The Jefferson Journal

Commentary

Jefferson Forum
September 28, 2016

EDITOR’S NOTE: (This is part V of a series on energy. We hope it helps the reader better understand the issues facing our country and our state as we endeavor to tackle the problem of providing our citizens and our businesses with their energy needs.) Transportation * In 2015, natural...

Jefferson Forum
September 14, 2016

Some of the nation and state ‘s top business economists gathered at George Mason University on September 14, 2016 for the Thomas Jefferson Institute’s Second Annual Conference on Virginia’s Economic Future. "This conference helps bring the Commonwealth’s economic picture into focus," said Jefferson Institute President Mike Thompson, "and it provides...

Jefferson Forum
September 13, 2016

If you thought the scandal of the Alexandria school principal weeding out weak students from the Standards of Learning (SOL) exams was bad, you ain’t heard nothing yet. In a superb piece of investigative journalism, Cherise Newsome with theVirginian-Pilot has exposed SOL-gaming in Norfolk that was more grotesque by far....

Jefferson Forum
September 13, 2016

In my first column titled “Why We Can’t Live Without Autonomous Vehicles” I shared a number of reasons why semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles are being developed and why they will ultimately save us from ourselves. In this column I’ll explain the basics on how autonomous technology works and how it...

Jefferson Forum
September 13, 2016

Winston Churchill called Russia a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. We could say Obama’s energy and climate policy is confusion wrapped in muddled thinking inside obfuscation – and driven by autocratic diktats that bring job-killing, economy-strangling, racist and deadly outcomes. President Obama was recently in China, where...

Jefferson Forum
September 13, 2016

As I wrote time, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) includes 30 chapters. Within Chapter 2 there is Annex 2-D which lists each country’s general notes relating to tariff schedules and provides a list of each country’s tariff elimination schedule. Each country also lists, as Canada does, an appendix setting forth...

Jefferson Forum
September 12, 2016

(This is the fourth part in a series that brings to the reader some basic facts about energy so that he/she can better understand the raging debate over energy supplies and environmental stewardship.) Energy Facts and Figures for Dummies Part IV Natural Resources * Estimates of crude oil resources are...

Jefferson Forum
August 31, 2016

Martinsville is one of Virginia’s hard luck cases. Once a thriving center of home-grown furniture and apparel enterprises, its economy has been hollowed out by international trade, and its unemployment rate chronically runs around twice the state average. Earlier this year, when the statewide unemployment rate was hovering around 4.0%,...

Jefferson Forum
August 31, 2016

Many voices in agriculture support TPP, but presidential candidates oppose it. Why? Contentious issues involve agriculture, intellectual property and investments. GOP nominee Donald Trump has claimed the document is 5,600 pages long. I do not know if he is correct, but it is certainly a lengthy document with all of...

Jefferson Forum
August 31, 2016

As stubborn facts ruin their narrative that neonicotinoid pesticides are causing a honeybee-pocalypse, environmental pressure groups are shifting to new scares to justify their demands for “neonic” bans. Honeybee populations and colony numbers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and elsewhere are growing. It is also becoming increasingly clear...