Category: Courts and law
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Corruption? This is Virginia!
By Peter Galuszka An old adage in journalism has it that good stories just keep getting better. And so it is with the saga of Jonnie Williams Sr. and the family of Robert F. McDonnell, the governor. First we learn, courtesy of The Washington Post, that the head of Star Scientific gave McDonnell’s daughter $15,000…
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Re-engineering Criminal Justice in Richmond
by James A. Bacon The average cost for housing an inmate in Virginia’s jails and prisons runs roughly $25,000 a year. Add to that the fact that some jails are antiquated, overcrowded and need replacing. The Richmond City Jail, for instance, designed in the 1960s to hold 856 inmates, is routinely crammed with a number…
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No Reform Three Years After Massey Disaster
By Peter Galuszka Three years ago today, a tremendous blast caused by bad safety conditions at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W.Va., killed 29 miners. It was the worst coal mine disaster in this country in 40 years. But three years later, very little has been done to toughen mine safety regulations…
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“One Piece At a Time”
By Peter Galuszka Straying from the Virginia plantation, I’ve been noticing how Cyprus, a small historic island nation in the Mediterranean Sea, is once again acting the tail wagging the Euro-system dog and is affecting the finances of many farflung people. The Euro-crisis has taken hold in tiny Cyprus, forcing such draconian suggestions as a…
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“I Got Mine from Mah Daddy!”
By Peter Galuszka One of the stranger attributes of Virginia’s conservatives is their cheesy, Calvinist streak. Their world view tends to celebrate the rich and powerful, regardless of whether the individual worked diligently and creatively to generate the wealth or if it was inherited. For example, one man (not a Virginian) whom I respect described…
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Transportation Tax Issue Still Fermenting
Citing his opposition to transportation-funding legislation supported by Governor Bob McDonnell, Richard W. Rahn has resigned from the governor’s Joint Advisory Board of Economists. “I strongly disagree with the new tax/transportation bill that you supported,” wrote Rahn in a letter to McDonnell. “Unfortunately, I was not asked for my advice (which I assume was also…
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EPA Bows to Cuccinelli on Accotink Stink
Chalk up another victory for Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in his ongoing campaign against federal overreach. It looks like he has won his lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for attempting to regulate storm water flowing into Fairfax County’s Accotink Creek. In January, federal judge Liam O’Grady accepted Cuccinelli’s argument that the EPA had…
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Cuccinelli’s Strange Lesson in Federalism
By Peter Galuszka (Note: You’ve heard from Jim and Les on Ken Cuccinelli’s book. Here’s my review that runs in this week’s Style Weekly). Kenneth Cuccinelli, Virginia’s firebrand attorney general and Republican gubernatorial hopeful, is typically full of fire and vinegar that make him such a lively politician. But you’d never know it from his…
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Your Clown Show at Work
The General Assembly’s transportation-tax compromise may have a problem even bigger than the fact that it raises taxes to build a transportation system for the 20th (not the 21st) century: It may be unconstitutional. Paul Goldman, former chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, and Norm Leahy, conservative pundit and editor of BearingDrift.com, have joined…
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The Lessons of the 2013 General Assembly
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Housing, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka If there’s any good news from the 2013 General Assembly session, it is that the hard right’s strange hold on taxation has been broken. Republicans can start acting like responsible adults once again instead of dogmatic shills or spoiled children. Gov. Robert F. Donnell and legislators found a way to raise badly…
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Peanuts, Tobacco and Corporate Greed
By Peter Galuszka Stewart Parnell had a dilemma. The owner of Lynchburg-based Peanut Corporation of America faced deadlines in shipping peanut butter from his troubled manufacturing plant in Georgia but test results from salmonella, a problem because of unsanitary conditions at the factory, were not back from the lab yet. His customers included schools, snack…
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A Book from the Man Who Was Tea Party before There Was a Tea Party
By James A. Bacon If you’re doing opposition research on Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and you’re looking for evidence of a wild-eyed culture warrior, you’ll find thin gruel in his new book, “The Last Line of Defense,” co-written with his communications director Brian Gottstein. The book chronicles the struggle of the AG and his conservative…
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Judge Carrico and Southern Mythology
By Peter Galuszka One of the infuriating things about Virginia is that one can never get away from its tendency to spin myths and construct a separate universe especially when it comes to what actually happened in its history. A case in point is the coverage of the death of 96-year-old Harry Lee Carrico, the…
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The Virginia GOP’s Destructive Palace Coups
By Peter Galuszka Just how out of control are Virginia’s Republicans? This week’s redistricting coup attempt staged by prominent Republicans John Watkins and his cohort Thomas K. Norment in the otherwise evenly divided state Senate is as cynical as it is destructive. On Monday, the pair took advantage of the absence of a key Democratic…
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Is Virginia a Leader in Gun Control?
By Peter Galuszka For all of the sound and fury over guns in Virginia — panicked shooters are draining firearms shops of ammunition — the Old Dominion actually has been a leader among states on the gun control issue on a couple of fronts. For details, see my story in this week’s Style Weekly. First,…