by James C. Sherlock
Virginia School Quality Measures have shown Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Richmond to be perhaps the worst public school in Virginia.
Richmond Public Schools (RPS) is flooding it with more adult supervision, instructional resources and student assistance than I personally have ever seen in such a school.
MLK Jr. has about 600 kids.
MLK Jr. Middle School has on this year’s staff: (more…)
by Dick Hall-Sizemore
Republicans, the advocates for smaller governor and for not having Richmond dictate to localities, seem to be running a would-be dictator for governor.
In Halifax County recently, Glenn Youngkin announced, “We will not teach Critical Race Theory in our schools” and, according to the South Boston News and Record, “on day one as governor, he vowed to launch 20 charter schools around the state to provide educational choice for families. He declared that Virginia’s schools will never close again, and will be open five days a week.”
At another forum in Stafford County, he called on all school districts to have a law enforcement officer in every school or lose state funding. “If you are a school board and you refuse to equip your schools with school resource officers to keep our children safe, you will need to find your funding for your school on your own.”
The last time I checked, the Virginia Constitution vests the supervision of schools in local school boards and state law sets out a procedure for establishing charter schools. The Constitution also requires the state to provide funding for “the cost of maintaining an educational program meeting the prescribed standards of quality.” Nothing any there about having to include police in school buildings. (more…)
by James A. Bacon
Steve Haner likes to yank my chain every so often, and he did so this morning — digging up my 2019 prognostication that Dominion Energy had lost the Democratic Party in Virginia. At the time Dominion was still committed to natural gas and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, and opposition to the proposed gas pipeline had become a Democratic Party rallying cry. The Clean Virginia advocacy group was extracting promises left and right from progressive Democrats to reject Dominion campaign donations.
Well, the ACP is history, Dominion pivoted hard and embraced renewable energy, and now the power company is favoring Democrats with its donations to electoral campaigns and Political Action Committees. As Steve recently highlighted here, Democrats are happily taking the money.
So, is it time now to write the headline, “Dominion Has Lost the GOP. What’s Next?” (more…)
by Kerry Dougherty
Let’s review: Thanks to Gov. Ralph Northam, Virginia was the first state to close schools through the end of the 2020 school year, leaving children and parents scrambling to figure out how “remote learning” would work.
It didn’t.
Instead of throwing open school doors in the fall, Northam set rules so onerous that most could not reopen and some schools stayed virtual almost until the end of the 2021 school year.
Unsurprisingly, standardized test scores plummeted. At the Beach, the pass rate dropped by 19% from pre-pandemic SOLs.
Now here we are. Kids are back in school, wearing masks all day, distanced from their classmates and friends, eating silent lunches, being quarantined if it’s suspected they were within 3 feet for 15 minutes of a student testing positive for Covid.
Insanity. All of it. (more…)
by James C. Sherlock
Those who have followed my work know that I have spent a great deal of time and effort exposing the horrible educations that many poor Black children get in Virginia.
This is another of those stories. A profoundly sad one.
The Virginia Public Access Project, in an visual report titled, Massive Educational Experiment, wrote:
By the end of the 2020-21 school year, nearly half of Virginia’s 1.2 million public school students were taught remotely. Another 47% received some combination of in-school and remote teaching. Fewer than 5% of all students stuck with in-person only.
We know absolutely that poor and minority kids have suffered the most from remote learning.
Yet the report shows that Black kids were disproportionately kept at home by Black majority school boards. To no discernible concern from the heights of our politics or culture. (more…)
This is the first in a series of articles about Terry McAuliffe and GreenTech Automotive.
by James A. Bacon and Carol J. Bova
In September 2016, the Office of the State Auditor (OSA) of the state of Mississippi began undertaking a review of the contracts signed by the state’s economic development authority. The goal was to see if the corporations benefiting from state incentive money had made good on the capital investment and job creation they had promised. Several companies were targeted for a closer look.
One of those was Greentech Automotive Inc., a Virginia company whose chairman in 2011 when the Memorandum of Understanding was signed was Terry McAuliffe.
GreenTech had announced ambitious plans for a multibillion-dollar business by designing and manufacturing hybrid and electric vehicles. Between 2009 and 2013 the company raised a total of $141.5 million from Chinese investors under the EB-5 program, which gave foreigners a U.S. green card in exchange for a $500,000 investment in the United States. Incentive financing from the state of Mississippi and Tunica County, Miss., amounted to another $6 million. All told, GreenTech raised at least $147.5 million in funding.
Despite a GreenTech commitment to invest $60 million in the manufacturing plant, very few cars ever rolled off the assembly line… assuming there even was an assembly line. The Mississippi auditor’s report could find documentation for only $3.4 million spent on automotive assembly equipment and parts. Further, despite promises to create 350 full-time jobs, the auditors determined that the company had never supported more than 94 active, full-time jobs in Mississippi at a time. GreenTech made only a single $150,000 payment to the state.
Despite having scrimped on manufacturing expenditures, the company listed minimal assets when it filed for bankruptcy in 2017. In a final settlement, agreed to last year, investors and creditors recovered only $6.6 million. Mississippi and Tunica County recovered only $575,000.
What happened to the other $140 million? (more…)
Ibram Kendi, the nation’s most highly acclaimed and in-demand interpreter of Critical Race Theory in America today, will be the keynote speaker at the Virginia Governor’s Housing Conference in November. His conference biography notes that he has authored several books about racism, including “How to Be an Antiracist,” “Antiracist Baby,” and “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You.”
Many conference topics have a social justice angle to them: closing the wealth gap, increasing minority homeownership, federal recognition of “sovereign nations,” ending youth homelessness, preventing evictions and foreclosures, and changes in Virginia Fair Housing Laws.
But, hey, at least it’s not CRT in the schools! — JAB
by James A. Bacon
Tomorrow evening Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, and Texas Congressman Chip Roy, both of whom are University of Virginia alumni, will participate in event entitled, “In Defense of Mr. Jefferson.”
One might not think that the author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia would need a defense. But he indubitably was a slaveholder and is commonly (though less indubitably) said to have raped his slave Sally Hemings, and regardless of his historic contributions in advancing the cause of human freedom, falls short of the standards of perfection held by some in the UVa community.
The discussion is organized by the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) and, I am pleased to say, is backed by The Jefferson Council, an organization with which I am affiliated. It is scheduled for 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 28) at Newcomb Hall.
It turns out that not only is the historical interpretation of Thomas Jefferson controversial, the very idea that one might endeavor to defend his reputation is as well. The event is experiencing blowback from elements at the university. (more…)
Here follows a letter from Salvatore J. Vitale, class agent of the Virginia Military Institute class of 1961. — JAB
I am a graduate, and proud to be one, of the Virginia Military Institute’s Class of 1961. Since last summer, I and others of the VMI alumni have been pleased to note that Bacon’s Rebellion has published a substantial number of articles concerning the events at VMI climaxing with the publication and fallout from the now infamous Barnes & Thornburg report commissioned by the administration of Governor Ralph Northam. The articles you published have done a great service to VMI and its alumni by, among other things, pushing back against the findings of that report and the libel of VMI in public media, principally in the “news “section of the Washington Post. That libel is that VMI is a systemically racist and sexist institution. …
The attack directed at VMI has no doubt caused injury to many. The reputations of alumni in general have been impugned because of being branded as the product of a systemically racist and sexist institution. The attack certainly raises the question whether young women and minorities in uniform will, rightly or wrongly, fear that VMI officers of higher rank lack respect for them and, perhaps equally unfortunate, transmit that fear into lack of respect for the superior
officer. There is also rightful fear that in this current political environment that VMI’s sullied reputation could harm their opportunities for advancement, particularly for young officers? If this false narrative diminishes the ranks of women and minorities who seek admission to VMI, it will be unfortunate for VMI and for those who are deterred from applying due to this distorted
depiction.
Some may say that the foregoing is merely speculative. There has, however, been one injury that is beyond dispute to VMI alumni — the reputational damage to former superintendent General J. H. Binford Peay III, VMI class of 1962, following his resignation after receiving public rebuke from Governor Northam through a “lost confidence” communication. (more…)
by Donald Smith
To all those who will vote in November, especially those who are thinking of voting Republican for the first time.
You may only lend us your vote. You may not see yourself as a natural Republican.
Your hand may quiver over the ballot, as you debate whether to put your mark in the Republican box—quite likely, for the very first time in your life.
And you may be determined to return to the Democrat Party next time around. If that is the case, I am humbled that, this November, you put your trust in me, that you have put your trust in us. I and we will never take your support for granted.
We will be grateful that you recognized that, sometimes, you have to base your vote on matters much bigger than normal partisan politics.
Glenn Youngkin should give that speech. Or put it in an ad. Because there’s an audience for it in Virginia right now. Many Democrats and moderates are troubled by progressive antics in Washington and Richmond. Those folks will listen to a pitch like this.
If the pitch sounds familiar, it is revised version of Boris Johnson’s victory speech on December 2019 after the last British general election. (more…)
by Kerry Dougherty
Politicians lie. We all know that.
But Terry McAuliffe is a special kind of liar. Not only does he prevaricate about Glenn Youngkin’s policy positions, but he deliberately spreads falsehoods about the severity of Covid-19 in Virginia.
Don’t take my word for it. The Washington Post just gave him FOUR Pinocchios for his continuing gross exaggerations about Covid.
In a piece headlined, “Terry McAuliffe Keeps Inflating Coronavirus Numbers,” the Post’s Glenn Kessler expressed astonishment that the Democrat keeps repeating wildly exaggerated numbers even after he’s been called out for it and his staff admits his numbers are way off.
We first became interested in this issue when McAuliffe in the second and final debate on Sept. 28 said that there were 8,000 coronavirus cases “yesterday in Virginia.” He then repeated the statement the next day and a week later, on Oct. 7.
But when we checked the records, you had to go back to January to find a single day when a combination of confirmed and probable cases in Virginia got close to 8,000. On Sept. 27, there were fewer than 2,000 confirmed cases…
by James A. Bacon
Sidney Gunst, who died last week, was best known as the pioneering developer of the Innsbrook office park in Henrico County — the biggest employment center in the Richmond metropolitan area outside of downtown Richmond. The Richmond Times Dispatch’s Greg Gilligan did a fine job on short notice of capturing Sidney’s inimitable spirit in an article published yesterday. But to those of us who knew and loved him — and we are many — there is so much more to say. God broke the mold when he made Sidney. Everybody has a story to tell about him. I’ll tell just a few of mine.
The thing I loved most about Sidney, aside from his irrepressible sense of humor, is that he was a man of great enthusiasms. He joked about still being ADHD at the age of 70, and there was probably some truth to his self-diagnosis. He was endlessly curious, and he had an incredibly wide range of interests. But he didn’t dabble. When he got involved in a project, he threw himself into it wholeheartedly.
On this blog, I have written about Sidney’s crusade to redevelop the Innsbrook office park for the 21st century. Innsbrook was designed for the autocentric age of the 1980s and 1990s, but the world had changed. Energy was flowing back into the central cities, and he knew that Innsbrook had to change with the times. He spearheaded the effort, which is finally beginning to show results, of converting the vast tract of scattered office buildings and parking lots into a vibrant, around-the-clock, mixed-use community.
But business was only one of his interests. (more…)
by James C. Sherlock
Updated 26 October 1:48 PM
The progressive dream of government control of children from birth is approaching reality in Virginia.
Terry McAuliffe shares that dream and wants to lead Virginia to that promised land.
Governor Ralph Northam and the Democratic General Assembly have established state control of our youngest children, but will struggle to fund it. And if a progressive government could pass those new laws in 2020, future state governments can repeal them.
McAuliffe wants to be Governor to opt in for Virginians to the early childhood education provisions of the federal “Build Back Better” program.
To complete the government control of children from birth with federal money. Under federal regulations and requirements. Wrench control of toddlers from their parents with two sets of laws.
Who says progressives don’t like walls.
Every parent in Virginia should pray he never gets the chance. And vote to prevent him from being in position to do so. (more…)
by Kerry Dougherty
In a news story dripping with undisguised advocacy, the Virginian-Pilot last weekend published a piece practically begging for the early release from prison of a man serving 80 years for a string of armed robberies in 1997.
“His debt is paid, Portsmouth Man Fights For Pardon Of 80-Year-Sentence,” screamed the headline.
Virginia abolished parole in 1995 and only felons sentenced before that date or are old enough to qualify as geriatrics are sprung early. The Virginia Parole Board’s outrageous release of at least eight killers and other violent felons last year turned into a political scandal as the self-described bleeding hearts on that board acted with unbridled arrogance, wantonly breaking rules to get criminals out of prison.
That out-of-control Parole Board consisted of a mixture of members appointed by Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam.
Felons sentenced after the abolition of parole have two ways out of prison: escape or petition the governor to grant a pardon.
Northam has turned into a one-man parole board, freeing 604 prisoners so far — more than the past nine Virginia governors together, according to the newspaper. In other words, Northam casually substitutes his judgment for that of Virginia’s judges and juries, which had their reasons for handing down lengthy sentences.
Lucky us. (more…)
by James A. Bacon
Left-wing media from the New York Times to National Public Radio are as excited as can be about a civil trial starting today in Charlottesville that targets organizers of the infamous Unite the Right rally in 2017. As the Times puts it, lawyers for the nine plaintiffs “are hoping that their quest for unspecified financial damages will both punish the organizers and deter others.”
I have zero sympathy for the white supremacists who organized the event, staged an intimidating torch-light march through the University of Virginia, peddled racism and anti-Semitism the next day, clashed with counter-protesters, and in case of James Alex Fields, Jr., drove a car into a crowd, killing a peaceful demonstrator, Heather Heyer. I would love to see white supremacists put out of business. If the civil lawsuit manages to do that, then I’m all on board.
What concerns me is the media-created mythology exempting the Left from any responsibility for political violence in America today while indicting broader American society for the actions of white supremacists.
The New York Times opines that the case will “underscore some of the most divisive fault lines segmenting the Untied States.” (more…)
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.
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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Protecting Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy at the University of Virginia
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