Author Archives: djrippert

Northam Gets an Earful on Marijuana Legalization Bill

Posted on March 16, 2021 | 57 comments

Image by JR Byron from Pixabay

by D.J. Rippert

Slow burn. The General Assembly passed marijuana legislation and sent it to the governor to sign. However, almost nobody seems satisfied with the bill as it is written. Now Governor Ralph Northam must decide whether to sign the bill, veto the bill, or ask for the bill to be amended. As he ponders his next move, he is getting a lot of advice from different directions.

While there are many issues with the proposed legislation, the timeline for recreational legalization of possession is arguably the biggest problem. The legislation, as written, would legalize recreational marijuana possession and sale in 2024. Yes, more than three full years from now. That doesn’t sit well with a lot of people including Democratic State Senator Louise Lucas, who wrote on social media, “Kicking the can down the road has the effect of continued over policing people of color.” Sen Lucas would like to see marijuana legalized on July 1, 2021. Continue reading →

57 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Children and families, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, General Assembly, Regulation, Uncategorized

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Biden Ups Vax Plan. Will Northam Be Ready?

Posted on January 26, 2021 | 38 comments

Image by torstensimon from Pixabay

by DJ Rippert

Joltin’ Joe. President Joe Biden increased his planned administration of the Coronavirus vaccine from 100 million doses in his first 100 days in office to 150 million doses. Given that the United States is already distributing around one million doses per day Biden almost had to increase his plan if he wanted to make good on his campaign promise of an aggressive rollout of the vaccine. Biden added to his new plans by claiming that anybody who wants a Coronavirus vaccine will be able to get vaccinated by “spring.” Yet even Biden’s newly found optimism about the pace of vaccine distribution was insufficient for some people. An Op-Ed in the New York Times urged the president to strive for 200 million doses in his first 100 days.

Unfortunately, the planned acceleration at the Federal level will be of little use in Virginia unless the Commonwealth finds a way to accelerate its administration of the vaccines received. As of yesterday, Virginia was dead last in administration of the vaccines it has already received. Number fifty out of fifty states. Or, number 52 out of 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico. This miserable performance obviously renders any acceleration by the Feds moot in Virginia. If we can’t administer more than 42.22% of the vaccines we received at a one million doses per day at the national level, what good will it do for the Feds to go to one-and-a-half million doses per day or even two million doses per day? The case could easily and logically be made that the accelerated distribution of vaccine doses by the Feds should be limited to states that have shown the competence to distribute the doses they have already received. That would clearly exclude Virginia. Continue reading →

38 Comments

Posted in General Assembly, Governance, Government Oversight, Health Care

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COVID Vaccine Distribution: What Can Virginia Learn from Florida?

Posted on January 18, 2021 | 40 comments

Image used with permission of Coastal Cloud

Fiasco. From the start, Florida prioritized anybody 65 or older into its top tier for receiving the COVID vaccine. Virginia initially limited early access to the vaccine to those 75 and over. Last Thursday Gov Northam announced that Virginia would include people 65 and over in the current distribution of vaccines. That adds 9.5% of Virginia’s population, or 810,920 Virginians, to the “eligible now” list. What can Virginia learn from Florida about distributing the vaccines to a larger percentage of the population?

Florida’s initial efforts to distribute the COVID vaccine were widely described as a fiasco. Newspapers featured pictures of senior citizens in long lines waiting to get vaccinated. Just registering for a vaccination appointment was chaotic. Registration call centers were overwhelmed. CNN described the registration process as haphazard. If Florida is a benchmark … Virginia will soon enter the “chaos zone.” However, there is good news from Florida that could help Virginia. A Florida based technology company, Coastal Cloud, has started managing vaccine appointments using an application built on Salesforce.Com. I interviewed the husband-and-wife team that founded Coastal Cloud yesterday and they explained how their company is helping four counties in Florida get a handle on the scheduling of COVID vaccinations. Continue reading →

40 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, General Assembly, Health Care, Uncategorized

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Northam Proposes Legal Marijuana in Va Within Two Years

Posted on January 15, 2021 | 27 comments

by DJ Rippert

Ralph Reefer. On Wednesday the Northam Administration unveiled legislation to legalize recreational use of marijuana in Virginia. The legislation will be introduced by House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, and Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth. Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, and Del. Don Scott Jr., D-Portsmouth. Northam took up the cause of legalizing marijuana last November citing both racial equity and financial issues. Sale of legal marijuana would start by Jan 1, 2023, under the Northam plan. Continue reading →

27 Comments

Posted in Agriculture & forestry, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, General Assembly, Individual liberties

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Recreational Marijuana Soon to Be De-Facto Legal in Northern Virginia

Posted on January 13, 2021 | 131 comments

Photo credit: Rip Dog Photography

by DJ Rippert

Elections have consequences. The recent presidential election along with the Georgia run-off election has secured Democratic control of Congress with no serious risk of presidential veto. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., has tried for years to establish a recreational marijuana marketplace only to be thwarted by Republicans in Congress. Finally, in the 2020 session Virginia’s General Assembly passed legislation that made the possession of small amounts of marijuana punishable by a fine so low that it could hardly be compared to a parking ticket ($25). This combination of events will soon have Northern Virginians buying marijuana in D.C. and bringing the weed back to the Old Dominion to consume. D.C. will profit while Virginia gets nothing. Continue reading →

131 Comments

Posted in Agriculture & forestry, Business and Economy, General Assembly, Health Care

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Can “Medium” Save Local Journalism?

Posted on January 11, 2021 | 65 comments

Image by kalhh from Pixabay

By DJ Rippert

The medium is the message. Medium is an online publishing website founded by Evan Williams — who also co-founded Blogger and Twitter. The genre of Medium is sometimes called social journalism. As described in Wikipedia, social journalism “relies on community involvement, audience engagement, social newsgathering and verification, data and analytics, and relationship-building.” That’s all true. However, the biggest point is that authors get paid to write for Medium. Medium generates revenue by selling subscriptions at $5 per month. People who buy those subscriptions are called “members.” Members are eligible to enroll in Medium’s partner program. People in that program are eligible to earn money based on the level of engagement the author’s stories get from other members. While Medium keeps its payment algorithms secret most members believe that the amount paid is calculated based on the number of members who read the story and how long they spend reading it. In some ways Medium could be considered Uber for writers. It facilitates easy paid participation in the gig economy of writing. Continue reading →

65 Comments

Posted in Blogs and blog administration, Business and Economy, Media

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Is It Time To Dust Off the Nixon – Ford Playbook?

Posted on January 7, 2021 | 141 comments

Image by heblo from Pixabay

By DJ Rippert

Mea Culpa. I’ve long thought that’s it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission  So I’m going to join Jim Bacon and break the cardinal rule of Bacon’s Rebellion … sticking to topics limited to matters of Virginia public policy. Just this once.

Trump Gotta Go. By all accounts President Donald Trump is cocooned in the White House “mentally unreachable” to his staff and Vice President Pence. This would be unacceptable for two days let alone two weeks. America has many enemies and a mentally crippled president invites disaster. Beyond that, America has vast military might and a mentally crippled president could be tempted to use that might in ways that would be disastrous. Trump gotta go. Continue reading →

141 Comments

Posted in Governance

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NoPlan Northam Readies Random Restrictions

Posted on December 8, 2020 | 28 comments

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By DJ Rippert

Here we go again. The Richmond Times Dispatch is reporting that Governor Ralph “NoPlan” Northam signaled a possible increase in COVID-19 restrictions during an interview with CNBC yesterday (Dec 7). Northam is quoted as saying, “We’re actively discussing on how to mitigate the numbers, and we’ll take further measures if we need to this week.”

The actual interview was even more embarrassing than the RTD article would have you believe. At about the 1:50 point in this video David Faber does something Virginia’s gutless media has so far refused to do. He asks NoPlan Northam to describe his plan. “What are the numbers that are going to trigger you, governor, to take further measures” is the specific question asked by Faber.  The same question I have been asking on this blog here, here and here.

Northam declares it to be a “great question,” insists he is “data driven,” and reminds everybody that he is a physician. He then proceeds to evade and avoid the question in a stumbling, bumbling soliloquy to nowhere. He explains that the spread is happening where people are gathering, sometimes in homes and sometimes in places of worship. He keenly cuts through the fog by declaring that places of worship will be advised to take things seriously. He concludes by insisting that “the decisions we make will be data driven in Virginia.” NoPlan Northam skates a simple question he should answer. His obviously cavalier attitude toward the people of Virginia is disgraceful. Continue reading →

28 Comments

Posted in Disasters and disaster preparedness, Governance, Health Care, Politics

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Northam Administration Information Technology Failures Continue

Posted on December 1, 2020 | 138 comments

Image by Mediamodifier from Pixabay

Help! WJLA is reporting that the State of Virginia is using a 35-year-old computer system to process unemployment checks. The system has buckled, leaving 70,000 Virginians without their unemployment benefits.  In a stunning admission, Bill Walker, Director of Unemployment Insurance with the Virginia Employment Commission says, “We are right at the first of July now” when asked how far behind the process stands.

It seems obvious that ineffective processing of unemployment claims disproportionately impacts less affluent and minority Virginians. Yet this issue has been missing from the Ralph Northam COVID-19 updates I have watched.  Those press conferences have included discussions of the presidential election and a description of court cases involving Confederate statues but nothing about the real pain that the ineptitude of the Northam Administration is visiting on 70,000 Virginians, including many people of color. Continue reading →

138 Comments

Posted in Efficiency in government, Governance, Science & Technology

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Governor Northam: Do You Believe in Miracles?

Posted on November 20, 2020 | 26 comments

by DJ Rippert

Come out with your masks on, we’ve got you surrounded. COVID-19 new cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to rise in Virginia. However, the situation is not as dire in Virginia as elsewhere in the United States (see graphic above). At 229 new cases per million people Virginia is well below all neighboring jurisdictions. Kentucky at 814 per million tops the list of sick neighbors while D.C. at 302 is the second most healthy in our immediate vicinity. The question for Virginia’s governor Ralph Northam is, “Do you believe in miracles?” Or, perhaps somewhat less charitably, “Are you feeling lucky, punk?” Whether one prefers the Hot Chocolate version or the Dirty Harry version, we are in an interesting situation. Do we dare hope that Virginia will miraculously avoid the surge that is consuming most other states? Or, do we assume it is inevitable that we end up in the same situation as Kentucky, et al and start serious COVID abatement efforts (e.g. lockdown and partial lockdowns) now?

Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in General Assembly, Governance

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Where Does Ralph Northam Go From Here with COVID-19?

Posted on November 18, 2020 | 34 comments

Image by André Santana from Pixabay

by DJ Rippert

Marcel Marceau. Ralph “The COVID Mime” Northam dropped a bevy of increased Coronavirus restrictions on the state last Friday. Those new restrictions on Friday followed another rambling COVID press conference held by Northam the prior Tuesday. Anybody watching the Tuesday news conference could be forgiven for being shocked by The COVID Mime’s actions on Friday. Unlike governors such as Larry Hogan in Maryland Northam avoids any serious discussion of possible actions he might take to slow the spread of the resurgent virus in Virginia during his press conferences. Instead, Northam recites statistics about COVID-19 in Virginia and reminds people to wear masks, maintain social distance and wash their hands regularly. He also provides pithy commentary such as, “This is very concerning, especially because it is getting colder. The holidays are approaching and the temptation to gather with other people is high.” Then, as the news week winds to a close, Northam drops a COVID bomb. To say Jim Bacon was exasperated is putting it mildly. The virus has continued to spread internationally, nationally and in Virginia.  So, we get to play the next installment of the Bacons Rebellion game show “What will The Mime do next?” Continue reading →

34 Comments

Posted in Disasters and disaster preparedness, Elections, Health Care

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A Big Election Day for Marijuana

Posted on November 13, 2020 | 9 comments

by DJ Rippert

Rolling stoned gathers no moss. Marijuana reform has been gaining momentum in the U.S. since California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. Today 36 states have either enacted medical marijuana access laws or are in the process of implementing such laws. In 2012 Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana by adults. Today, 15 states have enacted recreational use laws or are in the process of doing so.

Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Elections

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Fifty Pounds of Weed in Arlington = Probation?

Posted on November 10, 2020 | 43 comments

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

by DJ Rippert

This landing may get bumpy. In late 2018 a chap was on a plane that landed at Reagan National Airport. He undoubtedly had the usual tools of travel — toothbrush, shave kit and clean socks.  However, he also had 50 pounds of marijuana and 400 cartridges of hashish oil. Perhaps he got on the wrong plane expecting to land in Denver. The MWAA Police met him at baggage claim, offered to help him with his luggage and cuffed him up.

As arlnow.com reports, “Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti and the attorney representing the alleged drug carrier agreed that the defendant would plead guilty to two felony charges and be placed on probation. After completing the probation and 200 hours of community service, he would be able to withdraw the pleas to the felony charges and instead plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges while having a $100 fine imposed but then suspended.” Continue reading →

43 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, General Assembly, Police reform

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Biden, Birx and COVID Lockdowns in Virginia

Posted on November 3, 2020 | 16 comments

by DJ Rippert

Sine wave. The third wave of COVID-19 has been spreading across the world and has come to America.  As should have been expected it has also come to Virginia. Many European countries have enacted lockdowns that would be considered draconian by most Americans. Several U.S. governors have also dramatically reversed the re-opening of their states’ economies in order to thwart the spread of the virus. Federal infectious disease experts are sounding the alarm. “We are entering the most concerning and most deadly phase of this pandemic . . . leading to increasing mortality,” said the Monday report from Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force. Birx predicts that the US will see more than 100,000 new cases per day this week.

In the Old Dominion, as WAVY reported yesterday, “Virginia’s [7-day] daily average of 1,306 cases per day is more than 100 cases per day above previous highs in August and May, mostly spurred by spikes in Southwest Virginia, and a notable increase in Northern Virginia. Virginia’s case incidence rate per 100,000 residents is now 15.3, which is considered especially high.” WAVY further reports that Virginia’s case per day total will reach 2,000 by the end of January per UVa’s COVID-19 model. Meanwhile, our governor is unconcerned, citing historical statistics that prove (to him) that Virginia has no real need for concern.

It seems that the stage is set in Virginia for a set of knee-jerk proclamations that will send our state’s economy back into the tail spin we experienced this spring.

Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Health Care, Politics

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Northam’s Non-COVID Non-Update

Posted on October 29, 2020 | 130 comments

Note: video starts at 4:50

by DJ Rippert

Northam fiddles. As a resurgence of COVID-19 spreads across Europe and the United States, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam held a press conference ostensibly to discuss the pandemic. The presser provided little new information about the coronavirus or Virginia’s plans to combat the disease. Northam did review statistics from the five health regions around the state but failed to provide any new guidance for Southwest Virginia where cases are spiking and the positivity rate has reached 8%. Northam’s useful advice was to wear masks, maintain social distance and wash your hands regularly. Continue reading →

130 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Disasters and disaster preparedness, Health Care

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