Category: Politics
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VPM Reporter Digs Into Power For Tomorrow
Ben Paviour at Virginia Public Media has fleshed out additional substantial details on the political activities of Power for Tomorrow, a utility advocacy group with major funding from Dominion Energy Virginia. Questions asked and issues hinted at by this report on Bacon’s Rebellion now have more clarity. Yes, Paviour found quite a few Virginia incumbent…
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Mountain Valley Pipeline Back Thanks to McCarthy-Biden Debt Deal
by Shaun Kenney As part of the debt ceiling deal, the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), long thought dead, is now suddenly back in the cards. But don’t expect bulldozers back in Virginia anytime soon, as the 4th Federal Circuit Court of Appeals is not expected to grant permission to cross any streams or wetlands before…
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Fact Checking Bill Leighty
by Dick Hall-Sizemore In my review of Bill Leighty’s memoir, I quoted at length an incident that was supposed to illustrate Leighty’s deal-making skills, as well as how things are often accomplished in state government. One of this blog’s alert readers, “how_it_works,” pointed that the timing of the events related in the story just did…
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Virginia Democrats Have New Tourism Twist
by Olivia Gans Turner Recently North Carolina passed a bill to prevent abortions after 12 weeks. This new law may save many lives in North Carolina, but most abortions actually happen earlier, in the first weeks of pregnancy. Now Virginia Democrats are announcing their intention to make Virginia a destination state for abortions. In the…
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Ah, So That’s What That Was All About!
Leighty, Bill. Capitol Secrets: Leadership Wisdom from a Lifetime of Public Service. Holon Publishing, 2023. A review by Dick Hall-Sizemore The public sees the result of policy development. What the public does not see is the sometimes- messy process that produced that policy nor, more broadly, what goes on behind the scenes to make government…
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Is Dominion Campaigning Behind a Front Again?
By Steve Haner An electric power industry lobbying and public relations group which has been financially supported by Dominion Energy Virginia is mailing out flyers to voters praising legislative incumbents who helped Dominion pass favorable legislation this year. A mailer supporting incumbent Fairfax Democratic Senator George Barker caused the Democrat blog Blue Virginia to respond…
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Martin Brown Is Absolutely Correct: To Achieve Real Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, “DEI” Must Die
by J. Kennerly Davis Martin Brown, a senior aide to Governor Glenn Youngkin, created quite a stir when he told an audience at the Virginia Military Institute that “DEI is dead.” Democrats in politics and the media jumped on the remark, and the Governor’s support of Brown, to assert that the Youngkin administration is hostile…
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The Lost Art of a Newspaper Hit Piece
by Kerry Dougherty Looks like newspapers have lost more than just their senior editors and writers. They’ve also lost the ability to craft a good old-fashioned hit piece. There was an art to that particular form of journalism. It had to be an expertly crafted story written with so much elegance that the subject sometimes…
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The New Virginia Way: More People Voting
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The 2020 and 2021 sessions of the General Assembly enacted numerous bills that made it easier for citizens of the Commonwealth to exercise their right to vote. This article will outline the major changes, analyze their effects, and discuss efforts to repeal or modify these changes. Following is a summary of the…
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Glen Allen Va’s “Do No Harm” Doing a Great Deal of Good
by James C. Sherlock Do you assume that Virginia’s medical schools are strict meritocracies, taking only the most well prepared and accomplished applicants? And that their efforts are then focused entirely on creating the most skilled physicians possible? If so, you are mistaken. The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), written by the American Medical Association…
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The Virginia Way
by Robin Beres Politicians and pundits have invoked the “Virginia Way” in speeches and writings since colonial times. The phrase is used by partisans to evoke sentiments of decency and honor (and votes) in residents of the Old Dominion. In 1926, Douglas Southall Freeman wrote in an editorial for The Richmond News Leader that the…
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Virginia Democrats – “Progressive for Who?”
by James C. Sherlock “Progressive for who?” That question was asked by Al Sharpton directly to a gathering of his supporters at a conference hosted by his National Action Network while flanked by Lori Lightfoot, Eric Adams and two other big city Democratic mayors. “Anybody that tells you they’re progressive but don’t care about dealing…
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Political Embellishment and Poor Journalism
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Some Virginians, along with citizens in the rest of the country, will be able to receive refunds from the company Intuit, the developers of the TurboTax automated tax return preparation program. According to a report in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, approximately $3.5 million will be available for distribution to Virginians. “TurboTax misled Virginians,…
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The Unsettled State of Lee Chapel
by Kenneth G. Everett “Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.” — William E. Gladstone, British Statesman The respect with…
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Geez, Louise
by Kerry Dougherty Uh-oh. Looks like Louise Lucas is a little rusty when it comes to campaigning for office. The powerful Democrat from deep blue Portsmouth is used to steamrolling any hapless Republican who gets in her way and sashaying into Richmond where she serves as the president pro tempore of the Senate and gets…