Category: Civil Rights, Individual Liberties
-
Let Me Get This Straight…
by Paula Harkins Let me get this straight. I’ve got to show a valid ID to dine out or take a spin class… but not to vote? A growing number of Virginia businesses, restaurants, and venues are requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination and a photo ID to enter. Richmond was the first Virginia locality to…
-
Marijuana and Casino Legalization Linked to Increases in Mental Illness and Substance Abuse
by James C. Sherlock We know what is going to happen. Dr. Daniel Carey M.D., Virginia’s Secretary of Health and Human Resources, will soon apply to the federal government for funding for substance abuse prevention grants. He knows. He plans to tell the federal government that additional people, mostly poor and Black, are going to…
-
Med Student Sues EVMS on Free Speech Grounds
by James A. Bacon Edward Si, a student at the Eastern Virginia Medical School, has filed a lawsuit to stop the institution from blocking his effort to establish a local chapter of the Students for a National Health Program. The Student Government Association denied the club’s application for recognition on the grounds that it…
-
Return to Autocracy in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock. Updated Aug 13, 12:15 PM It was so easy to predict that I can claim no special prescience. I wrote a week ago: “The Governor’s 15-month emergency powers expired June 30, and, God, does he miss them…. (H)ow long (will the) governor put up with the lack of emergency powers?” If…
-
Herd Immunity from the Delta Variant – “Mythical”
To vax or not to vax? I’m vaccinated. I think everybody who is eligible to be vaccinated should get vaccinated. Jim Bacon makes the excellent point that people who are vaccinated may still get COVID but are far less likely to die from the virus. Others believe that vaccinations will confer herd immunity to the population…
-
UVa Does Foster Free Expression, VP Advancement Says
by James A. Bacon The upper echelons of the University of Virginia administration are keenly aware that many alumni are unhappy with the hostility toward viewpoints that don’t conform with the dominant leftist culture at the university. As Mark M. Luellen, vice president for advancement acknowledged in a recent dear-colleagues letter, “Many of us have…
-
Three More Proposals to Reduce Gun Violence in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock There was extensive commentary on my post yesterday that recommended expanded use of stop and frisk in an attempt to reduce gun violence. Given the demonstrated interest in the subject, I offer three suggestions that go further. Increase federal prosecutions. Federal laws, penalties, detention hearings and prosecutions are a far more formidable deterrent to…
-
Understaffed Police Departments, Skyrocketing Gun Violence and “Stop and Frisk”
by James C. Sherlock The print edition of The Virginian-Pilot today ran the story we commented on yesterday on the surge in gun violence killing children in Norfolk. The headline in the online version: Nearly a dozen children were shot in July in Norfolk. Communities are hurting, and activists want change. None of the nearly 2,200…
-
“Model Polices” on Transgender Students vs. Laws Guaranteeing Parental Rights
by James C. Sherlock Emilio Jaksetic wrote an excellent article this morning. Mr. Jaksetic, a lawyer, commented on the decision by Judge J. Frederick Watson of the 24th Judicial Circuit of Virginia, to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the Virginia Board of Education’s Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Virginia’s Public Schools for…
-
More Clarity, Please, About Vaccinations for COVID Survivors
by James A. Bacon Since late January, when COVID-19 vaccines became available to the general public in Virginia, 99.4% of the cases, 99% of hospitalizations, and 99.3% of deaths have occurred in people who have not been vaccinated, according to the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association (VHHA). “The scientific evidence clearly demonstrates that the COVID-19…
-
Another Free Speech Fiasco at UVa
Charlottesville attorney Charles L. Weber Jr., represented University of Virginia student Morgan Bettinger in legal proceedings involving the University Judiciary Committee, which condemned her for words that allegedly constituted a “risk” to other students. This incident is a case study in how leftist, “anti-racist” students at UVa wield processes and procedures, with the complicity of…
-
Only the Courts Are Protecting Virginians – Again
by James C. Sherlock Barton Swain explores a topic in the Wall Street Journal that bears examination in Virginia. He makes a profound observation: “The sheer illogic of (the Texas election laws) controversy captures something essential about culture-war progressives. They are able to embrace a cause, condemn dissenters and doubters as monsters, and experience no…
-
Richmond Public Schools Show No Progress on Staff COVID Vaccinations
by James C. Sherlock Last updated Just 15 at 4:16 PM I have long taken a personal interest in the City of Richmond Public Schools (RPS). Its students have a right under the Virginia constitution to a quality education that they are systematically denied. RPS has utterly failed to educate the children under its care. The…
-
VMI a Hell-hole for Women, Says… the Washington Post
by James A. Bacon If you want a case study in why much of the public believes nothing emanating from the mainstream media, read The Washington Post’s latest smear job on the Virginia Military Institute. Staff muckraker Ian Shapira slams the Institute for the misogyny and sexual assault that he, like the Barnes & Thornburg…
-
Transgender Medical Care for Children – Do not Parents Have a Role?
by James C. Sherlock Yesterday’s two-part column, I responded to the Virginian-Pilot’s assertion that transgender rights are being conflated by conservatives with critical race theory in schools. I agree that they are, and I find it appropriate. Child instruction in CRT and transgender affirming psychological and medical interventions for children without parent participation are…