Category: Children and Families
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The Tragedy of Unregulated Home Child Care
By Peter Galuszka Virginia’s attitudes about light regulation are coming home to roost in a most sensitive area – day care for toddlers. The point was underlined Wednesday when Chesterfield County charged Laurie F. Underwood, 46, with only a misdemeanor involving the death of one–year-old Joseph Matthew Allen who died after a fire at Underwood’s…
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Kudos: U.S.-China Climate Pact
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Taxes, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka President Barack Obama’s trailblazing pact with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to limit greenhouse gas emissions through 2025 is welcome news and could do much to reduce carbon dioxide emissions since the two countries are responsible for about 40 percent of the globe’s total. China is an economic powerhouse so energy hungry it…
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Et Tu, McAuliffe?
By Peter Galuszka Sure, parents want to help their children but in the case of former State Sen. Phillip Puckett, it is getting ridiculous. And the latest disclosure in this morning’s Washington Post makes the Terry McAuliffe administration look just as sleazy as their Republican counterparts. Puckett, of course was a Democratic senator who held…
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Richmond’s Tech Star in Kickback Scheme?
By Peter Galuszka Critics of the American healthcare system have long cited hidden charges as one reason why costs are so high and why reform is needed. So, it is disturbing to read a report on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal that Health Diagnostic Laboratory, arguably the most successful of the biotechnology…
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Confessions of the Tic-Tac Man
By Peter Galuszka On afternoon last week, I was leaving the seventh floor courtroom at U.S. District Court after Judge James Spencer called for a break. Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the prosecution’s star witness against former Gov. and Ms. McDonnell, had been on the stand for hours, playing various roles as remorseful solicitor, confident businessman,…
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One Very Sad Day In Court
By Peter Galuszka One literally could have heard a pin drop in U.S. District Court in Richmond today. William Burck, lawyer for Maureen McDonnell, said in his opening argument in a trial that Virginia’s Former First Lady who has been indicted no 14 corruption charges along with her former governor husband was “collateral damage” in…
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Denying Truth on the Outer Banks
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Insurance, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka North Carolina’s Outer Banks have always been a touchstone for me – in as much as anyone can associate permanence with sandy islands being perpetually tossed around by tremendous wind and water forces. The Banks and I go back to 1954 and Hurricane Hazel when I was an infant. They mark many…
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A Frenchman Turns Economics Upside Down
By Peter Galuszka Call it “The Anti-Baconomics.” Thomas Piketty, a French economist, is turning conventional, conservative economic thinking on its head. Goodbye to the idea that all boats rise in capitalism. What we are seeing instead is a dangerous concentration of 21st century wealth in the hands of an ever-smaller elite. This is Piketty’s message…
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An Inconvenient Obamacare Truth
By Peter Galuszka It is highly amusing to watch Obamacare detractors mock news that the Affordable Care Act has more than reached it goal by signing up 7.1 million Americans. This inconvenient truth turns the Fox News echo chambers on its head. You also read a bit of that on this blog – there’s an…
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What E-Cigs Mean for Tobacco-Happy Virginia
By Peter Galuszka A couple of weekends ago, RVA Vapes, brightly lit with colorful lights, held its grand opening in Richmond. It’s one of a rising number of new outlets that cater to “vapers” or people who use electronic cigarettes. There are plenty of such stores, many decorated in a 1960s head shop style from…
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Yet Another Coal-Related Mess
By Peter Galuszka More and more, “The War on Coal.” seems like “The War On Us.” Just a few weeks after 300,000 people in the Charleston, W.Va. area were without drinking water because of a coal preparation chemical leaked into the Kanawha River system, another spill involving coal could threaten the drinking water of Danville…
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Why Virginia’s Gay Marriage Ban Is Toast
By Peter Galuszka It’s happening faster than anyone could have imagined. Virginia’s constitutional ban on gay marriage by defining marriage as only between “a man and a woman” seems heading very rapidly down the hole. That was the upshot from U.S. District Court Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen in Norfolk yesterday. After a two-hour hearing…
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AG to Virginia Constitution: Drop Dead
Less than two weeks ago, Attorney General Mark Herring swore to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of Virginia. Apparently, he was crossing his fingers behind his back while taking the oath of office, for he now asserts that Virginia’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is…. unconstitutional. Not only that, but the AG’s office will…
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A Sad Day for the Commonwealth
By Peter Galuszka It’s a sad day for Virginia. Former Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and his wife have been charged by federal authorities with 14 felony counts, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and obtaining property through their office in connection with their relationship with Jonnie R. Williams, former chief of Star Scientific. The…
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Factoids of the Day: Domestic Violence in Virginia
From the 2013 Annual Report on Domestic and Sexual Violence in Virginia: “In 2012, at least 117 men, women, and children lost their lives to domestic violence, representing a 12.7% increase in family and intimate partner homicides from 2011 to 2012. Also in 2012, there were more than 67,000 calls to domestic and sexual violence…