Category: Business and Economy
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Spanberger Vs. Trump
By Peter Galuszka U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th District, continues to draw international attention as a “New Look” Democrat from Virginia who is savvy about the intelligence community and global affairs. The former CIA case officer was featured on CNN criticizing the administration of Donald Trump for ignoring reports that Russian military intelligence had paid…
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Housing Grants Just a COVID Relief Rounding Error
By Steve Haner Will $50 million be enough? Will that get all the Virginians who have fallen behind due to COVID-19 square on their rent or mortgage payments? Or is that amount, in a relief program now fleshed out by the Northam Administration, merely a start? There is a hint on the program’s web page,…
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Richmond’s “Numbnuts” Cripple Busch Gardens
by Kerry Dougherty Five more days until Virginia finally enters Phase 3 of the slo-mo reopening of the commonwealth. But if you were planning to take the kids to Busch Gardens or Kings Dominion to celebrate, forget it. Thanks to ridiculously small crowd limits, both sprawling theme parks said they can’t comply with Virginia’s rules.…
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COVID Workplace Rules Endorsed, But Not Final
The Northam Administration’s Safety and Health Codes Board agreed yesterday that COVID-19 in the state’s workplaces demands an emergency state response, but the nature and exact wording of that regulation remains undecided. If adopted, formal regulations come with the potential for heavy penalties for employers cited for failures. Earlier versions of the key documents have already…
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COVID Regs Unclear, Unneeded, Contradictory
By Steve Haner More than two dozen Virginia business associations have asked that the state’s Safety and Health Codes Board reject proposed workplace regulations to prevent COVID-19, stating they are unclear, contradictory, and not needed in light of other existing worker protections. Some of the largest statewide associations, such as the Virginia Manufacturers Association, National…
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The Systemic Racism of Monument Avenue
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in Blogs and Blog Administration, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Demographics, Electoral process, Federal issues, Housing, Labor and Workforce, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka Richmond’s grand Monument Avenue, a double lane, tree lined thoroughfare, has been the epicenter of the Black Lives Matter campaign that has focused on the statues of several Confederate figures one the road, including Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Jefferson Davis. All are up for removal, but the…
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Sweeping COVID Workplace Regulation Proposed
By Steve Haner The Northam Administration’s Safety and Health Codes Board will hold an emergency meeting Wednesday –- in a virtual process allowing no public interactions – to impose sweeping new regulatory mandates related to COVID-19 on Virginia workplaces. They could take effect immediately upon Governor Ralph Northam’s signature, and will not disappear if an end…
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COVID Restrictions Slam Black Businesses the Hardest
by James A. Bacon If Governor Ralph Northam needs further justification for reversing his emergency shutdown measures, perhaps he should consider this recently published paper by Robert Fairlie with the University of California-Santa Cruz. Analyzing the impact of COVID-19 social distancing restrictions on small business, Fairlie found that they disproportionately hit minority enterprises. The number…
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Who Pays The Unpaid Bills? Watch Out.
By Steve Haner This was published this morning in The Roanoke Times and then distributed by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. There may be a second wave of COVID-19 disease coming, but the secondary effects of various pandemic economic decisions may hit us sooner. Rent and utility bills customers can delay paying because…
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The ACP Wins One But The War Drags On
By Peter Galuszka The $8.5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline has won a significant legal victory but the war is far from over. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, has ruled in favor of project operated by Dominion Energy and Duke Energy saying that its 42-inch pipeline can cross under the Appalachian Trail in…
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Libertarians Need Not Apply
By Peter Galuszka The Virginia Republican Party had a big shock Saturday. Far-right candidate Bob Good snatched the party’s nomination in the fifth congressional district from incumbent Denver Riggleman, who was backed by President Donald Trump and Jerry Falwell Jr., the head of Liberty University. The remarkable twist could presage an arch-conservative backlash against Trump’s…
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The Time Has Come to Rename the Bases
By Peter Galuszka Momentum is growing to rename three Virginia military bases which bear the monikers of Confederate generals. It is part of a movement to reassess Confederate symbols within the military nationwide. The three bases are Ft. A.P. Hill, named for Confederate Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill Jr.; Ft. Pickett, named for Gen. George Pickett;…
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The Ups and Downs of Felix Dzerzhinsky
By Peter Galuszka For three decades, a 15-ton statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky loomed over a square in downtown Moscow. He rose high near the Lubyanka building, a turn of the century, yellow-colored one-time insurance office that served as the national headquarters for the KGB. “Iron Felix,” born of Polish nobility, is best known as V.I.…
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Racism, COVID19 and Marijuana Legalization in Virginia
By DJ Rippert Unintended consequences. Newspapers, websites and Bacon’s Rebellion have been full of articles describing and debating the COVID-19 pandemic and the police killing of George Floyd with the attendant protests. First-order consequences of these events have been widely discussed. However, as we enter into the “new normal” a number of secondary and tertiary…
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“Systemic Racism?” Damned Right!
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in Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Corruption and Scandals, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Demographics, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Media, Politics, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Social Services and Entitlements, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka There has been much debate on this blog regarding whether there is “systemic racism” in Virginia and the rest of the country. It’s a crucial question in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, an unarmed and handcuffed African American who was killed on video by a white Minneapolis police officer…