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Bacon Meme of the Week
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Bill & Ed’s Excellent Richmond Adventure, Part 2
by Jon Baliles
Bill Martin As mentioned in Part 1, Richmond lost two giants of history and change at the end of 2025 when Ed Slipek died after a brief illness and soon after, Bill Martin was struck by a car in the crosswalk on Broad Street, only two blocks from The Valentine Museum, which he had led for more than 30 years. The opening third of Part 1 (which you can read here) highlighted how both Bill and Ed embraced this city’s history and saw using it as an adventure to start conversations, open people’s eyes, and change their minds by learning more about the city around them. They were human time machines of Richmond history and could instantly transport anyone back to a specific neighborhood, year, or historical event and almost instantly convey what happened and what it meant in context of that time and where we are today. Where we are today, sadly, is that we have lost two men who possibly did more than any other two to expand the knowledge of this city’s history and never stop searching for more stories about it.
Perhaps what is so astonishing about Bill’s legendary career and life in Richmond is that his tenure at The Valentine almost ended before it really began. Bill, who had been serving as Petersburg’s Director of Tourism, was hired in 1994 to be the museum’s marketing director just as it launched the ambitious and very expensive project called Valentine Riverside. The $23 million project (centered around Tredegar Iron Works and where the American Civil War Museum is today) was an interactive history park with live re-enactors and used what was, at that time, pretty cutting-edge sound and light shows as well as offering bike and river tours, and shuttles to Hollywood Cemetery and Shockoe.
The project failed spectacularly within 16 months as the crowds never materialized and suddenly the ship was in a storm. As the failure of Riverside became evident, so did the magnitude of the trouble. Debt mounted to $10 million, most of the staff were laid off (out of 85 staff, only 12 remained), the Director was ousted, and the endowment slid from $4 million down to just $500,000.
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Say Socialized Cost, Not That Other S Word
by Steve Haner
The PIPP Acorn Now an Entitlement Oak? A House of Delegates committee has approved expanding a state-managed program to subsidize electric bills for some lower-income Virginians, hoping to reach more people and offer them more assistance. It also approved a new plan to grant lower-income homes lower water rates.
The utility companies involved will not absorb the cost of giving these customers discounts. They will instead be allowed to collect the subsidy money from all their other customers.
As advocates lined up to praise the two bills in testimony last week, the word “affordability” escaped their lips too many times to count. A member of the State Corporation Commission staff used the term “socialized cost.” Economists refer to “transfer payments” that move money from one person to another. Just call it energy welfare, Virginia.
The electricity program involved is the Percentage of Income Payment Program, or PIPP, which was first created by the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act. The House Labor and Commerce Committee approved House Bill 884, with the amended version expanding the program to Dominion Energy or Appalachian Power customers with a household income of up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL).
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A Month in Your Wallet
I have no idea who started that circulating around the Capitol, but boy that is effective. Showed up in my inbox yesterday. That bill officially has a fever. — SDH
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“Affordability” Watch: Mandatory AC for Rental Units
From LoudounNow:
“Legislation by Del. Marty Martinez (D-29) that would add air conditioning to the list of services labeled “essential” when supplied by landlords has received approval from a House committee.
“Essential services for rental units are regulated by the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act and must be maintained by the landlord. Currently, the list includes heat, cold and hot running water, electricity and gas.
“During a House subcommittee review of the bill last week, Martinez said air conditioning is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.” Continue reading.
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Stacked Local Taxes Make Virginia Less Affordable
by Derrick Max
— Virginia’s restaurant and lodging sector is still in a fragile post-COVID recovery, yet local governments across the Commonwealth are piling on new and higher taxes that make affordability worse for families and survival harder for small businesses.
A new statewide analysis of meals, lodging, and related sales taxes across all 133 Virginia localities by the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging & Travel Association (VRLTA) shows just how uneven and burdensome these taxes have become. The findings should serve as a warning to policymakers who claim to prioritize affordability while repeatedly targeting the same vulnerable industries.
According to the 2025 Meals & Lodging Tax Study, Virginia’s hospitality tax landscape is now “highly fragmented,” with wide variation by region and governance structure (cities tax more than counties). There is also a clear trend to increase rates — putting concentrated pressure on restaurants and hotels. According to the study, meals taxes reach as high as 10 percent in some jurisdictions, effective lodging taxes climb to 15 percent, and nearly one-third of localities exceed the statewide 5.3 percent sales tax rate through these tax add-ons. Just as concerning, roughly 43 percent of Virginia localities have raised at least one of these taxes since 2016.
That is not affordability, it is instability.
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Spanberger Signs Bills to Send Constitutional Amendments to Voters
Governor Abigail Spanberger today released the following statement after signing legislation to set referendums on proposed amendments to the Virginia Constitution (my bold, JAB):
“Virginia voters deserve the opportunity to respond to the nationwide attacks on our rights, freedoms, and elections. Everyone deserves the freedom to marry who they love — and Virginia’s Constitution should affirm that all families are welcome in our Commonwealth. Women in Virginia deserve the freedom to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions without politicians dictating their choices. When Virginians have paid their debt to society, they deserve to regain their right to vote. And when other states take extreme measures, I trust Virginia voters to respond.”
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Tim Kaine Wants to Erase Robert E. Lee
by Kerry Dougherty
Image created by Chat GPT You can always count on Democrats to engage in vacuous virtue signaling, especially during Black History Month.
This year it’s Sen. Tim Kaine offering proof that attending Harvard Law School doesn’t automatically confer knowledge on students.
As our country struggles with immigration, election integrity and budget matters, Kaine is consumed with something else: He wants to strip Robert E. Lee’s name from the house the Civil War general owned with his wife until the Civil War.
If you’ve visited Arlington National Cemetery you’ve seen Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial. The stately mansion with the massive columns rests on a bluff overlooking the Potomac River. It was built between 1802 and 1818 for George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of Martha Washington. He built it as a family home and a memorial to honor his step-grandfather, George Washington. Continue reading.
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This is Overreach
by Dick Hall-Sizemore
Congressional District map proposed by Virginia Democrats Image courtesy of Virginia Political Newsletter The redistricting map presented by Democrats is outrageous, embarrassing, and just plain outlandish. I can’t think of other words to describe it. It certainly violates the state constitution’s requirement that districts be compact. The traditional ideas of respecting communities of interest and jurisdictional boundary lines to the extent possible were thrown out the window.
The most outrageous examples:
First District: From King William County, east of Richmond in the Middle Peninsula, the district snakes northward all the way to Alexandria. For most of its journey, it is only one county, part of one county, wide.
Fourth District—From Prince George and Surry Counties south of Petersburg, it goes southwest and then west all the way to Pittsylvania County.
Seventh District—From Powhatan County, just west of Richmond, this district goes north to Orange County, then splits. One branch continues west and includes parts of Rockingham and Augusta Counties in the Shenandoah Valley. The other branch heads northeast, picking up parts of several counties all the way to Arlington. Whoever represents this district will have constituents from the Richmond suburbs to the Shenandoah Valley to Northern Virginia.
Of the state’s 11 members of Congress, five would would have a portion of Fairfax County in their districts.
I could support the proposal to have a mid-census redistricting to tweak some districts to pick up a couple of Democrat seats as an answer to Trump’s manipulating the redistricting in Texas and other states to gain Republican seats. However, Virginia Democrats have gone too far.
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Virginia Nursing Home Laws Avoid Chains and Subverted by Weak Sanctions
by James C. Sherlock
Delegate Rodney Willet, D-Henrico, is trying to do the right thing for the right reasons.
He has introduced HB 605 to amend § 32.1-127. (Effective January 1, 2026) Regulations. He added a new section B. 35 to establish staffing standards for Virginia nursing homes. Del. Willett is joined by many members of the General Assembly of both parties who were stunned by the Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center scandal of a year ago. Discussions are underway to determine the exact staffing figures.
Whatever those staffing figures may turn out to be will prove irrelevant.
The nursing home lobby is on the other side of the negotiating table. But the author suspects that, after the negotiations, they are laughing over drinks at the bar. They know that, if passed, the bill would refer to the sanctions set forth in § 32.1-27.2. Administrative sanctions.
To the question of what sanctions a nursing home will face for failing to comply with the new staffing law, the answer is, as a practical matter, none.
Chains, which are by far the biggest issue in nursing home performance, are not even in the conversation, much less addressed in Virginia law.
That will remain the case even if Del. Willett’s bill passes.
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The Washington Post Is an Unprofitable Disaster
by Kerry Dougherty
When did legacy journalists and the politicians who love them become such a squawking bunch of overwrought socialists?
When news broke yesterday of a bloodbath at The Washington Post – 300 employees were laid off – a chorus of imbeciles rose up to demand that owner Jeff Bezos prop up the losing enterprise with his own pocket money.
The Washington Post has been unprofitable for decades. The newspaper was losing $49 million in the first half of 2013 when Jeff Bezos rescued the paper by buying it for $250 million in cash.
This year The Post is on track to lose $100 million.
“We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore,” WaPo CEO and publisher Will Lewis told staff on Monday.
Their reaction? Not shame that their product is poor, but a general sense of entitlement to their owner’s personal funds. Continue reading.
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Jefferson Institute Expands
***** Sponsored Content *****
The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy announced the following two appointments today:
Ali Ahmad, Senior Visiting Fellow
Ali Ahmed A lifelong Virginian and a graduate of the University of Virginia, Ali is a Senior Managing Director at PLUS Communications, located in Richmond, Virginia. He brings more than 20 years of experience in strategic communications, public policy, and legislative affairs across federal, state, and local government, including the U.S. House, the Virginia Senate, and U.S. Census Bureau.
Most recently, he served as Deputy Chief of Staff to former Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, where he oversaw policy development, legislative affairs, and a wide range of communications functions, including speechwriting, digital content, events, and media relations. He first joined the Youngkin team in 2021 as a senior policy advisor during the Governor’s successful campaign.
Ali will be writing on public policy issues, including those related to job growth, business investment, government efficiency, and workforce development. We are honored to have him join the team.
LJ Brouillette, Associate Director of Development and Communications
LJ Brouillette has joined the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy as the Associate Director of Development and Communications.
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“Affordability” Watch: Speed-Camera Tickets
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Fairfax Schools Crack Down on Absences — Except When Suspending Politically Inconvenient Students
by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora
Republished with permission from IWFeatures
Image credit: Chat GPT There rightfully has been a lot of attention paid to radical Virginia Democrats’ day-one blitz as soon as they took back control of the state’s governorship this year. But those of us who live in the deep blue havens that control Virginia politics know that, for our part of the state at least, it didn’t matter whether our governor was a Democrat or a Republican. Fairfax County, in particular, arguably has remained the same under its local one-party leftist rule.
For example, as the K-12 public school district’s leaders changed policies to reduce out-of-school suspensions for serious infractions, they suspended my three sons for 39 cumulative days for not wearing masks during the COVID-19 era. This occurred despite former Republican Gov. Youngkin’s Executive Order Two, which allowed parents to opt their children out of mask mandates. Since then, district leaders have refused to expunge those suspensions.
In 2014, leaders of Fairfax County Public Schools—Virginia’s largest district—changed the district’s code of conduct to reduce the number of out-of-school suspensions. At that time, the district’s leadership focused on the harms of out-of-school suspensions, including lost instructional time and the associated risks of grade retention or dropping out of school.
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Affordability Watch: Hospitality Taxes
The state of Virginia and its 133 localities have so many taxes that it’s hard to keep track of them all. The Virginia Restaurant, Lodging and Travel Association (VRTLA) has documented the taxes affecting the hospitality sector — meals taxes, transit occupancy taxes, add-on sales taxes, and bed taxes — in a new report, “2025 Meals & Lodging Tax Study.”
As local governments reassess spending in the post-COVID era, the restaurant and hotel industries have often been viewed as convenient targets for tax increases. When layered on top of higher menu prices and room rates, these added taxes have created an increasingly difficult environment for consumers.
Hospitality-related tax increases have been relatively common in recent years. “Based on the most recent tax increase recorded for each locality, ” states the study, “approximately 43 percent of Virginia localities have raised at least one of the examined taxes since 2016.”
While there is little uniformity in tax levels, the VRLTA makes a few generalizations. By form of government, cities tend to have higher taxes than counties. By geography, coastal Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley tend to have higher taxes than other regions. — JAB
