Tag: Guest contributors
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The Shocking Number of Hispanic COVID-19 Deaths for Ages 35 to 64
by Carol J. Bova The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) death certificate reports are the one reliable indicator of the impact of Covid-19 on the various population groups in Virginia. The CDC racial/ethnic breakdown from 2/1/20 to 7/4/20 of all deaths from COVID-19 alone, together with COVID-19 and pneumonia, shows Virginia Hispanics accounted for 12.6%…
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Inequity Accounting for Hispanic COVID-19 Cases
by Carol J. Bova Last week Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, D-Prince William, wrote a letter to Governor Ralph Northam decrying the high rate of COVID-19 infection in Virginia’s Hispanic population. She blamed “longstanding and systemic factors, such as disparate access to information, testing, and treatment.” Jim Bacon responded that Virginia Department of Health (VDH) data…
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Virginia Supremes Uphold SCC, Rule Against Wal-Mart
by L. Steve Emmert Yesterday the Supreme Court of Virginia issued a ruling in Wal-Mart Stores East, LP v. SCC. The question here is whether Wal-Mart can shed the shackles of buying electricity from the dominant utility, a regulated monopoly that you know as VEPCO or APCO, depending on where in Virginia you are. Some time…
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Homeschooling the New Normal in Loudoun?
by Elise Daniel By trying to please everyone with their COVID-19 response plan, Loudoun County Public Schools are angering most parents. When the LCPS school board voted last week to move forward with a hybrid model for schooling in the fall, it disappointed the majority of parents who voted to keep their children in school…
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Virginia’s Latest Folly – Offshore Wind Power
by David Wojick Dominion Energy is planning to begin construction on 2,600 MW of offshore wind generating capacity within the next few years. The wind farm planned off the cost of Virginia Beach would be the largest offshore project in the United States. We are talking about something like 220 giant windmills, embedded in the…
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The COVID Surge — Virginia Hangs Tight
by Verhaal Kenner As of July 1st, Virginia is now in “Phase III” reopening as our state’s COVID cases seem to be almost holding mostly steady despite record daily infections in a few hot spots such as Hampton Roads. Phase III means the reopening of non-essential retail and restaurants (with six-foot table spacing). The complete …
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Unbiased Research on Race Becoming Taboo
by Hans Bader It is now dangerous for an academic to conduct or even discuss research that shows an absence of racial bias in the criminal justice system. An Asian-American college official was forced to resign his position after discussing such research, as The College Fix reports in the article, “Scholar forced to resign over…
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“Equity” and the Performance of Virginia’s Black and White Students
by John Butcher The estimable Jim Bacon suggests that the Northam administration’s emphasis on “equity” and “restorative-justice” is keeping disorderly students in the classroom to the detriment of the other students. As well, he posits that behavior problems are more common among black students so the effect should be larger in divisions with larger black…
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How Greeniacs Destroy the Environment
by Paul Driessen The US Supreme Court recently ruled 7-2 to reverse a lower court ruling invalidating a permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which will bring West Virginia natural gas to Virginia and North Carolina, for home heating, factory power, electricity generation and manufacturing petrochemical feedstocks. Environmentalists had claimed the U.S. Forest Service had no…
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Where Are the Other 52 Nursing Homes with Outbreaks?
by Carol J. Bova The governor’s Long Term Care Facility Task Force list shows 179 nursing home and assisted living facilities with outbreaks of COVID-19. There are 52 more, according to the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) Outbreaks tab on the daily COVID-19 data, but no explanation why they’re missing from the Task Force list.…
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How Did VDH Miss 1,100 Suspected Cases?
by Carol J. Bova When Governor Northam announced the release of the Virginia Health Department (VDH) COVID-19 details for specific nursing homes and assisted living facilities on June 19, he explained the reversal in policy: “It is also important that this information is released now, given inconsistent information reported at the federal level.” The governor’s…
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Get Ready for the Taxpayer-Funded University Bailout
by Shaun Kenney Consider for a moment how much of a college or university’s budget comes from room and board, not to mention the prosperity of the surrounding economy. Now consider the precarious position most colleges and universities are in America, beset on all sides by administrators, federal and state regulations, and a college campus…
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VDH Playing Catch Up
by Carol J. Bova The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has made two major recent changes on the COVID-19 dashboard. On June 15, under Race and Ethnicity in the demographics tab, VDH moved about 20,000 cases between categories and added 380 total new cases. Category Cases reduced by… …
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The Divine Puzzle of Life as Seen by a Native Son of Virginia
by B.K. Fulton Our Nation has not yet fully addressed its original sin . . . the savage institution of slavery. The residue of inequality still permeates our shores and infects the globe as a pandemic of the mind. Despite our scientific similarities (we are more alike than different), when it comes to power —…
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Loophole Allows Nursing Homes to Cover Up COVID-19 History
by Carol J. Bova The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) published an interim final rule with comment period (IFC) on May 8 that provided more flexibility for health care providers “to respond effectively to the serious health threats posed by the spread of COVID-19.” The rule amended Medicare policies on an interim basis to…