Category: Corruption and Scandals
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Yeah, the Parole Board Scandal Really Is a Scandal
by James A. Bacon Bacon’s Rebellion has not given the biggest scandal of the Northam administration (since Blackface) the attention it deserves. In fact, we have given the matter little attention at all. Sorry, folks, we don’t have the resources to do it all. And there’s no need when the mainstream media is doing a…
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Bacon Bits: Jerry Reed Tribute Edition
When you’re hot you’re hot. How hot is the data center industry in Northern Virginia? It’s so hot that vacant land in parts of Prince William County is nearing $1 million per acre. “They are just building like crazy,” said Tim Leclerc, Prince William County’s assistant finance director, as reported by the Prince William Times.…
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Virginia’s Lt. Gov. and Emmett Till
by Kerry Dougherty Justin Fairfax is a deeply unserious man with an inflated sense of his own importance. On Tuesday night, as he shared a Virginia State University stage with four other Democrats who are competing for the nomination for governor, Fairfax demonstrated that he has no sense of proportion and little understanding of history,…
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COPN Monopolies Depress Income for Virginia Healthcare Professionals Without Lowering Costs
by James C. Sherlock Virginia is among the richest states in the country. We are ranked ninth among states with the highest median household income in the 2019 (latest) Census Bureau American Community Survey. Virginia median household income was $74,222 and the U.S. as a whole was $62,843. But Virginia has a Certificate of…
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“Drunk with Power”
by Kerry Dougherty Drunk with power. That might as well be the Northam administration motto. Those three words reportedly appear in a chain of internal emails among parole board members and staff that was obtained by WTVR CBS-6 Richmond. CBS claims it obtained internal Virginia Parole Board emails detailing their deliberations. “Dated April 2020, one…
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An Important Challenge to Employees of the Commonwealth
by James C. Sherlock I ask the employees of the Commonwealth of Virginia to be agents for its positive change. I will address you directly. The issue is state readiness, or rather lack of it, for the COVID epidemic. You are in the best position to know that your agency was surprised and overwhelmed when COVID…
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Confessions of a Virginia Whistleblower
by James C. Sherlock I decided last week in a paroxysm of good citizenship to contact the Virginia Inspector General (IG) to report wrongdoing by state officials. I have a considerable list centered around the failure of many state officials to carry out their longstanding, formally-assigned duties pre-COVID to plan for a pandemic emergency and…
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OSIG: Virginia’s Watchdog for Waste, Fraud and Abuse
by James A. Bacon The Northam administration is embroiled in its biggest scandal since the blackface blunder: a flap over an Office of the State Inspector General (OSIG) report into the allegedly improper release of prisoners by the Virginia Parole Board. Here’s what went down: OSIG wrote highly critical draft findings of the parole board……
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Virginia Pandemic Emergency Plan Was Never Exercised
by James C. Sherlock As we suspected, Virginia did not exercise its Pandemic Emergency Plan from the time it was published in 2012 until COVID-19 struck. I received the following response today to a FOIA request I sent to the Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Emergency Management: The Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) received your…
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Sentara and the Judge
by James C. Sherlock Updated Feb. 23 at 2:15 pm In an ongoing series of reports, Ray Locker, enterprise and investigative editor of the Checks and Balances Project, has exposed a story with far-reaching implications. Norfolk Circuit Court Chief Judge Mary Jane Hall sat in judgment on a case, Chesapeake Hosp. Auth. v. State Health Comm’r, in…
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What Texas’s Crisis Means for Virginia
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in Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Corruption and Scandals, Culture wars, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Government Finance, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Money in politics, Political Influence, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technologyby Peter Galuszka The Texas freeze and ensuing energy disaster has clear lessons for Virginia as it sorts out its energy future. Yet much of the media coverage in Virginia and certainly on Bacon’s Rebellion conveniently leaves out pertinent observations. The statewide freeze in Texas completely fouled up the entire energy infrastructure as natural gas…
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VMI Update: The WaPo Makes Another Sleazy Insinuation
by James A. Bacon In the early stages of the Barnes & Thornburg investigation into racism at the Virginia Military Institute, there was some contention over how the inquiry should be handled. Initially, VMI administrators asked for its lawyers to observe investigators’ interviews of faculty, staff and students. Barnes & Thornburg pushed back, saying the…
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Business as Usual in the Virginia Senate – “Dominion Dick” Saslaw Delivers
by James C. Sherlock Associate Press headline Feb. 15: “Virginia Senate Democrats kill electric rate reform bills.” Fish gotta swim, Senator Richard L. “Dominion Dick” Saslaw gotta be Senate Majority Leader and Chairman of the Virginia Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. Saslaw has received nearly a half million dollars in campaign donations from Dominion Energy and…
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All According to Plan – the Biggest Government Scandal in Virginia History
by James C. Sherlock The Virginia Mercury published an excellent article on the difficulties being encountered in Virginia in scheduling COVID shots. But who could have anticipated the need? Who indeed. This story is part of the single biggest government scandal in Virginia history and the press is either ignorant of the underlying issue or…
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Holding Richmond Public Schools Accountable — Part I
by James C. Sherlock We have discussed here the failures of the City of Richmond Public Schools (RPS) in educating its economically disadvantaged children, as well as the abysmal performance of Black children in its schools. I intend to help readers understand how it manages to fail repeatedly even with major federal funding as…