Bacon's Rebellion

  • Occupational Hazard, 2 of 4

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    A perceptive friend recently spoke to me about press releases his outfit would send to the Daily News-Record back in the day. He said they always wound up in the paper with small inaccuracies, and his perception was that the releases were handed to the least experienced reporters to teach them how to type and rewrite.

    I know it looked like that from the outside, I explained, but what actually happened was that I gave them to the least experienced reporters to teach them how to type and rewrite. I was happy to be able to clear that up.

    We ran Valley Briefs, Business Briefs, Real Estate Briefs, not to mention the ones in non-news sections of the paper. They piled up on my desk until a reporter needed make-work, or mild punishment, or until I got tired of looking at them. They came back and went into another pile, from whence I’d compare them to the reporter’s efforts to see if they — the release or the reporters — had improved. Nine out of 10 were improved, either in AP style or news sense or clarity, and I caught the errors in half of the remainder. That success rate may not have been as obvious to someone who saw “attorney” changed to “lawyer,” “firm” changed to “company,” parentheses changed to dashes, or John Smith changed to William Johnson.
    (more…)

  • Virginia Hits Highest Labor Force Participation Rate in a Decade; Unemployment Decreases

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    (First published today by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.)

    by Derrick A. Max

    Work isn’t just about a paycheck. At its core, work is about freedom, accomplishment, respect, human dignity, and even companionship.  Work gives purpose and is essential to a thriving community, and thriving communities are essential to a thriving state. That is why it is not surprising to see Gov. Youngkin focus so intently on creating a job-friendly economy. In August of last year, the Governor announced and began implementing dramatic changes in the Commonwealth’s workforce development efforts. Friday’s employment numbers for May show that his efforts are paying off.

    The May data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that Virginia is one of only eleven states reporting lower unemployment last month and one of only seventeen states showing lower unemployment over the last twelve months. Equally as important, labor force participation rates went up — meaning people who had given up looking for work have re-entered the job market. This is the highest rate in almost a decade. (more…)

  • Occupational Hazard, 1 of 4

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    Harrisonburg police rescued a possible abduction victim one day last month after shooting the apparent perpetrator. A city press release said a domestic dispute on Old Furnace Road around 6:30 p.m. turned into an abduction. Police pursued the suspect’s vehicle to downtown, where they shot the suspect, who was apparently armed. The suspect was flown to UVa hospital and the victim was safe.

    At least that’s what I got out of a Daily News Record story that included the line, “The pursuit ended in front of the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office following an officer-involved shooting that ultimately injured the suspect.”

    Journalism is dead. Or, in the same jargon as the press release, “Journalism ended following a Craigslist-involved financial loss that ultimately ate the newspapers’ lunch.”
    (more…)

  • No Ready Answer for Increase in Police-Involved Shootings

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    I like to do what I call “poking around the numbers.” Breaking down datasets for large entities, such as statewide data, can yield enlightening, and sometimes surprising, results.

    I was intrigued by the Virginia State Police report of officer-involved shootings that Jim Bacon reported on earlier. The big increase from 2021 to 2022 led to all sorts of speculation as to its causes. I thought it might help to break down the incidents by jurisdiction.

    The 2016 General Assembly enacted legislation requiring the State Police to include officer-involved shootings in its annual Crime in Virginia report. The 2017 report was the first time such data were reported. Consequently, there have been six years of reports.

    For some incidents, there was more than one law-enforcement agency involved.  In such circumstances, I counted both agencies. For those involving the State Police, I attributed the involvement to the State Police, rather than the jurisdiction in which it occurred. (more…)

  • Past Time for Serious Sanctions for the Commonwealth’s Worst Nursing Homes

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Effective May 1 of this year, Karen Shelton M.D. became Virginia’s Health Commissioner. Dr. Shelton is now the licensor and regulator of Virginia’s nursing homes.

    By law, state-licensed nursing homes must comply with federal and state laws and standards. By regulation, the Health 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.”

    It is time.

    I hope that she will pose a challenge to her Office of Licensure and Certification (OLC), of which I am a public admirer, that goes something like this.

    Too many Virginia nursing homes are measured objectively by CMS (the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services) to be dangerous to the health and welfare of their patients through a combination of:

    • inspections that we ourselves conduct;
    • staffing measures linked to payroll data; and
    • medical quality measures from federal records.

    Many have been that way for a very long time.

    Current staffing far below CMS requirements seems to indicate that too many have no apparent path to improvement.

    Come and see me in a couple of weeks with a list of the absolute worst of them.

    And tell me why I should not shut them down to let the rest know that there are minimum standards beneath which they will not be permitted to operate in Virginia.

    And one more thing.

    Please let me know if there are organizations or individuals, current or recent, whose facilities have appeared regularly enough with the lowest staffing rating to indicate that understaffing may constitute a business model rather than a local exigency.

    That too will not be tolerated.

    We will take on those challenges here as if they are our own.

    This article will identify the absolute worst of the facilities, using government records. The next will look at understaffing trends among owners. (more…)

  • Colleges Falsely Claim Juneteenth Was ‘The Day Slavery Ended in the U.S.’

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Hans Bader

    Many colleges and progressives are claiming that Juneteenth — June 19, 1865 — was “the day slavery ended” in the U.S. But slavery actually remained legal in Kentucky and Delaware until December 6, 1865, the day the Thirteenth Amendment’s ban on slavery went into effect.

    Yale University has a web site titled, “Juneteenth: Remembering the day slavery ended in the U.S.” Similarly, Bill Nye, the self-proclaimed “science guy,” claimed that “the last” slaves “were not freed (officially) until June 19, 1865.”

    These claims are not true. As the London Daily Mail notes, the last slaves were not legally freed until six months later, when “the 13th Amendment fully prohibited the owning of slaves, spurring states such as Kentucky and Delaware – where it had still been legal – to cease the practice.” Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation only declared slaves free if they were held in areas that had been controlled by Confederate rebels, not in slave states that remained loyal to the union, such as Delaware and Kentucky.
    (more…)

  • Virginia Police Shooting Incidents Up 43% in 2022

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Along with the surge in homicides and assaults on police officers, the number of police shootings in Virginia jumped 43% last year, according to data from the Virginia State Police 2022 Crime in Virginia report. The shootings resulted in 22 fatalities, up from 18 the previous year.

    The increase since 2019, the year before the George Floyd riots unleashed a wave of anti-police denunciations, anti-racism rhetoric, and criminal-justice “reforms” designed to reduce mass incarceration, amounted to 79%.

    That raises a critical question: how is it possible that, despite all the media attention, all the police cultural sensitivity indoctrination, all the de-escalation training, and all the other criminal-justice “reforms” in Virginia, officer shootings increased so markedly over three years? Have none of the reforms worked? Or could the left-of-center critics of policing, who have driven the policy changes, be overlooking something?

    Police-shooting incidents need to be viewed in a larger context. Although general crime rates have remained stable or even declined since 2019, the number of homicides has spiked by 73% and the number of assaults on officers has jumped 41%. I would suggest that these numbers are related. (more…)

  • State Flags are Going Woke. Is Virginia’s Next?

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Anna Jankowski

    In the midst of America’s ongoing culture war, it is widely recognized that the left comprehends (and exploits) the profound influence that American history, values and tradition exert on its citizens. Cancel culture has rapidly infiltrated public discourse, leaving state flags as its next target.

    From Maine to Utah, left-leaning activists are spearheading efforts to redesign numerous state flags. In 2021, Mississippi removed Confederate imagery from its flag entirely, while Minnesota established an “emblem redesign commission” in May 2023 to eliminate depictions of Native Americans from its seal and flag. Furthermore, Massachusetts is considering a change in its flag to promote gender equality, contemplating replacing one of the two male figures with a female representation.

    What charges could the left level against the Virginia state flag? The Virginia flag and seal were created in 1776 in the aftermath of the War for Independence but was not officially adopted as a flag until Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861. The seal has gone through minor changes in the 150 years since it was adopted, but the basic form of the flag remains constant.

    The seal features an Amazon maiden (representing Virtue) standing triumphant over a fallen king. The motto “sic semper tyrannis” (Thus always to tyrants) and a decorative border complete the seal.

    This imagery was an expression of the revolutionary spirit present during the War for Independence and later the Civil War. Jokingly, it was said that “sic semper tyrannis” could be translated as ‘get your foot off my neck.” (more…)

  • Perspective Needed on the State Crime Report

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    The 2022 increase in the Virginia crime rate in all categories except drugs reported by Jim Bacon in an earlier article on this blog is indeed worrisome.

    In the short term, crime rates can fluctuate. However, Virginia, and the nation, have experienced an overall decrease in crime rates over past two decades or so.  If the increases over the past couple of years continue, at some point in the future, statisticians will be able to say that the overall trend line has significantly changed and will point to this period as the point at which something happened to change the overall trend in the crime rate.

    There are some on this blog who blame the rise in the crime rate on changes in criminal laws and policies, such as early release of offenders from prison, reducing bond requirements for nonviolent defendants, progressive prosecutors pursuing social justice objectives, etc.  They offer no evidence to substantiate the relationship of these changes, to the extent they actually exist, to the increase in the crime rate.  In effect, their claims are based on their personal ideological predisposition.  I could offer a set of proposals for the increase in the crime rate that would differ substantially from that offered by these other commentators.  However, I would have no evidence to back up my claims, either.  Therefore, I will desist. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • “The Worst Tour of the 14 Colleges We Have Been on This Year”

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A UVa college tour, circa 2019. Photo credit: UVA TODAY

    by James A. Bacon

    This past April a University of Virginia alumna took her son for a tour of the university conducted by a student-run organization, the University Guide Service. The woman had been a University Guide herself 25 years previously, an activity that accounted for some of her best memories and most enduring friendships at UVa. “We prided ourselves on the Guide Service being all volunteer, student led, and unaffiliated with the Admissions Office,” she wrote in an evaluation form obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

    The alumna and her son, a high school junior, made the rounds of some 14 universities this spring. As a former Guide, she wrote, “naturally I expected the Virginia admissions tour to be head and shoulders above the tours at other schools. Unfortunately, I was completely wrong and so disappointed.”

    It’s important for university guides to be candid and honest, she wrote, but one also expects them to represent their institution in a positive light. “A prospective student should come away with the impression that the guide loves the school and is proud of it.” Sadly, her guide was negative and apologetic about the school. She complained about the large class sizes, the terrible advising system, the lousy food, and inadequacies of the mental health services. (more…)

  • Assaults on Virginia Police Up 62% Last Year

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Alongside the continued rise in the number of homicides in Virginia, the year 2022 saw a dramatic increase in the number of assaults on police. Two officers were killed and 2,903 assaulted, according to data released by the Virginia State Police in its 2022 Crime in Virginia report.

    The number of injuries spiked as well: 703 officers experiencing minor injuries and 61 suffering major injuries ranging from severe lacerations and broken bones to internal injuries and loss of consciousness.


    (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • No Clarity In This Process

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Here is another example of the utter inanity of this country’s medical care system and its financing.

    First, some background.  I am covered by Medicare.  I also have a Medicare supplement insurance policy issued by the Commonwealth of Virginia for retirees, administered by Anthem. (Good deal, by the way.)  I chose to include the vision and dental coverage on the Anthem policy.

    Like almost everyone my age, I have developed cataracts.  A couple of years ago, an ophthalmologist told me that I qualified for cataract surgery, but that the cataracts had not progressed to the point that such surgery was highly recommended.  I chose to put it off.

    Today, I went in for my annual eye exam.  As I was checking in, the staff at the Virginia Eye Institute (VEI) went to great lengths to explain that a refraction (the process of determining whether I need the prescription of my glasses changed) was not covered by insurance and that I would be responsible for the $70 if I chose refraction.  I even had to sign a form acknowledging that I had been informed of this. (more…)

  • VRS “Diet COLA” Squeezes Pensions Second Time

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner

    Virginia’s “Diet COLA” approach to calculating annual inflation increases to Virginia Retirement System pensions has constrained the increases once again.  Beneficiaries will see a benefit increase of 5% effective July 1, up from the 3.85% increase they received a year ago.

    Both are below what they would have been if the increase had simply matched the full annual change in the consumer price index. The CPI-U measure of inflation for the calendar year 2021 was 4.7% and for 2022 was 8.0%.  The compounded rise was 13%.  But instead of rising those amounts, the VRS retirement benefits will have risen less than 10% over two years.  (Those figures have been corrected since the initial posting.)   (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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