Author: James A. Bacon
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Will Northam’s COVID Crackdown on Hampton Roads Work?
by James A. Bacon Yesterday Governor Ralph Northam blamed the recent rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases in Virginia upon noncompliance with his May face-covering order. In a Tuesday news briefing, he announced that the state will step up enforcement of the order. Northam singled out the spread of the virus in Hampton Roads for special…
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Advancing the Opportunity Agenda: Make 401(k)s More Portable
by James A. Bacon Robert L. Johnson, founder of the Black Entertainment Network and America’s first black billionaire, touted a proposal on CNBC this morning to help African-Americans — and, for that matter, all Americans — build wealth through their 401(k) plans. His proposal would make it easier for Americans to carry their employer-based retirement…
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More Big, Honking Data Centers Coming to Virginia
The COVID-19 epidemic may be slowing the national economy, but it is accelerating the trend toward a digitized and virtual economy. That requires more data centers, and Virginia is still a key locus of the data-center universe. Amazon Web Services is proposing to build 1.75 million-square-feet of data center space in Loudoun County, reports the…
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Reminder: COVID-19 “Cases” Do Not Equal “Deaths”
by James A. Bacon Yesterday, Kerry Dougherty observed that while COVID-19 confirmed cases have increased in recent days, deaths from the virus have not. For those of you who absorb data visually, I thought I’d supplement her post by reproducing some charts from the Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard. The chart above shows the…
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No More Shutdowns Without Detailed Data
by Kerry Dougherty Here we go. Again. California Gov. Gavin Newsom shut down much of his state’s economy yesterday. He closed indoor dining, churches, (they’re always the first to go), hair salons, barbershops, wineries, fitness centers, etc. I’m sure it’s just coincidental that this happened shortly before the Golden State’s numbers began to climb last month:…
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The Shocking Number of Hispanic COVID-19 Deaths for Ages 35 to 64
by Carol J. Bova The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) death certificate reports are the one reliable indicator of the impact of Covid-19 on the various population groups in Virginia. The CDC racial/ethnic breakdown from 2/1/20 to 7/4/20 of all deaths from COVID-19 alone, together with COVID-19 and pneumonia, shows Virginia Hispanics accounted for 12.6%…
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VCU Study Finds 30,000 “Spillover” Deaths from COVID-19 Epidemic
by James A. Bacon In March and April this year, the COVID-19 epidemic resulted in approximately 87,000 more deaths in the United States than the average for those months, concludes a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. About 65% were directly attributable to the virus. The other 35% was…
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Snowflake Nation: Law Students
by James A. Bacon Members of a “collective” of recent law school graduates and professors have signed a petition urging the Supreme Court of Virginia and Virginia State Bar to admit them to the bar without the necessity of taking the bar exam in Roanoke this year. Why? Because they’re scared of the COVID-19 virus.…
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And Now, a Word on Law Enforcement Reform From… Law Enforcement
by James A. Bacon Democrats have gotten plenty of attention for their ideas on how to reform Virginia’s system of law enforcement and criminal justice in the wake of the George Floyd killing and statue-toppling movement. But this article in the Roanoke Times is the first I’ve seen that lays out the thinking of… someone…
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What Passes for Logic These Days….
by James A. Bacon Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. said yesterday he supports changing the name of the city of Lynchburg because of its embarrassing association with the word “lynch.” He said the perceived racist connotations were an “embarrassment to Liberty University ever since we started,” reports Virginia Business magazine. Falwell is not alone.…
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Virginia COVID Cases Up, Deaths Down
by Kerry Dougherty Welcome to Day 121 of 15 Days to Slow the Spread. Seems like just yesterday that we watched, aghast, as Italy’s hospitals collapsed under the weight of those sick and dying from COVID-19. It was late February. If we didn’t act we faced the same fate, experts said. And so, in mid-March,…
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Inequity Accounting for Hispanic COVID-19 Cases
by Carol J. Bova Last week Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, D-Prince William, wrote a letter to Governor Ralph Northam decrying the high rate of COVID-19 infection in Virginia’s Hispanic population. She blamed “longstanding and systemic factors, such as disparate access to information, testing, and treatment.” Jim Bacon responded that Virginia Department of Health (VDH) data…
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Mayor Stoney Panders to the Mob, Lawsuit Says
by James A. Bacon Two elderly residents of Monument Avenue have filed a lawsuit charging that Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney pandered to mob rule by ignoring proper legal procedures to remove Civil War statues and by failing to arrest protesters who assaulted homeowners living near the Lee statue and vandalized their houses. Stoney justified the…
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Are Hispanics Victims of “Inequities” in COVID-19 Epidemic?
by James A. Bacon Hispanics make up 9% of Virginia’s population but 43% of the state’s COVID-19 cases. So, it seems a not-unreasonable thing for Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, D-Prince William, a candidate for governor, to call upon Governor Ralph Northam to increase funding for outreach over Spanish-language media to build public awareness about the…
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Virginia Supremes Uphold SCC, Rule Against Wal-Mart
by L. Steve Emmert Yesterday the Supreme Court of Virginia issued a ruling in Wal-Mart Stores East, LP v. SCC. The question here is whether Wal-Mart can shed the shackles of buying electricity from the dominant utility, a regulated monopoly that you know as VEPCO or APCO, depending on where in Virginia you are. Some time…