Month: July 2021
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Media in COVID Feeding Frenzy
by Kerry Dougherty Many years ago, Virginia’s most prominent political scientist, Larry Sabato, wrote a book called “Feeding Frenzy.” If memory serves — and it’s been years since I read it — the University of Virginia professor analyzed how the media mob swam from scandal to scandal, feeding on wounded politicians like a school of…
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Is DOJ’s Focus on Healthcare Monopolies Coming to Virginia?
by James C. Sherlock The Acting head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, Richard A. Powers, yesterday delivered a speech that described the Justice Department’s new goals, strategies and resources for criminal antitrust enforcement. The clouds have darkened over Virginia’s healthcare monopolies. The Commonwealth. Virginia has failed in its duty to oversee its healthcare industry. The…
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Agriculture in Great Falls?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Well, it seems as if rich folks in leftist-leaning Albemarle are not the only rich folks availing themselves of real estate tax breaks. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports today that Glenn Youngkin and his wife have saved 95% of their real estate taxes on their horse “farm” in Great Falls, the posh area…
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Hmmm… Implementing DE&I Might Be Trickier Than It Sounds
Here follows the transcript of an entirely fictional videoconference between University of Virginia President Jim Ryan and his Executive Cabinet. The author is not intending to be satirical. He is illuminating the issues that any honest effort to implement a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion agenda will encounter. — JAB by Jon Jewett President Ryan: I…
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The Missing Data in the School-Mask Mandate Controversy
by James A. Bacon The Northam administration has issued new guidelines urging unvaccinated students and staff to keep wearing masks in K-12 schools this fall — but won’t require them to do so. Some school districts, like Chesapeake, have voted to nix the masks, while others, like Virginia Beach (see Kerry Dougherty’s column below), will…
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Far-Left Beach School Board Ignores Cries to Remove Masks
by Kerry Dougherty I’ve seen this movie before, I thought, as I watched Tuesday night’s Virginia Beach School Board meeting on my computer. And I know how it ends. To the parents lined up to speak in favor of a motion to make masks optional for students this fall I wanted to shout, Save your…
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A Deeper Dive into CNBC’s Rankings
by Chris Saxman In doing a deeper dive on the CNBC Top States for Business rankings, two quotes keep running through my unsettled mind. Why unsettled? Well, last year I posed this question to Virginia FREE’s Board of Directors: If Virginia was a stock, would you Buy, Sell, or Hold? Not one said Buy. They…
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Libraries, Drag Queens and Culture Wars
by James A. Bacon As a conservative with libertarian leanings, I have no quarrel with drag queens. If men want to dress like women… that’s not my thing, but it’s a free country. If men like to dress like women and sing in night clubs, that’s fine, too. Some are very entertaining — and they…
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VMI, Character and the Blessings of God
by Carmen Villani At the conclusion of sporting events, the Corps of Cadets, players, and alumni join as one in singing the VMI Doxology. It ends with – “God Bless our team and V-M-I!” During its nearly 182-year history, the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) has aligned itself with Judeo-Christian values, emphasizing character and servant leadership.…
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Yes, CRT Is Being Taught in Schools
by Hans Bader On July 15, a Reuters fact-check claimed that “many Americans embrace falsehoods about Critical Race Theory.” But it is Reuters that embraced a falsehood, not the American people. Reuters denied that Critical Race Theory teaches that “discriminating against white people is the only way to achieve equality,” saying that was a “misconception”…
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Will Pregnant Women Go the Way of the Gypsy Moth?
by Kerry Dougherty When I want to know what’s going on in Virginia, I usually turn to The Richmond-Times Dispatch. Despite cutbacks that have plagued the entire newspaper industry, the TD continues a tradition of good journalism without a glaring agenda or obvious slant on its news pages. The paper’s coverage of the parole board…
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A Compromise for Confederate Statues
I was visiting Berryville this weekend to attend my niece’s wedding when I happened upon this statue at the Clarke County courthouse. My thought: That’s one way to handle the Confederate statue conundrum. Don’t take it down. But never prune the tree growing all around it. In a couple more years, the statue still will…
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Richmond Schools’ Flawed Data Threatens Federal Funds
by James C. Sherlock The massive flows of federal and state funding to local school districts are based largely on data reported by the schools to their districts, the districts to the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), and VDOE to the U.S. Department of Education. In Fiscal Year 2018, the U.S. Department of Education sent…
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The Left Acknowledges Virginia’s Violent Crime Spike
by James A. Bacon It’s good to see that our colleagues at The Virginia Mercury understand that Virginia does have a crime problem. As an article by Graham Moomaw acknowledges in the lead paragraph, Virginia’s homicide rate hit a 20-year high in 2020, and violent crimes are trending even higher in some cities this year.…
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Chaos In the Streets, er, In the Sidewalks
by James A. Bacon Sidewalks are going to get very crowded, and now is the time to start thinking about what to do about it. We all know that self-driving cars soon will become a common sight, but a white paper, “The Last Block,” by Canadian Bern Grush, an occasional contributor to Bacon’s Rebellion several …