Bacon's Rebellion

  • Undocumented Immigrants: Responses to Objections

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Third article in a series

    Immigrant mother from Honduras fleeing with her children from tear gas at the Mexican border Photo credit: NBC News

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    The politicians raising the alarm about the large number of immigrants in the United States, as well as those trying to get in, cite several reasons for blocking their entry or deporting those who have gotten in. They are criminals. They bring in fentanyl. They are terrorists. They are a burden on the communities they settle in. By definition, they are illegal. The list could go on, but these complaints seem to be the most prominent.  This installment of the series will examine the objections singly.

    Crime

    Since he declared his candidacy in 2015, Donald Trump has characterized immigrants as being predominantly criminals. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best … They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

    Earlier this year, the Pew Research Center reported that 57 percent of Americans say that the large number of immigrants seeking to enter the country leads to increased crime. Breaking the responses down by party, 85 percent of Republicans hold that belief, while only 31 percent of Democrats agree that more immigrants lead to more crime. Those numbers support the maxim that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will come to believe it.

    Study after study after study has consistently shown that, not only is there no positive relationship between immigration and crime rates, but immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than U.S. citizens. Furthermore, there is evidence that the crime rate of undocumented immigrants is lower than that of legal immigrants.

    (more…)

  • 7,000 Virginia Properties Have Made Repeated Flooding Insurance Claims

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Norfolk flooding 2022. Photo credit: Jim Morrison and The Virginia Mercury

    by James A. Bacon

    I don’t share the apocalyptic alarmism of those who assert that global warming is increasing the frequency and severity of hurricanes. (Read Roger Pielke’s latest essay on the use of a fake data set to buttress the claim.) But I do agree about one thing. Flooding in Hampton Roads is increasing in frequency and severity. And I also agree that it makes no sense for federal flood insurance to repeatedly reimburse property owners for damage to flood-prone housing if they refuse (or cannot afford) to invest in risk mitigation.

    The Virginia Mercury highlights a new tool created by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which reveals that owners of 7,000 Virginia properties made repeated claims for flood damage over 10 years. Of those, only 554 mitigated their flood risk by filling their basements, raising their houses, or replacing their houses with structures better able to withstand flooding. Reports the Mercury:

    In Virginia, three-quarters of the repetitive loss properties are in Hampton Roads. Of those, 841 are severe repetitive loss properties, which have reported four or more claims of more than $5,000. The vast majority — 689 — have not been mitigated against future flooding. They accounted for 1% of the Virginia claims but 21% of the payments.

    Advocacy of flood-insurance reform represents a rare but happy conjunction of fiscal conservatism and environmentalism.

    (more…)

  • Undocumented Immigrants: How Many? Who? How Do They Get Here?

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    (Second article in a series)

    Immigrants attempting to cross segment of Darien Gap Photo Credit: Council of Foreign Relations

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Immigrants are human beings.

    The Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian tradition declares that God created human beings “in his own image.” One of the founding documents of the United States declares, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.”

    It follows that immigrants are human beings, the same as all Americans, and that they have, like us, an inherent right to “life, liberty, ad the pursuit of happiness.”

    “Immigrant” is a broad term. To be clear, in this article, when I refer to immigrants, I am addressing the undocumented immigrants already living in the country as well as those who come each year seeking asylum because they do not fit into one of the narrow categories that U.S. immigration law establishes.

    This article will delve into how many there are, who they are, why they come, and how they got here.

    (more…)

  • Youngkin Is Removing Non-Citizens From Voter Rolls. The DOJ Is Trying To Stop Him.

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    This is insane.

    The Biden/ Harris administration, which fought against including the SAVE act in a spending bill last month (that’s the the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act that would require proof of citizenship to vote.) is now suing Virginia over Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s efforts to get more than 6,000 non-citizens off the voter rolls.

    What is it with these lefties and their love affair with noncitizens and especially illegals?

    As it turns out, Virginia already has a law that keeps noncitizens from voting. Ironically, it was signed was signed by Gov. Tim Kaine and went into effect in 2007.

    It requires an affirmative declaration of citizenship at DMV in order to register to vote.

    Despite that law, Youngkin’s administration found more than 6,000 names of “self-identified” non-citizens on the voter rolls. These were Virginia drivers who reportedly told DMV that they were not citizens. Nonetheless they were registered to vote.

    Who knows how this happens: It’s likely sloppiness or clerical errors rather than something more nefarious. But you never know and it doesn’t matter.

    However these non-citizens got on the rolls, they need to come off. Now.

    Continue reading.

  • Conservative in Hollywood: a Night with Kevin Sorbo

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    ***** Sponsored Content *****

    Kevin Sorbo

    What is it like to be conservative Christian in Hollywood? Kevin Sorbo, star of “Hercules,” “Xena Princess Warrior,” and “God’s Not Dead,” can tell you Wednesday night at The Virginia Forum, held 7 p.m. at the Glen Allen Cultural Arts Center. Come hear how an actor who is a true believer thrives in the challenging ecosphere of intolerant leftism. 

    Sorbo has seen the inside of the entertainment industry. Cancelled for his views, this award-winning actor has learned how to fight back. Wednesday evening is sure to spark and crackle with insights such as “Hollywood took a $1.4 Billion dollar loss last year — you  think that would wake them up!”

    Sorbo grew up in a Midwestern Lutheran household. Unapologetically Christian and conservative, he knows his history. He believes civics need to be taught in schools. He discourses on how Hollywood and the D.C. political elites are aligned. (Listen to him on The John Reid Show on WRVA.) Contrasting the current Hollywood climate with the Hollywood of Jimmie Stewart and John Wayne, he says, “I’m going to do movies like Hollywood used to do.” But he has no time for self-pity. When his conservatism cost him his job, he started Sorbo Studios, which now produces four movies a year. His hit “God’s not Dead” cost $2 M to make and grossed $140 million in profits. 

    (more…)

  • Youngkin on Maternal Health: Find Out What Works

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    In 2022 there were 67 pregnancy-associated mortalities per 100,000 live births in Virginia. Although that translates into a rate of less than one per 1,000 births, maternal mortality has become a major issue because the rate for Black women is more than twice that of White women.

    The Office of Health Equity at Virginia Commonwealth University attributes the disparity to “structural racism” reaching back to the slave era, Blacks’ resulting mistrust of the healthcare system, and the racial biases of providers. The solution? VCU has developed learning modules and symposia to “educate” health professionals about the historical and current factors contributing to racial disparities.

    Well, guilt tripping White health professionals is one way to go about it.

    Fortunately, Governor Glenn Youngkin has chosen a more constructive approach. He has convened a Maternal Health Data Task Force to improve improving maternal health outcomes by addressing underlying medical conditions like high blood pressure.

    (more…)

  • Dominion Wants Customers to Pay $145M More for Capacity Costs

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    The surprise explosion in the capacity auction prices within the PJM electricity collective is expected to cost Dominion Energy Virginia $145 million next year. The company just proposed to the State Corporation Commission that it eventually collect some or all of that directly from its customers, but not until its rates are reviewed again in 2027. 

    The Dominion Zone produced the highest costs for future capacity within PJM in the July 2024 auction. Now we know that translates to $145 million extra.

    The ratepayer impact of the massive increase in future capacity charges within Dominion’s service territory was unclear immediately after the auction results were announced in July. It was fair to assume some impact once the new capacity pricing hit come July 2025. Each auction sets the capacity contract prices for a 12-month period, and another auction will be held for the period beginning July 2026.

    In a filing with the SCC last week, Dominion revealed its estimate that it will spend $145 million more for capacity contracts within PJM than it had planned to. That is just for 12 months, July 2025-June 2026. It requested permission to treat that as a “regulatory asset” which it can collect later rather than a normal cost of service which it would just absorb within its base rate price.

    (more…)

  • Immigration: The Open Borders of the United States

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    (First article in a series)

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    “Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

                                        Emma Lazarus

    How quaint!

    Today’s sentiments toward immigrants range from Donald Trump labeling them as “animals” who have been released from prisons and insane asylums to subsequently “plunder, rape, slaughter, and [destroy] our American suburbs, cities, and towns” and “poison the blood of our country” to Joe Biden instituting restrictions on asylum when the 7-day average of crossings exceeds 2,500.

    In 2022, the size of the foreign-born population in the United States was estimated to be 47.9 million people, about 14.3 percent of the total population, which was below the high of 14.8 percent in 1890. Of those 47.9 million, 23.4 million, 49 percent, were naturalized citizens. There were 11.5 million (23 percent) lawful permanent residents and two million (four percent) temporary lawful residents. The remaining 11 million (23 percent) were undocumented. The undocumented constituted about 3.3 percent of the total U.S. population in 2022.

    In its American Community Survey, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates there were 1,163,486 foreign-born residents in Virginia in 2023. Of that group, 662,372, or 57 percent, were naturalized U.S. citizens. The data does not break down the 501,114 foreign-born who were not U.S. citizens into how many were legal residents or undocumented immigrants.

    (more…)

  • Kiss Good-Bye to Nonpartisan Elections

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Ken Reid

    In Virginia, town, city and school board candidates appear on the ballot without “Ds” and “Rs” next to their names, as do some constitutional officers (i.e. commissioner of the revenue and treasurer). There are some exceptions by each city or town’s charter.

    The theory behind holding these as “nonpartisan elections” is that local issues, like trash pickup, school boundaries, zoning and utility rates, are generally not partisan in nature. As such, many towns and cities in the Commonwealth held their elections in May, to remove them from the
    partisanship on the November ballot.

    But political parties often use the legislative process to gain advantage in elections, notably through redistricting or the timing of elections. In addition, the parties frequently endorse candidates in municipal and school board races and push them on their “sample ballots,” which
    are handed to voters as they walk into the polls.

    So, in 2021, the Democrat-controlled Virginia General Assembly and Gov. Ralph Northam (D) decided to mandate that all town, municipal and school board elections be in November. The May option is no longer available.

    (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Found at The Bull Elephant

  • Ballot Includes a Constitutional Question Adding a Tax Exemption

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    They could have voted early!

    Most early voters are probably surprised to find that they also have a proposed constitutional amendment to consider on the Virginia 2024 ballot. As happens often in Virginia, the proposal has received no serious attention from the (dying) news media, and the state itself makes no real effort to inform people about it.

    It is one more reason the lines will form and move slowly on November 5 and another good reason to find your way to your local early voting location, which will be far less crowded than your main precinct. 

    The ballot question involves expanding an existing tax exemption from paying local real property (home and land) taxes. Right now the surviving spouse of a member of the armed forces gets the exemption if their spouse is killed in action. If this passes, the exemption would be available after death from another cause which is determined by the U.S. government to be “in the line of duty.”

    The underlying legislation passed during the 2023 and 2024 sessions, sponsored by Senator Jeremy McPike, D-Prince William. The bills did not receive any financial impact analyses which might inform voters how many additional exemptions would be authorized, and how much they would reduce local tax revenue. The exemption applies only to a “principal place of residence” owned and occupied by the spouse and expires if they remarry.

    Election officers will get plenty of questions about it, but in general will know no more about the fine points of Article X than the voters do. It will be a long, long day, especially in locations with contested local elections on top of the federal contests.

    Early voting is not proving as popular as it did in 2020, at least not so far, which is fascinating because the evidence indicates more Republicans are doing it this time. Please vote early.

    — SDH

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • Data Shows Murder Drop in Virginia Ceasefire Cities

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    In a column last month, I asked if Virginia Ceasefire, a collaboration between the Attorney General’s office and 14 urban police departments, had succeeded in combatting violent crime. I was responding at the time to a gauzy video and vacuous website highlighting the program but providing no hard data demonstrating the program’s effectiveness.

    Well, today, on the two-year anniversary of the initiative, AG Jason Miyares has some answers. He says Virginia Ceasefire deserves a big share of the credit for a 30% statewide drop in homicides so far this year compared to last year, and an 11% reduction in overall violent crime.

    There have been 116 fewer murders in Virginia through August than during the same period last year. Ceasefire cities, representing 19.4% of all offenses in the Commonwealth, saw 77 fewer murders, accounting for 66% of the reduction.

    “Ceasefire Virginia’s targeted actions to dismantle networks of violent crime [are] working,” said Attorney General Jason Miyares in the press release. “By focusing on the small percentage of individuals committing a disproportionate share of serious violence, our message is clear: if you endanger Virginians’ lives and terrorize our neighborhoods with violence, the Commonwealth of Virginia will ensure you face the full force of justice. There is no escaping the consequences.”

    In reviewing the data, I think it’s probably fair to say that Virginia Ceasefire deserves some credit for the decline, although deeper analysis is called for. More than half the reduction in the number of homicides occurred in just two cities — Hampton and Newport News — which raises the possibility that local factors unrelated to Virginia Ceasefire might have come into play.

    (more…)

  • Want Energy Both “Green” and Reliable? Send Natural Gas and Money

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    With the release of its latest 15-year plan to expand energy generation in the Commonwealth, Dominion Energy Virginia has increased the projected cost of residential electricity in 2035 to almost $216 per 1,000 kilowatt hours, a 24% increase over the same projection in its 2023 planning document. 

    If the $216 comes to pass, it will represent about $100 per megawatt hour more (up 86%) than the same residential customer was paying in 2020, just before the implementation of the Virginia Clean Economy Act.  If 1,000 kilowatt hours is the monthly average usage, the annual bill will be up about $1,200.  Many customers, of course, use much more power than that per month.   

    The comparable projection in the plan introduced last year was $174 for 1,000 kilowatt hours of juice in 2035.  The current price is about $143 for that much residential electricity.  Another projected future price in the analysis, using assumptions dictated by regulators but resisted by the utility, sets the new 2035 price at $277 and puts the 2039 price at $315 — more than three Benjamins for one modest monthly power bill.  

    This analysis also includes, for the first time, a projected future cost for Dominion’s thousands of customers in northeastern North Carolina.  With different state laws and regulators, Dominion reports North Carolinians will pay $127 for that 1,000 kWh by the end of this year and only $202 by 2035.  Somewhere in the 406-page document, the difference might be explained.  

    (more…)

  • Performance Problems at TJ?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by John Butcher

    The excellent Jim Bacon recently posted two discussions (here and here) of a recent decline in the ranking of TJ (aka, Fairfax County’s Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology). The excellent Dick Hall-Sizemore has penned a rejoinder.

    Jim points out declines from 2019 (i.e. pre-pandemic) to 2024 in math and science SOL pass rates; and the change in percentage of Asian-American students; and the decrease in TJ’s US News ranking; and changes in the Advanced pass rates of math and science SOLs. He relates those to the 2021 change in admissions standards. Dick argues that the US News ranking change is based on data that pre-dated the change in admission standards. He does not address the other changes.

    The SOL data on the VDOE Web site paint a complicated and interesting picture.

    Notes: the 2021 (“2020-2021” in the database) testing was voluntary so that year’s data probably are not reliable measures. The “Pass/Advanced” descriptor indicates a score at or above 500 on the 600 point scale; “Pass/Proficient” indicates a score above the minimum level of 400. The change in admission scoring at TJ first took effect with the 2021-2022 entering class. We would expect any effect of that change to show first in the ‘22 data, and to increase in each of the next three years.

    The Big Three for accreditation are reading, math, and science. Let’s start with reading.

    image

    (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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