Bacon's Rebellion

  • Delusion and Dogma in Virginia Tech’s Admissions Office

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Juan Espinoza, Virginia Tech
    Associate Vice Provost for Enrollment Management
    and Director of Undergraduate Admissions.  Official photo.

    by James C. Sherlock

    Showing once again that people can convince themselves of anything, the Collegiate Times, Virginia Tech’s student newspaper, published on November 5th a story titled:

    “Record low ACT scores not a concern for Virginia Tech admissions”

    The opening sentences:

    Virginia Tech admissions are unbothered by the lowest reported ACT scores in 31 years and say that there are other application metrics for determining college readiness.

    “When you look at standardized testing as a predictor on how students will do once they’re in college as a standalone variable, it’s never been a very strong predictor,” said Juan Espinoza, director of undergraduate admissions at Virginia Tech. [Emphasis added.]

    He is just wrong about that, as we will show.

    We also note that

    Juan led Virginia Tech’s international admissions and recruitment efforts.

    So, he may be the man to see about why the PRC-run Chinese Students and Scholars Association is still on campus keeping tabs, and pressure, on Tech’s one thousand Chinese students.

    Institutions need to make temporary adjustments to their admissions criteria to mitigate coronavirus impact on applications and enrollment.

    They should not, as in the case of Tech’s admissions head, pretend they have found new facts in the process that make ACT and SAT unnecessary metrics in admissions. (more…)

  • Some Virginia State Colleges and Universities Host Chinese Government Student Control Organizations

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Courtesy U.S. – China Economic and Security Review Commission

    Virginia Tech’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association

    is the largest international student society at Virginia Tech, with more than 1,000 Chinese students and scholars and their families. It is also one of the largest Chinese student and scholars organizations in the United States. [Go to link and click “translate” in URL window.]

    Good to know.

    More than 350,000 students from mainland China out of about 1 million total international students are enrolled in America’s colleges and universities in 2023.

    The financial incentives for the schools are huge.

    All of those students pay full-sticker out-of-state tuition as well as room, board and student fees – $58,750 annually for undergraduates.  So Tech realizes about $60 million for its full-time Chinese Hokies.  That does not include summer students, another big program.

    In associated programs, Chinese universities provide Mandarin language instructors to American faculties and accept U.S. students.

    But the institutions who accept Chinese Student and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) know they monitor and control Chinese students and spread the official dogma of the Chinese state to their campuses.

    The Chinese don’t even try to make it a secret.

    CSSAs have closed at UVa, VCU, James Madison and George Mason without apparent effect on their Chinese student inputs.

    Yet Virginia Tech, William and Mary, and ODU continue to host them.

    It makes no sense. (more…)

  • Rumblings Among House Republicans

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Del. Don Scott (D-Portsmouth), Minority Leader

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Del. Don Scott (D-Portsmouth), the current Minority Leader in the House of Delegates, seems to be on a smooth glide path to making history by being elected Speaker when the General Assembly convenes in January. The fate of the current Speaker, Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah), is less certain.

    Del. Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah), currently Speaker

    One might logically expect a Speaker to maintain leadership of his party caucus after it moved from the majority to minority. But it seems that some members are unhappy, and that Del. Terry Kilgore (R-Scott), the current Majority Leader, is campaigning to be the Republican floor leader in the next Session, rather than Gilbert. The Virginia Political Newsletter reports that the unhappiness of some members stems from feeling that “the talking point of a new 15-week restriction was forced upon them by House leadership and Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s PAC, Spirit of Virginia.” One Republican delegate told the newsletter, on the condition of anonymity, “Many of us understood that the messaging and focus on the abortion issue was wrong from the start, and would hurt Republicans, especially in competitive districts.”

    Del. Terry Kilgore (R-Scott), currently Majority Leader

    It is not uncommon for legislators to rebel against their leadership when their party loses its majority status. In fact, Scott owes his current position to a coup he led two years ago against then-Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax) after the Democrats were toppled from the majority.

  • Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

  • Sam Rasoul and Jewish Democrats in the General Assembly – An Uneasy Alliance

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    sherlockj

    James C. Sherlock

    Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, speaks at a pro-Palestinian rally in Roanoke. 
    Credit: David Hungate, The Roanoke Times

    Salam “Sam” Rasoul is a Democrat delegate from Roanoke.

    He still publicly blames Israel for an explosion at a Gaza hospital that the western world’s intelligence services have blamed on an errant Hamas rocket.

    Even The New York Times changed its story after jumping the gun on that report.

    At the rally (pictured), The Roanoke Times reported:

    Rasoul, a Palestinian … used his speech to call for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, and for the U.S. to stop funding Israel’s war effort.

    Apparently he did not consider that wearing his team’s colors in a war might not be well received by some in his party.

    He will find that his words and actions will cause, at best, discomfort within his caucus in January.

    (more…)

  • A Red Wave in Roanoke County

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    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Scott Dreyer

    In contrast to some big Democrat wins in the eastern part of the state giving them control of both houses of the General Assembly, the Roanoke and NRV experienced a regional red wave in the November 7 elections.

    Of particular significance, the GOP won both of the most competitive, high-stakes races in our area for General Assembly seats.

    Sen. David Suetterlein (R)
    (photo/Tennesseestar.com)

    In the highest-profile race, Sen. David Suetterlein defeated Roanoke City Councilwoman Trish White-Boyd for the newly-created Senate District 4. Some have erroneously claimed this race was for “retiring Sen. John Edwards’ seat.” Actually, however, the grossly-gerrymandered district Edwards long represented–nicknamed “The Johnnymander”— was dissolved in recent redistricting. That old district lumped Democrat-heavy Roanoke City with the Virginia Tech area, so that both it and the surrounding GOP-heavy rural areas surrounding it were not competitive seats.

    The new District 4, however, has the advantage of including most of the Roanoke Valley as a “community of interest.” It covers all of Roanoke City, Salem, and parts of Roanoke and Montgomery Counties. As can be seen in this district map, White-Boyd racked up wide margins in the City and narrow margins in two Montgomery County precincts just east of Blacksburg. However, she lost everywhere else in Montgomery County, Roanoke County, and Salem. Suetterlein carried seven precincts in Roanoke City: Preston Park, East Gate, Hollins Road, Southeast, Garden City, South Roanoke, and Deyerle. (more…)

  • It Wasn’t About Youngkin

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    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    Deep in the hills of Southwest Virginia is a state Senate district where nobody works because the coal industry is increasingly mechanized. The district has all or part of eight counties. In Northern Virginia is a county where nobody works because they’re all employed by the federal government. The county includes all or part of eight state Senate districts.

    Every four years, national political  writers combine this into a cohesive entity called Virginia and use it as a bellwether for the presidential election that follows the state Senate election by one year, every single time. The state’s economics and politics are shaped by, among other things, the coal industry and the federal government (see above). The state’s boundaries are shaped by rivers, a bay, a mountain range, and a southern line that’s straight except for a zig-zag south of Abingdon caused by a drunken surveyor.

    Most of the national political writers don’t know that our districts were drawn by the courts, our counties and cities are separate entities, and our precincts are drawn by processes that vary by district, county, and city. And every four years, regular as clockwork, they write about how the General Assembly races will impact the ambitions of George Allen, Jim Gilmore, Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, Bob McDonnell, Terry McAuliffe, or Glenn Youngkin for president, vice president, or U.S. senator. (more…)

  • In Loudoun, Some Good News for Republicans

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    The exquisite Loudoun County countryside

    by Jeanine Martin 

    I feel sorry for Governor Yougkin. This has to be one of the worst nights of his life. After doing 100 campaign events, he lost the state Senate and House of Delegates.

    Youngkin may need to rethink his future in politics. Although this election wasn’t about him. It was about abortion, always the Democrats’ most important issue. They lied saying Republicans would ban ALL abortions, and probably birth control too. Scaring Democrats always works to get them into the voting booth.

    The newly-elected Senate is now 19 Republicans and 21 Democrats. The new House of Delegates is currently 51 Democrats and 48 Republicans. The one outstanding race is expected to go Republican, giving the party a total 49 Republicans. It doesn’t get much closer than that, in both Houses. Results can be found here.

    There was some good news for my Loudoun County friends. Our awful commonwealth’s attorney, who won with George Soros’ funding, Buta Biberaj, has been defeated by Republican Bob Anderson, who is currently ahead of her by 1,000 votes. (more…)

  • Virginia Election Reflections

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    So, boys and girls, what did we learn Tuesday night?

    I’ll go first.

    First, we learned never to underestimate the Democrats’ devotion to abortion. To them, it’s a sacrament. Something not to be touched. Every woman, they believe, has the right (I’d say God-given, but it seems blasphemous) to abort her baby right up until birth.

    They want unfettered access to abortions more than they want good schools, a booming economy, or world peace.

    Shoot, they nearly elected a woman who engaged in slutty online sex acts with her lawyer husband while they begged for tips from an audience of masturbating voyeurs over abortion. This mother of two convinced more than 16,000 Virginia Democrats that spreading her legs and who knows what else for an online camera was simply bodily autonomy. An extension of a woman’s right to choose.

    Did those voters think this sex worker had the judgment and character to serve in the same chamber than once housed Patrick Henry? Yeah, baby. She supports abortion!

    Moving on, we also learned that there is a downside to holding off-year statehouse elections when almost no other states have contests.

    It means there are tractor-trailer loads of loot that can be dumped from out-of-state special interests into Virginia campaigns undiluted by needs in other places.

    It also means that Virginia’s elections take on an exaggerated national importance.

    Virginia is not a swing state. It’s a blueish purple state that elected a likeable businessman as governor, along with his running mates, during a time when parents were harboring raw resentment toward public schools that closed during covid and then hid sexual assaults once they opened. It was a type of harmonic convergence, unlikely to be repeated any time soon. (more…)

  • Rising Costs Pushing UVa Tuition Higher

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Click here to read the report.

    The Jefferson Council released the following press release this morning (Nov. 9, 2023):

    CHARLOTTESVILLE—Rising costs, not cutbacks in state aid, are primarily responsible for pushing tuition higher at the University of Virginia. State appropriations for UVa have declined sharply between 2002 and 2022 when adjusted for inflation and enrollment. But tuition has exploded over the same time. Only one-third of the increased tuition revenue was needed to offset state cuts. The other two-thirds represented spending increases, primarily in payroll.

    Those are the major conclusions of a report, “Rising Costs: The Driving Force Behind Tuition Increases at UVa,” released today by The Jefferson Council, an organization dedicated to upholding free speech, viewpoint diversity, and Thomas Jefferson’s legacy at UVa.

    The UVa Board of Visitors is working this fall on how much to increase tuition in the next two academic years. The Finance Committee has scheduled a public hearing November 17 in which students and other members of the public can address undergraduate tuition & fees. The Board is expected to approve a new tuition structure in December. (more…)

  • A Resolution Concerning the Safety and Rights of Jews at UVa

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon


    Jefferson Council President Tom Neale yesterday delivered the following resolution of the Council to University of Virginia president Jim Ryan and the Board of Visitors. — JAB

    The Jefferson Council, by unanimous agreement of the Officers, Committee Chairs and Board of Advisors, hereby issues the following RESOLUTION supporting the rights of the Jewish students, faculty and staff at the University of Virginia to study, teach and work in safety and in an environment conducive to the free and civil exchange of ideas.

    WHEREAS, the Jefferson Council was founded to promote an academic environment based on open dialogue throughout the University;

    WHEREAS, on October 7, 2023, military units of Hamas, the de facto governing body of Gaza, invaded the sovereign state of Israel and intentionally targeted, murdered, tortured and/or captured approximately 1400 innocent civilians including but not limited to women, children and the elderly, all in violation of international law and the moral norms of every civilized country in the world; (more…)

  • More Bad News for the Governor

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Yesterday was a bad day for Gov. Glenn Youngkin.  In addition to having to absorb the news about losing both houses of the General Assembly to the Democrats, he learned that the federal General Services Administration has decided to locate the long-coveted new FBI headquarters in Maryland rather than Virginia.  That was bad news for the Commonwealth as a whole, as well.

  • Additional Electoral Jolts

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    It has long been evident that Henrico County has been changing, both demographically and politically. The results of this week’s elections were the culmination of that long-term trend.

    The county has a history of continuity in its Board of Supervisors membership with members serving for many years. This year, two long-serving board members, Patricia O’Bannon and Frank Thornton, both of whom will complete 28 years on the board this year, announced their retirements.  (Thornton was the first Black elected to the board.)

    The partisan breakdown of the board has been three Republicans and two Democrats for many years, except for a brief interlude in 2018 when a Democrat was elected in a special election following the death of a long-serving Republican. She resigned from the board seven months later after getting into a nasty squabble with other board members, including her fellow Democrats, who said she was not playing by their internal rules. A Republican won in the ensuing special election. (more…)

  • A Few Thousand Votes Would Have Made a Big Difference

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Shaun Kenney

    Yeah — I’m a bit bitter over this one.

    Virginia Republicans did everything we were asked, despite our intuition. We narrowed the talking points, stayed in our lanes, muffled internal criticisms, and allowed the effort to be centralized. Consultants made their money as they do every election and the Democrats outspent us as we thought.

    Yet at the end of the day, redistricting did us in — and voters were given a choice between Virginia Democrats or Glenn Youngkin.

    They chose the Democrats — barely.

    By The Numbers? Spirit of Virginia PAC Got Republicans Awfully Close…

    Cooler heads now prevailing, there is one culprit — maybe two — for Republican fortunes in November 2023: redistricting and $8 million in Democratic cash spent on a handful of House of Delegates races.

    Consider that Democrats did not win a single seat where Youngkin earned 52% of the vote or higher. Not a single one. Likewise, Republicans did not win a single seat where Youngkin did not perform 50% or better.

    Biden’s favorable numbers were also just about where they were in 2021, hovering in the low-40s (RCP has Biden at 41.4%). 2023 was no repeat of 2017, where Democrats enjoyed a massive victory over Republicans one year after Donald Trump was elected president.

    A 51-49 House and a 21-19 Senate is no mandate — it is stasis.

    Bolling: Three Reasons Why Republicans Fell Short

    Former Lt. Governor Bill Bolling has offered his thoughts on why Republicans lost in triplicate. I think he is wrong on two, but most certainly right on the third.

    There will be a temptation to blame the outcome of the 2023 elections on abortion, but this is not the case at all. (more…)

  • Song Sung Blue

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Not every General Assembly race has been decided, according to the data displayed by the Virginia Public Access Project, but enough votes are in to conclude that the Democrats won the election. They retained their control of the state Senate and won a narrow majority in the House. Some preliminary observations:

    Bye, Bye White House. Governor Glenn Youngkin can stop entertaining fantasies about running for president. Give him credit for fighting hard to win GOP control of the state legislature. But he failed. He has not cracked the code on how to turn blue states red, and, therefore, he does not create a viable alternative to Donald Trump in the GOP presidential nomination contest.

    Abortion, abortion, abortion. Youngkin staked his effort to retake the General Assembly largely on a platform of banning abortion after 15 weeks (with exceptions for rape and incest). It was a more moderate plank than what we’ve seen in other red states, but it was not what most Virginians wanted. The Virginia GOP needs to decide which is more important: abortion or… taxes, government spending, jobs, crime, parental rights, public-sector unions, salvaging K-12, reforming higher- ed, and every other issue they could make progress on if Democrats didn’t have the abortion issue to beat them with. (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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