The “mainstream” political media in this country continues to try and whitewash Glenn Youngkin into some sort of “moderate,” but of course those of us who actually live in Virginia know that’s not even close to being the case. To the contrary, not only has Youngkin campaigned in Virginia and around the country for a slew of extremist candidates(most of whom lost, thank goodness), he’s also done a slew of other bad things, including:
- Naming Trump’s disgraceful/anti-environment former EPA administrator, Andrew Wheeler, as the next Virginia Secretary of Natural & Historic Resources. This pick was beyond appalling, for a host of reasons.
- Putting faaar-right (bigot, conspiracy theorist, you name it) Elizabeth Schultz into his administration as Assistant Superintendent of Public Instruction!
- Naming Bert Ellis to the UVA Board of Visitors, in a move that was “either negligent or willfully rewarding behavior that endangers students.”
- On the first day of his administration, in sharp contrast to his relatively measured inauguration speech, Youngkin signed 11 executive orders/directives, with all kinds of divisive and “red-meat” stuff for his right-wing “base.”
- Naming someone who thinks “CRT” is “a dangerous philosophical poisoning in the blood stream” as VA’s Director of “Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion” (a name change from “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”)
- On January 25, 2022, Youngkin started up an Orwellian, thuggish “tip line” to rat out teachers for doing their jobs.
- Disgracefully, but not surprisingly, we saw Youngkin wage war on the environment and on clean energy, including: Youngkin’s Anti-Environment Air Pollution Control Board Votes to “imperiously shred standing law,” for “deliberate Trump-style chaos…aimed at a popular program like RGGI”; A Few Reactions to the Youngkin Administration’s Dishonest, Not-in-Good-Faith “Argument” for Why Virginia Supposedly Should Pull Out of RGGI; Superb op-ed by Del. @RipSullivan48 on Glenn Youngkin’s godawful, brain-dead energy “plan.”; Gov. Youngkin Cancels Gov. Northam’s Common Sense Plastic Reduction Plan via Executive Order;
etc. - Youngkin has waged war on public education, including his attempt to ram through whitewashed, factually inaccurate, right-wing, etc. history standards.
- Youngkin’s pushed anti-LGBTQ policies, spurring a much-deserved and much-needed backlash. For more on that, see: Over 12,000 Virginia Students Walk Out Over Glenn Youngkin’s Hateful LGBTQIA+ Guidelines, ACLU of Virginia Explains, in Detail, Why It Opposes Youngkin’s Proposed “Model Policies” on the (Mis)Treatment of Transgender and Non-Binary Students; 10s of 1000s of comments – mostly against – Youngkin’s proposed anti-transgender-students policy; etc.
- After Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul was brutally attacked in his home in an assassination attempt aimed at Nancy Pelosi, Youngkin appeared to make light of it.
- Youngkin’s tried to hide his actual position on abortion, which is that he’d “‘happily and gleefully’ sign ‘any bill’ to restrict a woman’s ability to make her own health care decisions.”
- Youngkin’s budget “gives major corporations and the top 1% massive tax cuts at the expense of those who need it most.” Voodoo economics, anybody? “Trickle-down?” “Supply-side?” “Laffer curve?” Ugh.
- As DPVA put it, “Youngkin would not support a constitutional amendment to remove a ban against same-sex marriage from the Virginia Constitution at a time when same-sex marriage is under attack.”
On and on it goes, demonstrating beyond any doubt that Youngkin is a right winger, happily endorsed by Trump (Youngkin even said that “President Trump [sic] represents so much of why I’m running”), who views Ron DeSantis as his role-model governor, etc.
And the latest right-wingnuttery from Youngkin? Check this out:
Governor Glenn Youngkin just gave himself a lot more power to pick and choose Virginia voters. The Republican governor’s administration told state lawmakers in a letter last week that he was rescinding his predecessors’ policy of automatically restoring the voting rights of people with felony convictions.
Going forward, Virginians will no longer regain their rights when released from prison—the most recent policy announced by Virginia officials in 2021—nor at any later point, unless Youngkin deems them to be worthy on an individual basis.
[…]
“We are back to 1902-era policy,” Democratic state Senator Scott Surovell tweeted last week after Youngkin’s administration notified him of the change, in reference to the 1902 convention that designed Virginia’s disenfranchisement system with the explicit goal of disenfranchising Black residents: “discrimination within the letter of the law,” as one delegate termed it. That legacy lived on; as recently as 2016, 22 percent of Black Virginians were barred from voting.
“This language in our constitution is from extraordinarily dark origins,” Surovell told Bolts in a follow-up. “I thought we’d settled this debate over the past twelve years of reform, but apparently… anything’s on the table.”
Any further questions about who and what Youngkin is? And “oh by the way” (to use an expression that’s a weird verbal tick for Youngkin), any “news” outlet – Politico, for instance, or Time Magazine, or whoever else – that claims Youngkin is a “centrist,” “moderate,” not Trump-like, blah blah blah, is not a serious news organization – at least not for politics. Period. Because they are putting out straight-up disinformation…
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