Bacon's Rebellion

  • Glenn Youngkin: America’s Parent Champion

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    by Asra Q. Nomani

    Dear friends,

    It is my honor to name our first recipient of our Parent Champion Award. We have established this award to honor someone who has gone above and beyond in championing the rights of parents in their children’s lives.

    There is a parable that says “For such a time as this…” a leader emerges, prepared for the moment by all of that person’s life experiences before.

    First, I want to ask you:

    • How many of you have felt alone—even scared — over the past year as you have tried to speak to your school boards?
    • How many of you have felt marginalized as you have tried to speak to school principals and teachers about concerns that you have in the classroom?
    • How many of you have been muted?
    • How many of you have lay in your bed, your head up on the pillow but your mind racing with thoughts of how to make sure your children get a proper education?

    Just like you, a year and a half ago, on June 7, 2020, I became an accidental activist.

    The principal at my son’s high school — Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology — told our mostly immigrant, mostly Asian parents that we needed to check our “privileges.” And with that label, our concerns were dismissed. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    James A. Bacon


    From The Bull Elephant

  • Mystery: What’s Behind the Dramatic Fall-off In K and Pre-K Enrollment?

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    James A. Bacon

    Source: Virginia Board of Education

    by James A. Bacon

    There are many gaps and omissions in the Northam administration’s just-published “2021 Annual Report on the Conditions and Needs of Public Schools in Virginia” — most notably the lack of recognition that the acute problems described by the report stem in part from policies endorsed by the Northam administration itself — but the Board of Education (BOE) document does highlight several issues that any fair-minded person would acknowledge need highlighting.

    One of those issues is the sharp decline in public school enrollment since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, most notably in Pre-K and Kindergarten. As seen in the graph above, pre-K enrollment is down 18.6% and Kindergarten is down 12.8%.

    Do these declines portend comparable declines in public school enrollment as these age cohorts work their way through the educational pipeline? Has something fundamental changed about the way parents of young children think about their schooling? Or are these declines transitory blips that will disappear as America learns to live with the virus? (more…)

  • A Reprieve or Just a Bargaining Move?

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    As was reported here earlier, Alden Golden Capital has made a move to buy Lee Enterprises, the owner of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and nine other newspapers in this state. Such a move would be a disaster for the residents of the communities served by those papers. Alden has a reputation for buying up media companies, selling off their assets, laying off staff, and, as a result, seriously crippling the ability of the newspapers to cover their communities.

    Lee Enterprises has seemingly fought back. It did not accept Alden’s original offer and its board has adopted a “poison pill” plan that could dilute shares if Alden starts buying them up without its consent. In its latest move, the Lee board has rejected, on technical grounds, Alden nominees for three board slots. (more…)

  • Schools Say They Teach CRT, Even As Journalists Deny It

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    James A. Bacon

    by Hans Bader

    Schools are teaching critical race theory, even as liberal education reporters deny it is taught anywhere, and falsely claim it is not taught in even a single school system.

    Detroit’s school superintendent, Nikolai Vitti, says critical race theory is deeply embedded in his school system: “Our curriculum is deeply using critical race theory, especially in social studies, but you’ll find it in English language arts and the other disciplines. We were very intentional about … embedding critical race theory within our curriculum.”

    His school district is not alone. Twenty percent of urban school teachers have discussed or taught critical race theory with K-12 students, as have 8 % of teachers nationally, according to an Education Week survey. The Seattle public schools employed a critical race theorist as part of the district’s efforts to embed the theory in elementary schools.

    “Unequivocally, critical race theory is taught in K-12 public schools,” said the Heritage Foundation’s Jonathan Butcher, noting he wrote a research paper detailing numerous instances of school districts openly using the phrase “critical race theory” in curriculum plans. (more…)

  • Why Is the CBF Fighting a Compressor Station 200 Miles from the Chesapeake Bay?

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    James A. Bacon

    The red dot shows the approximate location of the proposed Lambert Compressor Station two miles east of Chatham in Pittsvylania County. The map shows the location of the Dan River watershed. The Dan River empties into the Roanoke River, which empties into Albemarle Sound, N.C.

    by James A. Bacon

    The Virginia Air Pollution Control Board voted 6 to 1 today to deny a permit for a natural gas pipeline compressor station in Pittsylvania County. The station is integral to the Mountain Valley Pipeline Project.

    The site lies “within five miles of four communities with strong African American and American Indian roots” that are considered “environmental justice communities,” states a press release from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The CBF had joined the Virginia Sierra Club and residents Elizabeth and Anderson Jones in opposing the compressor station.

    “We hope this shows that Virginia is prepared to make environmental justice a reality,” said CBF staff attorney Taylor Lilley in a CBF press release. “The safety of marginalized and vulnerable communities must continue to be a prominent consideration in these proceedings. This is also an opportunity to prevent a new source of air pollution to the Chesapeake Bay.” (My italics.)

    Let’s set aside the precedent of shutting down a compressor station on the grounds that it is located five miles from a “marginalized” community. Let’s ignore the issue of what kind of economic opportunities the shutdown might foreclose for minorities. Please focus on the final sentence in the quote. If you thought that the mission of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation was to protect just the water quality of the Chesapeake Bay you are sadly mistaken. (more…)

  • Rule by Brainless Algorithm

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    James A. Bacon

    From today’s edition of The Blunderbuss:

    The genius of our digital overlords was confirmed the other day when I commented on a post about the coming labor strife in Major League Baseball. I suggested that the highly publicized squabble between billionaire owners and millionaire players might be a suicide pact, dooming a once beautiful sport. Twitter, ever-vigilant, instantly locked my account, demanded my cell phone number and insisted I retract my comment. I complied, because, well, who cares? Twitter responded by thoughtfully sending me several paragraphs of suicide prevention tips. All of this took less than a minute. The algorithms know it all, and yet know nothing at all.

    — Bob Rayner, editor

  • How to Live Free

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    James A. Bacon

    Mia Love

    by James A. Bacon

    When Mia Love spoke at the University of Virginia last night, she could have told insider stories about her two terms as the only Black female Republican elected to Congress. She could have dished juicy details about what it was like as the sole GOP member of the Congressional Black Caucus, or the frustrating conversations with President Trump about recruiting Haitian immigrants into the Republican Party, or the $450,000 she had to raise and hand over to GOP party leaders to secure preferred committee assignments. She could have talked public policy about issues she cares about such as abortion or the nation’s profligate fiscal and monetary policies.

    But she didn’t. Since losing a razor-thin re-election bid in 2018, she has been residing happily with her husband and three children in Salt Lake City. Although she appears as a talking head on CNN, she is writing a book and her thoughts have turned to a more inspirational direction.

    Drawing heavily from personal experience, Love used the speech to explore how to live a life of freedom, integrity and purpose. (more…)

  • Young Peoples’ Attitudes About America Show that the Nation is Reaping What the Left has Sown

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    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Updated Dec 2, 5:34 PM.

    Terry McAuliffe:

    “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

    Clearly, parents have not done so successfully. The Left has.

    For a dramatic lesson in what the young have learned about America at enormous public and private expense, please see the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics Harvard Youth Poll Fall 2021 Top Trends and Takeaways, published yesterday. The poll of more than 2,000 18- to 29-year-olds was taken between October 26 and November 8 of this year.

    Some poll results:

    A majority (52%) of young Americans believe that our democracy is either “in trouble,” or “failing.”

    More than half (51%) of young Americans report having felt down, depressed, and hopeless — and 25% have had thoughts of self-harm — at least several times in the last two weeks.

    American Exceptionalism is a highly divisive issue among young Americans; less than one-third believe that “America is the greatest country in the world.”

    In a Spring poll taken March 9-22, 2021, young people were much more hopeful. In fact, their rate of loss of hope in the last seven months could reasonably be called a crash.

    Harvard has been doing this survey twice a year for 46 years. The results are  not surprising. However, they will serve as a perfect Rorschach test for one’s political beliefs.

    The Left will find them encouraging; the rest of us will not. (more…)

  • Cuccinelli Gives His Take on Youngkin’s Election

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    James A. Bacon

    Ken Cuccinelli. Photo credit: USA Today

    by Bruce Majors

    Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2013, spoke to a breakfast of conservative activists Wednesday, and expressed glee about Terry McAuliffe’s election loss.

    “Terry beat me by two and a half percent in 2013, and Glenn Youngkin beat him by two and a half percent this year,” Cuccinelli said. “When I ran against McAuliffe he had no record, having never held office, and he hid, making the minimal amount of campaign appearances. He was the fresh face. This time his opponent Glenn Youngkin was the fresh face, and McAuliffe spent the campaign whining that he was releasing hundreds of pages of White Papers, but no one paid any attention. Except journalists, who are Democrats, but even they fact checked McAuliffe and said he was lying about his record.”

    Cuccinelli’s most interesting remarks were in reply to a question from an Arlington first responder, who wanted to know what Governor Youngkin or the Virginia GOP would be doing about county vaccine mandates for government employees. (more…)

  • Brace Yourself for Omicron… and Omicron Hysteria

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    Pre-Omicron: Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Virginia. Source: Virginia Department of Health

    by James A. Bacon

    The Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus has set foot (perhaps I should say set its little viral spikes) in California, and it is only a matter of days (perhaps hours) before it arrives in Virginia. How worried should we be?

    Some will dismiss the virus as nothing special, nothing to divert us from business as usual — the virus is said to have mild symptoms, after all. Others will engage in non-stop fear porn — we don’t know what we don’t know about the variant! Most of us, I suspect, will take a wait-and-see attitude before either blowing it off and putting ourselves at unnecessary risk or subjecting ourselves to another round of economy-wrecking, school-debilitating government mandates.

    Personally, I incline toward the former response. The virus isn’t going away; it will continue mutating, and we have to learn to live with it just as we live with the flu. Maintaining a permanent regime of shutdowns and restrictions has massive unintended consequences, from medical procedures foregone to increased social isolation, depression, substance abuse and suicide; from supply-side disruptions to a massive and unsustainable run-up in the federal debt. (more…)

  • Omicron: It’s Here!

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    He could barely contain his glee. He was positively giddy.

    I’m talking about White House medical advisor Anthony Fauci who held a press conference yesterday to declare that the long-awaited moment had arrived: We had our first confirmed case of the Covid omicron variant.

    Hallelujah!

    Now the government has an excuse — however flimsy — to institute more arbitrary rules and extend others all while quietly nudging governors to crack down on civil liberties just in time for the holidays. (more…)

  • Virginia Consumers Are Getting Cranky

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    James A. Bacon

    The Virginia Index of Consumer Sentiment published by Roanoke College.

    For commentary on the graph, see The Roanoke Star.

  • Press Misinformation on Critical Race Theory in Schools Fuels the Fight

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Americans are at one another’s throats over critical race theory in schools.

    The debate is skewed and the rage fueled by completely different understandings of the terms of reference — the actual objections to CRT in education.

    Those objections have been misstated routinely by the legacy national newspapers and the education press. The misleading articles make it into most national newspapers these days with the collapse of regional reporting. And the misinformation they spread has made it into these pages.

    Education Week, in a surprise change of pace for that journal, published on November 15 an opinion piece by Rick Hess titled “Media Coverage of Critical Race Theory Misses the Mark.”

    Based upon a detailed study of a year’s worth of press reports, Hess finds that the national legacy media and the education press have largely and purposely ignored the core objections to CRT in schools.

    Instead they have misled the public with a selective and progressive-friendly, but inaccurate definition of the terms of the debate. (more…)

  • More Bacon Bits

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    Mia Love to Speak at UVa. Mia Love, the first Black Republican woman elected to Congress, will deliver a speech at the University of Virginia tomorrow, addressing the topic, “Preserving the American Tradition.” Love’s address is the second in a series of events bringing outside conservative voices to UVa sponsored by The Jefferson Council. For details, click here.

    Police shortages not just for big cities. The City of Lynchburg Police Department has 28 open positions, and recruiting new officers is difficult. In 2010, the department saw between 1,500 and 2,000 applicants. Last year, it had only 342 applicants. “Officers are just getting into a profession that they don’t feel like they’re valued in a lot of times, unfortunately,” Police Chief Ryan Zuidema told WSET News. As a consequence, response times to 911 calls are slower, he said. Part of the problem is that Lynchburg police tend to be younger and have less experience. Another is that mental health calls are taking officers off the streets. “On any given night or any given day, we have multiple police officers sitting at the hospital with mental health patients, and those officers are not available to respond to calls for service.”

    Another one bites the dust. The Henry County Board of Zoning Appeals has turned down requests from two solar energy companies to convert hundreds of acres near the community of Axton into solar farms, according to The Martinsville Bulletin. Henry County’s solar ordinance calls for no more than 2.5% of the land area within a five-mile radius to be devoted to solar, and one solar farm already operates in the Axton area. “Solar energy is here, and it’s the future, but Axton doesn’t need to be the epicenter of it,” said zoning director Lee Clark. Solar projects are being approved in Virginia, but arguably not enough to meet the requirements of the Virginia Clean Economy Act to decarbonize Virginia’s electric grid by 2050.

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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