Bacon's Rebellion

  • A Proposal to Mitigate Gun Violence

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    In an interesting development, one of the so-called “progressive” Virginia prosecutors has identified a direct link between someone committing misdemeanor offenses and later committing violent felony offenses.

    The misdemeanor offenses that are predictors are gun offenses. After tracking  violent case histories, Ramin Fatehi, the commonwealth’s attorney for Norfolk, as reported by WAVY TV, “found it was often a pretty straight shot between low-level gun misdemeanors and violent gun felonies.” This applied both to folks pulling the trigger and those being shot.

    Fatehi mentioned a number of gun misdemeanors, but said that a leading predictor was carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. In the several examples of violent crimes involving guns that he cited, all the perpetrators or victims had prior gun misdemeanor charges. Some of these charges had been dismissed or set aside. (more…)

  • Bacon Bits: It’s Come to This

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    James A. Bacon

    As long as you’re here, would you like to check out a book? With public libraries struggling for relevance in a world in which  anyone can buy a book online, the Arlington Public Library has found a new role to play in the community: dispensing Naloxone (Narcan), a nasal spray that counters opioid overdoes. Deaths from drug overdoses have topped 100,000 annually, and, apparently, Arlington County is not exempt from the scourge. Arlington official Deborah Warren tells WTOP News: “Getting NARCAN into Arlington libraries means that lifesaving resources are more readily available in the event that someone is experiencing an overdose.”

    I wonder what Martin Luther King would say about that. A local Republican in Abingdon has opened a store called Mountain Patriots. According to WCYB News, the store will sell pro-Trump, pro-military, and Christian-themed merchandise — and double as the Republican Party headquarters for Washington County. Local Democrats have protested the store opening. “When you conflate religion with politics, there is never a moment that our democracy is more vulnerable than at that point,” Washington County, Virginia Democratic Committee Chair Susan Stancill said. “That’s what our Founding Fathers understood. That’s what is enshrined in the First Amendment.” Er… perhaps someone should remind Stancill that MLK was a Baptist pastor and that the Civil Rights movement in the South was one big conflation of religion and politics. The First Amendment protects people from the state, not the state from the people. (more…)

  • What If They Gave an Election, and Nobody Came?

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    James A. Bacon


    by Joe Fitzgerald

    This is the most open Harrisonburg City Council election in a generation, and nobody seems interested.

    Barely 300 people turned out Saturday to choose the Democratic nominees, and the Republicans have been silent. Only one obscure independent has emerged. If nothing happens between now and June 21, the race effectively ended this weekend. There are no incumbents on the ballot for the first time since 1994.

    This would be the year for strong and determined independents to take the field. There are several reasons for that.

    One is that the Democratic Party in Harrisonburg suffers from the same problem as James Madison University and the city government. We grew too fast. It wasn’t that long ago that we were a chicken town with a teachers’ college and the Democratic Party still had Byrd-era holdovers. The party’s nominating processes are well run and fair, but not big enough. The party’s nominees come out of the gate with an advantage in a city that votes 60% Democratic, but 300 people is not enough to decide representation for 25,000 voters. (more…)

  • For Want of a Plaintiff

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    James A. Bacon

    by Jim McCarthy

    On June 6, 2022, one hundred or more Virginians breathed a sigh of relief that they would not be required to campaign for the House of Delegates in November 2022. A panel of federal judges dismissed a lawsuit challenging the 2021 delegate elections because the voting districts were malapportioned, i.e., the results of the 2010 census were still in play defining the populations of the 100 seats.

    Since the 14th century, we have been instructed on the crucial nature of the kingdom that was lost due to the want of a nail. A more contemporary moral is related to the significance of “one person, one vote.” The panel found that the plaintiff failed to demonstrate standing to sue because he had not suffered an injury in fact within the district where he voted as required by the Constitution for a case or controversy.

    Reviewing the commonwealth’s population data from the 2010 and 2020 censuses, the panel’s analysis concluded that the plaintiff’s vote in the 2021 election was cast in a district that, in fact, had fewer residents than the “ideal district.” Census figures from 2010 indicated the “ideal district” was 80,000. When the new maps were drawn by the Virginia Supreme Court subsequent to the election, the ideal district was pegged at 86,314. The plaintiff’s district prior to the redistricting was numbered at 79,611 and at 85,344 post redistricting. The chart below outlines the analysis:


    (more…)

  • The Spirit of Norfolk: Vessel Lost, Lives Saved

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    James A. Bacon


    by Kerry Dougherty

    Every city with a decent harbor seems to have one: a vessel that takes passengers out for short lunch, dinner or party cruises.

    If you’ve lived in Tidewater for more than a decade, chances are you found yourself at one time or another on board The Spirit of Norfolk. Since it arrived in town in 1978, the boat was popular for weddings, proms, reunions, office parties and, well, booze cruises. With three dining decks, a bar and dance floor, untold thousands of passengers have partied on board the “yacht-style dining vessel,” as it was billed.

    The Spirit was docked at Norfolk’s Waterside summer and winter.

    Until now.

    On Tuesday afternoon, with 89 school children on board — including fifth graders from Newport News and a large contingent of Virginia Beach kindergartners — the Spirit of Norfolk caught fire and was eventually consumed by flames. The cause of the inferno is under investigation.

    The Spirit appears to be a total loss. (more…)

  • An Exclusive Interview with the Author of “Dust Mites”

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    James A. Bacon

    Bacon’s Rebellion was lucky enough to snag an interview with “Dust Mites” author Jim Bacon. As he is the blog contributor most familiar with the book, Bacon interviewed himself. — JAB

    JAB: Thank you so much for granting this interview, Mr. Bacon. First, let’s dispense with formalities. Do you go by James?

    JAB: Jim would be fine.

    JAB: Your novel is set in the year 2075 when there are numerous American colonies on the Moon. The colonies — one in particular, Galileo Station — is chafing under the imperial rule of an out-of-touch Congress and imperial presidency in Washington, D.C. Do you think that’s a plausible scenario?

    JAB: I picked the year 2075, only 53 years from now, for literary reasons. I was deliberately playing on the parallels with the American Revolution. The incident that precipitates the action in the novel — the dispatch of the U.S. Marshal’s Special Operations Group into the underground city of Galileo Station to arrest its governor to stand trial — plays a role analogous to the events at Lexington and Concord in sparking a rebellion.

    While the date may be arbitrary, let me advance a few propositions: (1) human exploration of the Moon will be commonplace by the end of the decade; (2) colonization of the Moon for scientific, military and economic imperatives will soon follow; and (3) tensions inevitably will arise between the U.S. colonies and the imperial power. It is not implausible to think that the central government in Washington, D.C. will continue to accumulate power over the next half century, and become more assertive and more authoritarian than ever. (more…)

  • How Governor Youngkin Can Become the Most Popular Governor in History

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Memo

    To: Governor Glenn Youngkin

    From: Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Here is a sure fire way to become the most popular Governor of Virginia in history. It is two-pronged:

    1. Order all state agencies to eliminate the use of automated phone trees. The citizens of Virginia deserve to be able to talk to a real person when they have a question or need assistance;
    2. Ensure that all agencies have sufficient funding to hire enough people to answer the phones and assist people who call within a reasonable time.

    I just tried to call a state agency for an answer to a simple question. I first had to negotiate a phone tree to get a central operator. That person referred me to a division within that agency. Upon calling that division, I had to listen for a minute or so while the automated voice tried to persuade me to deal with the agency on-line. I was then told by that automated voice to stay on the line if none of the on-line options were good for me.  hen another automated voice assured me that my call was very important, but all their agents were busy and I needed to stay on the phone line. The voice said the wait would be about 25 minutes.

    25 minutes!!! How is that possible in the middle of a Thursday afternoon in early June?

    By the way, it was not DMV or the Virginia Employment Commission.

  • Richmond Politicos Getting Serious About Crime

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Virginia recorded its highest murder rate in two decades in 2021, reports WTVR. Other than noting that homicides hit the murder mark of 90, however, the article reported no specifics.

    I don’t know how the Richmond television station came by those particular data points. The Virginia State Police has not yet published its 2021 Crime in Virginia report, although it will be made public any day. I expect that key bottom-line findings are circulating in the Youngkin administration, which has made crime fighting a top priority.

    “We have a crisis in Virginia right now. We’ve got to go to work right now. We are absolutely going to make Virginia safe again,” WTVR quoted Governor Glenn Youngkin as saying.

    The Governor has launched a violent crime task force. Part of the solution, he said, is to increase police pay, presumably to reverse the exodus of officers from local police forces.

    WTVR also quoted Attorney General Jason Miyares as pledging to use the authority of his office to get violent repeat offenders off the street. In an initiative he has dubbed Project Ceasefire, he plans to bring back parts of the federal Project Exile initiative, which sentenced criminals convicted of using illegal firearms to a minimum of five years in prison. He also plans to create a fund to invest in crime reduction strategies, training, and equipment for police and other organizations. (more…)

  • The New Racial Calculus in UVa Admissions

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    James A. Bacon


    by Walter Smith and James A. Bacon

    On March 20, 2022, The Cavalier Daily student newspaper trumpeted the fact that the University of Virginia set a record low acceptance rate, offering slots to only 9,534 applicants, or 19% of the nearly 51,000 total. Of particular note, 52% of the offers went to “students of color” — up from 41% the prior year.

    Only a little more than half of students who get accepted to UVa wind up enrolling there, so it’s not known what the ultimate composition of the entering class will be. But it is possible that entering first-year students will comprise the first class in which a majority of students are comprised of racial/ethnic minorities.

    That would be no accident. In 2020, UVa recruited a vice provost of admissions, Stephen Farmer, whose most heralded accomplishment at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill had been  setting records for recruiting first-generation students and students from underrepresented minorities. At the time, UVa’s Racial Equity Task Force had recently articulated the goal of building a student body that “reflects the racial and economic demographics of the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

    An analysis of acceptance numbers, provided by the University of Virginia and summarized in the table above, shows that UVa admissions this year clearly favor African-Americans, in-state students, and legacy students. If you are an in-state African-American applicant whose parent is an alumnus, your odds of getting accepted are roughly four times that of an out-of-state White applicant with no family connections. (more…)

  • Fairfax School Health Aide Allegedly Stole Student’s Adderall

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Asra Q. Nomani

    FAIRFAX, Va. –  On Friday, May 27, local father Brett Byrnes, a former military officer, dashed over to his second grade daughter’s elementary school, Greenbriar East Elementary School. The school nurse had just called to say she was out of his second-grade daughter’s dosage of Adderall, a prescription drug used to treat ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

    Weeks earlier, he had counted out the pills with the school health aide, Jennifer Carpenter, to make sure there was enough medicine to last through the last day of the school year, Friday, June 10. For nine months, since October, the Byrnes parents had been writing back-and-forth with Carpenter, telling her their daughter was reporting that she wasn’t getting her medicine regularly.

    She kept reassuring them everything was fine, just hectic with her “kiddos.”

    What they uncovered – by being caring, diligent, persistent parents who questioned the system –  is that Carpenter had been allegedly stealing their daughter’s Adderall – a stimulant –  and giving her Claritin, an over-the-counter medication used for allergies. (more…)

  • Bacon Bits: School Meltdown Update

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    The latest news about our dysfunctional schools:

    Another day, another beating. A 15-year-old boy at Freedom High School in Prince William County was hospitalized Friday after three other students punched and kicked him in the head after an argument in the hallway. His injuries were not considered life-threatening. Prince William police said the case resulted in an “informal action” for the boys after consultation with Juvenile Court Services. Future actions will be handled through the juvenile diversion process, reports the Woodbridge, Va., Patch.

    Parents fighting back. With help from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a group of parents and teachers is suing the Harrisonburg City Public Schools over a requirement for teachers to use students’ preferred pronouns and to keep students’ gender preferences confidential from their families, reports The Republican Standard. Said ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Bangert: “Parents—not public schools or government officials—have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing, care, and education of their children. Teachers and staff cannot willfully hide kids’ mental health information from their parents, especially as some of the decisions children are making at school have potentially life-altering ramifications. As the clients we represent believe, a teacher’s role is to support, not supplant, the role of the parent.”

    Just one question: Who was doing the touching? Back in March, conservative parental activist Ian Prior put the Loudoun County School Board of teachers “on notice” that unidentified teachers at a Loudoun elementary were being subjected repeatedly to “inappropriate touching” several times a day for several months, and no one in the administration had addressed their concerns. Last night, the two teachers involved spoke out publicly for the first time, claiming that the school system had “retaliated against them after they testified before a special grand jury. The teachers were asked not to return next year, according to an email blast from the Fight For Schools organization.

  • Gang Activity in Richmond Public Schools Not Reported to Police

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    sherlockj

    Courtesy Richmond Public Schools

    by James C. Sherlock

    I am seldom surprised by the policies and actions of the Richmond Public Schools (RPS).

    When I read of the handling by RPS of federally funded ChromeBooks — an inventory of nearly 45,000 with over 20,000 unused and nearly 2,000 more unaccounted for — to support a student population of 21,000 — I was not surprised.

    But when I discovered that gang activity in elementary and secondary schools is not among those transgressions reported to police, I was pretty surprised, even given that it is Richmond.  

    RPS parents should be enraged. (more…)

  • The VMI Alumni Association as Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    By Larry Repress and Sal Vitale
    Virginia Military Institute Class of 1961

    NOTE: This OPEN Letter was originally Sent to Mr. Thom Brashears, VMI Alumni Association COO with a request it be provided to all VMI Alumni in advance of the Special Meeting of the Association scheduled for 11 June 2022. On June 6, 2022 Mr. Sam Stocks, President of the Association Board, refused to distribute this to alumni stating, in part: “There is nothing to be gained at this point by any further back and forth over the contents and many of the assertions made in your letter…. Your complaints have been numerous and have been widely spread. From my perspective, they, like other similar efforts, have been a grave disservice to the alumni body at large, the cadets and to the Institute… You have a right to make them by whatever alternative means are available to you.”

    “Nous Accusons”
    An Open Letter to the Membership of the VMI Alumni Association

    According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, oligarchy is defined as: “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.” We invite the reader to keep this definition in mind when reading further.

    History buffs among VMI alumni/ae may recall the infamous chapter in French history when its army brass and civil government, the so called Third Republic, collaborated to falsely accuse, frame and convict a Jewish army captain, Alfred Dreyfus, of treason. This conviction led to his imprisonment at the infamous Caribbean penal colony on Devil’s Island. The conviction was later shown to have been the product of rampant anti-Semitism in the French army, a sentiment widely shared in the broader French society. The vindication of Dreyfus was catalyzed by an open letter penned by the French author and journalist Emile Zola accusing the army of framing Dreyfus. Its effect was to eventually turn public sentiment against the government resulting in an investigation that led to Dreyfus’ exoneration by the Government that had convicted him. Zola’s letter, published in a prominent Parisian newspaper, opens with the declaration “J’accuse…. (I accuse)”

    In the tradition of Zola, we accuse (“nous accusons)” the Board of Directors of the VMI Alumni Association of cynically depriving the membership of its right to meaningfully participate in the affairs of the Association. It succeeded in this effort by effectively disenfranchising the membership and working to rig elections to the Board of only those of its own selection. How was this effect achieved by such a small number of persons? It was astonishingly easy. Here’s how. (more…)

  • Commonwealth Set for Major Broadband Expansion

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    One of the issues underlined by the pandemic was the need for all areas of the state to have access to broadband internet. Without access to broadband, kids (and adults) in rural areas cannot take advantage of courses offered online. To the extent that more people will be working remotely, rural areas need access to broadband in order for those people to move there. Broadband accessibility is necessary for almost all businesses and industries and rural areas will need to have such accessibility if they hope to convince private companies to bring new jobs to their areas.

    Thanks to federal funding, the Commonwealth is well on its way to achieving universal availability. The source of most of that funding is the American Rescue Plan (ARP), enacted in early 2021 as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to offset the economic effects of the COVID pandemic. In July of last year, the Northam administration and the General Assembly announced an agreement to allocate $700 million of the state’s ARP funding to broadband expansion. Several months later, that amount grew by  $220 million as a result of an allocation from another section of the ARP. Finally, it is expected that Virginia will get $65 million for broadband expansion from the federal infrastructure bill passed last fall. (more…)

  • Don’t Break a Leg Looking for Baby Food

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    by

    sherlockj

    Michael Quintos of Chicago, suffering from acute stomach pain, cannot get a scan that might help determine the cause of his illness. Credit…Taylor Glascock for The New York Times

    by James C. Sherlock

    Iodinated contrast media (ICM) are diagnostic imaging support drugs containing iodine that are given to patients to enhance the ability to see blood vessels and organs on medical images such as X-rays or computed tomography (CT) scans.

    These images provide greater detail when necessary to help health care professionals diagnose potential problems. ICM products can be given as injections into the veins, by mouth as a drink, or rectally. They are given to patients, including babies.

    Intravenous contrast solution is used in many medical procedures involving the heart and blood vessels. It is particularly useful in cancer diagnoses.

    There is a major shortage in the U.S. (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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