Bacon's Rebellion

  • The Asymmetrical Application of Free-Speech Principles

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Clifford S. Asness, founder of AQR Capital Management, did a masterful job of distilling the free-speech debate on college campuses to its essence. Though he had in mind the disastrous testimony of the three Ivy League presidents last week regarding Palestinians and Jews, his Wall Street Journal op-ed describes the dilemma at the University of Virginia as well.

    Alumni donors like me don’t object to free speech. What we can’t abide is the extremely asymmetrical application of free-speech principles. For years these schools, [the University of Pennsylvania] prominently included, have actively suppressed ideas disagreeable to the progressive worldview of their administrations, faculties and hard-core student activists. Now that those groups are talking about wiping Israel off the map, these college presidents are wrapping themselves in the First Amendment….

    Unacceptable is the current status quo of free speech for those chanting slogans that amount to “death to the Jews” but not for those committing alleged microaggressions against the politically favored.

    That is precisely the problem I have with the UVa administration.

    The day after Hamas terrorists slaughtered thousands of defenseless Israeli citizens and abducted hundreds more, the Students for Justice in Palestine at UVA were free to say the following [my bold]: (more…)

  • Online Porn Star/Democrat Candidate Continues to Play Victim

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    Bob Rayner

    Susanna Gibson at work

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Let me get this straight. A married mother of two, a Democrat, who engaged in smutty livestream sex for money with her husband, is still playing the victim card because she lost her bid to represent Virginians from the 57th House District.

    Politico just featured a laughable Q and A with the “victim” headlined: “Her Online Sex Life Was Exposed. She Lost Her Election. Now She’s Speaking Out.” In which Gibson basically said that the only people who cared about her escapades were aging Republicans.

    The cool kids — you know, millennials like her — know that abortion rights are way more important than anything she did on her side hustle with “Chaturbate.”

    “Younger voters don’t care. Very, very few of them, I would say. My age and younger, maybe even mid-40s up to 50 or so, didn’t care. I’m a millennial, I’m the oldest possible millennial — 90 percent of millennials have taken nude photos. So, I think we all understand.”

    So, the entire younger generation is morally bankrupt? Good to know.

    While it may be true that 90% of millennials have taken nudies, that’s not smart or a sign of good judgment. Still, there’s a difference between a nude snapshot and live-streamed sex acts for cash. (more…)

  • Deja Vu, All Over Again

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Virginia is trying again to land a sports facility for a national professional sports team, The Washington Post reports. This time it is an arena for the Wizards of the National Basketball Association and the Capitals of the National Hockey League. Both teams have the same owner and are currently located in Washington, D.C.

    The facility would be located in Potomac Yards in Alexandria. (If that name sounds familiar, that is where then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder tried to lure the Washington Redskins football team 30 years ago.) According to the Post, the arena would anchor a “massive mixed-use development.” A stadium authority would own the facility and lease it to the company that owns the sports teams. There are no public details on potential costs yet. The owner of the Wizards and the Capitals would be expected to put up “hundreds of millions of dollars of its own money,” with the remainder being provided by the authority. The authority would sell bonds to raise the cash and use revenue from ticket sales, concessions, and parking to repay the bonds (theoretically).  (more…)

  • The Plain Truth about Climate Change in Virginia

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    Bob Rayner

    Surry Nuclear Power Station

    by Nelson Fegley

    Climate change is real. Major climate fluctuations have occurred over hundreds of thousands of years, and the future will be similar. The changes are both anthropogenic (human caused) and due to natural causes. The magnitude of natural changes in temperatures and sea levels have far exceed those from anthropogenic causes. It is highly unlikely that we can significantly influence the natural causes, so whatever happens we will need to adapt to the resulting changes in temperature, sea levels, etc.  More about this later.

    The Commonwealth of Virginia, due to the structure the power industry, is well positioned to deal with both the anthropogenic and natural causes of climate change. About 87% of the state’s power is generated via nuclear and natural energy sources. Nuclear energy generation involves zero carbon emissions, while natural gas is clean relative to sources like coal. The combination of nuclear and natural gas provides dependable power, not dependent on the wind blowing and sun shining. 

    The capability to provide reliable generation of power is a key reason why Northern Virginia has become the world center for cloud computing and data storage centers. And businesses such as Amazon have committed an additional $35 billion for further expansion of this technology throughout Virginia. The economic fallout from these investments will help provide resources that will be needed to adapt to the changes in climate due to natural causes. An example would be funding major infrastructure projects in the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Coast areas. 

    The current political climate involves a goal of having power generation methods that produce zero carbon emissions. Wind and solar power are being pushed, but they are unlikely to become a major source of reliable power due to their intermittent nature. Storage battery technology is under development, but unlikely to provide the needed base load capacity. The wind projects that have been funded are also facing “headwinds” due to major unforeseen costs.  (more…)

  • Asleep at the Switch in Harrisonburg

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    Bob Rayner

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    At some point while on the Harrisonburg City Council, I quit worrying about or getting angry about being misquoted by the Daily News-Record, and I got used to the people I met saying I wasn’t anything like what they expected. The expectations the paper created were just part of the gig. And I remember one time that I was pretty sure I’d be misquoted when I opened my mouth. I don’t remember what we, the council, had screwed up, but I told the reporter we had been asleep at the switch.

    I thought as I said it that he’d quote me as using the more well-known expression, asleep at the wheel. One means, in railroad terms, letting the train go down the wrong track. The other means, in driving terms, losing control through inattention. I didn’t complain. The difference didn’t matter, because it was just a metaphor.

    A lot has changed in 20 years. In the city politics of 2023, being asleep at the wheel is no longer just a metaphor. The other change is that City Council members no longer talk to the media. City publicist Michael Parks is quoted as often as the council members, and some weeks it seems he writes half the News-Record. The recent statements to school officials from Councilman Chris Jones at least brought comment from Mayor Reed, although Jones only answered through a prepared statement and the other three members were silent. Reed indicated the three were not upset by Jones’s remarks. It’s too bad they couldn’t speak for themselves.

    School officials, on the other hand, have legal and policy restrictions on what they can say about any situation in the schools, leaving Jones free to claim he was courteous and respectful and to claim school officials confirmed that characterization. (more…)

  • Kalven Principles for UVa?

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Five years ago, University of Virginia President Jim Ryan took to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter to comment upon the horrific murder of 11 Jews in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh by a white nationalist.

    “This kind of hate and violence goes against everything this country should stand for, and for which the University of Virginia will always stand,” he tweeted. “It falls to all of us to do everything we can, not just to keep our community safe but to prevent hate and bigotry from taking root in the first place.”

    Someone warned him at the time to be careful, Ryan recalled in remarks to the UVa Board of Visitors Friday. Once he started commenting on news headlines, it would be difficult to stop. There is always something happening around the world. If university presidents comment on one story, they are expected to comment on the next. And if they don’t, people read meaning into the silence.

    Maybe it’s time to rethink the practice of making public pronouncements on events of the day, Ryan suggested. Maybe it’s time to consider adopting the Kalven principles, a set of principles articulated by the University of Chicago’s Kalven Committee that urged colleges and universities to maintain institutional neutrality on social and political issues. (more…)

  • SCC Examiner Says No to Dominion Gas Plans

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    A hearing examiner at the Virginia State Corporation Commission has recommended rejection of Dominion Virginia Energy’s plan to maintain and add to its fleet of fossil fuel generators. It failed to overcome the presumption in state law that all such plants must go away, she wrote.

    In her extensive report following the months-long regulatory battle, Ann Berkebile notes that the Commission itself (still hobbled with only one full member and a retired commissioner sitting in) may reach a different conclusion. And the pending case, Dominion’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), does not actually involve final decisions on what power plants to add or delete from its assets in coming years.

    But Dominion was looking for a blessing from the Commission on its proposal to maintain most of its natural gas plants and even add one, a 1,000 megawatt facility it wants to place in Chesterfield County. The 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act has set a schedule for their retirement, with all fossil fuel generation expected to be gone in about 20 years. Dominion’s announcement last May that it was seeking to keep and add to its natural gas plants was immediately denounced by environmental advocates.

    The 2020 legislation included a provision to allow the SCC to approve an additional fossil fuel plant if a utility demonstrates “that it has already met the energy savings goals identified in § 56-596.2 and that the identified need cannot be met more affordably through the deployment or utilization of demand-side resources or energy storage resources and that it has considered and weighed alternative options, including third-party market alternatives, in its selection process.” (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    James A. Bacon

    Liz Magill, former Provost at the University of Virginia and recently resigned president of the University of Pennsylvania.

    From The Bull Elephant.

  • Does UVa Need to Charge Higher Tuition to Keep Pay Competitive?

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The Ryan administration notched up two big wins in the University of Virginia Board of Visitors meeting Thursday and Friday. It pushed through 3% tuition increases for the next two academic years and it framed the budgetary debate to its advantage. Rather than engaging in a wide-ranging discussion of how UVa might hold down costs, the Board spent most of its time talking about the challenge of hiring and retaining faculty and staff, with the implicit assumption that staying competitive will require higher pay, more money, and higher tuitions.

    The administration carefully orchestrated the discussion of tuition & fees from the very beginning — through an initial Finance Committee meeting in October, a public hearing on tuition increases at which only one person testified in November, and then the Board vote Friday. Each step of the way, the administration made lengthy presentations contending that UVa provides a superior value proposition to students, that it has restrained spending, and that inflationary pressures and cutbacks in state funding compel the university to raise tuition. Discussion was restricted to the data presented by the administration. Past efforts by board members to obtain additional information about UVa’s cost structure — in particular, about administrative costs — were ignored.

    Bert Ellis, a former president of the Jefferson Council and appointee of Governor Glenn Youngkin, was the only board member to abstain from voting for the tuition increases. The seven other Youngkin appointees on the Board voted for the tuition increases, as did every holdover from the Northam administration.

    The Ryan administration presented a case that was sometimes valid but frequently used cherrypicked data or made points that were shorn of context, as the Jefferson Council has documented in previous posts. There are no simple answers to the question of what the “right” level of tuition & fees should be. Optimal tradeoffs between affordability and costs require a vigorous and free-ranging debate at the Board level that simply did not occur. (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

  • Virginia’s Final (Maybe) RGGI Tax Grab: $97M

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Virginia’s final (maybe) sale of allowances for power plant carbon emissions produced a record $97.4 million. The price for each permit to emit one ton of carbon dioxide, which is passed to customers, has about doubled in four years.

    by Steve Haner

    Virginia has participated in its final (for a while anyway) Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative auction and the proceeds on the carbon tax set a new record, with Virginia collecting more than $97 million in one swoop. The total carbon tax take for the state is just under $828 million in three years.

    The clearing price on December 6 reached $14.88 per ton. It would have been higher but the demand for allowances was so high the RGGI organization released some of its “cost containment reserve” or CCR allowances to tamp down the price increase. The news release on the auction is here. A chart showing Virginia’s proceeds over the three years is attached.

    Why the record price? Here’s a solid suggestion: Power producers fear another major winter stressing their systems and know full well that wind and solar are unpredictable and unreliable. They are stocking up on allowances to keep our lights on with fossil fuels.

    Just four years ago when the Thomas Jefferson Institute of Public Policy produced this explainer on what RGGI was, the “carbon price” was $5.27 a ton and the prediction was Virginia would collect $150 million a year from electricity producers and eventually their customers. “There is no guarantee the price won’t rise,” we noted, and indeed a steadily rising price for carbon emissions is entirely the point of RGGI.

    Pushed by Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) the Air Pollution Control Board voted earlier this year to rescind the state regulation that forces Virginia’s larger electric power plants to purchase allowances from RGGI for every ton of coal, natural gas or oil they burn. So far, efforts to reverse that decision in the courts have failed. (more…)

  • Proposed Reproductive Freedom Amendment Could Eliminate Limits

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    Bob Rayner

    by Emilio Jaksetic

    House Joint Resolution 1 (HJ 1) and Senate Joint Resolution 1 (SJ 1) have been prefiled for consideration of the Virginia General Assembly to propose an amendment to the Virginia Constitution captioned “Article I, Bill of Rights, Section 11-A. Fundamental right to reproductive freedom.” A copy of HJ 1 is available at here and a copy of SJ 1 is available here.

    Virginians need to (1) carefully consider the danger that vague and undefined terms in the proposed constitutional amendment could be exploited to advance an agenda that extends far beyond just abortion rights; and (2) consider the need for an alternative proposed amendment that is compatible with compromises likely to be acceptable to a majority of Virginians. (more…)

  • Insufferable and Dangerous Nonsense in Academia – Antisemitism Sector

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    sherlockj

    A rally on the steps of the University of Virginia Rotunda calls for a free Palestine amid the war in Israel on Thursday, Oct. 12. CAL CARY, THE DAILY PROGRESS

    by James C. Sherlock

    I read this morning in the latest issue of Chronicle of Higher Education a particularly smarmy article by a Keith E. Whittington.

    He is, among other things, “professor of politics at Princeton University and founding chair of the Academic Committee of the Academic Freedom Alliance”.

    Good to know.

    He addressed in his article the Congressional hearing that put the presidents of Penn, Harvard and MIT on the hot seat for the unaddressed antisemitic turmoil on their campuses.

    Other articles in the same issue called the hearings a disaster for the colleges.

    “Since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, administrators have struggled to respond. Many issued statements that faculty members, students, and others saw as tepid, while protests drove deep rifts into campus communities.”

    Whittington’s was titled:

    “Colleges Can Recommit to Free Speech or Double Down on Sensitivity – The congressional hearing on antisemitism presents a stark choice.”

    He offered a false, self-serving choice of only two ways forward.

    If President Ryan of UVa had joined the others in front of the committee, they could have gotten past statements to actions, and lack of them. (more…)

  • A Day Which Will Live In Infamy

    Posted on

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

  • Dem Shrouded in Controversy Announces Gubernatorial Run

    Posted on

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    Bob Rayner

    Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney

    from The Republican Standard 

    It’s official.

    Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney (D) is running for governor of Virginia in what’s set to become a free-for-all primary.

    Stoney has courted controversy in the past as former Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s chief strategist. Critics, including former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D), accuse the ambitious politician of being a hatchetman. (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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