Video: Warner Calls Attacks on Wokeism Legit; Virginia Cops Bail on Mass Surveillance Bill After Regs Added; Richmond Planet
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Cops Bail on Mass Surveillance License Plate Reader Bill After Cut in Massive Expansion
HB2724. This morning in the Virginia Senate Committee on Courts of Justice, law enforcement representatives pushing for an expansion of license plate camera readers stated they could no longer support the bill. The withdrawal of support came after the increase in massive surveillance provision in the bill was delayed and further regulations that limit the number of days the data collected can be kept were added to the bill.
An amendment to HB2724 by Senator Barbara Favola delays an increase of additional license plate readers on Virginia’s highways. Previous concerns voiced by Senator Jennifer Carroll Foy on the issue of expanding mass surveillance in Virginia were presented last week. The mass surveillance legislation is backed by Virginia House Majority Leader Charniele Herring.
The discussion over the bill comes at a time when President Trump and his Administration is insisting that the president’s executive authority can overrule decisions by the U.S. Congress and federal judges. As the executive power battle continues in federal court, several reports from ProPublica and the New York Times reveal that members of Trump’s Administration are seeking the private data of millions of Americans.
A question by Senator Mark Peake to Leader Herring during the hearing this morning revealed that there’s not much prohibiting the federal government from accessing the data collected by the license plate readers. A federal subpoena could access the information. Trump’s nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel, is advancing to a Senate floor vote soon.
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The legislation now heads to the Finance Committee today. The video below features several moments from today’s hearing.
Republicans in Virginia and on the federal level have shown no sign whatsoever of reigning in the broad range of invasive, and many say illegal, decisions being made by the Trump Administration.
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Virginia NAACP Responded to Senate Courts of Justice Committee's action this morning
The NAACP Virginia State Conference (Virginia NAACP) is pleased to announce that the Senate Courts of Justice Committee has passed HB2724, maintaining essential guardrails while excluding the expansion of license plate reader cameras. Notably, this legislation includes a re-enactment clause that allows the issue of expansion to be revisited in 2026. We urge legislators to retain this re-enactment clause to ensure that any future expansion is not considered until comprehensive regulatory guardrails are established and monitored across the Commonwealth.
President Cozy Bailey asserts that the NAACP's position on this matter is clear: we do not support the expansion of surveillance technologies such as license plate readers. Our primary objective is to advocate for robust regulatory frameworks that promote fairness and equity in their use. We remain steadfast in our commitment to universal regulatory oversight.
Echoing this sentiment, Virginia NAACP Political Action Chair Gaylene Kanoyton emphasizes the importance of subjecting existing license plate readers to thorough oversight and evaluation before contemplating the introduction of new systems. Assessing the current technology's impacts and outcomes is crucial to ensuring it serves our communities justly and effectively. As an organization dedicated to civil rights and justice, we advocate for transparency and accountability in all forms of surveillance.
We call on local authorities to prioritize the establishment of guardrails that protect residents' rights and foster equitable practices. The Virginia NAACP is committed to championing policies that uplift and empower our communities while safeguarding civil liberties.
Library of Virginia on the The Richmond Planet
The Richmond Planet was a prominent Black newspaper in Richmond, published from 1882 to 1938. It was a leading voice against racial injustice in the U.S. and owned by John Mitchell, Jr. The Library of Virginia has a special section on the paper. Click the photo below.
The White Moderate: Sen. Mark Warner on “Over-the-Top Wokeism” and the Democratic Party’s Brand
During an interview with Politico’s Dasha Burns on Feb. 15, Virginia’s senior U.S. Senator Mark Warner said the Democratic Party’s current brand is “really bad.” Why? Warner added that attacks on “over-the-top wokeism” were “valid.”
“I think the majority of the party realizes that the ideological purity of some of the groups is a recipe for disaster, and that the, candidly, the attack on over the top wokeism was a valid attack. The irony, of course, is, and this sounds like a whining Democrat, which maybe I am, is that, you know, Democrats do some stupid things in 2019 and occasionally one person says one thing that sticks forever. President Trump can say virtually anything, and it's forgotten within the same 24 hour news [inaudible],” Sen. Warner said seated across from Burns.
Though the interview was wide ranging the subject of whether the party positions itself as center left or right has come up many times. As MAGA Republicans led by Trump leverage racial politics in the most caustic ways possible it’s certain to come up again.
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Sen. Warner, who is up for re-election in 2026, could face a challenge by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Gov. Youngkin’s term in office expires in Jan. 2026. Some Democrats are openly discussing whether the party should move more to the right in the age of Trump. Democrats on the federal level are having difficulty messaging even though the implementation of Project 2025 and Trump’s flood-the-zone style was previously known.
During the 2021 campaign for Governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin defeated Terry McAuliffe in part because of a false argument that “CRT was being used in Virginia’s schools. Youngkin’s rhetoric on CRT received the loudest cheers at many of his 2021 rallies. Youngkin also defeated McAuliffe, in part, over an attack related to parents and education. The attack was amplified by right wing media, including the right leaning Sinclair owned TV station WJLA in the District of Columbia.
Sen. Warner’s remarks to Politico echo the views of some Democrats attempting to straddle ideological lines in an effort to attract “moderate white voters.” Black women are the number one most reliable voting block for the Democratic Party followed closely by Black men as 53 percent of white women voters supported Trump in 2024. Despite that, the “moderate” wing in the Democratic Party isn’t necessarily focused on the base.
James Carville, an 80-year-old advisor from President Clinton’s 1992 campaign, has been on an active crusade to attack “woke” advocacy. The term “woke” gained attention because of its use by the first grassroots iteration of Black Lives Matter after the Aug. 2014 killing of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. The earliest known examples of the use of “wokeness" go back to the early 1900s. Though Carville holds no official position in the Democratic Party, his views have been repeated by other Democrats.
“We could never wash off the stench of it,” Carville told the New York Times on Nov. 9, 2024, four days after Vice President Harris lost to Donald Trump. Carville called “defund the police,” “the three stupidest words in the English language.”
“It’s like when you get smoke on your clothes and you have to wash them again and again. Now people are running away from it like the devil runs away from holy water,” Carville said.
Warner’s remarks this weekend and Carville’s endless grinding criticism of “wokeism” are similar to the critical remarks of another Democrat who has branded as "moderate” and wanting to work with Republicans: Abigail Spanberger. After a close election in 2020, Spanberger, who is now running for Governor, branded heavily to police and against police brutality related activism. “Defund” was quickly converted into a racial pejorative by Republicans in their ads after activists in Black Lives Matter questioned spending priorities in a nation where mass incarceration is a $80 billion business.
On a weekly caucus call of U.S. House Democrats in November 2020 after Joe Biden defeated Trump, then-Rep. Spanberger complained loudly about what she viewed as damaging messaging related to “defund police” that she asserted cost the Democrats House seats.
“We lost members we shouldn’t have lost,” Rep. Spanberger, then in her first term in Congress, said. The Washington Post posted the audio of her remarks to the House Caucus and Spanberger remarked on her close race against Republican Del. Nick Fretas.
“The number one concern and things that people brought to me was defunding the police. And I've heard from colleagues who have said, ‘Oh, it's the language of the street. We should respect that.’
We're in Congress. We are professionals. We are supposed to talk about things in the way where we mean what we're talking about, if we don't mean we should defund the police we shouldn't say that,” Spanberger said.
The push back against focusing on police brutality occurred six months after the “racial reckoning” discussion started by the May 25, 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. Floyd’s agonizing death was caught on camera and seen around the globe. His murder was followed by many Black Lives Matter protests around the U.S. The moment was followed by a discussion on how much tax money goes into policing.
💵 Virginia will spend $27 million to get more cops in schools (Axios, June 2022)
💵 Virginia spends over $283.3K a year due to police misconduct (WAVY, Dec. 2023)
💵 Youngkin proposes additional $6.8 million in funding for school officers (Dec. 2024)
In big cities such as New York, the budget for police is over $10 billion.
In 2022, Spanberger cut a TV ad with Republican Culpeper Police Chief Chris Jenkins. In May 2022, she worked with Republican Tom Rice of South Carolina on a bill to increase the salaries of police.
RELATED: Centrist House Democrats lash out at liberal colleagues, blame far-left views for costing the party seats (Washington Post, 11.5.20)
Rightwing MAGA Republicans have used the terms “woke,” “CRT” and “DEI” as phrases to substitute for saying the word “Black.”
“Woke” has been used as racial dog whistle against any policy related to racial justice, equity, diversity and LGBT policy concerns. Democrats are in a struggle around the question of whether their brand moving forward should focus on historically marginalized groups. The struggle can be seen not only in Sen. Warner’s remarks over the weekend, but in the silence from Democrats across the board to the constant and specific anti-Black attacks on diversity and inclusion by the Trump Administration.
Almost every day since Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration has featured an aggressive and brazen attack on Black agenda items on the federal level with Trump blaming everything from plane crashes to stock market activity on equity and diversity.
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The Dems have been drifting Right for way too long. They're too comfy. I think it's time to start lighting some ideological fires under their asses, tbh.