Bacon's Rebellion

  • One Man’s Fight for Transparency

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    James A. Bacon

    by Walter Smith

    The Virginia Freedom of Information Act (“Act” or “FOIA”) has wonderfully high aspirations, ensuring the people of the Commonwealth have “ready access to public records.” All public records are presumed open, unless an exemption is properly invoked. Any exemption shall be narrowly construed. All public bodies shall make reasonable efforts to reach an agreement with a requester concerning the production of the records requested. All of that warmth and fuzziness is contained in the short title and policy – 2.2-3700 – of the Act.

    All of Virginia’s public universities qualify as “public bodies,” subject to FOIA. Given the ties to the Commonwealth — the students, the alumni, the citizens, the Commonwealth itself and its monies — one might expect ready compliance with the Act. Surprisingly, one school in particular that brags about its “unequivocal” support for free expression and free inquiry hands over as few documents as it can, contrary to the broad aspirations expressed in 2.2-3700.

    My FOIA journey began in 2021, soon after the University of Virginia released its “free speech” statement. I was disappointed with it, thinking it lukewarm and empty of enforcement – a fig leaf resulting from the alumni outcry arising out of the poor handling of the F UVA Lawn door.

    To broadly summarize my experience, JMU, Va Tech and VCU have been cooperative, even helpful, going so far as to call me to explain why documents might not exist, or how the format isn’t exactly what I requested. Admittedly, these might only be 10 requests, while I have made hundreds of requests to UVA. UVA, however, seems determined to use every possible trick to avoid turning over documents requested. Even if I were to make all of my requests in bad faith (I haven’t), it would not obviate UVA’s duty to comply with the Act.

    (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

  • The Limitless Demand for Mental Health Services

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    James A. Bacon

    I asked Bing Image Creator to create an image based on the words, “a world of no sad people.” It came up with this creepy illustration. Bing’s AI might know something we don’t know.

    by James A. Bacon

    Mental-health advocates in Virginia are making the case for more money for… what else? … mental health. An article by Radio IQ illuminates a disturbing example (I find it disturbing, not Radio IQ) of how the alleged need for mental- health services expands relentlessly to cover ever more of life’s travails.

    Now activists are pushing the idea that people should be able to call upon mental-health professionals — often at public expense — for help in dealing with one of humankind’s most ancient and universal of emotions: grief.

    Voices for Virginia’s Children, a nonprofit advocacy group, held a press conference earlier this week, in which CEO Rachael Dean acknowledged that Governor Glenn Youngkin’s “Right Help, Right Now” program implemented in 2022 “made some improvements in the mental health space,” as Radio IQ put it, but Virginia’s children need more help in schools.

    The story was told of Marcus Lynch, a track star, father and husband who struggled with mental health issues after the death of his father. When Marcus was murdered in 2022, his wife Amanda turned to the care and support of their surviving children.

    “Grief is an injury to the heart, mind, body and nervous system. And like any injury, it requires specialized care,” Lynch said. “Yet funding for these essential programs remains limited.”

    Death and grief are human universals. Every culture in the history of mankind has developed means to deal with them: usually family, faith, and friends. No need for “specialized care.” Only in modern-day America does anyone see the need to professionalize, institutionalize, and fund with tax dollars the means to help people cope with inevitable life tragedies.

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  • Celebrate Even Small Wins Over the Green Madness

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    Dominion Energy Virginia is in the process of modernizing and upgrading the remaining natural gas fired generator at the controversial Possum Point power plant in Prince William County, seeking to squeeze out an additional 44 megawatts of output in addition to the existing 660 megawatts. Dominion claims it needs the power to serve the growing data center industry.

    Come Monday, when the deepest Arctic blast to hit this part of the US in years sets in, another reason to continue investing in the old (1948) plant on the Potomac River will be evident. Once again, and as will be the case for decades to come, hydrocarbons will be keeping you warm and brewing your coffee. 

    The new equipment at Possum Point was reported the other day by the Prince William Times, which gave many of the column inches over to various folks still upset that the power plant has not totally shut down (Piedmont Environmental Council, Potomac Riverkeepers). It stopped burning coal in 2003 and only one of the six generation units it once ran is still operating, but that one unit is humming along on gas.

    Adding 44 megawatts doesn’t sound like much, but keep in mind it would take about a 300-acre solar facility to produce that much power, and it would only do so about 25 percent of the time. Dominion would have to add several monster offshore wind turbines to the first (and probably last) giant wind facility being built off Virginia Beach. That might operate 40-45 percent of the time.

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  • A Horrible Death in Colonial Heights – Part Four. Dangerous Chameleons

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    sherlockj

    A Horrible Death in Colonial Heights – Part Four. Dangerous Chameleons

    by James C. Sherlock

    Virginia authorities have criminally charged 18 employees of Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center (CHNRC) with criminal acts in the terrible suffering and death of a woman from sepsis alleged to have occurred because of negligence in that facility.

    In Part 3 of this series we discussed who else may be responsible.

    We introduced the sister chains (affiliated entities) Medical Facilities of America (MFA) and Innovative Healthcare Management (IHM), owners of CHNRC and 43 other nursing facilities in Virginia and North Carolina.

    That assessment is no longer accurate with yesterday’s release of new CMS ownership data. 

    IHM is gone. Virginia SCC records show it as inactive. It lingers now only in historical records. We can only speculate at the reason for its demise and that decision’s relationship, if any, to the Colonial Heights death.

    But all of the former IHA nursing facilities including Colonial Heights today show MFA logos (the sprig of leaves) on their websites. They advertise “New Ownership, New Leadership, New Vision.” Really. That is what they wrote.  But it is not actually new leadership, just a new flag.  Somehow MFA is never named in the website.

     MFA and IHM have long been run by the same leaders under fluid corporate structures.

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  • Whose Kids Are They Anyway?

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    It’s official.

    Virginia Democrats have declared war on families. And they’re just warming up.

    So far, in the nascent General Assembly session, they’ve introduced two appalling anti-family measures. More to come, no doubt.

    The first is a proposed constitutional amendment that’s an abortion enthusiast’s wet dream. It would enshrine in Virginia’s constitution an unlimited right to abortion. From my reading of it there are none of those pesky restrictions that ban killing viable unborn babies in the 8th or 9th month of gestation. This is an all-out abortions-until-birth amendment.

    Oh, and the amendment seems to allow minors — who can’t legally buy lottery tickets — to secure abortions without any interference from meddling parents.

    Read it. See what you think:

    ARTICLE I

    BILL OF RIGHTS

    Section 11-A. Fundamental right to reproductive freedom.

    That every individual has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom. This right to make and effectuate one’s own decisions about all matters related to one’s pregnancy shall not be denied, burdened, or infringed upon, unless justified by a compelling state interest and achieved by the least restrictive means that do not infringe an individual’s autonomous decision-making. A state interest is compelling only when it is to ensure the protection of the health of an individual seeking care, consistent with accepted clinical standards of practice and evidence-based medicine. The Commonwealth shall not discriminate in the protection or enforcement of this fundamental right. Continue reading.

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  • Kaine Beclowned Himself at Hegseth Hearing

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Pete Hegseth

    Few television productions are more harder to watch than Senate confirmation hearings.

    Given the virulent strain of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has infected the left, yesterday’s Pete Hegseth hearing was a festival of Democrat histrionics.

    We watched leftist women reduced to unstable, screaming harpies. The men – led by Tim Kaine – showed themselves to be classless hypocrites.

    Senator Tim Kaine

    Sickening. All of them.

    Let’s start with Kaine since he not only beclowned himself yesterday, but the entire commonwealth of Virginia.

    The rumpled Kansas native was in such a rush to pant over prurient details of Hegseth’s personal life that he apparently didn’t have time to comb his hair. Kaine proceeded to spend a creepy amount of time peppering the veteran with questions about marital fidelity, marriage vows and sexual behavior before delivering his coup de grace, a humiliation of Hegseth’s 7-year-old daughter.

    Shame on this swamp creature. 

    But Kaine wasn’t finished. This dirtbag also dragged Hegseth’s mother into his unhinged tirade and implied that Hegseth had engaged in physical abuse of his former wives, something that has never been alleged. Continue reading.

  • Surovell is Wrong About School Vouchers

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax), Senate Majority Leader

    As much as I generally respect Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax), Senate majority leader, he is mistaken in some recent comments about Governor Youngkin’s proposed Opportunity Grant program.

    As reported in the Virginia Political Newsletter, Surovell declared, “Private school vouchers are expressly prohibited by the constitution of Virginia. The language was inserted when they wrote the Constitution in 1970 to prevent exactly what happened during massive resistance when the General Assembly funded students going to the Prince Edward Academy and other schools to avoid desegregated public schools.”

    According to A.E.Dick Howard’s, Commentaries on the Constitution of Virginia, the language prohibiting the “appropriation of public funds to any school or institution of learning not owned or exclusively controlled by the State or some political subdivision thereof” was added to the Virginia constitution at the infamous 1902 convention. As our frequent commenter, tmt, can attest, it was aimed at parochial schools. The provision was amended in 1956 to provide for an exception for tuition grants intended to get around desegregation requirements, but that provision was ultimately struck down by federal courts.

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  • Will Sunlight Fall on Stoney’s Selfish Severances?

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    James A. Bacon

    by Jon Baliles

    Image credit: ChatGPT

    Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water in Richmond, another scandalous legacy of Levar Stoney has been tossed in Mayor Avula’s lap, and he is just barely two weeks into his term. The cesspool of corruption and inefficiency that has returned to City Hall in recent years is one Avula will have to decide in short order if he want to be different and clean it up by being transparent, or if he wants to maintain the veil of obscurity that Stoney left behind.

    The new mayor has handled the water crisis relatively well (with some issues) and people are relieved the water is flowing again. They will be watching to make sure it keeps flowing and that the problem is fixed for the long term; but this latest story is likely (to rightly) enrage a lot of fair-minded people, but comes with an easy solution.

    Samuel Parker from the Times-Dispatch has reported on his Twitter/X feed that on Mayor Stoney’s way out the door, 32 severance packages were authorized that were collectively worth over $950,000. He also wrote, “But officials won’t disclose documents or answer questions on which employees, specifically, received those severance packages and how much each employee received.”

    Read that paragraph again. And again.

    (more…)

  • A Whisper of Fresh Air

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    James A. Bacon

    Christa Acampora, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences

    by James A. Bacon

    In December the University of Virginia College of Arts & Sciences emailed faculty members with a new form to use in their annual assessments. Much to the wonder of a correspondent who conveyed the details to me, missing were the usual boxes requiring expositions of professors’ contributions to diversity in teaching, research, advising and so forth.

    To be sure, a diversity question has survived any winnowing of wokeness in the Student Experience of Teaching Evaluations, in which students evaluate their courses and professors. Students are still asked if they agree/disagree with the statement, “The instructor created an environment that respected difference and welcomed diverse perspectives.”

    Still, our interlocutor expresses delight: “Someone has smelled the coffee, and it [the diversity-state requirement] is all completely gone!”

    Many universities are scrapping their diversity statements. Critics have condemned the requirements as a form of compelled speech — an ideological litmus test of sorts. The University of Michigan Board of Regents, for instance, voted recently to drop diversity statements in hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions. So have several other universities.

    (more…)

  • Avula Engineers Transition in Richmond Waterworks Leadership

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    James A. Bacon

    Richmond Mayor Danny Avula

    by James A. Bacon

    April Bingham, Richmond’s director of public works, has stepped down in what Mayor Danny Avula described as a voluntary and amicable parting of the ways. In the wake of the cutoff of water supplies to residents of Richmond and neighboring counties last week, Avula said, “there probably are other skills that have emerged as what we need in terms of oversight at the water treatment plant.”

    Bingham, who had previously run the customer-service operation, had no engineering background. Her interim replacement, Anthony “Scott” Morris, does. Morris, currently a chief deputy for Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality, spent four years working in wastewater plant operations in Richmond.

    It is notable that Avula managed the transition with a minimum of recrimination. Nobody had asked Bingham to resign, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Asked whether he would have fired her, Avula said he and Bingham had had “a lot of conversations over the last two weeks as we (thought) about the next phase of leadership.”

    “We’re really grateful for … the work she’s put in,” he said.

    Bingham was allowed to resign with her dignity intact, which seems appropriate under the circumstances.

    (more…)

  • Right to Choose Natural Gas Law Proposed Again at Assembly

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    Virginia’s General Assembly is being asked again to protect the use of natural gas and prohibit local government efforts to restrict or ban it in homes and businesses. A Senate bill pending at the 2025 session is backed by a large coalition which includes the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy and the Virginia Manufacturers Association.   

    The sponsor of Senate Bill 944 is Senator Bill DeSteph, R-Virginia Beach. It is similar to previous bills rejected in previous sessions on party line votes with legislative Democrats unified in opposition. But the 2025 Assembly represents a fair amount of member turnover since the last attempt.  

    Underlining the devastating consumer impact should any locality actually force homeowners or businesses to switch away from natural gas, the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) has published an updated estimate of what it would cost for a single-family home to convert from gas to electricity: about $31,000.   

    That is based on the average costs in Richmond to convert from gas to an electric heat pump, an electric range and oven, an electric water heater, and to upgrade the electric service panel box to support them. Not surprising given inflation, it is a significantly higher cost than CEA found with a similar report a few years ago. The new report  concludes:  

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  • What’s Driving Richmond’s Population Growth? Dynamic Economy or… NoVa Refugees?

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    James A. Bacon

    Source: Axios-Richmond

    by James A. Bacon

    The Richmond metropolitan area continues to dominate population growth in Virginia, as shown by this map published by Axios-Richmond. (Click here to access interactive features.) This represents a sustained reversal of a decades-long trend in which population growth had been dominated by Northern Virginia.

    What’s going on?

    Axios doesn’t speculate about what’s driving this growth, but Old Dominion University’s 2024 State of the Commonwealth report provides some context.

    Between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2023, the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area population grew 2.5%, exceeded only by 3.0% in the Winchester MSA. That compared to 1.0% nationally and 0.9% statewide. Metro Washington and Hampton Roads population growth slowed to a crawl, while Roanoke and Blacksburg lost population.

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  • Legislators Kill Bill to Modify Certificate of Public Need

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    James A. Bacon

    by Hans Bader

    Legislators in a subcommittee killed a bill in the Virginia legislature would reform the state’s obsolete and costly certificate-of-need laws, which require state permission for healthcare facilities even in badly underserved areas. Cardinal News reports:

    Legislation put forth by state Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, to reduce regulations in accessing machinery, equipment and patient services for some health care providers was effectively killed in subcommittee on Tuesday.

    Stanley’s bill, SB 910, would have created a three-phase process to eliminate the certificate of public need, or COPN, requirement for smaller, rural health care providers seeking to obtain machines used for MRI, PET and CT scans, along with other equipment needed for radiation therapy and other service.

    In a 4-1 vote, the Senate Education and Health Subcommittee on Health declined to report the bill to the full committee….Stanley pointed out that there aren’t many hospitals in the largely rural Southwest and Southside regions. That can sometimes force residents to drive long distances to obtain medical procedures. This bill was an effort to remedy that…the COPN program requires health care providers to obtain a certificate before they are able to secure new facilities or equipment or provide certain new services. To secure that certificate, a commissioner must first determine that a public need exists and has been demonstrated….“It’s an old, antiquated system that has to change,” Stanley said.

    (more…)

  • Black Caucus Wants Fines on 30 Years of Hydrocarbon Use

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    Virginia’s Legislative Black Caucus has endorsed legislation that demands oil, natural gas or coal companies that operated in Virginia at any time since 1995 pay a fine (to be determined) for presumed damage to the climate and for extreme weather.  

    Before dismissing this out of hand, know that the State of New York has already passed such a law and is demanding $75 billion over 25 years from many of the same companies, most of them national and international firms. Its Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul could not be prouder of the accomplishment, as you can read here.   

    The Virginia bill sponsored by Delegate Rae Cousins, D-Richmond, was part of a long list of bills endorsed Tuesday by the influential Black Caucus, which of course includes the Speaker of the House and the chairs of numerous key committees in both the House and Senate. Other bills on the list have already cleared committees. The Black Caucus release describes the bill thus:

    The Extreme Weather Relief Act will require large fossil fuel companies to help offset mounting costs of extreme weather caused by climate change.

    Law firms are advising this is a trend. This has legs. 

    (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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