Bacon's Rebellion

  • Bacon Bits: Ungovernable Virginia

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    It’s not just the big stuff we need to worry about — broken borders, riots, crime waves, school shootings — we need to pay attention to the little stuff, too: small things that betray the fraying of the social fabric. Some instances in today’s headlines:

    From WAVY-TV: “Video shows man choking county attorney at Gloucester Co. meeting.” Cell phone video taken at a public meeting to discuss a bond referendum shows Gloucester County resident Lawrence Cohen with one hand holding a microphone and the other choking Gloucester County Attorney Edwin N. “Ted” Wilmot. I know nothing about the issues or personalities involved, but that’s just not acceptable. Choking people in public hearings is not the kind of thing that used to happen.

    Meanwhile, Arlington County Public Schools is rolling out a new “electronic campus management platform” at several schools, reports ARL Now. The platform will allow schools to regulate the number of students in the halls and going in and out of buildings. Sounds like Orwellian overkill for a school disciplinary problem. What’s next? Artificial Intelligence to decide who gets a hall pass and who doesn’t? (more…)

  • Campaign Finance Reports Show the Party of the Rich Is Outraising Republicans

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Jeanine Martin

    As usual the party of the rich, Democrats, is outraising Republicans in the commonwealth election scheduled for November 7th. The September financial reports for all candidates and committees can be found here. If things don’t turn around in the next three weeks Republicans will have a difficult time flipping the State Senate and keeping the House of Delegates. (more…)

  • No Parole for Killers, No Matter How Old

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Doherty

    Autumn, with its crisp temperatures, pumpkin spice and vibrant colors, seems to be everyone’s favorite season.

    Not Paige O’Shaughnessy’s.

    In fact, each year when the season changes she’s reminded of the hellish fall of 2000. That was the year her husband, Timothy O’Shaughnessy, 40, was murdered in his downtown Norfolk office.

    It was Tuesday, November 7, when he was killed by an unhinged former employee bearing a grudge, a golf club and a gun.

    Paige O’Shaughnessy was left alone to raise their four sons, ages 9 months, 2 1/2 years old, 4 1/2 years old and six.

    The killer was stockbroker Joseph Ludlam. He beat the man who’d fired him from his job five weeks earlier and when the golf club broke, he stabbed O’Shaughnessy with the shaft and then shot him. Twice.

    Ludlam stole O’Shaughnessy’s wallet, car keys and car and sped to his parents’ house in South Carolina where he holed up for 18 hours. He was finally arrested and charged with capital murder.

    After numerous delays, Ludlam’s murder trial was finally set. But on Columbus Day of 2002 then-Commonwealth’s Attorney for Norfolk, Jack Doyle (now a retired circuit court judge), contacted the widow and said Ludlam had agreed to plead guilty to first degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony in return for a prison term of no more than 40 years.

    She’d be spared the ordeal of a trial, the state would be spared the expense and the murderer would be locked up for a very long time.

    Mrs. O’Shaughnessy recalls the prosecutor reassuring her that, “He’ll be an old man when he gets out.”

    “This gives us an assured conviction, and he waives his rights to appeal,” Doyle told The Daily Press at the time. “Forty years is virtually a life sentence.”

    Not exactly.

    There was one factor no one mentioned: geriatric parole. (more…)

  • Youngkin Team Cautious Despite Revenue Surge

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Finance Secretary Cummings showed this chart to legislators this week and noted the deceleration in job growth, citing that as another reason he and Governor Glenn Youngkin remain cautious despite strong revenues. Click for larger view.

    by Steve Haner

    First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. 

    Virginia’s state budget grew 90% in the past decade, far faster than in previous decades. After adjusting for inflation and population changes, spending still jumped 4% each year, a high rate of compound real growth.  At the same time, the state continues to see explosive growth in its revenue, pointing to cash surpluses continuing for some time.

    These facts emerged from two presentations to the Virginia General Assembly this week.  The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) issued its annual report on state spending growth on Monday.  That same day, Secretary of Finance Stephen Cummings reported on the revenue results from July through September, the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2024.

    In just those three months, revenue exceeded the revenue estimates by more than $412 million.  Other months, with larger pots of projected revenue, are still ahead.  Should this revenue trend hold, surpluses similar to the historic surpluses of Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023 could result next June.

    During the elections two years ago, Virginia’s flush financial condition was inspiring debates about tax reductions and tax reform.  Some, but not all, of the proposals went on to pass.  But with General Assembly elections just over two weeks away, few candidates in either party are promising more tax reform or reduction efforts in the next session. (more…)

  • Quote of the Day: Abigail Spanberger

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    “For me there is no equivalence between armed, individual militants going into a home, shooting parents in front of their children, killing children, lighting babies on fire, burning down entire kibbutz and military action going after military targets, terrorist perpetrators of a horrible massacre. Those are different things.”

    So said Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger in an exchange with a University of Virginia student yesterday. The Daily Progress has the story here. — JAB

  • Making Mischief With Election Law Changes

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Rep. Bob Good, Photo credit: Richmond Times Dispatch

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Here is a recent tweak in election law that did not get a lot of public attention. Effective January 1, 2024, it will be almost impossible for a political party to use a convention to nominate a candidate for a Congressional district seat.  On its face the law still allows a political party of a district to determine how the nomination of candidate is made, but the 2021 change makes this stipulation:

    A method of nomination shall not be selected if such method will have the practical effect of excluding participation in the nominating process by qualified voters who are otherwise eligible to participate in the nominating process under that political party’s rules but are unable to attend meetings because they are (i) a member of a uniformed service, as defined in § 24.2-452, on active duty; (ii) temporarily residing outside of the United States; (iii) a student attending a school or institution of higher education; (iv) a person with a disability; or (v) a person who has a communicable disease of public health threat as defined in § 32.1-48.06 or who may have come in contact with a person with such disease. However, such restriction shall not apply when selecting a candidate for a special election or nominating a candidate pursuant to § 24.2-539, or in the event that no candidate files the required paperwork by the deadline prescribed in § 24.2-522. (more…)

  • Lose the Masks

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Last Saturday’s horrors of Hamas were followed here and abroad with another kind of horror. There were anti-Israel rallies at colleges and in major cities across the nation. These heartless people were demonstrating for just one reason: to show support for the barbarians who had just invaded a country, slaughtered innocent people, raped women and children and grabbed hostages.

    Frankly, I had no idea how widespread anti-Semitism was in the U.S. until I saw these shocking images.

    Take a gander at their hatefests and tell me what you notice:

    https://x.com/TBifford/status/1712577727071666607?s=20

    https://x.com/therealmrbench/status/1712827303732932693?s=20

    https://x.com/kerrydougherty/status/1713351767134466364?s=20

    Yep, masks.x.com/…ugherty/status/1713351767134466364 (more…)

  • You Can’t Make This Stuff Up…

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Hmmm…. Gendered negotiation of urban spaces among transgender persons in Pakistan: dismantling the colonial binary. Sounds interesting.

    Actually, I’d be more interested in gendered negotiation of rural spaces among transgender persons in Pakistan…. as in, rural spaces controlled by the Taliban. I’d also like to know more about dismantling the pre-colonial binary. You know, the binary in traditional Pashtun culture that cloaks women in burkas, denies them education, and sentences them to death when they commit adultery.

    Even more fascinating would be discussing the Pashtun practice of bacha bazi, in which adult men have sex with boys. That would make a riveting lecture.

    Does anyone in Women’s and Gender Studies programs anywhere in the country study that?

  • The Benefits of School Choice and the Risks in the November Elections

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    from Liberty Unyielding

    The debate over school choice has tended to focus on whether students learn more as a result. But learning improvements from school choice are probably smaller than improvements in other dimensions, such as civic participation, law abidingness, and family stability later in life. Jason Bedrick of The Heritage Foundation notes that “School-choice policies even appear to foster law-abidingness and self-governance. A study by @P_Diddy Wolf & @Corey_DeAngelis found that students participating in Milwaukee’s school choice program saw significant reductions in criminal convictions & paternity suits.” Perhaps private schools have the ability to instill values in ways that the public schools do not.

    “When it comes to civic knowledge and skills, 10 studies find a private-school advantage, six find no difference, and none find a government-school advantage,” Bedrick points out. “Some claim government schools are where people of all different backgrounds learn to live and work together. Yet, in the research on political tolerance—a virtue our nation needs direly today—show a 13-1 advantage for school choice over government schooling.”

    In the public schools, “Teaching students a historically accurate understanding of our nation’s founding and the role of government is not a priority. Instead, instructional content too often centers on social justice, ethnic studies, and Marxist-inspired Critical Race Theory,” Bedrick says.

    Since private schools spend less per student on average than the public schools, school choice also has the potential to save taxpayers a lot of money over the long run. (more…)

  • NY Ratepayers Better Protected Than Virginia’s

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Illustration of planned Equinor offshore wind installation off the coast of New York State. Equinor was one of the developers asking for a price increase, which was rejected.

    By Steve Haner

    The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) last week told several offshore wind developers it would not approve changes in their state contracts, putting several planned ocean turbine projects into jeopardy.  The story is important for its contrast to how Virginia faces the same future. (more…)

  • Fairfax School Board Member Opposes Moment of Silence for Israel

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    from The Republican Standard

    Fairfax County School Board Member Abrar Omeish put liberal intolerance on full display during a school board meeting Thursday night.

    The Yale-educated Democrat broke into a minutes-long diatribe following a moment of silence held by her colleagues for the victims of Hamas terrorism and the innocent Israeli and Palestinian lives lost:

    https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1712639236388602230

    Thursday wasn’t the first time Omeish disrupted school board proceedings. On the eve of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, she opposed a moment of silence for the victims, implying it was racist and neglected to acknowledge “state-sponsored traumas” inflicted by the U.S. government. (more…)

  • Local Government Unions Raise Your Taxes

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Chris Braunlich

    Subscribers to Netflix will soon see rate increases because of the Screen Actors Guild-AFTRA Hollywood strikes.  Buyers of new and used cars will, as a result of the United Auto Workers strike, see prices go up as supply dwindles and costs rise.

    The current spate of labor actions – involving more than 420,000 employees – is a response to higher inflation.  However, it will also drive prices even higher, both through lost productivity and higher costs to pay for higher wages. (more…)

  • We Happy Many

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    Campaigner-In-Chief

    by Tom Blau 

    Virginia Republicans seem increasingly depressed by November electoral prospects. Many Republicans can’t figure out if the Democrats are more driven by incompetence or fecklessness, but they ask, anyway. 

    But the more concrete question is: can Democrats, despite everything, nevertheless do well at the polls next month?  And if they’re so bad, how determined are Republicans to slam the ball in the net?  Maybe not so: on the macro level, the newspapers report population movement from states like New York and California to states like Florida and Texas, attracted by the prospect of not having to self-censor casual conversations. On the “micro level,” they complain that many important campaign jobs—door-to-door canvasser, poll-site greeter, election official, and poll-watcher — are unfilled. 

    The stakes are high, not just at home. Virginia’s rare election a year before the presidential gives it outsize influence on the country. Virginia is home to many who depend — or do quite well — on a government paycheck. Appeals to liberty or the market, the competitors of government rule, don’t find natural soil. Virginia’s 8.6 million population is driven by the size of Fairfax County (1.1 million), plus Arlington, Alexandria et al among the main D.C. bedroom communities.

    The situation is tough. As Damon Runyon, the great chronicler of mid-20th-century Manhattan low-lifes (see Guys and Dolls), put it, surely “The race is not always to the swift, or the battle to the strong — but that’s generally the way to bet.” 

    But if it were easy to outrun the swift and outfight the strong, who would need campaign volunteers? I’m looking at you, dear reader.  (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • Why are the Poor Still Paying for Dominion Wind?

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner

    Virginia’s new electricity bill subsidy program for customers of Dominion Energy Virginia has cleared its final hurdle at the State Corporation Commission and will begin enrolling participants in time for this coming winter. It is largely following the schedule previously outlined.

    In a final order issued October 13, the Commission set the rate adjustment clause amount that will be added to Dominion customer bills at 73 cents per 1,000 kilowatt hours. For most residential customers it will add between 50 cents and a dollar per month to their bills. (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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