Category Archives: Ethics

Elaine Luria: Facebook Fat Cat

Posted on May 17, 2022 by | 8 comments

Second congressional district Representative Elaine Luria. Photo credit: Virginian-Pilot

Kerry Dougherty

Memo to Rep. Elaine Luria: When you’ve lost the far-left Daily Beast, you may be in trouble.

In a surprisingly tough May 12 piece headlined “The Dem May Hate Facebook But Her Stock Portfolio Doesn’t,” Daily Beast political reporter Roger Sollenberger skewered Luria for publicly criticizing Facebook, while owning between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock in the company.

“Those holdings, owned jointly with her husband, make her the largest Facebook shareholder in Congress and might appear to undercut the force of her criticism,” Sollenberger wrote.

Might?

It definitely makes her look hypocritical.

If Luria genuinely believes that Facebook traffics in misinformation why would she hold stock in the company? Better yet, why would she spend hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising on the platform? Continue reading →

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Posted in Ethics

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Exploding Requirements and Workforce Shortages – An Existential Threat to the Public Schools

Posted on April 7, 2022 by | 21 comments

by James C. Sherlock

The hottest buzz around many of the public schools, including my home area of Virginia Beach, is around the very real hardships posed by unprecedented staff shortages.

On return from COVID, it seems that our schools faced record shortages of personnel to deal with students that were traumatized and afflicted with massive learning losses.

I said “seems” because there is no accurate count. The new online report VDOE has recently published shows billet vacancies as of October 1 2021 to be 2 1/2 times a similar count it provided me two years ago.

A compelling and disturbing trend. Yet the personnel problem is even worse than we presently have documented.

The new, comprehensive VDOE report of public school personnel shortages is false because some of the inputs were false. The real numbers were higher.  In some cases much higher. Lies were told. I will demonstrate that in this article.

Other well-documented data show both an outsized number of pending retirements from the schools and the ongoing and rapid collapse of the new teacher pipelines.

And we don’t have a sufficient number of professional support specialists — school psychologists, social workers, school counselors and others. That also cannot be quickly remedied.

So the trends are all going in the wrong direction. For the schools, supply is decreasing. Demand, driven by programmatic decisions at VDOE as well as the strain of remediation of COVID learning losses, has been increasing.

This word for the crisis is existential. With a tip of the hat to Herb Stein, things that cannot continue will stop. Continue reading →

21 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Ethics, General Assembly, Governance, Government Transparency, Labor and Workforce, Regulations and Government Oversight

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Moran’s Green Energy Ties Ignored by Media

Posted on March 28, 2022 by | 17 comments

Matt Moran
Photo credit: Creative Direct

by Steve Haner

If the Commonwealth of Virginia was not paying Matthew Moran to serve as Governor Glenn Youngkin’s deputy chief of staff and point person with the General Assembly, as recently revealed, who was? Based on the websites for his employers, mainly the renewable energy industry.

For example, Moran is identified as on the Virginia advisory board of an advocacy group called Conservatives for Clean Energy, strong supporters of the push to eliminate fossil fuel use in the state and replace it with solar and wind-driven electricity. Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Ethics, General Assembly, Media

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Not the Normal Governor Means Not the Normal Ethics

Posted on March 28, 2022 by | 14 comments

Matt Moran, Deputy Chief of Staff, aka Special Advisor
Photo credit: Creative Direct

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Glenn Youngkin recently declared, “I guess I’m maybe not the normal governor. I think one of the differences is that I am an outsider and I come in with ideas on how we communicate.”

We are beginning to find out how true that is. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that one of the Governor’s top policy aides is not a state employee, but a lobbyist on the payroll of a lobbying company. Matt Moran is on a paid leave of absence from Creative Direct, a political consulting firm, and LINK Public Affairs, an offshoot from Creative Direct. When Youngkin first announced his appointment, he listed Moran’s title as “deputy chief of staff and director of policy and legislative affairs.” A sign on his door in the Patrick Henry Building bore the title, “deputy chief of staff.” The statement of economic interest he filed upon taking office listed his position as “deputy chief of staff.”   In appearances before legislative committees, he identified himself as “deputy chief of staff.” He is now labeled “special advisor” and the January 21 news release announcing his appointment has been “corrected.” Continue reading →

14 Comments

Posted in Ethics, Government Transparency, Political Influence

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More Morrissey! We Can’t Get Enough!

Posted on February 2, 2022 by | 14 comments

by James A. Bacon

Love him or hate him, Senator Joe Morrissey, D-Richmond, is hands down the most colorful politician in Virginia. The list of his transgressions against ethics and law is too long belabor here. I refer you to his Wikipedia biography, specifically the sections on “Reprimand, suspensions and first law license revocation,” “Conviction for delinquency of a minor,” and “Second law license revocation” for the details.

Now local NAACP activist Lafayette Jefferson is charging Morrissey with threatening him with violence. During a meeting about casino legislation, Morrissey reportedly told Jefferson, “I’ll rip your heart out of your chest.”

I will concede that such inflamed rhetoric may be described fairly as intemperate. But I will rise to Morrissey’s defense. From the account provided in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Jefferson had it coming. Continue reading →

14 Comments

Posted in Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement, Ethics

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Dominion and Despicable Voter Suppression

Posted on October 18, 2021 by | 33 comments

So it was Dominion Energy paying for campaign ads opposing gun regulation! Here is why.

by Steve Haner

Dominion Energy Virginia’s knowing participation in an effort to suppress the November 2 vote, aimed mainly at Western Virginia Republicans, is a truly despicable act. It should enrage all Virginians, without regard to party. This is a state-created and regulated monopoly and the $200,000 it spent on this underhanded activity was provided by captive customers.

I further assert that in previous election cycles, as heavily as Dominion funded various candidates, this type of expense would not have been approved by the management, including the late Thomas Farrell. But Farrell is dead and the political deciders at the top now are both long-time partisan Democrats who fully understood they were paying for voter suppression.

I would be expressing no anger whatsoever if Dominion had merely donated $200,000 directly and openly to Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe. It would have been a logical move to support a former governor who strongly backed its failed natural gas pipeline project, and now has pledged to deeply enrich the company by accelerating the transition to unreliable renewable generation instead.

McAuliffe is nothing if not flexible. I used another word to describe his subservience to Dominion on Twitter yesterday and got blocked for 12 hours. Continue reading →

33 Comments

Posted in Elections, Electoral process, Energy, Ethics, General Assembly, Regulations and Government Oversight

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How Does Virginia Budget Early-Childhood-Education Money Wind Up in a Park in Detroit?

Posted on October 14, 2021 by | 40 comments

by James C. Sherlock – updated Oct 15

I’d like to report an organized crime. It’s just not illegal in Virginia.

The political Left, fully in control of Virginia government, sends taxpayer money to leftist non-profits, who take their cuts and then send it on to local government entities and yet more nonprofits.

It is unethical, but that does not matter to Virginia’s elected Democrats.

But they have set themselves up for a fall. They may not know enough about nonprofit reporting laws to understand it opens the tax money transfers up to public examination.

Federally required independent accountants of nonprofits won’t play along. When non-profits touch the money, they have to report it to the IRS on their annual Form 990’s, where we mere taxpayers can see it.

In this case we will trace early childhood education money from the Virginia budget to a park in Detroit. Continue reading →

40 Comments

Posted in Corruption and Scandals, Education (Early Childhood), Ethics, General Assembly, Governance

More Proof Virginia Disclosure Laws are Crap

Posted on October 9, 2021 by | 22 comments

Former Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan

by Steve Haner

In 2020, according to documents filed with the State Corporation Commission, Dominion Energy Virginia paid former state Senator John Watkins $92,297 for lobbying services. At the end of the reporting period, it officially claimed spending only $1,641 for him to influence the legislative process.

In a similar manner, former Fairfax Delegate John Rust was retained over four years for a combined $265,000. But for his services in 2020, the year of the massive Virginia Clean Economy Act, Dominion’s lobbying expense disclosure listed his fee at $7,679.

The full payments to both former Republican legislators, all perfectly legal, are the subject of an online article on the Richmond Times Dispatch website, probably awaiting print publication. It also focuses on large payments made to a Hampton Roads journalist and former Democratic gubernatorial aide, which Dominion never had to disclose on any state report since buying friendly editorials isn’t covered by disclosure laws.

Add up the reported payments to all the other outside law and lobbying firms Dominion hired, compare them to the official disclosures, and a similar pattern of under reporting will be evident. The reporter missed the best part of this story — that information gap.

What do we learn here?  Anything we didn’t know? Continue reading →

22 Comments

Posted in Energy, Ethics, General Assembly, Governance, Money in politics, Political Influence, Regulations and Government Oversight

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Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis – Part 3 – McAuliffe & Herring

Posted on October 2, 2021 by | 4 comments

by James C. Sherlock

In the first two parts of this series, I wrote about the shortage of state inspectors for nursing homes in the Virginia Department of Health Office of Licensure and Certification (OLC)  and the continuing danger it poses to Virginia patients.

The problem, unfortunately, is much wider than just nursing homes.  So is the scandal.

That same office inspects every type of medical facility including home care agencies as well as managed care plans. Except it cannot meet the statutory requirements because it does not have sufficient personnel or money. And it have been telling the world about it for years.

Terence Richard McAuliffe was the 72nd governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018. Mark Herring has been Attorney General since 2014.

We will trace below that they can reasonably be called the founding fathers of overdue inspections of medical facilities in Virginia.

VDH has been short of health inspectors since McAuliffe and Herring took office and still is .

Both of them know it. And they know that lack of inspections demonstrably causes unnecessary suffering and death.

Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Consumer Protection, Corruption and Scandals, Ethics, General Assembly, Governance, Health Care, Long Term Care and Nursing Homes, Money in politics, Political Influence, Regulations and Government Oversight

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Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis — Part 2, the Business

Posted on October 1, 2021 by | 8 comments

by James C. Sherlock

Nursing homes are businesses.

Seventy percent of those in Virginia are for profit. They are run not by doctors but registered nurses with physicians on call. 

Nursing facilities very widely in size in Virginia, from the 300-bed Mulberry Creek Nursing and Rehab center in Martinsville to facilities of less than 30 beds, especially the long-term care units of a few mostly rural hospitals.

They include facilities designated as skilled nursing facilities (SNF), often post-op care and rehabilitation, and others designated as long-term-care nursing facilities (NF). Most nursing homes in Virginia have facilities and certified beds for each.

Insurer mix and staffing costs are keys to profitability.

Many of these businesses are worth what they get paid, but many are not. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Efficiency in Government, Ethics, General Assembly, Governance, Health Care, Long Term Care and Nursing Homes, Money in politics, Public safety & health, Regulations and Government Oversight

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Virginia’s Self-Inflicted Nursing Home Crisis – Part 1

Posted on October 1, 2021 by | 15 comments

by James C. Sherlock

None of us ever knows when we will need a nursing home for ourselves, our parents or our kids. Yes, kids.

While long-term nursing care is mostly for older patients, skilled nursing facilities are needed for patients of all ages, including children, for shorter term post-op treatment and recovery.

The patients in many of Virginia’s nursing homes suffer greatly from a combination of known bad facilities and a lack of government inspections. The health and safety of patients in those facilities are very poorly protected by the state.  

In this series of reports I am going to point out some nursing homes (and chains) whose records will anger you. Government data show some have been horrible for a very long time in virtually every region in the state.

Those same records show that Virginia is years behind on important, federally mandated health and safety inspections.

VDH’s Office of Licensure and Certification doesn’t have enough inspectors — not even close. And the government of Virginia — officially based on budget data — not only does not care but is directly and consciously responsible.

When I am done reporting on my research I suspect you will demand more inspectors.

You will also  reasonably ask why the worst of them are still in business when the Health Commissioner has the authority to shut them down.

Good question. Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Children and Families, Efficiency in Government, Ethics, General Assembly, Governance, Health Care, Long Term Care and Nursing Homes, Money in politics, Public safety & health, Regulations and Government Oversight, Uncategorized

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Former Norfolk Sheriff Convicted of Fraud and Bribery

Posted on September 8, 2021 by | 23 comments

Former Norfolk Sheriff Bob McCabe

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Here is another name to add to the list of corrupt public officials — former Norfolk Sheriff Bob McCabe.

Earlier this week, a federal jury convicted him of all 11 counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. The charges covered actions committed over a 22-year period. They included accepting gift cards to expensive restaurants, Redskins tickets, free catering for his annual golf tournament, an all-expenses paid trip to Nashville, “loans” that were never repaid, and thousands of dollars in cash to spend during casino trips. He was also charged with providing inside information to select companies seeking contracts with the sheriff’s office.

Testifying in his defense at his trial, McCabe admitted to violating campaign finance laws, but claimed it was not intentional. “I just didn’t pay attention to them like I should have.” He also admitted getting loans and gifts from businessmen who had multi-million dollar contracts with the city’s jail, but insisted, “I’ve never taken a bribe in my life.” The “loans” and gifts were because they were friends, he insisted. Continue reading →

23 Comments

Posted in Corruption and Scandals, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement, Ethics

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Campaign Finance Reform in Virginia – the New Governor Must Lead

Posted on September 4, 2021 by | 21 comments

by James C. Sherlock

I consider campaign finance reform the foremost issue facing representative government in Virginia.

We are one of only a few states with no campaign donations limits at all. We pay for that in legislation enacted and not enacted because of the preferences of huge donors. And in the stink of legal public corruption.

It also drives way up the cost of running and keeps good people from participating.

The new governor will have to lead. Continue reading →

21 Comments

Posted in Corruption and Scandals, Elections, Electoral process, Ethics, General Assembly, Governance, Money in politics, Political Influence, Politics

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Marijuana and Casino Legalization Linked to Increases in Mental Illness and Substance Abuse

Posted on August 19, 2021 by | 17 comments

Paul Krizek (D-Pamunkey Nation)

by James C. Sherlock

We know what is going to happen.

Dr. Daniel Carey M.D., Virginia’s Secretary of Health and Human Resources, will soon apply to the federal government for funding for substance abuse prevention grants.

He knows.

He plans to tell the federal government that additional people, mostly poor and Black, are going to suffer and die from mental illness and substance abuse because we legalized marijuana, casinos and sports betting.

But apparently we did it for a good cause — equity — or so some say.

The opening statement of that draft application reads:

Statewide Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Behavioral Health and Substance Use

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting health impact, uncertainty, social isolation, and economic distress are expected to substantially increase the behavioral health needs of Virginians. Increased alcohol, substance use, including increased overdose rates are key concerns, as well as COVID-19 impacts already evident in Virginia.

Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in Consumer Protection, Ethics, Gambling, General Assembly, Government Finance

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Panhandling Politicos Hobnob with Richmond Lobbyists

Posted on August 4, 2021 by | 8 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

File this under “Virginia Democrats have no shame.”

On second thought, perhaps it should be filed under “Patrick Wilson is the best newspaper reporter in Virginia.”

Wilson, some of you may remember, was an ace reporter at The Virginian-Pilot for many years until the Richmond Times-Dispatch stole him away. I know Wilson and he’s an absolutely tenacious investigator who can sniff out impropriety in government and report fairly on it.

For instance, during the past year he’s provided Virginia with shocking details about the Parole Board scandal — you know, the gang that “waved its magic wand of freedom“ over murderers and set them free — that other news outlets were too lazy to dig up or report.

Now, in classic Wilson style, he’s reporting on the small-but-telling hypocrisies that pop up whenever the General Assembly is in session. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in Ethics, General Assembly, Money in politics

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