Author: djrippert
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Does Northam Have a Plan to Battle a COVID Resurgence in Virginia?
by DJ Rippert The second (or third) time around. America’s polarized political situation has all eyes on the upcoming presidential election. Millions are voting early and millions more will vote by mail. There is a good chance that the final results will not be known on the morning after Election Day. If true, America’s attention…
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Joe Biden, the SALT Cap and Virginia’s Hidden Taxes
by DJ Rippert SALT of the Earth. The Trump Administration pushed through a change to the US tax code which capped the deduction for State And Local Taxes (SALT) at $10,000 per year. Previously there had been no cap. The imposition of the cap effectively increased the federal taxes paid by high-income earners, especially in…
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Virginia Needs to Stop Playing Politics with School Reopenings
by DJ Rippert Politics over science. Michael Hartney is a national fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and an assistant professor of political science at Boston College. He and a collaborator have studied school reopening decisions across the United States looking for factors that correlate with the seemingly arbitrary differences in school reopening policies…
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The November Election, Marijuana and Northern Virginia
By DJ Rippert Up for grabs. In about three weeks Americans who haven’t already voted will go to the polls and vote. The presidency, the U,S, House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate are all in play. Regarding the impact of the legalized adult use of marijuana in Virginia, the U.S. Senate is the key.…
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5G and Rural Virginia
by DJ Rippert A tale of two places. The next generation of consumer wireless technology is called Fifth Generation or 5G. It is being rolled out in select parts of the United States right now. 5G will be a boon to urban and suburban Virginia. Absent heavy government subsidies, it will likely have a minimal…
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The Jaw Dropping Political Contributions of UVa’s Board of Visitors
By DJ Rippert Waiting for Godot. A recent article on this blog titled, “UVa Board Backs Ryan on Lawn Signage Issue,” seemed to suggest that The University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors (BoV) was a critical link in UVa’s governance structure. My interpretation of the article was that the author (Jim Bacon) believed the BoV…
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Contextualization in Talbot County, Md.
By DJ Rippert The Talbot Boys. As the debate over contextualizing history rages in Virginia there is an example of historical contextualization from Easton, Md., the issue started, as they often do, with a Confederate statue. In this case the issue surrounds “The Talbot Boys” statue which has stood at the entrance to the Talbot…
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Virginia Needs to Prepare for November’s Election
by DJ Rippert Chaos. Violent riots have become a nightly occurrence across America. Portland is now over 100 nights of protests and riots. Meanwhile, Portland’s mayor expresses his solidarity with the protesters while moving from his residence because of the number of violent protests conducted on his doorstep. You can’t make this up. People are…
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Murder and Marijuana in Northern Virginia
By DJ Rippert Risky business, reccless behavior. Federal prosecutors recently charged members of a Northern Virginia drug gang, the Reccless Tigers, with a variety of felonies. A US News & World Report article claims multiple members of the gang have been charged with “murder in a sweeping new indictment that blames the northern Virginia street…
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COVID-19’s Long-Term Changes in Virginia
by DJ Rippert In the long run… Over the past eight months COVID-19 has dramatically impacted the world, the United States and Virginia. One hundred and twenty thousand cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Virginia Over 2,500 people have died from COVID-19 . The cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to grow in the Old…
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Boomergeddon vs Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
by DJ Rippert Saving America’s bacon. In 2010 Jim Bacon, blogrunner of this site, wrote a book titled Boomergeddon. The sub-title of the book is, “How Runaway Deficits and the Age Wave Will Bankrupt the Federal Government and Devastate Retirement for Baby Boomers Unless We Act Now.” The book is well written and contains considerable…
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Common Sense and Coronavirus in Virginia
by DJ Rippert Stepping back. Over the past five months there has been an unending flood of information, guesses, misinformation and politicized ramblings about COVID-19. Various factions put forth their experts and cherry picked data to support their agendas. It’s time to step back and synthesize all that has been written into a set of…
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Redskins Likely to Change Team Name
by DJ Rippert And so it goes. The Washington Redskins issued a somewhat surprising announcement today stating that the organization will “undergo a thorough review of the team’s name.” While the statement does not definitively say that the team name will be changed, it is almost guaranteed to change given today’s political climate. Even Dan…
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Racism, COVID19 and Marijuana Legalization in Virginia
By DJ Rippert Unintended consequences. Newspapers, websites and Bacon’s Rebellion have been full of articles describing and debating the COVID-19 pandemic and the police killing of George Floyd with the attendant protests. First-order consequences of these events have been widely discussed. However, as we enter into the “new normal” a number of secondary and tertiary…
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Chap Petersen and Pete Snyder: Get Virginia Back to Work
By DJ Rippert Odd bedfellows? In a recent Op-Ed entitled, “Time to get back to business, Virginia” State Senator Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, and entrepreneur and Republican activist Pete Snyder call for a more aggressive reopening of Virginia. The piece questions why large companies like Home Depot are allowed to thrive while “Mom and Pop” operations…