Category: Uncategorized
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The Ironies of Virginia's Growing Diversity
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Suddenly immigration is popping up as a major issue in Virginia and the nation. Virginia Beach has been dubbed a “sanctuary city” for undocumented aliens by Fox News and conservative Websites. GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump is scarfing up poll number hikes by calling Mexicans trying to enter the U.S. illegally “rapists”…
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The Ironies of Virginia’s Growing Diversity
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Suddenly immigration is popping up as a major issue in Virginia and the nation. Virginia Beach has been dubbed a “sanctuary city” for undocumented aliens by Fox News and conservative Websites. GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump is scarfing up poll number hikes by calling Mexicans trying to enter the U.S. illegally “rapists”…
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Dominion's Curious Power Plan
Peter Galuszka Dominion Virginia Power is taking a tepid approach towards planning its future generating units, as evidenced by its submission this week of its 2015 integrated resource plan to the State Corporation Commission. As such, it claims it is in a “transitory” phase that will rely on natural gas as a “stop gap” measures…
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Dominion’s Curious Power Plan
Peter Galuszka Dominion Virginia Power is taking a tepid approach towards planning its future generating units, as evidenced by its submission this week of its 2015 integrated resource plan to the State Corporation Commission. As such, it claims it is in a “transitory” phase that will rely on natural gas as a “stop gap” measures…
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RVA Going Places: A Complete Streets Professional Plan
by James Newman No matter who you are or where you live, at some point in your day you use roads. For most people, this comes in the form of driving. Yet what happens to people who do not have a car? Since the 1950s, roads have been designed for getting private automobiles from point…
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Who Are They To Hate Now?
Virginia’s GOP has suffered some significant loses over the past few days. The “Stars and Bars” have become toxic, Roe v Wade is still the law of the land, the Affordable Care Act has again been ruled Constitutional by the Supremes and gay marriage is the law of the land. Isn’t it time for fauxconomist…
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Does the Gig Economy Need Fixing?
by James A. Bacon Senator Mark Warner, D-Virginia, has latched onto a fascinating issue: the “disaggregation of the workplace.” That’s wonk talk for the Uber-ization of the United States economy, in which an increasing percentage of the population engages in contingency work outside the highly regulated setting of full-time employment. Warner rightly calls this trend “the…
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Richmond as Center of Musical Creativity
New York, L.A. and Nashville are undisputed leaders of the music industry in the United States, while Austin, Seattle and New Orleans garner widespread recognition as important second-tier cities. But Urbanful has highlighted nine other U.S. cities with thriving music scenes where “new local bands sprout every day, and, best of all, you can still…
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New Film Documents Horrors of Coal Mining
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in Business and Economy, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Housing, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Several years in the making, “Blood on the Mountain” has finally premiered in New York City. The documentary examines the cycle of exploitation of people and environment by West Virginia’s coal industry highlighting Massey Energy, a coal firm that was based in Richmond. The final cut of the film was released publicly…
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I'm Feeling Paranoid about Cyber-Terrorism at the Moment, and Keith Alexander Didn't Help One Bit
by James A. Bacon My sentiments regarding the Middle East periodically vacillate between “they’re crazy, leave ’em alone and let ’em all kill each other” to “the world’s too small, we can’t run away from the problem.” Last night I swung hard toward the latter perspective. Keith B. Alexander, former director of the National Security Agency,…
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I’m Feeling Paranoid about Cyber-Terrorism at the Moment, and Keith Alexander Didn’t Help One Bit
by James A. Bacon My sentiments regarding the Middle East periodically vacillate between “they’re crazy, leave ’em alone and let ’em all kill each other” to “the world’s too small, we can’t run away from the problem.” Last night I swung hard toward the latter perspective. Keith B. Alexander, former director of the National Security Agency,…
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Oh, That Changes Everything
Former Del. Joe Morrissey, D-Henrico, is back in the news after a brief absence from the front pages while simultaneously serving in the General Assembly and serving work-release jail time for contributing to the deliquency of a minor, his 17-year-old receptionist. He is now living with the young woman, now 19, and their baby boy. Morrissey,…
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One More Time Now… Devolve Transportation Funding to the States
by James A. Bacon Congress is floundering over what to do about the Highway Trust Fund, which collects the federal gasoline tax and plows it back to the states to finance a smorgasbord of transportation projects. The original justification for the gas tax was to build the Interstate Highway System, but the program has morphed over the…
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The Parental Backlash Against SOL Tests
By Peter Galuszka Although their numbers are small, more Virginia parents are refusing to have their children take the state’s Standards of Learning tests, saying that test preparation takes away from true education. In the 2013 -14 school year, 681 SOL tests were coded as parent refusals out of the nearly three million given, with…
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Blankenship's Incriminating Tapes
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka It may sound like something out of the Nixon White House, but embattled coal baron Donald L. Blankenship regularly taped conversations in his office, giving federal prosecutors powerful new ammunition as he approaches criminal trial in July. According to Bloomberg News, the former head of Massey Energy taped up to 1,900 conversations…