Hello Veterans, Rural Va. Wants You!

By John Lesinski, Chairman of the Virginia Veterans Service Foundation

Veterans Day 2021 brought the usual “Thank you for your service” from our national leaders in celebrations in Washington DC and in our local communities. And then?  We all went back to business as usual. As a seven-year member of the Virginia Board of Veterans Services and Virginia Veterans Services Foundation, I know firsthand that veterans need a lot more than just a “pat on the back.” 

Medicare to Negotiate Lower Drug Prices

Everyone knows that buying a thousand of something should get you a better price than buying just one.  What about 63 million?  That’s how many Americans are on Medicare.  Yet when the current Medicare drug provisions were passed under George Bush, the big pharmaceutical companies managed to insert a provision that actually prohibited Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices for its seniors!  In other words, big Pharma was free to charge seniors whatever it felt like.  And it did.  In fact, it set prescription drug prices so high in America that, according to the non-partisan AARP, Americans pay far more than other countries for the exact same drugs!  Just one example:  the cost of the insulin drug Humalog (a life-saving drug for diabetics) was $300 in the US but only $32 in Canada!*

Jacob Gilley on the role of regenerative farming in Rappahannock's future

Recently, we talked with Jacob Gilley, a Madison-based livestock producer, about the role of regenerative agriculture in Rappahannock’s future.  Gilley is the Mid-Atlantic Sustainable Grazing Manager with the American Farmland Trust (farmland.org), a national organization dedicated to protecting farmland, promoting sound farming practices and keeping farmers on the land.At last!

Our Democracy Wins When We Have Accessible Voting and High Turnout (Campaign Legal Center, Trevor Potter, 11/8/21)”…the Virginia results are hugely important and deserves more attention — with potentially groundbreaking ramifications for democracy…” 

The numbers we ought to be paying attention to (Cardinal News, 11/16/21) “Virginia has the nation's biggest disparity between affluent localities and poor ones”. That sounds like old news, but read on because the numbers even before the pandemic suggested that “developing a reputation as a good work-from-home location” may in fact be the new trend  that bends the arc of economic history and bring new prospects to Virginia’s rural counties.

Infrastructure bill will fund long list of Arizona projects (White Mountain Independent, 11/19/21) President Biden signed the massive, $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. Here is how one state, that’s been in the news a lot, will benefit from the bill. Food for thought.

Parents protesting 'critical race theory' identify another target: Mental health programs (NBC.com, 11/15/21) Groups have voiced opposition to suicide prevention programs, mental health coordinators and social emotional learning, claiming they are being used to indoctrinate students.

The Final Tally…(Rappnews, 11/6/2121) It’s always good to understand the numbers.