RICHMOND, VA — Virginia Democrats retained control of the state Senate and won back a majority in the House of Delegates Tuesday in a setback for Gov. Glenn Younkin’s conservative agenda. The Democrats’ victory in the state Senate ended the prospect of Republican control of the Senate, House and the governor’s mansion, which would have allowed Youngkin (R) to move on his policy priorities, including a proposed 15-week abortion ban, AP said.
“It’s official: there will be absolutely no abortion ban legislation sent to Glenn Youngkin’s desk for the duration of his term in office, period, as we have thwarted MAGA Republicans’ attempt to take total control of our government and our bodies,” Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Mamie Locke said in a statement Tuesday night.
“Tomorrow is the first day of a new Virginia,” House Minority Leader Don L. Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth), who could be in line to become the first Black person to serve as speaker in the state’s history, told the joyful crowd, according to The Washington Post.
Virginia Democrats who campaigned on protecting abortion rights swept Tuesday’s legislative elections, retaking full control of the General Assembly after two years of divided power. The outcome is a loss for Youngkin and his fellow Republicans, who exerted a great deal of energy, money and political capital on their effort to secure a GOP trifecta, the Associated Press said.
“It’s official: there will be absolutely no abortion ban legislation sent to Glenn Youngkin’s desk for the duration of his term in office, period, as we have thwarted MAGA Republicans’ attempt to take total control of our government and our bodies,” Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Mamie Locke said in a statement referencing Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Comment: At least the political ads will subside for a while. I was pleasantly surprised with the results. I was hoping that our state government would remain divided and it has. Governor Younkin is still governor. A divided government prevents either side from running amok in the mistaken belief that they have the mythical mandate from the people. I’ve lived here for near three decades now. Moderation always seemed to be a characteristic of our state government as well as both parties.
The abortion issue was front and center in this election cycle. The Democrats ran heavily on it. The Republicans tried to sidestep it. Youngkin pushed a fairly moderate and unMAGA like 15 week ban with exceptions while many in his party were still screaming about banning abortion. I think a lot of Virginia’s voters saw through this as an election ploy. Youngkin and other Virginia Republicans were singing about banning abortion soon after the last election. Abortion in Virginia is already restricted to the first two trimesters. Beyond that, certain conditions must be met. I haven’t heard any cries from the Democratic side to abolish those restrictions.
Beyond that issue, this election has been a solid kick to the jollies of Youngkin’s future political ambitions. Just in the last week, I’ve heard several stories about Youngkin entering the Republican presidential primaries if he managed to bring the Virginia Senate under Republican control last night. He failed in that and lost the State House in the process. Now he must ride out the rest of his lame duck administration with a hostile Senate and House of Delegates. His hopes for MAGA lite change, whatever that means, are dashed. But he still wields the veto pen if the Democrats get too cocky. Their hold on power is far from veto proof.
TTG
GOP has lost the suburban soccer moms.
With as diverse as the Northern Virginia area is, that loss here is probably a forever loss.
From what I heard it was single women, not moms. Where was Romney’s niece and the RNC?
In Northern Virginia the GOP has pretty much loss women in general. There is the rest of Virginia, outside of urban oasis like Richmond.
Well, single women (who might be moms) and moms have one thing in common. They are all women…and women want agency and choice. The same agency and choice that men have for their health care. There really aren’t two kinds of women (single/soccer moms)–and I think that is what the GOP is learning the hard way.
Hopefully, they will learn the lesson soon so they can settle down and figure out how to pass spending bills and keep the government functioning for all of us.
Laura,
You mean sexual intercourse without concern of pregnancy. Now if only the Democrats who learned that lesson would learn how not to spend and spend they might balance the budget.
Wow! Amazing how you think pregnancy is only a woman’s fault. Guess only men get the “choice” of impregnating and then walking away.
Come on…
Laura “fault” is a faulty conclusion. As you point out it takes two. Just not two to terminate. Just walking away, that’s the equity I was alluding to.
Virginia is pretty well divided geographically. I have lived in the Northern Virginia area for the last 20+ years. Drive outside of Northern Virginia and there is a decided cultural and political shift. Aside from Northern Virginia, Richmond and some isolated oasis in the rest of the state, the people are rather different.
It is the two differences that keep things relatively neutral on a statewide level.
Stefan,
Four decades ago there was not the sprawl that you live in and most of the expatriate Northerners and new immigrants weren’t living there. They certainly weren’t when I lived there in the late ’60 early ’70s.
Places change. Northern VA has changed, even in the 20 years I have been here. Aside from the cost of living, which is common considering the wages and education levels here now, I like it. I can still get the “old Virginia” with a hour drive in almost any direction from where I live.
Confederate flags flying, bumper stickers saying “Lets Play Cowboys and Muslims”. Quaint.
Confederate flags flying in northern Virginia? That wasn’t even true 2 decades ago much less after the summer of George Floyd and the “fine people” hoax at Charlottesville.
Fred,
Confederate flags do indeed fly in northern Virginia. I see quite a few driving the smaller rural roads just west of the Quantico MCB. They’re more prevalent south of Fredericksburg. A mile outside the Richmond city limits I pass several houses bedecked with Confederate flags. One even flies all the various flags used by the Confederacy at different times. It’s quite educational.
My favorite watering hole in N. VA – pretty sure it was ‘The Eagle’s Nest’, proudly displayed a massive Confederate flag that spanned the entire length of the back bar. Great place to wet one’s lips and relax and have a friendly convo.
Good thing all those yankees, so desperately eager to kill babies en masse and to sexually mutilate those who are allowed to be born, invaded to show those backwards Johny Rebs the right way to live.
How has educational achievement trended since the invasion? How about the welfare dole rolls? Crime?
TTG,
Don’t deprive yourself. It’s only 31 seconds. But it’s the comment section that needs to be read and not only for the entertainment value, which isn’t meager either.
First Jump. Be All You Can Be. U.S. Army.
https://youtu.be/luc9saxt_YQ
F&L,
My first jump was from a C-141, a door jump. Ramp jumps came later in SF from C-130s and MC-130 Combat Talons along with Italian G-222s. For helo jumps, i only jumped from Hueys. My first jumps were with the old T-10 chutes. The first left me with twisted risers. I couldn’t lift my head to see if I had a good canopy. I pulled the risers and bicycled to untwist them. The canopy was in a full Mae West. As it righted itself, it ripped in two. I pulled the reserve and landed safely. It was the only time i had to pull a reserve.
At no time did i ever walk off the DZ without carrying my chute and reserve. Where did the young studs in that ad leave their chutes?
Fred –
Sorry, forgot to mention to pay attention to the name of the vigorous bespectacled man who makes the announcement of the arrest of the hooker-ring. a mister levy, joshua ..
It’s at t=49 seconds, just after the women’s voice is heard saying “..as well as locations outside of Washington DC ..”. He stands in front of a seal of the Department of Justice. He’s wearing a tie with an array of little white things on a field of blue.
Hookers Snookered:
https://youtu.be/NuiwbftqM2I
TTG,
Fredericksburg isn’t in northern Virginia, which has more than 2,000,000 people living in it. What’s ‘several’ compared to a couple million? How does that compare to the museum whose cultural contribution to VA was to melt down a statue not too many days ago?
Fred,
Fredericksburg is now widely considered to be in northern Virginia as is Stafford and the Quantico MCB. The entire area is subject to the northern Virginia auto emissions test. It’s also considered northern Virginia by insurance companies. The VRE, the commuter train to DC, serves both Fredericksburg and Manassas.
By several I mean around two dozen from Stafford to Manassas on the back roads. There aren’t that many houses on those roads. You won’t see many in the communities along I-95, especially now that the massive Confederate flag installed by the Virginia Flaggers in southern Stafford is gone.
Eric asked “Crime?”
Here in the D.C. area, one crime has soared in the last few years: Carjacking.
Here is a news story about its growth
https://www.arlnow.com/2023/10/10/early-morning-armed-carjacking-pushes-arlington-past-2022-total/
And here is a news story about the astonishingly young age (12 and 13!) of some of perpetrators of that crime
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/12-year-old-faces-judge-for-fatal-dc-carjacking-attempt-after-mom-turns-him-in
“Place change”. Very good. Yes, indeed. Just like Palestine.
Either you’ve matured overnight or are just a cynical, colonizing, carpet bagger lacking in self-awareness.
From the Appalachian Mountains to the sea! (followed by a rebel yell)
Eric,
I believe #2 is appropriate.
Eric – I posed a question for you here
https://turcopolier.com/the-coming-spelunking-nightmare/#comment-229429
That seemed a more appropriate place to pose it, where you brought up the subject of genocide of Christians by Turks.
Hi Keith,
No I have not read or even heard of that book. I’ll check it out. Thx!
It’s always interesting to me when I have an opportunity to perhaps place the eye-witness accounts I heard (and their necessarily narrow/subjective perspective) into a wider historic tableau.
Guess it helps to put in the link.
https://ogdaa.blogspot.com/2023/11/tired-of-all-depressing-news.html
Need 100% audit capability of ALL elections. Do we know who donates to which parties and fronts? Yes. Nobody cares. Time to make voting info public. Enough of this privacy nonsense. Democrats don’t care about their donation info being known. I don’t care about who knows how I voted. I do care about if it was counted. Only one way to do that; make it all public info. At that point we can figure this all out easily. The cheating and fraud will stop. Enough of this BS. The phase of privacy worked for a while. It no longer does. They are using it as a weapon and cheating their asses off with it.
So as the details come in:
The Dems picked up four seats in the General Assemble and held the Senate by losing only one seat. So it will be 21-19 Dem margin in the Senate Democrat and 51-49 Democrat in the Gen Assembly.
Doesn’t sound like a landslide victory anywhere but maybe late arriving mail with adjust things.
TTG, your point about divided gov is essential. it demands functional self-rule via consensus-building & compromise. these behaviors support anti-extremism (once known as moderation & centrism) & pragmatic policy-making. political parties touting simplistic “values”, defining all issues in divisive emotional terms is tearing the nation apart while accomplishing almost nothing of actual value. given the impact of wealthy PACs, lobbyists & nut-case billionaires dominating politics, divided gov is now the most practical way to enforce quality control. one-party states are rife with unchecked corruption & pointless bloviating while ignoring over-arching problems (drag queens & library porn vs children actually being murdered in schools is just an obvious one… legislatures gerrymandering beyond even the SC’s tolerance another) & sheer stupidity abounding among law-makers (Paxton in TX, Sanders in AR, Tuberville in AL, TN’s state legislature on every possible matter) are wearing out the Experiment daily. forcing compromise neuters ideological purists who have nothing but empty purity on offer. if the polity in 1 party states increased the influence of the out-party, our political system would improve.
Fred –
Maybe it will adjust things. But it’s the girls that are under arrest, so ..
Federal, really?
“.. .Federal prosecutors say .. Catered to elected officials, military officers, corporate executives ..”
3 Charged with running commercial sex ring in Massachusetts
https://youtu.be/NuiwbftqM2I
Off topic. This below may based on serious sources i.e. they actually know Abbas and his people helped them find the Hamas chief. Message 1354 also. Other channels reflect this too. The pressure must have been unreal, their former PM Barak was quoted in politico recently saying they have at the very most a couple weeks to have their way with Gaza till Israel loses all support everywhere. There’s been a huge number of west bank killings by settlers or people represented to the western press as settlers. It’s logical to highly suspect that that’s how they got the information they were looking for – pulling relatives of people under interrogation off the street and …
——————-
https://t.me/nonetutto/1355
In the Middle East, the balance of power has changed: Iran is left alone with the US-led coalition for Israel.
Everyone was expecting a more decisive Egypt, Qatar and Bahrain, as well as the Saudis and the UAE. So far, the Israeli lobby has been able to keep the situation under control, but everything can change in an instant.
We expect the arrest or destruction of the head of Hamas. His days are numbered. Abbas and Palestinian business interests with ties to Israel merged Hamas’s military wing in exchange for future positions in New Palestine.
The IRGC and Hezbollah are not ready to die for traitors and expose their infrastructure to attacks by the American fleet.
Wow, very interesting…thanks for the link and the heads up.
Ohio passed a constitutional amendment to legalize abortion and set the stage for the GOP to overturn the pot initiative.
Both issues passed after the GOP presented their own amendment in the August special election to gut a century’s old law, making it nearly impossible for any voter initiative to make it to the voters in November. They went ahead with this special election after passing a law in January to ban special elections calling them a waste of time/money with low turnout. Apparently the Ohio GOP can overturn laws they support with a joint resolution (no pun intended). They lost in August and they lost now.
Perhaps there is enough of a % of conservatives who argued in favor of states rights to decide the abortion issue meant that, and no further. Perhaps there is enough of a % of conservative women who let men in their circles believe they voted against Issue 1.
DeWine went on the teevee before the November vote to say the heartbeat bill could be amended to make room for more exceptions, but I trust the GOP to be reasonable on abortion like most of you understandably trust the DNC to pass reasonable gun control laws. If they cared to educate themselves they would understand why calling molar, ectopic and encephalocele pregnancies, discovering cancer during pregnancy, etc., are a few no-brain complications that should be called out in any bill restricting abortion. But to state the obvious is an admission that at some point abortion becomes healthcare and that’s not a good look to their pro-life base. Then there’s Jean Schmidt, the crazy Clermont County rep. who floated the idea of banning contraception after the Griswold decision. We wouldn’t even hear of her if Ohio wasn’t one of the top gerrymandered states in the union. Oh yes, citizens passed an initiative outlawing that, but the state GOP ignored the majority conservative state supreme court, dragging their feet long enough to ensure minimal change went into effect last year.
The next initiatives will be ranked choice voting (the legislature is already trying to pass a law against it) and adding an administrative layer to prevent gerrymandering. I’ll be voting for both. I don’t care if we get a Trump candidate, and I don’t favor more bureaucracy, but if the GOP wants to keep playing games they can keep finding out.
On Topic. Of course they are all mummies from the wax museum horror section but you needn’t watch more than 2 minutes to see that Mr Vivek Ramasawamy is easily the smartest person by far to run for President since Richard Mihous Nixon. Not even close.
I shut it off at 2:31, so don’t hold me responsible for anything after that.
Vivek Ramaswamy: Tucker, Rogan, Musk SHOULD MODERATE GOP Debate, Not RUSSIAGATE Pushers.
https://youtu.be/MPyjhHjRAg0
so, aside from having a short attention span, you’ve never been around actually smart people (except yourself, of course).
My favorite line in this video appears at time 5 m 14 sec and is spoken by Diana, 60, Postal Worker:
“If there’s something he can’t do, he simply doesn’t do it.”
And it had me thinking of this comment of yours and you, concerning the ability to reason logically and draw valid conclusions!
Have a pleasant day.
Babushkas on Putin.
https://youtu.be/_naiZvI6Quc
In the video that sure does not look like a ragtag army of amateurs. The crime lords are not stingy with their muscle it appears.
https://t.me/svezhesti/92890
The attack on police stations in the city of Basra was associated with the need to replenish Asaib Ahl al-Haq’s weapons reserves for the large number of newcomers who joined the movement after October 7 .
According to unconfirmed information disseminated by Arab TG channels with a controversial reputation, in the first days of the week, many weapons, including RPGs, were brought into Basra police stations, and the attack itself was possibly staged.
There are rumors about the transfer of most of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq fighters to Syria by the end of the week, for the possible opening of an additional front against Israel, in the event that Hezbollah is fully included in the war with Israel.
The video shows Hashd al-Shaabi units from the 43rd Asaib Ahl al-Haq brigade.
F&L,
They’re not amateurs at all. They are fully organized and equipped military outfit hardened by years of combat against ISIS as PMF forces. They’re just cleaned up in that video.
I wonder why this isn’t reported in the American, British or Israeli media? Are you feeling the nostalgia yet Mr Phelps?
https://t.me/svezhesti/92895
“Camera footage from an Israeli Apache attack helicopter dispatched to the Kibbutz Be’eri festival on October 7 shows the IDF firing indiscriminately at fleeing patrons.”
Let us remind you that the participants of the festival, in which Hamas is accused of shooting visitors, advocated Arab-Israeli friendship.
Now we can say with confidence that both sides took part in the mass executions of festival participants.
F&L,
I’m informed on X that Bibi personally ordered the assault and everyone down the chain of command said ‘yes sir, sir!’. Because F*** ups don’t happen in war. “both sides do it” tripe right on time.
Alastair Crooke is on with Judge Napolitano today saying the IDF isn’t getting at Hamas because they are 60 meters below ground in their well equipped and stocked bunkers to include their construction equipment. Sure does show what the Palestinians in Gaza have been building for the past decade and a half.
It’s all out war with air-strikes and at least a dozen civilian deaths in Jenin in the WEST BANK, not Gaza, and The NY Times lead story is about “pauses.” Hello. Scroll up and down for several others same channel.
There is as you know a large Chinese community in NY City so please don’t let me hear you call it the Zhou York Times or Chu York Times either for their one sided coverage of China & Taiwan. Thank you.
———————————
https://t.me/svezhesti/92899
Full-fledged street fighting began between IDF troops and Palestinians in Jenin, after the IDF advanced columns entered the city and immediately after the air bombing of the city
If this is for real then it’s seriously unreal over there. You guys will understand what this is better than I. Yemeni drone appears to blast an entire stone building right off the face of the earth in one shot.
https://t.me/svezhesti/92917
Yemeni authorities (Ansarullah movement) confirmed a Samad drone strike on the city of Eilat in Israel
Right now Eilat is again under attack from drones from Yemen, this time the air defense is trying to shoot down the drones, and an air raid siren is sounding in the city.
A video of an Israeli Air Force missile attack on a mosque in Khan Yunis was also published.
The first video shows nothing, although I don’t doubt more Houthi drones and missiles are headed in that direction. The second of the mosque looks like a video game or AI. Why did the camera pan to the sky at the last moment?
🔥Despite a massive strike on the outskirts of Al-Shifa hospital, arriving Hamas reinforcements continue fighting with the IDF
Right. And this is more nothing too I guess. Maybe some reagent was spilled on the film. No, wait, it’s digital. Probably from early May 1945 in Berlin or maybe the Bridge on the River Kwai.
https://t.me/svezhesti/92926
Some Arab TG channels claim that a company of Israeli soldiers was locked in a building near the hospital during air strikes with cluster munitions and was completely destroyed by friendly fire. At the same time, the number of Hamas members killed in airstrikes in the video also appears to be quite large. Previously, the IDF estimated it at 50 people.