Bacon's Rebellion

  • Climate Change Wars Coming to Virginia Schools?

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    You have to click on the illustration and expand it to even see the percentage of carbon dioxide from human activity in our atmosphere. A new lesson plan in waiting?

    By Steve Haner

    Young Virginians are not getting enough instruction on the deadly existential threat of climate change from the news media, their favorite social media sites, Hollywood productions and President Joe Biden’s campaign stump speeches. Virginia’s General Assembly Democrats are demanding that the public schools double down with a wave of new classroom materials.

    The curriculum wars at the State Board of Education and in local school board meetings may now move on to a new topic if Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) signs House Bill 1088. The bill is ripe for a veto, having received support from only one Republican legislator out of 68, but after the first 100 or so vetoes, Youngkin’s veto pen may tire. (more…)

  • The Use and Misuse of a UVA Lecture Series

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The “fixation” of modern-day Israelis on the Holocaust has become a “vast and ugly fig leaf” hiding oppression of Palestinians and giving Israelis license to brush aside moral qualms about their response to the October 7 terror attacks, Brown University historian Omer Bartov told an audience of 60 or so people Tuesday at the University of Virginia.

    In vowing to “never again” let Jews fall prey to genocidal extermination, Israelis indulge in “self-victimization,” “self pity,” and “self righteousness,” said Bartov, an Israeli-born Jew who has built his academic career around the study of the Holocaust and genocide. “It’s not a condition conducive to understanding, toleration, and reconciliation.”

    The lecture, entitled, “The Never Again Syndrome: Uses and Misuses of Holocaust Memory in Contemporary Global Politics,” was one in a series of events billed by UVA leadership as broadening understanding of the Middle East conflict. The lecture series is an outgrowth of the tension between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups at UVA. Jewish students have complained of a hostile environment that leaves them afraid to speak out or even openly identify as Jews. In a parallel initiative, the Ryan administration created a religious diversity task force to understand how Jewish and Muslim students, faculty and staff “experience life on Grounds.” (more…)

  • Wind Project Sued Over Claimed Threat to Whales

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    by

    Steve Haner

    NOAA Right Whale status graphic, updated this month to report 123 recent deaths and injuries.

    By Steve Haner

    A coalition of public interest groups has now filed its expected lawsuit seeking to halt construction of Dominion Energy Virginia’s offshore wind facility off Virginia Beach. Its key complaint is the federal permits were issued without a full and fair evaluation of the potential impact of the turbines on the shrinking North Atlantic Right Whale population. (more…)

  • Marriage Promotes ‘White Supremacy,’ George Mason Professor Says

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    Bob Rayner

    by Jerome Woehrle

    “Marriage fundamentalism” promotes “white supremacy,” according to a professor at Virginia’s largest university.

    “Marriage fundamentalism, like structural racism, is a key structuring element of White heteropatriarchal supremacy,” wrote George Mason University Professor Bethany Letiecq in the Journal of Marriage and Family. “Marriage fundamentalism can be understood as an ideological and cultural phenomenon, where adherents espouse the superiority of the two-parent married family.”

    Letiecq, an official of the American Association of University Professors, says she employs “critical family theorizing … to delineate an overarching orientation to structural oppression and unequal power relations that advantages [white heteropatriarchal nuclear families] and marginalizes others as a function of marriage fundamentalism.”

    Letiecq says the government has coerced “its citizens to enter into an institution built upon White heteropatriarchal supremacy.” Letiecq says marriage as an institution has allowed white heterosexual couples “to gain access to benefits, rights, and protections.”

    She lives with her partner and their children in what she describes as “a committed heterosexual union outside the institution of marriage.” Letiecq claims that only White heterosexual couples reap the social and financial benefits of marriage subsidized by the government while minority Americans do not gain any such benefits.
    (more…)

  • Complex Digital Sales Tax Worthy of Veto

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    Pick any member of the General Assembly at random, stop them in the grocery store for a chat, and quiz them about the digital sales tax they approved a week ago Saturday.  It will quickly become clear that most had no idea what they were voting for when they approved it. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • Can the Governor Veto RGGI?

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    One of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s top priorities has been to extricate the Commonwealth from participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). One of the top priorities of the Democrat-controlled General Assembly has been ensuring that the Commonwealth participates in RGGI.

    For those readers unfamiliar with the purposes of RGGI and how it functions, along with the pros and cons of membership, those topics have been covered extensively in this blog. See here, here, and here.  This article will focus on the constitutional struggle between the governor and the legislature.

    Brief legislature history

    In 2020, the General Assembly authorized the director of the Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to establish a market-based energy allowances trading program and the Governor to include the Commonwealth in RGGI. The Air Pollution Control Board (“the Board”) and the Governor exercised their authority to act, and Virginia became a RGGI participant on Jan.1, 2021.

    When he took office in 2022, among the first executive orders issued by Gov. Younkin was one directing the DEQ director and the Board to begin taking steps to end Virginia’s participation in RGGI. The Board adopted the final repeal of the RGGI regulations in July 2023, to be effective at the end of the year. Environmental groups sued and those suits are still pending in court.

    The next stage of this saga came as the new Democratic majority in the 2024 General Assembly adopted language in the budget bill prohibiting the use of state funds to “impede” the state from rejoining the RGGI and directing all relevant agencies to take steps to immediately rejoin the RGGI and continue participation. Although some Democrat legislators and environmentalists believe the language is vulnerable to a gubernatorial veto, court precedents and recent actions would augur a more favorable outlook on their account. (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

  • Prison Population Down, Crime Up in 2022. Coincidence?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    The population of Virginia’s state and federal prisons posted a 10.5% decline between 2021 and 2022 — the largest drop of any state, according to new Department of Justice data. Oregon saw the second largest decline at 5.2%. Many states saw increases in their prison populations, as reported by WRIC news.

    The total prison population for Virginia in 2022 was 27,162. The numbers do not include inmates of local jails.

    The fall-off in prison population was especially marked among females — 18%. The DOJ report did not break down state-by-state prison populations by race.

    With the exception of drug offenses, which declined, the crime rate per 100,000 population increased in almost all categories in 2022, according to the Virginia State Police “2022 Crime in Virginia” report.

    — JAB

  • Jefferson Institute Lists Bills Youngkin Should Veto

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Derrick Max

    We have reached sine die of the 2024 General Assembly legislative session. During this session, over a thousand individual bills and a nearly 500-page biennial budget were sent to the Governor. All of this must be reviewed and acted upon by Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) before the April 17 reconvened session.

    There may be hundreds of bills on the Governor’s desk worthy of his veto. Additionally, Democrats inserted partisan policy decisions within the budget in such a way that the Governor may need to veto it in its entirety. As Senator Creigh Deeds (D-Charlottesville) noted in his end-of-session constituent letter: “The budget includes items the Governor does not support, and some of those may be difficult for the Governor to veto because they are woven into the fabric of the budget itself. Speculation is rampant that he may opt to veto the budget, which would set us up for another prolonged budget debate.”

    Governor Youngkin should not hesitate to use his veto pen liberally, including on the budget. As former Governor Terry McAuliffe (D) said, “The veto is not a decision I take lightly, but it is a necessary tool to prevent harmful legislation from becoming law. I will continue to stand up for the values and priorities of the people of Virginia by exercising this authority judiciously.” Governor McAuliffe had the highest number of vetoes in recent years when he faced Republican majorities in both chambers, vetoing 49 bills in 2017 alone and 120 during his entire term. (more…)

  • War on Fossil Fuels Reaches Court of Appeals

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    A climate alarmism publicity stunt masquerading as serious litigation had a hearing in front of the Virginia Court of Appeals on Monday, seeking to revive its rejected petition to shut down the fossil fuel industry in Virginia. Why? Because some of the plaintiffs suffered from heat exhaustion while exercising on summer days, and two of them got Lyme Disease after tick bites.

    The suit was last discussed on Bacon’s Rebellion when it was filed in 2022. Later that year a Richmond City Circuit Court judge accepted the state’s motion to dismiss it on summary judgement, citing the doctrine of sovereign immunity. It was an appeal of that dismissal which was before a panel of the appeals judges, covered only by Brad Kutner of Radio IQ.

    The appeals court is being asked to reinstate the case, which is seeking aggressive if poorly defined relief. Basically, the original petition seeks to repeal Virginia’s Gas and Oil Act and reverse long-standing policy decisions in favor of developing energy resources. It seeks to prevent the state regulatory agencies from allowing any new fossil fuel infrastructure of any kind, presumably from pipelines to coal mines to gas stations to power plants.

    The stages and pleadings of the Virginia case are documented by a website tracking it and a handful of similar cases around the nation, with the same basic arguments and a common set of lawyers. So far, the plaintiffs have seen some initial success only in Montana and Hawaii. Their federal level suit is being actively opposed by the Biden Department of Justice. (more…)

  • Governor’s Budget Transformed

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Gov. Youngkin addressing media about budget changes, with Senators Lucas and Locke looking on. Photo credit: Richmond Times Dispatch

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    In my almost 50 years of working around, and following, the General Assembly, I do not think I have ever seen the legislature take apart a governor’s budget bill to the extent that this General Assembly just demolished Gov. Youngkin’s budget.

    The change that had the most impact was the jettisoning of the governor’s proposed tax package. Steve Haner has previously described the legislature’s actions (here and here). To summarize, the legislature rejected the governor’s proposed tax cuts, embraced his proposal to expand the sales tax to digital services, and went one step further by expanding the sales tax to cover digital services between companies.

    The Governor’s proposal would have resulted in about $1 billion less in general fund revenue over the biennium. The move by the legislature was projected to increase general fund revenue by $1 billion over the biennium. That is a $2 billion swing in general fund revenue available for appropriation. And the Democrats in the majority on the budget committees of both houses were happy to use that extra money to spend on their priorities, primarily K-12. One only has to peruse the conference report to see a plethora of appropriation increases. (more…)

  • Correction: SMR Bills Cover Both Utilities

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Friday’s report that the General Assembly voted to allow early cost recovery on small modular reactors only for Appalachian Power Company was in error.  The Senate version of the bill approved March 7 was language applicable solely to Dominion Energy Virginia. A substitute that removed Dominion from the bill was rejected.

    The error was entirely due to inattention on my part. Frankly, it is a message I need to stop trying to write about live legislation if I am not on the ground at the Capitol or glued to the broadcasts. Two other reports on digital outlets which I had questioned (in the comments) got it right while I got it wrong. For that most of all, I apologize. (more…)

  • San Francisco’s “Algebra for None” Policy and How Virginia Avoided a Similar Fate

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Todd Truitt 

    On March 5, 84% of San Francisco voters  voted in favor of a referendum for San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to bring back Algebra for 8th graders, overturning their prior ill-fated math reform (a “no middle schooler let ahead” math policy). What does this vote have to do with Virginia?

    The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) had initially proposed a similar policy for Virginia as part of its Virginia Math Pathways Initiative (VMPI) in 2021. As noted below, VMPI cited Stanford Education Professor Jo Boaler and resources primarily using SFUSD’s misrepresented preliminary data as “empirical evidence” for VMPI’s similar initial proposal. 

    San Francisco’s “Algebra for None” Policy and Its Immediate Effects

    SFUSD revised its math program in 2014 based on the ideas of Boaler, requiring heterogeneous math classes and restricting Algebra until 9th grade. By 2018, Boaler and SFUSD were claiming success based upon SFUSD’s preliminary data (subsequently exposed as having been misrepresented).

    At the same time, a flood of middle class and well-off families pursued workarounds, thereby creating opportunity gaps with less advantaged kids. As a result, the City of San Francisco (not SFUSD) began funding workarounds for less advantaged kids. Meanwhile, SFUSD’s math head used the tired trope that those who opposed the inequity of its “Algebra for None” policy were only affluent parents fighting for their own children to get ahead. (more…)

  • The Sausage Factory Taxes the Digital Economy

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    The Virginia General Assembly has now jumped into the brave new world of taxing the digital economy, but the sales tax provisions it adopted in the budget conference report Saturday are not the same ones that appeared in earlier budget versions. The cabal of tax raisers in the secret final negotiation got creative.    (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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