Bacon's Rebellion

  • Legislative Persistence and Character

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Del. Frank Hargrove, Sr.

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Twenty years ago, a senior member of the House of Delegates introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty. The introduction of such legislation was unusual in itself; even more unusual was the patron: Frank Hargrove, a Republican delegate from Hanover County.

    Hargrove, who had been in the General Assembly for 18 years by that time, seemed an unlikely candidate to introduce a bill to abolish the death penalty. He was a staunch conservative and had even introduced a bill years earlier to bring back public hangings. However, regarding his prior beliefs about the death penalty, he told a reporter, “My stand was one of significant uncertainty. My own logic told me it wasn’t right, but it seemed to be what the general public wanted in terms of dealing with these criminals. But [my stand] was very shaky.” He explained that his bill on public hangings was motivated by his feeling that the public had become too comfortable with executions.  (more…)

  • Most Virginia Public Universities Score Low in Board Accountability

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Five Virginia universities score an “F” in a rating of governing board accountability and transparency released today by the Partners for College Affordability and Public Trust. They include Virginia Tech, James Madison University, Virginia Military Institute, Virginia State University and Longwood University.

    George Mason University set the pace for board accountability with a B+. The University of Virginia scored a B.

    The report was released in conjunction with the filing of a bill, HB 2120, which would provide greater public access to university board records, to meetings and even to board members. The bill would ensure that students, parents and the public could view board meetings remotely, email board members, and provide public comments before major board decisions are made, not just when tuition & fees are discussed.

    “Service on a Board of Visitors for a Virginia public university is a highly coveted political appointment, but it is also a position of serious responsibility,” said Del. Mark Keam, D-Vienna, who sponsored the bill. (more…)

  • Recreational Marijuana Soon to Be De-Facto Legal in Northern Virginia

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    djrippert

    Photo credit: Rip Dog Photography

    by DJ Rippert

    Elections have consequences. The recent presidential election along with the Georgia run-off election has secured Democratic control of Congress with no serious risk of presidential veto. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., has tried for years to establish a recreational marijuana marketplace only to be thwarted by Republicans in Congress. Finally, in the 2020 session Virginia’s General Assembly passed legislation that made the possession of small amounts of marijuana punishable by a fine so low that it could hardly be compared to a parking ticket ($25). This combination of events will soon have Northern Virginians buying marijuana in D.C. and bringing the weed back to the Old Dominion to consume. D.C. will profit while Virginia gets nothing. (more…)

  • Bacon Bits: Why-Virginians-Are-Losing-Faith-in-Government Edition

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    The state ends at Roanoke. It’s a long way from Clintwood, county seat of Dickenson County on the Kentucky border, to Richmond. Seven other state capitals are closer. As an old saying goes, “The people in Richmond think the state ends at Roanoke.” There has been nothing in recent events to dissuade them from that sentiment. An election to replace state Sen. Ben Chafin, who died of COVID-related illness, won’t take place until after the 2021 General Assembly session, effectively depriving tens of thousands of voters in the coalfield county and neighboring jurisdictions of representation during what is shaping up to be a consequential session. What was it that Thomas Jefferson said in his bill of complaints about the tyrannical King George? Ah, yes, “He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected.” Meanwhile, fearing potential violence, state officials are closing Capitol Square in Richmond to the public Monday, a day when constituents customarily lobby lawmakers. Gun-rights activists not welcome.

    Your public servants at work. Bruce Biondo, manager of the Virginia Rider Training Program in the Department of Motor Vehicles, has been sentenced to two years and four months in prison. Bondo admitted to receiving $89,000 and the use of a Ford F-450 pickup truck in exchange for helping one company win a motorcycle-rider training contract worth $4.1 million and another a $135,000 contract, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. I suspect there’s a whole lot more skullduggery in DMV contracts. An all-day driver-safety program I attended to avoid getting a speeding ticket was a joke, and I experienced endless frustration dealing with a state-approved driver-training program that enrolled my son. I have long suspected that the administration of contracts and licensure is rife with cronyism. The Bondo sentencing confirms my suspicions.

    We want you back, but mostly we want your money. Virginia Tech students will return to the Blacksburg campus for the spring semester, but only 6% of classes will be held in-person, reports the Roanoke Times. Meanwhile, Virginia Commonwealth University will commence the spring semester with all classes taught remotely, says the Richmond Times-Dispatch. (more…)

  • How Texas Gets Standing Next Time: NPV

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    When Texas went to the United States Supreme Court last month complaining about the election processes in four other states, the case was dismissed on the issue of standing. The Court correctly replied Texas had no right to complain about how the Electoral College votes were determined in other states but could only control selection of its own presidential electors.

    But what if Texas had been part of an interstate compact that required it to choose electors based on which candidate won the highest number of votes in the entire nation? That is what the National Vote Compact does: States that join, once enough agree, ignore the will of their own voters. They will certify electors pledged to the candidate with the most votes overall, even if that person failed to win in that state.  Suddenly they have a larger stake in how those other states run elections.  (more…)

  • COVID-19 Vaccinations in the United States

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID Data Tracker

    As of Jan. 13, 2021, Virginia ranked 46th among U.S. states and territories in the per capita administration of the COVID-19 vaccine. Compare Virginia with West Virginia. Maybe West Virginia knew what it was doing back in 1861. — JAB

  • Spanglish on the Website, Vaccines on the Shelf

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Here’s a tip for Virginia’s Department of Health: There are roughly 732,000 Hispanics living in Virginia. Consider hiring one of them.

    Put him or her in charge of the Spanish language pages on the department’s website where critical public health information is displayed.

    Because, according to news reports, the high school Spanish student doing the work now may have made a colossal error. Seems the page tells Virginia’s Spanish-speaking population that the COVID-19 vaccine is not necessary.

    What it should say is that the vaccine is not MANDATORY.

    Ay caramba!  (more…)

  • Northam’s Good Move: End Executions

    Posted on

    by

    Peter Galuszka

    The Martinsville Seven

    By Peter Galuszka

    Governor Ralph Northam will propose legislation to ban executions in the state. The move could end decades of systemic racism in the criminal justice system.

    “I’ve strongly about this for a long time,” he was quoted as saying. The bill will be taken up by the General Assembly, which met in its 2021 session today.

    If the bill passes, it would make Virginia the only Southern state to ban executions.

    According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, 113 executions have been conducted in the state since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed executions to resume in 1976. Virginia’s vigorous efforts to kill those convicted of capital crimes gave it the dishonorable distinction of being No. 2 in the country after Texas which had 570 executions in that time frame.

    Historically, African Americans have been executed at rates that exceed their numbers in the general population. (more…)

  • Where in the Virginia Department of Education is the Kids’ Interests Division (KID)?

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    James Lane
    Superintendent of Public Instruction

    There have been two iterations of relaxation of Virginia SOL rules issued so far this school year by the Department of Education.  They offer perfect roadmaps to the future under the current leadership of that Department.

    School Accreditation Waived and Refusal to Take SOLs Authorized

    The first step was potentially the most consequential. On November 6, 2020, the Superintendent of Pubic Instruction issued the following memorandum: (more…)

  • Northam Leaves GOP Senate Seat Vacant to Ensure Progressive Dominance

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Sen. Ben Chafin

    by Hans Bader

    Virginia’s state senate had a narrow Democratic majority, with 21 Democrats and 19 Republicans. Then, on January 1, Republican Sen. Ben Chafin died. Virginia’s Democratic governor has deliberately delayed filling the seat so that progressive bills will be able to pass the state legislature more easily, and without being moderated by the amendment process.

    Keeping the seat vacant will make it easier to pass progressive bills even when not all Democrats vote for them — such as when a relatively moderate Democratic senator votes against a bill to release criminals earlier. That occasionally happened in 2020, such as when a Democratic senator voted against lowering the age of geriatric release for some criminals to age 50.

    Keeping the seat vacant ignores the governor’s duty to call special elections to fill vacancies that result from a legislator dying. Virginia Code Section § 24.2-216 provides: “The Governor shall issue a writ of election to fill the [House or Senate] vacancy. If the vacancy occurs during the session of the General Assembly, the Speaker of the House of Delegates or the President pro tempore of the Senate, as the case may be, shall issue the writ unless the respective house by rule or resolution shall provide otherwise.”

    (Update: A special election was announced this afternoon, for the ridiculously late date of March 23 — after the regular legislative session ends! That’s nearly three months after the seat became vacant. By contrast, Governor Northam filled a Democratic seat in Prince William County less than a month after a Democratic legislator resigned. Delegate Jennifer Foy resigned from the House of Delegates on December 8, 2020. Her successor was elected in a special election on January 6, 2021.)

    (more…)

  • Welcome to the Foxhole

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    I just posted this response to a relative who asked me to read a post by a left wing professor blaming Q’Anon for the violence in the capitol.

    I read the article. I haven’t read enough of (name of the author) to characterize him, so I won’t.

    I will, however address the violent fringes of American politics.

    When I look at the pasty, scruffy-looking college students and millennial anarchists from this summer’s violence, I see a threat but one easily contained by police if let to do their jobs. The issue is that the violent left had political cover.  The mayors of the left could not bring themselves to effectively deal with their violence because they agreed with their politics.  

    It is those leftist extremists and apolitical looters against which the nation’s cities boarded up their stores and restaurants right before the election. Not in case Donald Trump lost, but in case he won. A threat, but with political permission manageable because they are not generally individually tough or skilled at violence. If blue collar unions had backed and participated in that violence, it would have been a different story, but they did not.

    When I look at the violent right, that is a completely different matter. These men and women are rough street fighters, many with backgrounds that have taught them how to exert violence efficiently and effectively.  (more…)

  • Republican Nomination for Guv Now a Free-for-All

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Glenn A. Youngkin

    by James A. Bacon

    The Republican race for governor gets more interesting by the day. Initially, it looked like a race between two well-known politicians: former Speaker of the House Kirk Cox and Chesterfield Senator Amanda Chase — an establishment figure versus a Trump insurgent.

    Then Merle Rutledge, an African American from Southside, threw his hat in the ring. Admittedly, he’s a fringe candidate who seems to be running a one-man campaign. The media have consistently ignored his existence, never mentioning his name when listing the Republican candidates, which, frankly, strikes me as kind of racist. But he is colorful, as anyone who visits his campaign website can see.

    On Monday Glenn Youngkin, who has childhood roots in Chesterfield County and lives in Northern Virginia, officially announced his candidacy. Independently wealthy after a career with the Carlyle Group, the Washington, D.C.-based private equity giant, he retired in September to focus on “community and public service efforts.” He and his wife launched the nonprofit Virginia Ready Institute to retain workers idled by COVID-19.

    Youngkin has never held public office, which he sees as a selling point. Virginians are tired of the political games they’ve seen on the right and the left over the last few years,” Youngkin’s campaign manager Garrison Coward told The Washington Post. “The political insiders have been smothering Virginians’ best interests with their special interests. Glenn is a breath of fresh air that will bring conservative solutions to everyday problems.” He has the background and looks of someone who can win support in the business community. (more…)

  • Shut Down All Public Schools Until Teachers Can Be Vaccinated, VEA Demands

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Virginia Education Association President James J. Fedderman

    by James A. Bacon

    Virginia Education Association President James J. Fedderman has called for all public schools in Virginia to shift to all-virtual instruction until teachers and staff have been vaccinated. “Learning losses can be made up,” he said in a video statement. “Loss of life cannot be.”

    “Governor Northam this week said that getting Virginians vaccinated against COVID-19 is the best way to end this pandemic, rebuild our economy, and move the Commonwealth forward,” Fedderman said. “We call upon the Governor, school board, and school superintendents to keep all students and staff safe with virtual instruction until staff are vaccinated.”

    What concrete evidence did Fedderman present to justify the continuation of online learning? The rolling 7-day average of daily cases in Virginia now exceeds 5,000, according to the VEA web page accompanying his video, and more than 5,200 Virginians have died. Nationally, more people died of COVID-19 than any day since the pandemic began.

    In the video Fedderman also drew upon his personal experience. Over the holidays he said, his entire family was infected by the virus over the winter holiday. He spent two weeks getting barely two hours of sleep a night and lost 30 pounds from the “vicious disease.”

    Here are some of the facts he did not mention. (more…)

  • Calling All Teachers

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    One of the first beats I ever covered for a newspaper was Fairfax County Public Schools for The Washington Post in the early 1980s.

    I learned something almost immediately: Despite enjoying enviable job security, teachers are notoriously reticent about speaking to the press. They worry that if they’re critical of what’s going on in their schools they’ll be fired. Or reassigned. Or shunned in the faculty lounge.

    So most teachers just keep their heads down and keep teaching their students regardless of the difficult situations in their buildings.

    But even that hasn’t been easy since Gov. Ralph Northam closed the schools last March. Many teachers and students were unprepared for full-time virtual learning. They certainly weren’t prepared to reopen in the fall. Some schools are holding in-person classes, others reopened and are now closed, still others are struggling with the 10-month-long failed experiment in distance learning. (more…)

  • Can “Medium” Save Local Journalism?

    Posted on

    by

    djrippert

    Image by kalhh from Pixabay

    By DJ Rippert

    The medium is the message. Medium is an online publishing website founded by Evan Williams — who also co-founded Blogger and Twitter. The genre of Medium is sometimes called social journalism. As described in Wikipedia, social journalism “relies on community involvement, audience engagement, social newsgathering and verification, data and analytics, and relationship-building.” That’s all true. However, the biggest point is that authors get paid to write for Medium. Medium generates revenue by selling subscriptions at $5 per month. People who buy those subscriptions are called “members.” Members are eligible to enroll in Medium’s partner program. People in that program are eligible to earn money based on the level of engagement the author’s stories get from other members. While Medium keeps its payment algorithms secret most members believe that the amount paid is calculated based on the number of members who read the story and how long they spend reading it. In some ways Medium could be considered Uber for writers. It facilitates easy paid participation in the gig economy of writing. (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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