Bacon's Rebellion

  • The Virginia Way

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Robin Beres

    Politicians and pundits have invoked the “Virginia Way” in speeches and writings since colonial times. The phrase is used by partisans to evoke sentiments of decency and honor (and votes) in residents of the Old Dominion. In 1926, Douglas Southall Freeman wrote in an editorial for The Richmond News Leader that the “Virginia way is not one of contention, but of understanding, not the making of humiliating laws, but the establishment of just, acceptable usage. Public sentiment can be trusted now, as always, to find the best ‘Virginia way.’”

    In January 2019, writing in Bearing Drift, Brian Schoeneman described how the “Virginia way” used to work in the legislature: “Republicans and Democrats would fight hard and long during the campaign season, and when the fighting was over, both sides would pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and govern effectively for all Virginians. The bitter invective and the accusations went away.”

    Unfortunately, if the childish, vindictive sign seen today in a Richmond front yard is any indication of today’s political atmosphere, the Virginia Way is in big trouble.

  • CVOW on Schedule and Budget, Utility Reports

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    by

    Steve Haner

    Dominion’s proposed offshore wind project.

    by Steve Haner

    Dominion Energy Virginia’s first wave of offshore wind remains on schedule, and within the announced capital cost of $9.8 billion; and the cost per unit of the energy from the turbines will be lower than initially projected, the utility reported last week.

    Details? Well, many of those are secrets. Much of the brief report the utility filed with State Corporation Commission remains redacted, with large blocks covered by black ink. The redacted data involves reports from an affiliate corporation, Blue Ocean Energy Marine LLC. There apparently is also another document “filed under seal under separate cover.”

    Finally, Dominion refers to an Excel file that includes all the data on the new levelized cost of energy (LCOE) calculations which was posted to a shared eRoom. The password is available only to the SCC and case parties who signed non-disclosure agreements, reports the SCC’s communications director in response to a query about access for Bacon’s Rebellion.

    Among the interesting items which are on the record: (more…)

  • DEI Has “Gone Off the Rails”

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Finally, we’re getting an open debate about “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” in Virginia — not an honest debate, mind you, but a debate which, whether honest or not, is long overdue.

    Last month, Virginia’s chief diversity officer Martin Brown proclaimed that DEI was “dead” at the Virginia Military Institute. Various parties, from Democratic legislators to Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Michael Paul Williams, lambasted Brown.

    “Make no mistake: Brown did not merely threaten to terminate equity, but the entirety of DEI. And Youngkin has his back in pushing for its destruction,” wrote Williams. “Somewhere, Jim Crow is smiling.”

    Ah, I see. Brown, an African-American, is bent upon dragging Virginia back to the era of lynch mobs, eugenics, and state-enforced racial segregation. With insights like that, no wonder Williams won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

    Since changing the name of the state office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion to the office of Diversity, Opportunity & Inclusion, Youngkin has largely refrained from making public pronouncements on the subject. But earlier this week, in response to a question about Brown’s statement, Youngkin said that, while DEI was admirable five or ten years ago, it has since “gone off the rails.”

    (more…)

  • As U.S. Teeters On the Brink of Recession, Virginia Beach Hikes Taxes

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    by

    Robin Beres

    Clouds gather over Va Beach. (Bob Rayner)

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Do you mind if I’m brutally honest for a minute? Good. Because there’s no stopping me today.

    Any member of the Virginia Beach City Council majority who voted Tuesday to approve an obscene $2.5 billion budget as the country teeters on the edge of a recession is a liar if they try to tell you they didn’t raise taxes.

    I mean it. Join me in calling them LIARS.

    While it’s true these politicians left the tax RATE alone, assessments jumped an average of 9%, with some of us seeing much sharper increases.

    That means almost every homeowner in Virginia Beach just got a big fat tax hike. Combine that with an inflation rate of about 5%and the average working family trying to stay above water in the resort city is drowning.
    (more…)

  • Update: Dissident VMI Alumni Lawsuit

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Last week Bacon’s Rebellion published a column by Bob Morris which mentioned a lawsuit that dissident Virginia Military Institute alumni had filed against the VMI Alumni Association. The petition demanded records that would allow dissident alumni access to 20,0000+ alumni emails to communicate with other alumni ahead of the association’s annual meeting.

    The lawsuit argued that all “members” of a Virginia nonstock corporation — in this case, all VMI alumni — were allowed access to all corporate records, including the email addresses. That lawsuit was heard in Rockbridge County Circuit Court a week ago Thursday. The bottom line: dissidents got the postal mailing addresses but not the email addresses, and the alumni association’s annual meeting was not postponed.

    Says Morris, who was not a party in the case but who collaborates with the plaintiffs: “Not a complete victory, but not a complete loss.” (more…)

  • Increase Teacher Pay in Virginia to Meet Legislated Minimum Standard of National Average Compensation

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    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    We have major teacher shortages in Virginia, and we need to address them to ensure not only quantity but quality.

    To do that we need to fund our legislated state goals of competitive teacher compensation.

    Code of Virginia § 22.1-289.1. Teacher compensation; biennial review required.

    It is a goal of the Commonwealth that its public school teachers be compensated at a rate that is competitive in order to attract and keep highly qualified teachers.

    As used in this section, “competitive” means, at a minimum, at or above the national average teacher salary.

    The Department of Education shall conduct a biennial review of the compensation of teachers and shall consider the Commonwealth’s compensation for teachers relative to the national average teacher salary. The results of these reviews shall be reported to the Governor, the General Assembly, and the Board of Education by June 1 of each odd-numbered year.

    That should certainly be the goal, but we need to fund it. Carefully.

    Some divisions already meet those minimum standards.

    Many can’t afford to do so. (more…)

  • Teachers’ Unions and Virginia Schools

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    sherlockj

    Courtesy VEA

    by James C. Sherlock

    Virginia is a government union state.

    Because of the federal workforce in Northern Virginia, Virginia in 2021 had the third highest percentage of any state of government union members as a share of total union members at 64%.

    That is a higher percentage than Washington D.C.

    Of all employees in Virginia, 22.5% worked for the government in 2021. Virginia is one of only seven states over 20%. D.C. is 29%.

    The National Teachers’ Unions. Many Virginia teachers and support personnel belong to local teacher’s associations and unions that are affiliates of the two major national public school teacher’s unions, the National Education Association (NEA, 3 million members) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT, 1.7 million members).

    Together they represent one in four union members in the U.S. The leadership of both are hard-core progressives.

    Those national numbers of members are provided by the two unions and include retirees. In 2021 together they had about 3.6 million working members.

    In the years 2019-21, the National Center for Education Statistics counted three million teachers in public schools and 500,000 in private schools. But the NEA and AFT represent large numbers of other school staff to account for the apparent discrepancy.

    The two unions are overtly political and focused on social issues warfare.

    In Virginia, the two national unions claim 45,000 members, which, since they both include large numbers of non-teacher staff, means together they represent significantly less than half of Virginia teachers. (more…)

  • Hearing Held, No Vote Taken on Beach Wind Cables

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Joe Bourne of Protect Sandbridge Beach opens the May 4 hearing on the Kitty Hawk North request to bring major power lines ashore in Virginia Beach.

    by Steve Haner

    One four-hour public hearing was not enough. Virginia Beach City Council wants another such debate before it votes on a wind company’s request to bring power cables ashore at Sandbridge Beach.

    Last week’s hearing on Kitty Hawk North’s application for an easement to bury cables apparently was not covered by any Hampton Roads news media. Almost half of the time (watch it here) was used by the company’s speakers, both before and after the public spoke. Parent firm Avangrid Renewables LLC personnel were at the podium for so long because of questions from council members. (more…)

  • Does Virginia Beach School Board Care About Girls’ Sports?

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Kerry Dougherty

    If you live in Virginia Beach, I have some questions for you:

    Did you sit at home while the Bathrobe Brigade on the School Board fought to keep schools closed, long after we knew kids weren’t at risk from Covid-19?

    Did you watch on public access TV as the hysterical hypochondriacs of the School Board battled to keep face diapers on kids long after we knew they were doing absolutely nothing to stop the spread?

    Did you sit on your hands when you learned that graphic novels featuring oral gay sex were on the shelves of public schools and the woke majority on the School Board wanted to keep them there?

    Well, it’s time to get out of your La-Z-Boy and join the weary parents and grandparents who have been fighting your battles for you.

    Get to tonight’s school board meeting at 6 p.m. Join the 87 people who had signed up to speak as of late yesterday, according to board member Vicky Manning.
    (more…)

  • Were Confederates “Traitors to their Country”?

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    James A. Bacon

    It is often said by commenters of this blog — and elsewhere — that Robert E. Lee and others serving in the Confederate army were “traitors” to their country. Whatever contributions they made to national reconciliation or the public welfare later in life, they deserve no public honor or recognition in the form of statues, names on buildings or other memorials. In the column below Lloyd Garnett, an amateur Virginia historian, argues that the “treason” label is an anachronism based upon a faulty understanding of the evolution of the nation’s identity. — JAB

    by Lloyd Garnett

    Supporters of the Erasure & Destruction Commission, aka Renaming Commission, are fond of displaying their ignorance regarding the legal framework of the United States under the Constitution. Never is their misguided misapprehension more evident than when they declare that the Confederates were “traitors.”

    The charge is so unarguably counterfactual as to be absurd. While forgiveness (not forgetfulness) should be our Christian impulse, it is our duty to our birthright to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – which is to say, our individual and political sovereignty under God – to firmly set the record straight.

    Setting the historical record straight is not a matter of rehashing bygones, which ought to be left as bygones. Rather, understanding the important Constitutional arguments involved then, is critical to grasping the political and social arguments now. As the current arguments by the ignorant and the malevolent, have today devolved into riotous violence, injury and destruction of property, iconic art and symbolic reminders of our worthy heritage, it should be obvious that appreciation for the concept of “government by consent of the governed” is at stake. (more…)

  • Primary Care for Underserved Virginians

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    It is an old story for Virginia: shortages of primary care providers in inner cities and rural areas.

    Perhaps the best article I have ever seen on the unique value of primary care and payment reforms to reflect its value was published in 2021 in the Harvard Business Review.

    I recommend it wholeheartedly. Especially to Virginia Medicaid.

    But if all of the excellent recommendations in that article were adopted, they would not by themselves put primary care physicians where they are needed most.

    Solving primary care shortages in Virginia should be a bipartisan issue because it affects Democratic and Republican strongholds roughly equally. But it has never in my experience gotten enough traction in Richmond.

    The problem is centered around the fact that government insurance alone does not reimburse primary care physicians or nurse practitioners sufficiently to support a practice.

    Whether single practitioner or groups, including hospital-owned groups, they currently need some minimum percentage of privately insured patients to pay the bills.

    Otherwise, to serve the poor, they generally have to work for the government, which itself cannot fill the jobs it already has in underserved locations.

    What to do?

    First, care enough about the problem to address it. Then, think outside the current box. (more…)

  • ODU Graduation: Snotty Brats In Caps and Gowns

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Last month we wrote about snotty brats at George Mason University — a state-supported school — who’d rather stick their fingers in their ears than spend 10 minutes listening to someone who doesn’t share their radical agenda.

    That was Gov. Glenn Youngkin who they found so objectionable, incidentally.

    Depending on what news source you rely upon, either “about 30” or “many” graduates at Old Dominion’s commencement exercises this weekend were unaware that they, too, had attended a Virginia state institution. So they decided to turn their backs on the governor during his 10-minute commencement address.

    Yes, I’m aware they have a First Amendment right to behave badly.

    Just as I have a First Amendment right to call them rude brats.

    In addition to the children acting out at graduation exercises, about 3,000 of them had earlier signed a petition demanding that the school rescind its invitation to the governor.

    Memo to the triggered babies at ODU: your education was bankrolled by Virginia taxpayers. And a majority of those same people elected Glenn Youngkin precisely because he brought back common sense and parental rights to the commonwealth.

    If you want to listen to a governor who supports biological boys competing in girls sports, someone who believes that very young school children need to see graphic novels showing gay oral sex IN SCHOOL, who thinks schools should allow children to change their names, pronouns and gender without their parents being notified, may I suggest you look into one of California, Washington or Oregon’s state universities?

    Their governors may just be loony enough for you.

    Think of how conservative grads must feel each spring as lefties fan out across the nation giving graduation speeches full of Marxist drivel.

    Odd, you don’t read much about those students developing a case of the vapors or demanding that lefties be gagged or banned from campus.

    Perhaps they’re the ones who really do believe in free speech.

    Republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed and Unedited.

  • Virginia’s Abortion Laws

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Credit pxhere.com

    by James C. Sherlock

    Politicians on the right and left proclaim they want to change Virginia’s abortion laws.

    It is thus a useful exercise to see how those laws actually read. I am not an attorney, but I will take a shot at summarizing at certain points.

    The reference is Code of Virginia Title 18.2 Crimes and Offenses Generally, Chapter 4. Crimes Against the Person, Article 9. Abortion. Go directly to it at the link if you wish to see the entirety of that Article.

    There are nine active sections of Article 9.

    We will take them individually, see how they read and point out later some of what they do not address. (more…)

  • Virginia Democrats – “Progressive for Who?”

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Al Sharpton. Courtesy New York Post

    by James C. Sherlock

    “Progressive for who?”

    That question was asked by Al Sharpton directly to a gathering of his supporters at a conference hosted by his National Action Network while flanked by Lori Lightfoot, Eric Adams and two other big city Democratic mayors.

    “Anybody that tells you they’re progressive but don’t care about dealing with violent crimes are not.”

    “Progressive for who?”

    “We gotta stop using progressive as a noun and use it as an adjective.”

    “You’re labeled progressive but your action is regressive. I’m woke? You must think I’m asleep.”

    He demanded “a national agenda around urban violence, urban crime and accountability.”

    “Accountability.” There is no word more anathema to progressives. He could not have hurt them worse.

    Watch the video.

    That was not the first shot, but one of heavy caliber, in the revolution against progressive destructiveness by the Black people who are among its primary victims. (more…)

  • Is Stingy State Funding to Blame for UVa Tuition Increases?

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    by

    James A. Bacon


    by James A. Bacon

    In explaining the cause of rising tuition & fees at the University of Virginia, we described last week how the driving force over the past 20 years has been a relentless increase in spending. Expenditures in the academic division of the University of Virginia, fueled by an expansion in salaries, increased 135% between 2002 and 2022, far outpacing the 59% rise in the Consumer Price Index and 20% increase in enrollment.

    But that’s not the whole story. While expenditures were surging, state support for UVa and other public universities in the Old Dominion lagged far behind. Colleges and universities, the higher-ed lobby has argued, have had little choice but to offset public parsimony by raising tuition & fees.

    A Jefferson Council analysis suggests that there is some truth to this assertion at UVa but it falls woefully short in explaining the ascent of tuition & fees to stratospheric levels. After adjusting for inflation and enrollment growth, roughly 30% of the tuition hikes have offset the decline in state funding while 70% went toward higher spending.

    While coping with stagnant state funding, UVa presidents and Boards of Visitors looked to increased gifts and higher tuition to pay for their aggressive spending increases. Gifts have surged over the 20-year period and now equal state support as a source of funding at UVa. But the bulk of new revenue has come from tuition hikes. (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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