Category: Social Services and Entitlements
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Campus Rapes Must be Reported to Police
By Peter Galuszka You can’t have it both ways. The Virginia General Assembly is taking steps to make it mandatory that officials at state universities report to police allegations of sexual assault, except for crisis counselors. The move follows the incident at the University of Virginia which was turned upside down by a flawed report…
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Interview: McAuliffe’s Economic Goals
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka For a glimpse of where the administration of Gov. Terry McAuliffe is heading, here’s an interview I did with Maurice Jones, the secretary of commerce and trade that was published in Richmond’s Style Weekly. Jones, a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College and University of Virginia law, is a former Rhodes Scholar who had…
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Yes, Boomergeddon Still on Track
by James A. Bacon President Barack Obama seemed pretty darned impressed with his economic and fiscal stewardship of the United States during his State of the Union speech last night. “We’ve seen the fastest economic growth in over a decade, our deficits cut by two-thirds, a stock market that has doubled, and health care inflation…
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Whatever Happened to “Boomergeddon?”
By Peter Galuszka Attention ditto-heads! Before President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last night, there was an interesting piece on CNN of hard-line conservatives claiming two years ago that the U.S. economy would collapse if Obama were re-elected. They claimed that the U.S. faced uncontrollable government spending and ever-growing budget deficits. Obama’s efforts…
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Is U.Va. Possessed by the Devil?
By Peter Galuszka Over the past weeks there’s been plenty of blogging about Rolling Stone’s coverage of the University of Virginia and lots of comment by two conservatives who believe there is an evil “hook up” culture that involves casual sex and today’s loss of morality. Well, I’ve been feeling sort of down recently (maybe…
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Wind Power Hits Some Nasty Gusts
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Demographics, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Wind power has taken some hits with the New Year. A proposed 145-acre, 20-megawatt project in Clarke County is being scuttled because Dominion Resources has shown little interest in buying its power. In New England, a pioneering offshore wind project, Cape Wind, is on the ropes because of the merger of two…
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Takeaways From Bob McDonnell’s Sentencing
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka The outpouring of support for convicted former Gov. Robert F. McDonnell was overwhelming at his sentencing hearing yesterday at which he was told that he will serve two years in a federal penitentiary. And this very support stands in marked contrast to McDonnell’s performance on the witness stand during his marathon trial…
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Virginia’s Top Stories in 2014
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, 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, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka The Year 2014 was quite eventful if unsettling. It represented some major turning points for the Old Dominion. Here are my picks for the top stories: Robert F. McDonnell becomes the highest-ranking former or serving state official to be convicted of corruption. The six-week-long trial from July to September of the Republican…
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Redistricting, Ethics Panel Pushes Ahead
By Peter Galuszka Against strong chances that their efforts will be killed in the self-serving General Assembly, a panel is pushing ahead with badly needed reforms in government ethics and redistricting. The bipartisan Commission on Integrity and Public Confidence in State Government wants to change the state constitution to create and independent redistricting commission tasked…
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Is McAuliffe Crying Wolf on the Economy?
By Peter Galuszka Just how bad is the Virginia economy, really? Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who released a rather modest state budget proposal just a few days ago, has said that the state’s economic picture is bleak because of government spending cuts, most of them at the U.S. Department of Defense, the state’s largest employer, and…
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Big Energy’s Conspiracy with Attorneys General
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka What seems to be strong opposition to a host of initiatives by President Barack Obama and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to curtail carbon and other forms of pollution is no mere coincidence. According to a deeply reported story in Sunday’s New York Times, some state attorneys general, most of them Republicans,…
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Suddenly, It’s Raining Gas Projects and Tax Breaks
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka Suddenly it seems to be raining natural gas pipelines and snowing millions of dollars in tax breaks and incentives for rich electric utilities. Dominion Resources, the powerful and politically well-connected Richmond-based utility, apparently is getting $30 million in public money from the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Revitalization Commission without apparently asking for…
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Virginia’s Very Own Keystone XL
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka The rise of natural gas keeps raising more questions about the proper future of Virginia’s and the nation’s energy policies. What just a little while ago seemed a benign source of energy has gushed into a mass of controversy and advantage. One focus of the conflict – good and bad – is the…
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My Drive Through Two West Virginias
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (K-12), Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka It was a biting eight degrees when I hit the road in Beckley, W.Va. last Wednesday morning having held a book signing and given a talk in Charleston the night before. I wanted to drive two hours up to Harrison County, where my family lived from 1962 to 1969, and see what…
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Fracking Our Pristine Mountain Forests
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Uncategorized, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka Is nothing sacred? Of all groups, the U.S. Forest Service should protect the lands it controls, but today it introduced a plan that would allow limited hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in the 1.1 million-acre George Washington National Forest which straddles Virginia and West Virginia. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe had opposed lifting…