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Jeanine’s Memes
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After Last Year’s Overhaul, Va. Lawmakers Consider Tweaking K-12 Assessment Testing
Bills would address students’ final grade, administration of tests and retakes
by Nathaniel Cline
Less than a year after it was enacted, lawmakers will revisit a proposal that brought major changes to Virginia’s K-12 public school testing system, with the main debate centering on whether to keep or repeal a provision passed last year that requires assessments to count for 10% of students’ final grades.
Photo credit: Virginia Mercury Overhauling the testing system aims to raise student performance, strengthen outcomes and make the Standards of Learning (SOL) assessments in core subjects (math, reading, history and social science) more meaningful.
The changes made to SOL testing to tie test scores to final grades, shift test timing, and give parents clearer results garnered widespread support in the General Assembly. However, some lawmakers, like Del. Kelly Convirs-Fowler, D-Virginia Beach, who opposed certain portions, argued the education community did not entirely support the revamp. (more…)
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Keep RGGI Tax Off Customers? Good Luck With That
by Steve Haner
Sen. Adam Ebbin
Photo credit: Washington PostVirginia Democrats are so eager to reinstate a carbon tax on Virginia’s electricity producers that there are now three pathways active to accomplish the goal: a bill, a budget amendment and a motion filed with the Virginia Court of Appeals.
There is also discussion in the most recent Inside Climate News report today about finding some way to make the utility companies and independent generators eat the cost. Otherwise, what will happen in 2026 and beyond will be what happened during the previous three years Virginia imposed the tax – it will get passed on to customers.
Inside Climate News quoted Alexandria Senator Adam Ebbin saying “there very well may be” a way to make energy producers pick up more of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative costs. No, not the energy producers, senator – but you could force the cost onto the shareholders of those companies. (In the case of Virginia’s many electric cooperatives, the shareholders and the customers are the same, so no break for them.)
Too many legislators and voters do not understand the basic truth that only people pay taxes. Tax a business (or impose a tariff) and the money generally is made up three ways: from a price increase, or a reduction in profits shared with the owners or stockholders, or some internal cost cut, usually in personnel or benefits. All three combined are a possibility. The money comes from people.
It is also a basic tenet of the regulatory compact that grants our utilities their monopoly territories that they are entitled to recover 100% of their legitimate costs. All their other taxes – and there are many — come through to customers on bills, and the RGGI tax should be the same.
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Bacon Meme of the Week
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Touching the Third Rail: A Legislative Pay Raise to $45K
Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax), An amendment to the introduced state budget, proposed by Senator Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, adds $2.1 million to the Legislative Department plan for the second year (fiscal year 2028). Explanation? This amendment provides $2.1 million GF the second year to increase the salary of the members of the General Assembly to $45,000 a year from current levels for all Senators and Delegates. This increase would be effective in January 2028, after the next election of the General Assembly.
Current salaries are $17,640 per annum for members of the House of Delegates and $18,000 per annum for State Senators. The discrepancy goes back to the early 1990s, when in a budget crunch former Governor Douglas Wilder proposed 2% pay cuts for state employees. The Republicans in the House of Delegates, then in a minority status close to where they are now, offered a floor amendment to reduce legislative salaries the same 2%. Enough House Democrats went along to put it into the budget.
And the final conference committee on the budget thought it was a fine idea — for House members — but restored the full $18,000 for Senators. Wilder, a former member of the Senate, didn’t object. The salary differential has remained the same for more than 30 years, while the other forms of legislative compensation (mileage, per diem, stipends for off-session meetings) have soared. Just who were the fiscally conservative House Republicans and their staff person who dreamed up that floor amendment? Lost in the fog of time. Ahem. My memory fades on who was executive director of the GOP caucus that year. (It probably has saved taxpayers about $1.25 million at $36,000 per year!).
Be careful what you ask for? Isn’t that the phrase? — SDH
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Minneapolis, Here We Come
All the pieces are falling into place for Minneapolis-style chaos in Virginia.
On Fox News, White House border czar Tom Homan responds to Governor Abigail Spanberger’s executive order suspending the Virginia State ‘s mandatory cooperation with ICE. Homan vows the Trump administration “will forge ahead with its deportation efforts despite resistance from Virginia’s new Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger.”
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Abigail Spanberger: The Left’s Trojan Horse
Image made by Grok by Kerry Dougherty
Remember last summer’s gubernatorial campaign? All of candidate Abigail Spanberger’s happy talk about affordability, moderation and working across the aisle?
Congratulations, voters. You got played.
If there was any lingering hope that the Democrat majority in Richmond would wield their power judiciously that was laid to rest this week. It’s clear now that Virginians elected a far-left radical as governor and filled the General Assembly with left-wing extremists.
What could possibly go wrong?
Oh, the Trojan horse governor may make a show of vetoing a bill or two in order to position herself as a moderate when she seeks national office (you’ve been warned) but by turning Virginia into a sanctuary state with the stroke of a pen on Inauguration Day, she was immediately unmasked.
In one week the new governor and her friends have turned Virginia into a woke DEI-worshipping, Marxist sanctuary state. They’ve proposed massive tax increases, gun restrictions, revolving doors on prisons and abolishing mandatory minimum sentences for serious criminals from kiddie porn peddlers to rapists. They want to make it easy to sue law enforcement officers and hard to lock up criminals. Oh, they also want boys competing in girl’s sports and they have several bills aimed at making voter fraud easier to commit. Continue reading.
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Education Tax Credits In Virginia – A Win Win On the Politics?
You know who likes optionality? That’s right, politicians do.
by Andrew Rotherham
Let’s start with the high note. I came of age in the Mary Sue Terry and Douglas Wilder era of Virginia politics. Robert Frye, the first Black school board chair in Fairfax County, lived a few houses down from me. That first might not seem like a big deal now, but it was at the time. Abigail Spanberger becoming governor of Virginia this past weekend is another important—albeit, in my view, long overdue—first. It’s good to see. She’s going to have her hands full, though. Her pick for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jenna Conway, is a fantastic choice, serious talent.
Created by Grok Earlier this month, on his way out the door at the end of this term (Virginia governors only serve one), outgoing Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) announced that Virginia would participate in the new K-12 education tax credit program included in last year’s tax bill—the “OB3,” or whatever you want to call it bill. On the one hand, the Virginia announcement was a little premature. The regulations for the new program (which we just talked about) aren’t done, and there are potential moving parts. On the other hand, Youngkin is a private citizen again, and he was in a hurry at the end of his term.
People predictably fell apart.
Let’s stipulate we probably won’t see the same reaction if Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D), who also said his state will participate, ends up as the Democratic nominee in 2028. Or if other blue state governors get it. Former Obama Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and former Democratic mayor Jorge Elorza have urged Blue states to participate. I’m not saying it’s a great policy you should embrace. I am suggesting you evaluate it on its merits rather than let partisanship rot your brain. There is a lot going on here around it. (more…)
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Is There a Doctor in the House?
Part 1: Medical Directors
by James C. Sherlock
The active presence of the medical director in a nursing home is vital to maintaining the quality of care. By overseeing medical practices, implementing care policies, ensuring compliance with professional standards, and, if required, butting heads with facility administrators and owners, the medical director plays a crucial role in safeguarding residents’ health and well-being.
Few physicians would tolerate the levels of understaffing, poor care, and dangerous policies driven by some out-of-state chains in too many Virginia nursing homes. The results include neglect, abuse, and deaths of helpless people.
Many nursing homes do a great job of caring for their residents. We thank all of you. But public data support the conclusions that in some nursing homes:
- Medical directors are not present to the extent required by the patients’ needs or by law;
- They do not effectively intervene on behalf of patients; and
- Many are overextended.
The Case of Dr. Abbasi
In March 2025, a judge in one of the multiple scandals that erupted at Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center (Colonial Heights) in December of 2024 was asked to decide whether a physician, arrested and charged with elder abuse for what prosecutors called a “lack of oversight of patient care” in the death of a resident, should be allowed to continue practicing medicine at the facility. The defendant, Gohar Maqsood Abbasi, MD., was both the medical director at Colonial Heights and a mandated reporter. The judge decided that oversight of the practice of medicine was the state’s responsibility, not the court’s. He was right.
In the pending criminal case, Dr. Abassi is innocent until proven guilty.
Dr. Abbasi has an active license to practice medicine in Virginia. His license data indicates that he limits his commitments within the bounds of what should be doable:
- sees patients 5 days a week and spends 60% of his time at his primary practice address in Chester,
- participates in Medicare and Medicaid and accepts new patients in both,
- is subject to no Virginia Board of Medicine Notices or Orders, and
- has paid no malpractice claims.
Facilities licenses show he serves or has served as medical director at three nearby nursing homes:
- He was replaced as medical director at Colonial Heights (Lifeworks Rehab chain) effective 2025-12-08, a year after the raid. Colonial Heights averages 137 residents per day,
- Henrico Health & Rehabilitation Center (Lifeworks Rehab), 108 residents per day. As Virginia’s only Special Focus Facility, Henrico Health and Rehab is designated by the state as, over time, the worst nursing home in the Commonwealth, and
- Canterbury Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center (Marquis Health Services), 177 residents per day, whose residents suffered the Commonwealth’s largest loss of life during COVID.
He discloses affiliations (see below) with:
- Group: Prime Care Health Services PC,
- Hospitals: John Randolph Medical Center and Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center, and
- Nursing homes: Canterbury Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center and Henrico Health & Rehabilitation Center.
While the government charges Dr. Abbasi with malfeasance, the publicly available records do not help its case.
He was not overcommitted. Two days a week serving as the medical director for those three facilities should have been sufficient. While the facilities did not help him by reporting that no medical director was on payroll, Medicare, for some unfathomable reason, allows direct provider billing for medical director services rather than facility billing.
But the case raises complex and important questions well beyond this one instance about the enforcement of laws and regulations governing nursing home medical direction.
Public records provide both answers and questions. The conflicts among reports from the same providers are legion. But they speak loudly enough, even with and often especially because of the conflicts, that no commentary is required or offered.
It is the government’s business to deal with the issues raised.
(more…)
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60,000 Wildlife Crashes Per Year
From the Capital Region Land Conservancy:
“Virginia is one of the first states in the eastern United States to create a Wildlife Corridor Action Plan that has a clear emphasis on protecting vital wildlife habitat corridors and reducing vehicular conflicts. With approximately 60,000 crashes each year, Virginia is one of the top ten states for such wildlife-vehicles collisions, costing over $500 million annually in property damage, injuries, and loss of life.
“Virginia’s Wildlife Corridor Action Plan is a cooperative effort between the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Virginia Department of Transportation, and Virginia Department of Forestry.”
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Keeping up With Mamdani, Part II
Publicly owned housing is such a roaring success that Delegate Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, D-Alexandria, wants to create more of it.
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Never Given a Hearing, Never Asked a Question
Tweet by Garrett Exner, former Board of Visitors member at the Virginia Military Institute:
Garrett Exner @GlennYoungkin appointed me to the Board of Visitors at Virginia Military Institute. Unfortunately,
@vademocrats voted to deny my appointment in what the Governor describes below as a, “shameful episode.”
I was never given a hearing.
(more…)
I was never asked a question.
I was never provided a reason for my denial.
As far as I know, my appointment was never fully reviewed.
The Privileges and Elections Committee rejected my appointment for partisan politics. When pressed, Majority Leader, @ssurovell, cited “genuine concerns about the qualifications, backgrounds, and intentions,” of Youngkin appointees at VMI and other universities.
Mr. Surovell is not a veteran.
He has never deployed.
He has never prepared young men and women for service to the nation.
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The BIG ONE Is Coming!!
Maybe.
by Kerry Dougherty
All week American meteorologists have been vibrating with joy. Sleeves rolled up, laser pointers trembling as they assure us that THE BIG ONE is coming.
To the South!
Every forecast included the words “once in a lifetime” or “historic.”
Southerners were ordered to buy milk, bread and a sled dog.
“I’m talking feet not inches of snow,” one giddy weather guy gushed.
On Tuesday they warned of at least 12 inches of snow in Tidewater – possibly more – declaring there was no doubt that the region would be buried this weekend because “all of the models have come together.” Continue reading.
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“Free” Heat Pumps the Rest of Us Will Pay For
by Steve Haner
A free heat pump for thousands of Virginians who are now using oil or propane to heat their homes, paid for by Virginia’s general population of electricity ratepayers. That is the goal of legislation that passed its first hurdle in a House of Delegate subcommittee Tuesday on a bipartisan vote.
House Bill 2 is the same as legislation vetoed last year by former Governor Glenn Youngkin (R). The language linked is a substitute adopted Tuesday, and it will be in front of the full Labor and Commerce Committee on Thursday afternoon. (Contact information for members is on that committee link.) Next week, as the legislators are gathered on a snowy Capitol Hill, it will reach the full House of Delegates.
The bill applies to both Dominion Energy Virginia and Appalachian Power Company. Under it they will have the job of finding all the low-income households in their territories that are not using electricity for heat. Anybody still using wood or coal is certainly also covered by this, but it doesn’t seem to apply to natural gas heating customers – yet.
The proponents want 30 percent of those eligible Dominion customers, and 2,000 of Appalachian Power Company’s eligible households switched out to heat pumps within five years.
Nobody asked the platoon of utility lobbyists in the room or the delegation of State Corporation Commission staff just how many low-income households under that definition are in Dominion or Appalachian’s service zones. No legislator queried what is the average cost of ripping out somebody’s oil or propane equipment and tanks and replacing them with the high efficiency heat pumps.
But the line of advocates for the bill was long. Watch the video of the bill discussion, easy to find because this was the first bill. When a line of advocates for poverty programs, for the elimination of hydrocarbon energy, for renovation contractors and for the electric utilities themselves are all singing from the same hymnal, know that there is a huge bag of your money on the table.
(more…)
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VMI in the Crosshairs
Washington Post headline: “Virginia Democrats target military college’s funding after anti-DEI push. Democrats launch effort that could ultimately end Virginia Military Institute’s status as a state-funded university.”
Money quote:
“We need to determine whether this is an institution capable of change,” said resolution sponsor Del. Dan Helmer (D-Fairfax), who previously forced VMI to protect students who’ve reported sexual assaults on campus. Helmer, a U.S. Military Academy at West Point graduate, said Virginia taxpayer money should not be given to an institution “incapable of separating itself from a Lost Cause ideology that promotes White supremacy.”
Question: Has VMI, in fact, shown itself, since the retirement of former Superintendent Cedric T. Wins, to be promoting Lost Cause ideology and White supremacy? What is the factual basis behind Helmer’s assertion?
