Bacon's Rebellion

  • Shearing the Sheep

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    This is the fourth in a series of posts about Terry McAuliffe and GreenTech Automotive.

    by James A. Bacon and Carol J. Bova

    The Chinese citizens who lost $500,000 each from investing in GreenTech Automotive were not happy with their setback. While they had ponied up their money as part of a scheme to get a U.S. visa under the EB-5 program, many thought they would get their money back. When they didn’t, they felt cheated. Twenty-seven of them banded together and filed suit against Xiaolin “Charles” Wang, Anthony Rodham and Terry McAuliffe, the principals of GreenTech and its allied fund-raising arm Gulf Coast Management.

    The outcome of the case, Xia Bi vs. McAuliffe, hinged on matters of law. Boasting, exaggeration and hype regarding future events, referred to as “puffery,” which the defendants indisputably engaged in, do not constitute fraud. Although some of the Chinese plaintiffs’ allegations did describe misstatements of fact, said federal appeals court judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III in a 2009 ruling, they failed to show that they had based their investment decisions upon those misstatements. Accordingly, he upheld a lower court order to dismiss the case.

    Nevertheless, Xia Bi vs. McAuliffe provides insight into how the GreenTech fund-raising operation worked. It is abundantly clear why the Chinese investors felt cheated, even if they could not win their case in court. As Wilkinson wrote, “There are no laurels in this case, no accolades to be bestowed.” (more…)

  • If Money Were Votes

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    The Virginia Public Access Project has published an interactive map, broken down by precinct that shows the dollar volumes and number of contributors to the gubernatorial campaigns of Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin. If the number of contributors were votes, Youngkin would win the race handily 12,098 to 9,346.

    But McAuliffe remains the big favorite among out-of-state donors. Roughly 30% of his $57 million campaign haul has come from outside the state, compared to 9% for Youngkin.

    — JAB

  • Common Sense for Virginia: Glenn Youngkin

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    James A. Bacon

    https://twitter.com/ajzeigler/status/1454619712957075460?s=20

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Well this is NOT a surprise: A new NBC poll shows that 71% of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.

    This simply proves that the true silent majority in America is made up of folks with common sense.

    That’s why, when a Democrat whom I like personally implored me to vote for her I told her that wouldn’t be happening. Until the Democrats wake up, cut ties with extremists like AOC, Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar and unshackle themselves from teachers unions I won’t be voting for any Democrat.

    And I’ve voted for plenty of them in the past.

    Sure, there may be a handful of reasonable Democrats left. I can only think of two: Joe Manchin and Virginia State Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, who exhibited more courage in fighting Ralph Northam’s COVID power grab than any Republican in Richmond.

    Other Democrats surrendered to far-left loons with their policies and ideas that are ruinous to America.

    It’s time for those of us with common sense to fight back. (more…)

  • Should Choice of Supplier Extend to Natural Gas?

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Artist rendering from the Chickahominy Power LLC website.

    by Steve Haner

    Should there be retail choice for natural gas? The developers of a proposed natural gas-fired merchant electricity plant are testing the waters with a proposal to bypass their local monopoly supplier by building their own one-customer pipeline to another source.

    In the electricity arena, this is an old issue as large industrial or commercial uses have agitated for the right to seek lower-cost competitive suppliers to Dominion Energy Virginia or Appalachian Power Company. The battle has raged at the General Assembly and in front of the State Corporation Commission.

    Under state law a large-enough customer can opt out of the monopoly power company under certain conditions. Similar mega-customers exist in the natural gas arena, but there is no comparable provision in state code allowing them to choose alternative gas suppliers.

    The proposed Chickahominy Power LLC plant in Charles City County, which will also be ready to burn hydrogen to produce electricity if and when hydrogen is available for that, has many certificates and permits it needs from the state. The war on fossil fuels crowd did its best to block the permits but has failed, so far.

    It also has a wholesale market for the 1,650 megawatts of electricity it will produce, and in general the expansion of merchant generation not built and controlled by the monopoly utilities is considered an economic boon. The 2020 Clean Energy Economy Act, among many other things, will require the use of more purchased power agreements by the utilities.

    What Chickahominy lacks at this point is an agreement with Virginia Natural Gas, service which might require a new 24-mile connection. This was to be one of two such plants in Charles City served by a planned expansion of the VNG pipeline in Virginia, but that project was mobbed by environmental opposition and abandoned by the utility last year. (more…)

  • Dreams from the Opium Den

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    This is the third article in a series about Terry McAuliffe and GreenTech.

    by James A. Bacon and Carol J. Bova

    When partners Xiaolin “Charlie” Wang, Anthony Rodham, and Terry McAuliffe banded together in 2009 to finance and build an electric vehicle enterprise known as GreenTech Automotive, they thought big. Very big. In a 2009 offering memorandum pitched to Chinese investors, they stated they aimed to grow their flimsily financed start-up into an automotive behemoth eventually capable of generating up to $33 billion in revenue.

    “If full production of one million vehicles is realized,” elaborated the document, GreenTech’s manufacturing facility in Tunica County, Miss., would be “one of the largest automobile manufacturing plants in the world.”

    In retrospect — after GreenTech went bankrupt having produced only a handful of cars, burned through more than $140 million, and left barely $6 million behind for investors and creditors in the bankruptcy settlement — such aspirations seem wildly disconnected from reality. Whether McAuliffe and his partners believed such targets were remotely realistic is a question only they can answer.

    Looking at GreenTech from the outside, some described the business as a scheme to snooker millions of dollars from naive Chinese investors. A more charitable explanation is that the GreenTech partners genuinely believed their own hype, hoping they could bootstrap one fund-raising effort into enough progress in building the enterprise that they could make it to the next fund-raising round with a better story, raise some more money, make more progress, and hook the next round of investors. In other words, in such a view, their business plan was fake until you make it.

    Whatever the thought process, it was an abject failure. Chinese investors lost almost everything, they felt cheated, and the three principals opened themselves to accusations of fraud. (more…)

  • FEC Asked to Investigate McAuliffe’s Foreign Donations

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Hans Bader

    The Washington Free Beacon reports that the Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, was hit with a campaign finance complaint on Friday over a $350,000 donation he received from a foreign-owned company linked to overseas money laundering probe.

    The National Legal and Policy Center requested that the FEC “promptly investigate” whether the donation to McAuliffe violated federal statutes prohibiting political campaigns from accepting donations from foreign nationals.
    “Terry McAuliffe has a history of accepting foreign contributions. The FEC must fully investigate these serious charges that he accepted $350,000 in illegal foreign contributions for his current campaign,” said NLPC lawyer Paul Kamenar.

    LycaTel LLC gave McAuliffe $350,000 in July. The company is a New Jersey subsidiary of a Sri Lankan national’s England-based telecom conglomerate, which has been the subject of fraud and money-laundering charges in France. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant.

  • How Data Asymmetry Drives COVID Policy

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Confirmed COVID-19 cases, just one of many COVID data points tracked by the Virginia Department of Health. Good news: The virus is receding!

    by James A. Bacon

    There’s a common saying in the business world: You manage what you measure. In Virginia, as in the rest of the United States, we have a super-abundance of data about COVID-19. Just visit the VDH website for a taste.

    As we have frequently observed on this blog — and we’re hardly alone in doing so — the lockdowns imposed in an effort to contain the virus have negative effects, the most visible of which is increasing peoples’ sense of social isolation. The effects are measured in a variety of ways, from counting drug overdoses to suicides, but the data is not updated daily. Indeed, the numbers are typically released quarterly or annually after lengthy reporting delays, if they are compiled at all. For all practical purposes, that data is invisible and, therefore, plays almost no role in formulating policy.

    Patrick Wilson with the Richmond Times-Dispatch (yes, I have to give the RTD credit for still doing some good reporting) tells the story of Michael McDermott, who supplies information about drug overdoses in the website FAVOR (Faces and Voices of Recovery in Virginia). He updates a chart showing the monthly EMS response data for overdoses in Virginia, using data collected by the Virginia Department of Health. (more…)

  • McAuliffe Supporters Dress up as White Supremacists

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    What happened earlier today in Charlottesville is despicable and disqualifying. Democrats, posing as white supremacists, arrived at a Glenn Youngkin event carrying tiki torches and pretending to be supporters of the Republican.

    This is disgusting even for McAuliffe.

    With all their experience with blackface, you’d think Virginia’s Democrats could do a better job of disguising themselves as racists. Why didn’t they bring in Ralph Northam and Mark Herring for advice?

    Alas, social media is nimble and smart and the morons posing with tiki torches were quickly identified on social media as Democrat operatives. (more…)

  • Youngkin Takes the Lead

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    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    The Real Clear Politics poll average has Glenn Youngkin in the lead for the first time.

    Nice job, Glenn.

    Terry, thank you for being perhaps the worst retail politician Virginia has seen since Ken Cuccinelli.

  • The Stunning Wealth of UVa’s Nonprofits

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    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    As an alumnus of the University of Virginia, I like to check in occasionally to see how my alma mater is doing financially.

    Not the actual University, but the wealthy and proliferating nonprofits set up for its off-the-books support. When I say wealthy, I mean $13,568,527,649 wealthy.

    OK, rich.

    All of them tax exempt. (more…)

  • SHOCK Fox Poll — Youngkin +8? Outlier or Actual?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Chris Saxman

    Oh yeah.

    That Fox News poll release last night created some noise. No sooner had that hit the airwaves than the phone started blowing up from around the country and Commonwealth. Glenn Youngkin was +8 (53-45).

    What do you think? Is this real?

    Naturally, Republicans were thrilled and Democrats dismissive. It is Fox News. The reactions would have been reversed were it a poll from MSNBC.

    Today, the Washington Post/GMU Schar School Poll released their poll (McAuliffe +1 49-48) and it will likely receive the same partisan response. Republicans will dismiss it and Democrats will hail it.

    Republicans will say it’s the Post AND Dwight Schar, for whom the school is named, supports Terry McAuliffe. Given the Fox Poll showing Glenn Youngkin +8, anything closer to a tie will be a response ray of relief for Democrats and another “See I Told You So” (SITYS) moment for the Republicans.

    Rinse and repeat. Binary politics at its best.

    But it’s gotten so bad this year for Republicans in Virginia that Democrats are complaining to me about how partisan the coverage is.

    To which I reply :

    (more…)

  • Jefferson Defended

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    I was proud of the University of Virginia last night.

    The Young Americans for Freedom organized an event, “Defending Thomas Jefferson,” featuring National Review editor Rich Lowry and Texas Congressman Chip Roy, both UVa alumni. Organizers believe it was the first time that conservative speakers from outside the university had been invited since former Senator Rick Santorum had appeared four or five years ago. (It’s been so long that memories were hazy about the details).

    Many posts on social media had been critical, and there were rumblings that a protest might be organized. But university police posted outside the Newcomb Hall lecture room provided security, and nothing remotely unpleasant occurred.

    More than 150 people attended the event, which easily met expectations. What I found most encouraging was the healthy contingent of Black students who came to hear what the defenders of the university’s founder might say. One could deduce that many were not sympathetic to the views of the speakers because they sat silently through the applause lines. But they listened respectfully and, when the time came for questions, a number asked questions that were pointed but polite. (I am pleased to note that one Black student, who spoke with an African accent, said that she found Jefferson inspiring.)

    The event was exactly what a great university should be doing — exposing students to different perspectives and facilitating the civil exchange of views. I am delighted that the Jefferson Council played a role in helping make it happen.

    (View the Young America’s Foundation livestream on YouTube here.)

    (more…)

  • Friday News Roundup

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    There’s too much news today to limit ourselves to just one topic.

    Former Gov. Linwood Holton died yesterday at the age of 98. He was elected in 1969 and became the first Republican governor of Virginia since 1869. He ran against the racist Democrat Byrd Machine and is remembered as a leader in Virginia’s civil rights movement.

    My family has a special affection for Governor Holton. He appointed my mother-in-law, Joan Mahan, to be the first female secretary of Virginia’s Board of Elections. I met the former governor at her funeral. He was a remarkable man.

    Governor Holton believed strongly in integration and public education. Notably, he enrolled his kids in Richmond City Public Schools, which were predominately African-American. He walked his children to class on his very first day in the Governor’s Mansion.

    To live to be nearly 100 after a rich life of public service and to pass away at home surrounded by family was a well-deserved reward for this great Virginian.

    Rest in peace, Governor. (more…)

  • Stop the Sign Thefts!

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Susan Lang

    Shelly Fularon Wood is running for Commonwealth Attorney in Chesapeake. She has handled more than 2,700 criminal cases in Virginia. She has experience working in the Norfolk Prosecutor’s office and was appointed by Chesapeake Circuit Court Judges to serve as a Substitute Judge. Despite these tremendous credentials, or maybe because of them, someone has been removing her campaign signs.

    Wood has a system for recording where and when her signs are placed. She has determined that more than 200 have been stolen — so far.

    A Facebook post claiming to be part of the City Sign Sweeper program shows what happened to many of the stolen Shelly Wood signs. The Sign Sweeper program does not cover removal of political signs. It is furthermore an incorrect application of the program to take signs of one candidate for an office but not the other’s signs. This individual was contacted; he said the signs had been destroyed. (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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