Monthly Archives: October 2020

Does Northam Have a Plan to Battle a COVID Resurgence in Virginia?

Posted on October 25, 2020 by | 29 comments

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

by DJ Rippert

The second (or third) time around. America’s polarized political situation has all eyes on the upcoming presidential election. Millions are voting early and millions more will vote by mail. There is a good chance that the final results will not be known on the morning after Election Day. If true, America’s attention will be riveted on the election through November and quite possibly into December. Meanwhile, COVID cases are surging in the U.S. and parts of Europe. Yesterday, the U.S. recorded 906 COVID-related deaths. That number had been averaging between 700 and 800 since early autumn. Virginia’s record in managing COVID has been mediocre to date. Not terrible but not great either. The state ranks 30th in per capita COVID-related deaths. Over the last seven days Virginia has recorded the 21st most cases of COVID among U.S. states. As evidence of a resurgence of COVID mounts, Virginians ought to wonder whether the state is ready to react to such a resurgence if it occurs.

Continue reading →

29 Comments

Posted in Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Health Care, Science & Technology

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Loudoun Board Embraces Public-Employee Unions

Posted on October 24, 2020 by | 49 comments

Members of the Service Employees International Union at a recent Loudoun County board meeting. Photo credit: Loudoun Now

by James A. Bacon

Virginia’s slow-but-steady metamorphosis into New Jersey continues apace. The Loudoun County board of Supervisors has voted to let unions into county buildings to recruit public employees. Reports Loudoun Now:

Currently, under state law, state and local governments are not allowed to recognize any union or collective bargaining. … But with a new state law signed in April and going into effect in May 2021, localities may elect to recognize collective bargaining representatives, allowing unions to negotiate on behalf of employees.

Continue reading →

49 Comments

Posted in Government workers and pensions

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VDH Has a New K-12 “Outbreaks” Dashboard

Posted on October 24, 2020 by | 7 comments

by Carol J. Bova

The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) published a new dashboard on October 23 that lists K-12 Outbreaks of COVID-19 by locality (county, town or city) and facility. As the VDH website explains: “Transmission must occur within the school facility or at a school-sponsored event among students, faculty, staff, or visitors to be classified as a school-associated outbreak.”

Schools covered are public, private, charter or parochial schools from kindergarten to 12th grade, and pre-kindergarten, if part of a K-12 school if 30 or more students are enrolled. Fewer than five cases or deaths are suppressed. Cases from exposure outside the school setting are not included unless the virus is passed on to someone at the school. Continue reading →

7 Comments

Posted in Public safety & health

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Senator Warner’s Odd Silence on Violence

Posted on October 24, 2020 by | 5 comments

Photo credit: Sputnik News

by Emilio Jaksetic

Since the tragic death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 at the hands of a police officer, there have been thousands of (mostly peaceful) demonstrations and hundreds of riots and civil disturbances in towns and cities across the United States. Some took place in Richmond, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Fredericksburg and other Virginia jurisdictions.

Senator Mark Warner, D-VA, issued over 200 press releases between May 25, 2020 and October 22, 2020, covering a wide variety of issues and topics. The releases tell Virginians what he thinks about a wide range of legislation, government activities, issues, and events. But they leave Virginians in the dark about how he sees the many violent civil disturbances that have roiled America.

Since the death of George Floyd, the senator has issued four press releases relating to the civil unrest: Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement, Culture wars

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Why We Love Governor Ralph

Posted on October 24, 2020 by | 30 comments

Governor Northam loving those poll numbers. Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch

By Peter Galuszka

He’s been through “coonman,” “blackface,” a muddled interview about late term abortion, and aggressive and controversial steps to stop the pandemic, but Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam has sprinted through a recent statewide poll with flying colors.

According to a new Washington Post-Schar School poll, more than half of Virginia’s registered voters approve of the overall job performance of Gov. Ralph Northam, and an even larger majority support his handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic. “Northam’s job approval rating of 56 percent is up from 49 percent about a year ago and from 43 percent in the wake of his blackface scandal in early 2019, “The Post said.

“His disapproval is also up, at 38 percent from 31 percent last year, with far fewer voters now expressing no opinion. But his ratings remain net positive by 18 percentage points.”

The Governor gets a drubbing on this blog, but not with people who really count, given their numbers. Continue reading →

30 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Elections, Health Care, Media, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations

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Election Board Embraces Humpty Dumpty Logic

Posted on October 23, 2020 by | 22 comments

by Emilio Jaksetic

Despite receiving more than 700 public comments, most of them negative, Virginia’s State Board of Elections has adopted a regulation eliminating the statutory requirement that absentee ballots received after election day be postmarked by no later than election day. The regulation is effective October 23, 2020. Information about the Board’s action is available here and here.

In a post I made during the run-up to the decision, I discussed how the Board’s “interpretive” regulation violates the plain language of Virginia election law, usurps the constitutional authority of the General Assembly, and sets a precedent for other Virginia officials to violate the rule of law.

In effect, the Board has embraced Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” as a guide to statutory construction and regulatory practice. Continue reading →

22 Comments

Posted in Electoral process, Regulations and Government Oversight

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A Reasonable Approach to Sea-Level Rise

Posted on October 23, 2020 by | 117 comments

by James A. Bacon

Virginia’s environmentalists are smarter and more forward-thinking than California’s environmentalists. That’s a low bar, admittedly, but it’s a not-inconsiderable consolation now that environmental lobbyists and their friends in the Democratic Party run the commonwealth.

In California, leaders of the environmental/political establishment fervently believe that human-caused climate change is increasing the incidence and severity of heat waves and droughts. But rather than follow through on the logical implications of such convictions, California persisted with forest-management practices and growth-management strategies that turned arid forests into tinderboxes while steering housing development into vulnerable areas. The result has been a series of massively destructive forest conflagrations. Bottom line: California’s environmental and political leaders are idiots.

Here in Virginia, leaders of the environmental/political establishment fervently believe that human-caused climate change is accelerating the rate of sea-level rise and flooding along Virginia’s coast. The difference is that they are following through the logical implications of this belief and giving serious thought to how to make coastal areas more resilient. Thus, while I could nitpick with the breathless conviction that the science is settled, I find the newly issued “Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Planning Framework” issued by the Northam administration to be a reasonable and useful document. Continue reading →

117 Comments

Posted in Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Environment, Resilience, Uncategorized

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Racism Case Settled

Posted on October 23, 2020 by | 8 comments

The Amet family and Cape Henry Collegiate have settled their differences arising from an incident in which school officials suspended 16-year-old Connor Amet after accusing him of expressing white supremacist statements in class. The school and family released the following statement.

Cape Henry Collegiate and the Amet Family have met regarding a recent issue that resulted from a classroom discussion. It became the subject of a letter from the Amets’ attorney that subsequently appeared on the Bacon’s Rebellion blog. Without commenting on the letter’s content or the incident that precipitated it, the School and the Amet Family are both satisfied after our meeting. Cape Henry seeks to foster an inclusive environment on our Virginia  Beach campus where we focus on individual students and their success, both in the classroom and in life.

The letter, republished here, described from Connor’s perspective how teachers and administrators had incorrectly imputed racist sentiments to his words in a classroom discussion about immigration, berated him repeatedly, and suspended him.

— JAB

8 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Race and Race Relations

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Virginia’s Driving-in-the-Dark Bill Is Dead

Posted on October 23, 2020 by | 6 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Finally.

A bill so boneheaded that even Gov. Ralph Northam couldn’t sign it.

I’m talking about HB 5058, which contained a driving-in-the-dark measure that would have prevented police from pulling over motorists tooling about at night without headlights, tail lights or brake lights.

You know, those “add ons” for cars that no one really needs.

This bill was intended to get rid of bogus reasons that law enforcement use to pull over drivers: Doodads hanging from a rear-view mirror, for instance. Outdated inspection stickers. Or vehicles that reek of marijuana.

The bill was styled “Marijuana and certain traffic offenses; issuing citations, etc.” and I suspect Democrats in Richmond became giddy at the mere mention of dope and immediately began pumping their little fists in the air. Continue reading →

6 Comments

Posted in Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement, General Assembly

Are Microschools a Macro Trend?

Posted on October 23, 2020 by | 21 comments

by Andy Rotherham

Around the country a string of public schools with test-based admissions have been under pressure to go to different admission schemes in an effort to increase student diversity – for instance lottery-based or enrollment slots allocated by feeder school. (At one level it’s a useful reminder that contra the rhetoric, many public schools are not open-admissions for all students. The system is more textured than the rhetoric about it.)

The debate in New York City over the city’s selective high schools was pretty high-profile. More recently, in Fairfax County the nationally known Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, or “TJ” to locals, just changed its admission scheme after a contentious debate. San Francisco’s Lowell is moving that direction. Definitely a trend.

It’s not hard to see why it’s happening. The slow, difficult work of ensuring equitable access to resources, teachers, curriculum, and the other ingredients of high quality and inclusive schooling is a politically contentious slog that is fought at every step by a variety of people for a variety of reasons – and not just the people you might think. Meanwhile, the very structure of the system is often not set up to support equity. Continue reading →

21 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Race and Race Relations

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Hey, What Happened to All the School Shootings?

Posted on October 22, 2020 by | 28 comments

by James A. Bacon

Anyone notice how we don’t hear about school shootings anymore? Ever since the nation became fixated on the COVID-19 epidemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, school shootings have dropped out of the headlines.

According to an ongoing list compiled by Wikipedia, there have been eight school shootings (four in Texas, two in California, and one each in Florida and Illinois) so far this year. Six occurred before Feb. 4. Since then, only two school or college shootings been reported. In 2019, there had been 40 shootings by this time of year. What’s going on?

Continue reading →

28 Comments

Posted in Mental illness and substance abuse

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The Problem with Higher Education in America

Posted on October 22, 2020 by | 6 comments

For your listening pleasure…Yours truly chats with Michael Scheuer and Col. Mike on the “Two Mikes” podcast about the culture wars at the University of Virginia and higher-ed generally. — JAB

6 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Private Schools No Haven from the Thought Police

Posted on October 22, 2020 by | 150 comments

If you thought sending your child to private school offered any protection against the spreading and increasingly totalitarian virus of Critical Race Theory, consider a recent incident at Cape Henry Collegiate School in Virginia Beach. I publish here an open letter, written by attorney Timothy Anderson, on behalf of student Connor Amet, to school officials. The letter should be read with caution: It represents Connor’s view, not those of school officials. But if the incidents described are remotely representative of actual events, they should terrify every Virginian who values independent thinking and free expression. — JAB

Christopher Garran, headmaster of Cape Henry Collegiate School

On October 7, 2020, Connor Amet (“Connor”) was a student at Cape Henry Collegiate School (“Cape Henry”) and was in Mr. [William] Fluharty’s club for global scholars. On that day, Mr. Fluharty commenced a discussion on immigration to the group via Zoom. During that conversation, when there was a discussion about President Trump on immigration and whether immigration is bad/good, Connor weighed in that immigration could have detrimental effects on society. Connor’s opinion was based on his understanding of conflicts that have historically risen in societies that have multicultural immigration policies. Continue reading →

150 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12), Race and Race Relations

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Parole Board Sets Free Another Murderer

Posted on October 22, 2020 by | 10 comments

Tonya Chapman, former Portsmouth police chief, now chairman of the Virginia Parole Board. Photo credit: Virginian-Pilot

Letter from Sen. Bill DeSteph, R-Virginia Beach, sent yesterday to Governor Ralph Northam.

Dear Governor Northam,

In August 2019, the Parole Board denied Harry J. Williams, DOC # 1008730, parole. These are the reasons they gave Mr. Williams:

  1. His history of substance abuse.
  2. The serious nature and circumstances of his offense(s).
  3. His prior failure(s) and/or convictions while under community supervision indicated that he was unlikely to comply with conditions of release.

On June 22nd, just ten months later, the Parole Board miraculously concluded these reasons no longer existed, and decided Mr. Williams should be released from prison. Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement

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Warner and Kaine Wrong about D.C. Statehood

Posted on October 22, 2020 by | 32 comments

by Emilio Jaksetic

On June 26, 2020, the House of Representatives passed the Washington D.C. Admission Act (H.R. 51), which would admit the District of Columbia (D.C.) as the 51st State. The House vote was essentially along party lines, with all Democrats (except one) voting yes, and all Republicans (and one Independent) voting no.

Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine support that legislation. (See July 21, 2020 Warner Press Release, “Senate Democrats Hold Hearing on D.C. Statehood.”) They are wrong to support that legislation because it is barred by the unique status D.C. has under the U.S. Constitution and because Congress has no authority to amend or override the Constitution by statute.

Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution, Congress has exclusive authority over D.C. Nothing in that clause authorizes Congress to change the status of D.C. by legislation. Continue reading →

32 Comments

Posted in Federal issues, Governance

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