Category: Politics
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Virginia is the Future
by Arthur Bloom I want to tell you why I like The 1619 Project. It has nothing to do with the history, all of which is known to any well-educated Virginian. Of course, these things are fundamentally propagandistic exercises, any leftist worth his salt would tell you that too. But it was symbolically very important.…
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Soft-On-Crime Va. Democrats’ Offal Proposal
by Kerry Dougherty Oh look. Another garbage bill courtesy of Virginia’s soft-on-crime Democrats! Want to see what’s coming our way if Dems regain control of the General Assembly and Governor’s Mansion? Check out SB1080. Yep, a gaggle of Virginia’s leading lefties pushed a measure that would classify felons younger than 21 as JUVENILES. Virginia law…
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Is CPAC Shrinking?
by Bruce Majors CPAC2023 was noticeably smaller than CPAC has been in previous years, with a half-empty ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort on the shores of the Potomac in Oxon Hill, Maryland. It’s CPACtrophy. Although you could see the Masonic Temple in Old Town, Alexandria from the Gaylord, there were few Virginia politicians. Former…
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Massive New Bureaucracy in JMU Faculty Hiring Procedures
The Academic Affairs Guidelines for Recruiting and Hiring Instructional Faculty manual provides a glaring look into the bureaucratic and deeply troubling hiring procedures for faculty at James Madison University. Highly bureaucratic systems and policies are nothing new in American higher education, but this manual of edicts from the Office of the Provost and Senior Vice…
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A New 800-Pound Gorilla in Virginia Politics
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Ivy Main, in a recent commentary in the Virginia Mercury, identified a change in the power dynamic of Virginia politics that is taking place: “Amazon is the new Dominion.” Amazon’s presence in the Commonwealth has grown significantly over the past decade. It has taken place in three areas— distribution facilities, the second…
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Sen. John Edwards Calls It Quits
by Scott Dreyer In a highly-watched move, Democrat State Senator John Edwards announced this week he will not seek re-election after his current four-year term ends in January, ending his 40-plus-year run as a politician. Edwards, who will turn 80 in October, has been the subject of much speculation as to his intentions. Reportedly, he…
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Poof! 21 Retirements and 363 Years of Combined Service. So Far.
by Chris Saxman Here’s a General Assembly Retirement Tracker with estimated years of service: Retirements thus far – 7 Senators and 14 Delegates. Combined years of service? 363. I’m putting the Over/Under at 30 members of the General Assembly and 480 years of service that will not return next year. So far not returning: Senator…
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Taxpayers Fund Biden’s Disruptive Campaign Stop in Va Beach
by Kerry Dougherty As usual, some local news outlets missed the real story. They were so starstruck by President Biden’s taxpayer-funded, Republican-bashing campaign stop in Virginia Beach on Tuesday that they didn’t notice that the city ground to a halt for hours Tuesday afternoon. It was a giant clusterfart. From one end of Virginia’s largest…
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New Yorkers, Virginians Will See Your Political Campaign Contributions and Raise You Dick Saslaw
by James C. Sherlock The New York Post was scandalized. In a stunning display of how New York politics work, two of the state Legislature’s most outspoken opponents of charter schools are also among the biggest recipients of campaign cash from New York’s teachers’ union and its political action committee. State Sen. John Liu (D-Queens),…
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Virginia Law Enables School Violence – School Board Policies Can Correct It
by James C. Sherlock In 2019, the National Education Association (NEA) published Threatened and Attacked By Students: When Work Hurts, urging lawmakers to address the crisis of unsafe behaviors in schools. Read about Chesterfield schools in that article. Unfazed, progressives in 2020 in full control of the General Assembly, led by now-Congresswoman-elect Jennifer McClellan, looked…
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Forget Waldo! Where is ERIC?
by James Wyatt Whitehead, V In 2012, seven states, including Virginia, formed the Electronic Registration and Information, Inc. (ERIC), with assistance from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Today, ERIC’s membership has risen to 32 states and the District of Columbia. ERIC’s mission is to assist states in maintaining accurate voting rolls. Every 60 days, states that…
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Demonizing Dutta
by James A. Bacon In early February an exchange took place during a State Board of Education (SBOE) meeting between Anne Holton and Suparna Dutta that highlights the massive leftward shift within Virginia’s Democratic Party. So outraged were militant leftists by Suparna’s remarks that Democratic state senators voted unanimously to reject her appointment to the…
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Government Actors Try to Deflect, Deny and “Move On” from Failures During COVID
by James C. Sherlock The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is in full self-defense mode. CDC and the left backed, indeed insisted, upon social isolation during the pandemic. Now they deflect and deny agency in the consequences. They continue to try to insulate themselves from the catastrophic educational and mental health effects on…
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Woke Army Puts American Hindu Mom in Its Crosshairs
by Asra Nomani A Woke Army of far-left activists and leaders from the mosque that once hired radical imam Anwar Al-Awlaki put a mother in their crosshairs: Suparna Dutta, a brave immigrant who has advocated for the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, democracy, and meritocracy. In a reprehensible display of bigotry and xenophobia, Virginia…
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Bias and Risk in Behavioral Polls and Studies – A Cautionary Tale for Public Policy
by James C. Sherlock Here at BR, both the authors and commenters spend a great deal of time discussing the outcomes of behavioral polls and studies. Taxes, mandates, and bans are behaviorally informed. As are most public policies. But behavioral science adds levels of risk and bias much more prevalent than in the hard sciences.…