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Virginia Democrats’ Redistricting Measure Is ‘The Definition of Jim Crow,’ Former Delegate Says
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Virginia Democrats’ Redistricting Measure Is ‘The Definition of Jim Crow,’ Former Delegate Says

While Democrats have recently branded voter ID requirements as a form of “Jim Crow,” a black Republican former delegate in Virginia is flipping the script in condemning state Democrats’ redistricting ballot initiative. Under Virginia’s current congressional map, adopted after the 2020 census, two districts have a majority-minority voting age population. However, the Democrats’ proposed redistricing maps would dilute those populations. AC Cordoza, who was the sole black Republican in the state’s House of Delegates before losing his reelection campaign in November, condemned Democrats as “completely hypocritical.” “These are southern Democrats, who are using their power to disenfranchise African American voters, and minority voters,” he told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Thursday. “Tell me how that is not the definition of Jim Crow, and they can’t do it.” “They just can’t, ’cause it is, and they know it is,” Cordoza, who served two terms in the House of Delegates, added. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other groups have condemned Cordoza’s Justice for Democracy PAC for sending flyers opposed to the redistricting ballot initiative. The flyers state, “Just like Jim Crow, they want to silence your voice.” Phillip Thompson, executive director of the National Black Nonpartisan Redistricting Organization, condemned the mailers as “juvenile, foolish,” as well as “tone deaf and completely cynical.” Yet Thompson acknowledged that the new maps do indeed weaken minority voting blocs. “The proposal maintains one distinctly black-influence district while dispersing black voters among other districts,” he noted. The new maps “may solidify Democratic support but are not necessarily structured to enhance black political influence.” Why Cordoza’s Claim Holds Water According to the Virginia court records for the congressional maps adopted in 2021, the voting-age population in the 3rd Congressional District was 41.96% white, 45.37% black, and 7.37% Hispanic. The 4th Congressional District also had a majority-minority voting-age population, with 45.18% white and 54.82% minority voters. The black voting-age population of 42.14% and the Hispanic voting-age population of 8.26% together form a minority-influence district that meets the requirements of the Voting Rights Act. By contrast, the proposed 3rd Congressional District has a 45.1% white voting-age population, larger than the 41.17% black voting-age population. Combined with the 7.19% Hispanic voting-age population, the two-minority bloc still reaches less than 50% of the district’s voting-age population. The proposed 4th Congressional District has an outright white majority voting-age population, at 50.7%. The black voting-age population (38.9%) and Hispanic voting-age population (6.04%) no longer match the white population. While the Supreme Court is considering two cases about the racial requirements for redistricting in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the act’s requirements remain the law for now. The NAACP’s Virginia chapter endorsed the maps as a response to Republican mid-decade redistricting efforts in Texas and other states. Those efforts came after the federal government concluded that the 2020 census overcounted the populations of Democrat-leaning states and undercounted the populations of Republican-leaning states. “When Black communities lose the ability to elect candidates who represent our needs, our entire democracy suffers,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement endorsing the redistricting effort. “The NAACP will continue to fight, in Virginia and across the nation, to make sure our maps—and our democracy—reflect people.” Yet Thompson, the leader of the black redistricting organization, noted that “most of the announced Democratic candidates for the newly established districts are white, and most of the institutional support, money and endorsements have been directed toward these candidates.” He acknowledged that “some black Virginians have expressed frustration with the maps, questioning why at least one of the new districts was not drawn to better represent regions that could support black candidates.”  Cordoza, the Republican former delegate, picked up on that theme. “I’d rather them just come out and say, ‘We want power, we want a power grab,'” he told The Daily Signal. “I want them to say it. We all know it.” The post Virginia Democrats’ Redistricting Measure Is ‘The Definition of Jim Crow,’ Former Delegate Says appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Trump’s Base Wants Accountability—So What Happened at Pam Bondi’s DOJ?
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Trump’s Base Wants Accountability—So What Happened at Pam Bondi’s DOJ?

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to VDH’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.  JACK FOWLER: Pam Bondi has been given the boot as attorney general. Do you have any thoughts on that, Victor?   VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Well. I don’t know the intricacies. She’s very pleasant. She’s very close. She’s a very good, nice person. She had a good record in Florida, but she came in late because of the Matt Gaetz misadventure.  And so they needed somebody and I think Trump expected two major task forces for her. One was fraud.   Elon Musk said that from the very beginning when they were doing the DOGE, and the DOGE, I thought there would be indictments, you know, left and right from what they found out. And there haven’t been.   So the very idea that J.D. Vance … he’s a lawyer and that’s really good, but he’s not an attorney in the sense of a prosecutor. The fact that he’s leading a commission and it’s not a Senate, like a Harry Truman investigation during World War II, but that shows you, there hasn’t been people at DOJ.  There should be a very high, famous prosecutor who should be doing that. I’m gonna have a federal task force on fraud. We give this money to the states and that hasn’t happened.   And then the other thing is all the Left says, “Well, you can’t conflate the AG and the president. They have to have a firewall. How dare you?”  Come on. Who do you think Bobby Kennedy was? He was the attorney general when John Kennedy [was president]. You’ve seen those pictures about every five minutes. They’re walking together. He didn’t do anything unless John Kennedy [was involved].  Who do you think John Mitchell was? He was the bond lawyer for Richard Nixon. Who do you think Eric Holder was? Why do you think that he said he was the wingman? The wingman of Barack Obama? Why do you think he defiantly refused a congressional subpoena? And he knew he had complete exemption in a way that Steve Bannon, for example, or Peter Navarro didn’t, because he knew what Obama would say.He would back him.   So. They needed somebody, what I’m getting at, independent, but to investigate the misuse of the federal government to go after people. And people are getting frustrated.   They didn’t do anything with the IRS under Obama that went after targeted groups on their political affiliations, right before an election.  They didn’t do anything for Operation Crossfire Hurricane. They didn’t do anything for [James] Clapper and [John] Brennan lying under oath.  If anybody believes that James Comey, for 245 times, an FBI director said he didn’t remember or didn’t know while under oath, and that’s not lying?  They should have indicted Joe Biden’s ghost writer when he said to Robert Hur, “I just erased that subpoenaed oral transcript. I was worried about hacking, so I just took it upon myself to destroy federal evidence.”  When they were doing the [Robert] Mueller investigation, they were missing all sorts of FBI phones. Remember that? They turned them over, and they said, “Oh, I don’t know. Somebody erased them.”  And when Andrew McCabe said, “Don’t worry. He’s not going to be elected. We need an insurance policy.” They had it all.  John Durham was a very good guy, and he was very thorough, but it was just a nothingburger. And so, people got really frustrated. They got really frustrated when Fani Willis got up in that stand and lied her head off that, “Oh, it’s a black thing that I use cash. How dare you suggest they should have receipts.”  Or she used federal monies for at-risk use to go after Trump, or that crazy Alvin Bragg shoehorning or bootstrapping or whatever you want to call it, a minor federal offense into a state mega felony. It wasn’t even an offense.  So what I’m getting at, there were all these indiscretions and nobody in the Justice Department ever seriously did anything about them.   And yet, when there were Democrats in power, my gosh. I’m not asking the Republicans to appoint a Fani Willis, or an Alvin Bragg or a Jack Smith or Letitia James, but my gosh.  I think people get very frustrated, Jack, because they saw all of that lawfare—get him off the ballot, raid his home. They’re not asking for that. They’re not saying we should be like that, but what they’re saying is these Democrats did all that.  It was all illegal. It was all politically inspired. We’re not asking to go down to their level. We’re just asking to hold the people who did something wrong accountable. And we are not doing that at this time. We’re not doing that.   The Democrats said when we get back in power, hello. I’m Susan Rice. We’re gonna go after all of you. I’m James Carville, and I just say you better be careful because as soon as you get back in there, we’re gonna get the Trump family. We’re gonna get the Trump family spouses.  FOWLER: And Victor, if I may, a backdrop to this, too. It’s not Bondi’s fault, but you see these judges in Minnesota who are giving these pathetically tiny sentences to these terrible fraudsters.  How come these people are getting away with it?  HANSON: Yeah, and I think you’re absolutely right. I think sometimes the administration’s not communicating well. There were two big issues. They weren’t the biggest, but they were big issues when he got reelected.  One was, are we going to finish the wall? And the second is, why don’t we, you know … Leonard Leo, he had a falling out with Trump and all the problems he’s had.  He’s gone off in a strange direction, I guess. But he did get these people appointed.  So why have we, I don’t know. I have no idea whether we have the same amount, fewer amount. The Democratic opposition is more rabid than the first. I don’t know.  But it does seem like we’re not getting all of these federal judge billets filled quickly with conservatives, and time is running out because if they lose, they’re never gonna confirm them.  They could be Thomas Jefferson, and they wouldn’t confirm.  So we need to get the judges appointed, audited, confirmed, and we need the wall all the way to the canyons of East Texas, the whole thing.   It’s 2,000 miles. I guess there’s 400 or 500 miles that the terrain makes it impossible. But we should then cover that with sophisticated electronic surveillance, et cetera, et cetera, and then just build this wall all the way. And we’re not doing it.  At least we’re not being told we’re doing it. That would help people during the midterm to be apprised of that.  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Trump’s Base Wants Accountability—So What Happened at Pam Bondi’s DOJ? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

OUTRAGE: Iryna’s Alleged Killer Declared ‘Incapable to Proceed’ In Trial but Roamed Free for Years
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OUTRAGE: Iryna’s Alleged Killer Declared ‘Incapable to Proceed’ In Trial but Roamed Free for Years

Another day, another example of how the Left’s view of justice is toxic to a free society. A state court on Tuesday pronounced DeCarlos Brown Jr., the man accused of killing Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in a random knife attack on a North Carolina train, “incapable to proceed” until a psychiatric evaluation is complete. From my colleague Fred Lucas who reported on the latest from this case: “A judge still has to accept the findings of Brown’s December mental evaluation, and the court could proceed if it determines Brown’s mental capacity is restored, WBTV reported. However, if the judge determines Brown is not capable to stand trial, the state charges would be dismissed.” The ruling drew understandable fury on social media, including from members of Congress. Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., called the decision “DESPICABLE.” DeCarlos Brown Jr.—Iryna Zarutska’s killer—won’t face trial for another six months, after being ruled “mentally unfit.”This is DESPICABLE.Iryna deserves JUSTICE.She was MURDERED.So why is the system FAILING her?Pro-crime, Democrat-run cities keep putting criminals above… https://t.co/epc1UMkJ8K— Rep. Mark Harris (@RepMarkHarrisNC) April 8, 2026 Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., wrote that the decision was eroding American faith in our justice system. Stories like this are exactly why Americans are losing faith in the system.When repeat offenders are protected and victims are ignored, justice isn’t being served. https://t.co/Nel2LoNsjw— Rep. Ralph Norman (@RepRalphNorman) April 9, 2026 Rep. Josh Williams, R-Ohio, wrote that only societies with a “death wish” could allow a man with such a long criminal history to suddenly be declared incompetent for trial. Only societies with a death wish would allow somebody to be roaming the streets after fourteen arrests and then declare him "incompetent to stand trial" after murdering an innocent girl in cold blood. We simply can't live like this. https://t.co/iIPmwvxxhT— Rep. Josh Williams (@JoshWilliamsOH) April 9, 2026 It’s easy to see why North Carolina hasn’t executed a death row inmate since 2006. On a positive note, if there really can be one in this story, Brown faces federal charges. So, even if the state charges against Brown are dismissed it doesn’t mean he will escape prosecution as Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon noted on X. The state court’s current decision, even if in this case it’s justified, is outrageous for several reasons and points to why the killing of Zarutska infuriated so many Americans in the first place. Well, not the leftist political leaders of Providence, Rhode Island who are more angry that people they don’t like are paying tribute to her. But let’s leave that aside for now. It’s absurd that only now is the 34-year-old Brown suddenly deemed incompetent to stand trial after decades of evidence that he was unfit to roam freely in society. This wasn’t a man who committed his first violent crime after a sudden onset of schizophrenia. Brown Jr., who comes from a family of violent jailbirds, had been previously arrested 14 times in North Carolina since 2007. The list of crimes he’d been accused of includes assault, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and several other misdemeanors. In some cases, the charges were dismissed. In others, he was convicted. He often failed to show up in court. After Brown was finally convicted of breaking in and entering in 2014 he was sentenced to “30 days in jail and 24 months supervised probation,” according to WBTV. Not even six months later he was arrested and convicted of robbery with a dangerous weapon after he attacked a man and stole his phone. That’s when he finally got a “serious” prison sentence of five years. After his release in 2020, Brown continued to be arrested time and again, including for violent crimes. Brown had been out of jail on cashless bail when he allegedly killed Zarutska. He’d been arrested for inappropriately dialing 911. Brown said he was being controlled by a “man-made” object according to the affidavit. He spent only two days in jail when a local magistrate released him after he promised to appear in court. A judge ordered an evaluation of Brown as he roamed the streets. That was just weeks before he stabbed and killed Zarutska. Why is it that only after being accused of committing a most heinous crime is this man suddenly incompetent to stand trial? Why is it that the man appearing in all these mug shots wasn’t deem unfit for society long ago? The many criminal faces of DeCarlos Brown Jr. pic.twitter.com/YLQfzhzXs3— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 9, 2026 That’s the outrage. Brown has spent his entire adult life being a menace to everyone around him. He appeared to have been in control of his actions when he assaulted and robbed people in the past. If he wasn’t, how was that not determined long ago after his fifth or 10th arrest? Even Brown’s mother said should have been institutionalized rather than being set free. This points to how the American justice system in too many cases has been warped to give repeat offenders second, third, 15th, near limitless chances. Most Americans aren’t criminals, but most crimes are committed by the same people. A system committed to traditional justice instead of social justice would keep this small number of people behind bars. In many cases, indefinitely. The Left thinks that’s unjust and cruel. But, as the oft-repeated Adam Smith quotation correctly concludes, “mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” In this case, a 23-year-old woman had her life brutally cut short because the system wasn’t committed to justice. What the Zarutska murder, and the legal system’s response to Brown’s life of crime, reveals is that there will likely be many more innocent Americans hurt and killed who could be saved if only our policymakers and courts allow them to be. The post OUTRAGE: Iryna’s Alleged Killer Declared ‘Incapable to Proceed’ In Trial but Roamed Free for Years appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Melania Trump Says She Never Had a Connection to Epstein
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Melania Trump Says She Never Had a Connection to Epstein

WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) – First Lady Melania Trump on Thursday denied ever having a connection to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and said claims about it are defaming her. “The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” President Donald Trump’s wife said in a rare address from the White House. It was not immediately clear what prompted Melania Trump to speak out now.  She said she had never had a relationship with Epstein or his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, with whom she said she had only a casual correspondence. “I never been friends with Epstein. Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach,” she said. “To be clear, I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, Maxwell. “I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump. I met my husband, by chance, at a New York City party in 1998,” she said.  She called on Congress to provide women victimized by Epstein with a public hearing centering on survivors. Evidence in multiple legal and criminal cases has shed light on Epstein’s ties to many prominent people in politics, finance and business – both before and after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to prostitution charges, including soliciting an underage girl. Epstein was arrested again in 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors. His 2019 death in a Manhattan jail cell was ruled a suicide. Melania Trump did not say why she chose to speak out on Thursday, but Marc Beckman, her senior adviser, told Reuters in a statement: “First Lady Melania Trump spoke out now because enough is enough. The lies must stop.” He said, “It is time for the public and media to focus on her incredible achievements as First Lady, the lives she has positively impacted, and her commitment to our nation.” The Trump administration, under pressure from Trump’s political base, ordered the Justice Department to release files tied to criminal probes of Epstein in compliance with a transparency law passed by Congress. The files released by the Justice Department include a 2002 email from Melania Trump to Maxwell about a New York Magazine piece on Epstein. “Nice story about JE in NY mag. You look great on the picture,” the email says. “Give me a call when you are back in NY.” Melania Trump on Thursday described her email to Maxwell as just “casual correspondence,” adding: “My polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a trivial note.” Donald Trump has said his association with Epstein ended in the mid-2000s and that he was never aware of the financier’s sexual abuse. Records previously released by the department show Trump flew several times on Epstein’s plane in the 1990s, which Trump has denied. After the financier was first accused of sexual misconduct, Trump called the police chief in Palm Beach to say that “everyone has known he’s been doing this,” according to an FBI interview record. Melania Trump said on Thursday that she first “crossed paths” with Epstein in 2000 at an event she attended with her husband.  “At the time, I had never met Epstein and had no knowledge of his criminal undertakings,” she said. The post Melania Trump Says She Never Had a Connection to Epstein appeared first on The Daily Signal.

EXCLUSIVE: Roy Introduces Bill to Designate CAIR as Hamas Affiliate
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EXCLUSIVE: Roy Introduces Bill to Designate CAIR as Hamas Affiliate

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL — A new House bill would designate the Council on American Islamic Relations and its affiliates as specially designated global terrorists (SDGTs). The Designating Hamas Affiliates in America Act of 2026, introduced Thursday by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, aims to block CAIR’s assets and prohibit Americans from dealing with the organization. “CAIR is not some innocent 501(c)(3) organization—they facilitate terrorism while operating under the guise of a nonprofit,” Roy told The Daily Signal. If enacted, the bill would also revoke CAIR’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status and require the secretaries of state and treasury to submit a report on why the organization possibly meets the SDGT criteria. “This bill makes it clear: their assets must be frozen, their tax-exempt status revoked, and all Americans should be prohibited from supporting them. No organization that aids terrorism should financially benefit from it, especially on U.S. soil,” Roy added. A bill summary provided to The Daily Signal by Roy’s office added that “the civil rights organization dedicated to protecting the rights of American Muslims has harbored ties to terrorist organizations including Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other extremist groups while operating under the guise of a non-profit, reaping the benefits of having a 501(c)(3) tax status.” Roy, a co-founder of the Sharia-Free America Caucus, added in the bill summary that the legislation builds on findings from the federal government’s terrorism financing case against Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in 2008. The Holy Land Foundation, the largest American Islamic charity at the time, was convicted of funneling over $12 million to Hamas front groups. During that investigation, the FBI identified CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator, and Roy’s bill summary claims that CAIR’s “30-year history is replete with associating with terrorist groups and individuals who want to undermine the security and values of the U.S. and its allies.” Roy’s office alleged that CAIR honored convicted terrorist and alleged Palestinian Islamic Jihad financier Sami Al-Arian in 2014, and that in 2020, CAIR-Florida featured Al-Arian in its livestream interview series. In 2006, Al-Arian, a former professor at the University of South Florida, was convicted of providing material support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated terrorist organization, and was eventually deported after serving his prison sentence, his office added. When contacted by The Daily Signal, CAIR did not issue a reply on the representative’s bill, but directed the request to their past comments on Roy. “This rhetoric follows a history of exclusionary policy proposals from the Congressman, including his recent calls to halt all U.S. immigration based on what he described as ‘Muslim immigrant violence,’” CAIR said in March in response to a social media post from Roy. “Representative Chip Roy’s public demand for the exclusion of an entire faith group is a shameful betrayal of his oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution.” The post EXCLUSIVE: Roy Introduces Bill to Designate CAIR as Hamas Affiliate appeared first on The Daily Signal.