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.”
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.
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.
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…)
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:
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:
Facilities licenses show he serves or has served as medical director at three nearby nursing homes:
He discloses affiliations (see below) with:
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…)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.”
Publicly owned housing is such a roaring success that Delegate Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, D-Alexandria, wants to create more of it.
Tweet by Garrett Exner, former Board of Visitors member at the Virginia Military Institute:
@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.
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.
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.
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…)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?
Like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, some Virginia Democrats want to achieve “affordability” through rent control.
by Hans Bader
In Virginia, some legislators want to give local governments the ability to impose cumbersome rent controls on housing. That’s a mistake.
Rent control killed multifamily housing construction in Maryland’s most populous county. Getting rid of rent control greatly expanded the amount of rental housing in Argentina, without raising rents (one of the many reasons that occurred is that people were more willing to rent out rooms if they didn’t have to worry about being prevented by rent control from raising rents in the future to cover rising costs, such as the need to renovate or pay rising utility or mortgage bills). Indeed, average rents actually fell in inflation-adjusted terms in Argentina after the end of rent control. Around 93% of economists say rent control is bad, because it reduces the quantity and quality of housing.
Legislators have introduced two bills targeting so-called “rent gouging,” defining rent increases of over 3% as rent gouging. That’s a weird, unreasonable definition of rent gouging, because even pro-tenant rent-control boards sometimes allow rent increases bigger than 3%, and expenses often rise faster than 3%. Inflation was about 7% in 2021 and 2022, far above 3%. But HB278 and SB355 would authorize local “rent-gouging” ordinances, under which a landlord “cannot increase the rent by more than the locality’s calculated allowance, not to exceed three percent.”
(more…)
Surveillance of some… Senate Bill 84: “Authorizes state and local law-enforcement agencies to place and operate pedestrian crossing violation and stop sign violation monitoring systems in school crossing zones, highway work zones, and high-risk speed corridors for purposes of recording pedestrian cross and stop sign violations.”
But not of others… Senate Bill 83: “Requires the chief judge of each general district court, juvenile and domestic relations court, and circuit court to set a policy regarding the use and possession of portable electronic devices, defined in the bill as a personal laptop, a tablet, a mobile telephone, an electronic calendar, and electronic book reader, a smart watch or any other electronic personal communication device.”
by Victoria Manning
Restoration News has uncovered school districts across Virginia offering telehealth mental health therapy for children without parental permission. State law permits telehealth in schools, but requires parental consent and the adoption of school board policies on the topic. Federal law also prohibits the disclosure of private student information, but these laws are ignored in multiple districts.
Hazel Health is a third-party provider for mental health services for at least 13 school districts in Virginia. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to these districts reveal most are ignoring state telehealth laws. School boards are required to develop policies that include specific provisions of the law. They must also enter into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the provider in accordance with a model memo adopted by the state Education Department.
While school boards are not required to offer telehealth counseling, those that do must meet legal obligations. State law requires school board policies to include a provision for parental consent and to designate a private location in the school for students to receive counseling services.
The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) prohibits schools from disclosing personally identifiable information in student records. Yet multiple Virginia school districts are defying this law.
(more…)The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….
This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.
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