Category: Uncategorized
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What does debt cost?
By James C. Sherlock As part of its constant work to refinance the federal debt, the Treasury sold inflation-adjusted bonds today that earn a 9.62% interest rate. Be very afraid.
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The Youngkin Plan for Reversing Learning Loss
by James A. Bacon Now that the National Assessment for Educational Progress has provided irrefutable proof of the collapse in learning in Virginia schools over the past four years, the Youngkin administration can move on from the task of persuading Virginians that they have a problem to actually working the problem. The initiatives that caught…
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Cultural Death Wish
by James A. Bacon In my previous post I gave a just-the-facts-ma’am account of the controversy over the appearance of gay- and fat-rights performance artist Kimberly Dark at the Virginia Military Institute. In this column, I’ll give my personal reaction. There are three elements to the controversy (1) the incident is solid evidence that VMI…
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Bias-Based Traffic Stops — A Rejoinder
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The Department of Criminal Justice Services has published its annual report on traffic stop data. In a recent article on this blog, Jim Bacon rendered his verdict on whether the data shows police bias in traffic stops: Still No Proof. The report shows that, in the period of July 1, 2021, to…
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Safety and Accountability
by Jon Baliles Richmond City Council approved plans earlier this week for a Civilian Review Board (CRB) for the Police Department that left people on all sides a bit upset, which fulfills one of the telltale signs of good legislation — if everyone is a little bit upset, then it is probably done right. If…
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Stress, Fuzzy Symptoms, and Long COVID
by James A. Bacon WHRO Public Media tells the story of Chesapeake nurse Megan Temple, who contracted COVID-19 in October and has dealt with “long COVID” ever since. She got over the initial illness quickly. But in the weeks and months that followed, during which she also recovered from abdominal surgery, she developed an array…
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Grrrr. Pit Bulls.
by Kerry Dougherty Harrowing. Bloodcurdling. Horrific. Those are the only words I can find to describe the latest two pit bull fatalities. Last Wednesday afternoon two children, a 2-year-old girl and a 5-month-old boy, were savaged to death by their family dogs in Millington, Tennessee. Their mother was mauled into critical condition trying to save…
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Things that Work — Virginia Department of Elections and the Virginia Beach Registrar’s Office
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes, government offices are better than you can imagine. My wife and I cast early ballots on Thursday. We went to the Virginia Beach Director of Elections office at the Municipal Center. Everything about the experience was great, and better than it needed to be. Now, an interruption in a communication…
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Fixes are Available for Nurse Shortages – Virginia Needs to Take Action in the Upcoming GA Session
by James C. Sherlock A future without enough nurses is unacceptable. There is some good news. Clinical nurses make a lot more money now than they used to. COVID fixed that. The travel nurse bubble is burst, but the pay raises for staff nurses appear to be sticking. The raises for nurses across the field…