Bacon's Rebellion

  • Virginia Dems Have a Razor-Thin Majority, Not a Mandate

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    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…)

  • A VSU Officer was Shot and Left Paralyzed. At Thanksgiving, Readers Can Help Him and His Family

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    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.

  • UVa Picks Baltimore City Schools CEO to Feature in “Exploring New Frontiers for K-12 Systems Transformation.” Seriously.

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    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…)

  • Virginia Might Legalize Abortion in All 9 Months of Pregnancy

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    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…)

  • Will the Public Ever Get to See the Mass-Shooting Report?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    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…)

  • The Suppressed Report on the UVa Murders

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    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…)

  • “Parental Rights” Movement Fading?

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    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…)

  • Miyares Calls for Moral Clarity Regarding Pro-Hamas Demonstrators

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    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…)

  • Bari Weiss: “You are the Last Line of Defense”

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    by

    sherlockj

    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…)

  • Wokeness As Social Disease: Charlottesville Schools Edition

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    If 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…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon


    From The Bull Elephant

  • UVa’s “Community Crisis Resources” for Israel/Hamas War Tensions on Campus Has Strange Players

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    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…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • Poor Test Results No Problem If You Ignore Them

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Nancy Almasi

    There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns had a real and persistent impact on our children’s education. Learning loss continues to be the subject of daily news reports, with SAT and ACT test scores at an all-time low. Overall, math and reading scores on standardized tests are at their lowest level in decades and the college admissions process was thrown into a tailspin when lockdown regulations made taking the traditional SAT and ACT tests difficult. (more…)

  • Republican Problems in Virginia

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Shaun Kenney

    There was an angrier version of this analysis I had prepared. One that placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of those who would have reaped the rewards had Tuesday gone differently.

    I’m not going to do that.

    … because there’s a bigger problem in front of us.

    Virginia Democrats have a lot more strength than Virginia Republicans care to consider, and it will take all of us — all of us — and not just some of us to put up a resistance in 2024 and 2025.

    I don’t know what it will require to fix it. Yet I think many Republicans are tired of being used for temporary gain only to watch the Democrats run circles around us as they invest in the necessary ecosystem — activists, news outlets, think tanks, polling firms — to capture hearts and minds. Republicans are a consultancy-driven party; Democrats are built around coalitions. With differing definitions of success and reward, victory comes much more cheaply for Republicans than for Democrats.

    When it comes, that is.

    The Democrats can point back to 20 years of progress. Can we name a single Republican victory in Virginia on a policy issue of note over the last 20 years? That we were proud to run on and champion in front of voters? (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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