At the UVA conference on his administration, Holton said the GOP’s attitudes about guns and federal interference in private decision-making were driving voters away. He also called on the party to renounce its “segregationist appeal to Southerners.”
(Commentary) In the U.S., Thomas Jefferson thought that government needed to find and educate the “natural aristocracy” and the University of Virginia was such a move. (John Adams disagreed, arguing that the wisest and most talented would rise without any assistance; but with it, they’d become a force against liberty.) Later, many political leaders, from Woodrow Wilson to Lyndon Johnson and up to the present, would press for widespread “investment” in higher education and for policies that would entrust the educated elite with power to figure out the solutions to national problems.
UVA’s Rotunda will look a little different this weekend. “The Great Rotumpkin” will be taking place Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. each day. It will involve a Halloween-themed projection mapping designed by Jeff Dobrow.
Two members of a former presidential administration will be participating in a discussion with UVA’s Miller Center on Friday. The event is called “9/11: The People in the Room.” It will include a screening of the documentary “9/11: Inside the President’s War Room.” Following the film, there will be a live discussion with former President George W. Bush’s senior adviser Karl Rove and Chief of Staff Andy Card.
A growing number of major research universities (including UVA) have announced COVID-19 vaccination mandates for employees in recent days, in light of President Joe Biden’s order mandating vaccination for employees of federal contractors.
The UVA Medical Center is receiving 6,600 doses, and spokesman Eric Swensen said that the details of how those doses will be distributed are still in the works. “UVA Health anticipates providing pediatric vaccinations in multiple settings, including clinics, mass vaccination sites, and pop-up community events, all of which will be as child-friendly as possible,” Swensen wrote in an email.
Benjamin Ray, a UVA professor emeritus, has been researching what happened in Salem for more than 25 years. Just as it did in Delco, the events in Salem and nearby villages also began in the cold grip of February, but in 1692. “And the form of witchcraft involved here – that is, the type of accusation – was spectral, which is unusual, claiming that the specter or image or likeness of the accused was tormenting, choking, attacking painfully the accuser,” he said.
A Charlottesville company is working to help those who may be struggling with alcohol use disorder. “Our lead drug is a genetically targeted medicine to help people reduce or eliminate their drinking,” Adial Pharmaceuticals CEO Bill Stilley said. Stilley says the main technology for Adial Pharmaceuticals was licensed from the University of Virginia.
(Commentary) Bronco Mendenhall’s return to Provo this Saturday is an intriguing event for myriad reasons as he brings his University of Virginia team to town riding a four-game winning streak. Bronco has always been a fascinating figure to me, from the first time I met him to his last press conference. For the record, I admire Mendenhall. He’s tough, creative and dedicated to his craft. He was always a great interview and I always thought he had insightful angles to write about.
The Eastern District of Virginia has two new U.S. District Court judges, one a former federal prosecutor and the other a former federal public defender [and both graduates of the UVA School of Law]. Patricia Tolliver Giles, a prosecutor with the U.S. attorney’s office, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff, a federal public defender in the Eastern District from 2002 to 2015, have been confirmed by the U.S. Senate — Giles on Tuesday and Nachmanoff and Wednesday.
Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the University of Virginia’s political Crystal Ball and author of “The Long Red Thread: How Democratic Dominance Gave Way to Republican Advantage in U.S. House Elections,” said the four-year map option may be more an advantage to Republicans than a penalty.
Larry Sabato, founder and director of UVA’s Center for Politics, complained on Twitter on Oct. 1 that he had not yet received his requested mail-in ballot for the upcoming Nov. 2 election. On Oct. 16 he got his ballot, which was postmarked Sept. 23.
“I think it’s a pretty competitive race,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at UVA’s Center for Politics. “This is one of the first big tests for the White House after a presidential election. The president’s party usually does worse in the governor’s race compared to how they did in the presidential. Democrats still have a lot of slack there – Biden won the state by 10 points – but both parties are behaving like this is a competitive race.”
“I got more energy than the day I was born!”—a line in McAuliffe’s stump speech that is bolstered by his behavior. The former governor has the hyperactive demeanor of a human Labrador retriever, bopping in place to whatever rally tune moves him as everyone nearby pretends that his dancing isn’t happening. He’s happy to take selfies with chatty strangers and wide-eyed small children who’d rather be on a playground. “It seems like his whole life is just to be governor every other year,” says J. Miles Coleman, an assistant editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for...
Republicans are trying to reclaim the governor seat for the first time since 2009. However, the UVA Center for Politics says Virginia is enough of a Democratic state, it just depends on the turnout. “We’re probably moving out of persuasion part of the campaign into a, ‘okay, we need to get our votes out,’” said J. Miles Coleman, with the UVA Center for Politics. “I don’t really have any doubts that the Democrats in this state have the votes that they need; they just need to mobilize them.”
The quote, not always presented in perfect context, has become a staple of GOP messaging. “I’m sure McAuliffe would take back his statement about ‘parents shouldn’t tell teachers what to teach’ if he could, or at least qualify it – just as Youngkin would probably like to take back his declaration that Donald Trump was why he was running for governor,” says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “But once you say it, you’re stuck with it.”
(Transcript) We begin tonight with the president`s campaign for his legislative agenda and his campaign to hold on to the governorship of the state of Virginia for Democrats, and leading off our discussion tonight is Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
(Podcast) In this episode of BioScience Talks, we’re joined by previous guest Paolo D’Odorico, professor of hydrology and the chair of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. We’re also joined by Willis Jenkins, Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics at the University of Virginia, where he is also chair of the Department of Religious Studies. Our guests discuss their recent article in BioScience on water security and the ways that our values play into its management, with implications for Indigenous rights, ecosystem health, economi...
Congress might well choose to press an “originalist” argument that the Constitution, as understood in 1787, did not provide for any executive privilege to withhold information from Congress. That argument has been raised, for example, by the University of Virginia law professor Saikrishna Prakash, one of the foremost promoters of an originalist interpretation of Article II of the Constitution. Prakash, most often a staunch defender of presidential authority in domestic affairs, has urged Congress to “openly declare that executive privilege does not apply to matters of congressional oversight.”...
Youngkin’s appeal to parents relies much more on emotion and not on a detailed policy platform, said Robert Pianta, the dean of the University of Virginia’s school of education. In his view, the call from Youngkin and his allies to support parents really refers to a particular group of parents unhappy with what they see as the liberal political agenda of northern Virginia school officials, not parents in general. “They’re asking for influence around a particular set of policies,” Pianta said of parents in Virginia protesting local school board actions related to curriculum and other matters. “...