Bacon's Rebellion

  • Caution: Speed Humps Ahead

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A pattern of alternating white and yellow wave-like shapes arranged in rows against a black background.

    by David Saunders

    Problem: There’s a rise in pedestrian accidents.

    Solution: Install speed humps that force drivers to slow down.

    Sounds like an excellent plan. What could possibly go wrong? 

    If you drive in and around the City of Richmond, you’ll notice that the new administration has been placing speed humps (what used to be known as speed bumps) all over the city. Most potholes are still there, but Public Works is feverishly constructing tire-busting, suspension-harming, first responder-slowing and general-nuisance asphalt ramps in “high-traffic corridors.”

    Instead of doing the obvious thing — enforcing the existing speeding laws — the city (after careful consideration for more than five years) produced its Final Report on the so-called Neighborhood Traffic Management Program (NMTP) in 2022. The report is “the result of an extensive outreach program initiated by the City’s Department of Transportation Services (now in the Department of Public Works) to solicit input from the City’s residents, from the Transportation and Technology Council Standing Committee (now called the Land Use, Housing, and Transportation Council Standing Committee), from the City Planning Commission and from the City Council.” Sounds like hundreds of people were involved in this hodgepodge.

    (more…)

  • Outrage Over Reason at UVA Law

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    “Are we teaching people to think or just teaching them to judge?”

    At a recent Federalist Society panel discussion, UVA Law professor Xiao Wang described the response from students and colleagues to his role in winning a unanimous ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in Ames vs. Ohio Youth Services. The ruling ended the “heightened burden” requirement for heterosexuals to prove discrimination in employment cases.

    Money quote: “Our job [as law professors] is to teach the children, not be the children.”

  • Did U.S. Supreme Court Kill Spanberger’s Redistricting Plan?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Paul Goldman

    A political map of Virginia showing various congressional districts, overlaid with flames, highlighting a contentious atmosphere around redistricting.
    Image credit: Chat GPT

    The legal experts who say yesterday’s decision on Texas redistricting allows Virginia to do mid-decade redistricting are wrong. I warned months ago the Supremes would okay Texas but not Virginia. Those experts who think otherwise need to read prior election law cases. 

    There is a long history of the High Court rejecting major electoral changes enacted after the campaign season is in full swing. Starting on January 1, the 2026 Virginia congressional campaign officially begins under the existing district boundaries. By my calculations, the earliest the proposed new districts can become law would be around May 1.

    Thus, the campaign will have been ongoing for 4 months in the old districts. The districts put in place by a non-partisan process. The districts voters have become accustomed to. 

    Let’s assume the required 3-Judge Court approves the new Spanberger districts on June 1. The Republicans will appeal directly to the United States Supreme Court as the law allows in redistricting cases. We can assume the Supreme Court will stay the lower court order. This means the old districts will still be in effect.

    Let’s further assume the Supreme Court rules takes up the case and on July 1. Election day is barely 5 months away. In this five-month period, the parties must conduct their nomination processes, independent candidates must be allowed to collect signatures to file to be on the ballot, and a myriad of other mandatory actions must be taken as required to ensure fair elections and informed voters.

    Most importantly, all this needs to be done prior to early voting starting in late September.

    Meaning: the Supreme Court would have to approve new districts less than three months before the voting actually starts.

    (more…)

  • Sen. Mark Warner Pledged To Serve Just Two Terms.

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    That Was 29 Years Ago.

    Portrait of a man in a suit smiling, with an American flag and a Virginia state flag in the background.

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Lucky us.

    Democrat Senator and full-time whiner, Mark Warner, announced Tuesday that he’s running for a fourth term.

    Sigh.

    This 70-year-old multi-millionaire businessman has been sitting in the Senate (when he isn’t in his car making cringy videos about how much he hates Trump) since 2008.

    Although he initially presented himself as a moderate “Blue Dog”Democrat, it wasn’t long before he revealed himself to be a partisan hack. Six years into his Senate career, during a dogfight over control of the Virginia State Senate, Warner jumped into the fray and nearly lost the next election.

    In an October 2014 column headlined “So Long Mr. Above-It-all, Warner Is A Political Operative After All” I expressed my, ah, disappointment.

    Just like that, it’s gone.

    Sen. Mark Warner’s carefully crafted persona, that is. The bipartisan brand he relentlessly burnished from his earliest days in the Governor’s Mansion has now all but evaporated. So has his image as an ineffective, but guileless, U.S. senator whose specialty was reaching across the aisle.     Continue reading.

  • Scott Pio’s 95 Theses

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Mark Peake’s resignation is only the beginning for a true Republican Reformation.

    A smiling man with short hair wearing a black robe stands beside a wooden wall, holding a hammer and pointing at a large paper that appears to be a document or proclamation.

    by Ken Reid

    Legend has it that Augustinian priest Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation  on Oct. 31, 1517, by nailing his 95 Theses to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany  — which urged substantial reform of the Roman Catholic Church and power of the papacy.

    In reality, his Ninety-five Theses was titled:  “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences,” and was not nailed to any door, according to Wikipedia.  

    However, Luther’s activist manner and outrage at the Roman Catholic Church launched a necessary Reformation that made Christianity and humanity better over time.  

    Today, a conservative activist in Virginia, who also is very passionate and lacks political correctness, has issued a call to reform the Republican Party of Virginia in wake the recent statewide election debacle

    I am not equating Loudoun County Republican Committee Chairman Scott Pio with Luther, but reformation of the RPV, its State Central Committee and entire focus is critically needed, or else Virginia is destined to be a corrupt, one-party Democrat state for years to come, and thus unlivable for millions.

    (more…)

  • Released Without Charges

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    by

    James A. Bacon

  • The SCC Decides: Dominion’s Rates and Profits Go Up, New Rules on Data Centers

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner,

    The massive data centers behind a growing energy crunch in Virginia will begin to pay substantially more for electricity in Dominion Energy’s territory, but not until 2027. The State Corporation Commission’s (SCC) approval of a new rate structure for the largest users will probably only intensify debates about what is their “fair share.” 

    On November 25, the Commission issued its final order on a Dominion general rate review, approving the new GS-5 rate class for the large digital customers and a general rate increase for all customers. It was the same day the SCC approved another Dominion application, this one to build a contested natural gas generation plant in Chesterfield County.  

    It wrapped up the first general review of the utility’s revenues, profits and operating rules since the 2023 General Assembly had relaxed some of the mandates it had imposed to protect the utility’s profits. At the time, the Thomas Jefferson Institute praised the discretion returned to the SCC, but warned it would not lower customer costs, despite promises to that effect. The coming price hikes might have been worse, however, without that added independence.   

    The bottom line for consumers is their bills will rise as of January 1 and then will rise again a year later. Over 2026 and 2027, the utility can collect more than $1.3 billion more from its 2.8 million customers through higher base rates. The SCC also approved an increase in the utility’s authorized profit margin, from a 9.7 to 9.8 percent return on equity.  

    For a residential consumer using 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity, a typical month for many, the base rate will rise $11.24 on January 1 and another $2.36 on January 1, 2027. There will be comparable cost increases in the customer categories for businesses of all sizes, as well. The rising cost of doing business usually ends up adding to prices for the customers of those businesses.   

    The higher authorized return on equity will also apply to all the utility’s various rate adjustment clauses, such as the separate charges it imposes to pay for the offshore wind construction, all the recent solar projects it has added and now the approved Chesterfield County natural gas generator. The Chesterfield project will also spark a price hike next month, initially another 60 cents per 1,000 kWh but quickly rising to over $2.   

    (more…)

  • The “Gay Marriage Amendment” Does Much More Than Protect Gay Marriage

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • AI Comes For That All-Important Christmas Card Photo

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A man and a woman in Santa costumes sit at a table outdoors, holding mugs and wearing sunglasses. A small dog is sitting in the man's lap, and there are orange trees in the background.

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Every summer I beg my family to pose for a group shot on the beach wearing Santa hats.

    It would be such a cute Christmas card picture, I insist.

    They stubbornly refuse to cooperate, so I’m stuck trying to get that perfect picture four weeks before Christmas.

    It never works. Someone closes their eyes, someone looks away, someone else frowns.

    As we move into the holiday season lots of folks have the same simple dream. They long for a single family photograph where the whole gang is looking at the camera. Smiling in unison and in matching clothes without stains. And wouldn’t it be nice if the family dog wasn’t admiring his private parts at the very moment the shutter clicks?

    Too much to ask?

    Not any more.

    The Wall Street Journal’s tech editor, Nicole Nguyen wrote a piece yesterday headlined, “I Fixed My Bad Family Photos. Here’s How to Do It—and When to Stop. New AI-powered tools from Google, Adobe, Apple and others can improve group shots and fun selfies. They can also make them terrifying.”

    Continue reading.

  • About Those Jobs Americans Don’t Want to Do….

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    How many are jobs the American education system just isn’t training them to do?

    How many of the jobs that Virginians “don’t want to do” are jobs that Virginia’s K-12 system doesn’t prepare them for?

  • Gas Approval Infuriates a Huge Donor to Democrats, Elates Another

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner,

    Rendering of Chesterfield project from Dominion’s public website.

    The State Corporation Commission (SCC) was able to approve Dominion Energy Virginia’s application for a needed natural gas generation facility because the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) includes a safety valve. If energy reliability is threatened, the prohibitions on natural gas at the heart of that law can be waived. 

    One of the largest donors to the new Democratic political trifecta soon to take power in Richmond quickly threatened to seek that provision’s removal from the law. In response to the SCC’s November 25 final order in favor of the Chesterfield County plant, the activist and lobbying group Clean Virginia wrote: “If this is the decision the Commission came to under existing rules, then it is upon Virginia’s elected leaders to better align these rules with the interests of all Virginians.” 

    Clean Virginia gave more than $5 million to Democratic candidates in the November 4 election, half of that total to the newly elected governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. Lieutenant Governor-elect Gazala Hashmi ($300,000 from Clean Virginia) quickly put out her own statement complaining the Commission was “ignoring the Commonwealth’s policy on environmental justice, endangering the public health and safety…” Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger ($1.2 million from Clean Virginia) did not issue a statement.   

    An even larger donor responsible for helping Democrats take complete political control will be on the other side of any effort to skuttle that part of the VCEA. Dominion gave $8.7 million to the party’s candidates, with the money targeted to members of the legislature. Speaker of the House Don Scott of Portsmouth and his political committee received $2.35 million from Dominion.  

    (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A split image comparing childhood activities in 1970 and 2025: the top shows children riding in the back of a vintage Dodge pickup truck, while the bottom features toddlers in protective gear playing in a sandbox with colorful buckets.

    See more memes at The Bull Elephant

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Close-up image of crispy bacon strips with a humorous text overlay that reads, 'THERE IS NO "WE" IN BACON. SO DONT EVEN ASK.'

  • Apology

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    I have deleted a post, based upon a tweet on X, highlighting the teaching of a course on “whiteness” at the University of Virginia based on an article in UVA Today. That article was published in 2014, hence irrelevant to current-day controversies. Thanks to commenter Irrwuz for pointing that out. I am embarrassed by the oversight. My apologies to readers. — JAB

  • Cultural Imperialism in Fairfax County

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

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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