Bacon's Rebellion

  • How Much Power Do We Really Produce? None of Your Business!

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    A General Assembly subcommittee Tuesday derailed a simple energy transparency bill calling for an annual report on how well utility generation units perform. “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze,” sneered an environmental lobbyist just before the vote to table House Bill 766. 

    It is solar “juice” that isn’t worth the squeeze, and the bill would have made that data easy to find.

    Del. Eric Zehr, R-Lynchburg, patron of HB 766

    Each generating plant, whatever the energy source, has an advertised maximum output in megawatts per hour (say 2,600 megawatts for the offshore wind turbines now being built), but they never achieve 100% of that 100% of the time. The actual energy produced when measured against the maximum possible output produces a percentage “capacity factor.” In the case of the wind project, that should be between 40 and 45% over a year. 

    That is incredibly efficient compared to the utility-scale solar projects popping up all over Virginia, which are going to have to multiply like rabbits to meet the demands of the Virginia Clean Economy Act. Their capacity factors are abysmal, embarrassing — usually below 25% — and of course during the height of the storm all day Sunday they stood at zero. 

    The table reproduced below is exactly the kind of information the solar industry and the utilities earning annual profits on their low-energy solar investments do not want anybody to see. So, I will show it to you again below. At this link you can see another similar table that shows how that actual output from Dominion Energy’s solar plants has failed to meet initial expectations. That was true of all of them.   

    (more…)

  • Judge Declares Redistricting Amendment Invalid; Democrats Proceed Nevertheless

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Virginia State Capitol

    A Tazewell circuit court judge has ruled that the attempt by the General Assembly Democrats to amend the state constitution to allow for a redistricting of Congressional districts this year is invalid, both on unconstitutional and statutory grounds.

    He based his ruling on three issues:

    Legislative rules of procedure—The original resolution establishing the 2024 Special Session limited its action to budgetary measures. Therefore, it was not authorized to enact a proposed constitutional amendment. This basis is a little shaky. The judicial branch has traditionally been reluctant to overturn legislation because the internal rules of the legislature were not followed. The judiciary usually gives deference to the legislature to use whatever procedures it wants as long as they do not violate law or the constitution

    (more…)

  • Minimum Wage Increase – Trade Offs and CNBC Rankings

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Chris Saxman

    An illustration showing a balance scale with 'Benefits' represented by a green upward trend and gold coins on one side, and 'Costs' depicted by a red downward trend on the other side.

    Economist Thomas Sowell’s famous line “there are no solutions, only trade offs” came to mind while watching the House Labor and Commerce Committee debate the upcoming increase to Virginia’s minimum wage.

    HB1 would incrementally move Virginia to a $15 per hour minimum wage by January 1, 2028.

    Why $15? No idea… oh, wait… It was Bernie’s campaign – Fight for 15! Alliteration sells. Hey, he’s not America’s most famous and lovable millionaire Socialist for nothing!

    Proponents of the bill focused on how this would increase take-home pay of low skill, low wage workers.

    What they neglected to mention was that the minimum wage is a wage floor that moves up most hourly wages, not just those who actually earn the current minimum wage of $12.77 an hour.

    Virginia’s minimum wage floor has been moving up incrementally due to previous legislation. Begs the questions:

    Why incremental?

    Why not just raise all wages?

    Why stop at $15?

    (more…)

  • Bad Week For Nurses

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Close-up of a woman with long, reddish hair speaking directly to the camera in a casual indoor setting.
    Malinda Rose Cook, a Virginia Commonwealth University nurse posted videos on how to hurt ICE agents. She no longer works at the hospital, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Fifty years ago, no one would have predicted that teachers and nurses would represent a chunk of America’s radical left.

    Yet here we are.

    Teachers have been leftists for decades, with their unions pouring money into Democrat coffers and their unions fighting to trans the kids and put porn on school library shelves.

    But nurses?

    Until recently they were favorably regarded as the heirs of Florence Nightingale, dishing up skilled nursing care and kindness.

    But in the past several weeks we’ve had shocking reminders of just how radical the nursing industry has become.

    In fact, there’s a new trend of some nurses grotesquely fantasizing about hurting people who don’t share their radical politics. .

    Take Alex Pretti, for instance. Repeatedly described as an “ICU nurse” – as if that confers some sort of sainthood upon him – the 37-year-old anti-ICE agitator was shot dead Saturday. Whether or not the shooting turns out to be justified, fact is, Pretti was on the streets engaging in illegal behavior at the urging of Minnesota’s governor and lieutenant governor.

    The ICU nurse died trying to block federal agents from apprehending an illegal alien who was also a domestic abuser.

    What a waste of life.

    This wasn’t this nurse’s first encounter with ICE, either.

    CNN reports that Pretti sustained a broken rib a week earlier after a violent encounter with ICE agents.

    It appears that Pretti’s day job was caring for the sick while his hobby was acting as a street goon.

    OK, here’s another nurse story.

    Does anyone know “Melinda”? Any way we can get her fired? She’s reportedly been placed on administrative leave but nothing short of stripping her of her license should suffice. This woman should never care for another patient.

    She’s supposedly a nurse in the Virginia Commonwealth University Health system. This week Melinda  made a chilling video full of helpful pointers for nurses who are treating ICE agents. She suggests administering a paralytic drug and then dousing the patients in poison.

    Sick. Continue reading.

  • SCC Staff Offers Grim Predictions on Virginia Clean Energy Law

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner

    Dominion Energy is likely to miss its Virginia Clean Economy Act targets, and in a decade, the financial penalties of that law will begin to pile up on the company’s ratepayers, a State Corporation Commission (SCC) staff assessment has concluded. 

    “…despite building 17.5 gigawatts (“GW”) of solar and 3.4 GW of wind, the Company will not procure sufficient renewable energy credits (“RECs”) to meet the RPS (renewable portfolio standard) requirement starting in 2036. Customers will be paying significant deficiency payments starting in 2036, through the end of the modeling horizon. The total deficiency penalty ratepayers will be responsible for is approximately $5.32 billion…” wrote one staff analyst in publicly filed testimony.

    He added elsewhere: “Ultimately, the Company’s ratepayers have no control over whether the Company meets its RPS obligation or not. However, it is the ratepayers, and not the Company, that are penalized through the assessment of deficiency payments when the Company fails to meet the RPS requirement”.

    The staff was commenting to the judges and senior staff of the regulatory commission on Dominion’s most recent application for new solar and battery assets that will help it meet the law’s goals. The law orders them to steadily reduce reliance on coal and natural gas generation and eventually eliminate them.  A hearing on the application will start February 17.

    This round, Dominion has applied for approval to own or lease about 1.3 gigawatts (nameplate value) of solar assets and 620 megawatt-hours of battery storage. The SCC staff recommends rejecting 17 of the 21 individual projects due to high cost, including the two battery projects. The reasoning mirrors that used by the full commission last year in rejecting similar proposals from the Appalachian Power Company. 

    (more…)

  • Would Anyone Want This Woman on Their Surgery Team?

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    by

    James A. Bacon

  • Minneapolis Isn’t Virginia

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Shaun Kenney

    Talk to your neighbors, talk to your friends, get a beer or grab a coffee. Talk to your friends and neighbors as if they were people worth living around. Talk about things other than politics — spring planting is coming up, kids are hearing back from colleges, new books and poetry are being published every day.

    There is a lot more out there that unites us than divides us. That shouldn’t be an invitation to divide at the expense of a common humanity, but rather a call to realize that the gentle and kind and good in the world are cultivated and finally defended — they don’t simply exist because the world is that way.

    I can’t do much about Washington or Richmond, but I can do an awful lot in my own backyard. So can you — and maybe if we started thinking about the world that way, we wouldn’t invest so much of ourselves in things we can’t control. Or worse, things other people control who don’t give a damn about you.

    …and if you feel the need to raise the stakes in order to win the argument? Come up with a clever sign if you have to. Watch — and let folks know you are watching. But as the Man In Black reminds us all, don’t take your guns into town:

    Especially if you are going to resist lawful orders.

    Shaun Kenney, senior advisor to former Attorney General Jason Miyares, publishes the Republican Standard blog. This column was excerpted from a longer essay, “Here’s Your Sign: Don’t Take Your Guns to Town.”

  • Virginia CNBC Ranking Legislative Analysis – Structural Decline

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Chris Saxman

    Over the weekend, I was asked by a Virginia business leader how the first week of the General Assembly Session was going.

    This is my reply. At the outset of EVERY Session, there are bills that are dropped in that, to say the least, grab headlines. With social media these days, it’s a constant barrage of outrage and mistaken blame.

    “Did you see what Abigail Spanberger did in Virginia?”

    Boom.

    Fox News then runs segments basically ReTweeting, now called RePosting, a listing of various bills submitted by Spanberger’s party which now controls the House and the Senate.

    Whoa. Hang on a tick.

    No – Spanberger hasn’t signed one bill into law. In fact, very few votes have actually been taken by anyone.

    Without concurrent offsetting reforms, Virginia’s ranking is likely to decline from #4 (2025) into the #12–#18 range over the next two ranking cycles, with downside risk approaching the low teens.

    She signed some executive orders and if you have any questions about them, let ‘em rip. Hit reply and leave me a message.

    To review, proposed legislation almost always submitted by members of the legislative branch and is sent to committees of jurisdiction (yes there can be more than one).

    Every subcommittee and committee of both chambers acts as a filter that refines/clarifies legislation such that it can continue through the alimentary canal that is the legislative process.

    The final legislative product is then sent to the executive branch for final filtration.

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  • Senate Looks to Tighten School Cell Phone Ban

    Posted on

    by

    Todd Truitt

    Created by Grok

    by Todd Truitt

    A Virginia Senate bill sponsored by Senator Stella Pekarsky, D-Fairfax County, would tighten the state’s school student cellphone ban law by replacing the word “restrict” with “prohibit,” a change supporters say is necessary after local school divisions — particularly Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) — interpreted the current statute more loosely than lawmakers intended.

    The issue traces back to legislation passed by the General Assembly in 2025 requiring every local school board to adopt policies that “restrict, to the fullest extent possible,” student possession and use of cellphones during the regular school day (with exceptions if required by an “Individualized Education Plan, Section 504 Plan, individualized health care plan, or Limited English Proficiency plan”).

    But the law’s “restrict” phrasing quickly became controversial, with districts like FCPS arguing that the statute allowed for lunch exceptions since it used the word “restrict” rather “prohibit.” In response, Sen. Pekarsky and Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax County, sent a letter to FCPS stating: “The intention of lawmakers in passing this law was to clarify that during class, lunch, and between classes, students are NOT permitted to use their cellphones at any time.” Notably, Pekarsky was the co-sponsor of the 2025 cell phone ban legislation that became state law and, prior to joining the Senate, was an FCPS School Board member.

    Senator Stella Pekarsky

    Despite the letter, the FCPS School Board adopted a policy that bans cellphones, but allows high school students to use phones during lunch in designated areas. Similarly, the School Board for Arlington Public Schools adopted a policy allowing high schools to “designate a particular location and non-instructional time during the school day in which phones or devices can be used briefly by students.”

    And just last month, the School Board for Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) was discussing updating its cell phone ban policy to comply with state law, which included a robust disagreement as to whether “restrict” meant “prohibit” (even despite LCPS Superintendent Aaron Spence citing the law’s patrons’ expressed intent to mean “bell-to-bell” without exceptions).

    (more…)

  • The Busiest Physician in Virginia

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    sherlockj

    The Busiest Physician in Virginia

    by James C. Sherlock

    In the first article in this series, the author revealed the names of the medical directors of each of Virginia’s nursing homes and the hours of medical director time for each facility as reported in the second quarter of 2025.

    Almost half of Virginia’s nursing homes reported zero hours from their medical directors. The author assumed they billed Medicare, Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid directly for those services. So, he checked Medicare records to get a general sense.

    One physician’s records were particularly curious. This article will not reveal his name. It is really not about him. It is about the government’s woeful lack of capability to analyze and detect fraud in the nearly infinite amount of Medicare data it collects.

    In CY 2018, he billed primarily for nursing home services and received about a quarter of the Medicare fees he received in 2022.

    He changed his practice. He billed for very few nursing home services in 2022. All but $7,000 of his Medicare payments in that year came instead from home health-related services. It proved to be a profitable career move. Medicare paid almost $900,000 in 2022 for billing under his personal National Provider Identifier (NPI). That did not include an estimated $500,000+ more from Medicare Advantage and an unknown amount from Medicaid. Then there is private insurance.

    Home health? Who knew?

    (more…)

  • Moderates of Virginia Unite

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Stand up now to stave off anarchy and violence.

  • The Moderate Mirage of Gov. Spanberger

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Spanberger’s appointments and executive orders tell the real story of race-based politics and radical priorities.

    A woman with long hair, wearing a white blazer, in front of a stylized background featuring the Virginia State Capitol and a gold coin.
    Image credit: Restoration News

    by Victoria Manning

    Abigail Spanberger ran as a moderate Democrat to win over swing voters, but her new record as Governor already tells a different story. Her appointments reveal a clear alignment with the radical left—putting Virginia on a path toward the same failed policies that have plagued states like California. One of her first executive orders emphasizes race-based preferential treatment.

    Gov. Spanberger appointed Sesha Joi Moon to fill the new position of Chief Diversity Officer and Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Moon declared that DEI is “a constitutional mandate” and claims to be a “black queer woman.” She was previously the chief brand strategist for far-Left Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

    (more…)

  • Bill Would Let Progressive Legislators Pick most of the Virginia Parole Board

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by the Liberty Unyielding staff

    Does any other state do this? Let progressive legislators — rather than the governor — pick most of the members of its parole board? That’s what Virginia is about to do.

    On January 23, a Virginia Senate committee voted to do just that. It approved a bill, SB60, to expand parole for juvenile offenders. The bill was amended to give two progressive legislators the ability to pick 6 of the 11 members of the Virginia Parole Board, expanding the parole board by 6 members. (4 members of the parole board must vote to release any offender serving life without parole, so expanding the parole board to 11 members makes it much easier to release murderers and other inmates serving a life sentence).

    Under current law, the Virginia Parole Board has 5 members, all of whom are appointed by the governor, and confirmed by the legislature.

    Parole board members picked by a governor are less likely to release dangerous inmates than parole board members picked by a progressive legislator. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger represents swing voters who could turn against her if her appointees to the parole board release dangerous inmates. So her appointees are unlikely to empty the state’s prisons or release high-risk inmates. If they did, she would be blamed, and so would they. (She can fire her own appointees to the parole board). Spanberger has been floated as a future possible presidential candidate, and may wish to become president or a U.S. senator. To win a statewide election in Virginia, Spanberger needs votes from independents and moderates, not just Democrats or progressives.

    (more…)

  • Light Rail: The Bad Idea That Will Not Die

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A modern tram approaching a stop on tracks, with a tower in the background and trees lining the street.

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Good grief.

    I thought we drove a stake through the heart of the foolish notion of extending light rail to Virginia Beach back in 2016.

    Apparently not. 

    Del. Alex Askew, Democrat of Virginia Beach, is asking Richmond to commission a two-year study to determine the feasibiity of extending Norfolk’s failed light rail system to the oceanfront in Virginia Beach. 

    Please, no. Enough money has been wasted on this developer-driven boondoggle. Voters realized that the rail system was never going to be a commuter rail but rather it would allow city power brokers to get rich building ant colonies around each stop. A 2016 referendum to extend the failure to Town Center was defeated in a landslide.

    Take was when the extension would have cost $100 million a mile. That cost has probably quadrupled by now.

    I wrote dozens of metro columns for The Virginian-Pilot persuading voters to reject folly. 

    I was right, of course. A column penned by Randal O’Toole, a Cato Institute expert on public transportation, neatly explained the folly of this system in a 2021 piece “celebrating” the 10-year anniversary of The Tide.

    Light rail was a mistake from the beginning. As I’ve repeatedly noted before, it was rendered obsolete in 1927, when the first rear-engine buses were developed that were less expensive to buy and less expensive to operate than rail transit. Buses can also move far more people per hour than rail.

    Norfolk light rail is particularly pathetic. In 2019, it carried an average of 12.4 people per 68-seat railcar (that is, 12.4 passenger-miles per vehicle-revenue mile), less than any other light-rail system in the country. Fares covered less than 14% of operating costs, not the lowest but well below the 22% average for light rail nationwide. These numbers are all from before the pandemic, but as of June, 2021, ridership was still 58% less than 2019 numbers, which means trains were emptier and fares covered even less of the cost of running the Tide. Continue reading.

  • Revenue Hungry Democrats Fill a Buffet Table of Tax Bills

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner

    Governor Abigail Spanberger so far is no more clear on her tax and spending priorities than Candidate Spanberger was, but her fellow Democrats in the General Assembly are laying out a smorgasbord of tax increase options for her.     

    Would she like a major “tax the rich” approach? Start with Delegate Vivian Watt’s House Bill 979, pending in the committee the Fairfax Democrat chairs. It would create two new tax brackets on taxpayers with higher incomes, 8% on taxable incomes higher than $600,000, which then rises to 10% on income of more than $1 million.   

    Do you want to tax upper-income families another way? Many get much of that income from investments, and House Bill 378 from another Northern Virginia Democrat imposes a 3.8% piggyback income tax on net investment income reported on their tax returns. It will not kick in until $500,000 in such income is received. That is the same supplemental tax rate as is applied by the federal Net Investment Income Tax, but HB 378 uses a higher threshold before the tax starts. 

    (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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