Month: November 2020
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Would a Mobile Crisis Team Have Saved Marcus-David Peters?
by James A. Bacon Marcus-David Peters, fatally shot in 2018 by a Richmond police officer while in the midst of a mental health crisis, has become an icon for criminal justice reform in Virginia. Protesters occupying the area around the Lee statue on Monument Avenue erected a sign (since removed) designating Lee Circle as Marcus-David…
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Bacon Bits: This and That
Casinos credit positive for Virginia cities. Now that voters in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Danville and Bristol have approved casino gambling, Moody’s, the bond rating service, has issued a report concluding that the measures are “credit positive” for the four cities. Bristol expects a proposed casino development will create recurring revenues representing more than 25% of fiscal…
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Update on Virginia K-12 School Outbreaks
by Carol J. Bova As the COVID-19 epidemic regains momentum this fall, the virus has crept into a few public schools in Virginia. Seven of ten outbreaks in progress are in the Southwest Region where there is significant current and rising community spread. The other three in the Central and Eastern regions where several September school…
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Virginia’s Worst Public Schools and Districts for Black Children
by James C. Sherlock I have competed a study of Virginia’s worst-performing schools in the education of black children. The results presented in this essay represent a scandal of the first order and demand explanations, both from the school boards and the Virginia Department of Education. In my next post I will review two books…
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Herring Is Moonlighting in Election-Law Litigation
by Emilio Jaksetic This year Attorney General Mark Herring has joined legal filings in court cases involving election law disputes in six other states. This is strange because legal disputes about the election laws of other states: (1) are not within his jurisdiction or authority, (2) have no legal effect on Virginia or its elections;…
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Sorry, Abigail, the Culture Wars Are Just Warming Up
by James A. Bacon Having narrowly survived a challenge from Republican Nick Freitas, Virginia’s 7th district congresswoman, Abigail Spanberger, had some sharp words for her Democratic Party colleagues in a conference call yesterday. Reports Politico: [Spanberger] grew angry as she warned her party against some of the rhetoric she argued hurt moderate Democrats like herself, saying…
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Virginia Rocks
By Dick Hall-Sizemore It is time to take a break and talk about something entirely different related to Virginia — how the current physical structure of the Commonwealth in the 21st century came to be. I have been taking an introductory geology course this fall from J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College. (Virtual, of course.) I…
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14,000 Overlooked Ballots Discovered on Henrico Flash Drive — Yes, It Was an Innocent Error
by James A. Bacon The conservative blogosphere is ablaze with anecdotes and accusations of Democratic Party voter fraud. I’ll leave it to others to determine if there is any substance to the charges in in locales ranging from Philadelphia to Nevada. But there is one case very close to home — in my home jurisdiction…
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A COVID Update Before the Winter Surge
by Carol J. Bova As the election furor dies down, interest will turn to the expected winter surge in COVID-19 cases. Before we get caught up in the onslaught of dire predictions in the news and resultant handwringing over national and worldwide numbers, let’s look at Virginia’s numbers.
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Anti-Bias Training… or Government-Mandated Indoctrination?
by James A. Bacon In September President Trump issued an executive order banning bias and diversity training in the federal government that inculcates divisive concepts such as the idea that some people, by virtue of their race or sex, are inherently racist, sexist or oppressive. Three days ago, Virginia’s attorney general, Mark Herring, joined a…
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Fairfax School Board Should Focus on Schools, Not Environmental Policy
by Emilio Jaksetic Not content with running the county’s public school system, the Fairfax County School Board now is involved with developing strategies and recommendations for county environmental policy. The results can be seen in the Final Report of the Oct. 1, 2020, Fairfax County Joint Environmental Task Force (JET). In April 2019, the JET…
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Initial Observations on the Virginia Election Results
by James C. Sherlock Nobody asked, me, but I offer my Wednesday morning initial assessment of the elections in Virginia. In no particular order, here they are. Until there is a Republican Party of Virginia, not the current Republican Party of me, the party candidates will remain eclectic to the point of statewide incoherence. Not…
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Virginia’s New Political Landscape
by James A. Bacon So, where do yesterday’s elections leave us? We don’t know who won the presidential election, and we probably won’t know for days, if not weeks. Still, we can draw some meaningful conclusions. Virginia remains a solid blue state. The Democrats’ political dominance has jelled. With 98.44% of votes reported, Joe Biden…
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Biden, Birx and COVID Lockdowns in Virginia
by DJ Rippert Sine wave. The third wave of COVID-19 has been spreading across the world and has come to America. As should have been expected it has also come to Virginia. Many European countries have enacted lockdowns that would be considered draconian by most Americans. Several U.S. governors have also dramatically reversed the re-opening…
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StoryCorps Seeks to Pierce “Culture of Contempt”
by Dave Isay We are in the throes of what has been called a “culture of contempt,” a nation so divided that some families may not be able to endure another Thanksgiving around the same table. Passing the yams might well come with an earful… or more. Comity has given way to scorn. Division is…