Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday! Your terrific roundup includes: the Virginia Senate boss who chaired the budget committee by day and allegedly ran a three-generation family joint crime venture by night, out of her state office (efficient, you have to admit), under a corporate name so wholesome it belongs on a church-supper sign-up sheet; the Democrats’ bold new legal theory that crimes don’t count during campaign season, even when you’re not on the ballot; a dozen more Democrat officials whose fall schedules just got cleared by a judge; why the real story isn’t the crime but the cleanup crew; and the miracle hiding in plain sight behind all those mugshots.
🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍
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The whirlwind of arrests continues spinning and climbing the Democrat ladder. You know about Ilhan Omar (or whatever her real name is). Yesterday, Democrats took another big hit. The Washington Post reported, “Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas indicted in connection with marijuana business.” Louise isn’t just any old state senator. The subheadline explained, “Lucas, the 82-year-old president pro tempore of the Virginia Senate, is one of the state’s most powerful Democrats.” At least a dozen current or former Democrat officials have been charged, indicted, or arrested so far this month.
Louise Lucas is practically an institution unto herself. After a career in local politics, she was first elected to the state Senate in 1991, has been its president since 2020, and is currently the Chairman of the powerful Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, which handles the state budget, tax policy, and state expenditures— the money. She personally led Virginia’s mad-dash redistricting legislation earlier this year (which Virginia’s Supreme Court later struck down, thankfully).
In other words, she’s one of Virginia’s most politically connected Democrats, as WaPo repeatedly pointed out. The state’s top Democrat, a high-school dropout, is a “longtime community activist” who is “known for her stylish dress and sharp tongue,” the WaPo enthused.
She stylishly thought she was untouchable. On a wiretapped March 11, 2026 conference call with another Virginia legislator and her daughter Lisa Lucas-Burke, Louise said, “The whole police department protected us.” She had good reason to say that. In June, 2020, Portsmouth’s chief of police charged Louise with drug-related crimes during a Summer of Love monument-tearing-down protest. She was fired the next day. The charges were dropped. Message received.
The Post described her as a “sharp-tongued, brash-talking grandmother,” which is a nice way of saying Louise has a potty mouth and is known neither for her wit nor her command of basic English grammar. The paper called her arrest “a staggering turn” for Democrats, among whom she “has amassed considerable influence.”
When it noted that Louise “frequently uses social media to taunt and lambaste Republicans,” I suspect WaPo was hinting that Louise’s drug trafficking and money laundering prosecution is somehow political payback; an ugly insinuation that she would have gotten away with it if only she’d been a little less critical of President Trump on X.
If that was WaPo’s implication, it backfired. It came across as irony bordering on hilarity.
The 45-page indictment includes plenty of salty color. One of Louise’s shell companies involved in the scheme was named Mama’s Chicken, LLC. She once sold a state pot-growing license to an FBI informant for $100,000. “Yes, we can make a lot of money,” she told him, “but how about we begin with you sending at least a good faith payment of the money you owe me.”
The state’s most powerful Democrat and her family made illegal pot deals out of her legislative offices on County Street in Portsmouth.
The charges, unsealed yesterday, describe a years-long scheme where Louise and her co-defendants gamed the state’s 2020 marijuana laws like a miniature Biden crime family arriving in Kiev for the first time and warming up to the locals. In essence, starting in 2019 or so, knowing that legalization laws were coming to Virginia —she would soon take charge of advancing those same laws in the state Senate— Louise and her crime family invested early and often in pot dispensaries. That was the “legal” side of the operation.
Then, WaPo said, Louise “used her political influence to enact legislation and regulations that would help her cannabis business.” DOJ also alleged that she sold political favors to help others grab dope cash, which some people might call bribes. Then, with the legal side of the operation apparently not sufficiently lucrative, Louise’s group allegedly trafficked in illegal marijuana too, hundreds of pounds of it. (She sold it to recreational users though the laws she’d helped pass limited sales to medical use— a restriction the state lifted this year.)
On February 9th, on a call with the man she’d allegedly paid $750K for the Mama’s Chicken shell company (they’d worked a different deal for him to pay her back under the table and he is named as an unindicted co-conspirator), Louise said, “This is our last chance at generational wealth. I’ve got too old to not be greedy.”
She’s also got too old to be brash-talking on social media, but that never stopped her. She’s not got too old for jail, though. Louise forgot that pigs get fat, but greedy hogs get slaughtered. (That’s not a fat joke.)
Publicly, Democrats are mostly whining that the DOJ broke its “norms and customs” of not prosecuting public officials within 60 days of an election. A DOJ spokesperson drily reminded reporters that Louise is not currently running for anything and is not on the November ballot. Narrative fail.
And —just saying— back in March, 2023, after the former president’s arrest, Louise triumphantly tweeted, “Donald Trump just learned no one is above the law!” I think a honky grandma just learned no one is above the law, too.
🔥 The article reported that Louise turned herself in and was promptly released, for now, under her own steam. “Lucas left the courthouse without speaking,” WaPo said without further comment. Her business partner, her three adult children, and at least one grandson were also arrested and released. (They seem to be trying to make the Bidens look like underachievers.)
This is a pretty big bucket of chicken. The DOJ drew direct rebukes yesterday from Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger and other top state Democrats. Both FBI Director Kash Patel and US Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared at a special press conference to announce the arrests, and were not complimentary about the brash-talking grandma.
“During her time as Virginia state senator, she was actually using her position of power and public trust to deflect and defend against her own criminal enterprise,” Patel said. Brash! “Truly the epitome of hypocrisy for a public official.”
It was the epitome of something, all right, and it tastes like chicken. Yum.
🔥 A few more Democrat officials who appeared in this month’s true crime roundup include:
Jackie Espinosa (D), the mayor of Kissimmee, FL (pop. 86,500). She was arrested for grand theft and an organized scheme to defraud— over covid-era emergency grants. On Wednesday, Florida law enforcement arrested Mayor Espinosa and she appeared in court for first appearance. Orange is the new black!
Nick Mimms (D), the former Fort Pierce, FL city manager. On October 8th, Mimms was convicted by a Florida jury of a felony count of official misconduct in office related to a $500,000 grant that went to a nonprofit for a community center that was never built.
Ari Espinal (D), former NY Assembly member (Queens). Grand larceny, for charging $33,245 in personal purchases to her union employer’s American Express card. She was arraigned on October 7th.
Elijah Manley (D), a congressional candidate from Broward, Florida. He surrendered to authorities on October 16 for threatening to “cut the heads off” anyone who didn’t vote Democrat. Referring to Democrat DSA Senate candidate Angie Nixon, Manley posted, “I swear to god, take me to war over this black woman, and I promise y’all I will burn y’all (expletive) castle to the ground and anyone else in my way.”
LaMar Cook (D), 46, is the former Governor Healey-appointed Western Massachusetts deputy director. Clearly, a Democrat. He was arrested on October 14 for SNAP and wire fraud, even while under a separate prosecution for crack cocaine trafficking —18 pounds of it, delivered to his Springfield offices— and firearm violations. His state salary: $137,000 a year, not including SNAP benefits.
Reuben Taylor (D), the Boston Municipal Protective Services director (obviously a Democrat). He was charged with pandemic loan wire fraud —the gift that keeps on giving— and agreed to plead guilty on October 8th. ✅ IRS-CI
Dennis Bradley (D), 42, former CT state senator. This was the guy who was videotaped by a woman’s kitchen cam going around browbeating people into changing their mail-in ballots. He was charged on October 6th.
Michael Rivers (D), 67, a South Carolina state representative. He was charged with pointing and presenting a firearm at his political opponent on October 9th.
Brian DePeña (D), Lawrence, Massachusetts mayor (D). He faces up to 150 years for various federal covid loan fraud charges, wiretapping, and witness intimidation under an August indictment. DePeña needed a translator at his arraignment this month, since he does not speak English.
Francisco Paulino (D), Massachusetts state representative. His district included Lawrence, Mass., where Mayor DePeña is also being prosecuted. He was indicted in August for pandemic-era covid relief fraud and money laundering— he got over $700K in small-business loans for fake companies.
Sylvia Luke (D), Hawaii’s Lt. Governor, and the highest-ranking official in the DOJ’s fall lineup. It’s part of a large and complicated bribery conspiracy tied to millions in covid-testing money that I’ve reported on before, and that prosecution involves even more current and former Hawaii state officials. All dems.
It is tempting to conclude that this Fall 2026 crackdown evidences a dramatic new crime wave. But the data demonstrates an uglier truth. Many of these crimes go back years. Some were even under slow-motion investigation during the Autopen era. But it is only now that they are being aggressively prosecuted.
So the truth is that the Fall 2026 crackdown evidences a dramatic new willingness to prosecute political officials.
In other words, this country has suffered badly, for a long time, from a permissive blue culture that allowed a cesspool of political corruption to flourish due to lack of enforcement, in the same way bacteria flourish due to lack of cleaning. Think of the most horrible gas-station bathroom you’ve ever seen, one where a bright yellow hazmat suit is mandatory equipment for entry. Now multiply that by 1,000.
The above list does not omit Republicans due to favoritism. I honestly couldn’t find one dated this month. That is not to say criminals never sneak into the Republican fold. But it’s Democrats who have a permissive culture that demands strict compliance with ideological rules— but is much more flexible when it comes to following actual laws.
In other words, as long as you say the right things and vote for the right issues, then it seems like you can pretty much do whatever you want as a Democrat. This, it seems, is the inevitable result of vote blue no matter who. No high school degree? No problem. Fake chicken companies and fired police chiefs? No worries. Fraudulent covid loans and selling state growing licenses? No trouble at all. Just vote blue.
As evidence for this bold proposition, just notice how Democrats act when a high-school dropout like Louise Lucas —who became the state’s most influential politician— is arrested for an 8-year, intergenerational crime spree ranging from illegal drug trafficking out of her district offices to bribery and enriching herself by passing horrible legalization laws that destroy her state’s culture in the process of making a profit.
Can you hear a single Democrat condemning Ms. Lucas, or —even if judgment must be momentarily withheld under the presumption of innocence— making it clear as a general rule that the party will not tolerate lawbreakers? Or any Democrat stressing (this year) that no one is above the law, or that anyone in Ms. Lucas’s position must be held to a high standard?
No, you don’t hear that. Because it isn’t there. The phrase “no one is above the law” is a distant echo from times not so long past. That rule only applies to Republicans, anyway. Now the universal refrain has become, “no one this close to an election.”
But consider this: It would be completely different had Ms. Lucas merely tweeted her support for biological women on basketball teams. If she had, even in lukewarm terms, there would be no high-minded presumption of innocence. They wouldn’t demand everyone wait to pounce till after the election. She’d immediately be on political probation, and Democrats would race to demand that she quickly recant.
Behold: politics über alles, the promotion of ideology over every other consideration, the politicization of being, of everything, everywhere, all at once. Mussolini once said, “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato.” In short: “Everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
That is how communism works, purely and simply. But be encouraged! A great purge is under way, a vomitous reflex where the nation’s body is at long last spewing up the poison that was slowly killing it.
Finally, let’s soak in the beauty inherent in this tragi-comic arc. I made sarcastic boomerang jokes about “no one is above the law.” That is a great story. Hubris, meet Nemesis, and so forth. But don’t miss the greater story. This tsunami of Democrat arrests would have been politically impossible had President Trump not himself been arrested first.
It travels far beyond irony. It borders on the miraculous. The real fruit of President Trump’s long-suffering sacrifices has become evident only now, in hindsight.
For the last eighteen months, black-pillers have polluted social media with their memes demanding to know where are the arrests? Well? Where are the black pillers? They have something they need to say to the rest of the class.
Have a fantastic Friday! Wheel back here tomorrow morning for your weekend edition roundup of essential news and caffeinated commentary. Teaser: ANOTHER polling company just imploded after being unmasked as fake. That makes three in two months. We’ll also round up October’s OTHER dramatic arrests of fraudsters and non-officials. Get the full story in the a.m. edition.
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There will be affliction and turmoil for every soul of man who works out evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to everyone who works good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.
— Romans 2:9-11 LSB
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