Virginia is taking a unique victory lap as the country celebrates its 250th birthday this year. The commonwealth was a leader in the rebellion against King George III and then in the building of the United States that followed American independence from Great Britain. Today, it is a leader in finding creative ways to tell those stories. Instead of forcing Virginians to travel to a museum to learn about our shared history, the commonwealth is bringing the museum to every corner of the state. The VA250 Mobile Museum Experience, which is titled “Out of Many, One,” is touring the state in an expandable tractor-trailer. When it arrives in town, it takes roughly two hours to convert the trailer to an exhibit space, according to Jeremy Martin, the program manager of the Mobile Museum Experience. The Daily Signal chatted with Martin when we caught the exhibit during a stop in Charlottesville last week. Martin noted that it took about two years to assemble the traveling exhibit, which curators started pulling together in 2023 with the help of partners from across the state. Guests enter the space from the back of the truck, which is adorned with an 1823 quote from Thomas Jefferson: “The generation which commences a revolution rarely completes it.” He died three years later on the 50th anniversary of Independence Day. It’s a timely reminder that it’s up to us in the 21st century to keep the spirit of 1776 alive for future Americans. “Out of Many, One” lays out many of the ideals we should focus on in the years ahead. Inside the museum, guests are greeted by a video of an actor portraying Patrick Henry giving part of his famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech at St. John’s Church in Richmond in 1775. The virtual Henry even sports reading glasses pushed back up on his head, as he is usually depicted. He would go on to be Virginia’s first post-British governor. Another display highlights the role that George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights played in shaping the United States. Mason shaped the thinking of his fellow Virginians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and the concepts he outlined in 1776 formed the basis of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. The exhibit also features an interactive display that allows visitors to select any Revolutionary War battle on a map. The kiosk then provides details about the battle, whether it was fought in Virginia or far afield. The VA250 Mobile Museum’s visit to Charlottesville coincided with the 50th anniversary of the city’s Downtown Mall, an eight-block pedestrian area lined with shops, theaters, and restaurants. Visitors who wanted to reflect on the world as it was in 1976 could also visit the “Then and Now: Charlottesville in the 1970s” exhibit along the mall. Charlottesville was one of many American cities that built walking spaces decades ago, but most of those have been returned to vehicular traffic over the years. While the glorious Fourth of July has passed, there is plenty of time to visit this exhibit, which will be on the road until the end of 2027. By the time the mobile museum is decommissioned, it will have “visited all 368 middle schools in the commonwealth.” Martin said. The facility is often parked near a nearby historic site, allowing students to visit both on the same trip. Be sure to see the mobile museum when it’s in your neighborhood.

THE CENTER SQUARE— Early voting began Monday in Georgia’s 13th Congressional District to determine who will fill the last months of the late U.S. Rep. David Scott’s term.  Four Democrats and two Republicans are on the ticket, with the winner to be decided on July 28, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.  Among the candidates is Scott’s daughter, Maryce Scott, who is running as a Democrat. Other Democrats running are Everton “EJ” Blair II, Tony Brown and Carlos Moore.  On the Republican ticket are Fayth Park and Caesar Gonzales.  Not running in the special election are the two candidates who will vie for a two-year term in November. State Rep. Jasmine Clark, a Democrat and Republican Jonathan Chavez will be on the general election ballot.  David Scott was first elected to Congress in 2002. In 2020, Scott was named chairman of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee. He qualified to seek his 13th term in office but died on April 22. The 13th District covers Rockdale County and portions of Clayton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Henry and Newton counties. 

THE CENTER SQUARE—Schools and government entities in Georgia and Tennessee are paying large sums of money to settle lawsuits with educators fired because of their comments about Charlie Kirk, the slain Turning Point USA founder.  Most of the posts, which were viewed as celebrating Kirk’s death, were on personal social media pages and were reposted online. Collectively, the comments were not complimentary to Kirk. The settlement amounts range from nearly $300,000 to $1.9 million. Aaron Terr, public policy director for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, known as FIRE, said in an interview with The Center Square that any anger about the money paid in these settlements should be directed at the government. “Yes, there may be that short-term cost that may be kind of painful, but the idea is that it’s going to deter similar types of constitutional violations by the government in the future,” Terr said. “And I would say that’s where the public should be directing its ire, not at the people who are trying to vindicate their rights, because this is the only way they can do it, but at the government for violating their rights.” The University of Tennessee is making one of the largest payouts after firing a professor shortly after Kirk’s death for statements on her personal Facebook page.  Tamar Shirinian, posting on her personal Facebook page shortly after Kirk was killed in Utah, wrote, “The world is better off without him in it. Even those who are claiming to be sad for his wife and kids….like, his kids are better off living in a world without a disgusting psychopath like him and his wife, well, she’s a sick (expletive) for marrying him so I dont (sp) care about her feelings.”  Shirinian received a $1.9 million settlement, which the university’s Board of Trustees approved in late June. “I think any continuing litigation would require significant time and attention and financial resources,” said board Chairman John Compton. “And those resources are better directed toward advancing the institution’s mission, vision and values.”  Another Tennessee professor received a $500,000 payout and kept his job, according to Clarksville Now. Austin Peay University professor Darren Michael shared a post that Kirk made about the Second Amendment.  Educators in other states are also settling for large amounts of money.  A Georgia teacher reached a settlement with her local school system, according to the organization representing her. The Center Square was unsuccessful prior to publication getting comment from the Oglethorpe County School System on the settlement amount. Online court documents did not provide details about the settlement with Michelle Mickens. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which represented Mickens, referred The Center Square to the court document. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Mickens was given $270,420 for “alleged emotional distress” and another $17,080 to cover legal fees. People are not just losing their jobs. Larry Bushart was arrested in Perry County after he posted a meme on social media with a picture of President Donald Trump and the statement, “We have to get over it. Donald Trump on the Perry High School shooting one day after.” The post referred to Perry County, Iowa, where a school shooting occurred in 2024 and not Perry County in Tennessee. Bushart spent a month in jail, missed his anniversary and the birth of his first grandchild, according to FIRE, which represented him. He won an $830,000 settlement from the county. Some cases remain unsettled months after they were filed.  Laura Sosh-Lightsy, a former dean at Middle Tennessee State University, sued the school in federal court after she was fired for a social media post. The case is in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.  Monica Meeks was an employee with the state of Tennessee when she commented on a friend’s social media post, “The way you tap dance for White Supremacist should be studied!” She is also represented by FIRE. “We’re standing up for Monica Meeks to send a clear message: FIRE will not let public employment mean giving up your right to have an opinion off the clock,” said FIRE senior attorney Greg Greubel. “The First Amendment protects public employees from retaliation for protected speech, and it bars the government from summarily firing an Army veteran like Monica over a Facebook comment despite her long record of exemplary public service.” Terr said when people are off the clock, they have the right, as public citizens, to speak about issues of public concern.  “And even if you say something that other people might consider offensive or wrong-headed or insensitive, that doesn’t remove the speech from the First Amendment’s protection,” Terr said. “What an employer, a public employer, has to show in these cases is that it actually caused some serious disruption to its operation.”  FIRE doesn’t take a position on the content of the speech. “Our goal is just to protect and defend their right to say it, whether we agree with it or not, because the First Amendment is supposed to be there for everybody,” Terr said. 

A legal group that runs an education program for judges on climate issues has had an overly close association with China, raising concerns about foreign influence in environmental cases, a national security think tank alleges in a report. The group State Armor released a report about the Environmental Law Institute’s relationships with Chinese government-affiliated entities. The think tank also sent a letter asking for a congressional investigation into the institute’s ties to China. The report says the Environmental Law Institute has maintained a longstanding relationship with Chinese government-affiliated organizations and institutions through its China Program. At the same time that the China Program was operating, the organization ran the Climate Judiciary Project, which offered continuing education for judges on legal issues related to environmental and climate cases. Committee chairs on Monday did not yet commit to an investigation. However, Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, noted the reported ties to China are concerning. “The CCP is actively taking advantage of our open society and attempting to advance its malign influence across all levels of government,” Moolenaar told the Daily Signal in a statement. “The ethical duty to avoid even the appearance of impropriety is a foundational pillar of the American judiciary. U.S. judges should closely vet the programs they participate in and never take part in training sponsored by CCP-linked United Front groups.” Michael Lucci, CEO of State Armor, sent the letter to the chairmen of relevant House and Senate committees asking for an investigation. The letter was addressed to Moolenaar; Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa; House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky.; and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Mike Lee, R-Utah. “Congress has increasingly recognized that the CCP often utilizes ostensibly academic, professional, and nonprofit relationships to advance strategic objectives and cultivate influence within foreign institutions,” the letter states. “The report raises legitimate questions about whether ELI’s activities may have extended beyond traditional educational exchange and whether Chinese entities exercised meaningful influence over ELI’s priorities, programming, or policy initiatives.” “Such an inquiry should assess the nature of ELI’s partnerships, the extent of information sharing, the role of Chinese government-affiliated organizations in shaping programs and initiatives, and whether any activities warrant additional scrutiny under existing foreign influence statutes,” Lucci added. An Environmental Law Institute spokesperson said the organization stopped working with China two years ago, and the China Program has never overlapped with the judicial program. “For over 50 years, ELI has worked to strengthen environmental protections in dozens of countries,” the Environmental Law Institute spokesperson said. “Our programming in China concluded in 2024, but was no different than our typical work in the United States—sharing evidence-based best practices on environmental regulation, not advancing the interests of the Chinese government or the Chinese Communist Party. ELI has never received any funding from the Chinese government, Chinese-based organizations, or Chinese-based businesses, and the Climate Judiciary Project has not conducted any programming in China.” The spokesperson said the goal of the Climate Judiciary Project is “to provide judges with the tools they need to understand climate science.” “CJP does not participate in litigation, coordinate with any parties related to any litigation, or advise judges on how to rule on any issue or in any case,” he said. On a similar front last month, Guthrie, the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, sent a letter along with subcommittee chairmen Reps. John Joyce, R-Pa., and Bob Latta, R-Ohio, to FBI Director Kash Patel and the co-chairs of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, requesting information on evidence of China and other foreign influence campaigns aimed at slowing American artificial intelligence development. The State Armor report “ELI and Communist China: How the Environmental Law Institute Threatens American Energy and Advances Chinese Interests” says the Environmental Law Institute’s judicial education promoted climate-related legal theories to more than 2,000 judges. The report says the Environmental Law Institute has also provided legal and policy analysis to Chinese universities, Chinese regulators, and other organizations in the country. This includes organizations that have links to the Chinese Communist Party and intelligence networks, according to the report. The report argues there is very little evidence that the law institute’s engagement with China has led to policies toward reduced pollution. Conversely, the report contends it has caused harm to American energy.

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 Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes. Victor Davis Hanson: [New York City Mayor Zohran] Mamdani, I know what you mean by people not having because of the color of their skin.   I mean, we had a president, poor guy, he had to be president, Barack Obama, for eight whole years. And then he left office. And you know what, Mamdani? He’s only worth 100 million bucks. That is so racist. And he has four mansions. Why, why can’t he have six? Why not seven?  And then, you know, look at the NBA. LeBron James, poor guy, he’s so underpaid. The guy is worth $10 billion. He’s only worth a billion dollars. And I don’t know.   You should know about race, Mamdani, because you tried to game the system. Why did you say you were an African American when you applied to Columbia a few years ago?  Was it because African Americans are systematically discriminated, like you just said? So, then therefore, you decided to show your solidarity with African Americans by lying that you were one so that you would ensure you would not get into Columbia?   The fact that you didn’t get into Columbia wasn’t because you weren’t African American. It’s because you lied, and they found out you weren’t African American.   So, if you think that people of color are being discriminated, then why do you keep identifying as a person of color? Why do you think that you got so much attention? Because you were really the first Indian American mayor, and you went to town with that.  And you know another thing he said was America, they will tell you—I don’t know who says that, Jack—but he says, belongs only to those with the right accent or right shade of skin. The rest of us—notice this, us—the rest of us, insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are, how weak, how unoriginal.  Thus spoke the settler colonialist from Uganda, where the Indian community, which is not native or indigenous, believe me, came to Uganda as colonial settlers and now controls 60% of the GDP of that country, and they comprise 1%, Mamdani, 1%. You were the 1%.   And no sooner did you leave the 1% as a settler colonialist than you came in as a, I don’t know, you said you were a visitor.  Maybe you would use your own Marxist terminology. You came in as more settler colonialist to another country. And what happened there? Your father was an endowed professor at Columbia instantaneously, and your mother was a heavily subsidized filmmaker who was very critical of her host in those movies.  And guess who her chief funder was? Millions and millions of dollars from Qatar, one of the most illiberal places in the world.   And then you were a product of that privilege and I’ve said this before, you belong to the wealthiest, richest, most privileged of all ethnic minorities in America, the Indian-American community whose per capita income soars above so-called white people.  And so you say that you’re exploited.  Another thing that really got me is when he said the rest of us should be grateful, grateful. I think all we ask is you come legally, and we don’t have 20 to 30 million people who are here illegally.   And the other thing. All we ask is that you show some gratitude. So that if you’re Ilhan Omar, you don’t compare us negatively as a dictatorship, which we’re not, to Somalia, which it is, in which her father was a member of a genocidal dictatorship, as were a lot of the refugees who fled to Minnesota.  That’s an untold story, Jack, why we let in so many people who were connected with the Siad Barre dictatorship in Somalia. We let in his son, reportedly. He’s here.   Jack Fowler: Yeah. In Columbus, Ohio.   Hanson: Yeah, why did we let them in? Because we surely didn’t let people come in from the Nazi government or the Japanese militarist government.  We didn’t let them come in.   So, this whole idea that this beloved community came over as refugees being oppressed is not the story. In many, not all, but many cases, they were part of what the Marxists call the victimizer-oppressor binary.   And then they would have stayed there and enjoyed their privilege, except Siad Barre killed so many people, over 200,000, in a civil war that he lost power.  And when he lost power, his regime collapsed, and the people who had been dealt an injustice wanted their revenge and started to go after the Siad Barre people, who then fled. And the gracious America, for some reason, allowed them to come in. And now they are saying that we are racist and we’re hostile to people of color.  Fowler: Did you see the Somali flag, the stories about them flying over Boston, Buffalo, other city halls?   Hanson: Yes, I did. I did. But why is he so angry, though? That’s what I don’t understand. He got every privilege in the world, and he’s—and he says he—we don’t want to divide him,   I was just looking at his—he said that so-called white people try to leverage race. This is what he said. So, he called AIPAC monsters, and then he said he wanted to go after richer, whiter neighborhoods.  And then he had to put in the word whiter because if he said just richer, he would have had to go out after, first of all, his own community.  Which is the richest of all.   And then, remember the housing czar with that weird name, Cea Weaver?  Fowler: Oh, that chick. Yeah. Yeah. Weirdo. Yeah.   Hanson: She claimed that homeownership was a weapon of white supremacy. And in the past, she said she approved of the agenda that there should be no more white men in office platforms.  And then he had, He endorsed, remember this [Darializa Avila] Chevalier—  Jack Fowler: Why don’t you say Chevrolet? Chevalier. Yeah.   Hanson: Miss Chevalier. Chevalier, I should say. Yes, and she said that white women who dated people of color were ugly colonizer women.   And then he had Catherine Almonte Da Costa. Now, she was his newly appointed director of communications appointments, excuse me.  And she had gone in on the past, Jack, as saying that there were money-hungry Jews. And she said it’s very important that white people must be defeated.   So, what I’m getting at is he surrounded himself with racist people and antisemitic people, and he used race himself, and now on the Fourth of July, he trashes the country that took him in, and more importantly, he accuses white people of being divisive and using race to leverage people when that is his mother’s milk.  That is all he has done. That’s all his father has done. That’s what his mother has done. That’s what he does. They bring in race, race, race, race, race, oppression, and they’re multimillionaires. Multimillionaires, just like the Obamas. And I think we’re all tired of it. We’re fatigued.   Fowler: It’s a great—yeah, it’s a great example of the Left’s projection.  If they are, in this case, he is attacking division when he himself is the master of division.   Hanson: That’s how he got power. He got power by organizing about 10% of the resident population who were very upset and angry. Partly, they were racist because he used race a lot, and that appealed to them.  Partly, they were like him. They were prolonged adolescents that were affluent, and had gone to college, and they expected that their degree would translate into $200,000-a-year job. And it didn’t for Mamdani, and he was a rapper. He kind of floated around in campaigns, and he was subsidized by his parents.  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.