Drivers Stranded on I-95 Over 14 Hours (VIDEO)

In Virginia. 

At WTVR CBS 6 Richmond, Virginia:

And more at CNN, "Hundreds of drivers stranded on I-95 overnight after severe winter storm."

The Problem of Loudoun County Schools

 At the New York Times, "How a School District Got Caught in Virginia’s Political Maelstrom":

LEESBURG, Va. — Long before the father was tackled by sheriff’s deputies at the school board meeting, before there was shouting to reopen classrooms and before “parents matter” became the central slogan of the most closely watched campaign in the post-Trump era, Loudoun County was just another American suburbia taking a hard look at its schools.

The county, at the edge of the Virginia sprawl outside Washington, had grown much more diverse. White students were no longer in the majority, and educators were trying to be more aware of how racism could affect their students’ education.

The district hired a consulting firm to help train teachers about bias. It tried to hire more teachers of color. And a high school changed its mascot from the Raiders, named for a Confederate battalion, to the Captains.

But there were rumblings of resistance.

Vocal parents protested the district’s antiracism efforts as Marxism.

Some teachers disliked the trainings, which they found ham-handed and over the top.

And evangelical Christians objected to a proposal to give transgender students access to the restrooms of their choice — complaints that were magnified when a male student wearing a skirt was arrested in an assault in a girl’s bathroom.

Within a year, Loudoun County had become the epicenter of conservative outrage over education. Several hundred parents, in a district of 81,000 students, managed to pummel their school board and become a cause célèbre for opposing the district’s handling of race and gender issues.

Along the way, they got plenty of help from Republican operatives, who raised money and skillfully decried some of the district’s more aggressive efforts, even buying an ad during an N.F.L. game.

The media also jumped in, feeding the frenzy. The story rebounded from one outlet to another, with conservative media leading the way, from The New York Post to The Daily Wire to Fox News, which aired 78 segments on the racial issues at Loudoun schools from March to June this year, according to Media Matters, a left-leaning group that scrutinizes media coverage.

By November, these skirmishes had been transformed into a potent political movement — parents’ rights — that engulfed the state’s schools and the governor’s race. The Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, successfully tapped into the fury, adopting the slogan “parents matter.”

“Glenn became a vessel for their anger,” said Jeff Roe, the founder of Axiom Strategies, Mr. Youngkin’s campaign consultant.

The campaign identified early on, he said, that education was a key issue that could make inroads in Democratic strongholds. Mr. Youngkin’s opponent, the former governor Terry McAuliffe, won Loudoun County, but by a far narrower margin than President Joe Biden had won last year.

Ian Prior, a Republican political operative who lives in the county and has been at the center of the fight, called education the “one unifying issue out there that kind of gets everybody.”

Now, Republicans and Democrats are dissecting how these educational issues can be used in the midterm elections next year.

Loudoun may well be their case study. 

A District, Struggling With Change

In the not-too-distant past, Loudoun County was dominated by farmers and Republicans. In recent years it has experienced a wave of residential growth to 420,000 people, becoming more suburban, increasingly diverse and, at the same time, more liberal.

The student body has changed, too. Twenty five years ago, 84 percent of the students were white; today, 43 percent are, owing partly to an influx of immigrants working in technology jobs. Currently, 7.2 percent of students are Black.

The shift hasn’t been easy. In 2019, for example, an elementary school asked students, including a Black student, to emulate runaway slaves during a game mimicking the Underground Railroad, drawing criticism from the local NAACP.

Parents also said they encountered racist treatment, both subtle and overt. Zerell Johnson-Welch, who is Black and Latina, moved to the district in 2008 with her husband and three children.

One day, her daughter came home upset, she said. “She was in an advanced math class,” Ms. Johnson-Welch said. “A kid yelled out, ‘Why are you in this class?’” — using a racial epithet to emphasize that she did not belong.

Loudoun County commissioned a study by a consulting firm, the Equity Collaborative, which bore out such stories, concluding that Black, Hispanic and Muslim students had been the focus of racial slurs and that Black students were disciplined more frequently than others.

Loudoun set out on a plan. In addition to changing the high school mascot, the school system released a video apologizing to Black residents for past racial discrimination. The schools devised a protocol for dealing with racial slurs and other hate speech. And teachers underwent training in cultural sensitivity...

 

G.O.P. Gains in Governor's Race

 From Monmouth University, "Enthusiasm gap and shift in voter priorities boost Youngkin."

Graduations, Campus Classes Canceled by Coronavirus Shock College-Town Economy

At WSJ:

This weekend was supposed to be one of the busiest of the year for businesses in Blacksburg, Virginia. Instead, the town remains in quiet repose. https://t.co/BjQzHUIg9u

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 17, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has turned vibrant faculty cities throughout the U.S. into vacant ones.

This weekend was purported to be one the busiest of the 12 months for companies in Blacksburg, Va., as mother and father, grandparents and well-wishers converged in town to have fun the 2020 graduates of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State College.

As an alternative, town of 45,000 stays in quiet repose, pining for its college students to return. It has been a protracted two months for Blacksburg and different communities prefer it, because the pandemic robbed them of their fundamental supply of economic vitality.

What is going on in Blacksburg is enjoying out in cities from Ithaca, N.Y., to Pullman, Wash., the place the pandemic hasn’t solely shut down many businesses but in addition emptied out faculty campuses. The losses are particularly painful in locations which have leaned on universities to lure well-paying jobs and business to communities that may in any other case lack each.

“We’ve all the time had the posh of being insulated from the traditional ebbs and circulate of the economic system,” mentioned Mike Soriano, a Virginia Tech grad who owns 4 Blacksburg eating places, together with Champs Downtown Sports activities Bar & Cafe. The college moved its spring and summer time phrases to on-line lessons. “And with the uncertainty of the autumn, it’s made issues tough to mission,” he added.

Massive schools and universities make use of hundreds, purchase native items and companies and draw tens of hundreds of scholars and guests to their shops, eating places and accommodations. Their presence has shielded native communities from each long-term financial shifts and short-lived recessions. In locations like Blacksburg, enterprise cycles flip predictably with the seasons: It will get busy within the spring, slows in the summertime after which roars to life in September.

Now, Blacksburg enterprise house owners look anxiously towards the autumn, the potential of in-person lessons and the destiny of seven residence soccer video games which have reliably stuffed lodge rooms, bars, eating places and outlets.

“Soccer and commencement is when you can also make cash,” Mr. Soriano mentioned.

Virginia Tech is answerable for greater than half of Blacksburg’s economic system, producing about $1.2 billion in annual earnings, in keeping with an evaluation by researcher Emsi Labor Market Analytics. One among each two jobs is supported by the college, its college students and guests, in keeping with Emsi estimates.

As of January, the college had 9,742 workers, together with full-time and part-time college, employees and wage employees, a college spokesman mentioned.

Median family earnings within the Blacksburg space totaled $50,313 in 2018, in keeping with U.S. Census Bureau knowledge. Whereas that’s under the Virginia median of $72,577, Blacksburg’s earnings has grown sooner than its state general—8.6%, in contrast with 3.6%—since 2010, in keeping with a report by Previous Dominion College.

“As you progress west in Virginia, the inhabitants is much less dense, extra rural,” mentioned Robert McNab, an economist at Previous Dominion, who research the Virginia economic system. The area relies on agriculture, mining and forestry moderately than the manufacturing and data know-how discovered within the state’s city areas.

“Virginia Tech’s location permits it to work as a catalyst for financial growth,” he mentioned. “And it’s in a position to entice analysis funding and investment to part of Virginia that may not in any other case obtain a lot consideration.”

About 39% of Blacksburg’s domestically generated income comes from taxes on meals, lodge stays and different gross sales, mentioned Marc Verniel, Blacksburg’s city supervisor.

Blacksburg Transit has been carrying 300 to 400 riders a day just lately, down from greater than 20,000 a day when the college is in session, Mr. Verniel mentioned. He estimates the house soccer video games carry 400,000-500,000 guests to Blacksburg every fall. And when college students come again in September, they hurry to native shops to furnish flats and dorm rooms.

“We couldn’t have imagined an financial disaster that took the college out,” he mentioned.

There may be extra at stake than one season of retail gross sales. Companies are frightened that some college students received’t be prepared for on-campus lessons this fall, and others would possibly by no means make it to Blacksburg in any respect. Some college students would possibly choose to remain residence. And worldwide college students face journey restrictions and new immigration insurance policies.

This spring, Virginia Tech had almost 35,000 college students, together with 28,000 undergrads. Some 8,250 of the undergrads come from someplace aside from Virginia, and 1,962 of them are worldwide college students, in keeping with the college spokesman.

If the drop in enrollment persists, it could possibly be more durable for Blacksburg and different faculty cities to develop science and tech-oriented companies wanted to broaden their economies...

Is it just me, or is this piece less well-written than the normal article you'd find at the august WSJ, purportedly the main competitor to NYT?

Read the full article here, if you still have a hankering.

Large Crowds at Virginia Beaches

The beaches are closed, but folks are fed up with this lockdown.

Like I said. The shutdown ends when the American people say it does.

They're saying that it's over.

— Melissa Mackenzie 🌐 (@MelissaTweets) May 17, 2020

The beach at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront was closed today. But it was packed.

This photo was taken at 3:42 p.m. this afternoon by Virginian-Pilot photographer Kaitlin McKeown. https://t.co/Ws2EFAF976 pic.twitter.com/x3lLF1wuHT

— The Virginian-Pilot (@virginianpilot) May 17, 2020

Gun Control Battle Deepens in Virginia

At the Epoch Times, "Gun Control Battle Deepens as Legislation Advances in Virginia":

Gun Control Battle Deepens in Virginia as new gun laws move thru Democrat controlled legislature. “It’s awoken a sleeping giant.” Hundreds of 2A supporters took the day off work to attend, others drove from hours away to protest new proposed gun laws. https://t.co/8Xsdhc2N0o

— Kari Lake (@KariLakeFox10) January 16, 2020

As 4 bills progress along party lines in Virginia legislature, 2nd Amendment sanctuary movement gains momentum.

RICHMOND, Va.—Hundreds of Second Amendment advocates converged on Virginia’s state capital on Jan. 13 to oppose a slew of tighter gun control proposals being voted on by newly elected state lawmakers.

The long line of Virginia residents—many wearing bright “Guns Save Lives” stickers—showed up before 8 a.m. in a show of support for their constitutional rights that they say are being infringed upon. Some gun control advocates attended as well, holding signs with slogans such as “sensible gun laws equal less gun violence.”

The rallying crowds did little to stop four gun control measures from advancing in the state’s Democratic-led General Assembly after approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee passed legislation for universal background checks, a measure allowing localities to ban weapons from some events and government buildings, a “red flag” bill allowing authorities to temporarily confiscate guns from certain individuals deemed a risk, and a law that limits the purchase of handguns to only one per month...

Still more.

Ralph Northam, Refusing to Resign Over Racist Blackface Photo, Risks #Democrats' Future

First, check Robert Stacy McCain, at the Other McCain, "‘Chaos’ in Virginia: Northam Besieged, Lieutenant Governor Denies Sex Assault."

And at the New York Times, "In Virginia Governor’s Turmoil, Democrats See an Agenda at Risk":

#Virginia Governor, Refusing to Resign Over Photo, Risks #Democrats’ Future. #RalphNortham #Blackface #Racism 🤷‍♂️ https://t.co/mQnWSxtX5o

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 4, 2019

The refusal by Ralph Northam, the Democratic governor of Virginia, to resign after the revelation of a racist photograph is threatening his party’s political fortunes in Virginia, where Democrats are on the brink of consolidating power after a decade-long rise in the once-conservative state.

With Mr. Northam’s turmoil erupting during a legislative session in an election year, Democrats and Republicans said Sunday that his fragile hold on power risked his party’s policy ambitions and its aspirations for this fall, when control of both the state’s legislative chambers is expected to be bitterly and closely contested.

“You can’t govern without a mandate, and all you’re going to do is make things worse for the state,” said Representative A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat who served alongside Mr. Northam in the Virginia Senate.

Mr. Northam met with some of his staff members on Sunday night, prompting speculation that he might announce his resignation during the Super Bowl. Most of the people he met with told him that resigning was the way to clear his name, according to a state Democrat briefed on the meeting by an attendee.

Both chambers of the Legislature are scheduled to meet on Monday morning for sessions that could bring fresh condemnations of the governor. As of Sunday evening, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who would succeed Mr. Northam if he resigned, had not been notified that the governor was stepping down.

Mr. Northam’s troubles began on Friday with the surfacing of a photograph on his medical school yearbook page, which showed a person in blackface posing with another in a Ku Klux Klan robe. The governor at first acknowledged that he was one of the figures in the image, and then denied it on Saturday, all while drawing widespread calls for his resignation. Until this episode, Democrats appeared to be on a steady roll in Virginia, a state that had increasingly become a source of strength for the party in major elections.

Since 2008, when Barack Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate in more than four decades to carry the state, Virginia has shifted steadily leftward. For the last decade, both of the state’s senators in Washington have been Democrats. And more recently, the party has gained greater sway at the Capitol in Richmond.

Two years ago, Democrats picked up 15 seats in the House of Delegates, where they had been locked out of the majority for more than two decades. They are now two seats away from control in both chambers. The biggest prize in controlling the statehouse would be the power, under current law, to draw congressional and legislative districts after the 2020 census.

More power in the Legislature has already translated into significant policy wins for Democrats. Since Mr. Northam was elected in 2017, the party has achieved long-prized goals, like the expansion of Medicaid, and seized new credit for the state’s economic growth.

And this week is arguably among the most crucial of the year’s 46-day legislative session, with an important deadline for bills to advance. The speaker of the House of Delegates, Kirk Cox, and other Republican legislators warned that Mr. Northam’s “ability to lead and govern is permanently impaired.”

Even to his Democratic allies, Mr. Northam now seems hobbled.

“You’ve got to work as one unit to move your commonwealth forward, and he’s just not going to have that ability to do it,” Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who preceded Mr. Northam as governor, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Mr. Northam’s difficulties can be traced, in part, to his shifting accounts over the photograph, published in a 1984 yearbook for the Eastern Virginia Medical School, which said on Sunday that it would investigate how such “unacceptable photos” came to be published...

More.

Electoral Landscape Remains Forbidding for Democrats

Following-up from last night, "Democrats Sweep in Virginia, New Jersey, and the Left Coast."

At Politico, "Democrats euphoric after Tuesday election romp: Wins in Virginia and across the country buoy the party's hopes about the 2018 midterms":

Virginia is a blue state now for two reasons: 1.) mass immigration (legal & illegal) and 2.) massive, growing dependence on Big Gov't.

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) November 8, 2017

Jubilant Democrats struck a defiant tone after sweeping victories across the country on Tuesday night, led by Democrat Ralph Northam’s surprise pummeling of Republican Ed Gillespie in Virginia’s gubernatorial race.

Surveying their first electoral sweep in half a decade after a soul-crushing 2016 campaign and a desultory start to the Donald Trump era, Democratic leaders reset their expectations for the 2018 midterms. They're now expecting a fundraising and candidate recruitment surge, powered by grass-roots fury at the Trump administration.

While most Democrats stopped short of predicting the party will take the House next year, they noted in Gillespie the failure of a candidate who tried balancing between Trump-style populism and establishment Republicanism.

“We were all under a lot of pressure saying we need to win this thing, we need a boost. But we gave a rocket boost tonight,” said outgoing Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, celebrating at Northam’s election night party. The result in the race to replace him, he said, “is a rejection of Trump, of the hatred and bigoted fear that they always bring into these campaigns.”

“I certainly didn’t see this ass-kicking coming; this is pretty stunning,” added Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “Republicans have two problems: their president and their agenda. And I don’t think either of those liabilities are disappearing anytime soon.”

The shifted landscape remains forbidding for Democrats. They must flip 24 Republican-held seats to win the House, and are forced to defend 10 incumbent senators running for reelection in states that Trump won in 2016. They must also handle a range of painful internal tactical and policy divisions threatening to rupture their unity at any moment.

Plus, Tuesday's wide victories came in one solidly Democratic state and another that's been leaning that way, making it potentially perilous to read too much into their results.

But paired with Phil Murphy’s long-expected victory in New Jersey’s gubernatorial election, upsets in Virginia’s House of Delegates races, and wins in mayoral elections from New Hampshire to Florida, the evening presented Democrats with a night to celebrate for the first time since Trump’s shocking victory in November 2016. They have repeatedly fallen short in special elections in conservative areas so far this year, but Tuesday’s results wiped that slate nearly clean in the eyes of stunned party operatives and lawmakers...

Well, we'll know in one year. We'll know if the Democrats can surge back to power in the House.

More.

Democrats Sweep in Virginia, New Jersey, and the Left Coast

It's a big night for the Dems, and the battle for 2018 starts now. If Republicans lose the house that's big. Only a year away, amazing.

At the Hill, "Dems win from coast to coast, claim total control of 2 new states and find their mojo in age of Trump":

Democrats roared back on Tuesday a year after suffering perhaps the most demoralizing defeat in modern political history, claiming big victories in races up and down the ballot and across the country.

The breadth of the Democratic wins surprised even the most optimistic party stalwarts, who fretted over their own chances in key races Tuesday. But as the results rolled in, those Democrats said they had energized their core voters and capitalized on President Trump's unpopularity to reach swing voters.

"This is not a wave. This is a tsunami," Virginia Del. David Toscano, leader of the Democratic caucus, told The Hill in an interview Tuesday night. "This is a huge, huge sea change here in Virginia."

Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) won the Virginia governorship by a wider-than-expected margin, even with Democrats fretting about his late campaign strategy. Democrat Justin Fairfax won the lieutenant governor's office, becoming only the second African American to win a statewide post in Virginia since Reconstruction, while Attorney General Mark Herring (D) won re-election.

In New Jersey, former Goldman Sachs executive Phil Murphy (D) easily won the right to replace deeply unpopular Gov. Chris Christie (R), cementing Democratic control in the Garden State.

In Washington, Democrat Manka Dhingra (D) appeared headed for victory in a special election to fill an open state Senate seat. Dhingra's win, in a formerly Republican district, would give Democrats control of all levers of government in the Evergreen State.

Democrats won at least 14 seats in Virginia's House of Delegates, with another three likely headed to a recount. They picked up at least two seats in New Jersey's state Senate, with several Senate and Assembly districts yet to count ballots, and a seat in New Hampshire's state House.

Georgia Democrats celebrated winning two deep red districts in special state House elections. Two Democrats appear likely to face off in a runoff in a suburban Atlanta state Senate district formerly held by a Republican after finishing first and second in the all-party primary — a result that would break the GOP's supermajority.

Even local elections tipped left on Tuesday. In St. Petersburg, Fla., Mayor Rick Kriseman won re-election, after campaigning with former Vice President Joe Biden and other Democratic stalwarts, over former Mayor Rick Baker, an upset in a race in which early polls showed Baker leading.

In Manchester, Joyce Craig became the first woman to win the mayor's office, and the first Democrat to win the city since 2003, after she ousted four-term incumbent Ted Gatsas (R).

Senior Democratic strategists said their candidates had found a way to tie Republican candidates to the deeply unpopular president, not through his uncouth statements and behavior but through his unpopular policies...

Well, it does seem like a referendum, that's for sure.

More.

Also, at LAT, "Democrats seize Virginia and New Jersey governorships in elections seen as precursors of 2018 fights."

Tonight: Democrat had a better night that they even dreamed, while Republicans contemplate a complicated 2018 https://t.co/z1PmSPSU1I

— Cathleen Decker (@cathleendecker) November 8, 2017

Report from Virginia's Governor's Race

From the indubitable Salena Zito, at the New York Post, "The Democrats should be terrified by this governor's race":

The Democrats should be terrified by this governor's race https://t.co/G4qQ8n0BJN my report from Virginia

— SalenaZito (@SalenaZito) October 21, 2017

WINCHESTER, VA. — The melodic sounds of a street musician’s trumpet echo through every corner of this old Virginia town as locals shop or make their way to lunch. Daren Johnson has been blowing his horn at the pedestrian mall in the shadow of the Shenandoah Valley Civil War Museum for over an hour. He performs for two reasons: “To make some extra cash and to share a little bit of lightness. We are exhausted as a country,” he said, “a direct result of last year’s election.”

Johnson and his wife were tireless volunteers for Hillary Clinton last year. They knocked on doors, they made phone calls, they were invested. When she lost, the couple was devastated. Now, Johnson doesn’t even know who is running for governor.

“I’ve voted every year for the past 46 years, always informed, always enthusiastic, always involved in the process. Now, it’s really hard to care,” Johnson said.

The upcoming gubernatorial election in Virginia is one of only two happening in the country this year, along with New Jersey. The race pits Ralph Northam, the current lieutenant governor and a Democrat, against Ed Gillespie, a former George W. Bush administration official and Republican National Committee chairman.

Northam should have a comfortable lead right now. Terry McAuliffe, the outgoing governor he currently serves under, is popular and generally seen as successful. Plus, Virginians have historically elected governors from the party opposite to a president who’s won the year before. In 2001, Democrat Mark Warner won one year after George W. Bush was elected; in 2009, Republican Bob McDonnell won one year after Barack Obama took the state.

And, of course, there is the Trump factor — Clinton beat the president comfortably here, although almost all of her vote came from the heavily populated, heavily liberal Northern Virginia suburbs with the rest of the state (mostly rural, mostly forgotten) going for Donald Trump with the exception of the state capital and some college towns.

But Northam’s numbers are not up — in fact, the last three public polls show next month’s race within the margin of error. That includes a Monmouth University poll released Tuesday, which gives Gillespie the edge over Northam among likely voters by 48 to 47 percent.

Both parties have pulled out all the stops for this race. Ex-president Obama was here for a rally; George W. Bush for a fundraiser. Joe Biden’s stumped here, so has Vice President Mike Pence. So far, Trump has only tweeted about the race: “Ralph Northam, who is running for Governor of Virginia, is fighting for the violent MS-13 killer gangs & sanctuary cities. Vote Ed Gillespie!”

Gillespie has avoided broadcasting that endorsement on the campaign trail. There are no mentions of it on his website. After Trump claimed there were “some very fine people on both sides” of a neo-Nazi protest in nearby Charlottesville that left one woman dead, Gillespie’s spokesman Dave Abrams said the candidate “did not see any fine people on the side of the white nationalists and neo-Nazis.” But Gillespie has not directly criticized Trump either.

Meanwhile Stephanie Vaughan, the Democratic county chairperson in Winchester, says the party is working hard to clinch victory by appealing to a wider crowd. “We very much try to have a big-tent approach here. We welcome moderate, progressive and conservative Democrats into our party, and we encourage everyone to listen to our message,” she said. “Here our issues are pretty straightforward — transportation, education and health care.”

Behind the counter of her coffee shop, Lanita Byrne said she did not vote for Trump and loved Clinton but is completely undecided on which candidate she wants for governor. “Honestly it comes down to who is best on taxes. I think there should be less burdens and more opportunities for small-business owners,” she said.

Clark Hansbarger, meanwhile, said he saw the Trump win coming from a mile away. “I kept telling all of my liberal friends, and they would just laugh at me. They thought no way,” he said. Hansbarger then chuckles and admits he, too, is a liberal. “But, look, I travel a lot. When Trump spoke about carnage in his inaugural address, I’ve seen exactly what he meant all over the country,” he said.

Johnson begins to play his trumpet again, then stops. “I guess I’ll vote,” he admits. “But honestly I am sick of both parties . . . and I am not voting straight ticket, that is for sure.”

Certainly the Democrats are the ones with the most to lose...

More.

Black 'Activist' Podcast Calling for Killing of Cops Gets Pulled After Publicity

Update from the left's race war.

At Weasel Zippers.

Leftists Blame the Gun, Not the Homo

Heh.

From Anna Maria Perez, on Twitter:

Liberals blame the gun, not the evil, homo, black #racist. Read!👉http://t.co/FiM1Qtphxe #BlackLivesMatter #LGBT #tcot pic.twitter.com/dBbnhdQ4HR

— Anna Maria Perez⭐ (@A_M_Perez) August 29, 2015

The #BlackLivesMatter Revolution Will Be Televised

From Matthew Vadum at FrontPage Magazine, "Reporters' lives don't matter to a double-minority shooter trying to foment racial violence":

Hoping to start a bloody "race war," a black, gay, in-your-face Obama-supporting former TV reporter horrified Southwest Virginia TV viewers yesterday when he stalked and coolly murdered two white former TV station colleagues and wounded a white interview subject during a live broadcast.

The shooter, Vester Lee Flanagan II, 41, apparently a registered Democrat and former prostitute, said he attacked the three white people during the "standup" report about local tourism from the marina at Smith Mountain Lake as racial payback for white-supremacist Dylann Storm Roof's June 17 attack in Charleston, S.C. that left nine black churchgoers dead. Roof, who reportedly confessed, also said he wanted to start a race war by committing acts of violence.

Flanagan, who used the name Bryce Williams professionally, left behind a lengthy, rambling, written rant explaining his explicitly race-based motive for the murders. Although the full document was sent to ABC News, it has not yet found its way online. Media outlets have provided highlights. ABC News reports that "A man claiming to be Bryce Williams called ABC News over the last few weeks, saying he wanted to pitch a story and wanted to fax information. He never told ABC News what the story was."

Well, now we know.

Using online accounts created only recently, Flanagan promoted the political murders he committed as well as any team of seasoned, high-priced publicists could have. In the process he demonstrated his diabolical mastery of social media for the world to see. He shot his victims early in the morning and made the morning news. He sent out a horrifying video of the cold-blooded killings and caught the noonday news. He died in the afternoon in time to make the evening news. All the saturation coverage on cable TV news and news-on-dead-tree exposure is a bonus, a sort of contribution-in-kind that media outlets are providing to his cause.

Emulating the cost-conscious Muslim terrorists who flew airplanes into buildings on 9/11, Flanagan got perhaps tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in free media worldwide for his evil cause on what must have been a shoestring budget. Perhaps radical leftist public relations outfits Fenton Communications or SKDKnickerbocker of Anita Dunn fame will teach Flanagan's techniques to incoming employees.

In the empowering age of the Internet, fomenting civil unrest and violent revolution is becoming more affordable. Not that the George Soros-funded Black Lives Matter movement needs the money.

The black-nationalist mobs and leftover Occupy Wall Street goons wreaking havoc in Baltimore and other big cities with the encouragement of the Obama administration believe now is the time for decisive action against the country they hate. The desire to concoct a massive racial conflagration in America has been on the Left's laundry list for decades.

Starting a race war in which blacks violently rise up against whites has long been the goal of unrepentant terrorist and Obama pal Bill Ayers and was the reason mass-murderer Charles Manson and his followers went on a homicidal rampage in 1969. Leaders of the racist and increasingly violent Black Lives Matter movement nowadays are also calling for "war." President Obama hasn't called for race-based hostilities specifically but he has helped to craft the Left's false narrative that racist whites kill innocent blacks all the time. Obama, a Marxist community organizer by profession, wants racial groups and everyone else to be at each other's throats because, as the familiar leftist adage goes, "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

Flanagan can be seen in his own homemade video he later posted online holding a handgun in front of him as he walked unnoticed towards reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, and interviewee Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Ward's video camera recorded the 6:45 a.m. attack and captured the shooter's image after Ward dropped the still-functioning machine and the live feed from it made it to the airwaves. The perpetrator's hand can be seen in his own video as he takes his time aiming at Parker and then opening fire. Parker, who can be heard screaming in both videos, and Ward succumbed to their wounds at the site of the shooting. Ward was engaged to be married and yesterday was to be his final day at Roanoke-based WDBJ-7 before he started a new job in Charlotte, N.C. Parker had recently moved in with her boyfriend, an anchor at the station. Gardner was in stable condition in hospital at press time.

Flanagan fled the scene and shortly before 8:30 a.m. reportedly faxed a hateful 23-page manifesto to ABC News. He reportedly told ABC that the police are “after me” and “all over the place,” before hurriedly ending the telephone call. Tweeting as Bryce Williams, Flanagan complained "Adam went to hr [human resources] on me after working with me one time!!!" and "Alison made racist comments[.]" He also boasted "I filmed the shooting see Facebook[.]"

His rental vehicle was later spotted by Virginia State Police who gave chase. Flanagan's car ran off the road on Interstate 66 in Fauquier County and he shot himself at 11:30 a.m. He died in hospital about two hours later.

NBC-4 in the national's capital reports that employees of WDBJ-7 were cautioned about Flanagan two years ago when his employment was terminated. Management was so concerned about his behavior that employees were reportedly made to clear the room as he cleaned out his desk. After he left workers were instructed to "call 911 immediately" if they spotted the former employee on company property.

Flanagan, Parker, and Ward had worked together at the CBS affiliate "[b]ut when Flanagan was fired in February 2013, a 911 call summoned police to remove him from the premises." The report continues...

Keep reading.

Open Letter to Andy Parker, Father of Alison Parker

From Anna Maria Perez:

Mr. Parker,

I sympathize with you and your family’s tragic loss, as I do for the family of Adam Ward.  Vicki Gardner is also in my prayers and I hope that she recovers quickly and well.

That said, I would kindly like to ask you to get off of my back!  Your new found crusade to attack me, other Virginians, and Americans who had nothing to do with the evil actions of Vester Flanagan, is uncalled for and driven by unchecked emotion and ignorance.  I am sick and tired of you leftists who hate liberty using every tragedy as a soap box to stand on to attack the freedoms that our founding fathers have secured for us and that our men and women in uniform have protected for over two centuries.  You liberals always want to take advantage of every shocking event to catch the public off guard in a moment of despair, so that we will willingly relinquish more of our freedom in the false hope that it will be replaced with more security.

I challenge you sir: how do you expect me to be safer if we pass any new gun control law?  Name one gun control law that will leave the liberty of all free Americans intact while somehow disarming the people who are willing to ignore law to commit murder?  If you can’t answer this question, then you have no business harassing Virginians or other Americans with your impotent agitation.  I have the RIGHT to keep and bear arms and that right shall not be infringed, by you or anyone else...

That's very well-written and gloriously passionate. I love it.

Keep reading.

PREVIOUSLY: "Andy Parker, Father of Murdered Journalist Alison Parker, Pushes for New Gun Control After Virginia Shooting (VIDEO)."

The Inoffensive Everyday Phrases Used by Reporter Alison Parker That Earned Her a Death Sentence Because Flanagan Deemed Them 'Racist'

The murderer Vester Lee Flanagan was a hypersensitive piece of shit.

From London's Daily Mail, via Blazing Cat Fur:

The report, seen by the New York Post, that was written by news editor Greg Baldwin read: ‘One was something Ward-Parker[1]about ‘swinging’ by some place; the other was out in the ‘field’.’

…’We would say stuff like, “The reporter’s out in the field.” And he would look at us and say, “What are you saying, cotton fields? That’s racist”.’

And someone once brought a watermelon to the office, the horror. This guy was nutty as hell and the race-hysterics gave him a focus for his paranoia. Remember when they tried to blame Sarah Palin for the Gabby Giffords shooting, based on nothing at all? So why aren’t we pinning these murders on Sharpton or, better yet, Barry?

Andy Parker, Father of Murdered Journalist Alison Parker, Pushes for New Gun Control After Virginia Shooting (VIDEO)

The man's been speaking out for new gun control laws since the murders.

This is from yesterday, at Mother Jones, "Watch the Grieving Father of the Slain Virginia Reporter Make an Emotional Plea for Gun Control."

And he gave an emotional press conference today, at WRIC News 8 Richmond, "Father of Alison Parker speaks to media Friday."

And watch, at CNN, "Slain journalist's father: Alison was a force of nature."

#WDBJ Shooter Vester Lee Flanagan Was 'Classic Injustice Collector'

It's New York Deputy Police Commissioner John Miller, at CBS This Morning.



Plus, from Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, "Video: Gunman was “classic injustice collector”."

Backlash: Black Killer of White Reporters Sent Manifesto Declaring that Murders were a Response to Charleston

At Ace of Spades HQ.

New York Daily News Puts 'Snuff' Photos of Murdered #WDBJ Reporter Alison Parker on Front Page

Truthfully, I'm not against full and honest reporting on all aspects of these murders, although folks on social media think today's NYDN cover is out of line.

Here, at NYDN on Facebook, "EXECUTED ON LIVE TV."

Actually, she wasn't "executed." She was murdered. There's a difference.

I'll have more tonight.

What Watching the #WDBJ Shooting Says — and Does Not Say — About You

From Mary McNamara, at the Los Angeles Times, "Critic's Notebook If we watch the Virginia TV shooting is the suspected shooter 'winning'?":

To watch or not to watch.

Early Wednesday morning, reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were shot to death during a live interview for WDBJ-TV, a CBS affiliate based in Roanoke, Va. In less than an hour, clips of the event were on YouTube.

It soon developed that the suspected shooter, Vester Flanagan, a former reporter for WDBJ, appeared to have recorded the shooting himself, posted it on Facebook and then tweeted about it using his on-air name, Bryce Williams. Flanagan shot himself while being chased by police and later died.

The Twitter and Facebook accounts were quickly suspended, and YouTube took down the videos, but the disturbing images continued to circulate, prompting an equally widespread "Don't Watch" campaign.

At best, some said, watching or sharing the footage was an endorsement of a media culture run amok, proof that the medium has indeed become the message — people will now literally do anything to be on television.

At worst, it made us complicit in the killings themselves.

Either way, if we watched the brief tragic clips of the attack on Parker and Ward, or the chilling footage taken by Flanagan just before he began shooting, somehow Flanagan would "win."

As if Flanagan were powerful enough to define our reactions to his crime or if any of those reactions were more important than the fact and nature of murder. As if news were suddenly beholden to feelings of gentility and any medium should be blamed for insane people attempting to leverage it for their own dissociated ends...

More.

Actually, leftist "don't watch" social media campaigns are always designed to help Democrats. Ignore them. If you want to watch the video, watch it. Flanagan's dead. He has no power over anything. Frankly, watching allows people to bear witness to the enormity of this assault on decency. And of course the enormity of Democrat Party evil.

FLASHBACK: See Jeff Jacoby, "James Foley video is grim, but we owe it to him to bear witness."