Bacon's Rebellion

  • Progressives’ Justice: Criminalize Small Business, Descriminalize Theft

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    James A. Bacon

    Worth prosecuting anymore?

    by Hans Bader

    Progressive “reform” prosecutors want more criminal prosecutions of businesses for red-tape violations and so-called “wage theft,” and fewer felony prosecutions of criminals for stealing from businesses and homeowners (such as shoplifting, which some progressive prosecutors have essentially stopped prosecuting, resulting in an explosion of shoplifting).

    Prosecuting “wage theft” was one of the campaign planks of Arlington, Va., Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, a progressive Democrat who unseated a moderate Democrat incumbent in the 2019 primary election. In her campaign, she said she wanted to prioritize prosecuting “wage theft,” even while complaining that Arlington prosecuted felonies at a much higher rate than neighboring jurisdictions like Alexandria. She also called for more use of “restorative justice” as a response to crimes committed by people with social or economic disadvantages. (more…)

  • The Fix Was In: Burying the Athlete Issue

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    James A. Bacon

    VMI heroes. (Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch)

    by James A. Bacon

    Ascertaining the state of race relations is a tricky task in these politically polarized times. The job is made all the more difficult at the Virginia Military Institute by a factor that exists few other places: tension between athletes and other students. Athletes enjoy exemptions from participation in parades, inspections and the rigors of the infamous Rat Line that other cadets do not. As it happens, 60% of all African American cadets at VMI are athletes. Does the animus that athletes sometimes feel from their peers stem from racism, a resentment of their privileged status, their perceived lack of commitment to the VMI system, or perhaps all of the above?

    VMI rats

    The difficulty of disentangling race and athletics emerged as a key issue in the Barnes & Thornburg investigation into racism at VMI. A cadet quoted in the Final Report explained the tension this way: “There is a divide in this school. However, it is not a race divide but a divide between athletes and nonathletes. The athletes do not experience the ratline the way we do, and they get special treatment throughout their cadetship. This leads to them never really becoming a true part of the corp[s] unless they actively seek to do so.” (more…)

  • Clean Virginia Dissed Again, Dem Takes Dom Cash

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    Steve Haner

    An image of Hala Alaya’s answer to a question on Clean Virginia’s candidate questionnaire, released by it in response to her breaking of that pledge.

    by Steve Haner

    Prince William Democrat Hala Ayala, who had pledged not to accept campaign contributions from Dominion Energy Virginia and took money instead from its opponents, has now accepted $100,000 from the regulated monopoly. Heads are exploding.

    Del. Haya Ayala, D-Prince William

    The anti-Dominion activist group Clean Virginia had given her $25,000 in her bid for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor.  Now is has announced it will dump $125,000 into a last-ditch digital campaign to defeat her in the June 8 primary. Early voting in the primary has been underway for weeks, however. Early voters upset by this cannot call their ballots back.

    Final pre-primary finance reports were released early in the week and word of the contribution quickly hit the Twitterverse, then sparked stories in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch and Virginia Mercury. (more…)

  • North Carolina AG takes on Hospitals That Fail to Publish Shoppable Prices

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Attorney General Josh Stein of North Carolina, fresh off killing the Sentara-Cone merger, on his very busy day yesterday had an Assistant AG send a letter to North Carolina hospitals.

    It demanded that hospitals comply with federal hospital pricing transparency regulations that require that hospitals make publicly available a machine-readable file containing a list of prices for all items and services as well as a consumer-friendly list with prices for shoppable services.

    He told them that he looked forward to their cooperation — by the end of the month.

    This is the second time today I have wished Virginia had an Attorney General.

  • North Carolina AG Investigation Quashes Sentara/Cone Health Merger

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    In the big merger equivalent of “spend more time with our families,” Cone and Sentara issued a joint statement on June 2 that they “have jointly decided not to move forward” with their planned merger.

    “As this work progressed, we realized that each of our communities and key stakeholders require support and commitments from our respective organizations that are better served by remaining independent.

    “The decision was a difficult one, but both organizations remain committed to advancing our common goal of providing outstanding care for our respective communities.”

    There was that.

    But then we discovered that North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein — unlike Virginia, North Carolina actually has an AG — clearly threatened to sue to stop it. (more…)

  • Vicky Manning: Tuesday’s School Board Meeting Was Illegal

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    James A. Bacon

    Victoria Manning

    by Kerry Dougherty

    There was an empty chair at Tuesday’s Virginia Beach School Board meeting.

    Not that the public could see. It appears the meeting wasn’t televised.

    That seat should have been occupied by Vicky Manning, one of a handful of good government types on that alarmingly woke body.

    Manning refused to attend because she believed the meeting was illegal.

    In fact, Manning is so incensed by what she says was a violation of Virginia’s open meeting laws that she’s filed court papers asking that the actions taken on Tuesday be nullified. Those actions include a last-minute schedule change for next week’s meeting when a resolution banning Critical Race Theory is expected to be debated.

    Manning’s attorney, Tim Anderson, told me that a hearing is scheduled on the matter in General District Court on Monday morning. (more…)

  • Sentara, Cone Health Call Off Merger

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    sherlockj

    From Virginia Business:

    “Sentara Healthcare and Greensboro, North Carolina-based Cone Health mutually called off a merger Wednesday, according to a statement by the Norfolk-based health care system.”

    The Sentara Healthcare Board of Directors and the Cone Health Board of Trustees came to the mutual agreement to end affiliation plans late last week, according to the announcement.

    In Wednesday’s statement, Sentara officials said, “As this work progressed, we realized that each of our communities and key stakeholders require support and commitments from our respective organizations that are better served by remaining independent. The decision was a difficult one, but both organizations remain dedicated to advancing our common goal of providing outstanding care for our respective communities.”

    The outcome was right, whatever the reason. It will be interesting to see where Sentara trains its gaze next.

    — J.S.

  • The Fix Was In: Use and Abuse of Survey Data

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The Barnes & Thornburg final report into racism at the Virginia Military Institute has done its job of generating loads of negative headlines about the military academy. “Run by White men, for White men,” seems to be the most quotable quote. Predictably, there is no evidence that a single reporter read past the executive summary, which, as I explained yesterday, was a politicized, agenda-driven distillation of the extensive research conducted by investigators who, though not without their biases, painted a complex and nuanced picture of race relations.

    The B&T summary conclusion that “racial and gender disparities exist” is based entirely upon the perceptions of a handful of Black VMI cadets. The report cites no documentary evidence of racism on the part of the VMI administration. The problem is alleged to be rooted in “the culture.” Accordingly, the perception of Black cadets, as gleaned in personal interviews and a lengthy anonymous survey, form the basis of B&T’s conclusions.

    Here’s what the B&T summary doesn’t tell you: Of the 540 survey responses from cadets, only twelve came from African Americans. (That fact appears only in the appendix.) For most questions, the African-American responses split down the middle — six agreed (strongly or somewhat) with statements supportive of the racism allegations while six disagreed (strongly or somewhat).

    Thus, when the B&T executive summary makes statements like this — “according to survey results of current cadets, half of African American cadets strongly or somewhat agree that there is a culture of racial intolerance at VMI” — the finding was based on the responses of six cadets who felt that way — six of 102 African American cadets (2021 enrollment). (more…)

  • A Swing and a Miss

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    James A. Bacon

  • David Allen Simpkins: Parole Board Poster Boy

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering why I’m writing about Virginia’s rogue Parole Board AGAIN.

    After all, we ran a series of stories last spring about the eight murderers they turned loose. We’ve reported on the more than 100 parolees they took off of supervised probation. We’ve covered the way they played loose with laws and regulations.

    Perhaps you’re bored with the scandal.

    Ah, but you haven’t met David Allen Simpkins, the Parole Board’s poster boy. (more…)

  • VMI Investigation Provides Thin Gruel for Racism Allegations

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Barnes & Thornburg (B&T), the law firm hand-picked by the Northam administration as an “independent” investigator, has delivered its final report on racism and sexism at the Virginia Military Institute. The report concluded that racial and gender disparities persist in how cadets are treated at the military academy.

    VMI’s “culture” reinforces barriers to addressing those disparities, the report says, and as a state-funded institution, VMI must be held accountable to taxpayers and the General Assembly and prove that it is “implementing its diversity, equity, and inclusions (DE&I) proposals.”

    Painting a picture based largely on an anonymous survey of cadets, faculty, staff and alumni, supplemented by in-person interviews, Barnes & Thornburg said that racial slurs and jokes are “not uncommon” on post, and that roughly half of the African-Americans cadets feel there is a “culture of racial intolerance” at VMI. Only a small percentage of Whites agreed, but B&T said White responses only point out that “where African Americans experienced racism … Caucasian cadets do not or choose not to see it.”

    The VMI investigation highlighted statistical disparities in attitudes, enrollment, and  Honor Code convictions, but the report offers almost no concrete instances of racism. It publishes numerous quotes alleging racism but makes no effort to to investigate those allegations. On the other hand, the report made several major concessions that undercut Governor Ralph Northam’s statement last year in ordering the investigation, based on Washington Post reporting, that racism at VMI was “systemic” and “appalling.” (more…)

  • In What World of Crazy Is There a Seedling Shortage?

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    James A. Bacon

    August Forestry Center manager Josh McLaughlin at state seedling farm. Photo credit: Virginia Mercury

    by James A. Bacon

    Environmentalists say there are two ways to combat rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to combat change. One is to reduce emissions, the other is to sequester more carbon. Trees are powerful carbon-sequestration devices, and they don’t require a lot of fancy technology. So, environmentalists say Americans should grow more trees.

    So far, so good.

    “But every tree starts with a seed,” reports The Virginia Mercury. “To sequester carbon in millions of acres of forest proliferate, many forestry experts say the existing supply of seedlings falls short of what will be needed to meet ambitious climate change goals.”

    Wait… What? There’s a seedling shortage?

    Indeed there is, according to Chandler Van Voorhis, co-founder and managing partner of ACRE Investment Management headquartered in The Plains, in Fauquier County. “What’s become painfully obvious is there’s just not enough hardwood seedling capacity out there. There’s plenty of pine, but pine’s not what people are looking for.” (more…)

  • Some Northern Virginia Schools Get Failing Grades on Black Student Literacy and Numeracy

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    sherlockj

    Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane

    by James C. Sherlock

    We spend a lot of time here documenting the raging debates at Northern Virginia school board meetings over Critical Race Theory in schools. Raging is the right word.  

    Yet those same school systems fail to educate the kids they claim to care about most.

    Consider what we see from VDOE and them instead:

    • the teacher strike threats;
    • the elimination of competitive tests for magnet schools and AP courses;
    • the ongoing attempt to recall Loudoun school board members;
    • the lawsuits;
    • the “too many Asians” idiocy of the Secretary of Education and the new rules that will push most high achieving Asian American students out of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in the name of “equity”;
    • the Virginia Board of Education taking over as the regulator for child care, writing a 24-page draft regulation on transgender students and working every day to write regulations to create little social activists starting at birth.

    It is past time for Northern Virginia school systems and VDOE to get to work doing something a little more basic.  

    I have a thought. Start by teaching the far too many Black students who, pre-COVID, had failed to achieve literacy and numeracy at or even near grade level.  

    Hope I’m not out of line. (more…)

  • Getting Electricity from Government

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    By Dick Hall-Sizemore

    More than 300,000 Virginia residents and numerous commercial enterprises are not subject to the monopolistic electric rates of Dominion, APCO, or the electric cooperatives. They get their electric service from their local governments.

    There are 16 municipalities in which electric service is provided by a governmental entity. Primarily, they are small towns (some surprisingly so) and small cities. They include the towns of Bedford, Blackstone, Culpeper, Elkton, Front Royal, Richlands, and Wakefield and the cities of Bristol, Danville, Franklin, Harrisonburg, Manassas, Martinsville, Radford, and Salem. Most intriguing of all is the Virginia Tech Electric Service, established by the university to provide electric service to the campus and the residents and businesses of Blacksburg.

    These municipalities purchase most of their electricity from private companies such as American Electric Power Company. Several, such as Martinsville and Bedford, also use hydroelectric power for a portion of their needs. (more…)

  • How VCU and Richmond Blew It Again

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Bill and Alice Goodwin. Photo credit: Virginia Business

    by James A. Bacon

    Six years ago William H. Goodwin Jr. and his wife Alice championed the idea of building an independent children’s hospital in Richmond that would conduct research and provide state-of-the-art healthcare to the region’s children. The couple was prepared to contribute $150 million of the estimated $600 million cost in order to make it happen. But the proposal collapsed in the face of unremitting opposition from Virginia Commonwealth University, which was determined to erect its own children’s facility.

    Richmond now has a specialized pediatric facility, but it doesn’t come close to matching the vision the Goodwins had.

    I was hopeful that Goodwin, who is likely the wealthiest man in Richmond despite having given away hundreds of millions of dollars already, would find another local cause to shower his riches upon. And perhaps he does have other projects in mind. (He and Alice recently gave $5 million to Mary Baldwin University to establish a doctor of nursing program.) But his latest mega-gift of $250 million will not benefit any Virginia institution. It will kickstart a national cancer research foundation called Break Through Cancer… in Boston. (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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