Bacon's Rebellion

  • A Tale of Two Rallies

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    One was the best of rallies, one was the worst of rallies

    A diverse group of people standing together outdoors, some holding flags, with their hands over their hearts, expressing solidarity and unity.

    by John A. Lucas

    This weekend I attended two rallies in Richmond, Virginia. Both claimed to support freedom for the Iranian people. But, to borrow further from Charles Dickensโ€™ contrasting images of Two Cities, one stood for darkness with a platform of hatred, anarchy and antisemitism. The other symbolized light, even wisdom. One exuded despair; the other marked an unprecedented alliance that bore hope for the future.

    I will offer some observations of both rallies. You can judge which of the descriptions in A Tale of Two Cities descriptions fit either of them.

    The Saturday rally

    The first rally was on Saturday in Richmondโ€˜s Monroe Park. It was sponsored by the local โ€œParty for Socialism and Liberation,โ€ i.e., the PSL, with funding by the โ€œAnswer Coalition,โ€ among others. Broadly speaking, it was characterized by opposition to the ongoing Operation Epic Fury, hatred of everything about the American system, and virulent anti-Semitism.

    (more…)

  • A Slippery Slope Down to Dark Backroom Deals

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    Steve Haner

    by Chris Braunlich

    Unless Virginia voters reject the constitutional amendment on the ballot April 21, gerrymandering will return to Virginia.

    Five years ago, 66% of Virginia voters — 2.8 million Virginians — approved a bipartisan redistricting constitutional amendment ending gerrymandering. The result was a map that is widely regarded as one of the fairest in the country. The new proposal, however, for which early voting is now taking place, restores gerrymandering, sending Virginia back down a slippery slope to the dark days of backroom deals.

    The original โ€œgerrymander,โ€ after all, doesnโ€™t look all that more contorted than the new Seventh Congressional District proposed for Virginia. The accusation fits.

    Opposed by The Washington Post and a majority of Virginians, ridiculed by former Democratic Senator Chap Petersen as โ€œDestroying Democracy in order to save it,โ€ the new amendment was rushed into play, to be voted on in a special election when no one is paying attention, to replace something that works.

    Although the Redistricting Commissionโ€™s 2021 launch was uneven, the amendmentโ€™s backup plan — a Special Master appointed by the courts — worked spectacularly โ€ฆ so much so that the Princeton Gerrymandering Project rated the final outcome an โ€œA.โ€

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  • Terror at ODU: We Donโ€™t Have to Live Like This.

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    One ODU professor is dead and two ROTC students were injured Thursday, shot by an Islamic jihadist while attending class.

    The shooter?

    Mohamed Jalloh, a naturalized American citizen from Sierra Leone who traveled to Africa on three separate occasions in 2015 to join ISIS.

    Instead of being executed for treason, as he should have been, Jalloh was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison in 2017, which means he should still be behind bars. Instead, he was sprung early, reportedly by a Biden-appointed judge. Continue reading.

  • Social Breakdown Update: the ODU Shooting

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    A smiling military officer in full camouflage uniform stands outdoors, surrounded by trees and greenery, with a message of gratitude and remembrance displayed on the image.

  • Social Breakdown Update…

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • “Affordability” Update: College Tuition

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • March 12, 2020. Our First Day in Covid Hell.

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    A creative image depicting a merger between a virus structure and a man's face, suggesting a connection to health or the COVID-19 pandemic.
    Image credit: Grok

    Never forget what happened six years ago today. And how power-drunk despots like former Gov. Ralph Northam used a pandemic – and phony science – to stomp all over the constitutionally protected rights of Virginians.

    It could happen again. Youโ€™ve been warned.

    Yep, it was March 12, 2020, when Northam declared a state of emergency because of the covid 19 virus.

    That was quickly followed by Executive Order 51, the first in a long succession of increasingly restrictive – and nonsensical – rules spit out by a midwit in the Governorโ€™s Mansion.

    The state of emergency was supposed to expire on June 10, 2020. It was finally lifted on June 31, 2021.

    By then, businesses had closed, many for good. The sick had died alone, without the comfort of loved ones in their final hours. Alzheimer patients withered away, lost in their memory centers where no one visited them and everyone wore masks. School children fell hopelessly behind in their studies. Children as young as five were forced to wear face diapers. Sobriety ended for many who relied on daily in-person AA meetings.

    And churches were shuttered after Northam blamed church attendance on the spread of the virus. Continue reading.

  • Collective Bargaining Will Only Further Divide Virginiaโ€™s Universities

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Derrick A. Max

    A group of protesters holding signs and flags advocating for workers' rights and Palestinian freedom, gathered in front of a building.
    Image credit: Grok

    Cardinal News ran my guest column this morning warning that collective bargaining at Virginia’s public universities will only further deepen the political divides that are undermining Virginia’s once esteemed system of higher education.

    The push to unionize university workers in Virginia is not about increased pay, better working conditions, or fairness. Beneath the rhetoric it is clear this debate is about reshaping how universities are governed, embedding a radical woke agenda in university leadership, and how Virginia will adjust to the most challenging period coming for modern higher education. 

    Demographers have long warned about a coming โ€œenrollment cliff.โ€ Beginning later this decade, the number of college-age students will decline sharply due to falling birth rates following the Great Recession. Colleges across the country are already preparing for fewer applicants, greater competition for students, and tightening budgets. Smaller colleges are already closing or seeking ways to merge with more stable institutions.

    At the same time, higher education costs have been rising far faster than inflation for decades. Tuition increases are driven largely by labor and administrative costs โ€” the largest components of university budgets.

    (more…)

  • UVA Bizarro World Update

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    by

    James A. Bacon

  • Nuts & Bolts: Modernizing State Cyber-Security

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    A pile of rusty nuts and bolts resting on a wooden surface.

    At least three Virginia government entities — Albemarle County, Gloucester County, and the Office of the Attorney General — were subjected to ransomware attacks in 2025. In myย most recent Oinkonomics podcast, Secretary of Finance Steve Cummings touched upon the Youngkin administration’s approach to cyber-security. โ€” JAB

    Cummings: My former life was a banker. My last stop was I was CEO of a $6 billion revenue bank owned by the Japanese, highly regulated by the Fed, by the OCC, by the SEC. And I spent most of my regulatory time on cyber. And as you can imagine, that is top of the priority list. If you look at finance, what I would say to everybody as I was pulling my team together, hey, folks, weโ€™re going to do things differently. We are the bank. We collect the revenues. We manage those funds when they come in to optimize them, and we pay all the bills through DOA.

    Why do you rob a bank? Itโ€™s because where the money is. We are the number one target. And we had those three agencies, which is the core, all doing it differently, completely independently, different tools, different standards, different tracking, and at much different levels of maturity of execution. So, I said, I donโ€™t care what you say about the incidents. We got to get this fixed.

    (more…)

  • Dems to Vote Selves 278% Pay Raiseย 

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    James A. Bacon

    by Scott Dreyer

    The Democrat-led General Assembly voted in recent days to raise the salary for State Delegates and Senators to $50,000 per year.

    Virginia has always had a General Assembly made of part-time legislators. The idea was for them to have their primary jobs back at home, and their service in the legislature in Richmond was designed to occupy only a few weeks per year, with a modest stipend in accordance with that limited time.

    The move to grant themselves salaries of $50,000 per year is already more than many Virginians make at their full-time jobs working year-round.

    The Democrats ran on โ€œaffordabilityโ€ as a major platform during the fall 2025 campaign.

    The nearly 300% raises were passed on largely party lines, with Republicans opposing. Having passed both houses of the General Assembly, the measure now needs to be signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) to become law.

    Per state law, legislators cannot vote themselves a pay raise during the same session as their vote.ย There must be a new election before the pay raise can take effect, therefore the 278% pay raise would not take effect until 2028.

    Delegates are currently paid $17,650 a year; senators $18,000. Under the proposed increase, that would nearly tripleย to $50,000 a year for each.

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  • Referendum Ad Wars

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Look whoโ€™s doing dabbling in investigative journalism! Itโ€™s my old employer, The Virginian-Pilot.

    Yep, they were so stunned by โ€œVote Noโ€ campaign literature aimed at black voters on the upcoming redistricting referendum, that they went digging.

    Figures.

    A man in a light gray suit and glasses gestures while speaking, with an American flag blurred in the background.
    Former Republican Delegate A.C. Cordoza. Image credit: Virginian-Pilot

    In a story headlined โ€œWho’s Behind An Anti-Redistricting Flyer Invoking Jim Crow?โ€ the paper asked a question absolutely no one was asking. (Except Dem loyalists, that is, who donโ€™t take kindly to black Republicans.)

    Left-wingers were indignant. How dare conservatives invoke Jim Crow, only Democrats can do that, which is right since it WAS Democrats who invented Jim Crow.

    The Democracy and Justice Political Action Committee paid for the campaign mailer, but campaign disclosures did not initially say who was behind the PAC โ€” inviting speculation from Democrats that a Republican special interest group was involved. But a disclosure form provided Monday by the PACโ€™s attorney identifies the person behind the PAC as A.C. Cordoza, a Black former Republican state delegate.

    Cordoza, who represented Hampton in the House of Delegates from 2022 to 2026, is chairman of Democracy and Justice PAC, which was registered March 5. Cordoza, who lost reelection last year, was the only Black Republican in the House of Delegates during his term.

    Cardozo explained his reasoning to the paper. Itโ€™s smart and sound. Continue reading.

  • Two Intrigues of the Utmost Importance to the UVA Community

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by the Jefferson Council

    A person in a detective costume examining something with a magnifying glass in front of a large, classical building with a dome and columns.

    A number of recent mysterious events have brought into the open serious concerns involving the issues of transparency and accountabilityโ€”two topics that have been subjects of repeated controversy by various elements of the University community. As devotees of Conan Doyle and the sleuth of Baker Street, we have put on our deerstalkers and utilizing deductive reasoning combined with the testimony of credible sources have reached conclusions of the utmost importance to our University:

    1. The Mystery of the Missing Meeting: Was there Governmental Interference in the Selection of our New Rector?

    Anyone who regularly follows UVA Board of Visitor (BOV) meetings knows that the BOV meets quarterly, with the meeting spanning two days, usually a Thursday and Friday. Last week, the BOV held its first meeting of 2026, which was also the first meeting of the Board after Governor Spanberger engineered her hostile takeover of the Board. What made this meeting unusual from the outset, is that it was the first time in the history of the Commonwealth that a newly elected governor had previously appointed a controlling number of Board membersโ€”in this case 10 of 17. However, this was not the only unusual aspect of this Board meeting.

    As noted above, BOV meetings generally span two days and include reports from most of the standing committees of the Board including the Academic and Student Life, Buildings and Grounds, Advancement, Finance, College at Wise, and Audit, Compliance and Risk committees. Last weekโ€™s BOV met for only one day and heard reports from only one committee. To paraphrase a question asked each year at the Passover Sederโ€”โ€œWhy was this Board meeting di๏ฌ€erent than all other regularly scheduled Board Meetings?โ€

    (more…)

  • Spanberger Pushes Back

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Gov. Abigail Spanberger

    Gov. Abigail Spanberger is pushing back against the elimination of a sales tax break for data centers being proposed by Senate Democrats in their budget recommendations.ย (For background on the sales tax exemption, see Steve Hanerโ€™s discussion here.)

    There is a tradition in which the governor meets with the budget bill conferees (those members chosen to work out the differences between the House and Senate budget bills) to discuss the differences and the governorโ€™s priorities. Following that is the โ€œGovernorโ€™s letterโ€ to the conferees, in which the governor sets out his/her priorities and recommended actions for the budget.ย Among staff members who worked in the past on helping draft โ€œthe letter,โ€ there was great skepticism as to how much attention the conferees paid to it.

    However, this year, reports the Richmond Times Dispatch, Spanberger has used the meeting and the letter to send a strong signal that she does not fully support the Senate proposal to repeal the exemption on sales tax for equipment enjoyed by data centers. “I know we share a commitment to protecting Virginia’s fiscal integrity, upholding our commitments to businesses that we have invited to invest in the Commonwealth, and maintaining the AAA bond rating we have held since 1938,” she stated inย the letter.ย The governorโ€™s spokesperson then doubled down, โ€œAs budget negotiations advance, the Governor has expressed to House and Senate leaders her serious concerns about going back on commitments Virginia has made to businesses that it recruited to invest in the Commonwealth.”ย 

    (more…)

  • With Friends Like This…

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Virginia Republicans seem to be very frustrated with their party’s attempts to thwart the redistricting changes being pushed by Virginia Democrats.

    A lot of their frustration has been directed at former Gov. Youngkin. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the incumbent Republican members of Congress,whose seats are in jeopardy, met with Youngkin to implore him to “help with fundraising, ad messaging and other efforts to drive their voters to turn out.” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-First) said that Youngkin “was adamant to say he was not going to get involved.โ€ Wittman went on to say, โ€œGlenn is just missing in action. If youโ€™re not going to fight for your own state, for your own party, thatโ€™s pretty poor testament to what you would do if the president were to select you for a position.โ€

    Sen. Glenn Sturtevant

    Others are complaining by the lack of support from national Republican organizations. The Virginia Political Newsletter quoted Sen. Glenn Sturtevant (R-Chesterfield) as lamenting:

    “[Democrats have] like $20 million to push this budget referendum, theyโ€™re playing ads on TV all day, every day, and thereโ€™s really nothing in response thatโ€™s comparable. And the reason for that is that the money is just not coming down from the National Republican groups. And I canโ€™t give you a good answer as to why that is, they have seemed to be very focused on making sure that the Epstein files were not released. They had plenty of time and effort to spend on that. I know that they were in session last week because they voted to not disclose the congressional sexual harassment slush fund. So they were very focused on that. If it involves sending bombs and munitions to other countries, they will move heaven and earth to make sure that happens. But when we have this illegal constitutional referendum going on in Virginia, weโ€™re not seeing a whole lot of help from our federal partners.โ€

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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