Bacon's Rebellion

  • Grrrrrrrr… Pit Bulls. AGAIN.

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    As soon as I saw the headline in Sunday’s New York Post I knew the breed of the culprit:

    “Girl, 6, Needs 1,000 Stitches, ”Won’t be able to smile again’ After Vicious Dog Attack.”

    Was this a case of a poodle gone wild? A dachshund? A beagle?

    Of course not. Only one breed is responsible for most of the maulings and deaths-by-dog-bite year in and year out: pit bulls.

    It was a safe bet that it was one of these muscular, thick-jawed curs — bred for fighting — that grabbed the little girl by the face while she was playing cards at a friend’s house.

    Pit bulls represent just 6% of the American dog population, but account for 66% of all dog bite fatalities according to DogsBite.org a data-driven organization that collects information on dog bites.

    I’ve written about this breed so many times that I know exactly what’s coming: my mailbox will fill with photos of toddlers cuddling with pit bulls, there will be threats of violence against me, and accusations of racism — as if saying some dog breeds have more of a propensity for fighting and biting than others is the same as being prejudiced against PEOPLE of a different race.

    Look, there was a reason Michael Vick was training pit bulls for fighting out in Surry County in 2007, and not Labrador retrievers. (more…)

  • Virginia’s New Population Growth Leaders

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The COVID-19 pandemic changed the dynamics of population growth in Virginia. For decades Northern Virginia, with Fairfax County at its core, led population growth in Virginia. And in the 2010s, Virginia’s central cities experienced a population renaissance. But the combination of COVID-19 and sky-high real estate prices have pushed growth out to counties on the metropolitan fringe, mainly around Richmond, but also around Fredericksburg, Charlottesville and Winchester, according to University of Virginia demographer Hamilton Lombard.

    The fastest growing localities in Virginia between 2020 and 2022 were New Kent, Goochland, and Louisa counties, expanding by 7.5%, 5.6% and 5.4% respectively. Virginia’s most populous jurisdiction, Fairfax County, lost 26,000 residents. Virginia Beach lost 7,700.

    Percentagewise, counties in Southside and Southwest Virginia were among the biggest losers. Some counties in those economically depressed regions also continued to experience out-migration, but several managed to buck the trend. A bigger factor was the fact that the populations of these localities are so much older that deaths outnumbered births. 

    Writing in the UVa demographic research group blog StatChat, Lombard said it was “unclear” whether the COVID-era trends would continue or reverse themselves. Either way, the population movements between 2020 and 2022 were striking, as the following map shows. (more…)

  • Gov. Youngkin’s Latest Event Undermines Nikole Hannah-Jones’ Attack

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Tyler O’Neil

    Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, on Tuesday, joined fourth graders at Fort Monroe outside Newport News, Virginia, hosting an event teaching about the history of the fort, where Black slaves fled during the Civil War to become freemen at what became known as “Freedom’s Fortress.”

    The Youngkin event came two days after Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times’ “The 1619 Project,” claimed that Youngkin “does not want children to learn that history.”

    “The 1619 Project” author spoke on Feb. 19 at the McLean Community Center in a one-hour speech for which the Fairfax County Public Library system paid her $29,350 and the community center paid her an additional $6,000. She acknowledged that her project rewrites history and urged her audience to support reparations to Blacks for slavery and to “subvert” America’s economic system, which she claimed is beset by institutional racism. She also suggested that the Confederates understood the Constitution accurately, establishing the United States as a “slave nation.”

    Hannah-Jones spoke about the central role Virginia plays in the history of American slavery, stating that the “entire legal architecture of what is race, who’s black, who’s not, whose children will be born enslaved, whose children will be born free, it all is created in Virginia.”

    “Massive resistance to Brown v. Board, the strategy is born here, and yet you have a governor who does not want children to learn that history even as they still sit in segregated classrooms,” The 1619 Project author claimed. She has previously criticized Youngkin’s efforts to remove critical race theory (a lens encouraging students to view America as institutionally racist) from school curricula, saying he aims to provide a “sanitized” history for “White kids.”

    Yet two days after Hannah-Jones attacked Youngkin, the governor was teaching Virginia’s children about slavery, according to footage of the Fort Monroe event obtained by The Daily Signal.

    “We just covered in that lesson over 400 years of history, and it’s really important history, starting in 1619, where the first Africans were brought to this country as slaves, and it was a terrible, terrible, terrible beginning,” the governor said after Jess Meadows, education programs manager at the Fort Monroe Authority, led students through a lesson.
    (more…)

  • Richmond’s Skinny Budget: Low Stakes Poker, High Stakes Rhetoric

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Shaun Kenney

    Virginia’s General Assembly managed to pass the Richmond equivalent of a continuing resolution to fund the government until Senate Democrats and House Republicans can hammer out a compromise on corporate tax breaks.

    One will have to pardon me for not getting terribly wound up about tax breaks for corporations while small businesses and working families are struggling with back-to-back  years of 9 percent inflation from Washington.

    Meanwhile, much of the damage done by the Northam administration with regard to Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) requirements, gender ideology, and the long litany of progressive efforts to remake Virginia were left both untouched and unchallenged.

    Even school choice — the marquee legislation championed by Lt. Governor Winsome Sears — was left to die in committee.

    Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are promising a “brick wall” against House Republicans until they get what they want — in other words, reneging on the pledge from conferees to honor a $950 million tax cut. The stopgap fixes the $200 million shortfall snafu created by the Virginia Department of Education’s spreadsheet, puts another $25 million into the Virginia Retirement System, and another $100 million towards cost overruns for existing building infrastructure. What mystifies most is that the Senate Democrats haven’t been precisely clear on what they want beyond platitudes for higher salaries for bureaucrats, public education, higher education, etc. (more…)

  • Time to Bring Back the Blue Books?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    It’s hard to know how much credence to give to trend data extrapolated from online search queries. But if we imbue the findings of software firm Tiny Wow with any significance, one recent search trend is worrisome indeed.

    Tiny Wow analyzed Google Trends for the search queries “essay writer,”  “essay ai writer,” and “chatgpt essay.” Among the 50 states, Virginia ranked 6th in the interest Googlers showed in using artificial intelligence essay-writing software.

    “According to these findings, there is a clear interest in students looking to AI for essay help in the U.S.,” said a Tiny Wow spokesperson. (more…)

  • SCC Oversight Restored, Don’t Expect Lower Bills

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    What Dominion is promoting as how to “save” you money while paying off its old fuel bills, with ten years of Tuesdays to pay. With interest.

    by Steve Haner

    The final version of a regulatory revision for Dominion Energy Virginia restores State Corporation Commission authority over the utility’s profit margin and rates, a major goal for Governor Glenn Youngkin (R). It was also the highest priority in a detailed energy policy put forward by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

    Of the aggressive goals set out in Dominion’s initial legislation, few were accomplished in the end. The General Assembly did agree to directly legislate a profit margin for the utility for two years, and it is an increase.  Come 2025 the SCC will be free to set the next profit rate without any reference to the peer group of other utilities now required by law. (more…)

  • Virginia Law Enables School Violence – School Board Policies Can Correct It

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Courtesy NBC 6                                                             6’7” 270 pound student assaults teaching aide

    by James C. Sherlock

    In 2019, the National Education Association (NEA) published Threatened and Attacked By Students: When Work Hurts, urging lawmakers to address the crisis of unsafe behaviors in schools.

    Read about Chesterfield schools in that article.

    Unfazed, progressives in 2020 in full control of the General Assembly, led by now-Congresswoman-elect Jennifer McClellan, looked to break what they considered a “school-to-prison pipeline.”

    They changed Virginia law to eliminate the requirement for principals to report misdemeanor assault and battery in Virginia schools, on school buses or at school-sponsored events to law enforcement.

    Even battery on school staff.

    It would seem to me, if I worked in a school, useful to require such violence to be reported to law enforcement.

    But maybe that’s just me. (more…)

  • RTD Promises Lower Electric Bills? Watch and See.

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    From this morning’s Richmond Times-Dispatch:

     A reduction in Dominion Energy bills is on the way after a compromise on a new approach to regulate the company made it through the General Assembly on the last day of the session….

    The compromise on electric bills — in legislation that passed nearly unanimously — would bring an immediate $6 to $7 cut in a benchmark 1,000 kilowatt-hour monthly bill, which now stands at $137.

    Now there is a firm prediction, a promise even, that we can track.  The reductions will be immediate, right?  So, look for them on your next monthly bill?  Or should we be honest that the bill, if signed as is, doesn’t go into effect until July 1.  Will your bill immediately go down on July 2?  September 1?  The newspaper predicts it will be lower even though as the year progresses, Dominion begins to charge even more for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, the upgrades at its four nuclear reactors, and puts the tax to pay for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative back onto your monthly bills. Oh, and the new legislation increases Dominion’s authorized profit margin, which customers will start to pay in the near future.

    Pick a date in the future, maybe just before Election Day 2023, and we’ll see then what 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity costs a Dominion customer.  The RTD is promising $131.

    A deeper analysis of the final conference report substitute on Dominion’s proposed regulatory will likely appear later today.  But that ridiculous claim that your bills will actually go down “immediately” needs to be highlighted and filed away for future reference.  And once again the newspaper has to be dismissed as a serious, independent news outlet when it writes propaganda ledes to please one of its largest advertisers.

    — Steve Haner

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Jeanine's Memes

    From The Bull Elephant.

  • Forget Waldo! Where is ERIC?

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by James Wyatt Whitehead, V

    In 2012, seven states, including Virginia, formed the Electronic Registration and Information, Inc. (ERIC), with assistance from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Today, ERIC’s membership has risen to 32 states and the District of Columbia. ERIC’s mission is to assist states in maintaining accurate voting rolls.

    Every 60 days, states that are members of ERIC send voting roll data to ERIC for analysis. Reports are generated and returned to the states who can then take any necessary action. The data sent appear to be the garden variety of voter information one would expect: who has moved in? Who has moved out? Who has died?

    Security of the data seems to be of high importance to the leaders of ERIC. Membership in ERIC requires a one-time fee, plus annual dues. The budget requirements for ERIC are modest. What is not to like? ERIC provides a useful service to state election officials. Accurate voting rolls advance the common interests of all citizens.
    (more…)

  • Unconstitutional Viewpoint Discrimination in Virginia K-12 Teacher Evaluation Standards

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Daniel Gecker Esq., President of the Virginia Board of Education. Appointed to the Board of Education by Governor Terry McAuliffe and reappointed to a four year term by Governor Ralph Northam. Date of expiration of appointment – June 30, 2023

    by James C. Sherlock

    Progressives, in the fullness of their dogma, oppose the entire Bill of Rights.

    The Bill of Rights is specifically structured to limit the powers of government, which progressives find not only unsuitable, but unimaginable.

    In the Golden Age of Progressivism in Virginia, 2020 and 2021, they controlled the governor’s mansion, the General Assembly, the Attorney General’s Office and all of the state agencies.

    With total control, they took flight.

    They have always known what seldom occurs to conservatives not prone to offend the Bill of Rights.

    With total control of state government, progressives can enact and have enacted laws, regulations and policies that violate both the federal and state constitutions.

    They know it will take a decade or more for courts to push back. Meanwhile they can call opponents “haters.”

    After which the worst that can happen is that nobody is held accountable. Except the taxpayers.

    I just exposed unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in the University of Virginia’s hiring process. that was implemented starting in 2020.

    The same fertile progressive imagination is also present in the Board of Education’s new (in 2021) Standard 6. “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Equitable Practices performance indicators” (starting on page xv) in “Guidelines for Uniform Performance Standards and Evaluation Criteria for Teachers“(Guidelines). (more…)

  • Electric Grid Reliability at Risk by 2030, PJM Says

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The regional interconnection organization PJM has identified four trends that could put the reliability of the electric grid for Virginia and a dozen other member states at risk by 2030.

    Dudes, that’s seven years away!

    According to a new study, “Energy Transition in PJM: Resource Retirements, Replacements & Risks,” the four trends include:

    • The growth rate of electricity demand is likely to continue to increase from electrification coupled with the proliferation of high-demand data centers in the region.
    • Thermal generators are retiring at a rapid pace due to government and private sector policies as well as economics.
    • Retirements are at risk of outpacing the construction of new resources, due to a combination of industry forces, including siting and supply chain, whose long-term impacts are not fully known.
    • PJM’s interconnection queue is composed primarily of intermittent and limited-duration resources. Given the operating characteristics of these resources, we need multiple megawatts of these resources to replace 1 MW of thermal generation.

    “For the first time in recent history, PJM could face decreasing reserve margins should these trends continue,” states the report. (more…)

  • RVA 5×5: Calling Earl Weaver

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Jon Baliles

    There are not many other cities in the country that would debate plans for multiple baseball stadiums in multiple locations over multiple decades and then, after seemingly signing off on a new stadium, roll over after being told by Major League Baseball that public monies must be spent for a batting cage in a stadium that has two years of life left in it.

    But hey, this is Richmond, and that is apparently what will happen in the coming months. According to Jonathan Spiers at Richmond BizSense, “For the Richmond Flying Squirrels to be able to play this spring, Major League Baseball is requiring that the city-owned Diamond be upgraded — at a cost of $3.5 million – to meet certain standards for pro baseball facilities. In addition to repairs to the concrete structure’s roof and supports, MLB is requiring construction of a second batting and hitting tunnel as well as renovations to both team locker rooms.”

    The City has clearly been sitting on this news and has already filed the permits;  the work will begin ASAP, as the season starts in just over one month. The concrete supports most definitely need looking after and refurbishment; they are old and dangerous; there was a close call when a chunk fell off of one support about 15 years ago and could have seriously injured someone. I try never to sit under one of them when I go to a game; you just never know.
    (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Day

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • Viewpoint Discrimination in Hiring at UVa – “Presumptively Unconstitutional”

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    University of Virginia Counsel James Iler

    by James C. Sherlock

    The University of Virginia engages today in in-your-face viewpoint discrimination in hiring.

    The counterfactually named University of Virginia Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights (EOCR) declares itself responsible for:

    Recruitment and Hiring: facilitating and monitoring faculty and staff recruitment and hiring and training faculty and staff regarding applicable laws and best practices for search and hiring processes.

    Indeed.

    EOCR has turned viewpoint discrimination into a science by “considering contributions to inclusive excellence” in hiring. Do yourself a favor. Open that page and click to open each section.

    EOCR helpfully offers hiring officials and search committees phrases as “examples of what could be added” to job applications at UVa.

    [Faculty] Candidates should also describe how their courses, research, and/or service have helped, or will help, students to develop intercultural competencies or otherwise advance excellence through diversity, equity, and inclusion within the institution.

    Those requirements are not viewpoint-neutral because diversity, equity and inclusion as practiced at the University of Virginia are not viewpoint-neutral. The  UVa DEI bureaucracy, including EOCR,  is authoritarian, and proud of it.

    EOCR actively tries to screen out applicants who may disagree with the University’s thought police approach to DEI. In that pursuit, they don’t just require commitment to DEI going forward.

    The applicant must demonstrate previous activity.

    That makes UVa a government DEI spoils/patronage system, defined as a practice to reward active supporters by appointment to government posts.

    If only the University had a legal department. (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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