Michael O'Connor

Looking for a newsletter focused on Virginia labor issues and economic policy? You can subscribe to my new one, Virginia Capital, coming soon from @vadogwoodnews vadogwood.com/va-capital-new…

Two months after earning a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, a 20-year-old Northern Virginia woman is having her diploma withheld for partaking in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. wtop.com/virginia/2025/…

Today in Virginia Capital: 🏥 How Medicaid cuts threaten Virginia hospitals, jobs 🏀 My take on a Virginia Republican's attempt to dunk on the Virginia Education Association 🎨 The new Clipse album is (of course) good. Its art? Not so much. Link: link.vadogwood.com/view/660c23fcf…

Sending out all the emails to set up interviews for next week before the weekend hits

.@UFWupdates is rallying support for a heat regulation bill that @BobbyScott announced earlier this month

A sobering explainer on the domino effect of taking away people's health care, sinking them deeper into debt, and ruining their credit scores so they can't dig themselves out of the hole kffhealthnews.org/news/article/m…

how does everyone decide on which locality to put in the parentheses for state lawmakers?

BREAKING: “Earle-Sears, Virginia GOP back anti-union policy, federal job cuts while claiming to support workers,” reports ⁦@vadogwoodnews⁩ vadogwood.com/2025/07/21/ear…

“Spending money on something so quintessentially completely useless makes you feel like the world isn’t so effed up," Chapman said. "The economy isn’t in such a bad place because look I just spent $70 on this little toy.”

Virginia hospitals to lose billions under Trump’s Medicaid cuts; job losses could follow vadogwood.com/2025/07/24/vir…

Well done, team

New analysis from @CenterOnBudget finds that 188,000 adults in Virginia could lose health coverage due to new work reporting requirements cbpp.org/research/healt…

Spanberger continues to rack up support from organized labor with the announcement of another union endorsement

did john fredericks write this

.@SenChrisHead on possible Medicaid impacts of BBB: "There is just a foreboding fear among all of the hospital administrators that I'm in contact with, and they're not even sure how to formulate the questions yet, because there's so much we don't know."

"The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is slated to host Ingrassia, along with five other nominees, at a confirmation hearing Thursday." tinyurl.com/5dc9wuur

Virginia had 251,000 job openings in May, up 63,000 from April, per today's BLS report. 163,000 Virginians got hired for jobs in May, an increase of 25,000 from the month prior. 36,000 thousand Virginians got laid off in May, which was 31,000 less than the number in April.

All workers deserve an opportunity to collectively bargain to have a seat at the table to discuss benefits, pay and better working conditions. That is why I am proud to stand with the workers at Norfolk Botanical Gardens as they prepare to vote tomorrow to unionize.

New: The CFO of Virginia's Medicaid agency said the cuts could cause “a macroeconomic financial shock" - an estimate Youngkin’s office and his own agency pushed back on. vpm.org/news/2025-07-2…