Bacon's Rebellion

  • Why Not Virginia for Semiconductor Manufacturing Expansion?

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Virginia Engineering Programs

    by James C. Sherlock

    Among the things that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made clear is the vulnerability of Taiwan and with it, the access of the U.S. economy to the 90% of advanced computer chips manufactured there.

    The national security requirement for domestic chip manufacturing brings opportunity. It is the nation’s most urgent manufacturing priority. So, why not build the needed plants in Virginia? Is the Commonwealth organized to attract those investments?

    For the answer to the last question I looked at the Virginia Department of Commerce and Industry, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV) and Virginia’s engineering schools and found nothing to suggest Virginia is making an organized effort.

    Much of Virginia’s headline effort in engineering education is to expand opportunities for Amazon workers in Northern Virginia.

    I suggest Virginia focus its Department of Commerce and Trade on chip manufacturing, create dedicated educational consortiums, identify available facilities and workforces like those of the shuttered Rolls Royce plant in Prince George County and offer tax abatement packages to actively recruit semiconductor manufacture. (more…)

  • Hey, Virginia State Workers, Take Off Your PJs

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Hey, Virginia state employees, it’s time.

    Time to close those laptops, take off your pajamas and head back to work.

    I know, I know, it’s been fun sitting home with your cats since early 2020, when Gov. Ralph Northam shut down the commonwealth to slow the spread of COVID-19.

    And we all know how successful THAT was. In fact, we’ll never know just how many lives were saved by prohibiting loud music on the beach and volleyball.

    The fun is over. Time to get into the 9-to-5 routine again. Governor Glenn Youngkin is graciously giving you until July 5th to ease yourselves back into the office. Those with legitimate health needs or other concerns can apply to continue to telecommute, but the expectation is that state government will soon be functioning as it did prior to the pandemic: in-person and five days a week.

    Is that too much to ask? (more…)

  • The Boeing Announcement Is a Vote of Confidence in Virginia

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Boeing Advanced F-15 jet fighter

    by James A. Bacon

    The Boeing Company’s decision to transfer its official headquarters location from Chicago, Ill., to Arlington gives Virginia significant bragging rights. The move will have little detectable short-term economic impact. The more consequential news is a promise to “develop a research & technology hub” in the area “to harness and attract engineering and technical capabilities.”

    Plans at this point are vague. I’m guessing a big winner will be Virginia Tech, which last year unveiled a $248 million project to replace Randolph Hall, which houses the aerospace engineering department. Randolph Hall is connected to one of the largest university-owned stability wind tunnels in the United States. Mitchell Hall, which will replace it, will accommodate the wind tunnel and partially enclose it. Tech also is developing a major campus in Arlington in collaboration with the Amazon project there.

    With $66.2 billion in annual revenue in 2021, Boeing will rank as the second largest Fortune 500 company headquartered in Virginia. The first is Freddie Mac, which had $80.6 billion in revenue and logged in at No. 47 nationally. If Boeing recovers to the $100 billion-plus level of a few years ago, it would be the largest company based in Virginia. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon


    From The Bull Elephant

  • Charter School Lessons for the Youngkin Administration from the New York Times

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Probably surprising to many of my readers, one of the newspapers to which I subscribe is The New York Times. Another is The Washington Post.

    Of the two, the Times demonstrates far more balance in its reporting. Not opinion – reporting.

    Times education writers, direct witnesses to the astonishing achievements of New York City charter schools and their huge waiting lists, can be counted on to investigate and report stories that openly disregard progressive orthodoxy on such schools.

    They reported on May 13 (adjacent picture) that opposition to charter schools disadvantages primarily poor minority children and is driving the support of poor and minority parents away from the Democratic party.

    That is the message I have been trying to bring to the Youngkin administration. (more…)

  • Bad News For Deadbeat Dads: Virginia’s Coming For You

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    One of the first things Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares did after arriving in Richmond was meet with various departments in the AG’s office.

    “I asked, ‘Do you have all of the tools to do your job with excellence?” Miyares recalled Wednesday morning on the “Kerry and Mike” morning radio show on WNIS.

    The new attorney general was stunned by some of the answers.

    Especially the responses from the lawyers in the Child Support Division. Attorneys there told him they wanted to vigorously prosecute deadbeat parents — read, dads — but that blanket dismissals of cases had taken place last year in the name of “fairness and equity.”

    Looks like more misplaced compassion by those who brought us the parole board scandal. Seems Virginia paid a high price for the squishy bleeding hearts that ran state government during the Ralph Northam/Mark Herring years.

    “There was no fairness for the mothers,” said Miyares pointedly. (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Hat tip: John Butcher

  • Home Again

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A double arch seen in Arches National Park.

    by James A. Bacon

    Ahh. It’s great to be back in Virginia. The wife and I had a fabulous time visiting state and national parks in Utah — a trip I recommend to everyone — but I’m glad to be back home. The Old Dominion may not have arches, hoodoos, mesas or other astonishing geological sights, but we’re not running out of water. We can take long, hot showers without feeling guilty about it.

    Before I continue, I want to give a shout-out to Jim Sherlock and Dick Hall-Sizemore for keeping Bacon’s Rebellion lively and informative during my absence. For the first time in, like, forever, I spent a vacation without a laptop. It was refreshing not to be thinking incessantly about politics and policy, but I did check on the blog with my tablet, and I do confess that it was frustrating at times being unable to participate in the back-and-forth. Great job, guys! 

    There’s nothing like a visit to the desert to appreciate something we East Coasters take totally for granted — an abundance of water. Annual rainfall in Virginia averages 40 to 50 inches per year. That’s two to three times the moistest locations in Utah, and four to six times that of Utah’s southern deserts. Despite our meteorological blessings, some parts of the state still find their water resources to be limited. Imagine supporting Virginia’s population on nine inches a year (the precipitation at Moab, population 5,000+, where we spent three nights). (more…)

  • Fairfax County Declines Assistance in Protecting Supreme Court Justices as Unconstitutional

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    By James C. Sherlock

    Jeffrey McKay

    The Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, a career progressive politician unburdened by a law degree, has declared Fairfax County’s support of federal authorities in execution of federal law to be unconstitutional.

    Not unaffordable; not wrong; but unconstitutional.

    He offered that opinion to justify his decision that the Fairfax County police will not help the federal government protect three Supreme Court Justices who live in the county.

    Nonsense.  That is not the reason.

    The Justices who live in the county are all conservatives – Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas – under attack by the left and threatened with personal harm.

    That is the reason.

    If Justice Kagan had a home in Fairfax County and was threatened, the FCPD would stand up a new division to protect her.  The perimeter would be a half mile in every direction.

    (more…)

  • Diverse Opinions in Higher Ed

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Those commenters on this blog who are always decrying the dominance of liberal ideas and the quashing of conservative viewpoints in Virginia’s higher ed institutions need to broaden their horizon beyond the University of Virginia.  As reported by The Washington Post,  U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito spoke yesterday to a crowd of law students and faculty at the Antonin Scalia Law School of George Mason University.  In reaction to a recently-leaked draft of his opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, there were, as would be expected, demonstrations from both sides of the abortion question outside the building in which the lecture was given.

    Alito’s topic was not abortion, and he dodged questions on the subject following the lecture.  Rather, he talked about textualism, a method he favors, and how the late Justice Scalia’s advocacy of this approach had transformed the court’s methods of reviewing federal laws.  This is an important subject and one over which there is considerable debate.  The point here is that Virginia law students were being exposed to the conservative perspective.

    These sorts of lectures are scheduled well in advance.  Had it not been for the leaked draft opinion, I suspect that this event would have taken place with little public notice.  Such is the diversity in Virginia higher education circles.

  • Talking Out of Both Sides of Their Mouths

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Route of proposed Coalfields Expressway

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    While perusing today’s edition of the Roanoke Times, I ran across an article that astounded me.  It concerned a meeting recently in Southwest Virginia about the Coalfields Expressway.  I remembered hearing about this proposed highway many, many years ago and thought that it had been dismissed as a pipe dream.  It turns out that the idea (and hope) is still alive.

    The Coalfields Expressway would be a 115-mile federal four-lane, divided highway running from the intersection of I-64 and I-77 near Beckley, West Virginia to U.S. Rt. 23 in Pound, in Wise County.  West Virginia has opened 15 miles of its 66-mile portion of the proposed highway and another 21 miles are in various stages of construction or planning.  Virginia has begun constructing 7 miles of its 50-mile portion.  That stretch overlaps with Rt. 460, linking Grundy to Kentucky.  The cost of the Virginia portion is estimated at over $3 billion. (more…)

  • De Facto Secretary?

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Andrew Wheeler, Senior Advisor to the Governor

    On April 15, Governor Youngkin issued a press release announcing “additional key administration appointments”.  Several of those appointments were duly noted by various newspapers and other media outlets. Others were not, although they are interesting in their own right, raising some issues and shedding light on the administration.  Because different issues are raised with different appointments, I will discuss them in separate articles.

    One of the most controversial early actions of Youngkin was the appointment of Andrew Wheeler as Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources.  Wheeler had been the director of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Trump administration.  Democrats in the General Assembly were incensed, and the Senate refused to confirm Wheeler’s appointment.  Wheeler stayed on as Acting Secretary until the legislative session ended, when state law prohibited his continuing in that position.  Youngkin then announced that Wheeler would remain in the administration as a senior advisor to the governor.  Travis Voyles, who had  earlier been appointed Deputy Secretary, was designated as Acting secretary. (more…)

  • The Fall of the Regional Press in Virginia – Virginian-Pilot Edition

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    By James C. Sherlock

    One of my morning newspapers is The Virginian-Pilot.   It used to be an outstanding regional newspaper. Shrunken to a sliver of its former self, it is no longer.

    Small size need not compromise integrity, but it has in this case.

    The Pilot unapologetically accepts, apparently without review, wire service reports on national news based entirely on the alignment of the stories with the political narrative the Pilot supports.   With no concern for accuracy.

    Readers look in vain for stories unhelpful to the left.

    A front page story by Lisa Mascaro of the Associated Press was headlined today:

    Defense of Roe falls to filibuster.  GOP senators block vote on bill to secure access to abortion

    Regardless of one’s personal view on the subject of abortion, the headline and the story below it were false.

    (more…)

  • Some Basic Transparency Education Needed

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Eric Moeller, Commonwealth Chief Transformation Officer

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    One of Governor Youngkin’s “Day One” actions was the establishment of the Commonwealth Chief Transformation Officer as a member of his cabinet, along with the Office of Transformation within the Office of the Governor.  Executive Order Number Five lays out the functions of that official and his office:  “The primary responsibilities of the Commonwealth Chief Transformation Officer will be to help build a culture of transparency, accountability, and constructive challenge across our government; ensure employees at all levels of government are reminded that our government works for the citizens of Virginia….”

    Eric Moeller was appointed the Commonwealth Chief Transformation Officer.  In building “a culture of transparency,” I suggest that Mr. Moeller start on the fifth floor of the Patrick Henry Building where the Office of the Governor and offices of cabinet members are located.  The first order of business should be a class on the basic requirements of Virginia law regarding transparency and accountability. (more…)

  • Help Wanted–Contact Glenn Youngkin

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Governor Glenn Youngkin is having trouble keeping filled the top posts of a couple of his top priority agencies.

    Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA)

    A little background information is in order.  Nelson Moe had been the Chief Information Officer (CIO), or director, of VITA since 2015.  During that time, he faced two main challenges.  First was the messy unwinding of the controversial long-term contract with Northop Grumman and implementing, in place of one vendor, a multi-supplier service model.  There were major problems with the transition, as pointed out in a 2019 report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC).  By 2021, JLARC seemed satisfied that VITA had staffed its key top-management positions and implementation of the new model was completed.

    The other challenge was enabling the bulk of the state’s workforce to switch to working remotely when the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the closing of state offices.  As noted by JLARC, “VITA also provided critical assistance for state agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic.”  JLARC also reported that more than three fourths of agencies surveyed were satisfied with VITA’s assistance in making the transition to remote working.

    One of Youngkin’s first personnel moves was to replace Moe with Phil Whitmer, who had been the chief technology officer for the state of Kansas before leaving for the private sector. (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