Category: Uncategorized
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Oops.
I recently published a post asking why Asian students, not white students, shouldn’t be the benchmark for academic achievement in K-12 schools. I have had to take that post down for some major re-writing.
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Who Pays for Health Care in Virginia?
Where do Virginians (and Hampton Roadsters) get their health insurance coverage? Like their compatriots in every state, Virginians rely upon an assortment of private- and public-sector programs. The table above, taken from “The State of the Region: 2018 Hampton Roads” report, shows that in 2016 a higher percentage of Virginians (59%) had employer-based coverage than…
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The New Business Tax Climate Index Is In, And…
This just in: Virginia’s position in the Tax Foundation’s 2019 Business Tax Climate Index… 22nd in the country. The Old Dominion scores pretty well on corporate taxes (10th) and sales taxes (10th), but poorly on property taxes (30th), individual taxes (35th), and unemployment insurance taxes (43rd). If it’s any consolation, our neighbors to the north,…
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Who Were the Puerto Rico 3,000; How Did They Die?
So, who were those 3,000 Puerto Ricans who died because of Hurricane Maria last year? What killed them? The storm down south and the controversy swirling over our illustrious President’s defensive tweet sent me searching for data. It turns out there is no list of names. There is no accounting of what causes of death…
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Florence Could Provide First Test of Dominion’s Undergrounding Program
Hurricane Florence may not be the cataclysm for Virginia that everyone anticipated two or three days ago. Forecasts suggest that the hurricane will veer west, not north, when it hits the Carolina coast. But other hurricanes are spawning in the Atlantic Ocean, Virginia is still a potential target, and it is still worth exploring the…
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Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity
If you’ve been following Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger’s bid to unseat Rep. Dave Brat, R-7, you know that Republican operatives uncovered a boatload of sensitive personal information about the former CIA officer through a routine public records through from the U.S. Postal Service. How could such a thing happen? Was skulduggery involved? Did the Republicans…
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A Shiv to Virginia’s Middle Class
The Richmond Times-Dispatch commentary section has launched an all-out assault on Governor Ralph Northam’s proposal to recycle about half of the $500 million windfall from federal tax reform into tax benefits for the non-income tax-paying poor. (Steve Haner gave an excellent preview of the issue on Bacon’s Rebellion a week ago.) To Northam’s way of…
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Fake News: Trump Deregulation Will Increase CO2 Emissions
It pays to read past the headline and lede paragraph of Washington Post news stories. Here’s a case in point. In an article published yesterday, the headline blasted, “New Trump power plant plan would release hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 into the air.” The lede paragraph elaborated: An overhaul of the Obama administration’s…
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Bacon Bits: Thursday Morning Edition
Mistakes were made. The University of Virginia’s new president, Jim Ryan, has offered an apology for the previous administration’s failure to deal adequately with the intrusion of Unite the Right demonstrators onto university grounds last year. “We must acknowledge mistakes, including those made last year, understanding and trusting that mistakes in times of crisis are inevitable,”…
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Bacon Bits, Your Tasty Morning Info Treat
More hidden deficit spending. Virginia devoted 33% less to capital spending on K-12 schools (inflation-adjusted) in 2016 than in 2008, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That compared to a 26% reduction nationally. The cuts, say CBPP, “mean less money to build new schools, renovate and expand facilities, and equip schools…
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Saul Trumpinsky – Donald Trump and Saul Alinsky
Yes Virginia, there is a United States. Most posts published on this blog are dedicated to Virginia-specific issues. This post is an exception. It is an attempt to understand the unexpected popularity of Donald Trump. While all states are impacted by the federal government and national politics, Virginia is perhaps the most affected state. The proximity…
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Apologies for Sloppy Reporting
Earlier today I published a post dissecting an article by Alan Suderman with the Associated Press on the topic of Dominion Energy’s lobbying expenditures. I took him to task for the biased way in which he framed the issue. But in my rush to publish my post I made numerous mistakes of fact. Sloppiness is…
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Virginia as the Most Narcissistic State?
As you contemplate the implications of the previous post showing Virginia to be the most patriotic state in the union, consider a new map ranking Virginia as the most “narcissistic” state. “Collective narcissism—a phenomenon in which individuals show excessively high regard for their own group—is ubiquitous in studies of small groups,” writes Henry L. Roediger III, a…