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Bacon Meme of the Week
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A Life of Low-Level Crime
Chelsea Eileen Steiniger by James A. Bacon
Meet Chelsea Eileen Steiniger, a 31-year-old Buckingham County woman who, according to The Daily Progress, may have accomplished the feat of having been arrested more often — 63 times — than anyone else in Central Virginia.
One reason she has been arrested so frequently, it appears, is the leniency of judges who are reluctant to sentence her to jail time.
“It’s become a philosophy that you don’t want to put someone in prison for a low-level, low-dollar-amount crime,” Charlottesville lawyer Scott Goodman told the newspaper. “It’s basically treated as a sickness as much as it is a crime these days. If you show any kind of an effort that you’re trying to overcome your addiction, that goes a long way with the courts.” (more…)
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Tuition as Engine of Wealth Redistribution
Source: State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) by James A. Bacon
When Congress adjusts the tax code to promote income redistribution between the rich and poor, a debate plays out in the national media. When universities adjust their tuition to promote income redistribution, by contrast, the process is so shrouded in secrecy that the public has no idea it’s occurring.
That process is less invisible in Virginia than it once was, thanks to a Youngkin administration initiative to post the most comprehensive higher-ed data analysis ever compiled on the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV) website. But the data will sit there — as good as invisible — until someone looks at it. And even publicizing the data is next to worthless if key decision makers — university administrations, activist groups, Boards of Visitors — don’t use it to inform their discussions.
The report, compiled over a six-month process with guidance from the Boston Consulting Group, explores three broad themes: enrollment trends, labor market trends, and financial effectiveness & sustainability. SCHEV looks at industry-wide trends for Virginia’s system of public education as well as detailed breakdowns by institution.
There is an immense amount of data to explore, some of which will prove familiar to readers of Bacon’s Rebellion and some of it not. For this post I am focusing on tuition as a tool for wealth redistribution because that is data we have never seen before. (more…)
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Virginia Dems Have a Razor-Thin Majority, Not a Mandate
by Kerry Dougherty
Gosh, it seems like it was just last month that Virginia Democrats accused Republicans of being too extreme on abortion and used that wedge issue to gain a slight edge in the General Assembly. (The GOP favors a reasonable 15-week limit, preventing the grisly practice of late-term abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother being in danger.)
Now Democrats have shown who the true extremists are. They’ve introduced a constitutional amendment that would guarantee abortion rights, with no restrictions.
Fooled again, Virginia.
After the 2023 elections, Democrats have majorities in both the House and Senate: 51-49 in the House and 21-19 in the Senate. The governor can’t veto a constitutional amendment, so look for all of the abortion enthusiasts in Richmond to merrily support this measure. It needs to pass the General Assembly in two consecutive years and then has to be approved by voters. So this guarantees the Dems will be pimping this issue for the next several years.
Sigh.
They’re just getting started with a slew of bills that they know Gov. Glenn Youngkin WILL veto. The Democrats simply want to get Republican members on the record with “no” votes so they can demagogue the issues in the campaigns. (more…)
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A VSU Officer was Shot and Left Paralyzed. At Thanksgiving, Readers Can Help Him and His Family
VSU Police Officer Bruce Foster. Courtesy Foster Family fundraiser website by James C. Sherlock
Virginia State University (VSU) Police Officer Bruce Foster, 38, was shot on November 12.
He had chased down a suspect who was causing an early Sunday morning disturbance on campus.
Officer Foster was shot from behind while making the arrest. He remains hospitalized and paralyzed from the waist down.
The five-year veteran of the VSU Police Department has a wife and four children.
This Thanksgiving, each of our readers can help him and his family through this.
VSU Police Officer Bruce Foster and his wife, Deidra. Courtesy Foster Family fundraiser website I hope you will.
To donate to the Foster Family fundraiser, click here.
Bruce Foster and his four children. Courtesy of the Foster Family fundraiser website.
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UVa Picks Baltimore City Schools CEO to Feature in “Exploring New Frontiers for K-12 Systems Transformation.” Seriously.
Sonja Santelises, CEO, Baltimore City Schools Courtesy UVa by James C. Sherlock
I try to keep up in the field of education.
That led me to read “Exploring New Frontiers for K-12 Systems Transformation” produced by the UVa Partnership for Leaders in Education (UVA-PLE), a long-existing joint project of the Darden School of Business and the School of Education and Human Development.
I read it hoping to see if perhaps Darden could rub some of the rougher edges off of the uber-progressive ed school and offer some good ideas.
Bad guess. (more…)
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Virginia Might Legalize Abortion in All 9 Months of Pregnancy
Human fetus attached to a placenta. Source: Wikipedia by Hans Bader
Virginia may permanently legalize abortion in all nine months of pregnancy by banning any regulation of abortion unless necessary to meet a compelling interest, and — more importantly — defining “compelling interest” to exclude the life of the fetus even after viability.
That is what is mandated by a state constitutional amendment that has just been proposed by the Democratic Majority Leader in Virginia’s House of Delegates, House Joint Resolution No. 1
Its text defines compelling interest to include only the health of the mother, not the life of a viable fetus, by stating that a “state interest is compelling only when it is to ensure the protection of the health of an individual seeking care.” Fetuses are not “seeking care,” only their mother is.
By contrast, even when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld abortion rights, it recognized that the state had a compelling interest in protecting a viable fetus, from being aborted in the third trimester of pregnancy. As a result, current Virginia law only allows an abortion in the third trimester to protect the health or life of the mother, when “the continuation of the pregnancy is likely to result in the death of the woman or substantially and irremediably impair the mental or physical health of the woman.” (more…)
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Will the Public Ever Get to See the Mass-Shooting Report?
Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. by James A. Bacon
The University of Virginia will delay the release of an external investigation into the Nov. 13, 2022, mass shooting that resulted in three deaths and two woundings until after the trial of Christopher Jones, the UVa student charged with the crime.
“After conferring with counselors and Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley, we have decided that we need to wait until after the criminal proceedings to release further information,” President James Ryan said in a statement appearing Friday on UVa Today. “Making the reports public at this time, or even releasing a summary of their findings and recommendations, could have an impact on the criminal trial of the accused, either by disrupting the case being prepared by the Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney, or by interfering with the defendant’s right to a fair trial before an impartial jury.”
Rector Robert Hardie supported the delay. Speaking for the Board of Visitors, he said, “We agree that we should postpone the release of further information until the criminal prosecution is complete to avoid interfering with or complicating the proceedings.”
“This development is disappointing,” responded Tom Neale, president of The Jefferson Council. “The quintuple shooting is one of the most traumatic events to ever occur at UVa, and the university community has a right to know what went wrong. What assurance do we have that the actions the University has taken to improve safety actually address the problems identified in the report? How do we know a similar breakdown won’t occur again?” (more…)
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The Suppressed Report on the UVa Murders
UVa Shooting Suspect Mug Shot by James C. Sherlock
President James Ryan of the University of Virginia has decided to suppress the results of a written request that he and the Rector made to the Attorney General
…to conduct an independent review of the University’s response to the shooting, as well as the efforts the University undertook in the period before the tragedy to assess the potential threat Mr. Jones posed to our community.
The Attorney General’s administrative investigation is complete. President Ryan published a statement:
Making the report public at this time, or even releasing a summary of their findings and recommendations, could have an impact on the criminal trial of the accused, either by disrupting the case being prepared by the Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney, or by interfering with the defendant’s right to a fair trial before an impartial jury. [Emphasis added.]
The press reports indicate that announcement drew criticism.
I will add to it. (more…)
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“Parental Rights” Movement Fading?
Loudoun County School Board meeting, 2021 Photo credit: What’s Trending by Dick Hall-Sizemore
When Glenn Youngkin was elected Governor in 2021, largely on a platform of “parental rights” in schools, a national movement seemed to have been born. In Virginia, and elsewhere, school board meetings were packed with fervent citizens shouting at the board members and at each other about banning books in school libraries and classrooms, LGBTQ policies, and other issues. Law enforcement had to be called in to keep order.
With the last election, that movement seems to have lost momentum. Nationally, Democrats won school board elections in many key districts and candidates backed by progressive groups did well. Moms for Liberty, one of the leading “parental rights” groups, lost some of the ground it had won two years earlier. The group pushed back against claims that voters were rejecting its platform, saying that 40 percent of the candidates it had endorsed won, although that hardly seems like a case that its agenda is winning. Furthermore, it quickly took down its list of endorsed candidates from its website, thereby making it impossible to verify even this claim. (more…)
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Miyares Calls for Moral Clarity Regarding Pro-Hamas Demonstrators
Jason Miyares. Photo credit: Washington Post by James A. Bacon
On the evening of Aug. 11, 2017, more than 300 torch-bearing white supremacists marched down the Lawn at the University of Virginia chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” The phrase is not self-explanatory, but the marchers were widely thought to be proclaiming that Jews would not displace Christian Whites as the dominant element of society. The white supremacists were not calling for the slaughter of Jews. Rather, embracing the rhetoric of victimhood and grievance that has so saturated 21st-century America, they were expressing a yearning for the good-old-days when Christian Whites ran the show.
Fast forward to Oct. 24, 2023. Hundreds of demonstrators marched down the Lawn waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.” Their meaning was crystal clear. They weren’t merely vilifying Jews. Just days after the horrific Hamas attacks on Israel, the protesters were demanding the eradication of the Israeli state, and they were endorsing terror against Jewish civilians as a means of achieving it. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, they were advocating genocide.
In 2017 University officials quickly, forcefully, and quite correctly condemned the antisemitism of the Unite the Right rally. In 2023, the response to the Palestinians has been muted. (more…)
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Bari Weiss: “You are the Last Line of Defense”
by James C. Sherlock
Video courtesy of the Free Press. See that link for a full transcript. I recommend it to everyone.
Bari Weiss recently delivered a speech that will be long remembered.
She offered eloquence in the service of experience, sorrow and determination. And defined the internal, and existential, threat to America.
I will share with you below short slices of the transcript.
She spoke to the Federalist Society about college radicalism turned antisemitism. But not just antisemitism.
It is a radicalism that turns with threats, career assassinations and even violence on everything outside its very narrow, “intersectional” acceptance zone. It is – proudly – a threat to America’s security and the western civilization it hates.
She would not have been welcome at some of Virginia’s most prestigious public IHEs.
And all of us know it. (more…)
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Wokeness As Social Disease: Charlottesville Schools Edition
by James A. BaconIf you have any doubt that wokeness is the primary force responsible for collapsing discipline in Virginia public schools, eroding teacher morale, deteriorating learning conditions, and the educational impairment of tens of thousands of students, consider this story from Charlottesville.
After incessant student brawls this school year, 27 teachers at Charlottesville High School called a walk-out, effectively closing school for the day. Following an emergency meeting of the School Board, Chair James Bryant announced that classes would be cancelled Monday and Tuesday while students, teachers and staff planned a “reset.” Summarizes the Daily Progress:
That “reset” will be addressing a high school culture that many say has gotten out of control, with students roaming the halls during class time, instigating fights, disobeying administrators and even letting intruders into the school with the sole purpose of perpetrating violence.
The purpose of the “reset,” according to Bryant, is for staff to “return to our core purpose — offering a safe learning environment in which our students will grow and thrive.” (more…)
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Jeanine’s Memes
From The Bull Elephant
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UVa’s “Community Crisis Resources” for Israel/Hamas War Tensions on Campus Has Strange Players
UVa’s Interfaith Student Center. Courtesy UVa. by James C. Sherlock
The University of Virginia has not lost all sense of perspective. They know exactly what they have been doing.
For this they had to try to thread a needle. They missed.
From the University of Virginia Division of Student Affairs:
“Our Division’s focus remains on supporting and caring for our students and their well-being.
Our Division provides direct OUTREACH AND SUPPORT OF STUDENT LEADERS in the Jewish and Palestinian community, including the Jewish Leadership Council, Chabad at UVA, and Muslim Students Association.”
“The Division owns places and spaces across Grounds for students to meet in community:
• REFLECTION ROOMS AND WELLNESS SUITE: two spaces in Student Health and Wellness are open for students to drop-in and relax, meditate, pray, do yoga, and/or reflect.
• THE INTERFAITH STUDENT CENTER: maintained by Multicultural Student Services is available for daily prayers, and as a place for community connection.”The effort is built on quicksand and hosted in an empty room.
Note no mention of the DEI Division as an honest broker. Good decision. (more…)
