Bacon's Rebellion

  • Washington Post Gotcha’s Another GOP Candidate

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Victoria Snitsar Churchill

    Despite The Washington Postโ€˜s attempts to paint him as an anti-woman radical, Republican nominee for the House of Delegates 21st District John Stirrup of Prince William County makes a compelling case for his District to elect him to the open seat this November.

    According to The Washington Post, โ€œStirrup told a woman who had approached him after a Republican primary debate on May 18thโ€ โ€ฆ that he would โ€ฆ โ€œsupport a 100 percent ban,โ€ according to a recording obtained by The Washington Post. In another recording, made June 20, he told a man he met outside a polling place that โ€œIโ€™d like to see, you know, [a] total ban.โ€

    Made surreptitiously by two abortion rights supporters posing as abortion foes, the recordings seem intended to pin Stirrup down on an issue that Republicans in some swing districts would like to sidestep but Democrats hope to make a rallying cry in Nov. 7 General Assembly elections.

    Balancing oneโ€™s personal views with the views of a constituency is a game that elected officials have to play often and well.

    Stirrupโ€™s remarks shouldnโ€™t be seen as a backtrack, regardless of the attempts to paint him as a flip-flopper by The Post. (more…)

  • Who Are Those Rich Men North of Richmond? And What Is Youngkin Up To?

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Shaun Kenney

    First things are first. Iโ€™m almost certain you have heard “Try That In a Small Town” by Jason Aldean. Good for a week, right?

    If you want to hear true protest music? Allow me to introduce you to the bluegrass of Oliver Anthony:

    Give these lyrics a try:

    These rich men north of Richmond
    Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
    Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
    And they donโ€™t think you know, but I know that you do
    โ€˜Cause your dollar ainโ€™t shit and itโ€™s taxed to no end
    โ€˜Cause of rich men north of Richmond

    Holy wow.

    People arenโ€™t just angry โ€” there is open resentment out there, folks. Whatever is working isnโ€™t working for working-class people and they are making their voices heard in ways that work around legacy media. (more…)

  • NJ Democrats Tacking Away from Wind Power

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner

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

    Virginia is one of only two states that hold their major legislative elections this odd-numbered year, with the other being New Jersey. In New Jersey, the stateโ€™s offshore wind aspirations have become a major political issue, with even Democrats now starting to question the wisdom of the plan.

    The Democrats control new Jersey, so it is noteworthy that both leading Democratic legislators, the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate, signed a joint statement expressing concern about โ€œunanswered questionsโ€ as the stateโ€™s Board of Public Utilities goes full speed ahead on its wind projects. The turnabout is even more dramatic because the same legislators just weeks ago voted to give the private wind developers of the first project a more profitable deal at ratepayer expense. The company was one of those complaining its project was not financially feasible under the original terms.

    New Jersey has become a major hotspot for political opposition to offshore wind, in part because the planned projects are often closer to shore and will be more visible from beach homes and tourist areas than the project off Virginia Beach. There is also more focus in that media market on the unexplained spike in whale deaths, now reportedly up to 60 since December of last year.

    The same questions of cost and tourism impact remain unanswered in Virginia, but so far there is no sign many candidates are seeking to enter the legislature with promises to reverse course on our $10 billion project, if that is possible at this point. Dominion Energy Virginia intends to build a second wave of turbines, however, and the next few General Assembly sessions will have every opportunity to change the rules for that tranche. (more…)

  • Hard Numbers on Administrative Bloat

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    That bloated feeling. Image credit: Microsoft Image Creator

    by James A. Bacon

    A number of University of Virginia Board of Visitors members have expressed concern about UVa’s runaway costs. Administrative bloat has swollen the university’s cost structure, they say, andย  higher costs have been cited in turn to justify tuition increases. So far, the fiscal hawks have been unable to force a discussion of the topic during regular board meetings. Indeed, simple requests for data on headcounts and salary costs have gone unanswered.

    The refusal of UVa leadership to share the data is all the more remarkable in that the statistics are readily available. Indeed, much of it is maintained on the UVa website by the office of Institutional Research & Analytics (IR&A). The 17 members of the IR&A staff have the mission of supporting “the University community” — which, presumably, includes the Board of Visitors — in “assessment, planning, and decision-making.”

    As it turns out, the IR&A data confirm the suspicions of the fiscal hawks. Between the 2011-12 academic year and the 2021-22 year, UVa’s academic division (excluding the healthcare division) saw the ranks of salaried staff grow dramatically — at twice the pace of faculty — even as enrollment barely budged.

    Student enrollment (full-time-equivalent): +8.8%
    Total faculty: +9.5%
    Total salaried staff: +25.4%
    (more…)

  • Raw Working-Class Anthem By Farmvilleโ€™s Oliver Anthony Goes Viral

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Move over, Jason Aldean, thereโ€™s a new country singer on the move.

    Meet Oliver Anthony of Farmville, Va., a former factory worker whose plaintive, working-class anthem, โ€œRich Men North Of Richmond,โ€ went viral in just two days, catapulting this unknown country Virginia singer from obscurity into a viral sensation. It went to #1 on the iTunes chart last week, moving faster than Aldeanโ€™s, โ€œTry That In A Small Town.โ€

    Iโ€™ve been sellinโ€™ my soul, workinโ€™ all day
    Overtime hours for bullshit pay
    So I can sit out here and waste my life away
    Drag back home and drown my troubles away
    Itโ€™s a damn shame what the worldโ€™s gotten to
    For people like me and people like you
    Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
    But it is, oh, it is
    Livinโ€™ in the new world
    With an old soul
    These rich men north of Richmond, Lord knows they all
    Just wanna have total control
    Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
    And they donโ€™t think you know, but I know that you do
    โ€˜Cause your dollar ainโ€™t shit and itโ€™s taxed to no end
    โ€˜Cause of rich men north of Richmond

    (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • JLARC Report: More Than Just “Mo’ Money”

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Photo credit: Va. Dept of Education

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) released a major report last month on the Commonwealthโ€™s K-12 funding formula. The responses were predictable.

    On Baconโ€™s Rebellion, Jim Bacon dismissed the report as a cry for โ€œmoโ€™ money.โ€ Democrats in the General Assembly seized upon the report and its findings as more ammunition in their fight against Governor Youngkinโ€™s effort to cut taxes further.

    It is true that the report concludes that the state needs to provide more funding for K-12. However, the report is much more than that. In the report, JLARC documents serious deficiencies in the formula that is used to calculate funding for K-12. It then proposes some significant changes that could be made that would improve the funding system. The report deserves a deeper look on this blog than it has received. (more…)

  • New Virginia Nursing Home Law Appears to Violate Federal Statute

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    In addition to the General Assembly embarrassing themselves in the way they passed a law on nursing homes in this yearโ€™s session, they did it in an unseemly rush.

    There was no pre-filing, a near-immediate and disgraceful floor โ€œdebateโ€ led by the nursing industryโ€™s lobbyist, and a rushed vote in the House Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee. ย 

    A committee member in the House hearing asked for time to consider the bill. Her request was denied by the Chairman, who was the House patron of the bill. That was followed by a cursory review in the Senate Education and Health Committee before near-unanimous passage by both bodies.

    Now it appears that the new state law they passed may violate the governing federal statute.ย Which, of course, state laws are not permitted to do under the supremacy clause. (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • A Bad Poll, Like a Blind Hog, Finds Some Acorns

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    The myth of the climate catastrophe is an easier sell to younger people with their shorter memories. A recent poll of Virginia adults 18 and up showed a marked difference of opinion based on age, with older voters less likely to claim they had personal experience of โ€œimpacts from climate change.โ€

    The poll was a recent one conducted by the Virginia Commonwealth Universityโ€™s Wilder School of Government and Public Policy, released in two parts. The first part dealt with election matchups and the second with issues, frankly using some ridiculous questions. They were not so much biased as just worthless. Other examples will follow but here is the climate issue question: (more…)

  • Balladeer of the New Class War

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Oliver Anthony, a Farmville musician, has racked up 1.8 million views on YouTube for his song, “Rich Men North of Richmond.” He lives with his three dogs on a plot of land he hopes to turn into a small livestock farm. If you want to understand the “deplorables” and “bitter clingers,” don’t listen to the affluent, credentialed talking heads on MSNBC. They don’t have the faintest clue. Spend three minutes listening to Anthony — an authentic voice of the working people.

    “These rich men north of Richmond / Lord knows they all just want to have total control / Wanna know what you think / Wanna know what you do / And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do/ Cause your dollar ain’t s***, and it’s taxed to no end / ‘Cause of rich men north of Richmond.”

    — JAB

  • More News from the Berkeley of the South

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    The fun never ends in the People’s Republic of Charlottesville. Rather than subject readers to excessive content about the University of Virginia, I’ll boil the latest two stories down to their essence and provide links for those who wish to read more.

    The Curious Case of the Missing Podcasts. Walter Smith delves into the 2019 launch of the University of Virginia’s Woodson Institute series of podcasts reinterpreting Thomas Jefferson. UVa rolled out the program with great fanfare.ย Unsurprisingly, the “reinterpretation” was uniformly negative toward the university’s founder. But only two of the planned six recordings were produced. The series was canceled without explanation, and the two podcasts and accompanying features were buried deep in the Woodson Institute’s website where, for all purposes, they are inaccessible. What happened? Smith makes a powerful case that the decision had to have come from high up in the UVa hierarchy.

    Student Veterans Are Up in Arms. UVa President Jim Ryan insists that he supports “all dimensions” of diversity at Thomas Jefferson’s university, extending beyond race, gender, and sexual orientation to religion, political beliefs, geography, socioeconomic status and even veteran status. But UVa’s student veteran organization isn’t feeling very welcome at the moment. It seems that the Office of Student Affairs has unilaterally co-opted space at the Veterans Students Center to create an office for an assistant dean of student affairs. The veterans’ pleas to Ryan and former Dean Robyn Hadley have gone unanswered. Frustrated, they have organized a petition to seek redress.

    — JAB

  • Check Out the Partisan Lean of Every Virginia District

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Jeanine Martin

    VPAP.org has given us maps of the political leanings of all the districts, how far each district leans Republican or Democratic.ย Methodology

    To make any of these maps interactive with more details on each district click here.

    House of Delegates:

    (more…)

  • Details of Newport News School Shooting Make Horrific Case Even Worse

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Just when we thought we knew all of the horrific details of the shooting of Abby Zwerner we get more revelations.

    Chilling ones.

    You remember Miss Zwerner. Sheโ€™s the 25-year-old Newport News first-grade teacher who was almost killed by one of her students in January.

    Sheโ€™s suing school officials for $40 million and they refuse to settle the case with her. Instead, these heartless โ€œeducatorsโ€ pretend that getting shot is just an occupational hazard of teaching – sort of like paper cuts – and she was injured in the course of her daily responsibilities.

    If they can persuade a court of this lunacy they will be off the hook for monetary damages.

    And the woman whoโ€™s endured surgeries and God-knows-what-trauma will collect a few dollars from Virginiaโ€™s workmanโ€™s compensation fund.

    If youโ€™re the praying type – and I am – be sure to bombard the Almighty with petitions for Ms. Zwerner. The courts need to use common sense and give her the green light to sue the ever-loving crap out of a school district that ignored multiple warning signs and tolerated a psychotic child in class with normal kids and a devoted teacher.

    Make no mistake. The school board, former superintendent and Richneck administrators set the table for this bloody mess: (more…)

  • The Ongoing Tragedy of Virginia’s Nursing Homes

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Virginiaโ€™s Health Commissioners have a job that is broad and deep in its responsibilities and authorities.By statute, appointees must be physicians.

    Each is the chief executive of the Virginia Department of Health (VDH): a central office in Richmond and 35 local health districts.

    By Virginia statutes and regulations, they are also the final decision authorities on such issues as the licensing of hospitals and nursing homes and all Certificate of Public Need decisions.

    Nursing homes. To the point of this particular discussion, Health Commissioners have since at least 1989 possessed statutory (Code of Virginia ยง 32.1-135) and regulatory 12VAC5-371-90. Administrative sanctions authority to sanction Virginia nursing homes.

    B. The commissioner may impose such administrative sanctions or take such actions as are appropriate for violation of any of the standards or statutes or for abuse or neglect of persons in care. Such sanctions include:

    1. Restricting or prohibiting new admissions to any nursing facility;
    2. Petitioning the court to impose a civil penalty or to appoint a receiver, or both; or
    3. Revoking or suspending the license of a nursing facility.

    The results of a FOIA request inform me that not one of them has ever used that authority.

    Not once in 34 years. (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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