Category: Federal issues
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Social Theory vs. Science in K-12 Discipline in Virginia – Fraud or Just Wrong?
by James C. Sherlock American school children have in my lifetime been the subject of widespread experiments in theory disguised as breakthroughs in education. Consider the “new math” and the “reading wars” as prominent examples. Now we have social theory on school discipline created by federal civil rights lawyers piggybacking on what may or may…
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The July Surprise from Congress – a Completely Revised Energy Economy by 2030
by James C. Sherlock Here at Bacon’s Rebellion we spend a lot of ink talking about Virginia energy demand and supply. We debate the ideas of both sides of the discussion. Turns out that we made the mistake of thinking these were state issues. Democrats in Congress are about to intervene in every part of…
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Where Does Virginia Most Need Charter Schools?
by James C. Sherlock Discussing failing schools in Virginia, people tend to speak in generalities. When an example is needed, the City of Richmond Public Schools is chosen — an uncontested layup. But failed schools are not a problem just in Richmond. And bad public schools in Richmond are not limited to RPS. They are…
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Wind Farm Threat to Whales is Next Big Argument
by David Wojick The massive offshore wind (OSW) project proposed by Dominion Energy may pose a serious threat to the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale population. A comprehensive environmental impact assessment is required to determine the extent of this threat and the mitigation it might require. The same is true for the other proposed Mid-Atlantic…
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New Fed Policy Would Hide CMS Data on Patient Safety Records of Hospitals
by James C. Sherlock One of the most disturbing commentaries I have read in a long time relating to federal efforts to improve hospital patient safety reports a major step backwards in that program. I have written here many times of the power of the hospitals over Virginia’s politics. A proposed new federal rule shows…
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Disin-Cline-Nation
by Jim McCarthy Representative Ben Cline secured more than 80% of the votes cast in the primary in the Virginia’s 6th Congressional District. Fewer than 5% of registered voters participated, and the margin was less than 10% of the votes that elected him in 2020. Since then, the January 6 Committee has commenced its hearings.…
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Let’s Get Out of Here
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that four prisoners escaped from the federal prison complex near Petersburg early Saturday morning. No details were released on how they escaped. Undoubtedly, it is important for federal officials to discover how the prisoners escaped and take steps to tighten security. However, there is another question that is…
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Commonwealth Set for Major Broadband Expansion
by Dick Hall-Sizemore One of the issues underlined by the pandemic was the need for all areas of the state to have access to broadband internet. Without access to broadband, kids (and adults) in rural areas cannot take advantage of courses offered online. To the extent that more people will be working remotely, rural areas…
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Virginia Partisanship in Congress
Virginia Congressmen have scored at the extremes on a national measure of bipartisanship in Congress. As reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, has been ranked as the fifth most bipartisan member of the House of Representatives and Rep. Bob Good, R-5th, the fifth least bipartisan member. The Lugar Center, founded by the…
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George Orwell Call Home
by James C. Sherlock This blog, while proudly based in individual research, often offers controversial ideas. Uniform agreement is not expected. Debate is encouraged. We learn from one another and even occasionally change a few minds on both sides. Yesterday the Biden administration announced the establishment of a federal “Disinformation Governance Board” in the Department…
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CDC Chicanery
by Kerry Dougherty Looks like the jig is up for the CDC. Someone needs to tell the secretive political animals running the agency that when you’ve lost The New York Times, you’re done. On Sunday, The Times published a story criticizing the Centers for Disease Control for hiding massive amounts of data from the public.…
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Infrastructure Bill, Meet Richmond’s United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
by James C. Sherlock The President and members of Congress have celebrated the enactment of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act into law. In Virginia and the other states (Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia) of the federal Fourth Circuit, good luck with that. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit just published two…
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Boomergeddon Watch: We’re Right on Track
by James A. Bacon The U.S. national debt has passed a symbolically important milestone of $30 trillion. That’s up from the $13-$14 trillion when I wrote my book, “Boomergeddon,” in 2010 warning that the U.S. government was heading to functional insolvency by the late 2020’s or early 2030’s. I argued that higher deficits and debt…
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Infrastructure Vote? Oh No, That’s Their Bill
by Dick Hall-Sizemore There has long been a consensus that America needs to pay more attention to its infrastructure. Last week, the House of Representatives passed President Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure package and sent it to the President for his signature. Of the total amount, $550 billion was new money; the remainder was funding normally…
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Federal Contracting in Northern Virginia Reaches $60 Billion Annually
by James C. Sherlock The Washington Business Journal (WBJ) reported today that annual federal contracting in Northern Virginia has reached $60 billion. That compares to federal contracting there of $33.7 billion in 2000 (2020 dollars). As a reference points, I consulted St. Louis Fed data for Virginia GDP in those same years and converted the…