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Ready to read a classy statement, one professional to another?  Read this as former Speaker Kirk Cox welcomes Pete Snyder to the GOP gubernatorial race:

“I’d like to welcome Pete to the 2021 gubernatorial race. I know Pete has long wanted to get back into the public arena after his 2013 campaign for Lt. Governor. It is my firm belief that competition is a good thing, foundational to the success of our representative democracy. I look forward to a robust discussion in which Virginia Republicans can choose the candidate capable of unifying the party and providing the experience we desperately need in order to fight back, lead forward, and win in 2021.”

Wait — they’re not calling each other names??!

Well of course not.  It’s a convention.  Which means that you want to go into the campaign everyone’s #2 and just enough #1 in order to get you past the first round… and then the second… and then the third… and then to victory.

Pretty classy move, right?  Game meets game.

Meanwhile, Cox didn’t waste a second taking the wood to the Democrats and the Northam-McAuliffe agenda of higher taxes, firearm confiscation, and a sour economy made worse by Northam’s bungling on COVID.

Give it a listen.  Nice to see grown ups in the race for governor.

Who knew that Wallops Island was fully functional as surface-to-air missile defense system for the eastern seaboard?!?

This tongue-in-cheek Christmas card from Pete and Burson Snyder of Disruptor PAC is making the rounds, not least of which to raise the all important question: How will Santa evade Ralph Northam’s 12am-5am curfew?

Good luck, folks.

Much has been made about the natural law foundations of the American experiment, lines that are best expressed in our Declaration of Independence.

For many, such a declaration expressed an unfulfilled yet promising hope that was best defended by our U.S. Constitution as we sought a “more perfect Union” that would defend and protect our God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Unfortunately, we live in more decadent times where grift is easier than work, times that the 19th century philosopher Frederic Bastiat warned about in his work entitled The Law.

Fast forward to today, as grievance seems to be a cottage industry in the wake of the near universally condemned 1619 Project attempting to define American history based on the arrival of enslaved persons on the Virginia shoreline by English ships bearing Dutch letters of marque.

Should America be defined by her vices rather than her virtues?  One might argue that vice — whether described as the commons or the vulgar — is rather ubiquitous in history writ large.  In fact, suffering and injustice is the common experience of mankind, and this fragile thing we call civilization is only guaranteed by the thousands of good deeds that resist what J.R.R. Tolkien called the “long defeat” of history.

Reason Magazine senior editor Damon Root raises the question of how men such as Frederick Douglass saw the question of human freedom in the context of the American experiment.  Root’s answer is that Douglass crafted a far more reaching and nuanced narrative of the American experiment that spoke not only to the Jeffersonian principles outlined in the Declaration, but to America’s common pledge to eternal principles and constitutional liberty:

Far from seeing [the Declaration] as a morally ambiguous document that sanctioned white supremacism, Douglass extolled it as “a glorious liberty document” that justified the ending of slavery and other forms of race- and gender-based inequality. Douglass’s message, says Root, is as vital to the current moment as it was in the 19th century.

The video is worth your time.

Root’s book entitled A Glorious Liberty is available on Amazon for $20, and its arguments might be worth sharing among those who are winged by wokeness, but are more possessed by the opportunity for grift than they are any true concern for moral justice in the world.

There are a lot of questions about the COVID-19 vaccines — which are safe, which are ethical, when will they be made available, and who will get them first.

The Virginia Healthcare & Hospitals Association (VHHA) are already fielding questions and comments surrounding the new vaccines, and while there are at least four of them to choose from, VHHA is doing its best to get as much information out to the public as possible.

In that spirit, VHHA made a helpful and short video about what the initial rollout is going to look like:

• In the first wave, 480,000 vaccines will be distributed.
• The first recipients will be health care workers as well as long-term care staff and residents.
• Shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine are being made now.
• After frontline healthcare workers, first responders — including police, fire, EMS, and other key individuals in vulnerable populations — will be allowed to take the vaccine.
• VHHA cautions that it may still be several months before the general population can take the COVID-19 vaccine.
• In the meantime, VHHA continues to recommend that individuals take personal responsibility for their own environment and situational awareness, including wearing a mask, limiting contact, and maintaining social distancing in public spaces.

At present, there is zero talk of a vaccination mandate either in Richmond or being recommended as a policy direction.

Given the scarcity of the vaccine at present, the real concern is prioritization among at-risk populations — including the elderly and minorities.

Thankfully, the large first wave seems as if it will be able to inoculate the vast majority of Virginia’s frontline doctors and health care staff, as well as make available the option of a vaccination to our law enforcement, firefighters, and emergency services personnel — key populations who are overtly exposed to COVID-19 in closed environment such as homes and businesses.

Delegate Jason Miyares (R-Virginia Beach) — long considered a rising star among a new generation of conservatives — congratulated the Republican Party of Virginia for choosing a convention as its method of nomination today in a tight 39-35 vote.

It is now finally official. The Republicans will be nominating their statewide candidates next year by a convention. They will take up the matter of the logistics of the convention at a later date.

— Brandon Jarvis (@Jaaavis) December 5, 2020

The vote — contentious at times — signaled a reluctance to trust the Democratic-controlled Virginia Department of Elections the final say over the outcome of any primary contest, mostly in the wake of President Donald J. Trump’s legal disputes over the outcome of the 2020 presidential elections.

Miyares, who won in a historic first as a Cuban-American in 2015, was optimistic about the decision:

Meanwhile, State Senator Amanda Chase (I-Chesterfield) made good on threats to run as an independent should the Republican Party of Virginia choose not to run in a primary contest, stating that she would be running in an “independent primary contest” and begin gathering signatures in 2021.

As an independent candidate, Chase would be running in the general election and not in a primary contest — ostensibly against both the Democratic and Republican nominees — beginning with 10,000 signatures with a minimum of 400 in each congressional district.

At present, there are at least 15 different names being floated for statewide office in Virginia, with at least four notable candidates for the Republican nod for governor: former Speaker Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights), State Senator Emmett Hanger (R-Mount Solon), Disruptor Capital CEO and longtime conservative leader Pete Snyder, and newcomer and former Carlyle Group CEO Glenn Youngkin all either announced or close to doing so.

Delegate Tim Hugo is considering a run for lieutenant governor in what will almost be guaranteed to be a crowded field.

Other candidates are rumored to be in the hunt for Virginia’s top law enforcement officer against Democrat Mark Herring, whose enfeebled response from this progressive wing to “defund the police” are complicated by his own blackface scandal on par with that of Governor Ralph Northam.

Republicans in Virginia are optimistic not only for their chances to retake the House of Delegates this year, but also about their opportunities to capture statewide office for the first time since 2009 after Virginia Democrats limped through the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Democrat Qasim Rashid is running against Republican State Senator Richard Stuart in Virginia’s 28th District and has a long-running pedigree on the right side of the fence when it comes to condemning terrorism.

Despite the political environment and while there are plenty of things to disagree with Rashid on politically, there is zero reason for disagreement to be an excuse for violence or threats thereof — as we have recently seen on the Democratic side of the fence directed towards Republicans.

So when a North Carolina man attempts to throw out a case for threatening to lynch Rashid?  The judge made the absolute right call in refusing to do so and allowing the case to be heard.  From WTOP by way of the Associated Press:

Vandevere argued his indictment must be dismissed on First Amendment free speech grounds, claiming the communication in question was not a “true threat.”

“In 2019, the political arena necessarily includes the public exchange of political views that occurs daily on Twitter and other social media sites,” wrote his attorney, Andrew Banzhoff.

However, U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn Jr. said he cannot rule as a matter of law that the alleged threat was “political hyperbole” or that “no reasonable person would interpret this communication as a serious expression of intent to do harm.”

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that “mere political argument, idle talk or jest” are not true threats, Cogburn noted. “However,” the judge added, “a true threat dressed up in political rhetoric or artistic expression alone does not render it a non-threat.”

Vendevere is now facing a felony charge with five years in prison for this stunt.  That’s good… because this sort of activity is beyond politics and has no place in the public square.

To wit, the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Robin Berger has more to say regarding the growing incivility and the culture of reward that we seem to have built around it — this time vis a vis Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s campaign staff: