Virginians woke up to news of ICE and Greene County deputies rounding up illegal criminal immigrants near Charlottesville – and the left is losing it.

Abandoned cars lined rural roads after the operation, proving enforcement is happening even under [Governor Abigail] Spanberger’s restrictions.

Sheriff Steven Smith didn’t mince words: he doesn’t answer to the governor when it comes to working with ICE. Elected sheriffs serve the people, not Richmond.

Enter Charlottesville attorney Andrew Young – a land use and environmental lawyer, not a criminal or immigration specialist – who rushed to the scene, offered representation, and allegedly had multiple firearms in his car. Officers drew weapons during his traffic stop. Young claimed it was about due process. Critics see it as classic obstruction from the Charlottesville bubble.

This mirrors dangerous incidents elsewhere where activists have confronted federal agents.

Meanwhile, Virginia families still mourn victims like Stephanie Minter, killed by an illegal immigrant with a lengthy record.

How many more Virginians have to pay the price before common sense returns?

Local sheriffs stepping up is exactly what voters demanded. What do you think – should Virginia law enforcement ignore the governor on immigration enforcement? View the full report here.

Republished with permission from Bacon’s Rebellion.

And for the past 15+ years – ever since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the dark money floodgates – a network of corporate special interests and right-wing billionaires have been using unlimited funds to buy the election results they want.

To protect their corrupt power, they are going to need to hold the new VA-6. Our race could well make the difference between restoring our Constitutional system of checks and balances or continuing a GOP trifecta that is laying waste to the American dream.

Top donors to Perriello’s campaign, according to the Virginia Public Access Project:

“The dark money machine is coming for us,” warned the Perriello email. “We don’t need to match them dollar for dollar. We just need to raise enough to get our message to the people.”

Total campaign contributions to Perriello and his two Democratic Party opponents in the congressional district incorporating Charlottesville and the surrounding area:

No Republican candidates listed.

Perriello served four years as the executive director for U.S. Programs at the  Soros family’s Open Society Foundations.

Republished with permission from Bacon’s Rebellion.

by Jeff Reynolds

Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger just made every Virginian's household more expensive.

Virginia has jumped back into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), and residential ratepayers will feel the pain—again. 

The last time the state was in the program, under the last Democratic governor, it cost Virginians more than $600 million over three years. Every penny landed on electric bills. Now, Democratic leadership in the Assembly, Senate, and governor's mansion has reenrolled the state in the "cap-and-invest" scheme, and the latest estimates put the annual hit at more than $500 million going forward. That figure doesn't even account for rising credit prices now that Virginia's demand has re-entered the market and driven up costs. 

Analyses have pegged the household impact north of $1,500 a year. 

Glenn Davis, who helped shape Virginia's energy policy as director of the state Department of Energy, doesn't mince words about what this means for families. 

"We know everyone's bill is going to go up," he told Restoration News. 

Power Bills Will Necessarily Skyrocket

Former President Barack Obama set the blueprint in his 2008 campaign, when he said, "Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." These schemes have well-known consequences for everyone who uses electricity, with no actual benefit for the climate. 

Democrats have pushed them anyway.

Other RGGI states at least admit the obvious: the program drives up power costs, so they rebate a chunk of the revenue back to ratepayers to soften the blow. Virginia's leaders refuse to concede even the premise. They deny the cost increase even exists, while every neighboring Democrat-run state quietly acknowledges it and cuts checks. 

The environmental irony is brutal. RGGI only regulates in-state generation. It does not touch coal plants outside Virginia's borders that still serve Virginia customers. During the last stint in the program, Virginia's two largest power providers, Dominion and AEP, simply dialed back gas-fired plants inside the state—subject to penalties—and ramped up coal-fired generation at facilities like Mount Storm in West Virginia. 

The math Davis pulled while at the Department of Energy is damning: Virginia's participation added roughly two billion pounds of extra carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere compared with staying out. "Emissions are like a 2-3x [increase] between gas and coal," he noted. 

Responsible Parties Escape the Consequences

The program—sold as a climate win—actually made the air dirtier by forcing utilities to chase cheaper, dirtier out-of-state power. And who pays the penalties? Not the utilities. 

"It's just like if I told you I want to go lose weight, but if every calorie of cake I ate went to you, how much less cake am I going to eat?" Davis asked. "You're paying the bill. And you're not penalizing the utility because every dollar in that penalty goes to the ratepayer." The money flows straight from your meter to the state's carbon credit auction proceeds, with no meaningful offset for Virginia households. 

The same ideological overreach that revived RGGI has started strangling future supply. The 2020 Clean Economy Act demands that Virginia shutter all "fossil fuel" generation—45 percent of the state's current capacity—by 2045, less than 20 years away. Utilities have already started building new gas plants in West Virginia whose entire output will head straight to Virginia customers, because building inside the state now risks regulatory suicide. 

The result is predictable: higher costs, less reliability, and a regulatory regime that treats molecules burned across the border as magically cleaner. A co-op just cut the ribbon on a large gas plant in West Virginia that will send 100 percent of its power into Virginia. The electrons cross the state line, but the regulatory headache conveniently stays outside the border. 

A single paragraph on offshore wind captures the futility perfectly. Virginia's only active lease, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW), had reached 70 percent completion when the Trump administration paused East Coast projects. "It was allowed to continue," Davis says, "and that is the right thing to do at that point because it was 70% complete. Every dollar was being put on the ratepayers. You might as well just finish the damn thing at that point."

Davis is blunt: "It is the most expensive electron I will ever use in my house. We should never have done it to begin with." 

Gaming the System

Virginia Democrats didn't have the authority to impose offshore wind over more reliable and affordable power options, so in 2020 they simply changed the law. They declared offshore wind "in the public interest" and stripped the State Corporation Commission (SCC) of its duty to pick the cheapest, most reliable option for ratepayers. 

"The Democrats in the General Assembly declared wind in the public interest and required by law that our utilities build a certain amount of wind by a certain date," Davis explained. "At that point, the SCC was taken out of the ability to value it based on the best alternative for power generation." 

More wind leases loom in the 2030s. The pattern is the same: political fiat overrides economics, and Virginians pay the premium for intermittent power that still needs fossil backup the Clean Economy Act seeks to ban. This will force ratepayers to subsidize the least practical form of generation available. The wind doesn't blow on demand, so the grid still needs the very fossil plants the law wants to eliminate. 

It's all cost, no real reliability gain. Davis has seen this movie before. "When we were in RGGI before, Dominion used significantly less of its gas power facilities in Virginia and used more of its coal power facilities in West Virginia." 

The program didn't clean the air. It just shifted the emissions and the expense onto the people least able to absorb them. 

New estimates are already trickling in, and they're more than four times higher than the previous stint in RGGI:

Dominion's new filing to recover RGGI costs indicates that it will cost the typical residential consumer an additional $13 per month ($156 per year). Filing linked below. Business and industrial customers will see increased bills as well.https://t.co/lBjuD4yFAK

— Mark C. Christie (@ChristieFERC) June 10, 2026

The first time around cost ratepayers about $2.39 per month.

Ratepayers across the commonwealth are about to watch their bills climb while the state pretends the increase is imaginary. Virginia's energy policy has turned into a master class in good intentions producing the opposite of their stated goals—higher emissions, higher costs, and less control over our own grid. 

The facts are not in dispute. The only question left: how long will families be forced to subsidize the experiment before they revolt?

Jeff Reynolds is Senior Editor for Restoration News, specializing in energy and science policy, as well as dark money. Jeff is an author, editor, strategist, and public speaker. A prolific researcher and writer, he authored the book Behind the Curtain in 2019, which details the billionaires and foundations responsible for the radical left's ascension in American politics. Jeff graduated from Connecticut College with a bachelor's in Zoology.

Republished with permission from Restoration News.

Air conditioning is very rare in European homes. Many residents ride out the searing heat with the help of electric fans, ice packs and cold showers.

But Europe hasn’t approached heat in the same way as the historically hotter United States. While nearly 90% of US homes have air conditioning, in Europe it’s around 20%.

As the kids say, it sucks to be you, Europe.

Europe is familiar with the technology of cooled air. And it gets hot every summer on the continent. Still, they balk at allowing folks to air condition their homes and businesses.

Few Europeans have air conditioning because climate loons like Greta Thunberg have brainwashed the perspiring public into a belief that air conditioning is wasteful, immoral and contributes to climate change. Cool air, they say, is a symbol of greed and decadence.

In fact, GB News reports that some homeowners have been ordered to remove cooling units from their property:

Britons have been ordered to remove air conditioning from their homes - despite the country baking in up to 40C heat this week - under a fresh Net Zero crackdown.

Planning officials at councils have told residents to take down their cooling units over concerns about carbon dioxide emissions.

They say AC, despite the heat, should serve only as a "last resort".

The crackdown comes from building regulations which demand "active cooling" is used only after all "passive cooling" methods, like opening windows or running fans, have been exhausted.

The Tories have accused the Government of leaving Britain "in the dark ages" through Net Zero policies which prevent citizens from accessing "modern conveniences that are completely normal in other countries".

Never mind that the World Health Organization estimates that 175,000 Europeans die of heat-related problems every year.

By contrast, only about 44,000 Americans die by gunfire each year and 60% of those deaths are suicides. My point? You have a much better chance of dying of heat stroke in Europe on a summer vacay than you do of being shot to death in America any time of year.

According to the latest reports from the federal government, the average American household uses 40-60 million BTUs to heat their home in winter and 10-15 million BTUs to cool their home in summer.

In other words, it’s cheaper to air condition a home in the American South in summer than it is to heat a home in the frigid Northeast in winter.

It makes sense then to know that the migration of millions of Americans from the North to the South in recent years has no doubt reduced the amount of fossil fuel burned to keep our homes comfortable.

Take that, Europe!

As an estimated 3.7 million foreigners experience an American summer during this year’s World Cup, they are not only being dazzled by our free drink refills, Moon Pies and BBQ, they are experiencing the miracle of cool hotel rooms, restaurants and even entire stadiums.

Here’s my prediction: Once they’ve felt the refreshing deliciousness of refrigeration on a steamy day, European visitors will go home and demand not only ice in their drinks but ice in their air.

The first regards boys in girls’ sports. There are two cases, one out of Idaho and one from West Virginia that challenge sensible state laws that bar biological boys from girls’ sports. Those who listened to arguments before the court believe that the Supremes will issue a definitive decision supporting those laws and clearing the way to keep boys who pretend to be girls off of teams and out of locker rooms.

It’s the common-sense decision, which means that the three justices lacking common sense: Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown-Jackson (who can’t define the word “woman”) will dissent.

Let them.

Almost everyone expects the majority to put an end to “trans” kids knocking girls out of sports.

Next stop: Women’s restrooms!

The other important decision the justices have been mulling is whether President Trump’s executive order banning birthright citizenship can stand.

Pray that it does.

That case is styled Trump v. Barbara. Court observers are doubtful that the majority will rule to abolish birthright citizenship despite the fact that the U.S. is just one of 35 countries that allows any child who exits the birth canal on its soil to claim citizenship, even if his parents are here illegally.

No European countries allow such lunacy.

If the court does uphold birthright citizenship we should take drastic measures to end birth tourism.

One way would be to demand that all female visitors to the United States take a pregnancy test before being allowed to enter. Yep, women of child-bearing years should pee on a stick in front of a female TSA agent before being allowed in the country. Especially if she is from China, Russia or Nigeria, the main purveyors of birth tourism.

If a woman is pregnant, she should be sent home.

Any man here on a work permit should not be permitted to bring his wife.

If the courts won’t recognize the insanity of birthright citizenship, we have to find other ways to end it.

“We have finally reached a place where we have a critical mass of legislators who are willing to vote for bills that save lives – not that you hope will save lives, but bills that are written based on data and evidence, and empirically we know they save lives,”

So said Governor Abigail Spanberger about legislation, which she signed, that restricts the sale and purchase of the AR-15 style rifle/carbine in Virginia.

Delegate Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax Station had this to say:

“Weapons similar to those I carried in Iraq and Afghanistan should not be trafficked in our commonwealth. … I think the high-capacity magazines that so oftentimes have been involved in instances of mass shootings that lead to mass death should be removed from Virginia.”

Spanberger said she was signing HB 217 into law “because firearms designed to inflict maximum casualties do not belong on our streets.”

But she admitted that the AR-15 holds a special place in America when she added, “While the General Assembly chose not to adopt my amendment that specifically carves out certain firearms frequently used for hunting, I will work with the patrons to clarify this language.”

The rhetoric echoed that of Vice President Harris, speaking in May 2022: “You know what an assault weapon is? You know how an assault weapon was designed? It was designed for a specific purpose – to kill a lot of human beings quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war with no place, no place in a civil society.”

All of the above, except the governor’s caveat about the special carve out are based on emotional dribble grounded on lies and ignorance.

Let’s examine a few facts:

A. 44,000,000

B. 490, 464, 570, 533, 401

C. 726, 586, 752, 744, 633

D. 58

A. 44,000,000 is the estimated number of legally owned AR-15 style rifles in citizens’ hands. (Georgetown University, NSSF). Given that the estimated population of Americans over 20 years old is about 210 million, that equates to one in five citizens owning this firearm. This certainly qualifies it as ‘commonly owned’ firearm as detailed, and protected, in recent SCOTUS rulings.

B. These are the number of murders committed in America by rifles OF ALL TYPES from 2020 to 2024, as per the FBI CDE database. That’s a very small fraction of the total number of murders, and even a smaller percentage of the AR-15 rifles in America — do the math.

C. These are the number of murders committed by HANDS and FEET from 2020 to 2024, as per the FBI CDE database. Given the larger number than those committed by rifles, shouldn’t legislation – which should be based on facts as per our illustrious Gov – focus on the deadlier threat?

D. These are the number of homicides in Virginia as per the FBI data.

This number is one-sixteenth that for sidearms and one-third of that for knives.

Shouldn’t the law focus on the deadlier threat?

Circling back to the emotional dribble put forth by the Dems, Helmer’s inane statement that the AR-15 style rifle is “similar to those I carried in Iraq and Afghanistan” shows he is either the worse soldier ever or a liar, or both.

He never fired, carried, or used a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle. He carried either a M-16 or M-4 assault rifle —— calling a goose a duck, does not make it a duck. If he truly does not know the difference between the two firearms, his lack of firearms knowledge is embarrassing for him, his training officers, and his command. The factual difference between the two has been explained on this blog many times before, so I won’t go into it here.

The Gov and VP both stated that semi-automatic AR-15 style rifles are only designed to inflict “maximum casualties” — to kill a lot of people — very quickly.

If this is true please explain why virtually every Virginia Law Enforcement patrol vehicle has an AR-15 rifle/carbine, according to every LEO I’ve worked with and talked to, as well as a study by the Joyce Foundation and PERF.

This fear mongering by the left is simply a lie.

It’s sooooo untrue that Del. Helmer had to create a term – ‘assault firearm’ for his legislation, then emotionally add characteristics to define such a term, in true Humpty Dumpty fashion [“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less.”]

Helmer’s ‘new’ term is defined as any semi-automatic rifle which has the ability to use magazines that hold more than 15 rounds, a forearm grip, a collapsible stock, or a threaded barrel that accepts silencers. Laughable —- these ‘diabolic, evil traits’ have nothing to do with illegality — please give ten examples where a rifle/carbine with those characteristics were used in a crime.

Finally, please explain why any magazine which holds more than 15 rounds should be illegal! Why is 15 good, but 16 evil? Some people with no firearms knowledge, and which have probably never touched a gun, much less fired one, state the arbitrary magazine capacity allows for faster death and destruction.

Please provide your times of firing an AR-15 [and hits on target at 50 yards] with a single 30-round magazine versus two 15-round magazines versus three 10-round magazines. The time difference will be about 15-30 seconds. Remember that the 1994 Clinton ‘Assault Weapon’ ban made magazines holding more than 10 rounds illegal. The FBI research of the impact of the law ten years later proved the ban had NO EFFECT on crime.

Finally, SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas has written in court decisions [the law of the land], “The AR–15 is a civilian, not military, weapon. No army in the world uses a service rifle that is only semiautomatic… [and a] common semi-automatic firearms used for lawful purposes.”

And….

“The AR–15 is the most popular semi-automatic rifle” in America and is therefore undeniably “in common use today.”

This, and the other 2A-abridging laws, are a solution for an imagery, false problem. Use facts, not feelings when creating and passing laws — such an approach helps everyone.

Ken Stiles, is a retired CIA officer with 29 years of service who lives in Blacksburg and now lectures at Virginia Tech through the Hume Center for National Security & Technology and the Department of Geography.

Republished with permission from Bacon’s Rebellion.

Im binge watching videos made by foreigners visiting America for the World Cup. I cant get enough 🇺🇸

So many profound perspectives and appreciation for our country and her people. pic.twitter.com/UiEeYvRbxR

— Spitfire (@RealSpitfire) June 20, 2026

These visitors turned social media into a surprising tool of cross-cultural delight. They’ve been the best reminder of all that is good in our land of plenty.

We may not like or even understand soccer in the U.S., but Americans do understand the absolute joy of being part of a delirious crowd wildly cheering for a team, be it college or professional. So it turns out, World Cup fever is contagious.

This guy summarizes the World Cup in the USA perfectly. They didn’t want to come here (Democrats) and now they don’t want to leave.

Wake up, America! We kinda rock. 🇺🇸🔥 pic.twitter.com/FK4n1RzyQc

— Buzz Patterson (@BuzzPatterson) June 21, 2026

Scotland’s Tartan Army charming Boston with their bagpipes, love of beer and impromptu singing isn’t all that different from what happens on fall Saturdays in college football stadiums around the country.

How could anyone watch these Scotsmen and not smile?

Unforgettable night with the Tartan Army at Fenway Park in Boston. Spoke to police officers, bar staff, security + merch sellers who said they'd never seen a set of fans like it 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Some videos of the good-natured mayhem here 👇 pic.twitter.com/PihmWtDwkq

— Ali Walker (@AliWalker24) June 15, 2026

The Tartan Army are a credit to Scotland. Here they are in full voice singing ‘Loch Lomond’ in Boston Stadium last night for the World Cup match between Scotland and Haiti. Absolutely glorious. pic.twitter.com/9OcBMkuNQy

— James Melville 🚜 (@JamesMelville) June 14, 2026

Left to the corporate media, World Cup coverage would be nothing but scores and the occasional feature on a disgruntled fan they managed to find who hates Trump.

Don’t doubt me. I worked in that cesspool for 42 years.

Social media destroyed the legacy media and its monopoly on narrative.

Thank God!

It gave ordinary visitors from around the world a place to voice their amazement at America’s casual opulence: our mega stores, our bottomless drinks, our free restrooms, our air conditioning. They came from places like the Netherlands and Congo only to marvel at Waffle House and Buc-ees. They feasted on brisket, biscuits and gravy and Beaver Nuggets. Oh, and ranch dressing.

Many joked that they never want to leave.

They came to a country that didn’t have to build stadiums and highways for the World Cup because they were already here. They came to a country full of people who were happy to give directions whether on the road or in a BBQ joint to a fellow trying to eat ribs with a fork and knife.

Chief among the foreign fans is Freddy. He’s a German who arrived June 5th with a smallish following on X that ballooned to about 718,000 once his wide-eyed posts about the American South went viral. Along the way he caught the eye of country singer Ella Langley and former football star JJ Watt. They both showered him with gifts: cowboy boots, hotel suites, luggage. Finally, when it looked like Freddy might miss his flight from Oklahoma to Toronto to see the German v. Ivory Coast match in Canada on Saturday, Watt went to work behind the scenes.

By the time he was airborne, Freddy’d fielded offers of private jets to get him to Canada.

Our room for the coming days in Houston. I don’t even know what to say about this. This is just unreal. No words.

Huge huge thank you to JJ Watt for giving me and my friends the opportunity to stay at a place like this🙏🙏🙏 pic.twitter.com/8XKUzpgiqD

— Freddy🇩🇪 (@FreddyLA7) June 14, 2026

Germany had a come-from-behind 2-1 victory in Canada, making Freddy very happy.

Follow him at Freddy@LA7. He’s on his way back to the US.

Show us a little love and we’re putty in your hands, Freddy.

Then there were the Japanese fans, who stayed behind to clean the stadium after their tied match in Texas. Their fastidiousness caught on. Social media showed Portuguese fans doing the same this week after their match and British fans were seen cleaning a bar in Dallas after a night of debauchery.

After cheering their team on to a draw, Japan (@jfa_en) fans clean up the stands at Dallas Stadium. pic.twitter.com/oJCxuog8V0

— FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) June 14, 2026

And how could anyone watch the Norwegians doing the Viking Row everywhere they went without smiling?

I don’t know, maybe the US should just host every World Cup pic.twitter.com/CnWhVfxr7M

— Ian Miller (@ianmSC) June 18, 2026

Do yourselves a favor. Turn off the news, cancel your newspaper subscriptions and turn on X and the World Cup. Not for the soccer - no one cares about THAT - tune in to watch the fans. These visitors and the Americans who welcome them are doing more for World Peace than 81 years of the United Nations.

“We owe America a huge apology, because America is nothing like what the media tells us. Everyone is so friendly, everyone is so accommodating, and I've honestly had the best time.”

Amazing to see all the eyes that have been opened to how amazing America is 🇺🇸🙏🏼

The media has… pic.twitter.com/sTaWxu11Fb

— TONY™ (@TONYxTWO) June 21, 2026

by Jacob Grandstaff

The RNC and grassroots coalitions are marshalling unprecedented resources to ensure accuracy, transparency, and confidence in this year's midterm elections.

The chaos and uncertainty that defined the 2020 election caused many Republican voters to question whether they could trust the outcome of any election. In response, Republican lawmakers passed numerous election integrity reforms at the state level, and the Republican National Committee (RNC) mobilized an army of lawyers and poll watchers in 2024.

This year, the RNC is doubling down on those efforts to ensure that even in states with weak voting laws voters can be confident of accurate results.

In a Truth Social post, President Trump pledged to send an "election integrity army" to every state "to protect the sanctity of each legal vote." He vowed these efforts will be "much bigger and stronger" than in 2024.

Continuing a Proven Model

In 2024, the RNC mobilized 6,000 lawyers and filed 175 lawsuits in defense of election integrity. That effort is being expanded for 2026, thanks to efforts by the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA).

"The Republican National Lawyers Association will be training lawyers across the country to participate in the midterm elections in their home states, or be deployed to target states, to ensure elections are open, fair and honest," Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) Executive Director Michael Thielen told Restoration News. "We believe that having lawyers involved in the process provides increased transparency and accountability, which gives everyone more confidence in the results."

This is a uniquely more effective strategy than the one organized on the fly after the 2020 election, which relied on high-profile national election lawyers.

The RNC's 2024 operation assembled over 230,000 volunteers across the country. For 2026, the party has already launched a multimillion-dollar election integrity campaign that includes hiring dedicated directors in 17 targeted states to oversee recruitment and on-the-ground coordination.

Initiatives like the RNC's Protect the Vote are signing up volunteers for roles inside polling places and counting centers nationwide.

What distinguishes 2026 from prior cycles is the depth of institutionalization and the experience the last election provided.

The RNC has already gotten a headstart on the legal front, with over 110 lawsuits filed in more than 30 states challenging vulnerabilities in voter rolls, absentee processes, and eligibility verification.

On the rapid response observation front, volunteers benefit from experienced, refined training programs, instant-reporting hotlines, and pre-positioned legal support. They are trained not just to observe but to document meticulously, creating a record within hours of any irregularity.

State Reforms Made a Huge Difference

Republican-led states have spent the past half-decade reforming their election laws. Georgia set the standard among battleground states, requiring strict voter ID and making early voting more transparent. Pennsylvania's Act 88 banned third-party election funding—ending the flow of Democratic-favoring private money like the infamous "Zuck bucks." The Pennsylvania law also incentivized counties to count votes continuously, eliminating the conditions that fueled overnight suspicions.

These reforms have produced measurable results. In 2024, professional conduct toward Republican observers markedly improved, and continuous counting reduced the kind of unexplained delays that had previously eroded public trust.

Where Weak Laws Remain, Republicans are Ready

Not every state has reformed its election code, however. Many Democrat-run states still operate under election laws from the COVID-19 era. Republicans' legal and election monitoring mobilization shows that they aren't waiting on Congress to nationalize election integrity. Instead, they're compensating by preparing for the possibility that corrupt election workers and Democratic operatives could give in to their worst instincts and try to rig the election in their favor.

For Republican voters who remain wary after 2020, the picture heading into 2026 is meaningfully different. The structural reforms are real. The legal infrastructure and volunteer mobilization are core competencies that the RNC has refined instead of last-minute scrambles. Thanks to the RNC's preparations, the 2026 midterms will be the most monitored elections in American history. Voters can be confident that their votes will count, and the count will reveal the true winners.

Jacob Grandstaff is an Investigative Researcher for Restoration News specializing in election integrity and labor policy. He graduated from the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C.

Republished with permission from Restoration News

by James C. Sherlock

Virginia Beach wave pool, keystone of the Atlantic Beach project. Image credit: Surfer Magazine

From an article by Stacy Parker in The Virginian-Pilot this morning:

To build two parking garages and improve streets in Atlantic Park, a public entity borrowed $53 million and agreed to pay off the loan with tax revenue generated from the project.

The bill has come due, but the taxes aren’t adding up yet.

Who knew?

About that $53 million debt thing. The Official Statement prepared by the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia, on behalf of the City of Virginia Beach Development Authority (the “public entity” referenced by Ms. Parker) listed the debt:

City Of Virginia Beach Development Authority

• $33,435,000 Public Facility Revenue Bonds, Series 2024A

• $27,225,000 Public Facility Refunding Revenue Bonds, Series 2024B

• $128,070,000 Public Facility Revenue Bonds, Series 2024C (Federally Taxable)

In 2024, this author wrote an 11-part series on the multiple scandals surrounding the Virginia Beach City Council’s actions to fund Atlantic Park.  Atlantic Park is comprised of:

• the Dome entertainment venue and the parking garages owned by the city, from which it hopes to generate revenue,

• all the steady revenue-generating assets like restaurants, shops, and apartments owned by a private development company,

• a maybe-not-revenue-generating wave pool owned by a North Carolina nonprofit funded with state revenue bonds because neither the city nor the developers wanted any part of it.  

In this case, as a Virginia Beach taxpayer, he did not wish to be right in his published prediction that the Development Authority would be unable to service the debt with project revenues.  

It turns out he was prescient.

Back in the day, the City Council appointed itself as the Atlantic Park Community Development Authority, which manages the project’s finances. Cute, huh? So it could be written in the prospectus that the bond debt was not the city’s debt.  

That was nonsense, and everyone involved, including the bond investors, knew it. The city’s bond rating would plummet if investors were not paid.

Fast forward. The Atlantic Park Community Development Authority has somehow convinced itself to reconvene as the Virginia Beach City Council to cover this year’s debt service shortfall. From an account called the “city tourism tax fund,” as if only tourists contributed to that fund.  

No waiter has ever asked your correspondent whether he was a tourist before collecting Virginia Beach’s highest-in-the-nation 6% restaurant taxes that are over and above the 6% sales tax on the same bill.

From the Virginian-Pilot article:

City Manager Patrick Duhaney said the deficit is not surprising given that the mixed-use development is still ramping up.

“It’s predicted that something like this would be needed to stabilize the project,” he said at the authority’s meeting on Tuesday.

Notice, not “the City Manager predicted”, but “it’s predicted.” 

Whoever “it’s” was.

Everyone in Virginia Beach who thinks that this is the last time that taxpayer money unconnected with Atlantic Park will be used to cover the Development Authority’s existing debt, raise your right hand. Thought so.

Finally, nobody asked, but P3 Foundation, Inc., is the North Carolina nonprofit that owns the wave pool for which the Virginia Small Business Financing Authority (VSBFA) issued tax-exempt, unrated sports-and-entertainment facilities revenue bonds with a total face value of $63.575 million.

Charity Navigator awards P3 Foundation its lowest possible ratings for accountability and financial health.

Probably nothing will go wrong.

• P3 Foundation will probably pay its debts.  

• The IRS will probably not shut P3 Foundation down.  

• The Development Authority will probably not have to buy the wave pool out of bankruptcy.  

• Any such purchase will probably not be backed with tax money from the City Council.

It’s predicted.  

Probably.

Republished with permission from Bacon’s Rebellion.

To make sense of the piece it’s worth noting that on May 7, 1998 - the day Dad died - the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 8,976. Morrison’s Cafeteria in Virginia Beach closed many years ago. The round-trip toll on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel is now $42 not $20. Worse, they no longer give you a coupon for a free thimble full of Coke. I guarantee you that would have aggravated my father.

This is the first year in my life that I have no one to call or send a card to on Father's Day. My dad died six weeks ago.

Then again, the card thing always posed a problem, as Hallmark never produced one that captured the spirit of my father. He was a child of the Depression, a character out of a Jimmy Stewart movie. He was a cross between Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and Norman Vincent Peale. He was a man who had eaten in some of the finest restaurants in America but preferred dinner with his grandchildren at Morrison's Cafeteria.

Wherever he ate, he always said grace first.

Dad was generous to a fault with his family and friends, but pinched pennies in unlikely places. He cheerfully paid his taxes, lavished gifts on all of us, donated heavily to charity, but hated toll roads.

He liked playing the stock market and was positive it was heading for 10,000. He dreamed of someday owning a horse. He was totally color blind and his socks never matched. He was the pitching ace - a southpaw - on his high school baseball team, but the World War II ended his dreams of playing in the Big Leagues.

He once quit his job and joined a carnival. He loved New Jersey.

Where do you find a card for a man like that?

I used to pore over the racks of Father's Day cards trying to find just the right one. Every once in a while, for fun, I'd send him one of those preppy golf cards. My dad played golf just once. I suspect he lost a $1.25 ball in the woods and that was enough for him.

My dad's idea of a great day off was working as a volunteer at an old folks' home, writing letters, walking his dogs or composing poetry. He also liked to attend shareholder's meetings of companies whose stock he owned. There, he'd publicly - and relentlessly - needle CEOs about their inferior products or poor customer service.

He once hounded the chairman of Sears so severely over a Craftsman mower that wouldn't start on the first crack that the company sent him a free one.

When my investment club bought Oxford Health Care stock my father disapproved. “People hate their health insurance companies. I never buy stock in things people hate. Invest in things people like.”

Merrill Lynch had nothing on my father. The stock crashed, never to recover. If only I'd listened.

For years we tried to get my parents to move to Virginia Beach to be closer to their grandchildren and to spare all of us frequent 12-hour round-trip car rides.

Mom was tempted, but not Dad. One day, as we were driving around the Beach, he remarked on the trend toward colorful banners hanging at each doorway.

”This is the kind of place where people would rather fly a pineapple than the Stars and Stripes,” he observed. I knew then he'd never leave the gritty confines of Trenton, N.J.

Just hours after my father died my family and a group of friends were sitting around the old oak kitchen table, drinking, crying and laughing.

We all had tales about his love of bargain gasoline and his disdain for tolls. He'd drive miles out of his way to save a few pennies on gas or to avoid a toll booth. When tolls were inevitable, he was not above looking around on the ground for spare change.

It was a game with him.

My brother remembered traveling from Washington, D.C., to New Jersey with my father a few years ago. Dad suddenly veered off an exit shortly after the Maryland House Restaurant in order to miss the JFK Highway toll.

For the next hour they bounced along rutted country roads and through downtown Elkton, Md., in Dad's Oldsmobile before triumphantly rejoining the free section of I-95 near Wilmington. He was the Che Guevara of the interstates.

Imagine, then, my father's chagrin when long-awaited grandchildren were born and the price to see them was a $20 round-trip toll on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. His devotion to the kids was such that he never complained about the long drive or the steep tolls.

But he always redeemed his coupon for a free Coke at the Seagull Pier.

Once, when he was driving by himself, my dad detoured through Annapolis and down the Northern Neck. He arrived at our house, bedraggled, nine hours after he'd left home. “It was a beautiful ride,” he declared, refusing to admit it was part of a toll-avoidance scam. “Your mother would love it.”

Not a chance.

As I said, it was impossible to find the right card for that man.

Last weekend, on a return trip from New Jersey, I did something I'd never done before. I stopped at the Pier and had a free Coke.

Looking out over the Bay, I silently toasted the guy who had always been so hard to buy a card for. Toll collectors rarely made a dime off him, but I was always rich when he was around.

Democrats decry “No Kings” yet they want to relocate to nations with actual kings.

Recent polling shows 55 percent of Democrats would rather live somewhere other than the United States with preferences for Canada and the United Kingdom (U.K.). Only 48 percent of Democrats are proud to be American compared to 95 percent of Republicans. What’s the Democrats’ beef with America?

They have a fundamental misunderstanding of American government and the Constitution.

Democrats invoke the phrase “defending democracy” as a rallying cry but America isn’t a democracy, it’s a constitutional republic.

Democracy means the majority decides everything, directly. Every law and every policy is put to a popular vote. The Founders rejected this model of government, knowing it was a path to mob rule. Instead, they created a republic. We elect representatives and give them authority to pass laws on our behalf to protect the natural rights of every citizen, not just the majority.

America’s founders opposed democracies. John Adams said, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” James Madison wrote, “[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

The Emancipation Proclamation offers a striking case for why the constitutional republic form of government matters. When Lincoln signed the wartime executive order freeing slaves in Confederate states, it was deeply unpopular. The Chicago Times denounced it as “a monstrous usurpation, a criminal wrong, and an act of national suicide.” If abolition required a popular vote as democracy demands, it certainly would have failed. Lincoln’s opponents referred to him as a “dictator.” Sound familiar?

Are Democrats ignorant? Or do they really want to undermine the foundational governing principles of the nation?

Founded on Biblical Principles

While the founders did not advocate for a theocracy and opposed the establishment of a national religion, they didn’t shy from declaring that Biblical principles formed the basis of our founding documents. Noah Webster put it this way, “[O]ur citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.”

The founders sought to ground American law in immutable principles of right and wrong rooted in scripture. As Alexander Hamilton wrote, “[T]he law . . . dictated by God Himself is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.”

Today, Democrats want to establish their own shifting foundation of secular morality, ignoring Biblical principles and natural rights—a flawed morality that permits the killing of babies, redefines marriage, and rejects biological realities of men and women.

Without a fixed moral framework and republican form of government, the Constitution becomes worthless. Law becomes fluid and whatever the majority says it should be. Benajamin Franklin understood this fragility and wisely stated, America is “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Send Them to Canada and the U.K.

Democrats oppose free market capitalism, the foundation to the success of the United States economy. A recent poll showed only 42 percent of Democrats view capitalism positively. Maybe that’s why they would choose the U.K. and Canada over the U.S.

American politicians like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who are Democrat Socialists, and Democrat Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who previously self-identified as a communist antifa super soldier, are the future of the modern-day American Democrat party. Democrat socialism aligns with principles of more government control, in opposition to free market capitalism.

How does America actually compare to the countries some on the left prefer? The numbers tell a clear story. If the United Kingdom were a state, it would rank as the poorest in the nation. Its GDP per capita is $57,000 compared to $93,000 in the U.S.

The average annual income follows a similar pattern—Americans earn $83,490 on average, versus $49,470 in the U.K. and $53,400 in Canada.

Housing tells the same story. The average American home is 2,299 square feet, more than twice the size of the average U.K. home at 947 square feet, and larger than the Canadian average of 1,948 square feet.

On employment, the U.S spring 2026 unemployment rate of 4.3 percent compares favorably to 5 percent in the U.K. and 6.6 percent in Canada. Even currently at the gas pump, Americans pay on average $4.48 per gallon, compared to $7.99 in the U.K. and $5.39 in Canada.

The data makes a compelling case: the free-market system Democrats increasingly distrust has delivered a standard of living that their preferred alternatives have not.

America was founded on principles Democrats increasingly reject—limited government, natural rights, Biblical morality, and free markets. They criticize capitalism while enjoying its fruits.

The 55 percent of Democrats who’d rather live in Canada or the U.K. are on to something. Those countries are a better fit for what the modern Democrat Party believes. The rest of us will stay here and defend the republic.

Victoria Manning is a Senior Investigative Researcher for Restoration News specializing in education freedom, immigration, and military issues. She is the author of Behind the Wall of Government Schools. Victoria served 8 years as a Virginia Beach school board member and has a master’s degree in law. She also brings the perspective of a military spouse to her reporting.

Republished with permission from Restoration News.

It’s been 94 days since Abigail Spanberger and Virginia Democrats failed to pass a budget for our Commonwealth.

While they launch personal attacks against each other, it’s the people of Virginia who are suffering. pic.twitter.com/90ylLaBD5O

— VA Senate GOP (@VASenateGOP) June 16, 2026

It’s actually delicious. Democrats control both houses of the General Assembly and the Governor’s Mansion and it turns out they can’t govern.

Frankly, I’m here for every minute of the rancor. The primary division is on the issue of tax breaks for data centers. The governor supports them, so does Speaker of the House of Delegates, Don Scott.

Speaker Scott lets it rip in an interview w/ the RTD.

He says Sen. Lucas has caused a "civil war" in the party w/ the Trumpy social media name-calling.

"To see the Senate stay silent in these attacks on me and the governor is really sad"https://t.co/n66FycN8Ap

— Graham Moomaw (@gmoomaw) June 16, 2026

The powerful President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Louise Lucas, however, has built a grassroots movement around the commonwealth fueled by opposition to the tax breaks.

It’s gotten so bad in Richmond that in an interview, Lucas looked wistfully back on the days when GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin was in charge, despite the fact that she spent four years spewing venom in Youngkin’s direction.

I don’t think many people realize how bad things actually are for Spanberger right now.

I promise you, there was no love lost between Lucas and @GlennYoungkin. She made it her personal mission to block everything that Gov. Youngkin wanted to do just to be difficult.

But now… https://t.co/4yi43T8ls4

— ROOZ (@ROOZVA) June 16, 2026

Brinksmanship might be bad for Virginia, but so are most of the new laws these lefties just passed, so some of us are watching the spectacle with bemusement.

If the governor can’t be bothered to look ahead to an shutdown, we might as well do it.

What’s likely to happen?

First, thousands of “non-essential” state workers would be plopped onto unpaid leave in July (which would become a paid vacation as soon as the shutdown ended). Essential workers, such as state police and prison personnel, would be on the job, without pay. Courts would be open with skeleton staffs.

There would be major delays with anything regarding the Department of Motor Vehicles or other state licensing agencies.

State parks would close. So would rest areas. (Fortunately, Virginians experienced the joy of bladder control during Tim Kaine’s disastrous potty shutdown of 2007 so we’re ready for this one.)

Presumably the ABC stores would be shuttered, although Gov. Ralph Northam found a way to keep them open during covid, so there’s hope for Virginia’s alcoholics.

If the shutdown lasted more than a week or so, the entire state economy would suffer as the buying power of approximately 169,000 state workers dried up.

Is a compromise in the offing? Doesn’t look like it. Scott is keeping House members at home for the time being.

“No budget agreement has been reached yet, so there is no reason for members to show up Thursday. The House is firmly committed to passing a full, balanced budget, and we will not return until we have one ready to vote on.

“Our rules require 48-hour notice before reconvening. As soon as we reach an agreement with the Senate, I will notify members and we will return and pass a budget.”

Democrats campaigned on affordability. All they’ve delivered is chaos.

Hunter’s writing another book about his amazing self, this one will be serialized on his substack.

Yesterday Hunter was on the “Armchair Expert” podcast with host Dax Shepard, another recovering addict.

Hunter used the occasion to declare that no one in the history of the republic had been prosecuted for the same “lie and buy” gun charges he was convicted of in 2023.

Pity Shepard didn’t call Biden out for lying.

Here is Hunter on “Armchair Expert” explaining his version of the sequence of events that landed him in legal hot water and eventually cost him his law license:

“They offer me a plea agreement because I failed to pay my taxes on time in that period of time, which I had subsequently paid with penalties and interest of over $800,000. After I got sober and found out that I had not filed my taxes, so I paid them with penalties and interest. And that during that period of time, I'd bought a gun. 

And I checked a box to say that I was not currently an addict. And at the time, this is honest. And when I walked into that store, I didn't think I was an addict. I was at least three days clean.”

“Well, yeah, you're not going to say you're an addict,” interjected Shepard’s co-host, Monica Padman helpfully…”

“Here's the thing,” Biden continued. “Every single person today in the United States of America based upon the law that I was prosecuted for, if you have ever smoked pot or you smoke pot even remotely on a regular basis, which means more than once a month, basically, and you own a gun, you're in violation of that same law, which means about 85 million Americans are breaking it. “ 

But they prosecuted me for it. We can't find a single other case. Woe is me. Oh, no. I, you know, being held to a higher standard. Like, yeah.”

Sorry, Hunter. I’m calling bullshit on this.

In fact, a quick Google search would have introduced you to Deja Taylor.

She’s a black single mom from Newport News who was sentenced to 18 to 24 months for the same gun charge you were facing, around the same time.

I wrote about your cases in 2023:

Let’s talk about two people today.

Deja Taylor, the 26-year-old mother of the 6-year old boy who in January shot his Newport News first grade teacher.

And Hunter Biden, the 53-year-old derelict son of the president.

Oddly enough, both of them were charged by the feds recently with lying about extensive drug use while possessing a firearm. Both have pleaded or are pleading guilty.

Taylor admits to being a marijuana user while possessing a firearm. Biden, “the smartest man” Joe Biden knows, was a crackhead while possessing his.

Taylor was facing up to 25 years in prison for her lies, but her lawyers and federal prosecutors came to an agreement where she will serve just 18 to 24 months in prison in return for her guilty plea. A judge needs to sign off on the agreement.

Biden, on the other hand, struck a sweet pretrial deal that will place him in a “diversion” program on his gun charge and he will not spend a day behind bars. He also has a plea agreement on misdemeanor tax charges that will entail probation rather than incarceration.

There’s a lesson here: 

If you’re a single mother, an African-American nobody in Newport News, you do time for lying about drug use while owning a firearm. If you’re a white bum but the spawn of the Democrat president of the United States, you go free.

And no, Taylor didn’t get a stiffer sentence because her son used her gun to shoot his teacher. Those were separate charges. This was a straight “lie and buy” charge like Hunter’s.

Once his plea deal fell apart, he was tried and convicted on the gun charge and saved from prison by a pardon from his father who had earlier vowed not to pardon his son. Lying comes naturally to Bidens.

Jonathan Turley isn’t fooled by the Hunter Biden redux:

“Hunter Biden is once again reinventing himself with the help of an ever-enabling media and the Democratic establishment. The media is full of reports that people are rediscovering Hunter and finding him strikingly honest and refreshing. In his pitch, he assures viewers that now “it’s just me” and not some team of advisers. The problem is that, for some of us who have been critics of the Bidens for decades, there is nothing new about the new Hunter other than a podcast audience.

“Hunter Biden was the ultimate personification of that corruption — both financial and moral. He spent his life attacking those who tried to investigate his dealings, including filing ruinous lawsuits against individuals who would not yield.”

“At the same time, he spent lavishly with money that he acquired by leveraging the access and influence of his father. Some of this conduct continued during periods of sobriety as well as addiction.  That includes his disgraceful record with regard to his daughter Navy Joan, whom he fought not to recognize or support."

Anyone else find it interesting that in the spate of interviews Hunter and his former babysitter/stepmother “Dr.” Jill Biden have given recently they’re never asked about Navy Roberts, the 7-year-old daughter that Hunter denied until court-ordered DNA tests proved he was the father?

For their parts, Joe and Jill Biden refused to acknowledge the existence of their 7th grandchild until they were guilted into it by a searing column, “It’s Seven Grandchildren, Mr. President,” by leftist columnist Maureen Dowd in The New York Times.

There’s a reason Navy is never mentioned: Clearly the price for an interview with either one of these two con artists is a promise that their atrocious treatment of little Navy is off limits.

In a piece last month, “‘Why Are We Talking About This?’: Democrats Furious That The Bidens Won’t Go Away,” Politico writer Lisa Kashinsky, Dasha Gruns and Andrew Howard interviewed prominent Democrats about their Biden problem.

“Democrats want to move on from 2024. The Bidens won’t let them,” the piece began.

“Hunter Biden has triggered a raft of headlines in recent days after he taped a podcast with (Candace) Owens, the conspiratorial conservative influencer who has repeatedly attacked the Biden family and the former president’s mental capacity. In the interview, Owens promised not to disparage Joe Biden…”

Of course she did.

The Bidens are stubbornly insisting that America pay attention to them while Democrats just wish they’d go away.

“Nobody wants to relitigate the worst debate performance since the Greek Republic. Why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about Hunter Biden? Why is Hunter Biden talking about Hunter Biden?” asked Pete Giangreco, a longtime Democratic strategist who worked on Barack Obama’s campaigns.

They’re both shameless grifters, Pete, that’s why. The gravy train, the Burismas, the six-figure finger painting business that looked like money laundering, all ended when Joe slunk away from the White House.

Dr. Jill and Hunter, part of the most corrupt family to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, are selling their memoirs in hopes of refilling the family coffers.

All they need are useful idiots in the media.

Interview with Elon Musk from 2012: " My proceeds from PayPal after tax were about $180M, $100M of that went into SpaceX, $70M into Tesla, and $10M into SolarCity and I literally had to borrow money for rent." pic.twitter.com/708DoKw3n9

— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) June 13, 2026

Elon Musk is today’s Thomas Edison. But Bernie Sanders, AOC and Elizabeth Warren don’t care.

Politicians who have become millionaires with our taxes are pissed off at a man who got rich by building things that people actually want. Think about it.

Musk’s net worth is one trillion dollars. And, like mobsters, they want a taste so they can fund more Somali fraud, or provide more free housing to illegals.

Well, on Friday Elon Musk also created 4,400 millionaires. Regular people who worked at SpaceX and had shares in the company. Janitors, clerks, cafeteria workers, engineers. Many are now worth more than $100 million. All rich because they believed in Musk’s company, which was their company, too.

Elon Musk: There are no lords and peasants at Tesla. Everyone eats at the same table.

“I actually know the people on the line, because I worked on the line, I walked the line, I slept in the factory, and I worked beside them. So, I'm no stranger to them.

There are many people… pic.twitter.com/FuB9AsFrUY

— Teddy - PolyBackTest.com (@Bitcoin_Teddy) June 12, 2026

By contrast, Bernie Sanders has created exactly one millionaire: himself.

AOC created one as well: herself.

Elizabeth Warren, who pretended to be a Native American to snag a plum teaching job at Harvard: ditto.

Every dollar Musk has earned is traceable. He’s had plenty of setbacks on his way to trillionaire status.

THE NEXT TIME YOU FEEL LIKE GIVING UP, REMEMBER THIS PHOTO OF ELON MUSK.

IT WAS TAKEN AFTER HIS THIRD ROCKET EXPLODED.

HE HAD JUST LOST $100 MILLION OF HIS OWN MONEY. SPACEX WAS WEEKS AWAY FROM BANKRUPTCY. TESLA WAS STRUGGLING. HE WAS SLEEPING ON FRIENDS’ COUCHES.

THE MEDIA… https://t.co/hI2qUAQ1pU pic.twitter.com/APRnhuASdW

— Vivek Sen (@Vivek4real_) June 12, 2026

I’m more concerned about politicians who go from rags to riches once they hit Washington, producing nothing. They’re living large, flying on private jets, using inside information to trade stocks on OUR dime.

Liz Warren wants to pass a law confiscating 5% of Elon Musk’s wealth to pay for corrupt social programs. She’s a zero-sum moron who seems to believe that Musk robbed the rest of us to get where he is today. That’s nonsense.

News flash, Liz: Any law that appears to target a single person is unconstitutional. That’s called a bill of attainder, Article 1, Section 9 prohibits such punitive measures.

That isn’t their money, or our money it’s Musk’s. He earned it by taking enormous risks and by making his employees his partners. Any government contracts he won by being the lowest bidder and by providing the government with products it needs. Oh, and those tax credits that boosted electric vehicle sales? When they went away, Tesla sales soared. Because Musk makes the best EVs.

Beyond that, Musk isn’t sitting on a pile of money. His money is tied up in his companies. Force him to write huge tax checks and he’d have to liquidate some of his holdings, throwing workers out of their jobs and hurting ordinary Americans who are invested in the stock market.

They don’t care. The left never thinks things through. To them, unemployed ordinary workers would be collateral damage. Stock losses wouldn’t matter, either. What they really despise is success.

Instead of cheering for an entrepreneur who’s getting rich, the begrudgers in Washington want to snuff him out, crush his spirit, confiscate the fruits of HIS labor.

Most politicians know nothing about wealth creation. Musk does.

A SpaceX welder earning $28 an hour just became a millionaire.

Juan Hernandez came from Mexico and worked as a welder at SpaceX, helping build the rockets that changed the space industry.

When he went full-time in 2015, SpaceX gave him $10,000 in stock.

Most people would have… pic.twitter.com/eoBiD1np9O

— Mike Netter (@nettermike) June 14, 2026

Non-citizens are boosting Democrat power in Congress—and the 2030 census could finally stop it.

This is Restoration Spotlight, a weekly podcast where we dive into the biggest issues dominating the news cycle, brought to you by Restoration News.

Watch past episodes of Restoration Spotlight here

Every ten years, America counts its people—and whoever controls that count controls Congress. Remove illegal aliens from the 2020 census and Democrats lose eight House seats. Remove all non-citizens and they lose 22. That's highway robbery... and you're the victim. Wade Miller of the Center for Renewing America joins Restoration Spotlight with a plan to make the 2030 census count citizens and take back Congress for the American people.

Hayden Ludwig is Founder and Managing Editor of Restoration News, launched in 2023, and Executive Director of Research Operations at Restoration of America. He specializes in election integrity and dark money, authoring the first investigations into the 2020 election "Zuck Bucks" scandal and unearthing the world's largest dark money network run by Arabella Advisors. He publishes regularly at RealClearPolitics, American Greatness, the American Spectator, and the American Conservative. Hayden is also a member of the board of directors at the National Legal and Policy Center in Washington, DC.

Republished with permission from Restoration News.

Virginia’s gasoline taxes rise again on July 1, a continuing legacy of former Governor Ralph Northam’s most taxing term.  He signed the 2020 bill calling for annual gas tax adjustments for inflation, so the combined taxes will rise from 41.6 cents per gallon to 42.4 cents per gallon.  It was a bipartisan bill, to be fair.

The brilliant deception tactic instituted with that 2020 legislation also continues to hold.  The tax is broken into pieces, with a retail portion, a wholesale portion, and a small addition to cover an environmental fund for underground storage tanks. 

The retail tax is currently 31.7 cents per gallon, and that is the number Republican activists used with when they proposed a gas tax holiday earlier this year.  They completely forgot about the wholesale portion, another 9.3 cents per gallon reported by the Division of Motor Vehicles on an entirely different webpage. 

The incorrect 31.7 cents per gallon amount popped up again in a guest column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch this week, also promoting a short (and basically symbolic) suspension.  And then I saw it again today in a post online listing all the states that are raising that tax on July 1.  The wholesale tax gets ignored almost every time, even though it adds about dime a gallon and moves Virginia much higher in the tax rankings.

To review, on July 1 the retail tax will become 32.6 cents per gallon, the wholesale tax 9.6 cents per gallon, and the tank fee tax only 2 tenths of a cent (a decrease that softens the blow of those increases.)  The combined total, Virginia, will be 42.4 cents per gallon (43.5 cents for diesel).  The fees collected on electric and hybrid vehicles also tick up due to inflation. 

Republished with permission from Bacon’s Rebellion.

To no one’s surprise, the globalists who run Northern Ireland turned their anger not on the uncivilized immigrants living among them, but on Musk for letting the world see the results of uncontrolled immigration from Africa.

Because of Elon the people of Britain - and the entire world - also saw the death of Southhampton’s Henry Nowak in the shockingly indifferent hands of racist cops.

And because of Elon Musk we in America saw images of Iryna Zarutska dying on a Charlotte train last year while indifferent passengers looked away.

What did these three events have in common beside bringing us the horror of murder? They were videos that government authorities didn’t want the public to see. Images that corporate media would never publish.

Those videos triggered action.

After the Zarutska murder the soft-on-crime policies of Charlotte’s Democrat-run city government were unmasked. Public outrage led to the passage of "Iryna's Law", which set out criminal law reforms, restricts cashless bail and attempted to bring back North Carolina’s death penalty.

In Belfast, the attempted beheading sparked impromptu anti-immigrant protests that are in their third night as I write this. The UK’s mainstream media has downplayed the savagery the near-beheading, characterizing it simply as a “knife attack.” That deliberate attempt to cover for a violent migrant fueled the fury of citizens who say immigrants threaten not only their culture, but their safety.

They are right, of course.

Government officials are less upset about knife-wielding foreigners than they are that their attempts at censorship haven’t stopped Elon Musk.

Here’s the Lord Mayor of Belfast - who likes to say that “diversity “ is the strength of her city - wishing the public hadn’t seen the “butcher of Belfast.”

You’re f*cking kidding me…

“I wish people didn’t see that video”

The Minister of Northern Ireland blames Tommy Robinson and Elon for what happened in Belfast last night… pic.twitter.com/uK8OHuTJfP

— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) June 10, 2026

She wasn’t the only official who seemed to be angrier at Elon than at the bloodthirsty maniac who gouged out the eye of a man before trying to hack his head off.

HERE WE GO 🚨 Britain’s Minister for Northern Ireland is preparing a major crackdown on social media companies to force removal of all content they say “is illegal”

He says anti-immigrant talk causing outrage will no longer be tolerated

(Holy sh*t)

UK Secretary of State for… pic.twitter.com/nwinddvyYx

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) June 11, 2026

There’s more.

BREAKING NEWS: Australia's public broadcaster ABC News just accused @elonmusk of ''inciting racial tension'' in Belfast because he did not censor footage showing a Sudanese refugee attempting to behead someone.

They're angrier at Elon than at the stabber. pic.twitter.com/PGDTLChDxd

— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) June 10, 2026

Here’s another post showing just how valuable X is when a government allows a country to be overrun with migrants from the Third World.

The UK plans to ‘Crack down’ on X because it’s not ‘Free Speech’ and because it fuels ‘Hatred’…

Reality: X is the only platform where Citizens can learn of the Treason that their Governments are committing against them… pic.twitter.com/ytVpC8hlcZ

— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) June 10, 2026

I was in Ireland during The Troubles. I remember when Irish nationalists were fighting to get the British out of Ireland.

Northern Ireland is still British and that government granted asylum requests from unvetted immigrants from countries like lawless Sudan. This attacker wound up in Northern Ireland after he found his way to France, flew to Dublin and then crossed the borderless border with Northern Ireland.

The people of both Northern Ireland and the Republic are increasingly enraged about the flood of foreigners and the crime that comes with importing the third world.

Thanks to Elon Musk, Kier Starmer’s Labour government may be on the verge of collapse with anti-immigrant parties poised to make inroads in parliament. That would be a welcome development.

In an attempt to control the incorrigible masses, many in the UK have been arrested for provocative social media posts.

Our Prime Minister Keir Starmer reassured the World that we have freedom of speech in the UK. Starmer has committed treason. pic.twitter.com/aaCFtuWXPB

— Andrew Bridgen (@ABridgen) June 11, 2026

Thank God we in America have a First Amendment.

And an immigrant named Elon Musk.

FRISCO: Karmelo Anthony BLM protest is heating up outside the Frisco court house

Random supporters are approaching white people like myself and screaming at us

Lots of anti-white racial slurs being thrown around. I’ve already been threatened and assaulted along with my crew pic.twitter.com/pGHqc9cOdF

— E (@ElijahSchaffer) June 10, 2026

I don’t think they will be able to sell the Karmelo Anthony as hero even to the stupidest Americans.

These racists were chanting slogans like, “the only good cracker is a dead cracker,” while they taunted the Metcalf family shouting that Karmelo should have killed Austin’s twin too. They called the brothers “domestic racist terrorists.”

For what? Trying to get someone out of their team tent at a track meet?

One monster hollered that they should dig up Austin’s body and stab it some more.

Oh, and an overwrought black women lamented in a TV interview that she has five sons.

“What do I tell them?” she keened.

Oh, I don’t know. How about “Don’t kill anyone?”

Did these protestors really believe that a teen could take a knife to a track meet, get into a dispute with another kid, stab an unarmed boy to death AND GET AWAY WITH IT?

Apparently.

It’s hard to imagine how the Metcalf family has endured this past year. Not only did they lose Austin, they had to endure death threats and being “swatted” multiple times.

The Metcalfs finally got their say in the final moment of the trial. After the guilty verdict. After the sentencing

In their victim witness statements, an angry Jeff Metcalf demanded that Anthony look at him. The murderer refused.

"We were robbed!" he said. "Don't look down!"

"This was never about race. It is about right and wrong." 

"My boys weren't bullies," he said…"My son's death destroyed the person I used to be. He does not exist anymore."

"People think grief is sadness, it is not. It is rage. Pure unfiltered rage.’

"You don't belong in this community…A piece of me died with my son.’

Austin’s mother Meghan tearfully addressed her son’s killer.

“We will never know what our future could have been," she sobbed. "For journalists, activists, this is a story. For our family, this is our reality."

"You should feel lucky you got 35 years because I've been given a life sentence without my son."

Lucky indeed.

Dominion Energy Virginia is proposing to delay until March 2027 to bill its customers for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon allowances it must buy starting July 1.  When the cost hits, however, it could be $13 a month or $156 per year for a typical residential customer.

The final decision rests with the State Corporation Commission, which will now open a case on the request (the full set of application documents is here.)  When the Energy Commission of Virginia meets tomorrow with a RGGI rebate idea on its agenda, now the legislators have a real (and painful) customer cost prediction to chew over. 

Dominion filed its application to reinstate what it calls Rider RGGI, which was on customer bills during the three previous years Virginia was part of the 11-state carbon tax, cap and trade compact.  When last Dominion customers paid Rider RGGI, it was about $4.40 per month for 1,000 kilowatt-hours.  That may now be almost triple. 

But the carbon prices set a record in the June 4 auction of $35 per ton, and in its application Dominion assumed prices through 2028 of up to $38 per ton of emitted carbon dioxide.  Dominion expects to buy and retire 51 million such carbon credits by the end of 2028.  The $7-8 per month in RGGI customer cost that was predicted in that article proved to be wishful thinking.

As is becoming typical with skyrocketing utility fuel costs, as well, Dominion is offering the SCC a “payment plan” option that would lower the immediate cost increase but extend the financial impact over additional time.  The bill impact on a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours would still be above $10 per month with that approach.

From July 1 of this year through February of 2028, a 20-month period, Dominion expects to need $1.18 billion to pay its carbon tax.  The 1.3 cents per kilowatt-hour under the full reimbursement, or 1.04 cents per kilowatt-hour under the extended payment plan, would apply equally to all rate classes.

Thus, there would be no discount for large users such as the data centers, major manufacturing facilities or sprawling warehouse complexes or big box stores.  On other aspects of their bills, there are some volume discounts.  There will not be any break for Rider RGGI. 

Dominion is the largest Virginia buyer of RGGI allowances with its fleet of natural gas plants, but the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative also needs RGGI credits to operate its coal plant. Its direct costs are also easy to pass on to customers.

The several independent power producers in the state running gas plants have a harder time getting this money back as they sell power into the PJM Interconnection marketplace, but a higher RGGI tax tends to drive all PJM prices higher.  Much of that higher basic price is enjoyed by the coal plants Dominion and Appalachian Power Company own in West Virginia, which sell more power into Virginia when RGGI reduces Virginia power output. 

RGGI is the best thing that ever happened for those coal and gas plants located in PJM states which are not part of RGGI.

Republished with permission from Bacon’s Rebellion.