Bacon's Rebellion

  • Autism in Virginia

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    sherlockj

    Autism in Virginia

    By James C. Sherlock

    Autism therapy is the wild west of medical qualifications and spending.

    Autism is real, but industry professionals and the non-profits who lobby for limitless autism spending have richly earned widespread skepticism of the industry by not policing their own.  They have created a closed loop for eternally increased spending:

    1. The profession describes limitless demand.  
    2. Therapy is thus supply-driven, raising practitioners’ reimbursements.  (That increases the demand for online college courses that too often result in debt and a failed professional exam.)
    3. The Virginia government buys that story unquestioningly, at least in part because the regulatory system here is utterly broken.  
    4. The budget committees of the Virginia General Assembly, whose Health committees designed that regulatory system, allocate new “slots” for kids each year in the Medicaid budget and raise the payment rates in the same session.  
    5. There are long waiting lists – see above for limitless demand.  
    6. Slot access depends on the severity of the diagnosed need.  
    7. As diagnosed by the profession.  
    8. That describes the demand as limitless.

    Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was not defined until 2013.  ASDs are a group of developmental disabilities characterized by impairments in social interaction and communication as well as by restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior.

    This article will discuss autism in Virginia, specifically:

    • The widely diverging genders of patients and therapists,
    • The education of Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs), the top tier of treatment specialists, and
    • The exploding spending on treatment.  

    An autism diagnosis for a child is typically made by a pediatrician, a child psychologist, a child neurologist, or a child and adolescent psychiatrist.  The populations of both autism patients and therapy providers have exploded, making Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) the fastest-growing and most troubled program in both Medicaid and private health insurance.

    According to Behavioral Health Business

    Medicaid spending on core Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) autism services increased by 403% from 2019 to 2024. The number of provider entities delivering these services to Medicaid recipients increased 346%. This suggests that much of the increase in spending is driven by new providers opening their doors.

    So autism treatment growth actually is supply-driven, not demand-driven.  The Wall Street Journal has been on top of the ugly side of that story.  Virginia’s troubles have been discussed in this space and will be again.

    (more…)

  • Busted: Loudoun Teacher Uses School Email to Shield Superintendent from Congress

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    James A. Bacon

    Radical activist teacher comes to the rescue of Superintendent Aaron Spence.

    by Victoria Manning

    A Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) teacher who admits to political activism in her classroom and defying school board policies is now using school resources to lobby Congress.

    Jessica Berg is soliciting signatures from her colleagues and others in defense of controversial Superintendent Aaron Spence who has been summoned to testify before Congress about “Attacks on Parental Rights, Inappropriate Content, and Legal Abuses in America’s Schools.”

    Berg used her LCPS email account to lobby Congress in support of Spence. She created a letter and is soliciting signatures from LCPS employees and community members in support of so-called “inclusive policies” created under Aaron Spence. A Google Form created by Berg shows that it was “created inside of Loudoun County Public Schools” and the letter itself was created by Berg’s work account.

    (more…)

  • With Tax Now $35 Per Ton, Are RGGI Rebates on the Way?

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    Steve Haner

    Gov. Spanberger loves RGGI. Electricity will cost more.

    by Steve Haner

    The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) held its second 2026 carbon allowance auction last week and the bidding cleared at $35 per ton, the group announced Friday. That price was a 40 percent increase over the $25 per ton set for the carbon tax just three months earlier and was 78 percent higher than an allowance had cost a year earlier. 

    Should that price hold for the September and December 2026 auctions, Virginia will collect more than $400 million in tax revenue before the end of this year. Over the course of a full year, the state is likely to collect $800 million or more from electricity producers using natural gas, coal or oil for fuel. Of course, future auctions could (and likely will) set even higher prices, as the record shows.  

    A legislative panel, finally getting touchy about RGGI’s impact on customer bills, on Tuesday will discuss whether to give some of that money directly to customers. Dominion Energy Virginia is the largest user of the allowances and is expected to announce soon how much it will ask the State Corporation Commission to increase our bills to cover it (the betting is $7-8 per 1,000 kilowatt hours.)

    The $35 per ton was lower than the allowance prices seen in recent weeks on the secondary market, where futures prices for an allowance to emit one ton of carbon dioxide passed $40 and had reached over $50 per ton for a 2026 “vintage” allowance. The futures market has dropped back to levels closer to that June auction result but bears watching.  The speculators haven’t lost their money yet.

    (more…)

  • D-Day, June 6, 1944.

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    When America fought for freedom in Europe.

  • Lucas Stymies Budget Talks, Trashes Other Democrats

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    From Louise Lucas’s Twitter Feed, courtesy of Virginia Political Newsletter

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Sen. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) has taken a page out of Donald Trump’s playbook. She is resorting to assigning insulting nicknames to those who will not go along with her and trying to negotiate by social media using all capitals in her complaints.

    As recently reported by the Virginia Political Newsletter, the budget negotiations seemed to be going well until this morning when Lucas, Gov. Abigail Spanberger, and Del. Luke Torian (D-Prince William), the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, met. When Spanberger and Torian pressed Lucas on what she wanted to do with the additional revenue that would be generated by repealing the sales tax exemption on data centers, Lucas got frustrated and left the meeting.

    Lucas later released this statement, “Just when I thought Chairman Torian and I were getting close to agreeing on a budget, we had a meeting with Data Center Diva [Spanberger] this morning and she agrees with Amazon Don [Don Scott (D-Portsmouth), Speaker of the House] who doesn’t want to impact the richest corporations in the country.”  Later, on social media, she declared, “Amazon Don and Data Center Diva, you are making a MONUMENTAL MISTAKE! Maybe you should ask Glenn Youngkin how that worked out for him!”

    At this point, the plan seems to be to report a “skinny budget”, one that will fund just core services, which could prevent a government shutdown on July 1.

  • Another Look at Those Crime Numbers

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Virginians for Safe Communities needs to broaden its outlook. 

    In a recent article on this blog, the organization pointed out that the number of offenses against persons in Arlington/Falls Church and Fairfax Co/Fairfax City had increased significantly from 2019 to 2025.  It linked those increases to the policies of the Commonwealth’s attorneys in those jurisdictions, claiming they had “legalized crime.”

    The organization went on to claim that, while crime increased in those Northern Virginia jurisdictions that happen to have Democrat Commonwealth’s attorneys, “it fell everywhere else.” That’s not quite true. As shown in the table below, the number of offenses against persons increased quite significantly in three traditionally conservative, Republican counties. If Commonwealth’s attorneys are to be blamed for increases in crime, the prosecutors in those jurisdictions have some explaining to do. 

    (more…)

  • Former UVA President’s Sabbatical Raises Governance Questions

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    James A. Bacon

    by Scott Douglas Gerber

    Close-up of a man with a serious expression, standing in front of a University of Virginia backdrop.
    Image credit: Steve Helber/AP

    When former University of Virginia President Jim Ryan recently sat for a friendly interview with Cville Right Now, he sounded delighted to be off the clock. He described mornings spent writing a leadership book; afternoons kite surfing, skiing, golfing, biking and traveling; and he joked, “I’m really good at not working.” The joke lands differently once his sabbatical benefits are understood.

    Ryan’s contract explains why he can afford to “not work” so enthusiastically. When he resigned in June 2025 under pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice — after multiple civil rights investigations into UVA’s DEI practices — he exercised a contractual option to return to the law faculty at 75% of his presidential salary, or $825,000 a year. As I pointed out in RealClearEducation, that figure is so far beyond what other UVA law professors earn that it likely violates the Internal Revenue Code’s prohibition on private inurement, which bars tax exempt institutions from enriching insiders with unreasonable compensation.

    But the sabbatical is even more revealing. Section F.6 of Ryan’s employment agreement states that during his sabbatical he “shall receive his last existing presidential Annual Salary.” That salary was about $1.1 million. The same provision gives him an office, staff support and an annual budget of $50,000 “to be used for research and travel expenses.” In plain terms, UVA is paying Ryan more than a million dollars this year, plus a $50,000 research and travel fund, while he skis, surfs, golfs, travels and writes a trade press book about leadership.

    Sabbaticals are supposed to support serious scholarship. Nothing about the book Ryan describes requires a seven-figure salary and a $50,000 research budget — unless he is paying someone else to write it for him, which I doubt. What it does require is a Board of Visitors willing to treat the university’s resources as a cushion for a powerful man’s soft landing.

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  • Sometimes You Have to Create the Racism in Order to Defeat It

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    James A. Bacon

    More details have emerged about the Southern Poverty Law Center’s funding the right-wing extremism it purported to fight. Here’s the updated account, contained in a superseding indictment filed by the Department of Justice, of SPLC Employee-3 who helped organize the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. — JAB

    The SPLC Secretly Paid F-37 More Than $300,000 in Donor’s Money

    i. F-37 was not involved in an extremist organization before F-37 reached out to the SPLC seeking employment.

    ii. While receiving payment by the SPLC, F-37 made multiple racist posts on social media accounts under the supervision of SPLC Employee-3.

    iii. In 2017, F-37 was a member of the online leadership chat group that helped plan the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. SPLC Employee-3 directed F-37 to attend this event in which one woman and two law enforcement officers were tragically killed. F-37 assisted in arranging transportation for others involved in the movement to the event.

    iv. The SPLC extensively covered the “Unite the Right” rally on its various media platforms, both at the time of the rally and in the following years. The “Unite the Right” rally led to a massive fundraising windfall for the SPLC with open-source media reporting that the SPLC more than doubled their previous year’s reported revenue from private and corporation donations following the “Unite the Right” rally. The SPLC did not disclose to its donors that it used donors’ money to pay F-37.

    (more…)

  • Drip, Drip, Drip

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    James A. Bacon

    The truth slowly emerges about what UVA leaders knew about the Health System scandal.

    by The Jefferson Council

    A foggy landscape featuring bare trees in black and white, with a building partially visible in the background.

    A bombshell disclosure in a recent FOIA proceeding reveals that UVA’s Board of Visitors, led by Robert Hardie, quietly retained Williams & Connolly (W&C) as “special counsel to the BOV and the Audit, Compliance, and Risk Committee of the BOV” regarding issues with UVA Health on May 23, 2024 — four months before the September 5th correspondence in which 128 physicians signed a no-confidence letter in UVA Health leadership. You can read the never-previously-disclosed letter of engagement here.

    That timing is significant. By May 2024, the Ryan administration had already received years of complaints, resignation letters, and HR filings involving patient safety, retaliation, and leadership culture. On May 6, 2024 — just seventeen days before W&C was retained — at least three faculty members filed formal reports with Human Resources, resulting in hours of subsequent interviews. UVA certainly did not request special counsel because everything was fine.

    Yet the Ryan administration publicly insisted that UVA Health was being managed responsibly and was in “the best shape it has ever been in.” When the physicians’ no-confidence letter –- documenting significant issues with UVA –- became public on September 5, President Jim Ryan dismissed it two days later as a “strategy” built on “generalized and anonymous claims,” suggesting that a few faculty meetings were sufficient to address the concerns being raised. He accused the physicians of “besmirching” the reputations of UVA Health leadership and casting an unfair “shadow over the great work of the entire health system.”

    (more…)

  • Hurricane Season: Are You Ready?

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Satellite image of a large hurricane swirling over ocean waters near land.

    I admit it. After decades in the news business I’m jaded. 

    Bored, too.

    Especially with the tedious, fear-inducing fluff pieces that news outlets sprinkle throughout the year as their reporters obediently attend press conferences and act as stenographers for bureaucrats.

    You know, the stories with ridiculous “safety precautions” published year after year at Halloween that turn trick or treating into a weird evening of parents hovering around kids and forbidding them to eat at single M&M until Mommy and Daddy can examine their sugary booty. (You do know that there’s never been a verified case of a razor blade in apple, right? Yet this single urban legend is trotted out annually.)

    Every July we get the usual warnings about the dangers of backyard fireworks for Independence Day. Apparently, somewhere out there, someone still needs to be told not to look down the business end of a bottle rocket.

    Every August we get the same self-evident tips on surviving a heat wave: dress in light-colored clothing, drink water, stay out of the sun. 

    Yep, somewhere in America there must be idiots who dress in black, march around at noon and refuse to drink water when the temperatures are in triple digits.

    And this, being the first week in June, means state officials will issue stern warnings about hurricane season, which technically started on Monday and lasts until November 30, even though we rarely see a major storm before August. Continue reading.

  • Dodging FOIA at VMI

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A soldier in a historical uniform is dramatically falling backward amidst flying debris and bullets in an action-packed scene.
    Dodging FOIA bullets a la Matrix. Image credit: Grok

    Bob Morris, a Virginia Military Institute alumni activist, has filed suit in York County Circuit Court against VMI alleging the withholding, redacting, and even altering public records. Here follows a Chat GPT summary based upon a media backgrounder provided by The Cadet, a VMI student newspaper with which Morris is closely affiliated. — JAB

    Core allegations

    The lawsuit alleges that VMI officials and members of its Board of Visitors:

    • Conducted public business through “reply-all” emails and text-message chains that effectively functioned as secret meetings, in violation of Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
    • Withheld, redacted, or failed to produce public records related to controversial governance decisions at VMI.
    • Failed to produce records from board member Donald Hall, who allegedly described himself as the “principal negotiator” with state officials regarding VMI matters.
    • Withheld records involving former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, call logs, voicemails, and certain email metadata.
    • Altered a public-records portal entry to conceal the involvement of VMI’s FOIA officer in creating a records request for an outside journalist.
    (more…)

  • Guess Why Norfolk Spent $57,000 to Renovate a Women’s Locker Room

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    James A. Bacon

    The Norfolk Police Department added toilet and shower partitions in its women’s locker room after a trans-identified recruit ogled an undressed female officer.

    by Jordan Jantz
    Republished with permission from IWFeatures

    Instead of protecting female-only spaces, the Norfolk Police Department in Virginia has spent $57,424.95 to “provide toilet partitions, shower drying area partitions and related finish work at shower area of NPD Women’s Locker Room,” allegedly in order to accommodate trans-identified individuals, according to communications obtained by IW Features.

    A letter dated November 30, 2018, discussing the renovation of the women's locker room at Norfolk PD, accompanied by an image of the renovated locker room with a 'Closed for Renovation' sign.

    Previously, the department locker room had only transparent shower curtains, Norfolk Officer Meghan Grabow previously told IW Features. The renovations added dividers and walls to create privacy, but those additions also took up floorspace and divided an already small locker room.

    The renovation came after an alleged incident in the Norfolk PD when a transgender-identified male recruit entered the women’s locker room and stared at Grabow when she was undressed, as IW Features previously reported. The department also allegedly demanded that officers address the male recruit as a female and use female pronouns. When officers attempted to gain clarity, the department reportedly retaliated by suspending officer Grabow and firing officer Martin Powers when he stood with female officers.

    (more…)

  • Crime Rate Down?

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    It depends on where you live.

  • Still Addicted to Opacity in Governance

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    From The Jefferson Council:

    A foggy landscape featuring bare trees in black and white, with a distant building partially obscured by mist.
    Murky, not illicit

    The UVA BOV will have their Quarterly Board Meeting on Thursday and Friday, June 4-5. UVA still has *NOT* published the agenda or Board materials, only a schedule. You can find that here.

    The Quarterly Board meeting will be followed by a retreat on Saturday at Morven, with sessions on:
    *Accountability & Aligned Governance – Board Transition/Governance
    *Affordability & Accessibility–AccessUVA Funding
    *Athletic Competitiveness–Athletics and Funding
    *Advancing Patient Care & Saving Lives – UVA Health – Strategy and Patient Care

    Here’s an idea. How about a session on Transparency and Restoring Public Trust? — JAB

  • Inside the Terror-Linked Program Training Virginia’s Teachers

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A university program with ties to terrorist organizations gets to influence public school classrooms.

    A smiling woman wearing a hijab and glasses holds up a notebook with 'LESSON 1' written on it, while sitting at a desk with a laptop and a coffee cup.
    Image credit: Restoration News

    by Victoria Manning

    What if a program with ties to terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood trained your child’s teacher using taxpayer resources? That’s not hypothetical. It’s been happening for years at Virginia’s Shenandoah University—largely operating under the radar.

    The Center for Islam in the Contemporary World (CICW) at Virginia’s Shenandoah University has ties to multiple terrorist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. CICW founder, M. Yaqub Mirza, was formerly a leader of the SAAR Foundation, a fundraising operation linked to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda. Mirza died in 2025, but the current chairman has his own extremist ties.

    Antisemitic rants, support for terror

    Anti-Jewish Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is the CICW chairman. The day after the October 7th, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas, Ibrahim sided with Hamas terrorists saying, “The confiscation of Palestinian land and property is done relentlessly by the Zionists. As a result of this injustice, hundreds of innocent lives were sacrificed. Malaysia remains in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people.” Just weeks later Ibrahim led a large “Malaysia Stands with Palestine” rally and called Hamas “freedom fighters.” He urged media outlets not to call Hamas “terrorists.”

    (more…)

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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