VA AG Mark Herring

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How Virginia Was Bought

February 16, 2020 by 3 Comments

If you wondered how Virginia went from a red state to a purple state to a blue state, here is part of the answer.

Michael Bloomberg played the long game, made many strategic campaign contributions over the years, and made Virginia his own.

According to the New York Times it started a lot sooner than the last couple of elections.

Soon enough, Mr. Bloomberg ramped up his spending on politics beyond New York. Frustrated at the flow of firearms from Virginia, a state with lax gun laws, Mr. Bloomberg tried to buoy candidates in the state’s 2011 elections who shared his views.

Then, in 2013, he received a visitor in New York: Mr. McAuliffe, by then a candidate for governor of Virginia. He proposed to Mr. Bloomberg that he make the state a decade-long priority, with an eye toward empowering Democratic supporters of gun regulation.

“I walked out with a multimillion-dollar commitment that day,” Mr. McAuliffe recalled.

Mr. Bloomberg spent more than $3 million in Virginia that year through his super PAC, helping propel Mr. McAuliffe to the governorship and electing a Democratic attorney general supportive of gun control, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. He has plowed millions more into the state since then, culminating last fall with a takeover of the state legislature by Democrats who are now seeking to pass a series of tougher gun laws.

It started with Terry McAuliffe, continued with Attorney General Mark Herring, and then down into state legislative races.

You know what happened in 2019 (corrected) – Democrats took both houses of the General Assembly.

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This Is How You Get A Hot Civil War

December 12, 2019 by 6 Comments

Whether we like it or not, we are in the midst of a civil war. Fortunately, so far, it has been a cold civil war. By cold, I mean it has been primarily a war of words and ideas. No one in their right mind should want a “hot” civil war. Whether it was our own War Between the States or the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, civil wars are violent, nasty, and brutish.

Certain Virginia Democrat politicians seem to have forgotten this in their push for draconian gun control. Their response to the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement is to call down the overwhelming power of the state.

US Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA) suggested in an interview with the Washington Examiner that Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) actually call out the National Guard.

“And ultimately, I’m not the governor, but the governor may have to nationalize the National Guard to enforce the law,” he said. “That’s his call, because I don’t know how serious these counties are and how severe the violations of law will be. But that’s obviously an option he has.”

McEachin has also said that funding to sanctuary counties and cities should be cut off.

US Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) who represents a northern Virginia district has called upon law enforcement to resign if they won’t enforce laws of dubious constitutionality.

Virginia Democratic officials, however, already say local law enforcement supporting these resolutions will face consequences if they do not carry out any law the state Legislature passes.

“I would hope they either resign in good conscience, because they cannot uphold the law which they are sworn to uphold, or they’re prosecuted for failure to fulfill their oath,” Democratic Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly told the Washington Examiner of local county police who may refuse to enforce future gun control measures. “The law is the law. If that becomes the law, you don’t have a choice, not if you’re a sworn officer of the law.”

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D-VA) has characterized the sanctuary effort as something “ginned up” by “the gun lobby”.

“The resolutions that are being passed are being ginned up by the gun lobby to try to scare people. What we’re talking about here are laws that will make our communities and our streets safer. We’re talking about universal background checks, finally, maybe, Virginia will pass universal background checks to make sure that people who are dangerous, who are criminals and who aren’t permitted to buy guns, won’t be able to buy guns,” said Herring. “So, when Virginia passes these gun safety laws that they will be followed, they will be enforced.”

It should be noted that Herring won his office with less than a thousand votes. The difference probably was the $1.3 million invested by Michael Bloomberg’s Independence PAC. Herring has been consistently anti-gun since the 2015 election.

The incendiary talk from these Virginia Democrats should be condemned. If they are intent on provoking a confrontation between agents of the state and citizens defending their God given, constitutionally guaranteed rights, they are not going to like the result. The first citizen killed while resisting Northam’s laws on confiscation will be the spark that sets off that hot civil war.

It will not be pretty.

The only hopeful sign is that many Guardsmen and state police officials will remain loyal to their oath to defend the Constitution and refuse to participate.

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These Two Democrat Attorney Generals Are Hypocrites

October 24, 2017 by

At the instigation of NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D-NY), a number of attorneys general, all Democrats, have signed on to a letter opposing national carry reciprocity. They specifically oppose HR 38 sponsored by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) and S. 446 introduced by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

Schneiderman is joined in the letter by the attorneys general of Massachusetts, Oregon, Virginia, Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Connecticut, New Mexico, North Carolina and the District of Columbia.

The full letter can be found here.

Here are some pertinent excerpts from the letter:

Each of our States allows concealed carry—as do all 50 states—but with
carefully considered and long-standing substantive and procedural protections
designed to address public safety concerns in our localities. Under the legislation,
our residents would lose the protections that their legislators and law enforcement
agencies have deemed appropriate, in favor of rules made by States legislating for
very different local conditions. Rather than creating a new national standard for who
may carry concealed firearms, these bills would elevate the lowest state standard
over higher ones and force some States to allow concealed carry by people who do not
qualify under their laws. This forced acceptance of the most permissive standards
would also affect determinations about the proper level of safety training necessary
to justify concealed carry and the criteria governing whether a person is too
dangerous to carry a gun in a crowded place.

 It goes on to misconstrue the limitations that would be put in place by HR 38:

The result of the proposed legislation would be a proliferation of potentially
dangerous or irresponsible non-residents with concealed weapons in the States, cities,
and towns across America that have made local judgments that certain regulations
on the carrying of such weapons are necessary to protect public safety. Furthermore,
the House bill would override some state laws that prohibit carrying concealed
weapons in bars, schools, shopping malls, movie theatres, subways, or parks. States
would not be able to enforce those restrictions; nor would local law enforcement
officers reacting to specific risks to the public in such locations, which have tragically
been the site of mass shootings in recent years.

 The text of HR 38 specifically says that state laws governing carry and posting of private property as well as the posting of state or local government properties including parks will not be superseded by this bill. In other words, these attorneys general have stated a bald face lie.

Now to the hypocritical part. Both the commonwealth of Virginia and the state of North Carolina recognize permits from all other states. The law in Virginia was changed when Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) joined with Republicans in passing HB 1163/SB 610. This was considered a rebuke of Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D-VA) who unilaterally revoked reciprocity agreements with 25 states. Herring was the beneficiary of almost $1.3 million from Bloomberg’s Independence USA PAC.

Likewise, the state of North Carolina’s law were changed effective December 1, 2011 to recognize unilaterally all permits issued by any state. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (D-NC) ought to be aware of this because his own Department of Justice has a webpage devoted to this. While to the best of my knowledge, Josh Stein didn’t receive money directly from Michael Bloomberg, the North Carolina Democratic Party did received $250,000 from him in 2016.

Mark Herring and Josh Stein are out and out hypocrites. They want to deny a right to the rest of America that the visitors to their own states enjoy. Citizens of Virginia have a chance to get rid of Herring this fall but we in the Tar Heel State have to wait another three years before we are rid of anti-gun Josh Stein.

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Evidently Money Talks In Virginia

December 28, 2015 by 6 Comments

There has been a lot written about the ad hoc decision of Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D-VA) to drop the recognition of out of state CCW permits from 25 states. The move impacts approximately 6.3 million Americans. I am one of those as Americans as North Carolina’s permit will no longer be recognized in Virginia. However, I can assure my friends in the commonwealth that their permit will be recognized in North Carolina as we have universal recognition of out of state permits.

The non-partisan Virginia Public Access Project takes as its mission the goal of making government data regarding campaign finance disclosure understandable and accessible to the general public. From what I can see, they do a good job of it.

Given how much money Michael Bloomberg has funneled into Virginia both directly and indirectly I thought it would be interesting to see if Attorney General Herring was a recipient of his generosity. As Deep Throat said to Woodward and Bernstein, “Follow the money”.

Lo and behold the top donor to his campaign for Attorney General was none other than Independence USA PAC. They gave $1,292,417 of in-kind donations to his campaign. The money went for media production and advertising buys. To put this into perspective, the next two highest donors gave approximately half this amount each. The only candidate to get more money from that PAC was Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA).

Independence USA PAC is Bloomberg’s personal super-PAC. FactCheck said this about it:

Independence USA is a super PAC that focuses largely on helping to elect candidates who support stricter gun-control laws. It was founded in October 2012 by Michael Bloomberg, and, so far, has been entirely funded by the former New York City mayor.

The race for Attorney General between Herring and Republican St. Senator Mark Obershain was exceedingly close. The final vote tally left Herring winning by little more than 900 votes. Indeed, up until the last poll, Obershain was either in the lead or tied with Herring.

When you owe your elected position to Michael Bloomberg, when he says jump, you say how high. Evidently now was the time that Bloomberg said jump and jump is what Herring did in response.