Category: Regulations, Gov’t Oversight
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Disband the ObamaCare Wrecking Crew
By Peter Galuszka As the right wing echo chamber continues to crank up after the botched launch of the Affordable Care Act, here are a couple of items that direct us back to reality. One gives us a picture of how the U.S. really compares with comparable advanced countries with universal or near-universal coverage. The…
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GiftGate: And the Legal Bills Keeping Mounting
By Peter Galuszka The election is over. The transition teams are forming. And the GiftGate legal bills keep mounting. Taxpayers are now facing $575,000 in total charges, according to The Washington Post. These include $331,000 in fees charged in July, August and September by two law firms representing state employees in the Gov. Robert F.…
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Why Some Health Care Plans Aren’t Worth Keeping
By Peter Galuszka You can almost hear the telexes chattering in the predawn hours sending out coded instructions to eager conservative bloggers. It’s a “red state” alert! Plan “R” for “Roger!” Just like Major General Jack D. Ripper. It’s the go code for attacking Obamacare! So, you have them excitedly dusting off their purple prose.…
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Why McAuliffe Is Saying No to Uranium Mining
By Peter Galuszka Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe has made one of his first pronouncements and it is an important one: he will veto any law the General Assembly passes to lift the decades-long ban on mining uranium in Virginia. The bigger question is whether he was start disassembling the energy-industrial complex that outgoing Gov. Robert F.…
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Bye-Bye Jonnie! Bye Star Scientific!
By Peter Galuszka Star Scientific is setting itself for a future without its high profile CEO, Jonnie R. Williams, a prominent figure in the Robert F. McDonnell GiftGate scandal. On Halloween, the Henrico-based dietary supplement maker announced that it will undergo a shuffle at the top. Williams will leave in December, clearing the way for Dr.…
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The Madness of Virginia Republicans
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and EntitlementsBy Peter Galuszka Virginia’s Republicans are posed to take big hits because of the infuriating deadlock in Congress over the budget and debt ceiling. The ones looking the worst are U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, and gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Cuccinelli. Both have played too hard to Tea Party anarchists whose scheme seems…
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The Tobacco Commission, GiftGate and Sleaze
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Electoral process, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Health Care, Infrastructure, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and EntitlementsBy Peter Galuszka The latest turn in the McDonnell GiftGate scandal goes back to a familiar entity, the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission which has acted as a large slush fund for favored projects in Virginia’s tobacco land for more than a decade. No surprise there. The tobacco fund is swimming with money…
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Pittsylvania County Loses a Good Man
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in Business and Economy, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, Land use & Development, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & TechnologyBy Peter Galuszka During these days of GiftGate with top Virginia officials and their families accepting unreported Rolex watches, turkey dinners, corporate jet rides, New York shopping sprees, real estate loans and wedding presents, it is important to remember other public servants who shoulder on doing their work as honestly as they can. On Thursday,…
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The Cooch and the Pope
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Federal issues, Gun rights, Immigration, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka “It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,” says Pope Francis, leader of the globe’s Roman Catholics, regarding abortion, gays and contraception. One wonders if Ken Cuccinelli gets the message. Or maybe even Bob McDonnell. The attorney general and Republican gubernatorial candidate and the sitting governor have worn…
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Why Bundling Parking Costs… Well, a Bundle
When you subscribe to a cable TV service, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a fan of Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow, you’ll get a package that includes access to FOX News, MSNBC and CNN, not to mention a host of other channels that you may or may not ever watch. Even if you find Hannity…
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Suspicious Trading In Gas Ethanol Credits
By Peter Galuszka On the busy Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River in Chesapeake, some 33 squat petroleum tanks sit just across the water from the giant cranes of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth. The tanks, along with 31 other ones just south of downtown Richmond, play a role in an intriguing and mysterious…
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Virginia Does NOT Say Yes to Nuclear
By Peter Galuszka In his typical business-only fashion, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell has named several nuclear energy industry executives to the new, 17-member, non-profit Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium Authority set up this year just as the move to end the uranium mining moratorium was augering in for a crash. Hmm. Let’s check this out. State…
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The Folly of Mandated Yards
Jim Dalrymple, a Salt Lake City journalist, publishes the About Town blog, where he opines about urban land use in the Provo-Salt Lake City region of Utah. I’ve begun following the blog because he asks many of the same kinds of questions I do, informed by similar free-market sensibilities. In a recent missive, he asked…
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Ethics Issues Go Far Beyond McDonnell
By Peter Galuszka The major focus of speculation in Richmond these days may be on whether or not Gov. Robert F. McDonnell will be indicted, but there are plenty of other, lesser situations involving public officials that show just how badly Virginia’s ethics rules need fixing. State and local officials have a long history of…
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Innuendo vs. Substance In the Governor’s Race
By Peter Galuszka Virginia’s nasty gubernatorial race fills television screens and Web sites with suggestions of corruption by both candidates, involving everything from gifts to natural gas rights to a struggling electric carmaker in Mississippi. There’s anything but a smoking gun, but no shortage of innuendo. And I think it is important to point that…