Bacon's Rebellion

  • Richmond Crusade: No Rubber Stamp for Kamras Contract Renewal

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Richmond City school Superintendent Jason Kamras, a white man, is super woke and rails frequently against systemic racism, but that hasn’t been enough to win him automatic allies in the Richmond Crusade for Voters, one of the city’s preeminent advocates of African American interests in the city.

    The School Board is negotiating with Kamras about a four-year contract extension. The Crusade has issued a press release noting that its board has several “major concerns”:

    1. Richmond Public Schools still ranks at the bottom, when compared to all Virginia public schools, for 2018-19 and 2019-20.
    2. The graduation rate for Richmond Public Schools was 76.85% in 2017; it dropped to 71.58% in 2020.
    3. No progress report or data regarding the Superintendent’s performance has been made available for either the School Board or public consideration.

    The Crusade is asking the school board to make public past and future evaluations, and recommends that Kamras be given a two-year extension on the contract “based on whether he has reached the benchmarks” recommended by the board. (more…)

  • The Washington Post’s Latest Hit Job on VMI

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    William Wanovich

    by James A. Bacon

    I don’t know what the Virginia Military Institute racism investigation ordered by Governor Ralph Northam will reveal. Perhaps it will turn up evidence that racism is as “relentless” as The Washington Post says it is. In the meantime, though, I can’t quite decide if it is hilarious or vomit-inducing to watch the Post and its intrepid reporter Ian Shapira shoehorning facts to fit its racism narrative. The harder the WaPo spins, the less inclined I am to believe a single word.

    Here’s the the headline from an article published three days ago: “VMI commandant to retire as racial reckoning continues.”

    It seems that Commandant William “Bill” Wanovich, who oversees military training for VMI’s 1,700 cadets, is retiring at the end of the academic year. Shapira frames his departure in the context of the investigation into what Northam called — on the basis of previous WaPo articles — the school’s “clear and appalling cultural of ongoing structural racism.” (more…)

  • Virginia Hospitals Demand More Transparency — for Healthcare Insurers

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Annual health care spending per person in Virginia is slightly below the national average — about $10,800 per person compared to $11,600 for the nation as a whole, but most of that advantage is eaten up by higher insurance costs, finds a new study by the Altarum Institute that was underwritten by the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association (VHHA).

    Among the major components of healthcare expenditures, spending on hospital services is 12% less per capita in Virginia than the national average, 18% less for nursing homes, and 3% less for physicians and clinical services. But Virginians spend 7% more per capita on prescription drugs, says the study, based on 2019 numbers. Overall, per capita health spending on providers is 7% lower in Virginia than it is nationally. (more…)

  • Biden Ups Vax Plan. Will Northam Be Ready?

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    djrippert

    Image by torstensimon from Pixabay

    by DJ Rippert

    Joltin’ Joe. President Joe Biden increased his planned administration of the Coronavirus vaccine from 100 million doses in his first 100 days in office to 150 million doses. Given that the United States is already distributing around one million doses per day Biden almost had to increase his plan if he wanted to make good on his campaign promise of an aggressive rollout of the vaccine. Biden added to his new plans by claiming that anybody who wants a Coronavirus vaccine will be able to get vaccinated by “spring.” Yet even Biden’s newly found optimism about the pace of vaccine distribution was insufficient for some people. An Op-Ed in the New York Times urged the president to strive for 200 million doses in his first 100 days.

    Unfortunately, the planned acceleration at the Federal level will be of little use in Virginia unless the Commonwealth finds a way to accelerate its administration of the vaccines received. As of yesterday, Virginia was dead last in administration of the vaccines it has already received. Number fifty out of fifty states. Or, number 52 out of 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico. This miserable performance obviously renders any acceleration by the Feds moot in Virginia. If we can’t administer more than 42.22% of the vaccines we received at a one million doses per day at the national level, what good will it do for the Feds to go to one-and-a-half million doses per day or even two million doses per day? The case could easily and logically be made that the accelerated distribution of vaccine doses by the Feds should be limited to states that have shown the competence to distribute the doses they have already received. That would clearly exclude Virginia. (more…)

  • Virginia: We’re Dead Last!

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    How do you know your stateโ€™s vaccine rollout is a complete clusterfart?

    When Catholic priests are Tweeting about it.

    https://twitter.com/inthelineofmel/status/1353827875888226304?s=20

    (more…)

  • We Finally Made It

    Posted on

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    sherlockj

    M. Norman Oliver M.D., Virginia Health Commissioner

    by James C. Sherlock

    We finally made it to where we were inevitably headed.

    From Beckerโ€™s Hospital Review four hours ago:

    “States ranked by percentage of COVID-19 vaccines administered: Jan. 25″

    “… As of 6 a.m. EST Jan. 24, a total of 41,411,550 vaccine doses have been distributed in the U.S., and 21,848,655 have been administered, or 52.76 percent…”

    “Below are the states ranked by the percentage of COVID-19 vaccines they’ve administered of those that have been distributed to them.”

    1. North Dakota
      Doses distributed to state: 86,750
      Doses administered: 73,175
      Percentage of distributed vaccines that have been administered: 84.35
    2. West Virginia
      Doses distributed to state: 243,100
      Doses administered: 202,883
      Percentage of distributed vaccines that have been administered: 83.46 …

    50.ย Virginia
    Doses distributed to state: 1,069,725
    Doses administered: 451,668
    Percentage of distributed vaccines that have been administered: 42.22

    (more…)

  • Industrial Escape from Green Energy Costs Blocked

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    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner

    Virginiaโ€™s major energy-intensive industries will not get a requested path to avoid some of the coming cost shock from the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). The bill that sought them a lifeline was tied to an anvil and sunk in a House of Delegates subcommittee today.

    It didnโ€™t even help when the Virginia Manufacturing Associationโ€™s president mentioned that California is seeing the same problem for its manufacturers and is working on similar relief. Virginia companies were admonished that โ€œthey donโ€™t want to pay their fair share,โ€ a phrase used by opponents more than once. A Dominion Energy lobbyist said that about her best customers. (more…)

  • Fix the Structurally Broken Virginia Government

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Great Seal of Virginia

    When offered a choice of reasons for failures of large scale government actions, your first choice should always be incompetence, not bad intentions.

    Big government requires competent legislatures, competent management and ย control of executive departments, apolitical oversight by attorneys general and objective studies of its failures if it has any hope of being efficient and effective.

    Absolutely no one after seeing the Virginia government reaction to COVID would accuse it of any of that. We need to fix it.

    Unintended consequences of legislation

    Readers just had an extended discussion over my column on the unintended consequences of minimum wage hikes.

    It should be not too much to ask that Virginia politicians demand a full study of the effects of legislation, including minimum wage legislation, that is guaranteed to have far-reaching effects on the state. But they do not do it in the case of minimum wage hikes.

    A structural problem in the General Assembly (more…)

  • The Gang That Couldn’t Stick Straight

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Credit: Bon Secours blog

    by Scott Lingamfelter

    Itโ€™s an amazing thing that a year after the emergence of a world-wide pandemic, science has yielded vaccines that could strangle the life out of COVID-19 and return America and the world to more normal conditions.ย Most vaccines take years of work to develop, test, and approve for public consumption.ย That is prudent in normal times.ย We are not in normal times, which is why the development of vaccines to combat COVID-19 is remarkable.ย Who would have believed such could be the case a year ago in America, where nothing moves quickly through our bureaucratic labyrinth?

    So, today we find ourselves poised to vaccinate millions of Americans from the threat of contracting COVID-19. Yet the roll-out of that effort appears to be nothing short of feckless, at least in some states like mine, Virginia, which at this writing is number 49th in the nation.

    Why? Health officials in my state quickly point to constraints in supply from federal agencies which are orchestrating the distribution of the vaccine across the nation. And it appears to be the case that the initial predictions of supply availability were inflated. However, that is an insufficient excuse for what is largely a poorly conceived effort to actually administer vaccinations. (more…)

  • Propagandizing Doth Not A Happy Historian Make

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Jock Yellott

    “Do you agree or disagree that college faculty are contaminating history with politics and producing closed minded, unscientific and illogical propaganda?”

    Dr. Ed Ayers, former president of the University of Richmond, a former Dean of Arts and Sciences at U Va, and among Virginia’s most accomplished and respected living historians, was asked that question last week.

    It came during the Q&A after the January 19, 2021 online membership meeting of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society. Dr. Ayers’sย  breezy, good-humored remarks about what he does and why he does can be viewed in the video above. (Dr. Ayers begins speaking at about minute 14; the question and his answer at 45.55, through 49:01).

    Dr. Ayer’s response, gently edited for clarity: (more…)

  • Criminal Law and Public Safety Bills of Interest

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    By Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Despite recently having a special session to devote to criminal justice reform, the General Assembly has a healthy docket of criminal law and public safety reform bills to consider this session. I have selected a few to highlight below. Unless otherwise noted, the bills are still in their original committees.

    Democratic Priorities

    Elimination of the death penaltyโ€”SB 1165 (Surovellโ€”Fairfax), HB 1779 (Carterโ€”Prince William), and HB 2263 (Mullinโ€”James City). The Senate bill has been reported out the Senate Judiciary Committee (why do they insist on changing longstanding committee names?) and is in Senate Finance (being a creature of habit, I will continue to use the former committee name, rather than Finance and Appropriations). (more…)

  • Vaccine Switcheroo Leaves Virginians Dazed and Confused

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    No, no, those are the stars of the movie “Dazed and Confused.” They just look like they work for the health department.

    by James A. Bacon

    It’s been 19 days since Governor Ralph Northam appointed Danny Avula, health department director for Richmond City and Henrico County, as Virginia’s vaccine “field general.” Given what appears to have been a total lack of planning for the vaccine rollout before his accession to the hot seat, it’s hardly reasonable to expect him to have wrung order out of chaos in such a short time. Nevertheless, confusion is the only way to describe the situation at present.

    While the Virginia Department of Health has established a reasonable set of guidelines for which ages and occupations should be prioritized to receive the vaccine, there is far less clarity about who is to give the shots, where to go to get them, or where to sign up to get them.

    There are many channels through which the 50 states have delivered the vaccine — doctors’ offices, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and drive-through centers. In the absence of Northam administration leadership, a system in Virginia coalesced around hospitals as the entities best organized to carry out the effort. According to today’s update of the VDH COVID-19 dashboard, a total of 475,000 shots have been given statewide. As of Jan. 19, hospitals had administered 234,400 of the vaccines. Were that figure brought up to date, it would be significantly higher. (more…)

  • It Shouldn’t Take Suicides to Reopen Schools

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Amazing!

    Five days into Joe Bidenโ€™s presidency crack New Yorkย Times reporters finally discovered what the rest of us with common sense knew almost a year ago: That closing public schools would lead to a mental health crisis among kids that would far outweigh the dangers posed by COVID-19.

    Of course The Times reporters knew this months ago. But publishing such heresy might have helped Trumpโ€™s re-election, since the president was also calling for schools to reopen. Better to let a few more kids fall into clinical depression than risk THAT.

    The Times focused on Clark County, Nevada, the fifth largest school system in the country. The tragic consequences of shuttered schools is not confined to Nevada.

    โ€œWhen we started to see the uptick in children taking their lives, we knew it wasnโ€™t just the Covid numbers we need to look at anymore,โ€ said Jesus Jara, the Clark County superintendent. โ€œWe have to find a way to put our hands on our kids, to see them, to look at them. Theyโ€™ve got to start seeing some movement, some hope.โ€

    (more…)

  • Unintended Consequences of Minimum Wage Hikes

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Credit: prescottenews

    by James C. Sherlock

    Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, and Del. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg, contributed an op-ed titled Home health workers at risk without legislative action this morning in the Virginian-Pilot. They will be surprised to read that I agree with every word.

    And that I would go farther.

    Unintended consequences in the government economy

    Lucas and Aird have authored a compelling, well-written narrative of the problems faced by home health workers and their employers under two Virginia programs that have not been reconciled:

    • the rise of the Virginia minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9.50 an hour, a 31% increase; and
    • the lack of a corresponding raise of the Medicaid reimbursement rate for home care workers.

    As the legislators point out: (more…)

  • COVID Vaccination Infrastructure Is Pathetically Inadequate

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kathleen Smith

    For the millions of dollars that have come to the Commonwealth for COVID-19, did anyone ever think about the infrastructure needed to rollout the most important aspect of a COVID response, the vaccine? According to The Virginia Mercury, The Virginia Department of Health hasnโ€™t developed a uniform playbook or guidance that health departments can follow when it comes to a COVID-19 vaccination.

    Here is an example of the lack of guidance. Go to the Alexandria website link provided by VDH. There is a place on the page that allows you to register for the vaccine. Go to the Crater website link provided by VDH, you find an article from April 2020 with no information on the how to register for the vaccine.

    Using the telephone number and email provided in the Progress Index for โ€œcontactingโ€ the health department as the Crater District moves into 1B, I left and sent my contact information as requested. One week later, NOTHING. I also called at 8:56 a.m. and was told by the person answering the phone that she could not put me through to the vaccine department until 9:00 a.m. I called back at 9:00 a.m., received the same person, who then took my name and telephone number and said someone would return my call. I am still waiting one week later. (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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