Bacon's Rebellion

  • Anarchy Is Loosed Upon the World

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Everything that’s wrong with politics in America has been on display in Central Virginia this past week.

    Militants from the deep-blue Peoples Republic of Charlottesville and activists from one of the reddest congressional districts in the country collided like flint and rock. Republican candidates for Congress continued their fratricidal struggle over who is most loyal to former President Donald Trump. Adding to the mayhem, showboating Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, joined the fray and amped up the rhetoric.

    Everyone behaved badly, although Greene managed to pose as the victim when a lefty crowd shouted down her speech and hurled mindless obscenities.

    Civility is dying. The partisan extremes goad each other into greater extremity. Politics has become theater with everyone playing to the cell phone camera and lining up the next post on X or YouTube. (more…)

  • Lest We Forget 80 Years Ago Today

    Posted on

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Omaha Beach Landing
    Photo credit: U.S. Army Center of Military History

  • The Open the Books Webinar

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    In a recent post Dick Hall-Sizemore, a retired Virginia budget analyst, critiqued the Open the Books methodology for calculating the size and cost of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion bureaucracy at the University of Virginia. He based his observations in part upon Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski’s explanation provided in the Jefferson Council webinar shown above.

    This discussion has resonance beyond UVA. Open the Books is using the template it developed for UVA to conduct deep dives into DEI at other state universities, most recently the University of North Carolina system. It’s fair to ask: How does one measure the size and cost of DEI? Who do we classify as a “DEI” employee. How much of his or her salary do we count?

    By all means, let the debate begin.

    — JAB

  • So Much Privilege, So Much Self Pity

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    James A. Bacon

    Bacon’s crocodile tears

    Sometimes schadenfreude is the best freude of all.

    It seems that the Democracy-dies-in-darkness people are feeling a little darkness themselves. Since 2020, The Washington Post has experienced a 50% decline in its audience, and the enterprise lost $70 million last year. Seventy-million dollars? Hey, that’s real money even to WaPo owner Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest men.

    Now the media enterprise, which somehow still manages to dominate the news cycle in its backyard market of Virginia, is tearing itself apart in controversy over the departure of executive editor Sally Buzbee. Publisher and CEO Will Lewis has told staff that the losses cannot continue, changes need to take place, and employees need to get with the program. (more…)

  • The Economic Value of Living Shorelines

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon


    by James A. Bacon

    Every so often I find myself in agreement with new environmental initiatives.

    Not those relating to climate change that require the re-engineering of Virginia’s energy economy in the vain hope of slowing down global warming. And not in zero-risk regulations such as the landfilling of coal ash at a cost of billions of dollars to save a single hypothetical life from exposure to heavy metals and toxic chemicals.

    But I do tend to favor rules, regulations, and voluntary practices that protect Virginia wildlife habitat — such as living shorelines.

    A new study by Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) researchers published in Ocean and Coastal Management has made an important contribution to assigning economic value to tidal marshes and living shorelines. Marsh habitat on Virginia’s Middle Peninsula, the researchers found, produces more than $6.4 million in economic value each year from recreational anglers. (more…)

  • Psst! The economy is doing really well.

    Posted on

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    We all see and hear those complaints about inflation and economic woes. Here is a contrary analysis, from The Wall Street Journal, no less:

    Growing investment income and household wealth have joined near-full employment and rising wages to keep millions of Americans… spending their way through price hikes. The economy’s charge through higher interest rates is putting unprecedented sums into consumers’ pockets, pushing U.S. asset values to records and helping many high earners avoid the withering effects of inflation…. Federal data suggest Americans’ wage and wealth growth in recent years spanned every income bracket. In sheer dollar terms, white people, the rich, the college-educated and baby boomers have bagged disproportionate wealth gain such as homes–often locked in with low-rate mortgages–and stocks.

  • Youngkin, Miyares State California EV Mandate Never Adopted for Virginia

    Posted on

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    Steve Haner

    States which are using California’s air emissions regulations on the sale of internal combustion cars. This is from California’s website. Click for larger view.

    By Steve Haner

    Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) and Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) announced today that Virginia will no longer comply with the California air regulations that will restrict and eventually eliminate the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles. The announcement is sure to set off a political and legal firestorm as fierce as last year’s exit from a regional carbon tax compact. (more…)

  • Raven Baxter Found Her Virginia Beach Dream Home. The Owner Didn’t Want To Sell To A Black Woman.

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    I’m just going to say this: 84 is not THAT old.

    Being born in 1940 is no excuse for behaving like a modern-day segregationist.

    Guess who was born that year?

    Al Pacino, Ringo Starr, Dionne Warwick, Chuck Norris, Cliff Richard, Mario Andretti, Nancy Pelosi and the late John Lennon and Bruce Lee.

    Not exactly relics. (Except the dead guys, I guess.)

    Virginians born 84 years ago are not products of the Antebellum South. They may remember the bad old days of segregation, but they certainly should have outgrown Jim Crow.

    Not all have, apparently.

    The New York Times recently published a story about an 84-year-old resident of Virginia Beach whom they say had agreed to sell her condo at the oceanfront to Raven Baxter, a 30-year-old molecular biologist from Northern Virginia. They agreed on a sales price long distance, contracts were signed, an inspection was underway and the real estate deal seemed to be sailing smoothly toward closing, according to The Times.

    But The Times reports that when the seller discovered her buyer was African- American, she wanted to kill the deal.

    In May of 2024. Unbelievable.

    Dr. Baxter has a popular website, Dr. Raven The Science Maven, an X account and podcast. Check them out. She’s smart, vivacious and kids will love her experiments. Baxter went public with her story and let it be known she was not giving up the house of her dreams because a suddenly-recalcitrant seller with an appalling reason wanted to abort the deal.

    Continue reading.

  • Study of DEI at UVa is Shoddy Work

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Adam Andrzejewski

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Today I participated in a Zoom webinar with our Jim Bacon and Adam Andrzejewski of Open the Books. The title of the session was “How the Open-Government Movement Can Revolutionize Public Policy At UVA.”  In reality, it was a rant against DEI and how UVa is “pushing this radical ideology.”

    The focus was the report by Andrzejewski’s organization, Open the Books, that UVa has 235 employees on its payroll supporting and “pushing” DEI throughout the institution at a cost of $20 million. After the session was over, I took Andrzejewski up on his invitation to examine the report. Its claims are exaggerated and misleading and are based on flimsy assumptions.

    Before discussing the report in detail, I want to make two things clear:

    1. I have long contended, on this blog and elsewhere, that higher education administration is bloated. That feeling was reinforced as I went through the names in Open the Books.  The same question kept popping up in my mind as I went through the list of deans, associate deans, directors, etc.: “What do all these people actually do?”
    2. Although I support the aims of DEI, I think higher education has gone into overkill mode on the issue. For example, I recently participated in a program sponsored by a state institution of higher education, consisting of several sessions. Each session opened with a segment on DEI, which seemed out of place and sometimes strained to fit into the topic of the program.

    Those are legitimate issues for debate. What is not acceptable is throwing out numbers that are misleading and have little basis in fact. (more…)

  • Up, Up, and Away

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon


    by James A. Bacon

    Brace yourselves for another blast of UVA-centric articles, Baconoids and Baconauts. The University of Virginia Board of Visitors meets this week, and I’ll be covering the deliberations. If you’re not interested in all things Wahoo, this might be a good time to take a vacation. On the other hand, if you regard UVA as a stand-in for all that is good and all that is profane about higher-ed generally, there might be some interesting developments.

    Among the topics scheduled for discussion is the 2024-25 budget. According to documents posted on the Board of Visitors website, the administration has submitted proposed revenues and spending for the $5.8 billion budget. Given the Board’s long and illustrious tradition of applying the rubber stamp, the proposed budget is likely to be the budget.

    Bottom line: while inflation is chugging along at a 3.4% rate and expected to decline in the year ahead, spending at UVA’s academic division (excluding the health system and campus at Wise), will increase 6.7%. The biggest source of revenue — net tuition and fees — will increase 4.9%. (more…)

  • Hung ‘Cowed’ Ducks Debates, GOP Activists

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Hung Cao

    PAC scandal overshadows his campaign; Republicans better off with another nominee.

    By Ken Reid

    Although Hung Cao did not run a great campaign for U.S. House 10th district, which he lost in 2022, when the distinguished Navy captain veteran and Vietnamese refugee announced last July for U.S. Senate, I felt he was the best candidate.

    And then in April came the Staunton News Leader expose about the “Unleash America PAC” that Cao chaired in 2023, ostensibly to help GOP candidates for General Assembly in 2023.

    “We need to get leaders in the Virginia House of Delegates and the State Senate that believe in our values,” he told Richmond talk radio host John Reid on a Feb. 2, 2023 broadcast, in promoting the PAC.

    But as it turned out, according to federal financial reports, not one dime of the $103,000 the PAC raised was donated to any specific candidate last year – an election we lost by a hair. (more…)

  • DePasquale Owes an Apology

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Thomas DePasquale

    by James A. Bacon

    A year ago, University of Virginia Board member Bert Ellis was called to task for referring — in private text to two fellow board members — to his UVA critics as “numnuts.” He also referred to unnamed employees in President Jim Ryan’s office as “shmucks,” and expressed disappointment in the leadership of then-Rector Whitt Clement. The pejoratives, which were mild compared to the accusations of racism and homophobia to which he had been subjected, were deemed so insensitive that The Washington Post devoted a full-length article to the topic.

    As the minutes of the March 1-3 board meeting laconically recorded, “Mr. Ellis then apologized for the texts; he said they were private and confidential messages that were still out of place.”

    This April Thomas DePasquale, an eight-year board veteran, unleashed a torrent of vitriol against Ellis in a series of draft letters distributed to Rector Robert Hardie, former Rector Frank “Rusty” Conner, board Secretary Susan Harris, and perhaps others. (All emails to President Jim Ryan obtained through the Freedom of Information Act were redacted.) After getting feedback, he blasted out to the full board a toned-down version asking for Ellis’ resignation. (more…)

  • Neither Snow, Nor Rain, Nor Sleet…. Ah, Forget It.

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    If you’ve got something more important to mail than a greeting card, you might consider an alternative to the U.S. Postal Service. Come to think of it, if you live in Central Virginia and don’t want people thinking you’ve forgotten their birthday, graduation, or anniversary, you might not even entrust greeting cards to the U.S. mail.

    Everyone knows the mail is frequently late. But it turns out that postal carriers sometimes dump the mail rather than deliver it. An internal USPS investigation, initiated by widespread complaints of late or nondelivered mail, has documented that three mail carriers, in the words of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “ditched the mail rather than deliver it last year.” Reports the RT-D:

    In one case, a mail carrier in Fredericksburg on April 22 asked to use a resident’s bathroom and then use his recycling trash can. Four days later, the resident found 400 pieces of bundled mail in the can. The mail was recovered and the carrier, who admitted to dumping his cargo, was later fired.

    (more…)

  • University of Lynchburg Bites the Bullet

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Biting the bullet

    by James A. Bacon

    In anticipation of shrinking numbers of college-bound students, the University of Lynchburg has taken proactive steps to reduce its cost structure. A small private institution affiliated with the Church of Christ, the university has announced that it is cutting employee headcount by 10%, with further reductions over the next three years.

    Staff positions will be eliminated immediately; faculty positions will be phased out through retirements and reassignments, reports WSET News.

    “Lynchburg is closing 12 undergraduate programs and 5 graduate programs, impacting a total 4.5% of students,” the University said in a press release. “Currently 70% of undergraduate students are studying in eight majors, and 95% of students are in 21. The university offers 51 majors.”

    Everyone in higher education knows that the demographic tsunami is coming. Everyone knows that competition will heat up for a smaller number of students. Everyone knows that pressure will intensify to admit less-academically-qualified students and students with greater financial need. Institutions that freeze with indecision about what to do will find themselves burdened with unsustainable overhead and bleeding financial reserves. University of Lynchburg leadership was wise to make the hard decisions before encountering a fiscal crisis. (more…)

  • Why Virginia Democrats Should Support the New School Accountability System

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    President Obama signs the Every Student Succeeds Act in December 2015.

    by Todd Truitt

    In 2021, Republican Glenn Youngkin was able to flip the education issue on Democrats to pull off a victory. In 2025, Democrats need to reclaim the education issue to flip the Governor’s mansion back. One way of doing that is by supporting the new statewide public school accountability system, which furthers core Democratic values. If Democrats don’t get out ahead of this issue, Republicans will use it as a political issue.

    The Current Broken Accountability System in Virginia

    The 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to have accountability systems in order to “measure and hold schools and districts responsible for raising student achievement for all students, and to prompt and support improvement where necessary.” However, referring to the current failure by many states to live up to their responsibility, a long-time New York Times editorial board member said recently:

    The federal government made a disastrous choice a decade ago when it abandoned [a federal] accountability system (known as No Child Left Behind) that required schools to focus intently on helping the lowest-performing students catch up with their peers. Since [ESSA returned accountability systems to states], the already alarming achievement gaps that separate poor and wealthy children have only widened.

    The COVID era demonstrated the failure of Virginia’s combined accountability and accreditation system. Virginia had some of the largest drops on the national NAEP exams, with the lowest performing students suffering the most. And yet, with accountability tied to accreditation, nearly the same number of Virginia schools were accredited last year as there were in 2019 (92% of VA schools in 2019-20 vs. 89% in 2022-23). (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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