Author: Steve Haner
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Senate Democrat Promises on Police Reform
By Steve Haner What follows, without edits, is the full list of legislative proposals now endorsed by the Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus. With 21 members, if they all show up and vote aye on all of these, they pass in the upcoming special session. Bills would then have to also pass the House of Delegates…
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COVID Workplace Rules Endorsed, But Not Final
The Northam Administration’s Safety and Health Codes Board agreed yesterday that COVID-19 in the state’s workplaces demands an emergency state response, but the nature and exact wording of that regulation remains undecided. If adopted, formal regulations come with the potential for heavy penalties for employers cited for failures. Earlier versions of the key documents have already…
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COVID Regs Unclear, Unneeded, Contradictory
By Steve Haner More than two dozen Virginia business associations have asked that the state’s Safety and Health Codes Board reject proposed workplace regulations to prevent COVID-19, stating they are unclear, contradictory, and not needed in light of other existing worker protections. Some of the largest statewide associations, such as the Virginia Manufacturers Association, National…
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Sweeping COVID Workplace Regulation Proposed
By Steve Haner The Northam Administration’s Safety and Health Codes Board will hold an emergency meeting Wednesday –- in a virtual process allowing no public interactions – to impose sweeping new regulatory mandates related to COVID-19 on Virginia workplaces. They could take effect immediately upon Governor Ralph Northam’s signature, and will not disappear if an end…
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Who Pays The Unpaid Bills? Watch Out.
By Steve Haner This was published this morning in The Roanoke Times and then distributed by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. There may be a second wave of COVID-19 disease coming, but the secondary effects of various pandemic economic decisions may hit us sooner. Rent and utility bills customers can delay paying because…
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The Times-Disgrace Earns Its Nickname
By Steve Haner Competitors of Richmond’s venerable morning newspaper have long teased it with a derogatory nickname: The Richmond Times-Disgrace. With its decision to stop reprinting 75-year-old front pages for some unidentified offense to some unknown persons, the nickname is fully apt. “There are terms and phrases that were used in this newspaper in the…
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Who Was Williams Carter Wickham?
By Steve Haner Willams C. Wickham had his memorial in Richmond’s Monroe Park torn down a few nights ago. It was an Edward Valentine statue (will we burn the Valentine next?). Like many, I had walked by it in ignorance. As he passes from sight, a few facts about his life if you are interested.…
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Memorial Day 2020
It can’t all be John Philip Sousa today…. Pete Seeger captured the day best. Thankful that my grandfather, father and uncles, and my brother and son….all came home safe. SDH
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Why Is Our Governor Ignoring His Own Orders?
By Steve Haner If the overall case fatality rate for COVID-19 is 4 tenths of one percent, as the Centers for Disease Control just estimated, then perhaps 300,000 Virginians have or have had the disease. That’s working the math backwards from the 1,200 Virginia deaths reported so far. The chart below snipped from the CDC’s…
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New Virginia Battleground in War on Gas
By Steve Haner First published this morning in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star. To the modern environmental movement, natural gas is the Devil’s own breath. It must be opposed in every form on every front. This explains the existential battle being fought over what would otherwise be considered fairly minor capital enhancements to an existing gas…
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Trailing Candidates Should Bail Out, Void Primary
By Steve Haner More often than not, the suspense in an election is over long before the polls open. That is the case with the two primary contests which will require me to sit in a polling place all day on June 23. The expected losers should just drop out now and save us all…
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Taken Like Hicks At A Carnival
By Steve Haner Anybody who closely read the so-called Virginia Clean Economy Act and had watched Dominion Energy Virginia’s previous manipulations of Virginia’s General Assembly could see what was coming. Despite its “billing,” that bill was never going to end the use of fossil fuels in Virginia. As early as February 13, I reported that…
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What Campbell Is Really Saying In the Photo
“Mara, you call Haner back. He’s really gonna be pissed he can’t come in Monday.” Somebody has to explain to me how my getting a haircut in downtown Richmond Monday posed a threat to city residents, city residents who will now be crowding into the barber shops and salons of nearby Henrico, Chesterfield and Hanover…
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Hidden, Spaced Out, Higher Taxes Coming
By Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. The 2020 General Assembly, with its new progressive Democratic majority, passed a host of changes in Virginia tax laws that will begin to hit individuals and businesses in a few weeks on July 1. Because of the COVID-19 economic shutdown,…
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State Spending Hike Also Postponed, Not Canceled
By Steve Haner Originally published in the May 3 Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star and then distributed by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Just as COVID-19 was starting its destruction of the world’s economy in early March, the Virginia General Assembly took final action on an exuberant two-year state budget within shouting distance of $140…