Author: Dick Hall-Sizemore
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Clueless
By Dick Hall-Sizemore As noted recently on this blog, Virginia’s capital city experienced some semi-organized violent activity last weekend. This was not a peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstration that escalated. Rather, it was a mob, with some members armed, seemingly bent on confrontation, violence, and general mayhem. This event brought about a rare confluence: Bacon’s…
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Democrats Stack the Deck
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The Virginia State Crime Commission is a legislative body established in 1966 and set out in the Code of Virginia (Sec. 30-156 et al.). Its purpose is “to study, report and make recommendations on all areas of public safety and protection.” Following is a sampling of its recent topics of study: Sex…
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A Different Approach to Opening Schools
By Dick Hall-Sizemore I am struck by the contradictions of some people on this blog. On the one hand, they are terribly troubled, even outraged, by what they see as liberal indoctrination happening in our schools (here and here, for examples). On the other hand, they are outraged at the prospect that the schools may…
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Praise for DOC COVID-19 Response
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The Department of Corrections has received praise for its response to inmates with COVID-19 from an unlikely source — an inmate who survived a serious bout with the disease. A story in today’s Richmond-Times Dispatch provides the details. The inmate, who is serving two life terms, was housed in Sussex II State…
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Virginia Hospitals Rank High Nationally (They Are Not the Ones You Would Assume!)
By Dick Hall-Sizemore In a new national ranking of hospitals, two Virginia hospitals are included in the Top 20 Hospitals in the country. Furthermore, the Commonwealth’s two major teaching hospitals are in the list of the 50 best teaching hospitals. Finally, one Virginia hospital was one of the 100 best safety net hospitals. The two…
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What It Is, Is Not Journalism
By Dick Hall-Sizemore I never thought that I would agree with Jim Bacon on the slant of the RTD’s news coverage, but an article on evictions today just really irritated me. It was the usual article about activists demonstrating at the Richmond courthouse and protesting evictions. (At least the demonstration on Thursday was peaceful; no…
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Conservative Budgeting–Still the Virginia Way
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne is following in the classic conservative tradition established by his predecessors: under project your revenues and then look good when they come in higher than projected. In his case, he gets to bask, not in a bigger surplus than projected, but in a much lower shortfall than…
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Conservatism’s Foundation Showing Some Cracks
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The pandemic has presented a challenge to at least a couple of the basic tenets of conservatism. The first of these challenges is to the basic negative attitude toward regulations. Conservatives abhor regulations. In anticipation of objections from Jim Bacon and Steve Haner, among others, that such a statement is too broad…
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Our Cell Phones Are Still Off-Limits to Robocalls
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Here is a follow-up on a previous post. The Supreme Court handed down a decision today that will probably be lost in the coverage of its other decision released today, the one about “faithless” Presidential electors. Nevertheless, the decision in that other case, Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, inc., saves…
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A List of the Police Reform Proposals So Far
By Dick Hall-Sizemore As we have discussed on this blog over the past few days, the Democrats in the General Assembly have put together extensive and far-reaching packages on police reform. Steve Haner was considerate enough to provide a list of the Senate Democrats’ proposals, as well as a link to the package released by…
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Second Amendment is Not for Everyone
By Dick Hall-Sizemore For anyone who doubts that black people are harassed in everyday actions by other citizens and law enforcement, there is the recent incident in Shenandoah County to consider. A black pastor was on the property of some apartments he owns when he saw a man and a woman, not his tenants, dragging…
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Virginia Democrats Gearing Up for Police Reforms
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The upcoming special session of the General Assembly will be about budget cuts and police reform. Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn announced last week that actions on police reform would be allowed to be taken up at the special session to be held on a to-be-announced date. Whenever it is held, it apparently will…
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The Revenue Picture is Bad, But Not as Bad as Expected
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The state’s May revenue report has been released today. As one would have expected, the May 2020 general fund (GF) revenues were down significantly from May 2019 and the year-to-date GF revenues are running behind the annual forecast. However, on the somewhat bright side, the administration is now saying that it expects…
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A Better Alternative to Police Force
By Dick Hall-Sizemore I have been thinking a lot about a Washington Post article and accompanying police body camera footage. In that footage, a black man is pacing around and around in the middle of a street talking loudly, mostly incoherently. He is not being confrontational, but he is not cooperating, either. Several white Fairfax…
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Some Good Bills That Did Not Make Big News
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The 2020 General Assembly (remember that? — it seems so long ago! — was historic in many ways. There was an avalanche of legislation and committees and subcommittees met from the break of dawn into the evenings (so much for those traditional receptions hosted by various interest groups). Subjects such as the…