Bacon's Rebellion

  • Virginia Republicans, in Need of a Public Education Strategy for the Fall Elections, Should look to Florida

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Virginia still supports in law the pillars of the progressive takeover of public K-12 and higher education.

    Our elected Democrats, having made those laws even crazier in 2020 and 2021, resist any efforts to change them even at the margins.

    Mystifyingly, Virginia Republicans seem not to have a public education strategy for the fall elections.

    They need to look south.

    The Washington Post reports that the legislature of the state of Florida, having already proscribed in law some of the more radical progressive educational dogma, is now taking down the pillars of that control in both K-12 and higher education.

    It will consider various bills:

    • requiring teachers to use pronouns matching children’s sex as opposed to a gender construct;
    • changing the current Florida law that offers school choice funding subject to income limitations to make it a universally available program;
    • eliminating college majors in gender studies;
    • banning spending on DEI administrative positions and programs not required by federal law;
    • requiring post-tenure reviews at prescribed intervals to evaluate an individual’s continuing contributions to scholarship;
    • strengthening parents’ ability to veto K-12 class materials;
    • extending a ban on teaching about gender and sexuality — from third grade up to eighth grade.

    I would have to see the final language of any of the bills to determine my personal support, and am unlikely to back all of them either personally or for Virginia.

    But the strategy is right.

    They attack the foundations of the progressive strangleholds on public K-12 and higher education. (more…)

  • Empty Gesture? UVa Board Endorses Diversity of Thought.

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The University of Virginia Board of Visitors did more than endorse free speech on university campuses Friday when it voted to adopt a Council of Presidents statement on free speech: it endorsed the principle of viewpoint diversity.

    In 2021 the Board had embraced a statement on free speech by a commission appointed by President James Ryan. But that statement alluded only vaguely to the value of “exposure to a range of ideas.” If the ideas discussed at UVa consisted only of different strains of leftism, the declaration on free speech wouldn’t amount to much.

    The statement of the Council of Presidents, which was crafted at the request of Governor Glenn Youngkin, made it clear that the exercise of free speech and the diversity of ideas are intertwined, and it implied that a wide range of ideas should be encouraged. [My emphasis added below.]

    As presidents of Virginia’s public colleges and universities, we unequivocally support free expression and viewpoint diversity on our campuses. Free expression is the fundamental basis for both academic freedom and for effective teaching and learning inside and outside the classroom. Our member universities and colleges are bound to uphold the First Amendment. We are committed to promoting this constitutional freedom through robust statements and policies that are formulated through shared governance processes and through actions that reflect and reinforce this core foundation of education. We value a scholarly environment that is supported by a diversity of research and intellectual perspectives among our faculty and staff. We pledge to promote and uphold inclusivity, academic freedom, free expression, and an environment that promotes civil discourse across differences. We will protect these principles when others seek to restrict them.

    Ryan told the board that he wants the Council of Presidents statement to “inform what we do at UVa.”

    The challenge for Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom will be implementing those principles in an institution marked by a left/right ideological imbalance of roughly ten-to-one; in which a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion bureaucracy suffuses university policies with a leftist understanding of “equity” and requires employees to express their views of DEI in “diversity statements”; and in which many students and the faculty self-censor for fear of igniting a social media storm, sparking social ostracism, or suffering administrative punishment. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • Sen. John Edwards Calls It Quits

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    Robin Beres

    by Scott Dreyer

    In a highly-watched move, Democrat State Senator John Edwards announced this week he will not seek re-election after his current four-year term ends in January, ending his 40-plus-year run as a politician. Edwards, who will turn 80 in October, has been the subject of much speculation as to his intentions. Reportedly, he hosted a fundraiser just this past January and public records show he has a campaign war chest north of $100,000. Those aspects indicate his decision to retire to be somewhat mystifying.

    However, with President Biden being less than one year older than Edwards, but with glaring displays of cognitive decline, and Americans increasingly on-edge regarding those gaffes and the president’s ability to function in a time of the Ukraine War, Edwards’ running for re-election as an octogenarian under increased scrutiny may have carried significant liabilities.

    A native Roanoker, Edwards was born in the Star City in 1943, the son of the late Judge Richard T. Edwards. Growing up and attending school during the Jim Crow Era, Edwards graduated from the then-all-white Patrick Henry High School in 1962, because the school had not yet integrated.

    According to Edwards’ campaign website, which is still up, “he was the first president of the student government [at PH]. He was a record setting pole vaulter and state high-school champion and voted by his classmates as ‘most likely to succeed’.”

    Edwards graduated from Princeton University in 1966 cum laude. After graduation, he attended Union Theological Seminary in New York City for a year, and later graduated in 1970 from the University of Virginia Law School. Ironically, at UVA Edwards was a writing instructor assistant to Professor Antonin Scalia, who later became a well-known conservative Supreme Court Justice while Edwards went politically to the left.

    Edwards served his country during the Vietnam War in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Captain from 1971 through 1973, as a JAG officer based first in Japan and later in North Carolina.

    In 1980, President Jimmy Carter (D) appointed Edwards United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia.

    In 1993, Edwards was appointed to fill a vacancy on Roanoke City Council and was elected in 1994 to a four year term and as Vice-Mayor. In 1995, Edwards defeated a Republican incumbent to win a seat in the Senate of Virginia, representing the 21st District. He was re-elected in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019. In a few of those races, he faced no or only token opposition.
    (more…)

  • RVA 5×5: RVA = DIY

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    Robin Beres

    by Jon Baliles

    Jack Jacobs at Richmond Biz Sense has an update about the ongoing fallout from the collapse of the Enrichmond Foundation last summer. All of the small organizations that used Enrichmond as a fiduciary lost access to their money (which may be gone for good; stay tuned) and other things like insurance coverage.

    While there are efforts underway to transfer two historically Black cemeteries formerly under Enrichmond’s purview to the city, there has not been any statement, hint, clue, concern, or any sign of emotion uttered by the Mayor about when or if the city will help restore the funding of these small groups that do a lot of valuable work to help the City and save staff time.

    Since no one at City Hall seems to be interested in helping, Richmonders are doing what they do best — they are doing it themselves (aka DIY).

    For example, the group RVA Clean Sweep counts nearly 1,500 people who support it by going around the city picking up trash. They lost their insurance coverage and about $3,000 when Enrichmond folded. Have they quit trying to help clean up the city? Nope.

    They held fewer cleanups and told volunteers to be extra careful as they were volunteering without insurance, but they still kept cleaning and sweeping. But no insurance means they were not able to apply for grants or hold as many cleanups as they would like, according to RVA Clean Sweep Director Amy Robins.

    But they still held cleanups because they wanted their volunteers to stay engaged. “Robins feared that a prolonged hiatus on activity would cause volunteers to drift away from the cause of cleaning up litter in the city,” wrote Jacobs.
    (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Day

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    James A. Bacon

  • Poof! 21 Retirements and 363 Years of Combined Service. So Far.

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    Bob Rayner

    by Chris Saxman

    Here’s a General Assembly Retirement Tracker with estimated years of service:

    Retirements thus far – 7 Senators and 14 Delegates. Combined years of service? 363. I’m putting the Over/Under at 30 members of the General Assembly and 480 years of service that will not return next year. So far not returning:

    Senator Dick Saslaw – 48
    Senator Janet Howell – 32
    Senator Tommy Norment – 32
    Senator John Edwards – 28
    Senator Jennifer McClellan – 18 (Congress start date March 7)
    Senator Jill Vogel – 16
    Senator John Bell – 8
    Delegate Ken Plum – 44
    Delegate Kathy Byron – 26
    Delegate Rob Bell – 22
    Delegate James Edmunds – 14
    Delegate Margaret Ransone – 14
    Delegate Roxann Robinson – 13
    Delegate Kathleen Murphy – 9
    Delegate Mike Mullin – 8
    Delegate Jeff Bourne – 7
    Delegate Dawn Adams – 6
    Delegate Kelly Convirs-Fowler – 6
    Delegate Wendy Gooditis – 6
    Delegate John Avoli – 4
    Delegate Tim Anderson – 2

    Not included in this list are the nomination battles between sitting incumbents or the incumbents who face challenges in their new districts. Sixteen incumbents face off which will add another eight to the list of non returners and there are five House members plus eleven Senators facing nomination battles. Possibly 24 could be added to the current 21.

    So. Far.

    Chris Saxman is a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates. This column first appeared on his blog, The Intersection, and is republished with permission.

  • Feeding Petersburg

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    sherlockj

    Garrison Coward oversees Gov. Youngkin’s Partnership for Petersburg initiative – photo contributed to the Progress-Index

    by James C. Sherlock

    I have written in this space many times about the struggles of Petersburg.

    Petersburg is blessed in one way.

    The Progress-Index’s Bill Atkinson and Joyce Chu may be the best pair of local news reporters working in Virginia.

    Mr. Atkinson, in a series of reports, has detailed the continuing struggles of that city to get a grocery store downtown.

    The big grocers surround the center of the city in more prosperous, safer areas but have not entered there.

    Food Markets in Petersburg courtesy of Bing Maps

    It is no secret why. Poverty and crime do not attract retailers vulnerable to shoplifting and worse. And Petersburg is among the poorest and most crime-ridden in Virginia.

    A recent Petersburg solicitation for interest in building a grocery store downtown drew no bidders.

    The Governor has a broad Partnership for Petersburg initiative to help Petersburg help itself  It is run by Garrison Coward, an external-affairs senior advisor to Gov. Youngkin.

    He reports that the Governor is “hell-bent” on seeing a grocery store built there.

    I will offer an idea. (more…)

  • Putting Victims First. For A Change.

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    Robin Beres

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Imagine for a moment that you are the victim of a violent crime. The perpetrator has been arrested and you thought he was about to go on trial when you learn that your local prosecutor — one of those squishy soft-on-crime types who was bankrolled by George Soros — already entered into a sweet plea deal with your attacker. You were never notified, so the judge signed off on it.

    Now this predator is back on the streets.

    It happens. And Virginia has several prosecutors who fall into the criminals-first-victims-second camp.

    Well, thanks to bipartisan efforts by the General Assembly, this sort of chicanery is over.

    SB 989, a bill that just passed both houses of the state legislature and is certain to be signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, requires prosecutors to contact crime victims BEFORE they enter into plea agreements.

    Commonwealth’s attorneys are not obligated to do what the victim wants, but they have to listen. Current Virginia law only requires prosecutors to notify victims if the victims ask to be notified.

    The best part of this bill? It passed with overwhelming majorities in both houses. Introduced by Sen. Mark J. Peake, a Republican from Lynchburg at the behest of Attorney General Jason Miyares, the measure sailed through the House of Delegates 79-20 and the Senate by a vote of 30 to 10.

    Shoot, even Louise “Brick Wall” Lucas voted for it.

    Who would vote against such a common-sense, pro-victim bill?

    Newly elected Sen. Aaron Rouse, who represents the 7th District that includes part of Virginia Beach and Norfolk, that’s who.

    Congratulations, voters of the 7th. You replaced tough-on-crime Jen Kiggans with someone who doesn’t even want prosecutors to speak with crime victims before entering into deals that are favorable to the criminals who hurt them.

    What were you thinking?

    Republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed and Unedited.

  • Universal Recognition Will Help Stem Virginia’s Migration Woes

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Conor Norris and Edward Timmons

    From pristine beaches to rolling hills and picturesque mountains, Virginia has a lot to attract residents. Combine that with a strong economy and Northern Virginia’s close ties with Washington, D.C., Virginia should be an attractive destination.

    But surprisingly, that’s not the case. Despite strong economic performance and a high quality of life, more people are leaving Virginia than moving into the commonwealth. There may not be one silver bullet to reverse this trend, but the legislature just took an important step helping people move to Virginia by recognizing out-of-state professional licenses.

    In 2021, Virginia experienced net out-migration. Many of us are puzzled by this trend, blaming some combination of housing prices, remote work, taxes, and weather for enticing people to leave Virginia. Unnecessary barriers for those considering a move into Virginia are also a contributing factor.

    If you work in a licensed profession and wanted to move to Virginia in the past, it wasn’t easy to start working in your new home. First, you would have to reapply for a license, paying fees and waiting months for the application process. Sometimes, you would even have to go through training or education again and retake exams, no matter how long you’ve been working, adding time and money to an already expensive process.

    The hassle created by the need to reapply for licensure had a real effect on people’s decision to move. Economists estimate that occupational licensing reduces migration by seven percent. Anyone who has moved knows it’s a costly and time-consuming process. Making it difficult to start working is enough to push some people over the edge and prevent them from moving entirely.
    (more…)

  • Taxpayers Fund Biden’s Disruptive Campaign Stop in Va Beach

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    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    As usual, some local news outlets missed the real story.

    They were so starstruck by President Biden’s taxpayer-funded, Republican-bashing campaign stop in Virginia Beach on Tuesday that they didn’t notice that the city ground to a halt for hours Tuesday afternoon.

    It was a giant clusterfart.

    From one end of Virginia’s largest city to the other, traffic was gridlocked. Businesses lost money, appointments were missed and untold gallons of gas were wasted as fuming motorists stewed in traffic, unsure of what was going on.

    A nuclear attack? A massive 100-car-pile-up? Fugitives on the loose?

    Nope, just the president on a last-minute trip to Virginia Beach to rant about how the GOP wants to slash spending on health care.

    Several television stations reported on the bumper-to-bumper traffic caused by rolling closures along the interestate. The print media? Nah. Not that I could find, anyway.

    Biden flew into Oceana NAS around 2 p.m. and his motorcade headed to the Kempville Rec Center on Monmouth Road, 10.4 miles away, where he made a speech. Secret Service and various law enforcement agencies whose task it is to protect the life of the president, ordered parts of the interstate closed. (more…)

  • Ceaser Crosses the Rubicon, Refuses to Give DEI Loyalty Oath

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    James A. Bacon

    Jim Ceaser

    by James A. Bacon

    Jim Ceaser runs the Program for Constitutionalism and Democracy at the University of Virginia, which provides civic education on American ideas in politics and political economy. The courses are unusual these days in surveying the thought of mostly dead White men: from Aristotle and Montesquieu to Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville. The courses are remarkable also in giving equal time – in many instances even more than equal time — to thinkers most people today consider conservative and who, he believes, receive less attention than they merit.

    Ceaser is a fully tenured professor, which provides significant protections against being fired. As for the program he directs, which reaches a large number of students, all of the funding comes from private donors and foundations from outside the university. Having started teaching in 1975, he’s reached retirement age.

    If not cancel-proof, he is cancel-resistant. That makes it easier for him to refuse to fill out questions in a “peer review evaluation form” that probe his thinking about Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

    The form requires faculty members to describe their teaching, advising, research and service activities in the previous year. For each of those topics, faculty are told to describe their efforts on behalf of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. For example: (more…)

  • New Yorkers, Virginians Will See Your Political Campaign Contributions and Raise You Dick Saslaw

    Posted on

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    sherlockj

    Sen. Dick Saslaw Official Photo

    by James C. Sherlock

    The New York Post was scandalized.

    In a stunning display of how New York politics work, two of the state Legislature’s most outspoken opponents of charter schools are also among the biggest recipients of campaign cash from New York’s teachers’ union and its political action committee.

    State Sen. John Liu (D-Queens), chairman of the New York City Education Committee, has raked in $33,300 since his first Senate race in 2018, putting him in the No. 3 spot behind Sen. John Mannion (D-Syracuse), who got $35,100 during the same period.

    The money for the anti-charter pols came from both the New York State United Teachers — parent of the city’s powerful United Federation of Teachers — and its Voice of Teachers for Education PAC, state Board of Elections records show.

    “Stunning,” they wrote.

    Pikers.

    Now I happen to agree with the Post’s position supporting charter schools. But the writers of the article are spoiled by New York’s campaign finance laws.

    They need to come to Virginia to see what real financial influence in politics looks like. (more…)

  • Public Hearing, Private Decision

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    by

    Robin Beres

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    The Bluestone Town Center (BTC), according to council members who voted 3-2 to approve it, was decided in secret meetings between those council members and the applicants. At Tuesday’s open meeting in which they voted to approve BTC, those council members rather shamelessly admitted to those sessions.

    City staff and the city manager effectively sat on their hands during the discussion, which brought questionable numbers and questionable rhetoric from rookie council members Dany Fleming and Monica Robinson, respectively. It was left to Councilman Chris Jones and Mayor Deanna Reed to present the arguments against the development with an assist from City Attorney Chris Brown.

    The city manager was mostly silent throughout the conversation.

    Also mostly silent was Councilwoman Laura Dent. She made the motion to grant the rezoning BTC sought, and followed the motion with a rambling explanation of what she seemed to say was one of the best things about the project for her, the promise of solar energy panels. Her motion effectively released the developers from their legally binding proffer to provide the panels, but she said she believed they would be installed anyway based on her private discussions with the developers. (more…)

  • Virginia Emergency Management During COVID – A Well-Documented Scandal

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    sherlockj

    By James C. Sherlock

    The National Incident Management System Preparedness Cycle

    We could see it wasn’t right as it unfolded.

    Virginia’s flawed response to COVID was slow for all Virginians.

    Fatal for some.

    But the public just saw the broad stroke external effects.

    • We saw executive orders that seemed sudden, sweeping, and disconnected from the information we had. It turns out that often the governor himself was operating in an information vacuum.
    • In the pandemic’s early phases, the Commonwealth finished last or next to last among states in crucial responses like testing and vaccination program rollouts.  Everything seemed to be invented ad hoc rather than from a plan.  It turns out that was true.
    • There was a prescient and well-drawn pandemic operations plan that had been produced by a contractor, but virtually no one in the administration knew what it required, and certainly had never practiced it in any meaningful way or fine-tuned it based on realistic exercises.  When BR found and reported on that plan in 2020, it was pulled from public view.

    It is important to make sure that doesn’t happen again, whether in another pandemic or in a cyber attack, hurricane, flood, mass shooting, kinetic terrorist attack, nuclear plant emergency, or something else.

    In response to my request, a very cooperative Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) FOIA official has provided a remarkable and profoundly disturbing two-volume series detailing a running history and operations analysis of what happened inside the government.

    It is titled “COVID-19 Pandemic History and After Action Report” Vol. 1 (covers 2020) and Vol. 2. (covers 2021) hereafter referred to as the HAAR.

    It was compiled and written under contract by CNA, a highly regarded federal contractor, who had people on site in Richmond during the COVID response.

    The HAAR describes and assesses a series of widespread and seemingly endless internal and external government breakdowns that compromised the health and lives of Virginia’s citizens.

    Management turmoil in the state government during COVID was so extensive as to be almost indescribable by any group with less talent than the CNA team.

    The HAAR documents that Virginia’s COVID response was hamstrung by a lack of operations management experience in the leadership.

    I understand that with authority comes responsibility.

    But the governor, his Secretary of Health and Human Resources, and his Health Commissioner were effectively the chain of decision makers during COVID.  All three were physicians.

    But that is one reason we have a civil service.

    Virginia’s civil service failed to prepare for its roles in emergency response long before Ralph Northam was governor.  HAAR documents the complete inability of the bureaucracy to plan, organize and equip, train for, exercise and execute emergency plans.

    It is clear to me that without capable civil service support, no administration would have fared well.  I hope, by exposing this deadly failure, to prevent the same thing from happening again tomorrow.

    I will make strategic recommendations here in this first part of what will be a series on this issue.

    (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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