Category: Corruption and Scandals
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Blackface and the Theater of the Absurd
It can’t possibly get any crazier in Virginia. It just can’t. No satirist could dream up what now passes for news. On the front page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch today we see an extraordinary juxtaposition of stories: Sen. Majority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City, was an editor of a 1968 Virginia Military Institute yearbook that…
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Virginia Voters Should “Clean House” this November
State of affairs / affairs of state. Multiple scandals have rocked Virginia’s state government this week. All three of our state’s top officials stand accused of substantial wrongdoing. Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring have admitted to dressing in blackface during their college / medical school days. Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax is being…
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Yikes! Now Herring Confesses to Black Face!
I’m guessing that some media outlet must have been hot on Attorney General Mark Herring’s trail, otherwise I can’t imagine any other reason for him to make this confession in a statement just released: In 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we…
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How UVa Can Make a Useful Contribution to the Northam Black Face Scandal
Poor University of Virginia. The College of William & Mary hogged the glory among progressives when Katharine Rowe, W&M’s new president, gratuitously inserted herself into the Ralph Northam blackface controversy by uninviting the governor from attending the annual celebration of the university’s 1683 founding. Responding to news of the racist image in Northam’s 1984 Eastern…
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Why Virginia Democrats Are Pushing Ralph Northam to Resign
by Peter Galuszka Virginia Democrats were on a roll politically until a story broke Friday that a photograph on Gov. Ralph Northam’s (D) 1984 medical school yearbook page showed a man in blackface and a man in Ku Klux Klan garb. Democrats had seemed to be in a good position to win control of both…
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Who Is the Dude in the Plaid Pants?
Who is the dude in the plaid pants? This angle on the Northam blackface story is at least two days old — it appeared Sunday in Zerohedge — but it has yet to be reflected in any of the reporting I have seen on the controversy by Virginia mainstream media, so I summarize the details…
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Facts? We Don’t Need No More Stinking Facts!
As Donald Rumsfeld famously said of the Iraq War, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns — things we know we don’t know, and things we don’t have a clue we don’t know. The same thing could be said of Governor Ralph Northam’s now-infamous medical school yearbook photo of a young man in black face…
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Whatever happened to Terry McAuliffe’s GreenTech Automotive venture?
Seems like yesterday. In late 2012 Terry McAuliffe was the only Democrat running for Virginia governor in the upcoming 2013 election. One of his central campaign themes was that he was an entrepreneur who would bring jobs to Virginia. He was also an investor and recently resigned Chairman of a venture called GreenTech, a would…
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Va 2019 General Assembly session – prefiled House of Delegates bills
Much ado about nothing. As of this morning there were 83 prefiled bills for the House of Delegates and 225 prefiled bills for the State Senate. With a few exceptions the House prefiles are pretty “ho hum”. I will examine the Senate prefiles in a subsequent column. One from column A and two from column…
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Legalized Medical and Recreational Marijuana Use Appear to Hurt Alcohol Sales
High times. In a recent Bacon’s Rebellion column … Will Virginia Legalize Recreational Marijuana Use … I noted that well over 20% of Americans now live in states that have legalized the recreational use of marijuana. In the column I wondered whether our General Assembly’s reluctance to address the question in a meaningful way might…
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Will Virginia Legalize Recreational Marijuana Use?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68cbjlLFl4U&w=500&h=288] High times today. The marijuana legalization wave is beginning to wash over North America. Nine states (WA, OR, CA, NV, CO, MA, VT, ME and AK) along with the District of Columbia have legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Well over 20% of Americans now live in states which have legalized recreational marijuana…
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Fear and Loathing in the Era of Weaponized PC
I don’t know John Accordino especially well, but we’re more than casual acquaintances. He and I had lunch a couple of times to discuss a partnership between Bacon’s Rebellion and Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Urban and Regional Analysis, which he headed at the time. He struck me as friendly and collegial. He was assiduous…
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Your Tax Dollars at Work: VDOT Snow Removal Edition
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has largely cleaned up its act from the early 2000s when construction projects routinely ran behind schedule and over budget. But this story from Inside NoVA makes one wonder if its internal controls are still up to snuff. Five people, including two state transportation officials, pleaded guilty this week…
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SOL Hanky Panky in Patrick County
After butting heads with Patrick County school Superintendent William D. Sroufe, Muriel Waldron, a principal of Stuart Elementary school in the mountain hamlet of Stuart, was removed from her position in 2015. A key source of contention was her administration of programs for treating children with cognitive disabilities. When children are found eligible for special…
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Newly Scrupulous Legislators Reporting Fewer Gifts
The giving of gifts to members of the General Assembly — or perhaps I should say the acceptance of them — has declined precipitously since 2013 when former Governor Bob McDonnell was indicted in a scandal best remembered by favor-seeker Jonnie Williams paying for his daughter’s wedding reception. Although McDonnell was ultimately cleared by U.S.…