Author: Peter Galuszka
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“You Want Maggots With That, Hon?”
By Peter Galuszka Free trade capitalists may cheer the proposed $4.7 billion takeover of Virginia icon Smithfield Foods by a Chinese firm, but there is plenty to give pause and the blowback is creating some strange bedfellows. The major issues are whether one should want Chinese-style management in charge of American corporations given their record…
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McGlothlin’s GiftGate Connection
By Peter Galuszka The McDonnell GiftGate scandal and issues about the disclosure of money and gifts to Virginia politicians has only become more intense. The Washington Post reported today that Maureen McDonnell, wife of the governor, accepted $36,000 as a paid consultant last year while her husband listed her work as that of a trustee…
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My Moment of VPAP Clarity
By Peter Galuszka Last week, the Virginia Public Access Project held its annual luncheon and invited gubernatorial candidates Kenneth Cuccinelli and Terry McAuliffe to speak. No debate. No questions. Just a few minutes of remarks. The ballroom of the downtown Richmond Marriott was filled with the usual suspects, including lobbyists, lawyers, corporate officials and politicians.…
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Holy Pig Slop! Chinese to Buy Smithfield
By Peter Galuszka For eons, the name “Smithfield” has conjured up rich, salty Virginia ham slices that fit right on Christmas rolls or in crab dishes and with eggs for breakfast. The company that has produced such food for 80 or so years is based (of course) in Smithfield, a quaint Tidewater town the Pagan…
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How Good Is Chmura’s Economics Data?
By Peter Galuszka In the 40 months since Robert F. McDonnell has been in office, the launch of many of the governor’s policy initiatives seems to be accompanied by a press release touting the supportive findings of a small, Richmond-based research firm named Chmura Economics & Analytics. When McDonnell was pushing his transportation plan to…
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McAuliffe’s Offshore Drilling Flip-Flop
By Peter Galuszka Terry McAuliffe’s flip-flop on opposing offshore oil drilling in Virginia is unsettling given that the last time the Democrat ran for governor in 2009, he seemed skeptical of drilling for oil although he thought searching for natural gas might be beneficial. He apparently changed his position because he’s been with fresh legislation…
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Bob Dole’s Memorial Day Remembrance
By Peter Galuszka Memorial Day is typically a time for remembrance of the sacrifice of military veterans, cook-outs and the unofficial beginning of the summer season. As always, the media is filled with photos, video and stories of crippled vets, salutes and the like, but one opinion piece stands out: that of Republican stalwart Bob…
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Whatever Happened to Boomergeddon?
By Peter Galuszka And now for something completely different. I read with great interest James A. Bacon Jr.s “Boomergeddon” work a couple of years ago. It printed a very bleak picture of our financial future and Jim says, “We need to cut hundreds of billions of dollars” from the federal budget. But something has been…
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The Cooch’s Freak Show Dream Team
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka Ken Cuccinelli just can’t keep away from the bizarre, but perhaps that’s what makes him what he is. He stages a convention instead of a primary to neuter Bill Bolling. And since a convention is smaller, it draws more GOP hard-righters than June bugs on a humid night and they succeed in…
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Ninety-Seven Percent, You Chowderheads!
By Peter Galuszka New Study: Climate Scientists Overwhelmingly Agree Global Warming Is Real and Our Fault!
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What the Clams Know: Warming Waters
By Peter Galuszka Are warming seas forcing fish to migrate to cooler waters? That’s the thrust of an intriguing report in Nature magazine as covered in this morning’s Post. The impacts on the seafood industry are already playing out. New England fishermen after cod and haddock report having to move farther north to catch them.…
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Data Shows Hospital Billing Outrages
By Peter Galuszka It’s long been fascinating how Big Hospitals, linked with Medicare, Big Pharma and Big Managed Care, have come up with an extraordinarily convoluted system of setting prices for various hospital procedures. There is plenty of nonsense about including on this blog about bringing “free market efficiencies” to health care, as if human…
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The Tea Party and IRS Abuse
By Peter Galuszka News that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has targeted Tea party groups, including one in Virginia, along with other right wing organizations is deeply disturbing and conjures up ghosts of other government witchhunts. President Barack Obama has chastized the IRS for singling out the Tea Party and other groups that say they…
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“The Grimmest” Gubernatorial Race
By Peter Galuszka National media outlets are casting the Virginia gubernatorial match as “the grimmest election” featuring Atty. Gen. Kenneth Cuccinelli as “a Republican nutjob” and Terry McAuliffe as a scummy fundraiser who has revealed his failings in a “self-Borking book.” Those, at least are the summations from New York magazine and The Daily Beast.…
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McAuliffe’s Poll Problems
By Peter Galuszka Terry McAuliffe is well behind in a recent Washington Post poll — as much as 10 points (51% to 41%) among those who say they will cast ballots in November. Otherwise, the race is five points apart, still not good news for McAuliffe. Previously, polls had put McAuliffe and opponent Kenneth Cuccinelli…