Virginia Just Inaugurated An Adult Administration (jan 2022)

Republicans hit the trifecta last election for the positions of Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General.

Immediately after the inauguration yesterday, Attorney General Jason Miyares started cleaning house - firing dozens of lawyers, including those in the Civil Rights division - and announcing investigations into the Virginia Parole Board and Loudon County Public Schools (where parents are "terrorists" and a "trans-whatever" boy sexually assaulted girls in 2 different schools 'cause they just transferred him around.) He also announced that he is going to enforce the legislation that is on the books, and will prosecute those crimes that the prior A.G. refused to.

Gee, I have no idea why the media has not thrown a parade for Virginia's first Hispanic State Attorney General. (Kinda like they ignored Alberto Gonzales.)

Nor do I understand why they have yet to plan that party for the state's first black female Lt. Governor.
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We shall see what the next 4 years brings. I've learned to be cautiously optimistic. The other side still holds the Senate for now.

 

We'll see, buddy. A large part of our Republic is at war with the Fed, while--as we both know know--other parts are collaborators. As I mentioned before, we came back to the right side only because of McAuliffe's stupidity and arrogance regarding Parents=Terrorists, and Youngkin having a campaign that was smart enough to Get Out The Vote in areas he knew he was gonna carry, anyway. Even with all that, it was still a squeaker.

Of course, for those of us who have absolute standards, there's never "good enough." Masks & vaxes do not work, so lots of us would have preferred to see all mandates squashed rather than leaving the mandate decision to each locale as Youngkin is doing...but in the spirit of crazy like a fox, there are already conflicts where a majority of parents see relief in sight and want their "never been at risk for it" kids to stop being abused with face coverings, and the "we know better than our constituents" local politicians are telling those parents to sit down & shut up.

Friggin' public servants telling their constituents to go pound sand. Life is gonna be tough for them hanging out there all on their own...and that's just where Youngkin has put them.

 

Youngkin issued his first Executive Orders on Saturday.

They include:

· A promise to restore integrity and confidence in the Parole Board of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
· A promise to make government work for Virginians by creating the Commonwealth Chief Transformation Officer.
· A promise to declare Virginia open for business.
· A promise to combat and prevent human trafficking and provide support to survivors.
· A promise to establish a commission to combat antisemitism.
· A promise to withdraw from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

Youngkin also issued two executive directives, including a plan to “to jump-start our economy by cutting job killing regulations by 25 percent” and a directive to rescind the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all state employees.

Of course, this stuff always has the potential to be but so much fluff. But it was that line on human trafficking that caught my eye. I posted a comment here about Fairfax County Police Department being the target of a lawsuit on the part of a woman who was enslaved by a sex trafficking ring, and the police chief on down to the beat officers covered up the crimes for years in exchange for "services."

I'm glad he's taking this on (and it begs the question as to why it was not done by prior administrations), but he does not have the power and visibility that Trump had. He's gonna get attacked, and it will not be overtly because of this, but it will be the motive.

 

I'm not sure he's passing the buck. Some local governments and school boards are running roughshod over citizens and parents. If those folks want to live in a Blue region, then let them live it and own it. As I said, one school district is already feeling the heat as they have to own their decisions...Youngkin is not gonna rescue them with a statewide decree. He's giving them rope.

Trump got me to the point where I would watch & wait to see what the results would be of something I used to knee-jerk as "What the heck are you doing???" A week later I'd go "Ooooh. I see now!" I think Youngkin is gonna be like that. I hope so.

 

I think we all benefit from every one who comments here.

 

I'm going to admit my ignorance here, but I just gained a full understanding where the School Mask Mandates came from and on how Youngkin is approaching the issue. It's important to get the facts out there, and to see the approach his administration is taking.

Virginia's formerly democrat-controlled general assembly passed a bill last year that required schools to be open, but to do so under the "current guidance of the CDC" or words to that effect. Youngkin's Executive Order doesn't actually cancel mask mandates because they are codified in that "follow CDC recommendations" law, as opposed to the mandates residing in a previously issued Executive Order he has the clear authority to reverse.

So Youngkin issued an Executive Order leveraging parental rights that re already codified in the Code of Virginia. §1-240.1 states: "A parent has a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent's child." In the spirit of that existing codified right, Youngkin's E.O. specifically permits parents to opt out of the mask mandate (although one could argue they already had that right.)

It's a brilliant legal and political move. Youngkin's E.O. gives merely recognizes the natural rights that parents already have under existing state Code, and applies it to this specific issue. So our new governor has armed parents with the ammunition to go fight this as they choose. The state department of public safety, which has long held out CDC guidelines to be some inviolate rule that must be followed, has changed course and issued a statement in response saying they are reaching out to the Virginia Department of Public Health and Department of Education "for guidance."

Loudoun County School Board (the county that Youngkin is investigating due to how they treated parents and how they covered up rape on school property) has formally conceded the fight. They issued a statement yesterday saying that any child with a parent's note on file will not be required to wear a mask. Some boards have announced they will not have a mandate. Other boards are being defiant, issuing "we shall not yield" statements...but that's how Loudoun started out, and their tantrum lasted all of a day.

The Democrat's immediate recourse would be to rescind/modify that code and make the change effective immediately (rather than wait for the new fiscal year to begin on July 1), but there are a couple of obstacles: the Republicans hold the House (but not the Senate), and McAuliffe lost the election in part by telling parents to sit down & shut up when it came to their children's education...I don't know how the Democrats could possibly touch that "Parents' Rights" Code without getting burned, since it's now front & center. There can be no "In the dark of night" action taken.

This will either end in victory without a shot being fired, or the Dems/school boards will take this to court. I don't have visibility into how the parents in each school district are reacting to this, or what they may be communicating to each school board. Virginia has 95 counties and 38 independent cities.

Keep in mind that it was the national school board association that colluded with the White House to label parents as "domestic terrorists," mainly due to Critical Race Theory objections. It would seem that "...decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent's child" is pretty broad. This is all far from being a local/state issue.