Author: sherlockj
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Virginia’s Covid Vaccination Plan – Nothing to Exercise
by James C. Sherlock I have read a lot of speculation here on who is responsible for the mess that has been the distribution and administration of COVID vaccines. I will try offer some clarification. On a day-to-day basis, people get flu shots or shingles shots or whatever from a lot of different providers. The…
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Certificate of Public Need’s Hall of Mirrors
by James C. Sherlock In Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors, everything is reflected hundreds of times. The mirrors were also a commercial. They represented an effort of Louis XIV to establish for France monopolies on the production of luxury goods. Virginia’s Certificate of Public Need (COPN) law and regulations represent a similar structure. Everything in the…
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Virginia Pandemic Emergency Plan Was Never Exercised
by James C. Sherlock As we suspected, Virginia did not exercise its Pandemic Emergency Plan from the time it was published in 2012 until COVID-19 struck. I received the following response today to a FOIA request I sent to the Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Emergency Management: The Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) received your…
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Sentara and the Judge
by James C. Sherlock Updated Feb. 23 at 2:15 pm In an ongoing series of reports, Ray Locker, enterprise and investigative editor of the Checks and Balances Project, has exposed a story with far-reaching implications. Norfolk Circuit Court Chief Judge Mary Jane Hall sat in judgment on a case, Chesapeake Hosp. Auth. v. State Health Comm’r, in…
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COPN – Don’t Leave Home Without It
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes I think we don’t personalize the effects of Virginia’s Certificate of Public Need (COPN) program on individual Virginians in ways that are relatable. Nor do many understand the power of the hospital monopolies. Many readers here have followed the progress of our reporting of the increasing and relentless suppression of…
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Certificate of Public Need – This Seems Promising
by James C. Sherlock Democrats, the primary bulwarks for the Certificate of Public Need (COPN) law in Virginia, took the opportunity last year to create as part of a major revision to COPN law a new 19-member State Health Services Plan Task Force. That group is to advise the Board of Health on the content…
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The Democratic Coalition’s Conflicts of Interest Cause Much Political Scrambling
by James C. Sherlock It is tough to be a Democratic politician in Richmond or Washington. Now that they govern, they find it one big game of coalition whack-a-mole. I have written today of the conflicts between the interests of teachers unions and those of parents playing out in the Virginia General Assembly. That vital…
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Mandate Teacher Vaccinations in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock I wrote this morning about Virginia SENATE BILL NO. 1303 (Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute) Local school divisions; availability of virtual and in-person learning to all students. The lengthy Democratic substitute to a one-sentence Republican bill was written over the weekend to provide political cover to the Democrats. Unfortunately, it…
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Union-Written Bill Fundamentally Redefines Public Schools
by James C. Sherlock Democrats are attempting to rush through a bill to provide political cover from a backlash by parents against the continuing closure of Virginia schools. Never ones to let a crisis go to waste, they have put union-written provisions in the bill that will permanently change the nature of the public schools…
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Business as Usual in the Virginia Senate – “Dominion Dick” Saslaw Delivers
by James C. Sherlock Associate Press headline Feb. 15: “Virginia Senate Democrats kill electric rate reform bills.” Fish gotta swim, Senator Richard L. “Dominion Dick” Saslaw gotta be Senate Majority Leader and Chairman of the Virginia Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. Saslaw has received nearly a half million dollars in campaign donations from Dominion Energy and…
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Richmond Schools Chief Proposes Year-Round School
by James C. Sherlock Richmond Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras has proposed that city schools operate year-round next year to help students impacted by learning losses caused by disruptive COVID-related schooling changes. Unless something changes, Richmond public schools will remain closed to in-person instruction for the rest of the current school year. From an excellent piece written…
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All According to Plan – the Biggest Government Scandal in Virginia History
by James C. Sherlock The Virginia Mercury published an excellent article on the difficulties being encountered in Virginia in scheduling COVID shots. But who could have anticipated the need? Who indeed. This story is part of the single biggest government scandal in Virginia history and the press is either ignorant of the underlying issue or…
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Medicare for All – A Cautionary Tale
by James C. Sherlock For those of you who think “Medicare for All” would be a good thing, I offer a cautionary tale from Becker’s Hospital CFO Report titled Hospitals barred from suing over $840M pay cut. A group of more than 680 hospitals can’t revive a lawsuit saying they lost $840 million in payments…
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Holding Richmond Public Schools Accountable — Part I
by James C. Sherlock We have discussed here the failures of the City of Richmond Public Schools (RPS) in educating its economically disadvantaged children, as well as the abysmal performance of Black children in its schools. I intend to help readers understand how it manages to fail repeatedly even with major federal funding as…
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Basic Child Literacy Cannot Be too Much to Ask of Richmond City Public Schools
by James C. Sherlock Half of Black 4th graders in Richmond public schools couldn’t read in 2019. That is not OK. It is way past time to demand both better performance and accountability. Clearly neither the city of Richmond nor the Commonwealth has done that effectively. So I have filed formal complaints with the federal…