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On FIRE: Watch This GOP Senate Candidate Stun Second Amendment Snowflakes Into Recess

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A Virginia lawmaker running in the Republican primary to challenge U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., outraged Democrats in the state legislature Friday with his fiery speech in support of the Second Amendment.

In response to recent attacks from Democrats on pro-gun Republicans, Delegate Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, asked his fellow lawmakers to have an “open and honest debate” on the factors that lead to mass shootings. Freitas noted that most mass shootings seem to occur in “gun-free zones” and that most mass shooters “come from broken homes.”

“Most of the shooters come from broken homes. What sort of government policies have actually encouraged broken homes?” Freitas asked. He also noted that the presence of firearms can deter violent crime and that there is a natural right to self-defense.

“So when people on this side talk about the importance of the Second Amendment, please understand it’s not just some base philosophical conviction that we all have,” Freitas said. “It is rooted in the idea that while we may be a post-Enlightenment society, the vast majority of horrible atrocities we’ve seen have happened in those post-Enlightenment societies. It’s happened as a result of government systematically disarming citizens and claiming themselves to be the sole responsible party for their security and then turning on those same citizens and punishing them.”

“That’s the most egregious cases, but in the individual cases of self-defense, that’s why people on this side of the aisle hold the Second Amendment in such high esteem. Because we honestly believe that you have an inherent right to defend yourself. And your ability to defend yourself should not be excluded to your size.”

Democrats in the chamber were not pleased with his speech, according to Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter Graham Moomaw.

Freitas said that Democrats are making an open debate on gun policy difficult by comparing Republicans to “Nazis” and “segregationists.” He fought back, noting that it was the Democrats who were the party of slavery and segregation.

“I just want to remind everyone very quickly, it was not our [Republican] party that supported slavery, that fought women’s suffrage, that rounded up tens of thousands of Asian-Americans and put them in concentration camps, that supported Jim Crow, that supported segregation, supported mass resistance. That wasn’t our party, that was the Democrat party.”

Democrats were reportedly so upset that they asked for recess, while Freitas received cheers from Republicans.

Freitas has earned a reputation in Virginia politics as an exceptional public speaker. This is not the first passionate speech he’s delivered in the House of Delegates. (For more from the author of “On FIRE: Watch This GOP Senate Candidate Stun Second Amendment Snowflakes Into Recess” please click HERE)

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42-Year-Old Man and 20-Year-Old Biological Daughter ‘Married,’ Had a Child, and Have Been Arrested

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A Virginia man and his 20-year-old biological daughter “face incest charges” after having a child together, according to warrants allegedly viewed or obtained by WNCN-TV.

In 1998, Steven Walter Pladl and his then-wife (who remains anonymous) gave their daughter, Katie Pladl, up for adoption. Approximately 18 years later, Katie found her birth parents using social media. By August 2016, she was living with the couple and their other biological children in their Virginia home.

WNCN-TV reports that according to the warrants, “Steven Pladl and his wife legally separated in November 2016 and the wife moved out,” and that Pladl’s wife claims her husband had begun sleeping “on the floor” in Katie’s room prior to her vacating the home.

In May 2017, the wife discovered that Steven had impregnated Katie, according to WNCN-TV. She then confronted Steven, and he admitted that he and Katie had been involved in a sexual relationship resulting in the conception of a child. He also reportedly added that he and Katie were going to be married. The wife uncovered the secret only after reading one of her children’s diary entries, the news outlet adds.

Shortly thereafter, the Pladl children were interviewed by Henrico County Child Advocacy Center. According to WNCN-TV, the kids confirmed that “they had been told” Katie was pregnant with their father’s baby. (Read more from “42-Year-Old Man and 20-Year-Old Biological Daughter ‘Married,’ Had a Child, and Have Been Arrested” HERE)

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Dem Refuses to Concede After Losing Lottery Drawing in Tied Va. Election

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The craziest election of 2017 finally reached its procedural conclusion Thursday as the Virginia Board of Elections held a drawing to determine the winner of House District 94. The Republicans won the random drawing, maintaining a narrow one-seat majority in the Virginia House of Delegates.

Initially, Democrat Shelly Simonds was declared the winner by a margin of one vote, but a three-judge panel ruled that a discarded vote for Republican incumbent David Yancey should have been counted, leaving the race tied at 11,608 votes each.

Simonds filed a lawsuit to challenge the uncounted ballot, but the recount court rejected the challenge and upheld the previous ruling.

Fortune smiled on the Republicans, as Yancey won the random lottery drawing, preserving the 51-49 GOP majority in the state legislature. But it might not be over.

On Wednesday, the Democrat Simonds said that “all options are still on the table” since Yancey had declined her offer to make the drawing final.

Reportedly, Simonds is not conceding.

What are these “options?” According to Virginia law, while tied elections are to be determined by lot, “any person who loses the determination by lot may petition for a recount.”

So Simonds could ask for yet another recount in the election that never ends. Stay tuned! (For more from the author of “Dem Refuses to Concede After Losing Lottery Drawing in Tied Va. Election” please click HERE)

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Congressional Candidate Indicted for Stealing From Poor Children

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A Democrat running for a Virginia seat in the U.S. House of Representatives was charged with fraud, embezzlement and theft in relation to payments made to a nonprofit in 2012.

Shaun Brown, 58, appeared in front of a judge Friday and claimed all charges that have been brought against her were false.

Brown also said she is going to continue to fight the charges until they are all dropped, Fox News reported Monday.

Brown reportedly received $803,000 from a nonprofit organization she created.

The money was said to be for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program.

Prosecutors have said they believe Brown received that money by filing false reimbursement claims with the Virginia Department of Health.

Brown and her mother filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Virginia Department of Health in December saying the departments delayed payments and falsified reimbursements due to their race, saying this happened because they are black Americans.

The two, who started the nonprofit together, are seeking $10 million in their lawsuit.

Even though Brown is suing the government, prosecutors have said Brown had her employees to raise the number of meals served to low-income children, in order for her nonprofit to keep the extra money.

Brown has even admitted there are problems with her non-profit, according to The Newport News Daily Press.

“I want the irregularities corrected,” Brown said. “I want to see the program improve.”

Although Brown is facing these serious charges she still plans on running for Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District seat.

Brown lost a race for the same seat to a Republican in 2016 by 23 points.

Brown is next scheduled to appear in court Jan. 12 and is said to be planning to plead not guilty. (For more from the author of “Congressional Candidate Indicted for Stealing From Poor Children” please click HERE)

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Virginia Democrat Wins Election by ONE VOTE

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The entire scape of the Virginia state legislature was changed Tuesday after a recount finalized a Democrat’s victory in a seat formerly held by a Republican with a margin of just one vote.

Democrat Shelly Simonds emerged from the recount as the winner of the 94th District of the House of Delegates, defeating Republican incumbent David Yancey, The Washington Post reports. There were 23,866 votes cast in this district on Election Day, and when the first results were counted, Yancey held only a 10-vote lead over Simonds.

After the recount, the final tally is 11,608 votes for Simonds to 11,607 for Yancey.

This is a historic victory for the Democrats, who having flipped the seat to now share a 50-50 tie with the Republicans for control of the Virginia House of Delegates. According to the Post, legislation in the house requires 51 votes to pass, and there is no mechanism to break ties.

Simonds’ victory is the capstone win of a wave election for the Democrats in the state of Virginia. A single voter is responsible for bringing the Virginia legislature to a possible stalemate for the next two years.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that your vote doesn’t matter. (For more from the author of “Virginia Democrat Wins Election by ONE VOTE” please click HERE)

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Virginia Governor-Elect Names Abortion, LGBT Activists to Transition Team

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The governor-elect of Virginia’s newly-announced transition committee is a who’s-who of leftist, pro-abortion activists, including the communications director of the commonwealth’s Planned Parenthood affiliate.

One of the most controversial points in Ralph Northam’s campaign came when the Latino Victory Fund released an ad in support of him suggesting his opponents are racists who want to murder minority children. The ad showed a pickup truck with a sticker supporting his Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie, flying a Confederate flag and chasing down minority children. The car also had a conservative “don’t tread on me” license plate.

The Latino Victory Project’s board chair, Leopoldo Martinez, was named to Northam’s transition committee.

Northam said his new team reflects “the diversity that makes our Commonwealth a wonderful and inclusive place to live” and will “build an administration that reflects Virginia and takes our Commonwealth to the next level.”

Tarina Keene, the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, is on the committee. So is Alexsis Rodgers, Planned Parenthood of Virginia’s director of communications. (Read more from “Virginia Governor-Elect Names Abortion, LGBT Activists to Transition Team” HERE)

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Democrat Releases WORST Campaign Ad You Will EVER See

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This is … this is just … there’s nothing I can write that will prepare you for what will undoubtedly be the worst campaign advertisement you’ve ever seen.

Meet Dan Helmer. He’s a Democrat running for Congress in Virginia’s 10th district against Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock. He just released this new campaign ad, and I made it 14 seconds before I had to turn it off.

Can you do better?

My editor said I had to watch the whole thing if I wanted to write about it, so, let’s discuss.

Everything is wrong with this vid. The cheesy “Top Gun” rip-off in the beginning. The “Veteran” t-shirt that lets you know, “Hey, this guy is a veteran!” Because, apparently, there was no subtler way to tell people that.

And then there’s the atmosphere. This guy pulls up on a motorcycle to a driving, crunchy guitar riff and walks into a bar. What a badass.

Then Mr. Badass Democrat breaks into off-key sing-song. “Cringe-worthy” is an understatement.

Everything you need to know about this ad can be summed up by the first YouTube comment from Ipayne5001: “Yo bro there’s still time to remove this before anyone sees it.”

It’s too late, Ipayne5001. We’ve seen it, and we can’t go back. (For more from the author of “Democrat Releases WORST Campaign Ad You Will EVER See” please click HERE)

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Results of Virginia’s Primary Hint at Future for Trump, Sanders Movements

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In one of the first major primary races after the 2016 presidential election, a Republican candidate for governor who campaigned on a pro-Trump platform nearly pulled off an upset, while a Democrat candidate who cast himself in Bernie Sanders’ progressive mold lost.

Candidates perceived by some as establishment won in both the Democratic and Republican primaries for Virginia governor Tuesday. But another takeaway is that the polls—which predicted a nail-biter for Democrats and a blowout on the Republican side—were as wrong as the polls for the Nov. 8 general election.

“The real national takeaway was on the Republican side more than the Democratic side,” said Quentin Kidd, a political science professor at Christopher Newport University who is director of the Wason Center for Public Policy.

A Washington Post poll in May showed a significant lead in the GOP governor’s race—37 percent to 12 percent—for Ed Gillespie, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, over Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, who was state chairman of President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. State Sen. Frank Wagner of Virginia Beach had 13 percent in the poll, actually outperforming Stewart.

“One candidate wrapped himself in a Donald Trump flag, running against an opponent with a huge advantage in polls,” Kidd told The Daily Signal. “Just as there were some shy Trump voters, I think there are also shy Stewart voters.”

Unofficial final results Tuesday night, though, had Gillespie only squeaking by Stewart, with 43.7 percent of the vote to 42.5 percent. Wagner finished with 13.8 percent.

On the Democratic side of the Virginia governor’s race, that same Post poll showed former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, a progressive with the active backing of Sanders, the democratic socialist senator from Vermont, leading Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, 35 percent to 29 percent.

But in the end, Northam won 55.9 percent of the vote to Perriello’s 44.1 percent. The upstart’s loss came after Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., did a TV commercial for him and several Obama administration alumni endorsed him.

Democrat Northam will face Republican Gillespie in the general election Nov. 7.

“The national implications are that the 37 percent or 40-something percent—whatever the Trump approval rating is on any given day—it’s real, and they do vote,” Kidd said. “Corey Stewart ran as Donald Trump’s right-hand man. … Ed Gillespie, I don’t know if he even uttered the words Donald Trump.”

Republican voters likely looked at the polls and thought Gillespie would win easily, said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington.

“There is a real dispute within the Republican Party about how close a candidate should be to Donald Trump,” Farnsworth told The Daily Signal.

The president was a key factor in both primaries, he said.

“It was a factor in the intensity for Stewart that made it a close race, and the intensity that forced Northam to move to the left and sharpen his attack on Trump in order to fend off Perriello,” Farnsworth said.

Phil Kerpen, chairman of American Commitment, a conservative advocacy group, noted while tweeting about the results that Trump was underestimated.

The Trump campaign last year fired Stewart, an early supporter, as its Virginia chairman after he participated in a protest outside Republican National Committee headquarters to complain that the RNC provided inadequate support for Trump.

The Democratic primary had some lessons.

Northam, known as a moderate Democrat in the Virginia state Senate, admittedly voted twice for Republican George W. Bush for president. For two years, Northam built a campaign based on pragmatism.

But Perriello pushed Northam to the left, to focus more heavily on issues such as maintaining Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in Virginia and fighting for abortion rights. The lieutenant governor called Trump a “narcissistic maniac” in one campaign commercial.

“That ad was very effective in prompting progressive-minded voters who were hesitant about Ralph Northam to be more comfortable with him,” Kidd said. “Tom Perriello wanted a groundswell of progressive energy that didn’t materialize.”

However, he said, Northam’s move to the left showed significant progressive energy was in play.

Kidd said the Northam-Perriello spread in the 2017 Democratic gubernatorial primary is closer, but still resembles the Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders split in the state’s 2016 Democratic presidential primary, when Clinton beat Sanders 64.3 percent to 35.2 percent.

“The progressive left and the moderate middle are still fairly static in Virginia. Those voting blocs are what they are,” Kidd said. “Northam was forced to be more progressive, but there weren’t the votes there for Perriello.” (For more from the author of “Results of Virginia’s Primary Hint at Future for Trump, Sanders Movements” please click HERE)

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VA Chief Says Senate Must Act So He Can Fire ‘Terrible Managers’

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Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said Wednesday the civil service appeals process prevents the agency from firing “terrible managers,” and that the Senate must act to reduce the impact of the Merit Systems Protection Board and excessive government employee union-backed due process requirements.

“Just last week we were forced to take back an employee after they were convicted no more than three times for DWI and had served a 60-day jail sentence … Our accountability processes are clearly broken,” Shulkin said at the White House.

Shulkin was promoted to the VA’s top job by President Donald Trump after being appointed by former President Barack Obama as undersecretary. Those positions have given Shulkin direct experience with the extent to which union-backed rules block the firings of poor performing employees.

“We had to wait more than a month to fire a psychiatrist who was caught on camera watching pornography on his iPad while seeing a patient,” he said. “Because of the way judges review these cases, they can force us to take terrible managers back who were fired for poor performance, we recently saw that with one of our executives in San Juan.”

Shulkin was referring to DeWayne Hamlin, a hospital director who was fired Jan. 20 for corruption but was then quietly returned to work. (Read more from “VA Chief Says Senate Must Act So He Can Fire ‘Terrible Managers'” HERE)

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Report Finds Thousands of Noncitizens on Voter Rolls in Virginia

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A conservative legal organization has uncovered that Virginia election officials removed thousands of voters between 2011 and May 2017.

In a report released Tuesday, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative legal group, found 5,556 voters were removed because they were noncitizens and that one-third of those removed voted illegally.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a board member of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email that the findings of the report are alarming.

“This report should concern everyone,” von Spakovsky said, adding:

It highlights the problem of illegal voting by noncitizens and illustrates the shocking fact that not only do election officials not have any measures in place to prevent this from happening, but that law enforcement apparently has no interest in prosecuting this fraud when it is discovered. And the circumstances of these cases show that what PILF has discovered despite resistance by state officials may only be the tip of the iceberg.

“This report is timed in a way to … keep the discussion fresh in the voting public’s mind because the reality is, we’re told over and over again that this sort of thing does not happen,” Logan Churchwell, communication’s director at the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an interview.

The report also found that 7,474 illegal ballots were cast from the group of removed noncitizens and that some records of illegal voting went back to the 1980s.

According to the report, which was based on voter history documents, record requests, and lawsuits, noncitizens “were caught by happenstance, usually by telling the motor vehicle agency they were not a citizen after previously telling the agency they were a citizen.”

“At the instruction of Gov. [Terry] McAuliffe’s political appointees, local election officials spent countless resources to prevent this information from spilling into the open,” J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel at the Public Interest Legal Foundation, said in a statement, adding:

Virginia hid critical information that would have improved election integrity while a political operative-turned-governor vetoed numerous proposals that would’ve prevented alien registration and voting. From [Northern Virginia] to Norfolk and all urban and rural points in between, alien voters are casting ballots with practically no legal consequences in response.

McAuliffe and his appointees also obstructed legislative initiatives to combat voter fraud, according to the report.

The Daily Signal contacted McAuliffe’s office but did not receive a response.

It was a challenge, Churchwell said, to obtain data on the noncitizens.

Some counties and municipalities, like Prince William County in Northern Virginia, cooperated, but others did not comply, according to Churchwell.

“What we started hearing was ‘I’m sorry, I can’t give you that information,’ ‘Sorry, I can’t do that, that information is protected,’” Churchwell said. “So even after one county says, ‘Here’s the records you asked for,’ you go across the county line, they immediately start telling you no. And then all of those no’s become uniform answers,” Churchwell said.

County officials, Churchwell said, used the Drivers Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits disclosure of personal information of a person’s motor vehicle record as a shield to protect voting records.

The process to verify citizenship must change for the problem to be solved, and Churchwell said he is hopeful that President Donald Trump’s panel to investigate voter fraud, launched in early May, will help.

“The next big discussion that this presidential commission will likely launch into and Congress might even go into thereafter is how do we essentially modernize our voter registration system,” Churchwell said.

The question, Churchwell said, is how to balance state control over voter integrity, but also provide guidance to states so they can better verify the citizenship status of incoming applicants.

“This idea of ‘check the box yes or no’ is not going to work,” Churchwell said. (For more from the author of “Report Finds Thousands of Noncitizens on Voter Rolls in Virginia” please click HERE)

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