This article was revised on November 16 to provide a better view of the data. The format the author chose wasn’t getting the job done, so he revised it. Changes in the text are made only to reflect the updated spreadsheet. It should provide more clarity.
This will be a sub-series on nursing homes sorted by region in Virginia. The regional classifications correspond to the ones used by the Virginia Department of Health.
The comments on each region will focus on staffing because of its paramount importance, but the data offer much more information.
The University of Virginia enjoys a near-exact copy of Raphael’s School of Athens — nearly a copy only because the original is owned by the Vatican which has a certain allergy regarding exact copies of their collections. In their wisdom, a near-exact copy was produced that is precisely four inches smaller than the one found in the Apostolic Segnatura.
The room where Raphael’s most famous work was originally designed for the library and study of Pope Julius II only to be converted to use by the Vatican’s equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court — quite literally the Courts of Grace and Justice.
Politicians are often quick to mention that politics itself is not and never will be the School of Athens. The late Virginia State Senator Russ Potts used to quip that politics ain’t beanbag, which is true only in the sense that beanbag at least had a certain set of rules and a culture of honor. After all, who would beanbag someone twice in an elevator?
The problem with “defending democracy”
Of course, Raphael’s painting was there for the consideration of an audience, initially popes and cardinals only to yield to those presenting their cases before the court. One of those lessons is in the upper left, where among the people are two characters. The man to the right? None other than Socrates himself enumerating his case before the mob. Within the midst of this mob, a man clad in armor with his hand on the hilt of his sword. Who is this individual? Some believe him to be Alexander the Great, others Pericles — and others believe him to be Alcibiades (Pericles’ heir).
Some chains offering the worst nursing homes in America have established a singular process for profit maximization. It is seen in a combination of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data on their operating subsidiaries and city/county property records on their real estate subsidiaries.
CMS and state agencies, failing systematically to access property records, do not fully understand those structures.
The scheme makes frail and injured people suffer horribly and die too soon from a lack of both medical treatment and assistance with the activities of daily living. Stomach-turning stories of the outcomes and citations for neglect and abuse are regularly recorded in state inspection reports. Small fines sometimes follow. They constitute rounding errors in the profits.
The managers and owners of the chains do not care. Administrators and Directors of Nursing in their operating facilities go along or are fired. Medical Directors work for the chains, not the operating subsidiaries, and seldom, if ever, visit residents.
The process used is stunningly profitable. Seldom is anyone held accountable.
The whole scheme is based upon government-insured loans. This article will recommend a permanent solution to that problem.
Usually, U.S. Senator Mark Warner revels in being the deal-making, more conservative Virginia Senator, wearing liberal attacks as a badge of honor. Senator Tim Kaine is usually attacked by conservative Republicans for being too liberal and suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Kaine revels in those attacks.
Photo credit: Washington Post
But on the congressional shutdown vote, Kaine went Republican MAGA right while Warner went Bernie Sanders left. Has politics flipped its magnetic field? Is the rapture so close that Tim and Mark are trying to get good with God?
The answer is far simpler. Warner is up for reelection next year. He knows he’s vulnerable to a primary challenge from the Bernie Sanders wing of Democratic party. The Vermont Senator Sanders is already all over the Internet, blasting the eight Democrats who voted with the Republicans. Sanders hasn’t accused them of selling out to Trump. Or being like the leaders of Vichy France. Not yet anyway. Warner figured it was better to join Bernie than fight him. It surely seemed the safer political move. But is it really?
Senator Kaine is not up for reelection next year. It’s no surprise none of the Democrats siding with the Trump Republicans are up for reelection next year. As Yogi Berra would say, some things are too coincidental to be a coincidence.
A look at some of the far-left laws Virginia Democrats will enact in 2026 now that they have full control of the General Assembly and governor’s mansion.
The Golden Gate Bridge spanning the James River. Image credit: Grok
by Victoria Manning
Democrats have been in control of at least one branch of Virginia state government since 2013, with complete control in 2020 and 2021. Although Republicans wielded Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s veto pen for the last four years, they were unable to enact any legislative changes to help the commonwealth. Now that Democrats have full control of all branches of government, Virginia will quickly become East California.
Some of the most concerning actions that Democrats have already promised are two constitutional amendments that will be placed on the 2026 ballot. The first will be one of the most radical abortion laws in the nation—permitting abortion up until birth with no restrictions. The other is a redistricting effort that will allow Democrats to control nearly all congressional and legislative districts. Democrats hope to undo a 2020 constitutional amendment, supported by 66 percent of Virginians, which created a bipartisan redistricting commission.
On the campaign trail,Democrats also promised to eradicate Virginia’s right to work laws. Mandatory union collective bargaining for the public sector, including teachers’ unions, will be quickly implemented.
Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger promised to quickly rescind Gov. Youngkin’s executive order requiring state police cooperate with ICE. Virginia will become a sanctuary state for illegal alien criminals.
If the voters were upset with the way things are, it sure didn’t come with an imprimatur for stupid.
by Shaun Kenney
A few key takeaways:
Virginia Democrats ran on affordability — and will now have to deliver.
Speaker Don Scott is pledging to govern with restraint; cautions against overreach.
Virginia Republicans turn in worst gubernatorial result since 1965.
Fewest number of Republicans in House of Delegates since 1988, which opens up the Virginia GOP to new leadership options in 2027.
Virginia Republicans will have to find a new leadership cadre repudiating the antisemitic “groyper” right — the serious infection being underreported.
Victory has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan. So goes the old saw about who to blame as Virginians have been drowned in a series of self-crafted after-action reports which seek to fix blame rather than fix the problem.
Of course, it’s not terribly hard to decipher what message Virginians were sending and to whom, and why Virginia Republicans struggledgot our asses kicked failed to resonate against a national backdrop. Some lessons:
In Prince William County, the story of the PW Digital Gateway has become a master class in legal hypocrisy. After a complete examination of the evidence, Judge Kimberly A. Irving ruled that the Board of County Supervisors’ vote approving the massive data center corridor was void ab initio because the County failed to provide the public with legally required notice, the developers cried foul. Now, before the Virginia Court of Appeals, they are wringing their hands and lamenting “irreparable harm.”
Let’s be clear: the only irreparable harm at stake here is the damage these developers are trying to inflict on the rule of law, public trust, and the integrity of Prince William County’s zoning process.
The Oak Valley Homeowners Association motion to the Appeals Court to reconsider their stay granted to the defendants provides a complete view of Judge Irving’s decision, and what the defendants buried in their briefs to the Appeals Court.
No one on SNAP should be getting their brows, lashes or nails done. If they can afford those luxuries they can feed their own families.
by Kerry Dougherty
Looks like the Democrats caved. Finally.
Or at least 9 of them came to their senses regarding the damaging government shutdown that is in its 40th day.
They got nothing. The shutdown was for nothing. Yet it did ensure that a seething bloc of Virginia federal workers headed to the polls last Tuesday to elect the most left-wing slate in the commonwealth’s history.
It’s no coincidence that five days after federal workers stormed the polls and sent a radical band of wokesters to Richmond, the shutdown was grinding to a halt.
Late Sunday night the vote was taken and arms were twisted as a handful of Democrat Senators decided to reopen the federal government.
Among them was Sen. Tim Kaine.
Kaine claimed that he’d been “too focused” on the Virginia elections to end the shutdown earlier.
Someone tell the senator that he isn’t paid to campaign in state elections. He’s in Washington to do a job in Congress.
Prior to Sunday Dems said they’d support reopening the government only if Republicans would agree to keep subsidies on Obamacare premiums for one more year.
Gov-elect Spanberger seems on the verge of repeating a mistake that then Gov.-elect Youngkin made four years ago — surrounding herself with advisers from her former world rather than from Virginia government and politics.
Youngkin, a complete neophyte in politics and Virginia government, brought in people from the investment banking world and agency heads, several from out of state. The investment banking world is totally different from Virginia government and politics. Based on reports from long-time state employees, there was a steep learning curve. Youngkin is now on his third Superintendent of Public Schools.
Spanberger is in danger of going down the same path. Granted, she has more experience with Virginia and government than Youngkin had, but her experience has been in Congress, a whole different world. Also, she spent a year or so going around the state preparing to run for governor. That gave her some exposure to different areas of the state and to members of the General Assembly. But those efforts are not a substitute for years-long familiarity with Virginia government. Here is who she has announced as her chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, and transition team:
Chief of staff — Bonnie Krenz-Schnurman. Background: Served as Spanberger’s chief of staff for five years in Congress and since she has been a candidate; previously, senior policy adviser at the White House Domestic Council under Obama; before that, managed a national malaria program in Tanzania for the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
Director of transition team and deputy chief of staff — Karen Mask. Worked as field director in Spanberger’s Congressional campaigns. Before that, was a senior policy analyst at the Virginia Dept. of Health and a special projects coordinator with the Virginia Dept. of Education.
Overlooked in all the news around the election was some sobering budget news for the next governor.
As reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Virginia Dept. of Medical Assistance Services (DMAS) has forecast that Virginia’s Medicaid costs will increase by $3.2 billion over the next three years. That increase consists of an additional $410 million in the current fiscal year and $2.8 billion in the next two-year budget that Governor Youngkin will present next month.
In addition to the big increase in Medicaid costs, the state is projecting an increase of $964 million needed to support local K-12 education programs. This is the biennial “re-benchmarking” that takes place, which projects what it will cost to continue existing programs at their current levels.
In addition to the additional $3.8 billion that will be needed for the next biennial budget right from the beginning will be the costs and revenue reductions stemming from Trump’s spending and taxing legislation passed this year. Based on past experience, it is safe to say that the analysts in the Dept. of Planning and Budget are working overtime these days to develop the two budget bills, the “caboose” for the current fiscal year and the “big budget bill” for the 2006-2008 biennium, that Youngkin must present to the General Assembly by December 20.
Will Abigail Spanberger fight for DEI or for intellectual diversity in her dealings with UVA?
by Joel Gardner
Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger states that she wants to have an administration that reflects pragmatism rather than partisanship. But her Democrat colleagues in the state senate have already exhibited a degree of partisanship vis-à-vis the University of Virginia and other state universities unparalleled in the history of the Commonwealth.
A standing committee of the state senate has rejected the last five appointees to the UVA Board of Visitors solely because they were chosen by a Republican governor. While the ability of a committee to act on behalf of the entire General Assembly is now in front of the Virginia Supreme Court, it really doesn’t matter because the Democrat leadership of the state senate has stated that they will flat out reject any appointee made by Governor Youngkin.
By contrast, for decades when Republicans held either one or both houses of the General Assembly they never once rejected a Democrat governor’s choice for the UVA Board.
Under the past two Democrat governors, UVA had become a highly politicized institution. This was done under the rubric of so called “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” which as Anthony Kronman, the former Dean of the Yale Law School, has said is “a political campaign masquerading as an educational ideal.”
“This nursing home information is confusing, mindbending, and scary. Please draw us a picture to clarify.” Well, readers are right. It is all three of those things. It is meant to be so by some people in the system.
Virginia has some excellent nursing homes and chains, but those are not the subject of this article.
I offer below a chart of a fictional 12-facility chain whose structure permits bad things to happen, often by design. It shows a commercial real estate structure on which some nursing home chains are modeled. Indeed, many of them have been founded by people with their roots in real estate, partnered with others licensed as nursing home administrators and with an accountant. The structure was designed by the real estate industry to generate fees and to protect assets in court.
It is used by the worst of nursing home chain owners to bleed money from the operating companies, leaving little for staffing, building repairs, and other necessities. Annual profits have been seen to exceed 20%. That beats anything else in real estate.
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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