The Jefferson Journal
Commentary
To say our country is experiencing difficult times is an understatement: COVID 19, protests, riots, death, and destruction. Are we in trying times or what? However, with any disruption to a routine, there’s opportunity. I believe this is an opportunity to seize the moment for ensuring real, significant education reform...
The first thing every employer in Virginia needs to understand about the state’s new COVID-19 temporary workplace standard (here) is it is universal. It applies to every workplace, public and private, for-profit and non-profit, with 10,000 workers or two, The rules are the same, “one size fits all,” without regard...
When asked if he can mention a single example of a country where socialism has worked, Bernie Sanders always says “we should look to countries like Sweden.” Sooner or later, American socialists always return to Sweden. There’s a good reason for that: The countries socialists originally tout always end up...
Will $50 million be enough? Will that get all the Virginians who have fallen behind due to COVID-19 square on their rent or mortgage payments? Or is that amount, in a new relief program detailed Monday by the Northam Administration, merely a start? There is a hint on the program’s web page. “Financial...
Working from home was already becoming more common, but the COVID-19 crisis forced many employers to quickly alter policies to enable more workers to perform their jobs from home. This forced experimentation with remote work is causing some employers to alter their policies permanently. Shopify, for example, announced in May...
Transit agencies are in crisis mode. The Covid-19 pandemic and shelter-in-place orders across the country led to ridership declines of up to 95%. But even before this crisis, transit agencies were losing ridership. Recently, the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) at the University of South Florida analyzed the transit...
In my many efforts to unravel and explain the federal government’s sometimes baffling efforts to legally define the things that matter most to property owners, I have started by describing the government’s interpretation of a “ditch” (see here). Now the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) and U.S. EPA (EPA) have...
With the General Assembly taking up policing reform in this summer’s special session, there should be at least one bill stopping a problem before it begins. Provisions commonly found in Collective Bargaining Ageements negotiated between governments and the local police union create obstacles to holding bad cops accountable. Unless the...
The Northam Administration’s Safety and Health Codes Board agreed June 24 that COVID-19 in the state’s workplaces demands an emergency state response, but the nature and exact wording of that response remains undecided. If adopted, formal regulations come with the potential for heavy penalties for employers cited for failures. The vote to...
With the General Assembly taking up policing reform in this summer’s special session, there should be at least one bill stopping a problem before it begins. Most big problems are created by a small number of people. The same is true of police officer transgressions. Derek Chauvin was a bad...