Bacon's Rebellion

  • 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 countryโ€™s medical care system and its financing.

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

    Like almost everyone my age, I have developed cataracts.ย  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.ย  I chose to put it off.

    Today, I went in for my annual eye exam.ย  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.ย  I even had to sign a form acknowledging that I had been informed of this. (more…)

  • VRS “Diet COLA” Squeezes Pensions Second Time

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    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner

    Virginiaโ€™s โ€œDiet COLAโ€ approach to calculating annual inflation increases to Virginia Retirement System pensions has constrained the increases once again.ย  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%.ย  The compounded rise was 13%.ย  But instead of rising those amounts, the VRS retirement benefits will have risen less than 10% over two years.ย  (Those figures have been corrected since the initial posting.)ย ย  (more…)

  • Compromise and Subtlety are Becoming Dirty Words

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    For those on this blog who are still lamenting the actions taken by “progressive” Democrats in the 2020 and 2021 General Assembly sessions, it might turn out that you ain’t seen nothing yet.

    In the Senate, several members of that Democatic caucus are retiring or have moved on to Congress (Jennifer McClellan) and will be replaced with younger members. Furthermore, as described in today’s Washington Post, three incumbent Senate Democrats are being pushed hard by primary opponents. The opponents’ beef is not on policy. Rather, they contend the incumbents were not progressive enough, were not aggressive enough, and were too willing to compromise with Republicans. As Heidi Drauschak, who is challenging Sen. Dave Marsden (Fairfax), put it, “We just havenโ€™t been bold enough.โ€ (more…)

  • What Hath Wokeness Wrought?

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon


    by James A. Bacon

    The surge in homicides in Virginia continued unabated for the third straight year in 2022, with number of deaths from homicide and non-negligent manslaughter reaching 621.

    The homicide epidemic in Virginia disproportionately affected Blacks. Blacks accounted for 90% of the increase in the number of murder victims since 2019, the year before the George Floyd protests sparked an outbreak of lawlessness, a crescendo of anti-police rhetoric, and a wave of legislation designed to reduce Black incarceration rates.

    The toll in Black bodies has increased from 253 in 2019 to 436 last year, a three-year increase of 183 victims and a one-year increase of 54. By contrast, the number of White murder victims climbed from 157 in 2019 to 173 the following year and has plateaued at that level since.

    The latest data from the Virginia State Police compiled in the 2022 Crime in Virginia Report demolishes the argument proffered by many on the left a year or two ago that the spike in homicides could be attributed to COVID-related lockdowns rather than the wave of leftist rhetoric and public policy changes.

    The COVID hypothesis was never credible to begin with — the lockdowns affected everyone, but the jump in homicides occurred overwhelmingly in the Black community, was muted among Whites, and was invisible among Asians. (The report did not break out Hispanics as a separate racial category.) But the continued increase in homicides among Blacks in 2022 after the lockdowns ended indicates that something besides COVID was responsible. (more…)

  • Countering the VEA… on a Shoestring Budget

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    The Internet ad displayed above, produced by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, reached 12,000 Virginia teachers. The return on the modest investment has been impressive. Says Co-President Chris Braunlich: “Inquiries about alternative educator associations are pouring in. Some have already cancelled their union membership (taking $700 in annual dues with them).”
    — JAB

  • Light Rail: Idiotic Idea In 2016. Idiotic Idea Now.

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Virginia Beach voters THOUGHT they drove a stake through the heart of the absurd plan to bring light rail to the city after an overwhelming vote in 2016 against the nutty, developer-driven boondoggle.

    But never underestimate cultists with an agenda. You know, developers who believe taxpayers have a duty to open their wallets to help THEM get rich. Or climate kooks who donโ€™t understand a cost/benefit analysis.

    No surprise, then, theyโ€™re back. Some shadowy online group is beginning to push a bad idea that was buried in a landslide 7 years ago.
    (more…)

  • Cash On Hand Determining Outcomes in Virginia Senate Primaries

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres


    by Shaun Kenney

    On 20 June, Virginians in both political parties will be selecting their nominees for the November elections to the General Assembly.

    Virginia Democrats seem to be caught in a literal death spiral of trying to out-abortion one another, as flyers are going about accusing certain candidates of being โ€œpro-lifeโ€ while others proudly announce their fanatical desire to stack the dead baby pile higher than their opposition.

    Meanwhile, Virginia Republicans as an electorate seem to be keeping to the Buckley Rule, nominating the most conservative candidates that can win in the November general election. With that in mind, letโ€™s take a look at some of the more contested seats in Virginia (gratuitously stolen numbers from our friends at the Virginia Political Newsletter):

    SD-12:
    โ€ข Amanda Chase (R)
    — $100,026 raised
    –$19,199 cash on hand
    โ€ข Glen Sturtevant (R)
    — $203,945 raised
    — $112,882 cash on hand
    โ€ข Tina Ramirez (R)
    –$218,281 raised
    — $31,991 cash on hand
    (more…)

  • Men Need Not Apply

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Mark J. Perry

    by James A. Bacon

    Mark R. Perry, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), has filed 841 complaints over the years against universities whose policies and practices discriminate against men. So far, the Office of Civil Rights has opened 28 investigations just based on more than 100 complaints he’s filed for Do No Harm, a Virginia-based organization formed to fight identity politics in medical schools.

    In one of his earlier complaints, filed in 2018 against UVa’s Darden School of Business, Perry argued that the existence of eight scholarships (and an external fellowship) reserved exclusively for women violated the school’s own internal discrimination policies.

    UVa argued that the scholarships were “independently selected, funded, and awarded by the UVA Darden School Foundation, and do not involve federal or state funds.” Because the female-only scholarships were privately funded, the university argued, they didn’t violate UVa’s internal anti-discrimination policy.

    Perry didn’t buy it. “I thought it was a weak defense given the fact that the Darden School Foundation is physically located in the Darden School of Business and uses UVA Darden emails and UVA Darden phones, etc…. It’s probably the case that the Darden School and NOT the Darden School Foundation decides on who gets the scholarships. In that case, UVA is administering the scholarships and that would violate Title IX.” He recently re-filed the complaint, originally lodged with the university’s Title IX office, with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

    In previous posts, I remarked upon the 56/44 ratio of women to men at the University of Virginia and asked why, at a university dedicated to “equity,” such an unbalanced sex ratio would prevail. The reasons are unclear. Any analysis based upon publicly available data leaves many unanswered questions. But two things are indisputable: (1) UVa provides many women-only scholarships, awards and programs; and (2) the administration has evinced no concern about the gender imbalance or discrimination against males. (more…)

  • Lee Enterprises and the Newspaper Business in Virginia

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Lee Enterprises, about whose frantic search for cash I wrote yesterday, owns a dozen newspapers in Virginia.

    For now.

    1. The Daily Progress โ€“ Charlottesville
    2. The Free Lance-Star โ€“ Fredericksburg
    3. Register & Bee/Go Dan River โ€“ Danville
    4. Bristol Herald Courier โ€“ Tricities โ€“ Bristol
    5. Martinsville Bulletin โ€“ Martinsville
    6. The News & Advance โ€“ Lynchburg
    7. The News Virginian โ€“ Waynesboro
    8. Richmond Times-Dispatch โ€“ Richmond
    9. The Roanoke Times โ€“ Roanoke
    10. Culpeper Star-Exponent โ€“ Culpeper
    11. SWVA Today โ€“ Wytheville
    12. The Franklin News-Post โ€“ Rocky Mount

    Leeโ€™s current nationwide total of what it calls news โ€œbrandsโ€ is 85. It is a small and highly leveraged business.

    This morning its stock (LEE:NASDAQ) market cap is about $81M at $13.37 per share at yesterdayโ€™s close. With $433M in debt, the enterprise value is $524M (Schwab).

    Lee is teetering financially, and has been since it successfully but expensively fought off a late 2021 hostile takeover bid from Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund.

    Alden owns The Virginian-Pilot, the Commonwealthโ€™s largest daily, and the Daily Press on the Peninsula. It has been written that Alden’s business model is simple:

    gut the staff, sell the real estate, jack up subscription prices, and wring out as much cash as possible.

    We have already seen Lee Enterprises gut the staffs of its Virginia papers.

    I havenโ€™t tracked the real estate transactions, but now it is jacking up subscription prices to avoid selling its inventory or trying to obtain additional financing.

    Weโ€™ve seen this play before. (more…)

  • Virginiaโ€™s Best Nursing Facilities

    Posted on

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    This is part 4 of a series on nursing homes in Virginia. Part 1 here Part 2 here, Part 3 here.

    Medicare.gov curates and publishes a system of nursing home assessments that is outstanding in both design and execution.

    As discussed in earlier parts of this series, Virginia has far more bad nursing facilities than it should, but the Commonwealth also has more than its share of outstanding ones.

    Fifty-two of 289 are rated five stars by CMS. Only 10% of the nationโ€™s nursing homes achieve that rating. Eighteen percent of Virginiaโ€™s.

    Weโ€™ll look at those best-of-breed facilities. (more…)

  • Lee Enterprises Newspapers in Virginia Combine Huge Online Subscription Price Increases with Difficult Cancellations

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Notice from The Roanoke Times subscriber services. https://subscriberservicesdsi.lee.net/subscriberservices/Content/Leaving.aspx?Domain=roanoke.com&_mather=2864cc43d3f9efd3

    by James C. Sherlock

    Lee Enterprises, in a bold move, has massively raised prices for online subscriptions to its Virginia newspapers, to some of which I subscribe.

    Leeโ€™s “brandsโ€ ย here include:

    1. The Daily Progress – Charlottesville
    2. The Free Lance Star – Fredericksburg
    3. Danville Register Bee/Go Dan River – Danville
    4. Bristol Herald Courier – Tricities – Bristol
    5. Martinsville Bulletin – Martinsville
    6. The News and Advance – Lynchburg
    7. The News Virginian – Waynesboro
    8. Richmond Times-Dispatch – Richmond
    9. The Roanoke Times – Roanoke
    10. Culpeper Star-Exponent – Culpeper
    11. SWVA Today – Wytheville
    12. The Franklin News-Post – Rocky Mount

    I have for years subscribed to the ones in bold above. ย Online ad sales must not be going well. ย Lee in a sudden move has roughly tripled online subscription prices.

    It also has made it very difficult for customers to cancel.

    Perhaps someone should look into this to see if the difficulty of the cancellation is legal. (more…)

  • Virginia Beach School Board Holds Virtue-Signaling Vote at 2:15 a.m.

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Wanted: One more member with common sense for the Virginia Beach School Board. Unfortunately, that wonโ€™t happen until the next election in 2024.

    In the meantime, the narrow woke majority that did its best to keep masks on kids, keep schools closed, dumbed down the cityโ€™s public schools and pandered to special interests, will continue to virtue signal and hold pointless, anti-parent votes under the cloak of darkness.

    At 2:15 in the morning to be precise.

    Perhaps you heard, the Beach school board held a marathon meeting Monday night that stretched into Tuesday morning. Not because the members were desperately trying to find ways to improve academics or test scores, but to grant LGBTQ+ students special protected status that isnโ€™t extended to any other minority, including children with disabilities.

    Oh, and there is another, more insidious reason the board passed this resolution: to extend a defiant middle finger to Gov. Glenn Youngkin whose Department of Education has prepared policies guaranteeing parental rights regarding trans students.

    The Beachโ€™s ill-conceived resolution passed by a vote of 6-5.

    One more member, folks, and we can put an end to this late-night lunacy. (more…)

  • The Problem Isn’t Guns, It’s Richmond

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres


    by Shaun Kenney

    Do you ever sit around and wish that a public figure would actually stand up and call out a problem for what it is? Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears is out there doing just that when it comes to Richmondโ€™s rising tide of violence.

    Virginia Democrats have responded to last weekโ€™s tragedy at Monroe Park, which killed 2 and wounded 17, with the usual tropes. Blame guns โ€” which if one believes other leftist tropes about fearful gun owners clinging to their firearms and Bibles, you might wonder why all of rural Virginia isnโ€™t some dystopian hell scape.

    Instead, the dystopian hell scape seems to be centered in polities where Democrats are imposing their own utopian visions of a safe and secure society only to discover their policies are delivering neither safety nor security.
    (more…)

  • Probing UVa’s Gender Gap: Is It an Admissions Problem?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    First-time, first-year applicants, offers and yields by gender, 2016-2021. Click for more legible image.

    by James A. Bacon

    As highlighted in our last post, the University of Virginia admits significantly more women than men. The split in the undergraduate student body is roughly 54/46. My aim in pointing out the disparity was not, as some readers presumed, to argue for special preferences for men; admission to UVa should be based on merit. I was exploring the question of whether the goal of achieving “equity” (whether defined as equal “outcomes” or equal “opportunity”) applies to all under-represented groups, including men, or just to so-called “marginalized” groups favored by progressive ideology.

    Having documented that males are comparable to females in academic aptitude, at least among those who take the SATs, I suggested that some other factor might account for the disparity in their numbers at UVa. One possibility is that more women than men apply to UVa. All other things being equal, one would expect more women to be admitted if more women applied. Another possibility, which I raised in a previous post, is that UVa is suffused with subtle but systemic anti-male bias.

    In this post, we’ll examine the role of the admissions process. I will delve into the issue of campus culture in a future post. (more…)

  • Virginia Nursing Home Regulations and Inspections – A Strategic Improvement Recommendation

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    By James C. Sherlock

    Those who read this blog know that Virginia has far more than its share of bad nursing homes. They just do not know what can or should be done about it.

    This third in a current series on Virginia nursing homes will take on a problem that is self-inflicted – the stateโ€™s nursing home regulatory structure.

    Virginiaโ€™s nursing home regulations, upon which Virginia licensing inspections are based, are promulgated by the Board of Health. ย They are at best redundant to federal requirements.

    At worst they are different than federal standards, with no discernible gain in nursing home quality. ย Operators follow the federal rules anyway, because they are almost inevitably stricter than those of the state.

    Virginia can improve its nursing home regulations by conforming them precisely to federal regulations. ย State law already requires them to be in “substantial conformity.”

    This change, if accompanied by the combining of federal and state inspections which it would enable, would make everybody happy. ย It would also go a long way towards fixing the staffing problems at Virginia’s inspection agency by reducing significantly their required efforts.

    (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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