Category: Civil Rights, Individual Liberties
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Virginia Democrats Govern in the Service of Dogma and Power
by James C. Sherlock Socialism and communism are so 19th and 20th centuries. Under socialism, individuals would still own property. But industrial production, which was the chief means of generating wealth, was to be communally owned and managed by a democratically elected government. Socialists sought change and reform, but sought to make those changes…
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Priorities: Pupils or Pot?
by Kerry Dougherty You can tell a lot about a politician by his or her priorities. Take Gov. Ralph Northam, for instance. On February 25th the General Assembly passed a bill requiring Virginia public schools to offer in-person instruction to all students. The original bill, proposed by Sen. Shiobhan Dunnavant, was quite simple and to…
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Minority Businesses Decry Northam Gaming Restriction
by James A. Bacon Minority small business owners operating under the name “Virginia Small Businesses for Skill Games” are calling on Governor Ralph Northam to amend legislation to keep the game terminals in bars, restaurants and convenience stores. Casinos, which are years away from opening in the four localities where they have been approved, have…
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Northam School Policy: The Gendered Majority Must Accommodate the Tiny Transgender Minority
by James A. Bacon When Virginians voted for mild-mannered, middle-of-the-road Ralph Northam for governor in 2017, they had no clue that he would preside over the most sweeping transformation of public education since the end of Massive Resistance. Even while students were suffering from a catastrophic loss of learning due to the COVID-19-driven shift to…
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Big Brother Has Been Curtailed
By Dick Hall-Sizemore A recent TV series, Person of Interest, centered on the ability to use large databases of personal information coupled with extensive audio and video surveillance to identify any individual and pull up extensive data on that individual. A small team of good guys used this capability to identify threats to individuals and…
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Virginia to Teach Critical Race Theory to Newborns
by James C. Sherlock George Orwell, call your office. A copy of “Virginia’s (New) Birth-to-Five Early Learning and Development Standards” is on your desk. For our readers, go here and click the March 19 VDOE press release to download. The Commonwealth has published “Virginia’s Foundation Blocks for Early Learning” since at least 2013. They were…
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Candidate Suppression in Virginia
by James A. Bacon Democrats coined a highly effective phrase, “voter suppression,” to describe Republican efforts to regulate the integrity of the voting process. Maybe it’s time Republicans popularized the phrase, “candidate suppression.” Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, is a case in point. As the Republican Party of Virginia nears its nominating convention for statewide offices,…
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Flag Fight
by Deborah Hommer On March 3, 2021, the Fairfax County Planning Commission recommended against adopting proposed regulations governing the number, size and setbacks of flags and flagpoles. “This was a solution, looking for a problem,” said Planning Commission Vice Chairman John Ulfelder. “I suspect, based on a lot of comments we’ve received, a lot of…
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Podcast: How the General Assembly Has Changed
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in Agriculture & forestry, Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Demographics, Economic development, Energy, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, General Assembly, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race RelationsBy Peter Galuszka I haven’t contributed much to BR lately since I am slammed with non-Virginia work. I did manage to help out on a Podcast about how the General Assembly has changed the state over the last two years as Democrats have gained power. This Podcast is produced by WTJU, the University of Virginia…
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UVa’s Lawn Signage Controversy Flares Anew
by James A. Bacon The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), an organization dedicated to defending freedom of expression and conscience on America’s college campuses, has sided with fourth-year student Hira Azher regarding her right to post political speech on the door of her room on the Lawn at the University of Virginia. A…
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Sign Standards for UVa’s Lawn Upheld
by James A. Bacon No longer will it be permissible for residents of the University of Virginia’s rooms on the Law to post large signs on their doors proclaiming, “F— UVA,” as a Lawn resident did last semester. Under new policies issued by the University administration, Lawn residents will have to confine their profane proclamations…
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Enough
by Kerry Dougherty Oh look. We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of 15 Days to Slow the Spread. Remember that? The big lie that if we simply shut down the country for just two weeks, it would stop the coronavirus from rampaging coast to coast and allow hospitals prepare for the onslaught. They warned…
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UVa’s COVID Commissars
by James A. Bacon COVID-19 infections may have been trending down in Virginia for almost two months now, but they spiked at the University of Virginia several days ago, and the Ryan administration imposed tough new rules to curtail the spread. Not surprisingly, many students have violated the restrictions. In so doing, they have sparked…
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What Texas’s Crisis Means for Virginia
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in Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Corruption and Scandals, Culture wars, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Government Finance, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Money in politics, Political Influence, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technologyby Peter Galuszka The Texas freeze and ensuing energy disaster has clear lessons for Virginia as it sorts out its energy future. Yet much of the media coverage in Virginia and certainly on Bacon’s Rebellion conveniently leaves out pertinent observations. The statewide freeze in Texas completely fouled up the entire energy infrastructure as natural gas…
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Hey, ACLU: Forget the Fence, Go After Curfews and Booze Restrictions
by Kerry Dougherty Some of us have been waiting 11 months for Virginia’s legal eagles – especially the ACLU – to bombard the courts with a blizzard of challenges to Gov. Ralph Northam’s excessive executive orders that have stomped on the constitutional rights of millions of Virginians. Instead we mostly got crickets. For a time,…