Category: Politics
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Medicare for All? Medicare for Us Is Different
Blame this one on four wasted evenings watching the Democratic presidential debates. As Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and the rest were describing their promise of “Medicare for All,” my wife and I were deep in the process of learning about and registering for “Medicare for Us,” which kicked in this month. The big…
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Bacon Bits: The Rules, California is Crazy, Rider E
This is the simple stuff, people. Delegate Nick Freitas doesn’t seem to be the only person in the Republican camp complaining that the rules are a problem, at least when enforced. A conservative activist group that went after state Senator Emmett Hanger in the June primary is now screaming “bloody murder” because Hanger filed a…
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Jeff Thomas: “The Virginia Way” Prevails
A little less than three years ago, Richmond author and analyst Jeff Thomas shook up the state political elite with a densely research account of how “The Virginia Way” actually works and how major players schemed to benefit from it. Thomas’s book was brilliantly timed, arriving after the state’s first major corruption trial involving from…
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A Ray of Hope Ends a Troubled Week
Just when hope has largely departed, a ray of sunshine. Senator Chap Petersen of the 34th District in Fairfax showed up in my inbox with a nice message on why he was pleased to attend this week’s festivities in Jamestown. Why did he feel the need to explain, I wondered? I didn’t have to wonder…
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Trump Came, He Saw, He Did Not Tweet
President Trump conducted himself with the dignity one normally expects from a president earlier today at the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the first legislative assembly in the New World and the arrival of the first African slaves. For a day at least, he set aside sharp words and divisive tweets. Following his controversial…
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Virginia’s Left Consumes Another of Its Own
Dario Marques Jr., former government contractor and major contributor to Virginia Democratic Party poohbahs, has come under fire from Virginia progressives for his role in running an Arizona shelter for unaccompanied children who crossed the border illegally. Although Marques’ contract originated in 2014 during the Obama administration, work continued into the Trump administration — and…
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Virginia Mercury At One: Kicking GOP Butt
Success and quality demand recognition, so congratulations to the folks at Virginia Mercury for one year of e-publication. It represents the future of journalism, which is nothing short of tragic. Not that a deep progressive bent (or conservative for that matter) has been unknown in journalism. Most of the great early publications had political backers,…
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Firearms Theater: Boring, Tiresome, Repetitive
It is easy to dismiss next week’s special session of the General Assembly on proposed gun control as meaningless political theater, because that it what it will likely amount to. It is also boring, tiresome and repetitive. Following the 2007 tragedy at Virginia Tech, a group of well-intended and well-informed experts formed a non-partisan task…
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Happy 4th! Enjoy Liberty and Prosperity While It Lasts
I love this country. I choke up when I sing the Star Spangled Banner and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I honor those who gave their lives to preserve and protect our freedoms. I revere this country as the greatest engine of wealth creation and prosperity in history. While other, smaller countries may have a…
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The (GOP) Chaos and Dysfunction Must End
For years my daily routine during the General Assembly included time in Delegate Riley Ingram’s office, in fact pretty much as long as the Hopewell Republican was there. I’d worked on several of his campaigns. Trust me, he left the best stories out of his hilarious farewell floor speech. In 2018 I was present when…
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Blackface Mystery Solved: Ralph Northam as Michael Jackson
Published in the Roanoke Times today, a concise synthesize of my blog posts about Ralph Northam costumed as Michael Jackson: Ralph Northam’s racism controversy has tumbled down the memory hole. The governor has struck with the story that the photograph appearing in the 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook of a man in blackface was…
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Give Fairfax a Chance to Clear His Name
Lawyers for Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax have formally requested prosecutors in Suffolk County, Mass., and Durham County, N.C. to open criminal investigations into the sexual assault allegations made against Fairfax in February, reports WJLA. The allegation of Meredith Watson, who accused Fairfax of raping her in 2000 when they were students at Duke University, should…
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No Great Leap, But a Continuing Tide
The following was written for the Thomas Jefferson Institute’s Jefferson Policy Journal and distributed earlier today. Some themes repeat an earlier post. It’s hard to dissect a battle while the smoke is still clearing, but the June 11 Virginia primaries demonstrated again the state’s continued and steady move away from its conservative past. It was…
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Elephant in the Corner? What Elephant?
The news media has settled into a new narrative about Ralph Northam’s blackface scandal: After keeping a low profile for four months following the revelation of a racist photo appearing in his 1984 medical school yearbook, the governor is back in the public eye and reasserting his gubernatorial prerogatives. Without explicitly saying that he has…
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Arlington’s Dark Money Candidate
by Liam Bissainthe Virginia has primary elections coming up tomorrow. Some matter a lot, and you should vote in them if you have the chance — like the prosecutor’s race in Arlington County and Falls Church. That race pits left-wing radical Parisa Dehghani-Tafti against the moderately liberal incumbent prosecutor Theo Stamos in a race for…