Tag: Don Rippert
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Chap Petersen and Pete Snyder: Get Virginia Back to Work
By DJ Rippert Odd bedfellows? In a recent Op-Ed entitled, “Time to get back to business, Virginia” State Senator Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, and entrepreneur and Republican activist Pete Snyder call for a more aggressive reopening of Virginia. The piece questions why large companies like Home Depot are allowed to thrive while “Mom and Pop” operations…
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Reopening: Know and Avoid the Risks
By DJ Rippert The Bromage Broadcast. Erin Bromage is a professor of biology and a blogger. She will tell you that she’s not an expert epidemiologist but she recently wrote a blog entry that proves she is an eloquent writer when it comes to explaining the physics of Coronavirus to the layman. As Virginia reopens…
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Is Aubrey Layne Serious about a $2B “Hit” to Virginia’s Biennial General Fund from COVID-19?
By DJ Rippert Penny Layne. Aubrey Layne is Virginia’s Secretary of Finance under the Northam Administration. Previously, Layne served as Secretary of Transportation under the McAuliffe regime. Prior to his time in government Layne held a number of executive positions in private enterprise including the presidency of Great Atlantic Properties. Layne is listed by Wikipedia…
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Expanding an Ineffective Government Solves Nothing
By DJ Rippert The failure of American government at all levels is on display with COVID-19. Is our ever expanding government working? The percentage of U.S. Gross Domestic Product spent on government has been increasing for the past 50 years. While the percentage rises during recessions and falls during good economic times the trend-line is…
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Dare County, N.C., closes its borders
By DJ Rippert From Outer Banks to Outer Mongolia. Dare County, N.C. issued orders last week closing its borders to non-residents. Dare is a coastal county just south of Currituck County, N.C., which borders Virginia. Many Virginians know Dare County from Outer Banks vacations in towns such as Duck or fishing trips launched from Manteo.…
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Northam Shuts Down Schools. What’s Next?
By DJ Rippert Early Spring Break. Last Thursday Virginia Governor Northam somewhat suddenly decided to shut down all K-12 schools starting the next day. The shutdown is for “at least two weeks.” The question of how to manage continuing free and reduced price meals during the shutdown has been left up to the individual school districts.…
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Northam Declares State of Emergency
by DJ Rippert Danger! Danger! Yesterday, Governor Ralph Northam declared that the Old Dominion was in a state of emergency due to the Coronavirus. Northam exercised these emergency powers five days after the first Coronavirus case was confirmed in the state. The online Patch newspaper from McLean reports that “a statement from the governor says…
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More Bad News on Coronavirus
All I need is the air that I breathe. Recent research indicates that the coronavirus can live in air for 3 hours post aerosolization. The Hill reports that, “A study awaiting peer review from scientists at Princeton University, the University of California-Los Angeles and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) posted online Wednesday indicated that…
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Another Critical Coronavirus Graph
By DJ Rippert Timing. As Jim Bacon wrote, “Now comes COVID-19. Everyone is in a blind panic. The concern may be overwrought, whipped up by the media. Or maybe things could get worse than anyone could imagine. Nobody knows. Uncertainty reigns.” Jim is right. Uncertainty does reign. But what are the costs of indecision if…
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A Critical Coronavirus Graph
By DJ Rippert OK, Boomer. A study conducted last month from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention provides statistics about the lethality of COVID-19. Those statistics were analyzed by Business Insider. You can see those statistics in the graph on the left. Younger people have a one in 10,000 (0.01%) chance of dying…
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Running the Numbers on Coronavirus in America
By DJ Rippert Sprichst du panik? Liz Specht is an biologist and engineer. She is currently the Associate Director of Science and Technology at The Good Food Institute. On Friday Dr. Specht (who holds a Ph.D. from UCSD) posted a long series of tweets regarding the spread of Coronavirus and the limitations of America’s healthcare…
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How Virginia Would Fare Under President Biden, Part 1
By DJ Rippert And then there were two. Today, Elizabeth Warren announced that she will withdraw from the presidential race. That leaves Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard (yes, she’s still running) as the remaining candidates for the Democratic nomination. Given that Tulsi Gabbard has exactly one delegate (from American Samoa where she was…
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Bacon Bits on the Bay
By DJ Rippert Political action regarding the Chesapeake Bay is increasing. Here is a summary of some key issues …. Menhaden victory. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation reports, “The Virginia House and Senate have passed bipartisan legislation to transfer management of Virginia’s menhaden fisheries from the General Assembly to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC).” The…
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Would Legal Medical Marijuana in Virginia Reduce Opioid Addiction?
By DJ Rippert The lesser of two evils. The ongoing 2020 Virginia General Assembly session has generated a lot of debate over gun control. Proponents of stricter firearms regulation cite reduced gun violence as a goal. While gun-related deaths (including murder) are a real problem, those deaths are less frequent than fatal opioid overdoses. In…
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Virginia Rated Worst State for Partisan Gerrymandering
By DJ Rippert They’ll be back (in office forever). The USC Schwarzennegger Institute released a report finding that Virginia had the highest degree of partisan gerrymandering among all U.S. states. The report analyzed the “statewide popular vote in 2017 or 2018 state legislative elections and the partisan composition of the state legislative chambers in 2019.”…