Category: Politics
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Virginia’s Government – a Critique
by James C. Sherlock At the age of 75 with a life of experience in and with government, I will offer here my assessment of the current structural problems in our state government that make that government significantly less efficient and effective than it should be. You will note that these comments generally do…
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Virginia’s Worst Public Schools and Districts for Black Children
by James C. Sherlock I have competed a study of Virginia’s worst-performing schools in the education of black children. The results presented in this essay represent a scandal of the first order and demand explanations, both from the school boards and the Virginia Department of Education. In my next post I will review two books…
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Virginia’s New Political Landscape
by James A. Bacon So, where do yesterday’s elections leave us? We don’t know who won the presidential election, and we probably won’t know for days, if not weeks. Still, we can draw some meaningful conclusions. Virginia remains a solid blue state. The Democrats’ political dominance has jelled. With 98.44% of votes reported, Joe Biden…
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Biden, Birx and COVID Lockdowns in Virginia
by DJ Rippert Sine wave. The third wave of COVID-19 has been spreading across the world and has come to America. As should have been expected it has also come to Virginia. Many European countries have enacted lockdowns that would be considered draconian by most Americans. Several U.S. governors have also dramatically reversed the re-opening…
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Voters, Consider the Fate of the Bill of Rights
by James C. Sherlock Before voters go to the polls on Tuesday, I think it a useful exercise to consider the future of the Bill of Rights with a Supreme Court “expanded,” as promised by Democrats if they control the Presidency and the Senate, to provide a leftist majority. To enable that reflection, it is…
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Senator Warner Is Missing in Action
by Emilio Jaksetic As co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner, D-VA, was vociferous about the need to investigate allegations of Russian collusion by President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. But Virginia’s senior senator was silent in 2019 when the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General identified serious defects and failings with FBI and…
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The November Election, Marijuana and Northern Virginia
By DJ Rippert Up for grabs. In about three weeks Americans who haven’t already voted will go to the polls and vote. The presidency, the U,S, House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate are all in play. Regarding the impact of the legalized adult use of marijuana in Virginia, the U.S. Senate is the key.…
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Investigative Journalism: Still Alive and Aimed at Dominion
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Well, investigative journalism is still alive. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has teamed up with the national journalist investigative organization, ProPublica, to report on the political influence of Dominion Energy in Virginia. The first result of this effort is a major, long article in today’s edition of the RTD. By long, I mean a…
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Time to Be Honest about COVID-19
By Peter Galuszka Two remarkable stories dominate headlines this morning – Donald Trump has COVID-19 and some 5,000 Virginia college students also have the virus. The infection of Trump throws an already chaotic presidential race into further confusion. State colleges are scrambling to find what to do about viral infections since the numbers have exploded…
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Bloomberg Buying Votes
by Kerry Dougherty Virginia’s House of Delegates is both doctrinaire and ineffective. Oh, and scared witless of Covid-19. They’re working in their bathrobes, while members of the Senate actually show up every day. If you’re wondering why these lawmakers turned what was supposed to be a short summer special session to deal with a hole…
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Special Interests Behind the Anti-Interest Candidate
By Steve Haner Welcome to the current state of politics, where an incumbent preens as being free from special interest funding and their sworn enemy, all while the special interests spend millions seeking to tear down the challenger. House Bill 827, approved by the 2020 General Assembly, did not really provide additional employment protection for…
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The Trojan Horse Amendment
By Dick Hall-Sizemore I need some help sorting out a dilemma I find myself in. I am strongly in favor of the concept of authorizing an independent commission to draw legislative district lines. On the other hand, I really do not like the proposed amendment to the Virginia Constitution that would create such a commission.…
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Trump’s ICE Scandal in Farmville
By Peter Galuszka In a remarkable display of incompetence, the Trump Administration this summer transferred dozens of undocumented aliens being held in detention centers in Arizona and Florida to a private prison in Farmville just so special federal tactical officers could beef up crowd control in Washington, D.C. Consequently, some 300 inmates at the Farmville…
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Time for the Mayor to Clear the Air
by James A. Bacon Three years ago, the Richmond Times-Dispatch published an article headlined thusly: “Baltimore paid less than $20,000 to remove four Confederate monuments last month. So what does that mean for Richmond?” Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney and then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe had estimated that it would cost more than $5 million to remove five…
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Elmer Gantry In Lynchburg
By Peter Galuszka The resignation of Jerry Falwell Jr. amid a series of scandals may have a strong impact in Virginia where his late father built an extraordinary, ultra-conservative evangelical university in Lynchburg that later became highly politicized lightning rod supporting President Donald Trump. Falwell has been caught up in a number of controversies including…