Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) incorrectly described Virginia&#8217;s own voter identification law during a Sunday interview, prompting a correction from the host of a Democrat-friendly network.
The awkward exchange came on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrsZthfIo9M">This Week</a>&#8220; with host Jonathan Karl, as Warner criticized President Donald Trump&#8217;s election security agenda and defended Democratic opposition to the SAVE America Act, legislation that would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
Karl asked Warner whether Democrats should embrace photo voter identification requirements, noting that polls consistently show broad public support for voter ID laws.
&#8220;You know what? In Virginia, we have voter voter ID and photo ID,&#8221; Warner responded.
Karl immediately corrected the senator. &#8220;That&#8217;s actually not the case,&#8221; Karl replied. &#8220;I mean, I&#8217;m a Virginia voter. You don&#8217;t need to show a photo ID in Virginia. There are a wide range of things you can show for ID. And if you don&#8217;t show one of those, you can sign an affidavit.&#8221;
Warner attempted to recover by arguing that Virginia still has &#8220;voter ID of one form or another,&#8221; before pivoting back to criticizing Republican-backed election reforms.
Under Virginia law, voters may present numerous forms of acceptable identification, including certain government-issued IDs and other approved documents. If a voter does not have acceptable identification, he or she may sign an ID Confirmation Statement affirming their identity and cast a regular ballot. Virginia does not require voters to present a photo ID in order to vote.
The exchange occurred after Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, spent several minutes attacking Trump&#8217;s election security policies, arguing foreign adversaries such as Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China continue to pose cyber threats to American elections. 
Warner argued that Republicans were using the issue to suppress turnout through the SAVE America Act. 
&#8220;The SAVE Act is about voter disenfranchisement,&#8221; Warner said. &#8220;The SAVE Act is going to take anybody that changed their name when they got married. They don&#8217;t get to vote unless they go back and find [proof of a name change].”
Warner also argued that some Republican-led states permit voters to use gun-related identification while refusing to accept student IDs. 
&#8220;The irony here would be the case if you can show any photo that is government stamped would be fine,&#8221; Warner said. &#8220;Certain states will say we&#8217;re going to let you show your &#8230; NRA gun license but you can&#8217;t show your student ID.&#8221;
While some states do accept certain handgun carry permits as valid identification, a majority of those same states also permit qualifying student IDs for voting under specified circumstances.

Senate Hearing Examines Capitol Police Following January 6 Attack

Top Democrat Doesn’t Know His Own State’s Voter ID Policy

Election

Mark Warner

SAVE America Act

Virginia

As America gears up to celebrate its 250th birthday, one leftist city reminded residents that sparklers are illegal and said anyone defying the ban should be reported to the authorities. 
City officials in Alexandria, Virginia, posted an announcement on Wednesday, declaring that it is illegal to set off fireworks or light sparklers within the city and asked for its residents to call authorities if they witnessed any illegal patriotic celebrations. Alexandria is located about 10 miles away from Mount Vernon, the home of President and General George Washington. 
“Fireworks are illegal in Alexandria, including sparklers. Report illegal fireworks by calling 311. Our show is next weekend,” the city posted on social media. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Fireworks are illegal in Alexandria, including sparklers. Report illegal fireworks by calling 311. Our show is next weekend. Join us for the City Birthday celebration on July 11 at Oronoco Bay Park. Free admission. More info at <a href="https://t.co/De5QV2xucz">https://t.co/De5QV2xucz</a>. <a href="https://t.co/QP6nEwynmS">pic.twitter.com/QP6nEwynmS</a>
— AlexandriaVAGov (@AlexandriaVAGov) <a href="https://x.com/AlexandriaVAGov/status/2072364388858695705?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
According to the Alexandria Fire Department, it is even illegal to store fireworks or sparklers within the city limits. People caught with fireworks can be fined up to $2,500 and face up to a year in jail. 
“Fireworks are illegal in Alexandria. It is against the law to buy, sell, store, or use any fireworks inside the City, including sparklers and novelty items. This applies even if the fireworks were legal to buy in nearby counties or cities,” the fire department <a href="https://www.alexandriava.gov/news-afd/2026-06-29/alexandria-fire-department-reminds-community-that-fireworks-are-dangerous-and">posted</a> in May.  
The fire department claimed that sparklers “are not safe” and that “nearly half (46%) of people burned by fireworks last year were burned by a sparkler.” Other Democrat-run cities like Chicago and New York City also have sparkler bans in place. 
Conservative commentators reacted to the call to report illegal sparkler use with scorn. 
“Welcome to Virginia, where the government wants to eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for rape, child pornography distribution, and armed robbery — but encourages neighbors to snitch on each other for ‘illegal sparklers’ on the 4th of July,” <a href="https://x.com/theisabelb/status/2072655258640167162">said</a> Daily Wire host Isabel Brown.
“In Alexandria, Virginia, they want you to rat out your neighbors for their fireworks but will fight to their last breath to protect illegal aliens,” said Republican consultant Tim Murtaugh.
Former Virginia Republican attorney general Jason Miyares said, &#8220;This is just flat Un-American.&#8221;
Alexandria is known for its far-Left politics with rainbow colored “Pride” crosswalks painted across the streets in the city’s historic Old Town section and officials&#8217; condemnation of federal immigration enforcement. 
Since Alexandria will not have its fireworks display until July 11, patriotic residents could cross over the Potomac River and attend President Donald Trump’s fireworks display on the Fourth, which he has said will be the “largest firework show in history.” 
America’s Founding Fathers wanted celebrations of the country’s independence to include fireworks, with John Adams once writing that independence should be commemorated with “bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”

Sparkles with lights and American flag on the background. July forth celebration. The Independence day backdrop. Minimalistic wallpaper with copy space

Leftist Enclave Asks Residents To Report ‘Illegal’ Sparkler Celebrations During America 250

Alexandria

America 250

Fireworks

Fourth of July

This piece is part of MI x DW, a collaboration that brings Daily Wire readers exclusive commentary and research from the Manhattan Institute’s world-class team of scholars.
***
Virginia’s top Democrats are outraged. Why? Because 13 Republican commonwealth’s attorneys (so far) have announced that they will not enforce the state’s new assault-weapons ban when it takes effect July 1, arguing that the law is unconstitutional.
Governor Abigail Spanberger’s office <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/may/27/virginia-assault-weapons-ban-prosecutors-refuse-enforce-citing">rebuked</a> them: “The people of Virginia must be able to trust that all the commonwealth’s attorneys will uphold the rule of law and keep Virginians safe.” State Attorney General Jay Jones <a href="https://www.virginiascope.com/some-commonwealth-attorneys-vow-to-not-enforce-new-gun-ban-in-virginia">echoed</a> her, saying, “Commonwealth’s Attorneys are elected to enforce our laws, which is what we expect them to do.”
Prosecutors picking and choosing which laws to enforce is a dereliction of duty that undermines the rule of law and endangers the public. Prosecutors do not get to veto gun laws any more than they get to veto theft, sentencing, immigration, or drug laws. Virginia’s new assault-weapons ban may well be <a href="https://journals.law.harvard.edu/jlpp/wp-content/uploads/sites/90/2020/03/Smith-FINAL.pdf">unconstitutional</a>, but that question belongs to judges or voters, not prosecutors acting as one-man legislatures.
But why did it take so long for Virginia Democrats to discover that premise? When progressive prosecutors <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/reining-in-progressive-prosecutors">nullified</a> criminal laws governing <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/prosecutorial-indiscretion">theft</a>, <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-five-worst-prosecutors-in-america">bail</a>, <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/two-birds-one-prosecutor">sentencing</a>, <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-city-mayor-crime-immigration-deport-sanctuary">immigration cooperation</a>, and <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/prosecutorial-indiscretion">drugs</a>, Democrats called it principled and just. Now that conservatives apply that same theory to policies Democrats favor, it is an assault on the rule of law.
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Jones was silent when his political ally and campaign co-chair, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/fairfax-virginia-attorney-steve-descano">Steve Descano</a>, nullified duly enacted Virginia laws. In 2020, Descano <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia/fairfax-co-commonwealths-attorney-declining-to-prosecute-simple-marijuana-possession/2195529">stopped prosecuting</a> marijuana possession, unilaterally <a href="https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/commonwealthattorney/sites/commonwealthattorney/files/assets/documents/fairfax%20cwa%20-%20grand%20larceny%20and%20larceny%20third%20policy.pdf">raised</a> the felony-theft threshold above what state law prescribes, and <a href="https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/commonwealthattorney/sites/commonwealthattorney/files/Assets/Report%20Final%20Version.pdf">prohibited</a> all communication with immigration enforcement. He also barred prosecutors from seeking <a href="https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/commonwealthattorney/plea-bargaining-charging-decisions-and-sentencing-policy">mandatory life sentences</a> and directed line prosecutors to “make plea offers that avoid the legislatively mandated minimum jail sentence.”
Descano even campaigned on refusing to enforce laws he opposed. In a 2022 New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/prosecutor-abortion-virginia.html">op-ed</a>, he boasted that he would flout an abortion law if one were enacted.
Progressive criminal-justice groups <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/lapo.12260">call</a> such unilateral actions “prosecutor-led” reform. In reality, it is lawmaking by prosecutorial fiat.
Nor is Fairfax unique. Across Virginia, a number of Democratic commonwealth’s attorneys — including Arlington’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18s3Ci1viz">Parisa Dehghani-Tafti</a>, Portsmouth’s <a href="https://www.whsv.com/content/news/Virginia-prosecutor-to-drop-most-misdemeanor-marijuana-cases-508521961.html">Stephanie Morales</a>, Norfolk’s <a href="https://www.norfolk.gov/DocumentCenter/View/70948/Norfolk-Commonwealths-Attorneys-Office-Plea-Philosophy-Policies-and-Procedures-03-21-2022">Ramin Fatehi</a>, and Loudoun’s now-defeated <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-county-stop-prosecuting-several-crimes">Buta Biberaj</a> — adopted similar nullification policies.
When progressive commonwealth’s attorneys announced these agendas, prominent Virginia Democrats did not denounce them. In fact, most <a href="https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18s3Ci1viz">cheered</a>, because they opposed the laws the prosecutors were nullifying but lacked the votes to repeal them. Unable to enact their agenda legislatively, they backed extra-legal means to achieve their policy ends.
The consequences of prosecutorial nullification are not theoretical. In Fairfax, Descano’s office has <a href="https://www.fox5dc.com/news/fairfax-county-judge-slams-prosecutor-dismisses-child-sex-assault-case">repeatedly</a> drawn judicial <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/judge-zaldivar-sentence-abuse/2021/09/20/85258424-1a40-11ec-8380-5fbadbc43ef8_story.html">rebukes</a> for trampling <a href="https://www.fox5dc.com/news/court-docs-shed-new-light-on-botched-fairfax-co-sex-crimes-case">victims’ rights</a> and has released dangerous offenders who went on to commit terrible crimes.
On February 23, Abdul Jalloh, an illegal immigrant, allegedly murdered Stephanie Minter at a bus stop. Jallo had more than 30 prior arrests and <a href="https://wset.com/news/local/illegal-immigrant-with-long-criminal-record-accused-of-killing-woman-in-fairfax-county-abdul-jalloh-stephanie-minter-commonwealths-attorney-steve-descano">40 charges</a>, including multiple attempted-murder cases, for which he served little jail time. Yet despite <a href="https://wjla.com/news/local/illegal-immigrant-with-long-criminal-record-accused-of-killing-woman-in-fairfax-county-abdul-emails-jalloh-stephanie-minter-commonwealths-attorney-steve-descano">repeated pleas</a> from police, Descano’s office dropped case after case, and Jalloh was free months before Minter’s killing.
In responding to the Jalloh case, some of the loudest critics of Republican nonenforcement, including Governor Spanberger, chose <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia/fairfax-county-police-emails-warned-about-stabbing-suspect-in-womans-death/4070910/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">misdirection</a>. They blamed federal immigration authorities for releasing him five years earlier while ignoring the dozens of Fairfax cases that were dropped or minimized before the murder.
<a href="https://fairfax-ocwa.medium.com/mcca-report-fairfax-county-remains-one-of-the-safest-jurisdictions-in-the-nation-b97eb1dedf5c">Descano</a> and <a href="https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/republicans-effort-to-coerce-states-into-enforcing-reckless-immigration-agenda-undermines-local-police-makes-communities-less-safe">national Democrats</a> insist Fairfax County remains a suburban idyll, <a href="https://stevedescano.com/results1">calling</a> it the “safest jurisdiction of its size in America.” But compared with jurisdictions closer in size or demographics, Fairfax looks worse.
In 2018, neighboring Montgomery County, Maryland, was <a href="https://wjla.com/news/local/why-is-montgomery-countys-violent-crime-rate-twice-as-high-as-fairfax-countys">roughly twice</a> as violent as Fairfax. <a href="https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/archival-document?document=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.montgomerycountymd.gov%2Ffiles%2F2026-05%2F2025+MCPD+Annual+Report+on+Crime+and+Safety.pdf&amp;title=2025+Annual+Report+on+Crime+%26+Safety">Last year</a>, Montgomery recorded fewer crimes against persons and fewer property crimes than <a href="https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/03bcc658f4f44662ab70308157c31d0e">Fairfax</a>. Suffolk County, New York, is larger than Fairfax, with about 1.5 million residents, yet its <a href="https://www.suffolknewsherald.com/news/major-crime-dropped-17-in-2025-but-demands-on-officers-keep-growing-f8b3ed9a">violent crime</a> is lower and falling.
Fairfax is also trending in the wrong direction. According to Fairfax County Police <a href="https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/03bcc658f4f44662ab70308157c31d0e">data</a>, crimes against persons — including murders, assaults, and sex offenses — were <a href="https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/police/sites/police/files/assets/images/helpfulinfo/crime%20in%20our%20county/crime%20statistics/2019_group_a_offenses.pdf">up</a> 28 percent in 2025 from 2019, the year before Descano took office. They dipped only slightly from the 2024 high, even as crime has <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/05/19/us-news/violent-crime-drops-at-rates-not-seen-in-nearly-90-years-fbi">plummeted elsewhere</a>.
State Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell of Fairfax, the gun-control measure’s chief sponsor, tried to <a href="https://x.com/ssurovell/status/2059265051995910212?s=20">call out</a> conservative hypocrisy: “It was only a few years ago that many [of] the conservatives in the Commonwealth like the Attorney General [Jason Miyares] were complaining about Northern Virginia prosecutors not enforcing the laws on the books.”
Surovell is right about that. Our system requires prosecutors to enforce the law, not make it. If they want to legislate, they should win election to the General Assembly.
But Virginia Democrats defended such prosecutorial nullification until the other side adopted it. They are now reaping the whirlwind. Maybe this will remind them to put principle and public safety over politics.
***
This is republished with permission from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. The original can be found <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/virgina-assault-weapons-ban-commonwealth-attorneys">here</a>.
Sean Kennedy is the president of Virginians for Safe Communities, a public safety and victims’ rights advocacy group based in Fairfax County, Virginia and member of the Fairfax County Criminal Justice Advisory Board.

Richmond Prepares To Host Gubernatorial Inauguration Of Abigail Spanberger

Surprise! Virginia Democrats Discover Laws Are Supposed To Be Enforced

abigail spanberger

Attorney General

Gun Laws

MI x DW

prosecutors

A non-English speaking bus driver killed five people and injured 44 after crashing into stopped traffic along I-95 in Virginia early Friday morning.
The driver, Jing S. Dong, is a Chinese native with U.S. citizenship who received a commercial driver’s license from New York in 2024, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
“Unacceptable. This is exactly why we are holding states accountable, enforcing the rules of the road, and cracking down on drivers who can’t speak English,” Duffy wrote on X. “If you can’t be properly trained, read our road signs, or communicate with law enforcement, you have no business driving a bus.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Update on the tragic bus crash in Virginia:
Five people are dead, including a 13-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, after the driver of a motorcoach slammed into stopped traffic on I-95. <a href="https://x.com/FMCSA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FMCSA</a> Administrator Derek Barrs and our investigators are on the ground at the crash… <a href="https://t.co/NWPBd9aLPr">pic.twitter.com/NWPBd9aLPr</a>
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) <a href="https://x.com/SecDuffy/status/2060474587071074381?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 29, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Dong was allegedly driving the motor coach from New York City to Charlotte, North Carolina, when he failed to stop for slowing traffic and rammed into a Chevrolet Suburban, causing a chain reaction of at least six vehicles, the New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/05/30/us-news/virginia-bus-crash-that-killed-5-involved-non-english-speaking-driver-who-got-license-in-ny-says-sean-duffy/">reported</a>.
The driver of the Suburban, a 25-year-old woman from Massachusetts, was killed. After the bus slammed into it, the Suburban hit an Acura occupied by a family of four, killing 45-year-old Dmitri Doncev, his 44-year-old wife Ecaterina, their 13-year-old daughter, and 7-year-old son. The young family&#8217;s vehicle caught on fire after the collision, the Post reported.
“With broken hearts, we share the devastating loss of our beloved brother and his family in the tragic accident on South I-95 in Virginia early this morning,” Iuri Doncev, Dmitri Doncev’s brother, said on Facebook.
The Department of Transportation is investigating how Dong received his license from New York.
“Our investigators are reviewing New York licensing records, training documentation, and the driver’s history,” Duffy said. “Any company, trainer, or school that contributed to putting an unqualified driver on the road will face intense scrutiny.”
Earlier this year, an illegal immigrant with a CDL from California allegedly caused a multi-car pileup that killed two people and injured five others, The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/illegal-immigrant-trucker-with-blue-state-license-accused-of-causing-fatal-multi-car-pileup">reported</a>.

Bus Crash

Chinese-Native Bus Driver Who Can’t Speak English Causes Pileup That Kills Young Family

Car Crash

Death

New York

Sean Duffy

A missing Virginia teenager was last seen with a 39-year-old man who once avoided serious prison time thanks to a sweetheart plea deal despite admitting to sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy.
The Fredericksburg Police Department said Thursday that 17-year-old Autumn Van Zandt was last seen on May 19 traveling with career criminal Ronnie Reel and that they were potentially “attempting to travel out of state.” Reel faced previous criminal charges in July 2021 for child sex assault, but those charges were <a href="https://www.fox5dc.com/news/virginia-man-who-confessed-to-sexually-abusing-11-year-old-offered-plea-deal-in-fairfax-co">downgraded</a> after the judge said that leftist Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano’s office failed to turn in evidence on time. 
Instead of facing life in prison for sodomy and aggravated sexual battery, Reel took a plea deal in September 2022 that released him for time served on a misdemeanor assault and battery charge. That plea deal emerged after a judge said that Descano’s office missed a deadline to turn over evidence to Reel&#8217;s legal team and could not include two recorded confessions as part of their case, Fox5 <a href="https://www.fox5dc.com/news/virginia-man-who-confessed-to-sexually-abusing-11-year-old-offered-plea-deal-in-fairfax-co">reported</a> at the time. 
&#8220;He was confessing every little detail that he did, and it was making me sick to my stomach,&#8221; Amber, the victim&#8217;s mother, said of the recording of her phone call with Reel. &#8220;It was horrible. He literally confessed to me why he did it.&#8221;
Descano’s office disputed the judge’s ruling that they failed to properly provide evidence for the case in a timely manner, pinning the blame on the judge. His office told The Daily Wire that the judge &#8220;made a novel ruling that discovery was turned over too early yet denied the prosecutor&#8217;s motion to continue. We prosecuted the defendant based on the remaining evidence available.&#8221;
&#8220;We acted immediately in response to this novel ruling, and notified all prosecutors that discovery must now be submitted again in Circuit Court  — even if it was already conveyed in a lower court … according to the law, the remedy for such a dispute is a routine continuance — which was sought by our prosecutor and denied,&#8221; Descano&#8217;s office said at the time. 
 The victim’s family disagreed. 
“A man would be sitting in jail right now if they just didn’t assume. Because that’s what they did. They assumed it would be OK not to send in the paperwork again,” Amber said.  
Descano, whose campaigns have been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-county-d-a-handing-out-get-out-of-jail-free-cards">funded</a> by George Soros groups, has long faced scrutiny over his handling of criminal cases. In recent months, his office has released multiple suspects who went on to be charged with murder. 
His office released 32-year-old illegal immigrant <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/receipts-show-progressive-prosecutor-warned-about-illegal-alien-before-mom-was-murdered">Abdul Jalloh</a> before he went on to be later charged with murdering 41-year-old mother Stephanie Minter. In a similar case, alleged MS-13 gang member Marvin Morales-Ortez was arrested for murder one day after being released by Descano’s office.
Fredericksburg police are asking for anyone with information to send in tips. Van Zandt is described as standing 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighing 135 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. She was wearing a black top and jean shorts with a red purse and has a heart-shaped tattoo on the side of her hip.

MixCollage-22-May-2026-09-11-AM-3985

Vanished Teen Last Seen With Sexual Predator Released After Leftist DA Screw-Up

Teen Girl Last Seen With Career Criminal Who Dodged Child Sex Charge

Crime

George Soros

A U.S. Army veteran who rescued his 11-year-old dog from ISIS is now fighting to save her again after local authorities in Virginia “kidnapped” the animal.
Brendan Jones, a military veteran with 18 years of counterterrorism experience, rescued his dog Lucy from the grips of ISIS while deployed in the Middle East. Now, he&#8217;s building a &#8220;<a href="https://hannity.com/media-room/save-lucy-army-vets-beloved-pup-who-survived-isis-now-locked-in-virginia-kennel/">pressure campaign</a>&#8221; to save Lucy from an animal shelter. 
Around a month ago, Lucy was taken from the family&#8217;s rural property near Strasburg, Virginia, after a neighbor claimed that the dog threatened her and accused Jones of failing to comply with Virginia’s dangerous dog registry requirements.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
You know who you are. On April 17, you saw me in my yard with my dog. You watched a freak mishap occur. You saw the collar slip over my dog&#8217;s head. You saw me immediately react, bringing my dog under control as quickly as I could manage without her leaving my property. You heard… <a href="https://t.co/yaefu9pngK">pic.twitter.com/yaefu9pngK</a>
— Brendan Jones 🇺🇸 (@jonesbrendanm) <a href="https://twitter.com/jonesbrendanm/status/2051483782125875278?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 5, 2026</a></blockquote>
<a href="https://x.com/jonesbrendanm/status/2051483782125875278?s=20">On social media,</a> Jones called the incident a &#8220;freak mishap&#8221; and immediately brought the dog under control. He also said that Lucy never left his property.
&#8220;A passerby, a local attorney&#8217;s wife, escalated it to the authorities,&#8221; <a href="https://www.change.org/p/help-bring-home-a-veterans-11-year-old-rescue-dog-after-a-brief-leash-slip?recruiter=535315019&amp;recruited_by_id=db9f7a10-0f9e-11e6-a491-2183983b1494&amp;utm_source=share_petition&amp;utm_campaign=share_petition&amp;utm_term=share_petition&amp;utm_medium=copylink&amp;share_id=xHNTp9KntX">Jones and his wife Dolly wrote</a>. &#8220;Now, at 11 years old, Lucy is unjustly confined in a shelter; confused, lonely, and awaiting death for doing nothing but barking — something all dogs do!&#8221;
Lucy, according to Jones, had been declared “dangerous” a year earlier after she nipped a passerby. He <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/dog-saved-isis-army-veteran-kidnapped-family-yard-local-authorities">said</a> the incident was out of character and occurred while the dog was recovering from surgery and still groggy. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
She was drugged up post surgery. Not in her right mind. She was injured and in pain. She was wearing a boot and hobbling on three lets. She was wearing a cone and couldn&#8217;t see. In this vulnerable and confused state, a strange hand suddenly appeared next to her head. She felt… <a href="https://t.co/IQaG4QujHv">pic.twitter.com/IQaG4QujHv</a>
— Brendan Jones 🇺🇸 (@jonesbrendanm) <a href="https://twitter.com/jonesbrendanm/status/2056191576263582075?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2026</a></blockquote>
Dolly Jones, Brendan&#8217;s wife, said the couple has faced repeated conflicts with neighbors, including over a dozen police calls and multiple court appearances over animal-related noise complaints. Jones argued that the incident involving Lucy was &#8220;the weapon they needed to wield against us.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s been heartbreaking for everybody,&#8221; Dolly Jones said on &#8220;<a href="https://hannity.com/media-room/save-lucy-army-vets-beloved-pup-who-survived-isis-now-locked-in-virginia-kennel/">The Sean Hannity Show</a>.&#8221; &#8220;When they actually came and kidnapped her off our property, the kids were outside playing, and the cops came up and removed her from the field, put her in the car. It&#8217;s been devastating.&#8221; 
Brendan found and fell in love with Lucy in 2015 while &#8220;camping in the reddish moondust on the border between Jordan and Syria.&#8221;
&#8220;A young dog, pearl white in color, hung out with us at camp. We kind of adopted her and fed her leftovers. She appreciated having a full belly and a respite from the packs of wild dogs and angry Bedouins,&#8221; he said on social media. &#8220;We named her Lucy, which was appropriate, because it was similar to the Arabic word &#8216;Lulu,&#8217; which means pearl.&#8221;
Then, he bribed a Jordanian officer to get Lucy veterinary care. 
&#8220;First, I asked him straight up to take the dog to the vet in Amman. He laughed, spat on the ground, and said something disparaging about Americans and their love for filthy dogs. So I went for his Achilles heel — his love of Oakley sunglasses. I told him I would give him my Oakleys if he drove the dog 3.5 hours to Amman and delivered her to the vet. That got him. He said he would,&#8221; Jones said. 
Following the birth of his newborn son, Jones said Lucy helped fill the void of his emotional pain overseas. 
&#8220;I missed being a dad, I missed the dad life, and that&#8217;s not the headspace you want when you&#8217;re overseas in danger, when you have to be focused on the mission,&#8221; he told Hannity. &#8220;Lucy helped me get over that, because she filled that void that was missing. I would sit outside our gate after we adopted her and just pet her, play with her, feed her; it helped me overcome the pain that I felt.&#8221; 
Lucy is still sitting in her cell at the pound, <a href="https://x.com/jonesbrendanm/status/2057510905621975420?s=20">according to Jones</a>, and the dog is unlikely to be released before Jones&#8217; next court date, which is set for June 12. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Took Lucy treats. Couldn&#8217;t see her. One of the ladies took a video of her. She sent it to me along with the following message:
&#8220;Praying for a positive outcome soon for Lucy! 🙏&#8221;
These people are heroes. God bless them. But I want my dog back.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SaveLucy?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SaveLucy</a><a href="https://twitter.com/Herb_Minstrel?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Herb_Minstrel</a> <a href="https://t.co/htCgWM3CEo">pic.twitter.com/htCgWM3CEo</a>
— Brendan Jones 🇺🇸 (@jonesbrendanm) <a href="https://twitter.com/jonesbrendanm/status/2056427493830033833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2026</a></blockquote>
&#8220;We&#8217;re hoping that her life be bookended by miracles, one to get her here and one to save her from the Islamic State, and one to get her out of the hands of our own state,&#8221; Jones told Hannity.  
The Jones family <a href="https://www.change.org/p/help-bring-home-a-veterans-11-year-old-rescue-dog-after-a-brief-leash-slip?recruiter=535315019&amp;recruited_by_id=db9f7a10-0f9e-11e6-a491-2183983b1494&amp;utm_source=share_petition&amp;utm_campaign=share_petition&amp;utm_term=share_petition&amp;utm_medium=copylink&amp;share_id=xHNTp9KntX">created an online petition</a> calling for Lucy&#8217;s release.

HHhVlD7XgAEkKWv

Army Veteran Saved His Dog From ISIS — Then His Neighbors Had Her Kidnapped

Animals

Dogs

News

Virginia Democrats just found out the Supreme Court is not in the mood for election-year do-overs.
In a decision that could ripple far beyond the Commonwealth, the United States Supreme Court slammed the brakes on a Democrat-backed effort to redraw Virginia’s congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterms, and it did it without a single justice publicly objecting. No fiery dissents. No dramatic explanation. Just a quiet little order that dropped like a hammer.
The fight centered around a voter-approved map Democrats hoped would help flip four Republican-held House seats and possibly tilt control of Congress. Virginia voters narrowly approved the new map in April after Democrats pushed through a complicated workaround to sidestep the state’s bipartisan redistricting system.
Republicans immediately cried foul, arguing the process violated Virginia’s constitution because lawmakers jammed the proposal forward after early voting had already started in a required election cycle.
Virginia’s Supreme Court agreed in a razor-thin 4-3 ruling, tossing the map out entirely and saying the process was too compromised to stand.
Democrats raced to the nation’s highest court begging the justices to step in and save the plan before the midterms heat up.
But the Supreme Court basically responded with a cold shrug.
Why does this matter? Because this is not just about Virginia. It is part of a nationwide political cage match over congressional maps as both parties scramble to redraw districts before November.
Texas Republicans already moved to strengthen their map. California Democrats fired back with their own redraw.
Now Virginia has become another major battlefield in the redistricting war that could decide who controls Washington.
Republicans currently hold slim majorities in both the House and Senate, and both parties know a few district lines can change the balance of power overnight.
Even more wild? Nearly $100 million was dumped into the Virginia referendum fight alone.
To most Virginians, it probably looked like just another random ballot question buried halfway down the page.
To both parties, though, it was political gold.
But in modern politics, maps are power.
And Friday’s ruling was a reminder that sometimes the most important election battles happen long before anyone actually votes.

GettyImages-1448513952

Supreme Court Has Final Word On Dem Hail Mary Over Virginia Map

Courts

Politics

Redistricting

SCOTUS

Supreme Court

Democrats are up in arms over a decision by the Virginia Supreme Court that overturns their attempt to gerrymander the commonwealth’s Republican voters to the brink of oblivion. Virginia is considered a purple state where Kamala Harris won against Donald Trump by only about six percent of the voters, many of whom simply thought having an idiot president with a lunatic cackle might be the funnier choice.
But the gerrymander would have changed the commonwealth’s districts from a representative six blue versus five red, to an admittedly hilarious but totally unfair ten blue districts versus one red. The lone Republican district would be ringed in by high walls topped with barbed wire, while all voting booths would be located in the blue districts.
The court ruled that the ballot measure allowing the change violated procedural rules laid out in the Virginia Constitution under its &#8220;Don’t be a Schmuck&#8221; clause, which requires laws to be written by people who are not schmucks or can at least pretend not to be schmucks for ten straight minutes or, if that’s too much to ask, can at least ACT like they’re not schmucks for ten minutes even though everyone knows they are.
In a frantic group phone call among some of the Democratic Party’s top schmucks, schmucks from around the country expressed their concern at the court&#8217;s decision.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/andrew-klavan-ep-1279"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-974735 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a huge schmuck, said the Virginia Court’s move was part of a nationwide conspiracy against the Democrat party. The schmuck said:
<blockquote>
“First, the Supreme Court tells us we can’t gerrymander by race, so black people will be allowed to share districts with white people. That’s exactly what we’ve been trying to put a stop to since the Republicans won the Civil War. If voters stopped voting for skin color and started passing judgment on policies, the Democratic Party would cease to exist. Next, the Virginia Supreme Court says we&#8217;re violating the rule of law, and I’m, like, ‘What? What the hell are they even talking about?’ And now, Republicans in Congress want to require voters to have picture identification, which would limit the electorate to living people who actually exist. That’s a blatant attempt to disenfranchise imaginary Democrats across and under this great nation. And the only reason the Republicans haven’t been able to pass a voter ID law supported by 84 percent of the people is that none of them realize yet that their Senate Leader, John Thune, passed away last August. They think he’s just totally ineffective. Wait till they find out we propped him up in his seat and had him embalmed!” 
</blockquote>
As the group phone call continued, the Democrats started to strategize how to overturn the court’s decision. One idea was to lower the required retirement age of Virginia judges from the current 73 years old to two, so that the present judges would have to step down and could be replaced by judges who don’t know what’s in the Constitution and are dependent on others to feed them, either because they’re only two years old or just because they’re Democrats, I’m not sure which.
Another idea was to wait till election night, pretend there were water main leaks in voting venues, stop the count, then smuggle in boxes of fake ballots, and get The New York Times to run articles claiming it was the least corrupt election ever. But that idea was ultimately rejected, because Democrats felt no one would fall for such a silly trick twice.
Finally, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, a stupid schmuck, tried to file a motion to overturn the Virginia Court’s ruling to the United States Supreme Court. Jones wrote the motion — and God help me, I am not making this part up — he wrote the motion in which the speaker of the “Virgnia” House of Delegates, appealed against a State “Sentator” and then he filed the misspelt motion with the VIRGINIA Supreme Court instead of the United States Supreme Court, which has no jurisdiction in the matter anyway. When told he should have used a hot little item called spellcheck to help him write the motion, Attorney General Jones remarked, “Oh good, there’s nothing I like better than a hot check. Maybe I can sentate her some flounders and show her around Virgnia.”

Jeffries

Dems Furious After Court Rules Republicans Allowed To Vote

Democrats

gerrymandering

Hakeem Jeffries

In a direct assault on the constitutional rights of law-abiding Virginians, Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a sweeping package of gun control measures, including a ban on commonly owned semi-automatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines.
Spanberger signed the legislation into law on Thursday, criminalizing the purchase, sale, manufacture, and importation of the AR-15 — the most popular rifle in America — along with a wide range of semi-automatic handguns and shotguns. The National Rifle Association responded immediately, filing a state lawsuit to block these unconstitutional mandates before the ink could even dry.
“Governor Spanberger has once again proven she has no concern for the right to keep and bear arms,” the NRA <a href="https://www.nraila.org/articles/20260514/virginia-spanberger-doubles-down-on-semi-auto-ban-nra-doubles-down-on-lawsuits">stated</a>.
While the governor attempted to frame her last-minute amendments as &#8220;technical changes,&#8221; the NRA has denounced them as a transparent attempt to rebrand blatant violations of the Second Amendment.
When she campaigned for governor, Spanberger <a href="https://virginiaindependentnews.com/elections/virginia-governor-2025-spanberger-earle-sears-gun-violence-safety-legislation/#:~:text=We%20need%20to%20strengthen%20Virginia's,officers%20safe%2C”%20Spanberger%20said.">studiously avoided</a> calling for the kind of ban she just signed, saying instead, &#8220;We need to strengthen Virginia’s safe storage laws, prevent the sale of large-capacity magazines, and crack down on criminals who manufacture and possess illegal, untraceable ghost guns — efforts that would keep Virginia’s kids, families, and law enforcement officers safe.&#8221;
The NRA’s lawsuit, Santolla v. Katz, filed in the Washington County Circuit Court, argues that the bans violate the arms guarantee in Article I, Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution. Because the Virginia Supreme Court has historically interpreted this provision as parallel with the Second Amendment, the NRA contends the state is barred from prohibiting firearms and magazines that are in common use for lawful purposes.
Joining the NRA as plaintiffs are the Virginia Shooting Sports Association (VSSA), local firearm dealers, and several Virginia citizens.
In addition to the firearm and magazine bans, Spanberger signed measures that prohibit the possession of weapons in hospitals providing mental health services, raise the age to purchase certain firearms to 21, and implement restrictive &#8220;safe storage&#8221; requirements that dictate how citizens must keep arms in their own homes.
The governor’s office cited &#8220;combat use&#8221; as a justification for the ban, but the NRA reminded the commonwealth that these firearms are used daily by millions of Americans for self-defense, hunting, and competitive shooting.
As the law is set to take effect on July 1, 2026, the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action said it is prepared to pursue every legal avenue to ensure that the fundamental rights of Virginians are not trampled by a hostile executive.
Along with the state lawsuit, the NRA also filed a federal lawsuit, McDonald v. Katz, with the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Second Amendment Foundation, and other individuals.

Abigail Spanberger Is Sworn In As First Female Virginia Governor

Democrat Governor Signs Sweeping Ban That Targets America’s Favorite Firearms

Guns

National Rifle Association (NRA)

Second Amendment

Virginia Democrats are gaslighting the American public after losing big on their redistricting gamble by attempting to sell a big lie to save face.
Prominent Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are publicly complaining that because the Virginia Supreme Court issued its ruling — invalidating the newly-gerrymandered congressional map — after the referendum was over, the court should be under scrutiny for overturning the will of the people. What they are not saying is that Virginia Democrats demanded — in litigation filed with the court — that no ruling be issued until after the referendum was over.
&#8220;What is extremely disturbing about what has happened in Virginia is this court overturned the will of three million Virginians,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez told reporters. While 3 million Virginians did vote on the referendum, only a little over half (1.6 million) voted in favor of the measure.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
AOC: What is extremely disturbing about what has happened in Virginia is this court overturned the will of three million Virginians. They can say what they want about the ballot initiative, but they explicitly chose to issue this ruling after the election happened. They had all… <a href="https://t.co/NC7kUsMikB">pic.twitter.com/NC7kUsMikB</a>
— Acyn (@Acyn) <a href="https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/2054357562620010862?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 13, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;They can say what they want about the ballot initiative, but they explicitly chose to issue this ruling after the election happened. They had all the time in the world to issue an opinion or an injunction before allowing this election to happen,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;They did not overturn a map — they overturned an election &#8230; It is the power of the American people that should be the ultimate check on all three branches.&#8221;
<a href="https://x.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/2052823708662649095">Adam Parkhomenko</a>, who served as an adviser to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, amplified a Bluesky account making the same argument. That argument was that the court, in waiting until after the election, was making its ruling — and thus invalidating the new map — after gaining only one new piece of information: how the people would vote on the issue.
&#8220;The best argument re: Virginia decision I’ve heard is this,&#8221; he said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) issued a statement immediately after the ruling, trashing the Virginia Supreme Court for overturning the will of the people.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The decision by the Virginia Supreme Court to overturn the will of more than three million voters will not stand. <a href="https://t.co/ZtayVJRw4T">pic.twitter.com/ZtayVJRw4T</a>
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepJeffries/status/2052776800984416429?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 8, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
But as Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote in his May 8 opinion, the delay had been the Democrats&#8217; idea. In fact, they had presented several legal arguments in favor of it, citing precedent and saying that the court could not lawfully rule on the validity of the measure until it was adopted.
&#8220;It is fair to ask whether we could have or should have reviewed the constitutionality of the proposed amendment prior to it being presented to the voters,&#8221; Kelsey wrote. &#8220;Throughout this litigation, the Commonwealth has insisted that we cannot lawfully decide this case prior to the referendum. In its motion for a stay in this case, the Commonwealth argued that longstanding Virginia precedent, Scott v. James, was &#8216;virtually indistinguishable&#8217; from this case and that it clearly held that &#8216;courts cannot interfere to stop any of the proceedings while this permanent law is in the process of being made,&#8217; and &#8216;[o]nly ‘upon the completion of the proceedings, [if] the validity of the amendment is assailed[] on the ground that the several provisions of the Constitution have not been complied with, then the courts can pass upon the validity of the amendment.'&#8221;
Kelsey also made it clear that the court was well aware that Democrats would attempt to turn the argument back on itself if they did not get their way, adding, &#8220;Having successfully insisted (over the objection of the Claimants)13 that we postpone judicial review of the constitutional amendment until after the election process, it might be tempting for the Commonwealth to think that the final vote implicitly stacks the deck in its favor — perhaps enough so that the exercise of any judicial review could be viewed as an ultra vires effort to overturn the will of the people.&#8221;
He concluded that Democrats were essentially attempting to set up a situation in which precedent prohibited the court from ruling before the referendum passed and &#8220;the will of the people&#8221; barred the court from ruling afterward — thus nullifying the court&#8217;s ability to act at all.
And Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez are quickly proving him right.

US-ENVIRONMENT-CLIMATE-DIPLOMACY

Democrats Try To Gaslight America After Redistricting Faceplant

Democrats Attempt To Sell Big Lie In Virginia

Media

Virginia Democrats

Virginia Democrats are desperate to grab onto anything that could potentially resurrect their gerrymandered 10-1 congressional map before the 2026 midterm elections — and the panic is really starting to show.
In the days since the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the map — over irregularities in the process by which it was adopted — Democrats have explored several avenues by which they might make their fever dream a reality.
An attempt to appeal to the United States Supreme Court, for example, was so rushed that the first page of the filing listed the wrong court.
&#8220;Good News: Dems managed to spell Virginia correctly. Bad News: They sent their emergency application to SCOTUS to the wrong court. Baby steps,&#8221; former Attorney General Jason Miyares (R-VA) posted via X, sharing a screenshot of the page.
Although the &#8220;Supreme Court of the United States&#8221; was named at the top of the page, across the bottom of the frame, it read, &#8220;ON EMERGENCY APPLICATION TO THE SUPREME COURT OF VIRGINIA.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Good News: Dems managed to spell Virginia correctly. Bad News: They sent their emergency application to SCOTUS to the wrong court. Baby steps. <a href="https://t.co/Izi5FeKgbo">pic.twitter.com/Izi5FeKgbo</a>
— Jason Miyares (@JasonMiyaresVA) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonMiyaresVA/status/2054155473763393573?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 12, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Others pointed out that the word &#8220;senator&#8221; was misspelled as &#8220;sentator&#8221; and even the name of the state was misspelled as &#8220;Virgnia&#8221; in the rushed filing.
The case was ultimately filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, and Chief Justice John Roberts has instructed Republicans to file a response to the Democrats by Thursday at 5 p.m. ET.
In addition to their appeal to the highest Court, Democrats in Virginia have also considered an even more dramatic move to force their map on the people: a complete dismantling of the state Supreme Court.
As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrats-float-dramatic-shakeup-that-could-force-out-virginias-entire-supreme-court">previously reported</a>, Virginia Democrats have considered lowering the mandatory retirement age for judges on the state&#8217;s highest court just enough to force the entire bench to retire. Then, with a Democratic governor and a Democratic super-majority in the legislature, they could ensure an entirely new bench that would be far more likely to rule in their favor.

Jay Jones

Dems Desperate To Force New Map On Voters Mark Case For Wrong Court

Last Friday, the Supreme Court of Virginia issued its <a href="https://www.vacourts.gov/static/opinions/opnscvwp/1260127.pdf">decision</a>, striking down Virginia Democrats’ attempt to redraw the Commonwealth’s congressional map. Had the map been allowed to stand, Democrats would have been favored to win 10 of the state’s 11 congressional seats in the 2026 midterms, with Republicans favored in just one. This would have represented a massive change from the current, more balanced map, in which six congressional seats are held by Democrats and five by Republicans. That current map far more accurately reflects Virginia’s electorate, where Kamala Harris won 52% to 46% in the 2024 presidential election.
The Democrats were, of course, free to try to execute their power grab if they followed the law. Unlike other states, however, it was not as simple as passing a new law with new maps. Instead, there is the Virginia Constitution with which to contend, namely, amending the Commonwealth’s Constitution to undo what was done in 2020. Then the constitution was amended to reform the redistricting process by creating an independent redistricting commission. The bill for that constitutional amendment, passed by the Virginia legislature with Democratic majorities in both houses, was signed by Democratic Governor Ralph Northam, and Virginia voters overwhelmingly adopted it by 66% to 34%.
Unfortunately for Democrats, the Virginia Supreme Court correctly concluded that the Democrats did not follow the Virginia Constitution’s amendment process. Specifically, the Virginia Constitution requires that any amendment be passed in two separate legislative sessions divided by an intervening election of the House of Delegates. Because the legislature passed its proposed redistricting amendment on October 31, 2025 — after 1.3 million Virginians had already voted during 42 days of early voting — the court determined that the amendment passed during an election, not before one, as the state constitution mandates.
The Virginia Supreme Court’s decision is well-reasoned and grounded in Virginia’s foundational document: the Virginia Constitution. The Court is historically traditionalist, not known for issuing politically motivated or even controversial decisions. Nevertheless, Democrats immediately threw a temper tantrum that would make Veruca Salt look well-behaved in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
And, it didn’t take long for the histrionics. Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor Ghazala Hashmi <a href="https://x.com/ltgovhashmi/status/2052858038654992552?s=20">posted on X</a> that “[t]he Virginia Supreme Court’s decision to block a redistricting referendum that Virginians voted for is part of a broader national assault on our democratic institutions.” Hashmi’s knee-jerk act of name-calling, although predictable, reveals her desire to delegitimize the rule of law, the independent judiciary, and the Virginia Constitution itself.
Then there is Attorney General Jay Jones, perhaps best known for <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/dem-ag-nominee-jay-jones-fantasized-about-shooting-former-virginia-gop-speaker-he-receives-both-bullets/">fantasizing about his political opponents and their children being murdered</a>. He accused the Virginia Supreme Court of “silenc[ing] the voices of millions of Virginians” and “fuel[ing] the growing fears across our nation about the state of our democracy.” Jones, supposedly Virginia’s top attorney, went on to claim that the “Republican-led majority of the Supreme Court of Virginia contorted the plain language of the Constitution and Code of Virginia to give it a meaning that was never intended, which allowed them to reach the wrong legal conclusion that fit their political agenda.” Perhaps Jones — whose office will need to appear before those same justices over the next four years — should have read <a href="https://vsb.org/Site/Site/about/rules-regulations/rpc-part6-sec2.aspx">Rule 8.2 of the Virginia Rules of Professional Responsibility</a>, which provides, “[a] lawyer shall not make a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge or other judicial officer.”
But Jones wasn’t finished demonstrating why he isn’t qualified to be attorney general. Within hours after the decision, his office <a href="https://x.com/Jaaavis/status/2052850404535222721/photo/1">filed a motion</a> to delay the Virginia Supreme Court from issuing its mandate. Why? So that he could appeal to the United States Supreme Court, a decision by the Virginia Supreme Court that rested solely on the Virginia Constitution. His appeal was dead on arrival at SCOTUS, and one really must question the competence of an attorney general who files a motion <a href="https://x.com/JasonMiyaresVA/status/2052913817626030469?s=20">misspelling</a> his own state — “Virgnia” — and then mangles “Senator” into “Sentator.”
Over the weekend, Virginia Democrats’ comedy of errors turned dark and dangerous. It started with a Substack post from <a href="https://law.msu.edu/faculty-staff/y/quinn--yeargain">Michigan State Law Professor Quinn Yeargain</a> (“They/them/theirs”), who suggested that Virginia Democrats should lower the retirement age for Supreme Court justices from 73 to 54 — a move that would clear out the court and allow the legislature to appoint new justices willing to let the redistricting scheme go forward. This insane proposal would never be taken seriously by respectable lawmakers who value our core foundational principles, such as an independent judiciary. Not so fast. On Sunday, the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/us/politics/democrats-virginia-plans-gerrymandering.html">reported</a> that Democratic House members from Virginia and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries discussed just such a plan to replace the entire Virginia Supreme Court. Suhas Subramanyam, the Democratic Congressman who represents Loudoun County, Virginia, told the New York Times that he would indeed back such a plan.
Yet the Jeffries-Subramanyam plot to end the rule of law and judicial independence in Virginia may be a bridge too far for Virginia’s Democratic state legislators. State Senate Leader Scott Surovell poured cold water on the proposal, calling it extreme and saying he wants to work within the existing legal system. Who knew that Democrats operating within the law would be so novel a concept that it would require such a statement? Unsurprisingly, we have not yet heard from Governor Abigail Spanberger, who has apparently not yet received her badge of courage from the Wizard of Oz.
The scariest thing about the Jeffries-Subramanyam plot is not that it could work — it won’t. It is that Washington’s Democratic Party’s leadership admits publicly their willingness to go to such extreme measures to scrap a state constitution, eviscerate the rule of law, and terminate judicial independence, all in search of a few more congressional seats. One does not need to be Nostradamus to predict what will happen if Democrats gain control of the presidency, the House, and the Senate in 2028. They will immediately scrap the filibuster and ram through new laws granting citizenship to illegal aliens, open the border, raise tax rates to astronomical levels, create a single-payer health care system, mainstream the transgender agenda, and whatever else the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can conjure.
No longer needing the 60-vote threshold, they will effectively shred the Constitution and the checks and balances guaranteed by an independent judiciary by packing the United States Supreme Court with five more Ketanji Brown Jacksons. No longer will laws and lawmakers be limited by the vision of the Founding Fathers or by the guardrails against the tyranny of the majority maintained by our founding document. Instead, the judiciary will become a rubber stamp for far-left legislation, destroying civil liberties, federalism, and the greatest system of governance yet known to man.
There should no longer be any doubt about the left’s assault on America’s values, its institutions, and the United States Constitution. What started as a fringe movement on the Left has now infected the highest levels of Democratic leadership in this country. Benjamin Franklin famously said of our government that it is “[a] republic, if you can keep it.” The battle to keep our republic has become even more urgent and existential after this past weekend in Virginia.
***
Ian Prior is senior counsel at America First Legal and former deputy director of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice.

Abigail Spanberger Sworn In As Virginia Governor

Democrats Go Full Insane Mode After Virginia Court Enforces Rule of Law

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