Author: Peter Galuszka
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The State Trooper at Jonnie Williams’ House
By Peter Galuszka For three years, residents in a secluded, leafy road in Goochland County near a famous golf course were mystified by the sudden appearance of State Police cars running up and down Hunting Ridge Road day and night. Some knew that at the end of the road is the long winding driveway to…
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Web Courses: UNVA’s Cautionary Tale
By Peter Galuszka On these blog pages, you’ve read plenty about the supposed benefits of for-profit colleges being the wave of the future, especially if they are conduits for online instruction. Traditional schools, we are told, are out of control with their arrogance, free-spending ways and Luddite attitudes about making their courses available on the…
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Here Comes Jonnie!
By Peter Galuszka Just who in hell is Jonnie R. Williams Sr., really? How did this pitchman with a two-year business degree and a dodgy career get so many smart, accomplished people to back him loyally? He’s at the heart of Giftgate that could possibly include the resignation or criminal indictment of an otherwise successful…
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Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny!
By Peter Galuszka It never ceases to amaze just how the thinking goes in the capital of Ole Virginny. No matter how much they talk about the “Knowledge Economy” or “RVA” or whatever the buzzword du jour is, Richmond’s elite just can’t get away from the bow tie and seersucker milieu in which they are …
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Bob McDonnell and Resignation Rumors
By Peter Galuszka Intriguing rumors that Gov. Robert F. McDonnell may resign have picked up momentum following a seemingly endless series of disclosures his acceptance of expensive gifts without disclosing them. Conservative blog Bearing Drift reported Saturday that two sources had confirmed McDonnell would resign as part of a plea bargain agreement with prosecutors looking…
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Border Crossing: a 4th of July Memory
By Peter Galuszka Sorry, dear blog readers, but on this Independence Day, I got so depressed reading the mindless blathering on the “Freedom of Americans” on the editorial pages of the Richmond Times-Dispatch this morning that I just had to quote from the excellent book, “The Warmth of Other Suns, The Epic Story of America’s…
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The Continuing Tragedy of Afghanistan Hits Home
By Peter Galuszka Author’s note: This is a piece I wrote this week at Richmond’s Style Weekly. As a journalist, I have been dealing for years around the fringes of fighting in Afghanistan which historians have always warned is a good place to stay away from. It has consumed foreign intruders including the British, the…
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Another Take On Cuccinelli’s Vague Road Plan
By Peter Galuszka So far, Ken Cuccinelli’s campaign for Virginia governor has been long on rhetoric and short on specifics. Such was the case with his piece on Sunday’s Washington Post Local Opinions page headlined: “Taking the politics of roads funding in Virginia.” What caught my eye were two of Cuccinelli’s ideas. The first is…
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Coal, Power Lines and Historic Jamestown
By Peter Galuszka Captain John Smith would be shaking in his boots. Now the National Trust for Historic Preservation agrees. Dominion Virginia Power’s plan to erect a $155 million, 550-kilovolt power line across the James River just east of the Colonial Jamestown settlement would “compromise scenic integrity of historic cultural areas surrounding the river.” The…
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Does Anyone Know What the Rules Are?
By Peter Galuszka The furor over celebrity chef Paula Deen’s use of a pejorative term against African-Americans is curious because it raises so many issues that still bubble in this country and still resonate in the South. They involved codes of appropriate behavior that are extremely hard to figure out. Deen, whose buttery and sugary…
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“Jac” Cales’ PPTA Monkey-Wrench
By Peter Galuszka For four decades, James A. “Jac” Cales Jr. was a fixture on the judicial halls of Hampton Roads, albeit not one to take himself too seriously. As Portsmouth commonwealth’s attorney for a decade in the 1970s, he would lean back in his chair, his hands folded over his stomach and nod vigorously…
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The Good and Bad of Exporting LNG
By Peter Galuszka Riding a chunky, balloon-tire bicycle may seem awkward enough, but imagine pedaling in a six-feet-wide concrete tunnel for one mile on the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It’s amazing what we Bacon’s Rebellion bloggers do to keep you readers informed, but it’s all in a day’s work — just like…
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Yet Another Owner for Richmond’s Unwanted Road
By Peter Galuszka Richmond’s “Road to Nowhere” is about to get yet another owner, showing again how the public-private partnership craze can result in unneeded transportation projects while denying resources elsewhere. Australia’s Transurban which owns Route 895, otherwise known as “Pocahontas Parkway” is dumping the tollroad it picked up in an emergency financial deal in…
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The Democrats’ Counterforce Troika
By Peter Galuszka Setting up a nice counterpoint to the Republican Party’s strident assault on women’s issues and other social matters, Ralph S. Northam, one of two good options, was selected as lieutenant governor candidate for the Democratic Party in Tuesday’s primary. Winning the attorney general nomination was Mark R. Herring. The two should be…
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Cuccinelli, Penguins and Natural Gas
By Peter Galuszka Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli’s strange episode involving a natural gas lawsuit involving one of his largest political contributors for his gubernatorial campaign raises yet another issue about his ethics. First, whatever was a Cuccinelli staffer doing advising a subsidiary of coal and gas giant CONSOL Energy, which has given Cuccinelli more than…