” without notifying her mother, was following model guidelines issued by then-Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration on so-called gender affirmation. Such guidance has since been terminated by current GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Throughout Monday’s hearing on Sage’s Law, witnesses supporting the bill discussed its importance in keeping parents involved in their children’s livelihoods, especially in the school classroom. During her testimony, Sage’s mother Michele called on the subcommittee to put commonsense before ideology.
“If I had known [what was going on], this would be a much different story. [Sage] was terribly bullied, but no one told me,” Michele said. “Please don’t let ideology harm another child. Let parents do our jobs. We know our children best and we love them a million times more.”
Also called to testify at the hearing was Dr. Erin Brewer, a former “trans kid” who spoke about the importance of schools helping children through their gender dysphoria without affirming such confusion or concealing it from parents.
“I was insistent that I was a boy when I started first grade after a brutal sexual assault. If I had been affirmed by my teachers, it would have allowed me to completely dissociate from myself as a girl and create a new persona who could pretend that the horrible trauma that triggered my gender dysphoria hadn’t happened to me,” she said. “Instead of encouraging my confusion and hiding it from my mother, the school contacted my mother, got permission for me to be assessed by the school psychologist, and they came up with a comprehensive program to help me resolve my gender dysphoria. … I [one] hundred percent support this legislation.”
Erin Friday, a lifelong Democrat and co-founder of Our Duty, a national and international parent and child advocacy group, also spoke in support of Sage’s Law. Throughout her remarks, Friday noted her personal experiences with a gender-dysphoric daughter and stated that “schools should never keep secrets from parents.”
Opponents to Sage’s Law also spoke at the hearing, with one man claiming to be a “trans woman” arguing that such legislation is “ridiculous” and that schools should be able to conceal a child’s gender dysphoria from that child’s parents.
“It should be that child’s own choice,” he said. “If we wanna tell who we wanna tell, like, that’s on us.”
Despite leftists’ support for deceptively-termed “gender affirmation” and the “transitioning” of children, research has shown that “upwards of 80 percent of gender dysphoric childrenembrace their sex as they emerge from puberty” and that “children who are ‘affirmed’ as the opposite sex … particularly if puberty blockers are used, consistently go on to further medicalization.” Children who undergo such protocols are subjected to lifelong damage to their bodies. The practices are so horrific that nations around the world, such as England, have ended the disfiguring practices that are falsely labeled as “gender-affirming care” for minors.
“Parents should never be the last to know [about what’s going on in their children’s lives],” said Durant during the subcommittee meeting. “It’s a very strange, strange place to me that we’re in now where parents are being told to step aside, to sit down, that ‘we as educators, as counselors know better [for] your own child’ — and that’s just simply not true.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
After the 14-year-old was found being sexually assaulted in another state, a judge kept her from loving parents because they questioned her transgender identity. Then she was trafficked again.
In August 2021, by concealing a teen’s newly asserted transgender identity from her parents, Virginia’s Appomattox County High School participated in a chain of events that led to that girl falling into the hands of sexual predators not once, but twice.
When the FBI found Sage (last name of the family withheld for privacy) in Maryland, where she was victimized by a sexual predator, a judge refused to return her to her parents on the grounds they were abusing her in not affirming her as male. Housed in the boys’ quarters of a children’s home away from her parents, she told her mother, she was assaulted again. The girl soon fled, then was brutally sex-trafficked again until her rescue in Texas by law enforcement.
Sage’s Law, or the Child Protection Act, is being introduced this week in the Virginia House of Delegates by Delegate Dave LaRock in honor of this young teen from Appomattox County, Virginia. Sage hopes sharing her story will help protect others from the abuse she suffered at the hands of predators, precipitated in part by the very institutions that should have protected her.
School policies and state laws that encourage concealing information from parents’ purport to protect vulnerable minors. In practice, as tragically demonstrated by Sage’s case, such policies open the door to predators by removing children’s greatest protection from their lives.
Sage’s Law aims to shut that door in three ways. It would require schools to notify parents if their child asserts a gender different from his or her sex; it prevents school counselors from withholding or encouraging minors to withhold information about a child’s gender identity; and it clarifies that raising a child according to his or her biological sex, including decisions about a child’s mental and physical health, may not be construed as abuse.
Sage’s story, compiled from months of interviews, reports, and records, has been lived by countless other families torn apart in the name of gender ideology by activist schools, judges, anddoctors. This is a story of the unbearable cost of parent-exclusion policies, but also of a mother’s love and relentless determination to save her child.
Institutions that Should Protect Endanger Instead
Sage is a slight, pretty, 15-year-old girl with elfin features and an edgy style. Recently, reflecting back on her transgender identification, she told her mom: “I don’t know who I was. I’m a totally different person now. I never was a boy. Everybody was doing it, I just wanted to have friends.”
That self-reflection is consistent with the research showing that upwards of 80 percent of gender dysphoric childrenembrace their sex as they emerge from puberty. Children who are “affirmed” as the opposite sex, however, particularly if puberty blockers are used, consistently go on to further medicalization. Sage’s comment also reflects the reality of social contagion, fueled by social media and increasingly recognized internationally as a factor in the exponential rise in the number of children identifying as transgender.
Yet states such as California allow children as young as 12 to make their own health-care decisions, without their parents but under the authority of the state. In January, Virginia delegates Candi Mundon King, Nadarius Clark, Michelle Maldonado, Sam Rasoul, and Marcus Simon filed a similar bill authorizing courts, social workers, and medical professionals to withhold information from parents and consent to medical procedures for “mature” minors.
The consequences for children and families in states such as California that construe not “affirming” as abuse are particularly dire. In October, progressive Virginia Delegate Elizabeth Guzman announced she would reintroduce her 2020 bill to criminalize parents who do not affirm their child’s transgender identity as guilty of abuse, potentially resulting in the loss of custody.
School Policies Endangering Students
Michele adopted Sage, her biological granddaughter, after the death of her son. Like many gender-dysphoric children, Sage has a history of trauma from that early childhood loss. Related health problems became severe at times, requiring therapy and medical treatment. Her daughter’s previous schools notified Michele when concerns arose, she said, enabling her to have Sage’s treatment adjusted. But when her daughter entered Appomattox County High School in early August 2021, Michele says she was cut out of the loop.
Unbeknownst to Michele, her then-14-year-old’s taste at the time for boys’ clothing, which she described to her mother as simply “dressing emo,” was accompanied by her assertion at school that she was a transgender boy. School records, shared by the family, indicate school staff were calling Sage by her chosen male name and pronouns and at her request concealing this from her parents. Sage recalls her school counselor telling her during the first week of school that since she identified as male she could use the boys’ bathroom.
School records also indicate bullying, although they do not capture the severity of what Sage eventually told her mom: boys were following behind her in a group, touching her, threatening her with knife violence and rape, and even shoving her up against the hallway wall. On Aug. 23, according to school notes, reports were received from students and teachers that Sage had used a boys’ bathroom and encountered hostile boys there. The school counselor met with Sage the next day to direct her to use the nurses’ bathroom for safety reasons.
Sage’s statement that “all the boys at this school are rapists” prompted the school to review hallway footage outside the bathroom, showing that several boys had entered while she was inside. On Wednesday, Aug. 25, the counselor and school resource officer called Sage into a meeting, where she became so emotional that the counselor recorded concern Sage might be “a risk to herself due to being so upset when leaving school.”
Only at this point — after meeting alone with her daughter, after two days had passed and knowledge of the incident had reached all the way to the superintendent, according to the school records — did the school finally contact Michele, she said, still without revealing the male identity her daughter was asserting.
Michele recalls finding a school hall pass labeled with a new name that August evening and Sage telling her for the first time that she was identifying as a boy at school. As Michele sat with her on the floor, Sage tried to stop the tears as she told her mother a group of male students had “jacked” her up against the wall of the boys’ bathroom and threatened her with violence, and that she was terrified of what they would do. Michele tried to comfort her, assuring her she could stay home while they figured out how to handle the bullying.
That night, Sage disappeared. She was found nine days later in Maryland, a victim of sexual assault. That was just the beginning of her family’s ordeal.
Excluding Parents Invites Predators
As Michele’s case illustrates, school policies that exclude parents from critical knowledge of their child’s mental health remove a child’s greatest safeguard from his or her life. While this author could find no such policy posted on the Appomattox High School or school board websites, the school’s actions to “affirm” Sage’s stated gender, name, and pronouns and to permit access to bathrooms of the opposite sex are all consistent with the directives of former Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s 2021 model policies. So is the choice to deceive parents.
In fact, the Northam policies direct that an entire gender transition team and plan be set up for such a child, all in secret from the parents if the child so wishes. This guidance was revoked in 2022 by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, but Virginia Democrats and LGBT groups are fiercely contesting the transparency and parental consent required by the new proposed guidance.
Yet school counselors, unlike parents, have at best an extremely limited knowledge of a child’s mental, emotional, and physical needs. They also have neither the constitutional authority nor the expertise to determine a child’s best interests.
Children who identify as transgender have well-documented mental health co-morbidities and rates of adverse psychiatric events. Even Dr. Erica Anderson, former head of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), has raised alarm at the “pitched battle” engendered by professionals who “triangulate” or set children in opposition to their parents.
In Sage’s case, by withholding information about her daughter’s gender identity and related issues, including the severe bullying related to Sage’s transgender exploration, the school destroyed vital opportunities for Michele to discern warning signs in time to assess and respond before tragedy struck.
Predators know transgender kids are vulnerable prey. Sage told Michele months later that some of the transgender websites to which a school counselor referred her linked to “creepy” older men and pornography.
One mother told this author that as soon as her daughter identified online as “female to male,” multiple suspicious “sugar daddy” accounts reached out to her on social media. Roblox, the wildly popular children’s gaming site, has transgender chat rooms with a panic button to “hide your screen from your parents.” Sage, her mother says, was lured to meet sex traffickers by online predators posing as friends.
A Court-Enabled Tragedy
The first call from the FBI came late at night on Sept. 2, her mother recounts: Sage had been found. Michele says investigators told her Sage had been trafficked into Washington, D.C. and then Maryland for nine days of horrific, brutal sexual abuse.
Driving through the night, their backseat full of stuffed animals and cozy blankets, Michele and her husband Roger arrived early the next morning at the Baltimore Courthouse. They were stunned to hear that their child, who had just survived unspeakable trauma, was being held in a juvenile detention cell and that they were being summoned to a hearing late that afternoon before Judge Robert Kershaw. When they entered the courtroom, Sage appeared from the penitentiary remotely, on screen, with only court-appointed attorney Aneesa Khan, an assistant public defender, present in person. “I love you, baby!” Michele cried to her daughter, who responded “I love you too, Nana.” To their shock, Khan spoke up and alleged on Sage’s behalf that she did not wish to return home and had been “both emotionally and physically abused by his parents in connection with [his] expressed male gender identity and desire to live as a trans male.”
Michele had only found out about this claimed male identity the night her daughter disappeared. Yet Michele was willing to use any name or pronoun to bring her home. Sage later told her, Michele says, that Khan “told me to tell the judge my parents hit me, starved me.” Sage also told Michele that Khan “didn’t care how much [Sage] had to lie…but they were going to win this case” to remove Sage from her parents’ custody and place her in a Maryland foster home that would affirm her as male.
Michele is a Virginia Court-Appointed Child Advocate (CASA) with years of experience supporting troubled teens, and she and Roger were quickly cleared of abuse charges. But the allegations were used to take custody of their daughter and bar them from seeing her.
The Cruelty of Ideology
Rather than treat Sage as a victim of horrific sex trafficking and return her to her family, the court dealt with her as a runaway, providing grounds for temporary custody in Maryland. Significantly, under the Interstate Juvenile Compact, even if allegations of abuse are made, juveniles are to be returned to their home state, which is presumed to better be able to assess the child’s needs. Judge Kershaw delayed this return for two months, which led to Sage’s next trafficking episode.
Instead of receiving treatment for her profound physical and emotional trauma, Sage was kept for days in solitary detention as a runaway, then transferred to the Catonsville Children’s Home. Per Judge Kershaw’s order, she was housed according to her “expressed male gender.” Michele says she eventually learned from Sage that she was the only girl in male quarters and that she had been repeatedly assaulted there.
Kershaw held multiple hearings focusing on Sage’s claimed male identity and Khan’s efforts to demonstrate gender identity abuse, including calling two Appomattox school counselors to testify against Sage’s parents. While his final ruling on Nov. 10, 2021, reluctantly conceded lawful custody to the parents, Kershaw opined at length that “more likely than not” Sage had “endured emotional abuse and neglect by his parents,” including “misgendering” and “misnaming.” Astonishingly, Kershaw cited as evidence of parental abuse “running away from Virginia to Maryland,” when in fact Sage was abducted, raped, and trafficked across state lines.
While Sage was in The Children’s Home, Michele says she sent letters and cards multiple times a week and tried countless times to reach her by phone, especially on Sage’s 15th birthday. Months later, Sage commented: “I missed you so much, but I tried not to because you didn’t want me back.” Horrified, her mother asked what she meant. She learned from Sage that Khan had told her that, because she was transgender, Michele didn’t want her anymore — and that not one of her cards or messages had ever reached her daughter.
Sage also eventually told her mother that, while living at the foster home, she skipped classes every day and would “smoke weed and do drugs” with kids she had met. Sage also relayed later that Khan had told her “I don’t give a sh-t if you do drugs, I just want to win this case.” Sage also said Khan had visited the home of one of Sage’s Maryland school friends to enlist her support in contacting Sage, claiming Khan had won the case and resulting in knowledge of Sage’s case spreading around the school.
In a text to a friend at the time, Sage referenced Khan’s intent: “going to the court of appeals, and the supreme court.” It is difficult to avoid Michele’s conclusion that “[t]he only best interest [Sage’s] attorney had was for herself. To put my traumatized child on center stage to push her political or gender agenda!”
Michele begged the court to provide treatment for the trauma Sage had endured and had found placement for her by mid-October, approved by Virginia social services, in Youth for Tomorrow’s program for young victims of sexual exploitation. The judge rejected it because they would treat Sage as a girl.
Not until Nov. 10 did Judge Kershaw approve placement in North Spring, a residential treatment facility that would affirm her claimed male identity. Frightened of being locked in the facility and believing her mother no longer wanted her, Sage texted a friend, “im gonna dip” (leave). On Nov. 12, 2021, Sage says, she cut off her court-required GPS monitor and ran away to meet an online “friend” in Texas she thought was 16.
Once more, the unspeakable happened. Sage fell into the hands of a predator who, police told Michele, raped, starved, drugged, and brutalized her. This time she disappeared for months. For the second time in less than four months, Michele had no way of knowing if her daughter was even alive. But Michele never stopped searching. Finally, a tip she discovered on social media led Texas marshals to her daughter’s rescue in Dallas on Jan. 24, 2022.
For the first time since that conversation on the floor of Sage’s bedroom on Aug. 25 the year before, mother and daughter were able to talk. On the plane ride home, Michele listened as Sage began to unburden her heart, grieving over what she learned but overcome with gratitude that her daughter was alive and restored to her.
Affirmation by Intimidation
Upon her return to Virginia, Sage entered North Spring, the lock-down facility negotiated by the court, with Michele driving four hours each way for her weekly allotted visit. Sage was heavily medicated, suffering from constant nightmares, and fearful of both residents and doctors. Sage told her mother that her counselor also pressured Sage to tell Michele she wanted a “gender-affirming” mastectomy.
Yet, during one of Michele’s visits, Sage asked if her mother could secretly take her to buy girls’ clothes, stating she didn’t want to be a boy anymore, but she was scared to tell the doctors. Pressured by North Spring to let them treat her daughter, Michele reached out to Josh Hetzler, an attorney with Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center, who secured her daughter’s return. After nearly a year of horror, she was finally home safely.
The road ahead is a long one of healing both physically and emotionally. There are confusing lapses in concentration and persistent, terrifying nightmares. In a safe, loving home, surrounded by her pets and easing into at-home learning and therapy sessions, the painful recollections emerge unpredictably, as do the panic attacks. Michele doesn’t press, letting Sage open up at her pace, whether to her or to her beloved uncle Cory, who has moved home to support her.
As she begins to process her ordeal, Sage now desires to protect others from the horrors she experienced. Michele’s heroic, unrelenting determination to save her daughter has turned not only to helping her heal but to preserving other families from what hers endured. Advocates have rallied to help fund legal action through The Gavel Project, and to craft policies that will help protect others.
Sage’s Law
Many children never escape the clutches of sex traffickers. Had it not been for her mother’s relentless love and determination, Sage might never have been found. Michele calls it a miracle. In the starkest of contrasts, the actions of ideologues played a part — twice — in her daughter falling into the traffickers’ hands.
Sage’s public school could have been transparent to Michele about her daughter’s struggles. The court could have returned her to Virginia without furthering a quest to make legal history. The children’s home could have protected her from assault and access to drugs. And doctors could have treated trauma, not pressed living as the opposite sex and mutilative surgery on a victim of sexual abuse. All along, it was her mother who truly had Sage’s best interest at heart.
Sage was failed by adults who thought they were helping but were blinded to their own cruelty by their ideology. Michele tells of countless parents who have reached out to her with their own stories of families and bodies destroyed by school counselors, courts, and doctors who may spend minutes with a child, but assert they have the expertise and authority to usurp decisions from parents who have poured a lifetime into their care.
Sage has shown great courage in sharing her story, and it is time for lawmakers to take a stand for her and many other children by passing Sage’s Law. There is only one acceptable response to her story: never again.
Laura Bryant Hanford is a mother of five and is actively involved in school policy and religious freedom issues in Virginia, where she lives with her family. She served from 2015 to 2018 on Fairfax County Public Schools’ Family Life Education Curriculum Advisory Committee. She was the lead congressional staff drafter of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. She also served at the U.S. Embassy in Romania as the officer in charge of human rights, focusing on ethnic minorities, women, and refugees. She is a graduate of Princeton University.
A first-grade teacher who managed to save her entire class after she was intentionally shot in the hand and chest by a 6-year-old student as she taught at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, has been hailed as a “hero” for her bravery in the face of danger. At a press conference Monday, Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew said the teacher, Abigail Zwerner, 25, is hospitalized in stable condition after the shooting last Friday, but the first thing she asked him about when they met was how her students were doing.
“When I met with Abigail’s family on Saturday, and they took me up to her [hospital] room, she asked me first question, ‘Do you know how my students are?’ She was worried about them,” Drew said.
“And then today … she again asked me, ‘Do you know how my students are?’ And that touched me, her family and her mother. Abigail wanted me to tell you all, but primarily her students and the parents of her students, she is in stable condition and she is thankful for the thoughts and prayers that have gone out to her. The people that have reached out not only here locally but across our state and across our nation. She is very, very appreciative of the support that she is getting. And continues to get,” he explained.
Drew said at about 1:59 p.m. last Friday, police received a call from the school that a teacher had been shot with no other information. Officers “from different areas” quickly converged on the school and at 2:04 p.m., two sheriff’s deputies entered the classroom where the shooting took place and found a 6-year-old male student being physically restrained by a school employee.
“The child was physically combative and struck the employee that was restraining him,” Drew said.
“Officers then took control of him and escorted him out of the building [and] placed him in a police car with an officer inside and outside of that building. Once that had occurred there was a systematic evacuation of rooms and hallways for safety as they didn’t know what they were dealing with,” he said.
Police later recovered one spent shell casing, a backpack, a cell phone, and a 9mm Taurus firearm from the scene.
“The firearm was recovered close to the student’s desk where the shooting occurred,” Drew said.
Zwerner was reportedly teaching when the 6-year-old boy brandished the firearm, pointed it at her and fired one round.
“There was no physical struggle or fight. She was providing instruction to her class,” Drew said.
The police chief said Zwerner took a defensive position where she raised her hand after the student fired the gun at her.
“The round went through her hand, exited the rear of her hand and into her upper chest,” he said.
He said when police reviewed security video from the scene, Zwerner’s bravery was on full display.
“She suffered a gunshot wound but she was still able to get all of her students out of that classroom. From the video surveillance we have of the hallway, you can see the students running out of that classroom across the hall into — about 17-20 students — of that classroom into other classrooms,” Drew said. “Ms. Zwerner was the last person to leave that class. She made a right turn and started down the hallway and then she stopped. She turned around. She turned around to make sure that every one of those students were safe.”
Drew said police later interviewed the boy and his mother and discovered that the gun was a legally purchased firearm that he hid in his backpack and brought to school.
“We determined that the firearm was in the residence where they lived and the child obtained that firearm, placed it in his backpack and brought it to school. He was brought to school that day by his mother later that morning,” he explained.
As the hero teacher continues to recover, Hannah Zwerner, her twin sister, launched a GoFundMe campaign on Monday to raise $250,000 to help with her with medical and living expenses. More than $60,000 had been raised as of Tuesday.
“Abby, my family, and I are humbled by the outpouring of support we’ve received in the days following the event. Thank you for all of the prayers, well wishes, and words of kindness,” Zwerner’s sister said in a statement on the campaign. “If you’re looking for ways to help, I am creating this fund to help aid in Abby’s healing. Its purpose is to cover future living expenses as Abby recovers from this tragedy.”
Drew said Zwerner’s shooter was taken into custody for evaluation at a local hospital. He was later ordered to be temporarily detained by a judge so he can receive treatment at a medical facility while an investigation into the shooting continues.
“I’d like to reiterate that this shooting was not accidental. It was intentional. I believe, I told her today, I believe Ms. Zwerner, Abigail. She saved lives on Friday,” Drew said. “She is a trooper. She is a hero”
Students sitting at their desks in a classroom raise their hands. | Getty Images
States are taking different approaches to how their schools teach sensitive subjects in history classes, with Colorado and Virginia taking the spotlight last week.
Colorado’s State Board of Education voted last Thursday in a 4-3 party-line vote to update the state’s social studies curriculum for all grade levels, restoring references to the LGBT community and marginalized racial minorities that had been cut earlier this year after some parents expressed concerns over a lack of diversity.
CPR News reported that the state board of education would require schools’ social studies curriculum to reference minority groups throughout all grade levels in compliance with Colorado law. Board member Lisa Escárcega said that she included references to certain races and LGBT individuals at the top of the recommendations due to the importance of such groups.
The changes come as the state conducts its annual revision of academic standards, something Colorado does every six years. The Colorado State Board of Education did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
The board made recommendations for the curriculum standards last November that caused controversy.
The recommendations updated social studies standards to include references to minority groups highlighted in a law passed by the legislature in 2019 calling for the inclusion of more diverse views in children’s history lessons. The law requires schools to include perspectives of LGBT people, African Americans, Latinos, American Indians and Asian Americans.
After concerns were raised about “age-appropriateness,” the committee eliminated references to LGBT people for students below fourth grade in April.
Republican Board member Steve Durham objected to exposing preschoolers to LGBT topics, arguing that the “impact and discussion of sexual issues is the same for kindergartens as it is for high school students.”
Democratic board members and Escárcega argued that LGBT issues are not sexual topics, claiming the topic may come up during discussions about families, even in lower grades, according to CPR.
In a Monday statement to The Christian Post, a spokesperson for the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition, which supported references to LGBT people, said the standards were based “on research and best practice.”
“The cuts that were made to eliminate certain references to the LGBTQ community and the realities of racism in our history perpetuate xenophobia, homophobia and false understandings of our collective histories,” the spokesperson wrote.
Before the vote, the board allowed for public comments. Except for two speakers, all who spoke called for restoring references to LGBT individuals. One parent who opposed restoring references to the LGBT community, Mary Goodley, stated that parents reserve the right to teach their children about complex social issues.
“Teaching children about particular sexual or gender notions is a clear violation of parental rights and not only serves to further discredit, but also decreases trust in the public education model,” she said, as quoted by CPR.
The standards will go into effect next year.
Last month, the Colorado school board voted 4 to 3 to reject American Birthright social studies standards, a model promoted by the conservative National Association of Scholars. Those standards aim to teach children where their freedoms come from and “why their country deserves to be loved.”
Thursday’s vote in Colorado came the day before the Virginia Department of Education under Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin proposed new revisions that would alter former Gov. Ralph Northam’s proposed history and social science guidelines in the state’s schools.
“The standards will recognize the world impact of America’s quest for a ‘more perfect Union’ and the optimism, ideals and imagery captured by Ronald Reagan’s ‘shining city upon a hill’ speech,” the proposal reads. “Students will know our nation’s exceptional strengths, including individual innovation, moral character, ingenuity and adventure, while learning from terrible periods and actions in direct conflict with these ideals.”
The 53-page proposal includes teaching kindergarteners about patriotism and how certain symbols are used to honor the country. Fourth-grade students would learn about the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, and 11th-grade students would study Christopher Columbus and the enslavement of African-Americans.
If the Virginia Board of Education adopts the draft proposal, the new standards will go into effect for seven years, according to a factsheet sent to Virginia legislators on Friday. The new standards would be taught during the 2024-2025 school year, and professional development will start in the summer of 2023. The administration claims these changes are necessary to provide clarity for educators and expand parental involvement.
“The August 2022 draft standards were unnecessarily difficult for educators to understand and implement; they were also inaccessible for parents and families,” the factsheet reads. “The November 2022 revised standards are easily understood and implemented through a logical progression with a recommended grade level sequence.”
The proposed history curriculum under Northam would have included lessons on LGBT issues and social justice, in addition to halting requirements to teach lessons on Christopher Columbus and Benjamin Franklin. The Northam standards also would not have included lessons on why James Madison is called the “Father of the Constitution” and George Washington is called the “Father of our Country.” Under the new draft, fourth-grade students would once again learn why Madison and Washington have these titles.
Critics, such as the Virginia Education Association, a union representing more than 40,000 education workers, contend the proposed standards will impede academic instruction. VEA President James J. Fedderman said in a Saturday statement to The Washington Post that he believes the new standards contain “political bias” and refer to enslaved people with “outdated language.”
Former Trump administration official and founder of the education advocacy group Fight For Schools, Ian Prior, supports the changes. Prior told The Post that if applied “correctly,” the changes could unlock key critical thinking skills that students can use to make their own analysis and decision as they mature into young leaders.”
The Virginia Education Association did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
Education appeared to be a relevant issue last November when Youngkin defeated Democratic challenger Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia gubernatorial race. Amid national attention surrounding parental involvement in education, McAuliffe argued in a debate against parents being able to tell schools what to teach. Youngkin responded to these concerns by promoting himself as an advocate for parental involvement in education.
In September, the state’s Department of Education reversed another one of Northam’s directives involving trans-identifying students. The new directive prohibits students from identifying as the opposite gender without documentation and requires schools to keep parents informed about their child’s “psychological development.”
From coast to coast, transgender activists are working to push chemical castration and genital mutilation on minors at all costs. In September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 107 into law, blocking officials from enforcing other states’ laws that hinder access to transgender medical procedures and drugs for minors.
Meanwhile, in Virginia, the Pride Liberation Project (PLP) is organizing resources to help confused minors whose parents are not supportive of their gender and/or sexual identity experimentation to run away from their homes to stay with a “queer-friendly” adult. The potential for predatory behavior with this initiative is alarming.
PLP leader, Aaryan Rawal, now a college student, does not seem to be concerned about the risks of sending confused children into strangers’ houses “within 1-2 days” of their separation from their families. He sent messages to PLP members, mostly high school and middle school students, that the organization could offer rides and money promptly.
As reported by Asra Nomani, on July 15, 2022, Rawal wrote on Discord, “We can pay for Ubers, Lyfts, and other passes if you need to leave immediately. … In the short term, we can provide a couple of hundred dollars … through Venmo or Zelle.” For the longer term, he offers more money. “We can also set up a dedicated ActBlue fundraising page for you and get allies to donate. In the past, this has led to thousands of dollars in donations. All of this money is yours.”
At best, PLP is helping children run away from home. But it seems there is a sinister drive behind this network. Children are among our society’s most vulnerable, and those confused and separated from their parents are ripe prey. It is suspicious that identity disagreements within families, notably during this era of the social contagion of gender dysphoria and confusion — particularly among middle schoolers, would ever justify removing children from their families and placing them with strangers. Would these same actors argue that we take away a 13-year-old conservative girl from her liberal parents who refuse to affirm her political identity and place her with a random identity-affirming adult male stranger?
This is illegal and absurd. Saying so is common sense, not bigotry, as members of groups like PLP and Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Pride suggest on social media. These groups are manipulating the political landscape to obliterate parental rights and push transgenderism on children — even in elementary schools.
On its website, PLP boasts that it has advocated for the books “Gender Queer” and “Lawn Boy” to remain in public school libraries. Its members have promoted compelled speech (via mandatory pronouns). Multiple PLP members spoke at a July 2022 Fairfax County School Board meeting in favor of proposed changes to the Family Life Education (FLE) curriculum that include lessons on transgender transitioning as early as fourth grade and co-ed FLE instruction to make students who identify as transgender feel more comfortable.
Arguably not by coincidence, the students who spoke at the board meeting all carried the same message: “Queer” students feel frightened and depressed. The PLP speakers repeatedly cited 50 percent as the community’s depression rate and suggested that changes to the FLE curriculum would help them feel supported. Their messages were so consistent, in fact, it would not be surprising if someone else wrote them.
On Sept. 25, 2022, Rawal sent PLP members detailed talking points and provided media training for the student walkout that occurred later that month. The walkout was meant to object to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s efforts to preserve parental rights and roll back Ralph Northam’s heavily politicized “Model Transgender Policies.” Rawal encouraged students to say that these efforts would “hurt Queer students,” “erase [their] existence,” and cause depression and potentially suicide.
In Q&A forums with PLP walk-out participants, Rawal further told a student who was not permitted to hang flyers in the school to proceed. “My honest response is do it anyway. Admin won’t penalize over flyers distributed manually…” Rawal also offered reimbursements of up to $25 for walkout expenses. When he realized he needed megaphones for the walkout and nearby stores were sold out of them, he wrote “f—, let me dm rigby.” Notably, Robert Rigby, a retired teacher and co-chair of FCPS Pride appears to be helping to organize and support PLP initiatives as well.
Adults organizing groups such as PLP are providing resources to help children run away from home. These minors, who are not permitted by law to drink alcohol or smoke tobacco, could potentially travel to California — now a so-called “gender-affirming” sanctuary state — to obtain permanent and irreversible surgical procedures, and/or medication, without their parents’ consent.
These transgender ideology pushers are not simply accepting, they are aggressive in encouraging medical experimentation among children and keeping parents in the dark. Permanently scarring children behind a parent’s back is a particular kind of evil we will, hopefully, look back on in disbelief.
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a mother, author, and member of the Independent Women’s Network.
Last week, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin further delivered on his gubernatorial campaign promise to give parents more control over their children’s education. The Virginia Department of Education issued new model policies specifically directed at resisting the radical gender ideology that has become commonplace even in the Commonwealth’s elementary schools.
The New Model Policies
Virginia’s new model policies explicitly state that students’ participation in school programming and use of school facilities such as bathrooms or locker rooms should be based on their biological sex and that modifications should be offered only to the extent required under federal law. They also assert that students who are minors must be referred to by the name and pronouns in their official records unless there is explicit parental approval for the use of something else. And they also declare that schools may not conceal information about a student’s so-called gender identity from his or her parents and that parents must be given the opportunity to object before any gender-related counseling services are offered.
The document reads: “Parents have the right to instill in and nurture values and beliefs for their own children and make decisions concerning their children’s education and upbringing in accordance with their customs, faith, and family culture.” In a rebuke to those officials and administrators who have encouraged wrongly named gender-affirming “care,” it explains: “Parents are in the best position to work with their children and, where appropriate, their children’s health care providers.”
The new model policies are subject to a 30-day period for public comment that begins later this month. Following that period, in accordance with a 2020 state law, school boards across the Old Dominion must adopt policies that are “consistent with” those of the state’s Department of Education. Macaulay Porter, a spokeswoman for Youngkin, noted that the updated guidance “delivers on the governor’s commitment to preserving parental rights and upholding the dignity and respect of all public school students.”
A Personal Anecdote
I can personally speak to how widespread the promotion of gender ideology has become, at least in Fairfax County, where I attended school for 12 years and then worked as a high-school history teacher. The very day after Virginia’s Department of Education issued this new guidance, my family attended a picnic in our neighborhood. My two eldest children (ages 9 and 7) were playing a game with other neighborhood kids, including, a bit awkwardly, a teenage girl who attends the local public high school. During the game, and when my wife and I were not nearby to overhear, this teenager told my children that she identifies as both a girl and a boy and that there are “72 genders.”
My wife and I homeschool our children. It wasn’t something I was eager to do — my extended family has been attending county public schools since the 1960s, and I was proud of my experience in FCPS 20 years ago. But I knew things had changed very dramatically in the last two decades, and I wanted to shield my children from ideas and behaviors that are not commensurate with their maturity. Simply put, prepubescent children don’t need seminars in gender fluidity and sexual experimentation. But over this past weekend, an FCPS-educated teenager took it upon herself to impart those ideas to my children.
As confusing as this was for my children — and as upsetting as it was to my wife and me — I do not level much blame at this teenager for taking away part of their innocence and forcing us to have conversations with our children about gender and sex we had been hoping to delay just a few more years. I blame FCPS teachers and administrators who welcomed this gender ideology in schools. And I blame smartphones and social media for proliferating these ideas with little parental oversight.
Protecting Our Children
Left-wing corporate media and Democratic politicians, of course, have been quick to attack Youngkin over his new policy. “Virginia has moved to restrict the rights of trans students in its public schools,” reads a mid-September headline from NPR. The Department of Education’s guidance “calls for the misgendering and outing of children in schools where they’re supposed to be safe. Absolutely shameful,” tweeted Virginia Democratic Del. Mike Mullin.
Think about the fact that in my kids’ very first interaction with a public school-educated teenager, she couldn’t help but share the confused, biologically inaccurate gender ideology she has been wrongly told is the most important part of her identity. That speaks to the pervasive nature and aggressiveness of this ideology and its adherents. Think about how many kids have had their lives thrown into chaos by adults who tell them they may be a boy in a girl’s body, “gender fluid,” or some other nonsense that may very well cause them permanent physical and emotional damage.
Thankfully, our kids trust their parents enough and have a solid enough understanding of what makes boys different from girls that we could have a brief, open, and hopefully instructive conversation about what they experienced on a neighborhood playground. Youngkin’s edict aims to ensure those conversations happen in the home, guided by loving parents, and less influenced by the confused ideology of bureaucrats who don’t have your children’s best interests at heart.
Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelor’s in history and master’s in teaching from the University of Virginia and a master’s in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.
Virginia’s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has signed a law that legally defines religion as including actions and expressions, not just personal belief, which is viewed as a win by religious liberty advocates. Known as House Bill 1063, the legislation defines the word “religion” as meaning “any outward expression of religious faith, including adherence to religious dressing and grooming practices and the carrying or display of religious items or symbols.” Youngkin spokesperson Macaulay Porter told The Christian Post in a statement Tuesday that the legislation is a “modest step” to advance religious liberty in Virginia.
“Governor Youngkin has a firm spiritual foundation that guides his entire life and will use every ounce of his authority to protect Virginians’ First Amendment right to freely live out their faith,” Porter said. “HB 1063 is a modest step toward preserving religious freedom in the Commonwealth and the Governor hopes to continue to build on that in the future.”
Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that has argued religious liberty cases before the United States Supreme Court, applauded the passage of HB 1063. ADF Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor said that the measure “provides a necessary and helpful clarification in the law to help ensure Virginians won’t face discrimination simply for outwardly expressing their religious beliefs.”
“Virginia law forbids discrimination on the basis of religion in multiple contexts yet fails to define the actual term ‘religion,’ which can leave Virginians vulnerable to hostile reactions to expressions of their faith,” said Baylor in a statement.
“We commend Gov. Youngkin and the Virginia General Assembly for resolving this ambiguity so that Virginians can freely live out their faith without fear of government punishment.”
The bill was introduced by Del. Irene Shin, a Democrat representing northern Virginia, with the aim of protecting individuals with an outward religious expression like wearing a yarmulke or cross from being discriminated against.
In April, after the legislation passed both houses of the General Assembly in unanimous votes, Youngkin offered an amendment to HB 1063 that would have instead defined religion as “all aspects of religious observance, practice, or belief.”
Shin denounced this change of language, claiming in a statement posted to Twitter that it “perverts the intention of this legislation and the legislative body.” After maintaining that Youngkin “hijacked my bill to push his own insidious, right-wing agenda,” Shin unveiled the hashtag #GetYourOwnDamnBill to highlight her disapproval of the amendment.
Last week Gov Youngkin aka Wolf in Fleece Clothing™ amended my bill HB1063.
I’m furious he hijacked my bill to push his own insidious, right-wing agenda. Maybe I should be used to it by now but nah I’m still appalled by his recklessly divisive policies.#GetYourOwnDamnBillpic.twitter.com/f41xQgV5Ah— irene shin ???????? (@ireneshintweets) April 21, 2022
“The practical implications of the Governor’s amendment would be to create legal protections for discriminatory and bigoted policies, acts and beliefs under the guise of religion,” she continued.
“The fact that this Administration would co-opt a universally approved bipartisan measure designed to ensure equal protections and weaponize it to advance their agenda of discrimination and division, while sadly unsurprising, is still appalling.”
Although the governor’s amended version of HB 1063 passed the Republican-controlled House of Delegates in a vote of 52-48 last month, it was not taken up by the Democrat-controlled Senate in time for the governor’s action deadline.
HB 1063 was one of 23 bills Youngkin signed into law Friday, as the regular session of the 162nd Virginia General Assembly came to a close. He acknowledged that “while most of these bills were returned to me in an imperfect form, I firmly believe they offer a bipartisan path forward.” The governor vetoed an additional seven bills sent to him by the legislature.
A Loudoun County, Virginia, teacher recently contacted police after the school librarian allegedly defended the presence of a book containing details about prostitution in the middle school library by claiming that it’s helpful to preteen and teenage student sex workers.
The conversation reportedly started after the Sterling Middle School teacher asked the librarian if the school had a copy of the book Seeing Gender by Iris Gottlieb, which includes a chapter titled “‘Sex Work’ Is Not a Bad Term.”
The teacher, whose name has been concealed for privacy reasons, had seen a May 24 tweet highlighting the chapter and its presence in a Loudoun County middle school library on the LCPS Can Do Better Twitter account.
As The Daily Wire reported, the teacher told police in a recorded conversation that the librarian, whose name is also withheld for privacy reasons, confirmed the library had the book and asserted it was beneficial to students engaged in sex work. The librarian did not provide the names of any current students, only pointing to one that graduated six years before that had allegedly been involved in the practice.
“She started talking about how there’s kids who come to the library who do sex work, and this makes them feel validated,” the teacher said in the interview. “As a teacher, if you get an individual student coming to you because you’re abused, you have to go [to] the police immediately.”
During the teacher’s interview with police, Deputy Jamie Holben — a former school resource officer for the middle school — stated that the school is in a neighborhood where authorities have reason to suspect there are cases of child trafficking.
The Christian Post reached out to Loudoun County Public Schools and the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office for comments on the claims. Responses are pending.
While police have not yet responded to requests for comment on the incident, the officer that spoke with the teacher stated that authorities would investigate the matter.
Executive Director of the Northern Virginia Human Trafficking Initiative Kay Duffield said in a 2019 statement to Loudoun Now that Virginia has the sixth-highest number of human trafficking cases in the U.S. Additionally, the director stated that most cases occur in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which includes Loudoun County.
The middle school teacher claims the book provides instructions to students about selling their bodies for hormone replacement therapy and other needs. The librarian reportedly replied: “There’s no pornography in it, so it doesn’t matter.” In addition, the librarian allegedly insisted that she marked the book for eighth graders, not the younger middle school students.
“I said, ‘what happens if a sixth grader checks it out?'” the teacher recalled. “She said, ‘I have a conversation with them about it.'”
The passage of the book pictured in the tweet explains that “Sex work is also used as a non-stigmatizing term for ‘prostitution.’ … Using the term ‘sex work’ reinforces the idea that sex work is work and allows for greater discussion of labor rights and conditions.”
The book informs readers that some people in the “sex trade” do not define what they do as a form of labor, “but simply a means to get what they need.” In addition to money, the chapter states that someone may “exchange sex or sexual activity for things they need or want, such as food, housing, hormones, drugs, gifts, or other resources.”
The book also notes that some sex workers operate within “legal working conditions, such as pornography or exotic dancing, and wish to avoid the negative associations with illegal or informal forms of sex work.”
This incident is not the first time a Virginia school district has faced criticism for reportedly exposing students to sexually explicit materials. During a Sept. 23 school board meeting last year, a parent of a student in Fairfax County Public Schools, one of the largest school districts in the U.S., read and shared images from two books available in the district’s high school libraries.
“After seeing a Sept. 9 school board meeting in Texas on pornography in the schools, I decided to check the titles at my child’s school, Fairfax High School,” the parent, Stacy Langton, told board members. She discovered that the same books are available in public school libraries in her school district.
According to Langton, the books Gender Queer and Lawn Boy depict men and boys having sex and contain graphic sexual descriptions.
“Both books describe different acts,” she said. “One book describes a fourth-grade boy performing oral sex on an adult male. The other book has detailed illustrations of a man having sex with a boy.”
The mother read the curse words and sexual acts featured in both books, maintaining that “this is not an oversight at Fairfax High School.” A school board member interrupted her, noting that “there are children in the audience here.”😣😪
A father in Loudoun County, Virginia, tore into American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten this week after the union boss claimed that a growing parental rights movement in America could lead to civil war. Brandon Michon — an outspoken parent who is also running for Congress as a Republican in Virginia’s 10th district — told Fox News on Monday that union heads and school boards across the country are the ones who started the conflict by pushing progressive ideologies in schools.
“They’ve already invaded the classroom,” Michon charged.
“When you think about it, [the union] colluded with the CDC, colluded with the DOJ and this administration on calling parents domestic terrorists,” he said.
Michon, who has four children under the age of 10, accused Loudoun County Public Schools and other progressive school districts of pushing their radical views surrounding sexual orientation, gender identity, and critical race theory on children without consent from parents.
“They have to have signed permission slips for their snacks, they have to have signed permission slips to go on field trips, but no one is asking me for permission to talk about my son’s penis,” he exclaimed. “It is unacceptable. They are pushing indoctrination on the most innocent part of the population.”
Weingarten made headlines last week after going off on proponents of the parental rights in education movement in America during an unhinged radio interview.
“We’ve been very lucky in America, and we in some ways live in a bubble for a long time. This is propaganda. This is misinformation. This is the way in which wars start. This is the way in which hatred starts,” the teachers union leader fumed to radio host Rick Smith.
Elsewhere in the discussion, she called backlash against progressive ideology being taught in public schools an “existential threat” to the country and complained that “right-wing extremists” are “exploiting” parents’ fears to accomplish political ends. Weingarten’s remarks served as a flash point in the heated battle between parents who want more control over their children’s education and the leaders of educational institutions who think they know better.
In recent months, parental outrage over transgender-affirming and critical race theory curricula in schools has culminated in legislation aiming to prevent such unwanted indoctrination. Perhaps the most popular piece of legislation is Florida’s House Bill 1557, which bars classroom discussion on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through the third grade and establishes scaleable guidelines for discussion on the subject matter in grades thereafter.
Outraged over what his children were being taught in school, Michon decided to speak up at school board meetings last year. Now he’s running for office with a campaign focused on parental empowerment and putting children’s interests first.
“The children just want to learn,” Michon told Fox News.
“If you want to talk about the biggest equalizer in all of education, literacy. Let’s get back to teaching more literacy. That [lifts] up all socio-economic classes,” he argued, adding, “Don’t talk about the vocal minority of parents when there is vocal minority on the other side. We need to renew the focus on our children. Math, science, history, the things that will make them good members of society.”
The new Republican leadership in Virginia — Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, and Attorney General Jason Miyares — went scorched earth upon entering office, which officially happened Saturday. Youngkin signed a host of executive orders fulfilling key campaign promises, while Miyares fired more than two dozen staff members in the AG’s office the day before taking office. The new governor signed nine executive orders and two executive directives to address public education, COVID restrictions, the climate, and the economy.
The first order Youngkin signed“delivers on his Day One promise to restore excellence in education by ending the use of divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory, in public education.”
“Political indoctrination has no place in our classrooms,” the order reads, in part. “Our children deserve far better from their education than to be told what to think. Instead, the foundation of our educational system should be built on teaching our students how to think for themselves. Virginia must renew its commitment to teaching our children the value of freedom of thought and diversity of ideas.”
The order explains:
The vast majority of learning in our schools involves imparting critical knowledge and skills in math, science, history, reading and other areas that should be non-controversial. Inherently divisive concepts, like Critical Race Theory and its progeny, instruct students to only view life through the lens of race and presumes that some students are consciously or unconsciously racist, sexist, or oppressive, and that other students are victims. This denies our students the opportunity to gain important facts, core knowledge, formulate their own opinions, and to think for themselves.
The second order empowers parents to decide whether their children wear face masks at school, the fourth order initiates an investigation into the alleged wrongdoing by the Loudoun County School Board regarding sexual assaults, the sixth order declares Virginia open for business, orders seven and eight address human trafficking and anti-Semitism, and order nine begins the process to withdraw Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
“It’s Day One, and we are going to work just like we promised,” Youngkin said in a statement.
On Friday, Miyares informed 30 staff members in the Virginia attorney general’s office, including 17 attorneys, that they would not have a job in his office, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
“During the campaign, it was made clear that now Attorney General-elect Miyares and Attorney General Herring have very different visions for the office,” a spokeswoman for Miyares told the newspaper. “We are restructuring the office, as every incoming AG has done in the past.”
Miyares has pledged to be tough on crime.
“Virginia is in the middle of a public safety crisis. That’s why Virginians elected pro-law enforcement statewide officials, to end the criminal-first, victim-last policies that have led to Virginia’s highest murder rate in decades,” Miyares wrote in an essay last month.
Winsome Sears, the Republican lieutenant governor-elect of Virginia, told The New York Times that Democrats are at risk of losing Black and immigrant voters. As an immigrant from Jamaica and the first black woman elected to statewide office in Virginia, Sears told the NYT she was the perfect person to kickstart her demographic’s political realignment in America.
“The message is important,” Sears told the outlet. “But the messenger is equally important.”
“The only way to change things is to win elections,” she said. “And who better to help make that change but me? I look like the strategy.”
Sears, who won alongside Republican Virginia governor-elect Glenn Youngkin, attributes her own identification as a conservative to listening to debates over abortion and welfare during the 1988 presidential election, the NYT reported. She later ran in a majority-black district for the House of Delegates in 2001, winning a seat that had been held by a Democrat for 20 years.
Sears argued that Republicans never even tried to sever the historic relationship between black voters and the Democratic Party, which is partly why she decided to run for lieutenant governor, the NYT reported.
Virginia Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears gestures as she delivers remarks to supporters at the Old Town Alexandria Farmers Market on October 30, 2021 in Alexandria, Virginia. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“I just took a look at the field, and said, ‘My God, we’re gonna lose again,’” Sears said. “Nobody was going to reach out to the various communities that needed to be heard from: women, immigrants, you know, Latinos, Asians, Blacks, etc.”
Jennifer McClellan, who campaigned for the Democratic nomination for governor before losing to former Gov. Terry Mcauliffe, agreed that her peers should not take black voters for granted, but said it was wrong to assume they supported Sears’ conservative ideology.
“The vast majority of Black voters disagree with her on abortion, on school choice, on guns,” McClellan told the NYT. “Those aren’t necessarily the issues driving Black voters anyway. It’s the economy, it’s health care, it’s broader access to education.”
John Fredericks, a conservative radio host, agreed that Sears’ principles might have risked her chances of victory had her campaign actually raised enough money to broadcast her politics, the NYT reported. He called her general election campaign “a train wreck from start to finish.”
Glenn Youngkin’s gubernatorial win in Virginia sent a clear message to government bureaucrats: treat parents with more respect. Parents are paramount to their kids’ welfare and education, and they have a right to be angry when treated otherwise. Yet parents should also reflect on how we got here and consider how they share at least some of the blame.
For decades, public schools have encroached on some basic parental responsibilities — from feeding kids to health care to helping with homework. Is it any wonder school officials view themselves as the leading authorities on your children?
Consider that, today, a huge number of kids are dropped off at schools before the classes even begin, as early as 6:30 a.m. Kids are watched and fed a simple breakfast. This program, known as “before care,” allows parents to head to work early, which may be necessary for parents who work an early shift. Yet it’s also used by parents who want an early start to the day and a hassle- and kid-free morning.
Many parents also seem happy to let schools feed their kids. The school lunch program, originally designed to help low-income families, is now feeding any child, regardless of need. In fact, according to the School Lunch Association, 7.7 million students paid full price for a school lunch in 2019, meaning the child’s family did not qualify for a reduced or free school lunch.
The full price for a school lunch varies but it averages at about $2.48 for elementary school and $2.74 for high school. Even with rising inflation, that’s enough to make a simple meal for a child. Yet so many parents who could easily do this themselves instead opt to let the school feed their kids because it’s convenient.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture also funds weekend, holiday, and summer meal programs. This is on top of the generous food assistance that’s already provided to needy families through various programs. During the COVID shutdown of schools, even wealthy moms partook of these free food giveaways, since the USDA waived all requirements to show enrollment in the school meal program.
Working late? No sweat! Like the “before care” program, most schools now offer “after care” programs so that parents can work late. Participating students are typically assisted with their homework and fed. Not having to do homework with your kid sounds nice, but it also robs parents of knowing what is being taught and how their kid is doing with his or her schoolwork.
Students are even able to seek medical treatment without their parents’ consent. In Alexandria, Virginia, the high school’s “Teen Wellness Center” will alert parents if a child is seen for a cold, acne, or a few other minor illnesses. But parents are not informed if their child is there for a pregnancy test, diagnosis, and treatment of a sexually transmitted disease (including HIV), a prescription for birth control, “behavior change counseling,” mental health counseling, or substance abuse counseling. These services are all offered free of charge, so at no point would a student need to inform a parent.
Those who advocate for keeping children’s medical care private from parents often cite concerns about abuse arising from a parent finding out about their child’s sexual activity or its consequences. Yet school officials seem less concerned about the harms that could result from letting a child navigate these traumatic and potentially life-altering health conditions without assistance from their parents.
As for discipline, parents rarely have a place at the table. While schools used to be willing to contact parents, share information, and work as partners in setting kids on a better path, today, restorative justice programs cut out parents (and law enforcement), and reduce discipline to a performative joke.
If parents want to be respected by school officials, they need to stop ceding parenting basics to others. By placing these duties in the hands of teachers and school officials, parents have weakened their case that they are the primary caregivers for their children. I’m glad parents are fighting for their rights, but they should never have given up so much authority over their children’s upbringing in the first place.
Julie Gunlock directs the Independent Women’s Network and its Center for Progress and Innovation. She is the author of “From Cupcakes to Chemicals: How the Culture of Alarmism Makes Us Afraid of Everything and How to Fight Back.”
IT Support Technician Michael Hakopian (R) distributes computer devices to students at Hollywood High School on August 13, 2020, in Hollywood, California. With over 734,000 enrolled students, the Los Angeles Unified School District is the largest public school system in California and the 2nd largest public school district in the United States. | Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images
At least 26 state school board associations have distanced themselves from the National School Board Association after it urged the Biden administration to use federal law enforcement agencies against parents who oppose the teaching of controversial curriculum in public schools by labeling them as potential “domestic terrorists.”
The national grassroots organization Parents Defending Education says the states that have distanced themselves from the NSBA’s letter include: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Out of these, 12 states — Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin — have taken further action to withdraw membership, participation or dues from the NSBA.
PDE wrote to NSBA member states for their comment on the Sept. 29 letter sent to them by NSBA Interim Executive Director Chip Slaven, which critics believe likened activism of concerned parents to “domestic terrorism.”
The letter said the NSBA had asked the U.S. Department of Justice to mobilize law enforcement agencies to respond to “threats and acts of violence against public schoolchildren, public school board members, and other public school district officials and educators” as actions of “domestic terrorism.”
While some school board members across the nation have publicly shared incidents of threats they’ve purportedly received from angry residents, critics believe the request to get federal law enforcement involved is unwarranted and an attempt to silence parents. Specific examples of concerning actions included the disruption of school board meetings “because of local directives for mask coverings to protect students and educators from COVID-19,” the incitement of “chaos” at school board meetings by “anti-mask proponents,” and the confrontation of school boards by “angry mobs” that have led boards to “end meetings abruptly.”
John Halkias, the director of the NSBA’s Central Region, wrote to Slaven the same day, on Sept. 29, sharing his belief that “the Board of Directors should have been consulted before a letter like this was sent out publicly, and no less to the President of the United States and the National Press.”
“I also agree that the letter took a stance that went beyond what many of us would consider to be reasonable and used terms that were extreme, and asked for action by the Federal Government that many of us would not request,” he added. “In fact in a recent press conference, the White House Press Secretary stated that when these incidents occur, it is a matter for local law enforcement and local authorities, and NOT the federal government.”
In an Oct. 2 email, NSBA President Viola Garcia told the organization’s board of directors that “NSBA has been engaged with the White House and the Department of Education on these and other issues related to the pandemic for several weeks now.”
Five days later, the Department of Justice published a memorandum directing “the Federal Bureau of Investigations, working with each United States Attorney, to convene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders within 30 days” to “facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers and staff.”
Republican members of Congress also criticized the memo.
“As someone who was born in the Soviet Union, I am … disturbed, very disturbed, by the use of the Department of Justice as a political tool, and its power as the police state to suppress lawful public discourse,” Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., said in a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing. “The FBI is starting to resemble old KGB with secret warrantless … surveillance, wiretapping and intimidation of citizens.”
Americans have two political parties, both of which we loathe. We take turns punishing one by rewarding the other. Our political elites depend on this vicious cycle, and it’s why the only thing both parties ever seem to agree on is screwing ordinary Americans like a two-headed weasel in heat.
It’s easy to think it’s merely that vicious cycle at work in Virginia’s recent election upset: Democrats came out hard in favor of enabling bathroom rape, teaching kids that white skin is evil, and alerting the FBI about parents who expressed concern over such things.
So they got punished for it, and now Republicans have a new opportunity to squander. After that, Americans would normally punish the GOP for failing their mandate by reelecting Democrats who finally rediscovered how to shut up about their true intentions for five minutes.
But the opportunity presented to Virginia Republicans goes beyond another chance for the GOP to suckle on a fresh serving of voters’ goodwill. The massive rightward shift in Virginia wasn’t just business as usual. It was driven by a growing number of parents choosing to reclaim their authority over their households.
Parents Awaken to Their Responsibilities
Providence has given parents the awesome responsibility to raise and provide for the well-being of their children. Like any true responsibility, it comes with the authority to carry it out. When parents are unable to fulfill those responsibilities alone, they delegate.
For example, if parents cannot reliably protect their household from murderers, rapists, and robbers, they collaborate with institutions that can. If they cannot adequately educate their children alone, they enlist the help of teachers. This delegation is ultimately why any and every government institution exists: to assist families in some way or another.
It is precisely this authority Democrat Terry McAuliffe openly tried to usurp. As a result, the election became a referendum on whether children belong to the state. Enough parents were willing to say “no” that a blue state turned red overnight.
Parents can be tricked into delegating their authority to the unfit if they can plausibly tell themselves their children will be fine. The public school system is proof enough of that.
But the past couple of years have rapidly eroded that plausibility. We’ve seen schools forcibly cover children’s faces and isolate them from friends over an illness that poses virtually no threat to them. Remote learning also exposed their curriculum to an extent most parents had never witnessed before. The promotion of sexual degeneracy by schools is likewise coming home to roost more and more often.
Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied
It’s also not just Virginia and not just the schools. Our state and federal governments have spent two years devastating our economy, stripping our stores bare, and inflating our currency, making it harder than ever to care for our children. Our media has spent even longer lying to us about all this and more, and it is only doubling down on censorship for the sake of our elites. Worst of all, the Biden-Harris administration has tried to threaten our families with destitution unless we submit to vaccines whose risks often far outstrip any potential benefit.
These are not things parents will forget—especially when committed by those to whom we delegated our authority for the sake of our children. There are also limits to how long any parent is willing to simply wait and hope for improvement before taking action for our children’s sake.
This reclamation of authority by parents is still a work in progress, certainly—McAuliffe only lost by two points, after all. But it is in progress, and it’s not easily reversible.
Once a parent realizes someone has threatened his child, he will never trust that person again. If parents cannot disassociate the people threatening them from the institutions these people run, then they will not trust the institutions either.
Nobody who’s gotten a good look at the true face of progressivism is going to forget it anytime soon. This new dynamic is not stopping. It is accelerating.
If Republicans Don’t Use Their Power, They’re Toast
That brings us to the opportunity for Republicans. I’ve seen a lot of people are calling this a seismic shift in government. But the only reason parents voted for Republicans is that they still hold out hope that the GOP might willingly serve on their behalf.
Should that hope prove false, parents won’t stop trying to reclaim their authority; they will just start doing so in even more earth-shaking ways. One way or another, America’s vicious two-party cycle is not going to persist for much longer. This is the bare minimum Republican office-holders need to do to keep that hope alive.
First, education needs to be addressed, and a few token policy changes aren’t going to cut it. Those faculty and administrators who betrayed parents’ trust need to be removed.
The person who was distributing pornography to your children in school, for example, won’t suddenly become trustworthy because someone makes a rule. The same is true of teachers and administrators who hate your child because of her skin tone. Those people need to go—some fired, some even prosecuted.
Public universities that train teachers to act this way likewise need to be addressed. No program peddling degeneracy and critical race theory to aspiring educators should receive any state funding.
To the timid who complain, “But that’s cancel culture!” I simply respond, “Yes.” If someone starts shooting at your children, you aren’t “sinking to their level” by returning fire. It is parents’ moral obligation to fight back. Leftist institutions chose to escalate to this level of aggression, and they can choke on the consequences.
Yes, this will certainly be a long and difficult battle, which is why parents should immediately be given school choice until it’s resolved. Let parents take their tax dollars away from these errant institutions so they can enlist the help of real schools instead.
Faith In Election Integrity Must Be Restored
Republicans’ second job should be to decisively end voter fraud in their municipalities so parents are guaranteed a voice in their government. There is no point in winning votes if we lose on counting votes.
Do a full forensic investigation of elections you won whether you think there was fraud or not. Prosecute every violation you find whether it made a difference in the outcome or not. And after the investigation, enact common-sense fraud control to address everything you found.
Americans deserve to have confidence in their elections, and parents need to know they still have a say. Republicans need to teach by example that any state or municipality that refuses to transparently ensure the fairness of its elections is doing so because they have something to hide.
Third, Republicans need to use their state and local offices to protect people against the corporations and the federal government that are actively attacking families. Ban corporate mask and vaccine mandates. Provide compensation and other assistance for people being fired for their consciences. Enact laws explicitly holding corporations responsible for the side-effects of any medical treatment they mandate. And, of course, prevent schools from forcing vaccines and other procedures on students—or encouraging such things behind their backs.
Sanctuary States for Right Voters
Now that federal officials are trying to classify outspoken parents as domestic terrorists, states and municipalities will also need to protect their people from those agencies. Republicans should be as diligent about creating sanctuary cities for their own people as the Democrats are about creating sanctuaries for illegal aliens.
Republicans and other conservatives have been great at making careers out of complaining about the left, but that isn’t going to cut it anymore. Parents are finally acting like parents again and taking back their God-given authority. They are offering Republicans a chance to assist them. They aren’t going to stop taking action just because Republicans fail yet again.
The left can complain about white women voting for white kids all they want, but mothers and fathers are almost always going to vote for their children—not because they’re white, but because they’re their children. No adequate parent really cares about someone’s motive for viciously attacking his family; parents are still going to defend their kids no matter what it takes.
Matthew’s writing may be found at The 96th Thesis. You can also follow him on Twitter @matt_e_cochran or subscribe to his YouTube Channel, Lutheran in a Strange Land. He holds an MA from Concordia Theological Seminary.
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
If there’s one lesson to be learned from the red sweep in Virginia this week, it’s that politicians, schools boards, and education administrators shouldn’t mess with parents, especially on the well-being of their children. Many more school districts across other states still have to learn this lesson, and to that end, one Wisconsin parent is enlisting the help of attorneys to go after her son’s public school.
On Wednesday, counsel for the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) sent a letter to the school district of Kenosha, the scene of violent riots last summer and the site of the ongoing trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, threatening legal action if the Kenosha Unified School District does not allow a concerned parent to observe her son’s class as required by federal law.
It started when the mother of a student at the Kenosha School of Technology Enhanced Curriculum, a public charter school, became concerned about her son’s dropping grades. According to WILL, the student had reported a bevy of classroom disruptions that contributed to his struggle, including fighting, profanities, racial epithets, and property damage, as well as a new math curriculum that does not involve homework nor a textbook.
In September, the mom decided to take action, figuring the best way to help her son succeed would be to observe and understand his learning environment. She requested access to see his classroom for herself, but both the school district and the school reportedly denied her requests multiple times, giving her inconsistent rationale as to why she couldn’t enter.
For instance, Bill Haithcock, the chief of school leadership for the district, allegedly told the mother that an in-person observation by her would serve “no educational program,” ignoring the school’s charter contract, which says, “Parents are important partners in the educational program at KTEC.” Haithcock reportedly further noted that he didn’t think it was the “best idea right now” to “expos[e] the class to an outside visitor.”
However, as the WILL letter notes, the district’s policies and social media pages indicate that many other types of visitors such as mentors, chaperones, and nonprofits are welcomed.
Other times, the school district allegedly told the mother that as a parent, she was “not connected to the educational curriculum” and that allowing her to visit the classroom would open the floodgates of other parents wanting to observe. WILL hopes Kenosha schools change course and “view parents as partners in the education of children.”
According to federal law signed by the Obama administration in 2015, these denials are illegal, as WILL argues in its letter. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, public schools must have systems in place that involve parents in educational settings, meaning the Kenosha district must have a policy that grants parents the “observation of classroom activities.”
This is just the tip of the iceberg of parents’ rights in their children’s education. They also have a right to access curriculum, see progress reports, engage in communication with staff, schedule yearly parent-teacher conferences, and participate in their kid’s classes.
The Kenosha school district does have policies in place for parent involvement and “classroom visits,” yet it has so far stonewalled this concerned parent.
In response to The Federalist’s request for comment, the Kenosha Unified School District’s Chief Communications Officer Tanya Ruder said, “KUSD is aware of the WILL letter and is working with legal counsel to review the matter at hand.” The Kenosha School of Technology Enhanced Curriculum did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
WILL said it hopes Kenosha schools change course and “view parents as partners in the education of children.”
“Public school classrooms should not be a ‘black box.’ Parents have the right to know what is being taught in classrooms,” said WILL Deputy Counsel Dan Lennington.
This controversy over whether parents are partners in their children’s education or whether they should be staying out of schools has shown to have remarkable electoral significance this week, especially in the Virginia gubernatorial race. After candidate and former governor Terry McAuliffe said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” and doubled down on keeping parental involvement out of public schools, Republican candidate and parent advocate Glenn Youngkin won the race in the same state President Joe Biden won by 10+ points just one year ago.
“Federal and state laws impose simple and straightforward transparency requirements on public schools such as allowing parents to sit in on classes and the right to view curriculum,” Lennington told The Federalist. “But if public schools continue to treat parents as adversaries by concealing what’s going on inside school buildings, they face the real risk of an electoral backlash, like we just saw in Virginia.”
Kylee Zempel is an assistant editor at The Federalist. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
The Loudoun County, Virginia, mother of the skirt-wearing teen accused of raping a female classmate in a girls’ bathroom is speaking out in defense of her son, saying that he is not transgender, identifies as male, and simply “wanted sex.”
The woman, who remains unnamed at the time of this reporting, told the Daily Mail that her 15-year-old son is male and not transgender. She defended her son as simply engaging in the actions of a “heterosexual, hormonal teen who, in the case of the rape, had consensual sex with the girl twice before.”
“He’s a 15-year-old boy that wanted to have sex in the bathroom, with somebody that was willing,” she said. “And they’re twisting this just enough to make it a political hot button issue.”
The woman said that her son — who she admitted is “deeply troubled” — was only wearing a skirt that particular day because he has an “androgynous style.”
She explained, “He would wear a skirt one day and then the next day, he would wear jeans and a T-shirt, a polo, or hoodie. He was trying to find himself and that involved all kinds of styles. I believe he was doing it because it gave him attention he desperately needed and sought.”
The woman added that her son described the sexual assault to her in a way that made her believe the incident was all a misunderstanding. The two, according to the woman, met in a bathroom earlier in the day because the female teen “wasn’t feeling well that day.”
“He was worried about her, asked her how she was feeling, touched her forehead, brought water for her,” his mother recalled, and said that her son told her that he and the female teen talked about having sex later on in the day.
She continued, “He’d mentioned something about hooking up with her, said they’d discussed it that day and that she was wishy-washy, was like, ‘Yeah, maybe, I still don’t feel well, we’ll see.'”
She then said that her son later followed the female teen into the bathroom a second time later in the day, where he ended up advancing on her when she said that she was feeling “much better” than earlier the morning. The male teen, according to the woman, “depicted the rape as an accident” and said that he didn’t mean to insert himself into her anus.
“He said he was intending for vaginal and it ended up for 10 seconds as anal,” the woman recalled. “He knew she was in pain. He said, ‘Are you okay?” She said that hurt. And he’s like, ‘What kind of pain?'”
The woman said, “He was showing genuine concern.”
She then called into question the teen girl’s response to the incident.
“If I was in a position where I was about to be raped, I would be screaming, kicking, everything,” she said. “You’re 15. You can reasonably defend yourself. You’re not just going to sit there and take it. And so, because there wasn’t a presence of a fight, he felt it was okay to keep going.”
In late October, the teen was found guilty for the May sexual assault, which took place at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, Virginia. His victim admitted that the two previously had sex in the bathroom and that they’d agreed to meet there once more during lunch break. In her testimony, the unnamed female student said that she arrived at the bathroom and told him that she no longer wanted to have sex, but he threw her on the floor in response and forced her into sexual activities.
He was remanded to juvenile detention pending a Nov. 15 hearing in connection with the second incident — which reportedly took place at Broad Run High School in Ashburn in early October.
The Daily Mail reported that sources stated that the 15-year-old has a checkered record when it comes to sexual indiscretions, and in fifth grade the teen reportedly sent nude photos of himself to a female classmate.
The girl’s parents reportedly agreed not to file charges in exchange for the district keeping the boy away from their daughter.
His mother, according to the outlet, confirmed the incident and snapped, “What the f*** does that have to do with anything?”
“What are they trying to do?” she asked. “Did they hire an investigator to dig up everything and ruin him for the rest of his life? … He’s been a challenging child his whole life, which I’ve dealt with myself. My son’s gone through multiple forms of counseling and therapy, resources here, at school, friends, family. It’s been 15 years of hell trying to get him to do better and be better.”
According to the report, the woman still is not sure what to make of the charges in connection to the Oct. 6 incident.
“I didn’t hear my son’s side of it because he was being hauled into [juvenile detention] before I could talk to him,” she concluded. “What is the end game on this? My son’s going to be on the sexual registry and be committed to Megan’s Law for the rest of his life because he had 15-year-old hormones.”
Virginia’s hotly contested gubernatorial race is just days away, and with Republican Glenn Youngkin and former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe tied in the polls, the professional left isn’t leaving anything to chance. A McAuliffe defeat is largely considered a bellwether for congressional Democrats in the 2022 midterms.
So how do Democrats plan to ensure a McAuliffe win and a subsequent retention of power in the state and U.S. Senate? By using the same tactic they used in the 2020 national contest: profligate mail-in voting and fake grassroots get-out-the-vote efforts funding by philanthropies and wealthy leftists, a strategy revealed through Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s gift to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL).
And it’s a smart strategy. Joe Biden voters were twice as likely as Donald Trump voters to vote by mail in 2020, for example; and we know the effect of Zuckerberg’s millions on the 2020 election. The Capital Research Center specializes in exposing the activists behind these efforts. Here’s what we’ve discovered about the funding and activists behind them.
Getting Out the Vote for Democrats
Vote Forward is one of the get-out-the-vote (GOTV) groups swamping Virginians with a letter practically begging them to vote early. Here’s my copy:
Vote Forward is ostensibly nonpartisan—until you look at its original website from 2018, which reads “Flip the House Blue: Send letters to unlikely voters.” Elsewhere, the group admits it was founded to send “get-out-the-vote” mailers to “traditionally underrepresented communities,” code for Democrat-leaning constituencies.
The New York Times praised Vote Forward’s goal of boosting Democrat turnout just one week before the 2020 election. An old FAQ states that many of its campaigns “typically target low-propensity voters who we believe are likely to vote for Democrats when they do cast a ballot.”
In 2020, that target was 10 million voters. To make that happen, Vote Forward sued the U.S. Postal Service, accusing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy—a Trump nominee—of “undermin[ing] USPS’s ability to ensure the on-time delivery of mail ballots” in the 2020 election. The details of their settlement remain unclear, but USPS agreed to deliver mail-in ballots in time for Georgia’s January special election, the result of which ultimately handed Democrats control of the U.S. Senate.
Like many organizations that present themselves as more interested in voting than election outcomes, Vote Forward is part of the Left’s Voting Machine: A massive web of interconnected GOTV nonprofits commanding tens of millions of dollars, mostly gifted by ultra-wealthy institutions like the Ford, Gates, and Rockefeller Foundations.
We’ve traced more than $600,000 flowing to Vote Forward from the Hopewell Fund, part of a $731 million “dark money” network run by the consultancy Arabella Advisors in Washington, DC. After studying this network for years, it’s become clear to us that wherever Arabella is involved, one is sure to find the left’s top operatives as well.
For example, Vote Forward’s board includes Ezra Reese, a partner at Perkins Coie and its Marc Elias-led spin-off (the Elias Law Group) “focused on electing Democrats, supporting voting rights, and helping progressives make change”—a fact you won’t find advertised on the “nonpartisan” group’s website. Perkins Coie is the left’s law firm of choice. Elias was general counsel to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and a partisan operative whose past dealings include George Soros-funded efforts to abolish voter ID laws.
The center explicitly targeted the “New American Majority,” another code for likely Democratic voters that they define as “young people, people of color and unmarried women.”That bloc contains 73 percent of all unregistered voters nationwide, which is why the left-wing strategists at the Democracy Alliance consider their turnout “central to progressive long-term success.”
The IRS requires all nonprofits be officially nonpartisan in order to be tax exempt. In the center’s case, nonpartisanship comes in the shape of a fig leaf—as liberal journalist Sasha Issenberg explains in his 2012 book, The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns: “Even though the group was officially nonpartisan, for tax purposes, there was no secret that the goal of all its efforts was to generate new votes for Democrats” (emphasis added).
We were among the first to report in-depth on how billionaire Zuckerberg and the little-known Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) spent $350 million to effectively privatize the 2020 election in battleground states, helping turnout for Biden in the name of COVID-19 “relief.”
Overnight, this little nonprofit’s revenues grew by more than 12,000 percent from $2.8 million thanks to Zuckerberg’s cash injection—fueling its “nonpartisan,” “charitable” façade to elections officials and helping Democrat turnout in precisely the spots Biden needed to win the presidency.
Across nine states, our data shows that CTCL’s grants consistently ignored Trump counties in favor of big, Democratic-leaning spots like Philadelphia, Maricopa County, and Houston—all essential to Biden’s victory. In Georgia, for instance, Biden counties were two-and-a-half times more likely to receive CTCL funding than Trump counties.
Virginia received close to $4 million in Zuck Bucks, more than one-third of which went to populous Fairfax County to “support in-person early voting” and “vote by mail.” Fairfax County was Biden’s biggest vote-haul in the state and is the linchpin to McAuliffe’s strategy.
Nearly $970,000 paid for “temporary staffing support” to bolster Fairfax County’s elections agency. That may sound innocuous, but as CTCL expert William Doyle recently wrote at this site, that funding “supported the infiltration of election offices by paid Democratic Party activists.”
[CTCL] funded self-described ‘vote navigators’ in Wisconsin to ‘assist voters, potentially at their front doors, to answer questions, assist in ballot curing … and witness absentee ballot signatures,’ and a temporary staffing agency affiliated with Stacey Abrams called ‘Happy Faces’ counting the votes amidst the election night chaos in Fulton County, Georgia.
Fairfax County applied for an extension to its CTCL grant in January, but ultimately returned its remaining $187,709 in April, spokesman Brian Worthy told me. To his knowledge, the county has not applied for another grant for the 2021 election. That’s a good start, but to save the integrity of our elections, Zuck Bucks need to be banned. No exceptions.
There’s no faster way to destroy what remaining trust Americans have in their elections than by giving them to the highest bidder. Private funding of elections would take us back to the worst of the 19th century robber barons, when rich political machines won elections by buying public officials and intimidating voters. It also presents opportunities for foreign interests to manipulate our politics and undermine American sovereignty.
It’s unknown how much CTCL money remains in Virginia or if the group has continued to make grants here. Neighboring Fairfax City reports $14,175 in CTCL funds leftover for the 2021 election.
CTCL has been surprisingly mum about the ongoing election considering how loudly it advertised open-ended grants to Georgia counties in January. It’s possible that the dozens of exposés, hundreds of critical news articles, flurry of state Zuck Buck bans, and an inquiry from furious congressional Republicans silenced the leftists running CTCL.
Or maybe not. A recent CTCL statement calls lawsuits against its grants program “frivolous” and its funding “equitable,” particularly in small counties with small elections budgets.
Today’s left has cynically embraced Zuck Bucks out of short-term thinking, believing like NPR that “private money from Facebook’s CEO saved the 2020 election.” That’s a losing hand. Americans can see that the same leftists who’ve now embraced plutocracy were just yesterday crying “eat the rich” and “abolish billionaires.” Close to a dozen states have already banned Zuck Bucks and grassroots groups are leading a national movement to audit the 2020 election and save the country.
Leftists believed the country would overlook their desperate indiscretions, claiming—as CTCL does—that Zuckerberg’s unprecedented spending spree somehow made 2020 “the most secure election in U.S. history.” We’ll know even more in December, when CTCL releases its IRS Form 990 filing to the public. If coming revelations are anything like observers expect, that claim will age about as well as milk.
Hayden Ludwig is an investigative researcher for the Capital Research Center in Washington, DC.
A lot of roadside signs for Virginia’s Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe include a special message: “Vote in Free and Fair Elections beginning September 17.” Odd. Shouldn’t “free and fair” go without saying? Why include it on a campaign sign?
This is especially odd since the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors recently asked Virginia’s current governor, Democrat Ralph Northam, to waive the legally required witness signature for absentee ballots, as well as the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number, both statutory requirements. They asked this about a month after voting began.
For me, the gratuitous addition looks like an attempt to cover up the left’s belief that fair elections are below its paygrade. McAuliffe’s operatives can’t possibly believe it, especially as they work to change and ignore rules in the middle of the game. But they sure want you to believe the electoral changes they enacted for 2021 in Virginia—including expansions of mail-in balloting, conditions for ballot harvesting, no requirement for photo ID, etc.—somehow add up to “free and fair.”
On top of that, the huge ballot drop box in front of Fairfax County is supposed to have 24/7 surveillance, but Director of the Fairfax County Office of Elections Scott Konopasek says the camera feed will never be available to the public.
As Mollie Hemingway’s investigative work in her recent bestseller “Rigged” shows, the 2020 elections added a lot of moving parts to the machinery of election rigging. In addition to inviting fraud, there are now more ways to disguise irregularities and to render election results unverifiable. Such chaos-by-design has been in the works for many years. It reached a tipping point when the oligarchical triad of Big Tech, Big Gov, and Big Media used the Wuhan virus shutdowns to vastly expand mail-in voting while relaxing controls on it during the 2020 presidential election.
Obviously, their first order of business was to prevent President Trump from winning re-election. I imagine the second order of business is to entrench these processes for other elections so that a permanent one-party state can cross all state lines.
At the moment, there seems to be just enough pretense—such as the continued existence of in-person polling places and polling officials who request some form of identification—to create an illusion of propriety. The idea is to keep actual voters clutching their ballots with the same persistent trust as Charlie Brown holding onto Lucy’s football every time she offers him a “free and fair” chance to kick it. McAuliffe, a heavily seasoned Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative, is joined at the hip to all that machinery. Yet Democrats in Virginia are acting as though they’re “nervous” that McAuliffe might lose.
Granted, if we’re operating on a level playing field, he should be nervous. For example, his callous assertion during a debate that parents shouldn’t be involved in what their children are learning in school caused a great backlash among his presumed base. It led to lifelong Democrat voters in Virginia openly campaigning for McAuliffe’s opponent, Glenn Youngkin. So, yes, it looks like McAuliffe should be in deep doo-doo. My guess, however, is that he isn’t really worried about “winning.”
Consider that he actually doubled down on excluding parents from their children’s education. He’s just fine with the idea of the FBI investigating concerned parents as domestic terrorists. He even walked away from a televised interview because he didn’t like the questions. This is the sort of behavior I’d expect from someone who believes he has it all locked up, kind of like the Biden campaign’s extreme confidence despite the candidate’s pathetic low energy and gaffe-prone appearances, of the snoozer of the DNC convention.
So if the McAuliffe campaign feels nervous, it’s likely only over the slight possibility of not generating enough fraud. So it looks like a two-track strategy. First, make sure enough leftist operatives (like that guy in Fairfax County) are taking care of the business of generating unverifiable fraud. Second, keep propping up the illusion of “free and fair.”
Maybe that’s how you get a CYA dog-and-pony show with Stacey Abrams stumping for McAuliffe by warning against voter suppression. Maybe that’s the point of Vice President Kamala Harris’s video to 300 black churches during Sunday morning services to get out the vote for McAuliffe. The in-your-face illegality of Harris’s “Souls to the Polls” action adds to the hubris.
I’ll still mark a ballot on Election Day in Virginia (if I’m not told that I already voted.) Assuming McAuliffe ends up in Richmond again, I’ll expect to see local polling places disappear in Virginia in the future. And I’ll continue to have contempt for fake elections in 2022 and beyond.
Vice President Kamala Harris is being accused of helping Virginia churches break federal law prohibiting tax-exempt churches from engaging in overt political activity. More than 300 “black churches” across Virginia will reportedly view a pre-recorded message from Harris over the next several weeks urging them to vote for Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the upcoming Virginia gubernatorial election.
According to CNN reporter Eva McKend, the message began airing Sunday and will be continue to be broadcasted through Nov. 2. The message “will air during morning services as part of outreach effort aimed to boost @TerryMcAuliffe,” McKend reported,
NEW — More than 300 Black churches across VA will hear from @KamalaHarris btwn Sun. and November 2 in video message that will air during morning services as part of outreach effort aimed to boost @TerryMcAuliffe.#VAGOV
In her message, Harris does not hide her endorsement of McAuliffe. Not only does she urge parishioners to “vote after today’s service,” but Harris tells church-goers that, “I know that you will send Terry McAuliffe back to Richmond.”
The explicitly political message, which certainly endorses a political candidate, seemingly violates the Johnson Amendment.
In 1954, Congress approved an amendment by Sen. Lyndon Johnson to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations, which includes charities and churches, from engaging in any political campaign activity. To the extent Congress has revisited the ban over the years, it has in fact strengthened the ban. The most recent change came in 1987 when Congress amended the language to clarify that the prohibition also applies to statements opposing candidates.
Currently, the law prohibits political campaign activity by charities and churches by defining a 501(c)(3) organization as one “which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”
The IRS further explains that tax-exempt organizations that violate the law are subject to losing their tax-exempt status.
Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.
Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.
Tax-exempt organizations, however, are permitted to engage in “certain voter education activities” and “other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process” so long as they are “conducted in a non-partisan manner.” Harris’ message clearly goes beyond such permitted activity.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki appeared to skirt the Hatch Act last week when she seemingly endorsed McAuliffe during a press briefing from the White House.
It’s bad enough that a middle school in Loudon County, Virginia, has decided to remove “male” and “female” signs from its bathrooms. But in an even more extreme nod to social insanity, this same school is removing the urinals from the boys’ bathrooms. Why? It’s because a number of biological females, who identify as males, are offended by the presence of urinals.
So rather than point out to these females that they are not really males (otherwise, they’d have no problems with urinals), the school turns the world upside down to accommodate them.
This is the direct result of school policy 8040, which states, “LCPS staff shall allow gender-expansive or transgender students to use their chosen name and gender pronouns that reflect their gender identity without any substantiating evidence, regardless of the name and gender recorded in the student’s permanent educational record.”
So, no substantiating evidence is needed, and, the policy states, all teachers must comply with the students wishes.
In other words, impressionable students, including young children who haven’t the foggiest idea about sexual and gender realities, can simply declare their new identity, and the school must change their records accordingly. And woe be to the teacher or administrator who dares question this cultural madness.
Appropriately enough, the policy is titled, “Rights of Transgender and Gender-Expansive Students.” Gender-expansive? What does that even mean? Welcome to the new reality.
Of course, the problem with this new reality is that it has nothing to do with reality at all.
A biological boy who calls himself a girl is still a boy, and vice versa, no matter how much compassion we want to show them in the midst of their gender confusion. That’s why that girl cannot use a urinal: because she is not a boy. And saying this is neither hateful nor bigoted. It’s simply telling the truth.
But alas, we live in an age when truth has been displaced by perception, resulting in men’s bathrooms on college campuses having tampons on hand, because “men can menstruate.”And “breastfeeding” is replaced by “chestfeeding,” lest “men” breastfeeding their children feel offended.
And when you read stories stating, “When Jesse Ballard found out he was pregnant, he was shocked yet excited.” (Jesse, the “husband,” is the biological female, impregnated by his “wife,” who is the biological male.) And this is something we are supposed to celebrate. In reality, for all involved, it is heartbreaking. Surely, God has a better way.
Unfortunately, these decisions do not only affect the individuals making choices for themselves. Instead, they affect others living or working or going to school with them.
As David Kubal pointed out in his article about the urinals being removed from a school in his district, the perceived needs of roughly 0.3% of the population, now turn the world upside down for the other 99.7%.
Accordingly, he writes, because of this tiny percentage of people in Loudoun County:
46,000 junior high and high school students were given permission, by the school system, to believe they may not be a male or female as their chromosomes have determined by God’s design.
23,000 young women will be required to share a bathroom and locker room with young men.
Thousands of young women’s positions on teams are now in jeopardy by men who are now allowed to participate in female sports on female teams.
These school bathrooms may now become the scene of sexual assault and sexual immorality in ways that will mark the lives of these young men and women forever.
Teachers will have to remember a person’s desired pronouns or other “gender-expansive” terminology (I must confess, I have never heard this term, nor do I know what it means).
That’s why, in 2011 in the context of the trajectory of LGBT activism, I asked, “How far have we already deviated from the path? Where will this current trajectory take us? If our college kids can describe themselves as ‘genderqueer dykes’ and ‘transgender gay males,’ what is coming next? How about the ‘trans child’? How about ‘queer in the crib’?”
How about the bathrooms in your children’s schools removing male or female identification and all urinals removed lest they offend biological females who identify as males?
The reality is that, based on where things have been going for several decades now, none of this should surprise us. The big question should be: if we don’t stand together and help turn the tide, what’s coming next?
I’m all for helping kids who are deeply confused about their gender identity and suffering real internal pain. I’m also sure that the current LGBT trajectories will do far more harm than good. Can we not all see where this is going now?
Dr. Michael Brown (www.askdrbrown.org) is the host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program. He holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a professor at a number of seminaries. He is the author of 40 books. Connect with him on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.
Loudoun County, Virginia teachers Kim Wright (R) and Monica Gill (L) | Alliance Defending Freedom
A pair of teachers are seeking to take a Virginia school district to court over a newly passed policy requiring, among other things, that staff uses the preferred names and pronouns of trans-identified students. Loudoun County High School history teacher Monica Gill and Smart’s Mill Middle School English teacher Kim Wright filed an amended complaint to block the new policy passed last week by the Loudoun County School Board.
By a vote of 7-2, the board passed Policy 8040: Rights of Transgender and Gender-Expansive Students last week despite considerable opposition to the proposal from some teachers and parents.
Gill and Wright propose to be added to a pre-existing legal challenge over the school district’s treatment of Leesburg Elementary School teacher Bryon Tanner Cross, who was placed on leave after voicing his displeasure with the policy proposal during a school board meeting.
Filed Monday, the amended complaint argues that Cross, Gill and Wright oppose the new policy because they believe it “communicates that gender identity, rather than biological reality, fundamentally shapes and defines who we truly are as humans, that our sex can change, and that a woman who identifies as a man really is a man.”
The complaint further alleges that if the teachers were to comply with the policy, “they would be forced to communicate a message they believe is false.”
“[I]f they refer to students based on their biological sex, they communicate the views they actually believe — that our sex shapes who we are as humans, that this sex is fixed in each person, and that it cannot be changed, regardless of our feelings or desires,” the amended complaint states.
The legal filing adds that the school district has “refused to find middle ground” and “made this case about far more than titles or pronouns.”
“[T]hey have taken a side in a national debate over competing views of human nature and compelled conformity to, and support for, only one view,” the complaint charges. “Under the timeless free speech principles enshrined in the Virginia Constitution and laws, Defendants cannot compel one side to voice the other’s beliefs.”
Tyson Langhofer of the Alliance Defending Freedom, the legal nonprofit representing the teachers, said in a statement on Tuesday that he believes the teachers “shouldn’t be forced to promote ideologies that are harmful to their students and that they believe are false.”
“Loudoun County Public Schools is now requiring all teachers and students to deny truths about what it means to be male and female and is compelling them to call students by their chosen pronouns or face punishment,”stated Langhofer.
“Public employees cannot be forced to contradict their core beliefs just to keep a job. Freedom — of speech and religious exercise — includes the freedom not to speak messages against our core beliefs.”
Policy 8040 requires that school faculty and staff use the chosen name and pronouns of a student who identifies as “gender-expansive or transgender.”
“School staff shall, at the request of a student or parent/legal guardian, when using a name or pronoun to address the student, use the name and pronoun that correspond to their consistently asserted gender identity,”the policy reads.
“The use of gender-neutral pronouns is appropriate. Inadvertent slips in the use of names or pronouns may occur; however, staff or students who intentionally and persistently refuse to respect a student’s gender identity by using the wrong name and gender pronoun are in violation of this policy.”
The policy allows students to use the restroom or locker room “that corresponds to their consistently asserted gender identity,” advising school administrators to consider adding “gender-inclusive or single-user restrooms” for more privacy.
According to a frequently-asked-questions document, LCPS recommended that schools “make efforts to eliminate gender-based practices to the extent possible,” claiming that these practices “can have the effect of marginalizing, stigmatizing, and excluding students, regardless of their gender identity or gender expression.”
“Examples of practices that may be based on gender, and which should be eliminated, include grouping students for class activities, gender-based homecoming or prom courts, limitations on who can attend as ‘couples’ at school dances, and gender-based events such as father-daughter dances,” reads the FAQ document.
The policy garnered national headlines when LCPS suspended Cross after he spoke out in his personal capacity against the policy at a school board meeting in May.
“My name is Tanner Cross, and I am speaking out of love for those who suffer with gender dysphoria,” stated Cross at the time. “I love all of my students, but I will never lie to them regardless of the consequences.”
Cross sued the school district in response to the suspension, with a judge granting the Christian teacher a temporary injunction for his reinstatement in June while the lawsuit proceeds. LCPS is appealing the judge’s decision.
“LCPS respectfully disagrees with the Circuit Court’s decision to issue the injunction, and it is appealing this ruling to the Supreme Court of Virginia,”stated LCPS back in June.
“Many students and parents at Leesburg Elementary have expressed fear, hurt and disappointment about coming to school. Addressing those concerns is paramount to the school division’s goal to provide a safe, welcoming and affirming learning environment for all students.”
Participants carrying a rainbow flag attend the annual gay pride. | Reuters/Annika Af Klercker/TT News Agency
A judge has ruled against a group of churches, schools and a pro-life pregnancy center challenging a Virginia law that adds sexual orientation and gender identity to state antidiscrimination law. Judge James E. Plowman Jr. issued a ruling from the bench last week in favor of the Virginia Values Act, which was passed by the Democrat-controlled state government in 2020.
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring released a statement last Friday expressing support for the ruling, which will be entered as an order within the next few weeks.
“Our landmark civil rights protections will remain in place, and Virginia will remain a place that is open and welcoming to all, no matter what you look like, where you come from, how you worship, or who you love,” stated Herring.
“I was proud to support passage of the Virginia Values Act and am so proud of our work to successfully defend the law twice against legal attack.”
In late September of last year, Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit on behalf of two churches, three private schools, and a pregnancy care center against the Virginia Values Act. In the suit, Calvary Road Baptist Church of Fairfax County and its school, Community Fellowship Church of Staunton and its school, Community Christian Academy of Charlottesville, and Care Net of Loudon County claimed that the new law forced them to compromise various hiring and employment practices based on their sincere religious beliefs.
“[The Act] puts the Ministries in an impossible position: they must either abandon the religious convictions they were founded upon, or be ready to face investigations, an onerous administrative process, fines up to $100,000 for each violation, unlimited compensatory and punitive damages and attorney-fee awards, and court orders forcing them to engage in actions that would violate their consciences,” stated the suit, in part.
“Even merely posting their religious beliefs on their own websites could subject the Ministries to prosecution and exorbitant fines. These penalties could easily exceed a million dollars, ruin the Ministries financially, and make continuing their Christian missions impossible.”
In March, U.S. District Court Judge Claude M. Hilton rejected a separate challenge to the Virginia Values Act, another lawsuit filed by the ADF, this time on behalf of Robert Updegrove of Bob Updegrove Photography. In his decision, Hilton argued that the Updegrove lacked the standing to sue since the Act “has never been enforced against” him “or any other person.”
“In the almost nine months since the statute became effective, no complaint has been filed under the statute,”wrote Hilton in late March.
“No case or controversy exists when a person expresses a desire to change his previously compliant conduct to violate a new statute that no person, government or otherwise, has ever sought to enforce.”
Crowds gathered outside the Luther Jackson Middle School in Virginia, where concerned parents were rallying against critical race theory being taught to students in Fairfax County Public Schools. During Thursday’s “Stop CRT Rally,” a PTA and NAACP official spewed rhetoric against the parents, including proclaiming, “Let them die!”
“LET THEM DIE!”
An event flyer for the “Stop CRT Rally” stated: “It’s not about race or equity, it’s about a Communist Radical Takeover of America!” At the rally, there were counter protests, including a diatribe delivered by federal employee Michelle Leete, who is also the vice president of training at the Virginia Parent-Teacher Association, vice president of communications for the Fairfax County PTA, and first vice president of the Fairfax County NAACP.
Leete lambasted anti-critical race theory parents, even going so far as to say, “Let them die!”
So let’s meet and remain steadfast, steadfast, in speaking truth, tearing down double standards, and refuting double talk. Let’s not allow any double downing on lies. Let’s prepare our children for a world they deserve. Let’s deny this off-key band of people that are anti-education, anti-teacher, anti-equity, anti-history, anti-racial reckoning, anti-opportunities, anti-help people, anti-diversity, anti-platform, anti-science, anti-change agent, anti-social justice, anti-health care, anti-worker, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-children, anti-health care, anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-admissions policy change, anti-inclusion, anti-live-and-let-live people. Let them die. Don’t let these uncomfortable people, don’t let these uncomfortable people deter us from our bold march forward.
Asra Nomani, an education activist and vice president for strategy and investigations for the watchdog group Parents Defending Education, shared footage from the rally and counter protest on Twitter.
“I listened, stunned, as Michelle Leete, an executive of the NAACP and the PTA, put a target on the backs of parents just because they have a different point of view,” said Nomani, whose son recently graduated from Fairfax County Public Schools.
“What we heard tonight was hate speech, pure and simple. It was shocking that anyone would cheer and applaud a call to violence,” Nomani told the Daily Wire, “Ironically, her hateful, intolerant words are a perfect illustration of the divisive ideology of critical race theory in action. In the name of tolerance, it preaches intolerance and is a betrayal of all values of humanity and decency.”
Harry Jackson, who has three children in the Fairfax public school system and is president-elect of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Parent Teacher Student Association, told the Daily Wire, “I was in shock looking at the crowd, watching Ms. Leete pander to white liberals with her hateful rhetoric … Her call to violence against every kind of parent, including parents who oppose changes to admissions policies at schools like TJ, also reveal that she has a serious conflict of interest.”
In May, Nomani delivered a stirring speech where she slammed the Fairfax County Public Schools board for pushing “anti-racism” propaganda.
“And then by the fall, every single one of you voted to remove the merit-based race-blind admissions test to TJ. And we pled with you, as Asians, as an immigrant (I came at the age of 4, I knew no English), and you didn’t listen to us,” Nomani scolded the school board.
Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology, ranked the top math school in the country, instituted a “merit lottery,” where race became a factor in admissions and academic qualifications were a lesser determinant.
The Daily Mail reported that admissions data for the class of 2025 at the prestigious school shows that black students rose from 1% in 2021 to 7%, Hispanics grew from 3% to 11%, white students increased from 18% to 22%, but Asian students dropped from 73% to 54% because of the new standards.
A sign outside a classroom taken in 2016. | REUTERS/Tami Chappell
A public school district in Virginia that was ordered to reinstate a teacher punished for criticizing a proposed policy to require teachers to use trans-identified students’ preferred pronouns says it will appeal the decision to the state’s supreme court. Last week, a judge told the Loudon County School Board to reinstate Byron Tanner Cross, a physical education teacher at Leesburg Elementary School placed on administrative leave.
In a statement last Friday, Loudoun County Public Schools said that it will file an appeal of the June 8 decision, claiming that Cross’ comments were harmful. “LCPS respectfully disagrees with the Circuit Court’s decision to issue the injunction, and it is appealing this ruling to the Supreme Court of Virginia,” stated LCPS.
“Many students and parents at Leesburg Elementary have expressed fear, hurt and disappointment about coming to school. Addressing those concerns is paramount to the school division’s goal to provide a safe, welcoming and affirming learning environment for all students.”
The school district went on to state that while they respect “the rights of public school employees to free speech and free exercise of religion, those rights do not outweigh the rights of students to be educated in a supportive and nurturing environment.”
In May, LCPS held a meeting to discuss a proposed policy that would require students and faculty alike to use the preferred pronouns of youths who identify as transgender or “gender-expansive.”
Cross attended the meeting and spoke out against the proposal, telling the school board that he was “speaking out of love for those who suffer with gender dysphoria.”
“I love all of my students, but I will never lie to them regardless of the consequences. I’m a teacher, but I serve God first and I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it’s against my religion,”stated Cross at the meeting.
Two days after the meeting, Cross was put on administrative leave with pay and prohibited from going onto any school properties unless given permission. In response, Cross filed a complaint against LCPS and was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal nonprofit that handles religious liberty cases and has won several U.S. Supreme Court cases in recent years. ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer said in a statement that he believes public schools cannot “suspend someone simply for respectfully providing their opinion at a public meeting.”
“The school district favors a certain set of beliefs on a hotly contested issue, and it wants to force Tanner to cry uncle and endorse them as well,” stated Langhofer. “That’s neither legal nor constitutional, and neither was the school’s move to place Tanner on leave.”
Last week, Judge James E. Plowman of the 20th Judicial Circuit of Virginia granted Cross’ request for a temporary injunction against the board’s decision to place the teacher on leave. Plowman concluded that punishing Cross was “extreme” and “an unconstitutional action” since the views of the teacher, even if controversial, were nevertheless “permissible.”
“The Court agrees with Plaintiff’s analysis and concludes that Defendants’ actions to suspend the Plaintiff, as well as the additional restrictions placed upon him, adversely affected his constitutionally protected speech,”wrote the judge.
“Here, it was clear that the Plaintiff was speaking as a citizen, not in his official capacity. His speech was not conducted at his usual place of employment, occurred during non-working hours and at a forum where public comment was invited.”
A group of furious parents lined up before Virginia’s Loudoun County School Board this week to read several “pornographic” passages from books assigned to ninth graders in the district, amid a recall effort against several of the board’s members. In a clip from Tuesday night’s meeting provided by Media Research Center, the first mom reads from a book describing a domestic violence scenario where the narrator talks about a female “coming out of some car in these tight-a** little shorts…telling me she’s going to leave me.”
“I grab her by the neck and start punching her,” the mother continues to read. Later, the narrator describes keeping the female “in a closet for a couple of days” where “she kept on screaming, begging to be let out. Begging for water.”
The rest of the excerpts were sexual in nature.
“Jasper wasn’t even my boyfriend, just this dude I did some hacking with once in a while,” the second mother reads. “He was pretty basic…but he had a big d***. And sometimes a girl just needs a big d***.”
A third parent read about sex acts involving a “boy — his pants around his ankles — squeezed between April’s straddled legs as she lay on top of a teacher’s desk.” The narrator describes flipping the “boy” around, “pushing him against the wall” and then dropping to their knees.
The fourth mother reads an excerpt where the narrator declares, “she sucked my d***. I didn’t really want it to happen, it just kinda did.” Another character in the book replies, “Wait a minute, is that what was really going on? She did your homework and you ate her c******!”
A gentleman who said he is representing a group of parents in a harassment suit addressed the board following the readings. After listing off a number of the sexual acts covered, he pointed to the panel and asked, “By show of hands, does anyone up here want to talk about that stuff now? Not a single hand, because it’s very uncomfortable and we’re in a room full of adults.”
He said the reason no one wants to talk about it is “because they’re not acceptable topics,” and added, “my kids don’t go to your crap schools, but theirs do.”
Angry Loudoun County public school parents read heinous passages from county's 9th grade reading material. pic.twitter.com/GYnQFExJ00
When asked for reaction by Fox News, Loudoun County Public Schools pointed to a news release published Wednesday where the district reminded “parents that if they feel a book is not appropriate for their student” they may “submit a formal request for the Reconsideration of Instructional Materials.”
One parent, who did not want to be named, told the outlet, “This is the same district that banned Dr. Seuss and ‘Huckleberry Finn’ as being ‘offensive,’ yet they’re having children read pornography that violates every code of conduct in their sexual harassment training.”
US-POLITICS-OBAMA-NORTHAM (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam told Virginians Thursday that they don’t need to be in church for God to hear their prayers. The governor announced a new executive order Thursday expanding mask mandates, setting a curfew between midnight and 5 a.m., and lowering the number of people at social gatherings to 10 or less people, the Washington Post reported. The measures go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday.
“This year, we need to think about what is truly the most important thing,”the governor said. “Is it the worship or the building?”
“For me, God is wherever you are,” he continued. “You don’t have to sit in the church pew for God to hear your prayers.”
WATCH:
“Worship with a mask on is still worship, worship outside or worship online is still worship,” Northam added. He did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Critics of Northam’s comments pointed out that in-person attendance at religious services is a fundamental aspect of worship for many religions, particularly Catholicism.
Earlier this year Northam banned gatherings of 10 or more people through initial stay-at-home orders, restrictions which effectively banned church services. Authorities have arrested multiple religious leaders for defying coronavirus orders, such as Pastor Tony Spell of the Louisiana Life Tabernacle church and Florida megachurch pastor Rodney Howard-Browne.
The DOJ filed a statement of interest with a Virginia federal court on May 3 supporting Lighthouse Fellowship Church, which serves recovering drug addicts and former prostitutes. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Eric Dreiband noted at the time that “for many people of faith, exercising religion is essential, especially during a crisis.”
“The Commonwealth of Virginia has offered no good reason for refusing to trust congregants who promise to use care in worship in the same way it trusts accountants, lawyers, and other workers to do the same,” Dreiband said.
Northam is not the only lawmaker who has been accused of restricting religious freedom during the pandemic. Governors and mayors across the United States have issued orders throughout the pandemic that restrict or prohibit religious services, and the DOJ has pushed back against such restrictions on multiple occasions.
“Houses of worship and religious services provide so much more than just a weekly meeting place — they are where so many Americans find strength, community, and meaning,” the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty’s Director of Research Caleb Lyman told the Daily Caller News Foundation Wednesday.
He continued, “Findings from this year’s Religious Freedom Index—that 62 percent of respondents said that faith had been important during the pandemic — align with Gallup’s findings on the importance of religious services to Americans’ mental health.”
Religious organizations in New York most recently took Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the Supreme Court over his restrictions on houses of worship, accusing Cuomo of “targeting Orthodox practices.”
Conservative justices, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, sided with religious organizations in the 5-4 ruling the night before Thanksgiving, while Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal justices. Earlier this year, the court sided 5-4 in favor of the liberal justices on COVID-19 religious restrictions in California and Nevada, according to CNN.
The Virginia Senate voted 21-15 to pass Senate Bill 5032 which will declare open season on law enforcement officials in Virginia. The bill will drop assault against a law enforcement officer, firefighter, judge, or EMS from a felony to a misdemeanor.
Eliminates the mandatory minimum term of confinement for an assault and battery committed against a judge; magistrate; law-enforcement officer; correctional officer; person directly involved in the care, treatment, or supervision of inmates; firefighter; or volunteer firefighter or any emergency medical services personnel and provides that such crime can no longer be committed as a simple assault and must result in a bodily injury.
The Senate also removed the mandatory minimum 6-month jail sentence for assaulting a police officer.
“The message to law enforcement is we don’t care about you,” said Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus.
The bill does allow for a person to be charged with a felony if an officer is injured.
“For too long in the commonwealth, there have been cases where the punishment is disproportionate to the crime and will ruin an autistic kid’s life,”said Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond.
Republicans responded citing the recent violence against police officers.
“Have you seen what our police are going through?” asked Sen. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake. “Have you seen the attacks on our police?”
Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico, called the proposal “a pretty big insult to our law enforcement community for doing what they’re doing.”
Richmond.com is reporting that the Senate is also set to vote on other law enforcement related bills:
Other police reform bills filed in the Senate would prohibit the use of neck restraints, ban departments from acquiring equipment from the military, require all police officers to be trained in crisis intervention or de-escalation techniques, and set up a fund to pay for body cameras for local police.
Democrats claim that this bill will keep from ruining lives, in reality, it could have the reverse effect. If those fighting police know the consequences are less severe they could be more inclined to fight with police. This creates a dangerous situation where the use of force may need to be increased to control a suspect, which could lead to a police-involved shooting. All of that would happen because Democrats decided to lessen the consequences of attacking a police officer.
An absentee ballot election worker consolidates a large stack of absentee ballot applications at the Mecklenburg Board of Elections office in Charlotte, North Carolina on September 4, 2020. – The US election is officially open: North Carolina on September 4, 2020 launched vote-by-mail operations for the November 3 contest between … Logan Cyrus/AFP/Getty Images
Over 1,000 Virginia voters who sought an absentee ballot to vote received an additional ballot in the mail, raising further concerns about possible electoral fraud in the November election.
Officials blamed the confusion on label printing machines that jammed, erroneously causing some to be duplicated when entire pages were reprinted due to damage to just some of the labels. “Before the supervisors caught it, the people applying the labels applied them to the entire sheet of labels rather than just pulling out the ones that should have been processed,” Fairfax County Registrar Gary Scott told NBC 4 Washington. […]
Fairfax saw the majority of the duplicate ballots, with about 1,000, out of roughly 1,400 across the state. Another 300 were sent to voters in the city of Richmond and 100 in Henrico County, just to the north.
“We knew the Democrats’ many last-minute changes to our election law would make our elections less secure, but no one could imagine voters receiving two ballots,” Virginia Republican Party chairman Rich Anderson said in a statement.
Federal officials are also investigating the discovery of several discarded military ballots cast for President Donald Trump in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
“Of the nine ballots that were discarded and then recovered, 7 were cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump,” said the U.S. Attorney’s Office Middle District of Pennsylvania. “Two of the discarded ballots had been resealed inside their appropriate envelopes by Luzerne elections staff prior to recovery by the FBI and the contents of those 2 ballots are unknown.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Postal Service officials are investigating trays of mail discovered in a ditch in Greenville, Wisconsin,on Tuesday. In a statement, the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office said the three trays were found at 8 a.m. near the Appleton International Airport. A USPS spokesman confirmed to FOX 11 that the mail included absentee ballots.
Speaking to the Washington Examiner, the sheriff’s office said the “mail going to the post office.”
“The United States Postal Inspection Service immediately began investigating and we reserve further comment on this matter until that is complete,” USPS spokesman Bob Sheehan said.
The chief of the Richmond, Virginia, police department told reporters Sunday that Black Lives Matter and antifa rioters set fire to a multi-family home with children inside and then blocking access for firefighters to get through to save the children.
Richmond Police Chief William Smith broke down while speaking about the horrible night of chaos after an occupied building was torched by rioters.
The chief of the Richmond, Virginia, police department said Sunday that rioters set fire to a multi-family home with a child inside while blocking access for firefighters to get through to save the child.
Richmond Police Chief William Smith: “One incident that is particularly poignant, that truly illustrates the seriousness of the issues we’re facing. Last night protesters intentionally set fire to an occupied building on [West] Broad Street. This is not the only occupied building that has been set fire to in the last two days. But they prohibited us from getting on the scene. We had to force our way to make a clear path for the fire department. The protesters intercepted the fire apparatus several blocks away with vehicles and blocked that fire department’s access to the structure fire. Inside that home was a child.”
The chief of the Richmond, Virginia, police department broke down while describing the horrific event in his city.
Don’t expect the mainstream media to carry this story.
For the record, police on the scene were able to save the children.
Jim Hoft is the founder of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.
Tens of thousands of Second Amendment supporters attended a pro-gun rally in Richmond, Virginia in January.
The Democrats in Virginia, after millions of Bloomberg donations flipped the House/Senate to blue, are pushing for gun control legislation, and Governor Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency to ban guns at Monday’s rally, Jan. 20, 2020. Northam banned all weapons from inside the Capitol Square on Jan. 20, 2020, citing “credible and serious threats,” but did not elaborate.
The rally has been peaceful and a law enforcement source tells The Gateway Pundit that an estimated 25,000 people attended that Monday rally. Sheriffs at the pro-gun rally were seen holding a sign that read, “We Support the Second Amendment.”
Via Jack Posobiec.
Today several Virginia senate Democrats joined Republicans to block Governor Northam’s ban on assault weapons in the state.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s push to ban the sale of assault weapons failed on Monday after some of his fellow Democrats balked at the proposal.
Senators voted to shelve the bill for the year and ask the state crime commission to study the issue, an outcome that drew cheers from a committee room packed with gun advocates.
Four moderate Democrats joined Republicans in Monday’s committee vote, rejecting legislation that would have prohibited the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, including popular AR-15 style rifles, and banned the possession of magazines that hold more than 12 rounds.
Virginia – When students at Franklin County High School in Virginia were told they could not fly the American flag from their trucks because it might be offensive – they did what any red-blooded American teenager would do: they flew the flag anyway.
The staff at ToddStarnes.com broke the story about this school in the area east of Roanoke and Christiansburg, where the flags displayed behind trucks have become a target for school administrators. Earlier this week, an administrator at the Virginia school reportedly told several students that they could no longer fly Old Glory on their trucks because it was potentially “offensive” and “disruptive.”
School tells students told to remove American flags from their trucks: It’s ‘offensive’
When students at Franklin County High School in Virginia were told they could not fly the American flag from their trucks because it might be offensive – they did what any red-blooded American teenager would do: they flew the flag anyway. (Wikipedia)
Franklin County High School students showed up in unity on Tuesday displaying American flags on their vehicles after an administrator allegedly told them to remove them. Several local residents posted photos of the caravan driving through town with Old Glory waving in the breeze.
“My son called me from school saying that he saw an administrator around his truck and is now being called to the office,” the mother of one of the students said.
The mother said her son and two of his friends were told they could no longer fly their American flag on their trucks. She says she received a call from the school principal Jon Crutchfield on that evening.
“He has apologized to the boys and told them that it is not against the rules to fly their flag on their truck. Apparently, it was a big misunderstanding that should have never gotten this far,” the mother said.
Local citizens commented on the parade of flag-bearing trucks.
“I love that we have young American students standing for our American Flag,” one citizen wrote on Facebook.
Issues with the American flag being considered “offensive” happen far more frequently than most people realize. And with the level of protest surrounding Old Glory, some American leaders are looking to make it a felony to burn one. Back in June, Republicans reintroduced a proposal calling for a ban on burning the American flag. It was immediately endorsed by President Trump.
“All in for Senator Steve Daines as he proposes an Amendment for a strong BAN on burning our American Flag. A no brainer!,” the president wrote in a Twitter message.
The legislation being sponsored in the Senate by Sens. Steve Daines of Montana and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and in the House by Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas. It calls for the U.S. Constitution to be amended in a way that would give Congress “constitutional authority to ban the desecration of the United States flag.”
Kramer goes on:
“Adding a Constitutional amendment to protect this symbol of freedom and liberty is not an attack on another Constitutional amendment,” he continued, “rather, it is an affirmation of the unifying principles our nation stands for.”
The amendment is the only way to go about banning flag burning. That’s because the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that flag-burning is a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment.
Critics on social media were quick to attack the proposal.
“I love the “Red, White ,and Blue” and am a patriot. But I disagree with Trump’s demand that flag burning be criminalized in all settings,” wrote one person.
Another wrote:
“Please not this stupidity again. the supreme court has ruled that flag burning is constitutionally-protected speech. any such legislation would be unconstitutional. that a loudmouth internet nobody like me has to explain this to the president of the united states boggles the mind”
Some say an amendment like this would be an insult to the country and what we stand for.
“Because I respect the flag and all those who sacrificed so much for it, I would never even think for a moment to desecrate everything it stands for by supporting a dictatorial Constitutional Amendment to outlaw burning the American flag. That’s an insult to freedom and democracy.”
Here’s how the process works.
Amendments can be added to the Constitution if two-thirds of both the House and Senate agree on a proposal and then three-fourths of the states ratify it, or if two-thirds of state legislatures call a convention to propose changes to the Constitution, and then three-fourths of the states ratify the change.
Old Glory isn’t the only flag under attack, though. Members of Antifa seem to love getting the chance to torch the Thin Blue Line flag often flown by members of law enforcement and their supporters.
In December, in Seattle, Washington, Pro-Trump activists held a “Mega MAGA March” that was crashed by masked members of Antifa.
In a video that was released by New2Share’s YouTube channel (seen below), we’re immediately regaled with some black clad protesters who are attempting to ignite a Blue Lives Matter flag directly in front of the police.
Despite the copious number of unsavory things said throughout the over nine-minute video that would make most cringe, there was a moment of levity when police sprayed the ignited flag (and protesters) with a flame retardant to stop the initial burning.
However, from that point on, the demonstrators become more aggressive, and more intolerant toward police and those in support of the march.
Antifa members began following those who were participating in the march, claiming that those who are in support of Trump are “fascists” and likened Trump to Hitler by referring to him as the “fuhrer”.
Sources tell Law Enforcement Today that the administration within the Seattle police department has made it very clear… officers are not to “disrupt” the protestors.
“We’ve been instructed to let Antifa do their thing… up to and including physical violence. We can only step in when people really start getting hurt. It’s unreal,” said one officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Every recorded interaction of the video showcased one very common theme: Antifa is not a tolerant group by any means.
They call everyone who isn’t their ilk “fascists”, while literally employing the techniques that plagued Italy after the first world war. They converge and surround desolate people, attempt to intimidate them for not agreeing with them, and scream the obscenest things toward our men and women donning a uniform.
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
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American Family Association
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