Category: Uncategorized
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UVa on Third-Vaccination Mandate: Trust Us
by James A. Bacon So, the University of Virginia bumped up its deadline for students, faculty and staff to get a COVID-19 booster shot to today, one day before Glenn Youngkin, a foe of vaccination mandates, takes office. In an interview with CBS19 News, UVa spokesman Brian Coy says Youngkin’s ascension to office was not…
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Imprisoned by the Past
by James A. Bacon As a parting gift to Virginia, outgoing Attorney General Mark Herring has overturned 58 opinions issued by attorneys general between 1904 and 1967 that supported racially discriminatory laws from poll taxes to the prohibition of interracial marriage. “While these discriminatory and racist laws are no longer on the books in Virginia,…
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Northam’s Legacy as COVID Fighter
by James A. Bacon As the hours tick down on his term in office, Governor Ralph Northam is inclined to reflect upon his performance. In the limited remarks he has made in public, he has expressed few regrets and admitted to few mistakes. As demonstrated by the thoroughly documented meltdown in Standards of Learning (SOL)…
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Government Attacks on Parental Choice in Virtual K-12 Education in Virginia. Chapter 5: Driving Out Commercial Providers
by James C. Sherlock There was plenty of VDOE-computed “capacity” in Richmond Public Schools (RPS) to accommodate out-of-district students for purposes of their being taught by the leading MOP provider. (MOP’s are the privately-run, state-funded “Multidivision Online Providers” of educational services which are a legal option for parents of Virginia school kids.) Then RPS suddenly…
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How to Discriminate by Race… Without Admitting You’re Discriminating by Race
New board emails, texts reveal “embarrassing” politics with “bonus points” by Asra Q. Nomani In fall 2020, Fairfax County, Va., school board members said the quiet part out loud. As school district officials engineered race-based admissions changes to America’s No. 1 high school, to increase the numbers of Black and Hispanic students, school board member…
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Northam’s Final Presser: No Remorse
by Kerry Dougherty For the first time since the pandemic began, a news bulletin that Gov. Ralph Northam was holding a press conference yesterday didn’t fill me with dread. Four days left in his term. How much damage could he do? In the past we never knew which civil liberties would be thrown into the…
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Morrissey Proposes Extending Parole to Most Violent Offenders
by Hans Bader State Senator Joe Morrissey, D-Richmond, has proposed legislation to make parole available to even the most violent offenders, including those who were given shorter sentences due to the lack of existence of parole at the time they were sentenced. The proposal includes a bill to make parole available to all types of…
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Herring’s ERA Advisory Opinion Is Flawed, Self-Defeating
by Emilio Jaksetic On January 6, 2022, Attorney General Mark Herring issued an advisory legal opinion in which he concluded that the Virginia General Assembly cannot rescind its January 2020 decision to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). What is amazing about Herring’s advisory opinion is its reliance on one passage of the Supreme Court…
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Government Attacks K-12 Public Education in Virginia – Chapter 2: The Regulatory State
by James C. Sherlock The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) both runs its own virtual school and regulates that school’s competitors. The Virginia way. Mark Zuckerberg can only dream. Virginia’s privately run, state-funded, multidivision online providers (MOPs) constitute the major competitors to VDOE’s own Virtual Virginia, its state-run virtual school. Virginia law positions MOPs as…
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Government Attacks on Parental Choice in Virtual K-12 Public Education in Virginia – Chapter 1: Teacher shortages
by James C. Sherlock A great deal of the increase in demand for full-time virtual K-12 (FTVK12) education is driven by rising teacher shortages in the brick-and-mortar schools. I am not talking about COVID quarantine or other illnesses, but rather endemic shortages. Jobs that cannot be filled. And may never be. We have well-founded fears…
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Youngkin, UVa COVID Policy on a Collision Course
by James A. Bacon The debate over COVID-19 policy rages unabated. Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares announced today their intention to challenge Biden-administration vaccine mandates through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, OSHA, and Head Start. “While we believe that the vaccine is a critical tool in the fight against COVID-19,…
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McDermid for Secretary of Administration
The latest Glenn Youngkin appointment: Lyn McDermid as Secretary of Administration. Ordinarily, that is a low-key position. But, according to the press release, Youngkin is entrusting her with several high-profile tasks: revamping Virginia’s cyber-security system, fixing the Department of Motor Vehicles, repairing the Virginia Employment Commission, and the old chestnut, “root[ing] out waste, fraud and…
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This Could Be Interesting… Virginia to Get a “Chief Transformation Officer”
by James A. Bacon This evening Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin announced several new key appointments, including his chief of staff and deputy chief of staff. But it is the appointment of Eric Moeller, a partner at McKinsey & Company, as “Chief Transformation Officer” that I find most intriguing. I don’t believe that the Governor’s Office has…
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Redistricting Now Final
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The redistricting for General Assembly seats and those in the U.S. House of Representatives is complete. The Virginia Supreme Court issued its final order and approved maps on December 28, 2021. There are some significant changes from the earlier proposed maps. For a discussion of the first maps released by the Supreme…