Bacon's Rebellion

  • Government Actors Try to Deflect, Deny and “Move On” from Failures During COVID

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Courtesy CBS rendering of two CDC spring of 2021 survey findings about American high school girls reported Monday, Feb 13, 2022

    by James C. Sherlock

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is in full self-defense mode.

    CDC and the left backed, indeed insisted, upon social isolation during the pandemic.

    Now they deflect and deny agency in the consequences. They continue to try to insulate themselves from the catastrophic educational and mental health effects on children and adolescents of that social isolation.

    A weakened CDC Director is pledging to overhaul the agency and its culture, a backhanded admission of the unimaginably bad performance of CDC during COVID.

    The entrenched bureaucracy that is that agency and its culture is admitting nothing. They are counting the days until she leaves.

    So, if experience counts for anything, we pretty much know how the CDC “overhaul” will work out.

    Virginia is due for the same sort of review of state actions during COVID.

    The Northam administration stumbled badly at nearly every new turn after failing to either exercise or implement Virginia’s own pandemic emergency plan. Which was excellent and predicted nearly exactly the course of events.

    Then they tried to cover up the existence of that plan itself.

    I am not sure that such a review is forthcoming. If it is, it will be preemptively be declared political. It must be done anyway.

    The federal government, under progressive management, is “moving on.”

    Or trying to.

    I hope Virginia government does not make the same mistake. (more…)

  • Woke Army Puts American Hindu Mom in Its Crosshairs

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Suparna Dutta

    by Asra Nomani

    A Woke Army of far-left activists and leaders from the mosque that once hired radical imam Anwar Al-Awlaki put a mother in their crosshairs: Suparna Dutta, a brave immigrant who has advocated for the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, democracy, and meritocracy.

    In a reprehensible display of bigotry and xenophobia, Virginia Democrats voted on Tuesday, Feb. 7, to reject Suparna’s nomination to the Virginia Board of Education, after Sen. Ghazala Hashmi accused her of alignment with “white supremacy.”

    These are the new Southern Democrats — mimicking the bigotry of their predecessors.

    You can’t make this up.

    In a statement, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who nominated Dutta, criticized the “Democrats’ partisan rejection of qualified appointees,” including with the Parole Board and Board of Health.

    “In an appalling show of partisanship, today Senate Democrats attacked the integrity of three highly qualified members of my administration,” said Youngkin. (more…)

  • RVA 5×5: Needed Resources for Human Resources

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Jon Baliles

    Last week we had a story about a glut of open positions at Richmond’s City Hall and the difficulty in filling them. Lo and behold, the Richmond Free Press this week put out an article about the struggle to fill positions as the department responsible for filling those positions (Human Resources, aka HR) is upside down and employees are being told to reapply for their jobs. In case you didn’t read last week’s edition, the HR department has a lot of vacancies which makes it hard to fill any vacancy in any department. HR “is involved in every aspect of employee services, from hiring and retention to designing and administering classification, compensation and performance evaluations, overseeing employee data, handling employee grievances and providing training and development.”

    Think of it like a clogged sink — it takes forever for the water to get through. And reporter Jeremy Lazarus notes that word has leaked out that everyone in the department was “told at a staff meeting in early February and urged to reapply for new positions that are being advertised, but that there were no guarantees they would have jobs. But three department employees have separately told the Free Press that effective Friday, all of the remaining full-time employees are to be laid off except for the three top managers….”

    And one employee spoke directly but anonymously: “We’ve been told our department is the heartbeat of City Hall, but we’ve been left in the dark. None of us knows what will happen. Maybe we’ll all get rehired. Even so there will be fewer people left to do the work,” the employee said, as result of the transfers that have already taken place.

    “I don’t know how everything we’re involved with will get done,” one of the employees said. “The city is fortunate. Instead of running for the exits, for the most part, everyone has stayed on and kept focused on the work. But it becomes so stressful when the reward for loyalty is uncertainty and worry. This is not what we signed up for.”
    (more…)

  • Bias and Risk in Behavioral Polls and Studies – A Cautionary Tale for Public Policy

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Courtesy WebIndia

    by James C. Sherlock

    Here at BR, both the authors and commenters spend a great deal of time discussing the outcomes of behavioral polls and studies.

    Taxes, mandates, and bans are behaviorally informed. As are most public policies.

    But behavioral science adds levels of risk and bias much more prevalent than in the hard sciences.

    As a citizenry, we generally understand that polls that predict future behavior can prove unreliable because we see political polling.

    Most expect polls about how we feel about our lives to be imperfect, but not purposely so. Yet some polls are designed to support a specific political position.

    We probably understand a lot less about the risks and biases in behavioral studies that govern most public policy, because assessing them requires technical expertise most, including most elected politicians and political observers do not possess.

    Which is a key reason such policies often go wrong. (more…)

  • The Bill of the Year: Menstrual Search Warrants

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Monty Python’s Church Police, a famous sketch we can now watch being played out in Virginia politics.

    By Steve Haner

    Now here’s a phrase I never expected to type, even in a blog post: menstrual data. Looks like the 2023 Virginia General Assembly will be best remembered down the road for a silly bill that sparked a very avoidable stumble and then turned into a National Thing.

    Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) was even the target of well-publicized staged outrage from the Biden Administration, suddenly diverted from balloon- watching by a nationwide flood of search warrants seeking data on women’s periods. Except there don’t actually seem to be any such search warrants and there may not actually be any interest in such information. (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • February: A Month of Celebrations, Awareness, and Daffodils

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Daffodils, v. “February Gold”. Plant source: Brent and Becky’s Bulbs, Gloucester Va.

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    February is known for many things. Although it is the shortest month, some have claimed that, with its usually dreary weather (this year being an exception), it actually feels like the longest. To divert us from its normal dark days, in addition to cheerful early daffodils, February offers us Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day, Presidents Day (Washington and Lincoln) and Black History Month.

    All of those are worthy subjects for celebration, but only one, Presidents Day, is officially recognized. However, in its infinite wisdom, the Virginia General Assembly has chosen to officially declare February to be:

    • Financial Aid Awareness Month
    • Winter Honey Month
    • Home Education Month
    • American Heart Month
    • Children’s Dental Health Month
    • Love the Bus Month
    • Self-Care Month
    • Gum Disease Awareness Month

    (more…)

  • Spirit of VMI Preempts WaPo Hit Job

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Looks like Washington Post reporter  Ian Shapira is loading up the big guns to fire another salvo in his unrelenting war on Virginia Military Institute alumni who are critical of the new leadership’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion policies. This time, instead of attacking traditionalist alumni as a group, he appears to be focusing on Matt Daniel, head of The Spirit of VMI PAC, as an individual.

    Shapira obviously has done a lot of digging. Since his Nov. 21 article insinuating that dissident alumni are racist for criticizing VMI’s African-American Superintendent Cedric Wins, he has published only one other article (on a topic unrelated to VMI). Three months after his last hit, the WaPo hatchet man emailed a lengthy list of questions to Daniel that hint at specific allegations the article will make.

    One question, for example, sets up the VMI grad and former fighter pilot on charges of anti-Semitism for a blog post in which he criticized leftist mega-donor George Soros — not for Soros’ ethnic identity but his role bankrolling leftist causes. 

    Anticipating a hatchet job, The Spirit of VMI has published Shapira’s email, and you can read it here. And you can read The Spirit of VMI’s response here.

    “What is obvious from the tone, type, and number of questions is that Mr. Shapira … will try to doxx and cancel another VMI Alumnus who has attempted to freely speak and react to to the corrosive actions of the Northam Administration,” said the Spirit of VMI statement. The statement continued: (more…)

  • Want Info? Check Only, Please.

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Del. Danica Roem (D-Prince William) Photo credit: Virginian Pilot

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    A recent article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch illustrates how governments will fight any attempt to amend the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in a way that would make it easier for citizens to obtain information.

    Del. Danica Roem (D-Prince William) has been one of the more persistent legislators seeking to amend the FOIA to make information on government activities more accessible to citizens.  With her background as a journalist, she knows more about how the FOIA functions than most legislators.

    One of the chief frustrations of citizens seeking information on their governments’ activities are the fees government agencies are authorized to charge as a condition of providing requested documents. Roem has introduced legislation in the past that would have capped the fees a government agency could charge. These bills went nowhere, and it did not matter if the Democrats were in the majority (HB 2000, 2021 Session) or the Republicans (HB 599, 2022 Session). This year, she took a more modest approach. (more…)

  • Latest Debt and Deficit Projections Warrant a Full-Scale Freakout

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) indicate that, given continuation of current levels of taxation and programmatic spending, the U.S. budget deficit will be running at $2.3 trillion a year by 2033, driven in large part by a $1 trillion-a-year increase in interest payments on the national debt to $1.4 trillion a year.

    As it happens, 2033 is just a couple of years away from 2035, the year that Social Security’s Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund is scheduled to run out of money and the payout will be limited to what the program brings in from payroll taxes, limiting the payout to 77% of what was promised.

    What’s the most likely scenario in the early 2030s? Congress will borrow to sustain the full Social Security payments, adding to the deficit and accelerating growth in the national debt. This year the deficit will be about 4.3% of gross domestic product. By 2033, it will be 7.3% — and that’s before a Social Security bailout. Interest on the national debt, which cannot be cut without triggering a default, will amount to 3.6% of the entire economy. (more…)

  • New Warmist Spin: Millions Still Will Die… But It’s Complicated

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Graphic credit: Washington Post
    by James A. Bacon

    Old global warmist spin: as temperatures rise, millions will die.

    New global warmist spin: OK, we’ll admit that rising temperatures have resulted in fewer overall deaths due to the decline in cold temperatures, which kill more people than hot temperatures. But rich developed-world countries in northern climes will benefit the most from rising temperatures while poor developing countries closer to the equator will suffer the most.

    Washington Post writer Harry Stevens acknowledges that a peer-reviewed paper recently published in Lancet Planetary Health found that the number of people dying from cold is declining faster than the number of people dying from heat is increasing.

    Oh, no, what’s a climate hysteric to do? There is no upside to warmer temperatures — none!!! (more…)

  • Petersburg Seeks State Funding for Projects Linked to Public Health and the Appomattox River

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Courtesy Petersburg Virginia website

    by James C. Sherlock

    While all of the attention in the state press has been on Petersburg’s proposed casino, the estimable Bill Atkinson of the Petersburg Progress-Index provided insight into other Petersburg requests to the General Assembly for budget amendments.

    Badly needed infrastructure projects and a tourism initiative are each tied to the health of both the Appomattox River and the citizens of Petersburg. (more…)

  • Something Is in the Water

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    Those aren’t wood chips or bark in the cow pasture.

    David Foster Wallace tells the story of two young fish swimming along when an older, wiser fish swims past and asks, “How’s the water?” One of the young fish looks at the other and asks, “What’s water?”

    Absurdity is the water that proponents of the Bluestone Town Center (BTC) are swimming in. Like the young fish, they’ve been in it long enough and deeply enough that they don’t know that’s what it is.

    Consider this scenario. A city council member who serves as the council’s representative to the planning commission listens to a long recommendation from the planning staff. She then makes a motion to more or less accept the recommendation. Four weeks later, she asks the planning staff what their recommendation meant.

    Yes, this really happened. So did the argument that building apartments in a cow pasture would preserve farmland.
    (more…)

  • No Better Time to Instill Financial Literacy in Black and Brown Virginian Youth

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Sherifah Munis

    Racial systemic inequalities have recently been brought to the forefront of our national conscience, shedding light on the centuries of policies that have disadvantaged Black and Brown Americans’ ability to build, maintain, and pass on wealth. A striking 2019 statistic shows that the median family wealth (the difference between gross assets and liabilities) for White Americans was $188,200 compared to $24,100 for Black Americans and $36,100 for Hispanic families.

    One area of resounding disparity is the inequality between Black and Brown Americans and their White counterparts regarding access to and knowledge of financial literacy – the ability to understand and apply financial skills related to personal financial management, budgeting, and investing. This gap is evident in the research on Black Americans with regard to low home ownership, low participation in the financial marketplace, high credit card and student loan debt, and expensive credit card behavior (such as paying minimum fees, incurring late fees, and taking cash advances).

    The financial literacy education in U.S. public schools is inconsistent across states, often integrated into history or other social studies curricula, or only offered as an optional topic. The good news is the Virginia Board of Education approved one standard unit of credit in economics and personal finance as a requirement for high school graduation beginning with students who entered ninth grade in fall 2011. However, as a mom of teenagers, I noticed first-hand that the personal finance classes my kids participated in were varied in that an economics class fulfilling the personal finance requirement didn’t necessarily teach how to create a budget, or what it takes to build and maintain credit, etc. One potential solution to this problem is a standardized, culturally-relevant, and youth-oriented financial literacy program.
    (more…)

  • Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Virginia Public Schools – The Epidemic of Risky Behaviors and Experiences in Adolescents

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Courtesy YouTube

    by James C. Sherlock

    The 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) Data Summary & Trends Report: 2011–2021 , was released by the CDC on Monday, provides the most recent surveillance data, as well as 10-year trends, on health behaviors and experiences related to adolescent health and well-being among high school students in the United States.

    The survey was completed in the Spring of 2021.

    The report writes that teen girls are “engulfed in a growing wave of violence and trauma.”

     

    Illustrations courtesy of CBS

    This survey is brought to you by CDC, the national sponsors of school shutdowns. Who could have imagined?

    The survey did not include middle- and grade-school students, but we can assess that such conditions did not spring up full grown in the 9th grade.

    Where, exactly, are the feminists? Especially the ed-school feminists? Like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) cheerleader Professor Catherine Bradshaw at the UVa School of Education and Human Development.

    PBIS in place in most schools in Virginia and across the nation in that same 10-year period by design keeps violent and dangerous students in schools.

    It is what PBIS is supposed to do. So those students can be socialized.

    Or not.

    That survey should, but will not, put to rest progressive insistence that out-of-control violence among students and fear in American schools because of violence are figments of conservative imaginations.

    It confirms that increasing absenteeism is linked to fear. Which progressives will also continue to deny. (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.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

About

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.

Fund the Rebellion

Shake up the status quo! Your contributions will be used to pay for faster download speeds and grow readership. Make a one-time donation by credit card or contribute a small sum monthly.

Can’t wait until tomorrow

For your Bacon’s Rebellion fix?

Enter your email address to receive immediate notifications of new posts by email.

SUBSCRIBE

Search Bacon’s Rebellion

Categories

Archives

The Jefferson Council

Protecting Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy at the University of Virginia

Forgot Your Password?

Shoot me an email and I’ll generate a new password for you.

Latest