Look what’s happening in Europe.
Following up on allegations made in a previous column in Bacon’s Rebellion, we bring an article in FFX Now to readers’ attention.
A Senate committee and Virginia State Police have concluded their separate investigations into a Centreville High School teacher’s claims that school staff facilitated abortions without parental consent, Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid said this week.
“Neither investigation found any evidence of wrongdoing or any need for further action,” Reid wrote in a letter to the school’s staff and families.
Teacher Zenaida Perez had alleged that staff had “helped the students, who were minors, obtain abortions without the consent of their parents or guardians—in violation of Virginia law—using school funds. “
Note: The newspaper article does not contain links to either the U.S. Senate committee or Fairfax reports and relies upon Reid’s characterization of the findings.
by James C. Sherlock
Virginia is awash with out-of-state nursing home and behavior-analysis chains operating as LLCs. Our state regulators know little to nothing about them and have no control over their presence in Virginia because they are not licensed by those regulators.
The problems we are experiencing in both industries are centered on rogue chains.
After a dozen years of investigating major scandals in those industries, this author has concluded that Virginia must change course.
The ongoing scandals in both industries indicate they must be brought under tighter regulation. A standard LLC
Registration with the SCC provides little information about LLCs and none about their members.
We will examine how the state might proceed to establish regulatory control of chains organized as LLCs in problematic medical services industries.
by Dick Hall-Sizemore
All governors have ceremonial “signing” events for legislation that has already been officially signed into law. The purpose is to highlight both the legislation and its patrons.
On June 16, Gov. Spanberger had a ceremony in Richmond in which she signed a batch of bills relating to gun violence. As she signed each bill, she announced the bill number, the patron, and the purpose of the bill. After she signed it, she held it up for a photo op with the patron and presented the signed bill in a special folder, along with a ceremonial pen, to the beaming patron. The video of the entire ceremony, along with her opening remarks, can be found here. (The actual signings begin at about the 42:30 mark.)
According to a report in the Virginia Political Newsletter, a member of Spanberger’s staff approached Sen. Mike Jones (D-Chesterfield) and Sen. Russert Perry (D-Fairfax), who were waiting in the audience, before the ceremony began and informed them that their bills (SB 727 and SB 160, respectively) would not be among the bills being “signed” by the governor that day. The reason was that both Senators had appeared with Sen. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, at stops on her recent “listening tour” in which she tried to drum up public support for her proposal to repeal the sales tax exemption on equipment for data centers. The senators left the meeting before it began.
This action does not have any effect on the legislation itself. The governor earlier officially signed them, and they will become law on July 1. =But their patrons will not have a glossy photo of themselves with a beaming Gov. Spanberger holding up a copy of their bill.
Question posed to Microsoft CoPilot : How much tax revenue do data centers generate in Virginia? How is that revenue split between state and local government?
Answer: State tax revenue from data centers: ≈ $1.5 billion annually
The Northern Virginia Technology Council’s 2026 economic impact report finds that data centers contributed over $1.5 billion in annual state tax revenue in 2025.
This includes:
Local tax revenue: ≈ $1.3 billion (property taxes alone)
The same NVTC report finds about $1.3 billion in local property taxes in Northern Virginia alone, even after incentives.
(more…)by Kerry Dougherty
With Virginia’s top two Democrat females mud wrestling in Richmond, it’s time to think about what a Virginia state government shutdown might look like.
With 13 days to get a budget, the unthinkable may actually happen: Virginia government may shut down because the Democrats fundamentally don’t like each other.
None of us know exactly what to expect because it’s never happened before. Best of all, according to news reports, Gov. Abigail Spanberger has not made plans for the looming shutdown.
This is what passes for Democrat leadership.
It’s actually delicious. Democrats control both houses of the General Assembly and the Governor’s Mansion and it turns out they can’t govern.
Frankly, I’m here for every minute of the rancor. The primary division is on the issue of tax breaks for data centers. The governor supports them, so does Speaker of the House of Delegates, Don Scott. Continue reading.
State Senator Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) announces a Democratic “Civil War” over the budget, while nationally Democrats aren’t exactly pivoting well.
by Shaun Kenney
Let’s start with the basics.
As of this moment, the generic congressional ballot is D+5. Which isn’t great for Republicans. Yet when compared to other midterm elections? Democrats enjoyed a D+10 environment in 2018 and a D+11 environment in 2006.
This is the problem with the race to the bottom. For as radioactive as Democrats have made Trump in the public eye, ignored is the fact that the only thing more unpopular than Trump in the eyes of the American public are the Democrats themselves. Unwilling or unable to sideline their own progressive base, Democrats have to hope that they can convince enough people that Republicans are slightly more dangerous and crazy.
Which is — of course — dangerous and crazy.
In the pages of The Atlantic, whose contempt for intellectual insight is seconded only by its devotion to the partisan screed, the navel gazers are still amazed and in wonderment that the tagline “save democracy!” simply isn’t convincing middle America:
(more…)by Tyler O’Neil
A Richmond judge denied two motions against the Democrat Party of Virginia and Gov. Abigail Spanberger Monday in a defamation case, and the plaintiff told the Daily Signal that he plans to appeal the decisions.
“I will be appealing these decisions,” Thomas Speciale, a retired Army intelligence officer and a former Republican U.S. Senate candidate, told the Daily Signal outside the courtroom of the Richmond City Circuit Court.
Speciale sued the Democratic Party of Virginia for allegedly defaming him. The party issued a press release on Nov. 3, 2022, claiming that Speciale “attacked the U.S. Capitol” on Jan. 6, 2021, and suggesting that he “bloodied and beat law enforcement officers.” Speciale, who vehemently contests both claims, sued in 2023, and in the course of discovery, he found that then-U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s 2022 reelection campaign had drafted the press release.
“The press release defames me, stating that I was a ‘notable insurrectionist who attacked the United States Capitol’ and that I ‘bloodied and beat law enforcement,’” Speciale previously told the Daily Signal. “The truth is the exact opposite—I was warning the government of possible violence at the National Counterterrorism Center and the FBI, and I was there trying to stop potential violence on January 6th.”
(more…)A workforce solution has been turned into a social justice factory to indoctrinate children.
by Victoria Manning
Grow Your Own (GYO) teachers’ programs around the nation that receive federal funding have been hijacked by leftist extremist groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). To tackle the national teacher shortage, school districts have implemented teacher training programs in high schools often in partnership with local colleges. Many of these programs have been infiltrated by outside groups with social justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agendas.
In GYO programs, high school students can take dual-enrollment courses that give them a boost toward a degree path to becoming a teacher. Often local districts will guarantee a job to these students who successfully complete their program and go on to earn a degree.
It’s a great idea that’s gone astray from its original purpose. Instead, teachers are being indoctrinated in social justice and political agendas that are then used in K-12 classrooms across the country.
(more…)
by James C. Sherlock
Organizing for Virginia Seniors, a pop-up PAC formed by New Jersey nursing home chain owners with uniformly awful facilities in Virginia, gave Gov. Spanberger $100,000 with a check written to her “Inaugural Committee” the day before the General Assembly met.
This author wrote about that donation in January and asked that she return it because of its source. Good luck with that.
It appears that Virginians are inoculated against outrage at corruption among our state politicians. The politicians are, in turn, inoculated against caring what we think. They believe that campaign finance reform is for losers. Losers don’t get to have Inaugural Committees.
November 4 was election day. Spanberger Inaugural Committee 2026 was established on November 5.
Once everyone knew who had won, the biggest donors to the Inaugural Committee were a different group from the biggest donors to Spanberger for Governor. The newcomers clearly felt the need to back a winner and correctly figured there was a list somewhere that they needed to be on.
by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora
Earlier this year, 13 girls attending Fairfax High School told school administrators that Israel Flores Ortiz, a 19-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador attending the school as a junior, groped their genitals in the hallway as they were transitioning between classes.
In April, Ortiz was sentenced to 360 days in jail for multiple counts of assault and battery.
Following Ortiz’s arrest and the U.S. Department of Education’s announcement of a Title IX investigation into the district, Fairfax County Public Schools leaders hired McGuireWoods to conduct a comprehensive review of this matter. As the district signed a contract with the law firm agreeing to pay lawyers up to $1,850 per hour, Superintendent Michelle Reid—who earns $445,353 this year—told the public that the district retained “an independent outside law firm to conduct a comprehensive review of this matter.”
The district’s contract with McGuireWoods, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, suggests that the investigation is not “independent” nor for the purposes of public accountability.
(more…)
The Spanberger Administration is preparing to draft the state energy policy required by law and has created a public survey form to seek your individual or corporate input. You will find the survey form here. It is five pages, with not a lot of depth, but there are plenty of open panels to provide comments on the many issues not directly mentioned, such as the Virginia Clean Economy Act and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon tax.
The news release on the process is here. The text below is from that release:
Because energy touches every part of state government, the 2026 VEP is being developed in coordination with secretariats across the administration:
(more…)Actually, ratepayers are not at risk for Charybdis — Dominion shareholders are. The ship was funded by Blue Ocean Energy Marine, a non-regulated utility. Dominion investors have every reason to question the business decision to build the vessel. Ratepayers should focus on the offshore wind farms Dominion is building and wants to build. Ratepayers will be on the hook for those. – JAB
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.
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.
Shake up the status quo! Your contributions will be used to pay for faster download speeds and grow readership. Make a one-time donation by credit card or contribute a small sum monthly.
Enter your email address to receive immediate notifications of new posts by email.
SUBSCRIBE
Protecting Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy at the University of Virginia
Shoot me an email and I’ll generate a new password for you.
