Bacon's Rebellion

  • A More Appropriate Management Model for State Mental Health Facilities

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Central State Hospital Petersburg

    by James C. Sherlock

    I always find it disturbing when state agencies operate institutions that they are also responsible for regulating and inspecting.

    It almost cannot work.

    I have brought this up with regards to the VDOE operation of a virtual learning program when that same agency oversees private providers of the exact same services.

    That is small ball compared to the issues at the state’s mental health facilities.

    Now we have a very recent tragic example at Central State of decades-long problems at state-run mental hospitals including overcrowding and inadequate staffing.

    A 2021 Associated Press article used Central State as the leading example of overcrowding. The reporter wrote, prophetically:

    Virginia sheriffs are reporting being stretched thin after responding to psychiatric emergencies that require them to hold people and transport them for treatment.

    ‘I’ve had deputy sheriffs tied up for days at a time,’ John Jones, executive director of the Virginia Sheriffs’ Association, told the newspaper in an interview on Tuesday. ‘We’re at a crisis point.’

    Now seven sheriffs deputies and three Central State staffers are charged with murder in that same scenario.

    I view the current management model in which a single state agency oversees, operates and inspects its own facilities as untenable.

    There is a proven alternative. (more…)

  • We Have a Problem and It Reflects Poorly on Prince William County

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Kristina Nohe

    Go to almost any parking lot in Prince William County and invariably you will see discarded gloves and masks, littered reminders of the pandemic we all lived through.

    Litter tells others what the people in a community think about where they live. If someone walked into your home and there were chip bags scattered on the floor, a week’s worth of fast food containers piled in the corner, ripped-up notebooks in the sink and a few tires sitting next to the couch, it would make an impression – and not a very good one. The same is true for our community.

    Litter comes from a variety of sources. There is, of course, the irresponsible person who throws trash from a car window or drops a soda bottle along the sidewalk, but a lot of the garbage that we see strewn about comes from other sources. Unsecured items in cars and trucks easily find their way onto the side of the street; anyone who lives along Route 234 near the landfill has seen evidence of this phenomenon.

    We’ve all seen overfilled trash cans and recycling bins lining neighborhood streets from which a stiff breeze can blow items out onto the road. And if it’s not the wind, it’s animals looking for food who leave a trail of wrappers in their wake. (more…)

  • Youngkin Seeks Bids on Future Offshore Wind

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    by

    Steve Haner

    Dominion’s proposed offshore wind project. Phase two, similar in size, would build out to the east.

    By Steve Haner

    Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) has proposed a stronger requirement in state law that any second wave of offshore wind serving Virginia be subjected to a competitive procurement process, rather than simply allowing Dominion Energy Virginia to build it with all the costs and risks imposed on its customers.

    The planned 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project now under federal environmental review remains the only such project in the United States which is being developed directly by a monopoly utility. Other projects involve third-party developers raising the capital and taking on much of the financial risk for the multi-billion-dollar investments, then selling the power to utilities.

    This is just one of several consumer-oriented amendments Youngkin proposed on a series of energy bills, to be voted on at the General Assembly’s reconvened session April 12. Should the Assembly reject his amendments, his option then is to either sign or veto the bill as it passed in February.

    The financial and operational risk imposed on ratepayers by direct utility ownership of the wind farm was the focus of debate before the State Corporation Commission (SCC) finally authorized the project, now estimated to cost $10 billion. A method to shift some of the risk to the company’s shareholders if power output fell below projections was initially accepted but then abandoned by the regulators. (more…)

  • Virginia’s S.O.B

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Virginia’s state flag is a S.O.B.

    This is the derogatory term used by vexillologists, people who study flags (who knew there were such people?), to designate state flags that are “Seals On a Blanket.”

    According to the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA), such flags are “objectively terrible.” The Commonwealth is in good company, however.  NAVA reports that the flags of 24 states consist of the seal on a bed of blue, while the flags of 11 other states vary only in the background color.

    NAVA sets out five principles for good flag design:

    • Be simple (a child should be able to draw it from memory);
    • Have meaningful symbols;
    • Be limited to two or three colors;
    • Have no lettering (it can’t be read at a distance);
    • Be distinctive.

    (more…)

  • A Killer Strategy

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Democrats in Virginia and nationally plan to ride abortion to victory in elections as far as the eye can see.

    The herald of this strategy was a piece in New York Magazine by Rebecca Traister.  It was titled, unsubtly, “Abortion Wins Elections.”

    She is probably right, if her positions are presented in a softened way.

    She is right if progressives can set the terms of the debate and avoid the hard questions which the press will try feverishly to help them bury.

    But I hand it to her. She is straightforward. She advocates boundless abortions. In that she is probably making the wrong bet.

    In the progressive vision:

    • There are no fathers, no husbands in the brave new world. Reproductive choice does not apply to men;
    • Babies don’t exist until the moment of birth. Some would like the opportunity to take a look after birth — about which Dr. Northam spoke — before deciding;
    • They insist on tax money — from everyone — paying the bills.

    The far right counters the left’s list of demands with its own. No abortions ever, under any circumstances.

    I suspect Virginians are unprepared to go to either extreme. But there are questions directly applicable to Virginia politics.

    • Will abortion drive education and parents rights from the front of Virginia voters’ minds?
    • Will killing — sorry — terminating babies prove more important to voters than how the survivors are raised and educated?

    In either case, it will be about children.

    Who don’t get a vote. (more…)

  • If at First You Don’t Succeed….

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    We’ve been getting feedback from readers wishing to attend the April 25 George Will speech in Charlottesville who have been unable to register. They clicked on the link only to find that the event, accessible through EventBrite, has “sold out.”

    Nothing sells out that fast, not even free tickets to hear George Will. Our informed speculation is that malign bots cruise the Internet for conservative speakers, scrape the names and email addresses of conservatives listed in national organizations, and then auto-register them to the event… which they know nothing about and have no plan to attend. The purpose of feeding fake names, of course, is to ensure that nobody shows up.

    Reprehensible. But not unexpected. Such are the tactics of those who despise us and excuse any behavior.

    If you tried unsuccessfully to register, please try again. EventBrite is working the problem. Meanwhile, we have cleared out some of the obviously fake registrations. Don’t let the bots beat you.

    — JAB

  • George Will to Dissect the Assault on Free Speech

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    James A. Bacon

    +++ Sponsored Content +++

    The Jefferson Council invites you to hear George Will on April 25th at the University of Virginia. The topic of his address could not be more timely: “The Bad Ideas Fueling Today’s Attack on The Best Idea — Free Speech.”

    Will began writing national syndicated columns in 1976, making him one of the longest-running pundits of our time. He’s also one of the best, winning the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977. Age has not in the least dimmed his way with words or the incisiveness of his critiques.

    The assault on free speech has been a top-of-mind issue for the conservative columnist recently. Consider a recent column he wrote about campus radicals at Stanford who shut down the speech of federal Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan.

    The noun “parent” has become a verb as many people embrace the belief that perfectibility can be approximated if parents are sufficiently diligent about child-rearing. So, “helicopter parents” hover over their offspring to spare them abrasive encounters with the world. And “participation trophies” are given to everyone on the soccer team, lest the excellence of a few dent others’ self-esteem — the fuel that supposedly propels upward social mobility.
    (more…)

  • Woke Liberalism Is a Dead End for African Americans

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Earlier this month the Isle of Wight School Board passed a resolution declaring, “There is no systemic racism or bigotry perpetuated by the United States or any governmental entity.”

    Timothy Sullivan, a former president of William & Mary, James W. Dyke, a former state Secretary of Education, and Alvin J. Schexnider, president of Thomas Nelson Community College, took exception to the statement. In a column published by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, they noted that Isle of Wight was a leader in the 1950s-era Massive Resistance to school desegregation, and proceeded to draw a straight line to Virginia schools that are “racially isolated and underserved” today.

    Part of the remedy to segregation, the authors argue, is teaching about slavery, segregation, and racism in Virginia schools.

    We believe the entirety of Virginia’s history must finally be addressed in our curriculum so that our children understand that intentional racism and discrimination have detrimentally affected all aspects of Virginia life, from opportunities for education, advancement and the concomitant accumulation of wealth resulting in the average Black family’s wealth being one-eighth the average white family’s, to the physical and mental health of generations of children, both Black and white.

    A proper teaching of racism, they argue, will “[prepare] our students and our future workforce to function effectively in a global economy that is multiethnic and multicultural.”

    The op-ed is dismaying in so many ways. (more…)

  • Crime in Virginia — the Statistics of Race and their Causes

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    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Crime, especially violent crime, is a constant topic in private conversations and in public politics, and thus here on Bacon’s Rebellion.

    Comments on BR crime-related articles turn quickly to race, often without basis in fact.

    I will offer below the actual crime statistics by race from 2021, the latest available year, in an attempt to cure that.

    Then I will write about the causes.

    I will almost certainly be called a racist. (more…)

  • An Open Letter to Sen. Louise Lucas About Funding New Richmond Schools

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth

    Editor’s note: Paul Goldman, a Richmond attorney and former chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia, asked us to publish the letter below, which he sent last week to state Sen. Louise Lucas of Portsmouth, a fellow Democrat who serves as president pro tempore of the Virginia Senate. As of today, Sen. Lucas has not responded.

    TO: State Senator Louise Lucas

    RE: Why Richmond citizens, long concerned about the decrepit, shameful condition of the school facilities serving the city’s overwhelming black and brown public-school students, deserve to be allowed to have a Second Casino Referendum in 2023 as promised them by last year’s budget deal.

    Dear Louise,

    I write today not merely because you are the Pro Tempore of the State Senate. Not merely because you are the key to any new Senate action on the Casino issue. But I write today because you and I have long fought hard, against great odds, to remedy the many injustices suffered by the poor children of Virginia from the legacy of segregation. Especially the Black and Brown kids in cities like Portsmouth and Richmond. (more…)

  • Flee Any Public School Resisting Parents’ Rights

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    Loudoun County parents pack a School Board meeting. Photo credit: Idiocracy News Media

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Four years ago no one was talking about parental rights.

    Now everyone is.

    It all began with the covid lockdowns. Once schools were closed parents got a look at what was and wasn’t being taught in public schools.

    And the scales fell from their eyes.

    Parents began to see school administrators and some teachers not as allies who were trying to educate their kids and fill them with a love of country, but as indoctrinators filling their heads with gender theories and a skewed view of American history through a modern prism of critical race theory.

    The Founding Fathers were no longer taught as enlightened men of their times determined to create a country where individual liberties were protected from the heavy hand of the state, but they were made small, reduced to nothing more than slaveholders.

    On top of that, parents found that some middle and even elementary school libraries contained graphic books that celebrated masturbation, sex, gay and trans lifestyles. They learned that some school administrators – in Loudoun, for instance – were not reporting cases of sexual assault but were covering the incidents up. Even from parents.

    The outrage in Virginia was so widespread that voters in what had become a reliably blue state elected Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears and Attorney General Jason Miyares, who ran on a GOP platform of restoring parents’ rights.

    Democrats lost by doubling down on the exclusion of parents from schools. On the eve of the election Terry McAuliffe blundered by campaigning with the loathsome teachers’ union boss Randi Weingarten, who almost single-handedly was responsible for lengthy and damaging school closures during covid.

    As public school enrollment plummets and more parents than ever are homeschooling, the parents rights movement has gone national and mainstream.

    Last week the GOP-led House of Representatives passed a Parents Bill of Rights on a vote of 213-208, without the support of a single Democrat. (more…)

  • Who Are the Real Fascists?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Bad things happen to fascists like Mussolini and… Matt Walsh?

    by James A. Bacon

    A familiar tactic of the left has come to Virginia: accuse your enemy of being fascist… while acting like a fascist yourself.

    A movement has surfaced to disinvite conservative journalist Matt Walsh from Washington & Lee University on the grounds, according to a petition signed by more than 600 students and faculty members, that his words “represent a very real threat of physical violence against trans and nonbinary people specifically, but also to all women, queer people, and people of color.”

    Walsh, who has billed himself “Transphobe of the Year,” has written extensively about the excesses of the transgender movement, focusing particular attention on the dangers of “gender-affirming” hormonal treatments and sex-change surgery. Following Walsh’s accusations that Boston Children’s Hospital was “mutilating” children through surgery, the petition charges, the hospital said its workers were harassed and faced threats of violence.

    Adding fuel to the controversy, Blake Ramsey, a student and former vice president of the W&L Democratic Party, posted on Instagram an image of the hanging of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini. The caption read, “Because Matt Walsh is now apparently speaking at this school, I thought I would post an important reminder of what happens to fascists.” (more…)

  • Did Southern Poverty Law Center and James Madison Museum Team Up to Put ‘Anti-racist’ Curriculum in Virginia Schools?

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Brenda Hafera

    The Albemarle County school district in Virginia has been subjected to two lawsuits related to its implementation of an “anti-racist” curriculum, which one parent said was “incubating a culture rooted in grievance, discord, and victimhood.” But parents in the school district near Charlottesville may be alarmed to discover that it is not just the school board that is working against them.

    Powerful political organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center and one of Virginia’s own beloved historic sites may be involved. The Albemarle County anti-racist curriculum appears to have originated at President James Madison’s home, Montpelier, an historic site that has ties to the SPLC.

    Montpelier, which is owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and operated by the Montpelier Foundation, has been reconstructed and converted into a museum. While some of Madison’s accomplishments are discussed during part of the main house tour and through a brief video in the visitor center, there are currently no exhibits focused on his importance as the Father of the Constitution, according to Montpelier’s website.

    Staff members have also reportedly said that they have no interest in honoring a “dead white president and a dead white president’s Constitution.”
    (more…)

  • The Governor’s Tutoring and Special Ed Services Initiative

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    VDOE has provided me a concise and clear description of the Governor’s initiative to provide tutoring and special education services to struggling Virginia school kids.

    The program seems both on point and appropriately careful.

    The input describes the sources of the money, where it was originally targeted, where some of it is being re-targeted for tutoring and special ed services, how  soon it will be spent and the services made available to parents, who will receive vouchers variable by household income to purchase them.

    The plan for this initiative spends $30 million out of a total of $68 million available.

    That money is available because:

    • the schools to which it was originally targeted with Emergency Assistance for Non-Public Schools (EANS I & EANS II) funding were not able to use it all within guidelines; and
    • it reverted to a more broadly usable fund, Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER).

    The supply of tutoring and special education service providers nationwide and in Virginia who are qualified under federal guidelines for expenditure of the money under GEER has fallen far short of demand.

    This program is making a major attempt to organize supply at the state level.

    If this attempt proves successful, and additional qualified suppliers become available, demand will exceed what $30 million will buy. If that happens,  I expect the allocation of funds to be quickly increased.

    But it remains difficult to provide such services legally, efficiently and effectively. All of it is tax money, or borrowed money that taxpayers will have to repay.

    We want value for the money and for the students. (more…)

  • UVa Takes Steps to Protect Students from Increasing Crime in Charlottesville

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    University Police Department officer Wallace Goode patrols along the Corner district on March 14th. (Photo by Sanjay Suchak, University Communications)

    by James C. Sherlock

    The University of Virginia has to be careful what its officials say because of the ongoing lawsuits over the November massacre. But the school is taking concrete steps to address the spike in violent crime in Charlottesville.

    I congratulate them.

    UVA Today ran an article on those initiatives on March 15th.

    In the early morning hours of March 18, a UVa contractor was shot and killed across the street from the Rotunda.

    More needs to be done, but carefully. (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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