Tag: James Sherlock
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The Ongoing Tragedy of Virginia’s Nursing Homes
by James C. Sherlock Virginia’s Health Commissioners have a job that is broad and deep in its responsibilities and authorities.By statute, appointees must be physicians. Each is the chief executive of the Virginia Department of Health (VDH): a central office in Richmond and 35 local health districts. By Virginia statutes and regulations, they are also…
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The Virginia Board of Health and Nursing Homes – A Strange Appointment
by James C. Sherlock I am starting to lose my sense of humor about the whole Virginia nursing home thing. The Virginia Board of Health (VBOH) writes state regulations for every health facility and health services provider in Virginia, including nursing homes. There is a statutory seat on the VBOH for a nursing home representative.…
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SCHEV on the Community College Guaranteed Admission and Credits Programs
by James C. Sherlock I received a note from Peter Blake, director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), in reference to my column on that program in early July. He thanked, as do I, readers for their interest and supportive comments. We agree with you that (Community College Guaranteed Admissions and…
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Richmond’s 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Needs Better Judgment
by James C. Sherlock Federal judges are supposed to call balls and strikes in relation to the Constitution and the law. President Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act into law on June 3. Sec 324 of that law, Expediting Completion Of The Mountain Valley Pipeline, blocked any court from hearing cases about permits for the…
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Youngkin Bans State Endorsements of Websites Targeted at Kids’ Sexuality That Do Not Require Parental Consent — WAPO Oobjects
by James C. Sherlock The Washington Post editorial board, like its news pages, has stubbornly and selectively ignored a lot of big news: the ongoing emergence of testimony under oath of whistleblowers recounting the IRS and Justice Department’s handling of all things Biden; evidence like strings of single-purpose bank accounts used by and for current…
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Nursing Homes – What Could Go Wrong?
by James C. Sherlock I have written a lot recently about staffing shortages in Virginia nursing homes and the Commonwealth’s national ranking near the bottom of the states for staffing measures. It is appropriate to ask why that matters. Federal analyses of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) data offer the answer. In proposing…
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Staffing Has Collapsed in Many Virginia Nursing Homes, Creating a Health Crisis for Our Most Vulnerable Citizens
by James C. Sherlock I am seldom surprised by Virginia’s nursing home staffing problems, but new government data show no progress on staffing since October of last year. Data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services show that the number of significantly understaffed facilities has not budged in seven months. The numbers don’t lie.…
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An Utter (and Videotaped) Disgrace of the Virginia General Assembly
by James C. Sherlock Whatever the Virginia Health Care Association (VHCA), the state’s nursing home lobbying organization, pays its General Counsel, Scott Johnson, it is not enough. He has been representing them for 20 years, and he owns the General Assembly. This is going to sound boring as I frame the background that is the…
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Loudoun County Public Schools – Part 2 – Sterling
by James C. Sherlock We are told by the left that more money is the answer to better schools. That is what Virginia Democrats are running on as education policy. I am comparing two high schools in America’s richest county, Loudoun, to control for per pupil expenditures. In Part 1 we looked at Freedom High…
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Where Do Dems Stand on Civil Immunity for Law Enforcement Officers?
by James C. Sherlock Being a law enforcement officer is tough under the best of circumstances. Do you think that exposure to losing your house and car in a civil suit for something you did in a split second to protect the public and yourself and did not have reason to know was against the…
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Equal Protection, Affirmative Action and Effecting Generational Change
by James C. Sherlock America is the most successful nation in the history of the world because of the freedoms and rights guaranteed by our Constitution. More than a hundred other nations have emulated the American Constitution. Without constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and rights, we would be chained to the whims of the state. Most immediately…
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Nursing Shortages Require Better Oversight of Virginia Nursing Homes – Part Two – State Action Required
by James C. Sherlock Patterns of understaffing, medical harm and abuse in nursing homes are traceable: in some cases to a business model of understaffing to increase profits. Federal fines are built into the business models of the bad actors. Some of the worst post double-digit annual operating margins; in some to other systemic chain-wide…
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Supreme Court Decision on Racial Preferences in College Recruiting Should Doom Much of DEI in State Institutions of Higher Learning
by James C. Sherlock It is the day to celebrate America’s freedoms. It is also a good day to enforce them. United States Constitution, Amendment XIV, Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they…
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Culture Wars about College Admissions Tend to Ignore Guaranteed Entry from Virginia Community Colleges
by James C. Sherlock Much angst has accompanied the Supreme Court’s decision banning overt racial preferences in admissions to colleges as violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The conversations in the comments to Jim Bacon’s article on admissions were as split philosophically/politically as is anything else these days.…
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A Simple Statement of Fact about the Public Schools
by James C. Sherlock I know. Schools. Again. But Virginia’s schools have been shown to be getting worse faster than those of other states. Perhaps we should do something. Read the National Assessment Board’s press release from June 21st. One paragraph drew my attention: The LTT assessments in reading and math measure fundamental skills among nationally…