Bacon's Rebellion

  • Major Impacts of Northam’s War against Teachers

    Posted on

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    sherlockj

    Federal school funding threatened; Democrats and unions in a bind; Lawsuits coming

    Timing is Everything

    by James C. Sherlock

    Ralph Northam declared on August 30 of this year that Virginia’s schools are systemically racist and that teachers are presumptively racist and must be treated and monitored.

    In addition to threatening to create turmoil in the schools and damage to the very students he apparently meant to help, the Governor has potentially kicked over a hornets’ nest worse than he stirred up with his infamous infanticide interview that resulted in the release of his blackface yearbook photo. 

    And he may have set Virginia up for federal demands for repayments of Department of Education funds and related fines. At stake is a breathtaking amount of money that includes CARES Act funding, all of which has been contingent on compliance with the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    The documented facts may also have put Democrats and their allies (in that word’s traditional and critical race theory definitions) in a large political bind.

    (more…)

  • Boomerang: Opioid Overdoses Surge

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    When governments shut down economic and social activity to quell the spread of the COVID-19 virus, Bacon’s Rebellion has frequently warned, they run the risk of engendering unintended consequences. We have predicted negative impacts from job loss and social isolation on mental health, substance abuse, domestic abuse, and suicide. Just because state government doesn’t report those numbers real-time, as it does with COVID-19 cases, doesn’t mean the impacts aren’t real.

    Thanks to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, we do have data on opioid overdoses at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. The surge is dramatic and impossible to ignore.

    While overall emergency room visits declined 29% between March and June 2020 compared to the same period the year before, nonfatal opioid overdoses leaped 123%. (more…)

  • No, You Can’t Use Public Streets as Billboards

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    James A. Bacon

    Aerial rendering of proposed “Baby Lives Matter” mural

    by James A. Bacon

    Last month Venture Richmond, a nonprofit organization promoting Richmond’s downtown, obtained approval from the Planning Commission to paint a 200-foot-“Black Lives Matter” street mural on East Grace Street. Then Mike Dickenson, candidate for City Council, submitted an application to paint a “Baby Lives Matter” mural in front of Richmond Planned Parenthood.

    After a closed meeting earlier this month, the planning commission reversed its previous approval of the “Black Lives Matter” approval, and Venture Richmond withdrew its application.

    Dickenson told Virginia Public Media that he was trying to make a point: “If you allow one, you have to allow all.” (more…)

  • Special Prosecutor to Investigate Stoney Contract

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    James A. Bacon

    Smedley Crane & Rigging crew, sub-contracted by NAH LLC, dismantling the JEB Stuart statue.

    A Richmond Circuit Court judge has appointed an August County prosecutor to investigate whether Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney broke any laws when he awarded a gave a $1.8 million contract to remove Civil War statues.

    Richmond Councilwoman Kim Gray, who is running for mayor against Stoney, had requested an investigation, and Commonwealth Attorney Colette McEachin had referred the matter to Circuit Court Judge Joi Taylor.

    “All I can tell you at this early stage is that we will investigate the matter in an unbiased way, and take whatever action is appropriate given what we find,” said Martin, a former Richmond prosecutor who moved to Augusta in 2014 , reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. (more…)

  • Northam Labels Virginia’s Teachers Racists

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    sherlockj

    No word on teacher Pam Northam’s status

    by James C. Sherlock

    Trouble at the dinner table?

    Governor Northam on August 24, 2020 declared Virginia’s schools guilty of systemic (structural) racism and declared his intention to “build antiracist school communities.”  

    He was addressing the #EdEquity VA Virtual Summit – Courage, Equity and Antiracism hosted by Virginia Secretary of Education Atif Qarni and State Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane.

    (more…)

  • Permanent COVID Reg Called “The Fifth Dragon”

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    Most Virginia employers probably have not read, let alone fully complied with, the emergency temporary standard on protecting their employees from COVID-19 adopted back in July. Yet the public comment period on the permanent version of the rules, which can carry major sanctions, closes this Friday.

    Only twenty comments had been filed as of Monday morning, half of them anonymous. So far, the proposed permanent version is not generating the level of activity that surrounded the proposed temporary rule. The Department of Labor and Industry’s Safety and Health Code Board allowed no public hearing before adoption, only written comments.

    File a comment on the proposed permanent standard here. You can read the comments to date here. The proposed permanent standard can be read here.

    (more…)

  • A Capitalist Solution to Food Deserts

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    James A. Bacon

    Militant agriculture

    by James A. Bacon

    Yesterday, channeling the spirit of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, I asked what a young person should do if he or she wanted to make the world a better place. Broadly speaking, there are three approaches. One is activism in which people who, informed by a desire to improve the lives of those less fortunate than themselves, lobby for reformist government policies and create philanthropic programs to address perceived needs. Another is militancy. Convinced that the entire system is corrupt, militants waste little time ameliorating the condition of individuals but seek to overthrow the established order. A third approach is capitalism, in which entrepreneurs find creative ways to meet previously unmet needs.

    Activist agriculture

    We need more entrepreneurs.

    If Virginia has an affordable housing crisis, we can’t solve the problem in the long run by passing eviction laws or enacting more government-subsidized housing programs. We need entrepreneurs who can find innovative ways to create lower-cost housing. If lower-income Virginians are afflicted by payday lenders charging high fees and interest rates, we can’t address the credit needs of the poor by legislating payday lenders out of existence. We need entrepreneurs who find innovative, low-cost ways to extend small amounts of credit. (more…)

  • Special Interests Behind the Anti-Interest Candidate

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    Steve Haner

    MONEY IN POLITICS

    By Steve Haner

    Welcome to the current state of politics, where an incumbent preens as being free from special interest funding and their sworn enemy, all while the special interests spend millions seeking to tear down the challenger.

    House Bill 827, approved by the 2020 General Assembly, did not really provide additional employment protection for Virginia’s pregnant women. It created a new state-level bureaucratic shillelagh to use if they felt aggrieved, backed up by the threat of state lawsuits and punitive damages.  (more…)

  • The Undemocratic Origins of One Fairfax

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    James A. Bacon

    by Emilio Jaksetic

    On July 12, 2016, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors adopted a One Fairfax resolution to achieve “racial and social equity” and “direct the development of a racial and social equity policy for adoption.” The Board of Supervisor adopted the final One Fairfax Policy on November 20, 2017.

    The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) issued a history of the One Fairfax policy that is available on the Fairfax County government web site and the CSSP web site. A review of the CSSP document shows that One Fairfax was conceived, developed, and adopted without any meaningful effort at seeking the input or approval of the people of Fairfax County.

    The chronology and quotes in this essay are from the CSSP document, “One Fairfax: A Brief History of a County-Wide Plan to Advance Equity and Opportunity,” December 2018.

    In 2009, Fairfax County government commissioned CSSP to analyze the Fairfax County juvenile justice system. The CSSP analysis concluded that problems with the juvenile justice system were contributed to by “structural and institutional factors across County agencies and institutions.” (more…)

  • Shun Abstract Universalism, Embrace Risk

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    I don’t always agree with him, but I regard Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of “The Black Swan,” Antifragility,” and “Skin in the Game,” among other works) as the most original and innovative thinker of our era. He is one of the very few people I follow on Twitter. In today’s Sunday sermon, permit me to highlight an excerpt from his writings that summarizes many of my own sentiments:

    When young people who “want to help mankind” come to me asking, “What should I do? I want to reduce poverty, save the world,” and similar noble aspirations at the macro-level my suggestion is:

    1. Never engage in virtue signaling;
    2. Never engage in rent-seeking;
    3. You must start a business. Put yourself on the line, start a business.

    Yes, take risk, and if you get rich (which is optional), spend your money generously on others. We need people to take (bounded) risks. The entire idea is to move the descendants of Homo sapiens away from the macro, away from abstract universal aims, away from the kind of social engineering that brings tail risks to society. (more…)

  • What Drives Turnover Among School Principals?

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    James A. Bacon

    Source: Virginia Principal Retention, Attrition and Mobility Study

    by James A. Bacon

    Most principals of Virginia public schools — 70% — are “generally satisfied” with their jobs, although half work 60 or more hours and two-thirds feel like they spend most of their time solving immediate problems rather than creating great schools. Those are some of the findings of a survey of 467 public school principals by the Virginia Foundation for Educational leadership.

    However, one in seven (14%) responded that “the stress and disappointments involved in being a principal at this school aren’t really worth it,” and one out of four (26%) said they did not have as much enthusiasm for the job as when they began. Remarkably, one in ten (11%) answered, “I think about staying home from school because I’m just too tired to go.”

    A significant issue for many principals is school discipline. Four out of five (81%) reported the necessity of dealing with student acts of disrespect for teachers at least once a month, and more than half (53%) deal with physical conflicts among students at least monthly. Large percentages also reported student bullying and verbal abuse of teachers. (more…)

  • The Trojan Horse Amendment

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    By Dick Hall-Sizemore

    I need some help sorting out a dilemma I find myself in.

    I am strongly in favor of the concept of authorizing an independent commission to draw legislative district lines. On the other hand, I really do not like the proposed amendment to the Virginia Constitution that would create such a commission.

    During the debate last session, two objections were the most prominent. The members of the Legislative Black Caucus objected strenuously that the proposed amendment did not guarantee that minorities would be represented on the commission. I am not swayed by that argument. There is ample opportunity to have minorities appointed as citizen members. Furthermore, the voting rights of minorities are protected by the Voting Rights Act. If any redistricting plan produced by the commission unfairly violated the voting rights of minorities, it would be struck down by the federal courts. The Republicans found this out a couple of years ago. (more…)

  • A Backlash at Last

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Scene on the Lawn at the University of Virginia.

    A message addressed to “Friends of UVA” by Bert Ellis, class of 1975, is passing around virally by email. Reed Fawell posted the message in the comments on a previous post but did not mention Ellis by name. Given the fact that Ellis is a prominent and wealthy alumnus — he is CEO of Ellis Capital — his opinions matter. I am republishing his open letter on the blog because everyone needs to see what has become of “Mr. Jefferson’s University.” — JAB

    This is a sign posted on a Lawn Room door right now. It has been up like this for about 2 weeks. I sent the picture to President Ryan a week ago and asked if the University was going to permit such a sign to stay up on such a public place as the Lawn. I told President Ryan that I absolutely support this student’s right to his/her political opinions and hir/her right to express them on his/her Lawn Room door but not the profanity. Ryan responded immediately and told me “We’re working on it”.

    This past Friday I went to Cville to knock on this door (room 36 East Lawn) and discuss the sign with the current occupant….if the sign was still there. It was. Not only is the University not going to remove it, they have assigned 2 UVA Ambassadors … to patrol the Lawn and prevent anybody else from taking it down, ie me. The University has determined this is her first amendment right. (more…)

  • The COVID Made Me Do It

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    With apologies to Flip Wilson: the covid made me do it

    by James A. Bacon

    To nobody’s surprise, we are getting confirmation that lower-income students are suffering the most from the way colleges and universities are responding to the  COVID-19 challenge. Higher-ed enrollment has dropped significantly this fall, and the drop-outs are skewing toward the lower end of the income spectrum.

    Some 100,000 fewer high school seniors completed financial aid applications to attend college this year, according to a National College Attainment Network analysis. Also, tuition deposits at 100 four-year colleges tracked by education research firm EAB are down 8.4% among families making less than $60,000 per year.

    Those numbers are quoted by a Washington Post article highlighting the enrollment trend. Notice, though, how the Post spins the story (my emphasis):

    The lower enrollment figures are the latest sign of how the economic devastation unleashed by the coronavirus crisis has weighed more heavily on lower-income Americans and minorities, who have suffered higher levels of unemployment and a higher incidence of covid-19.

    (more…)

  • Two of Five Virginians Say Nix to COVID-19 Vaccine

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Don’t count on a vaccine to end the COVID-19 epidemic — not in Virginia anyway. Four out of 10 Virginians say they are likely to not get a vaccine, even if approved by the Food and Drug Administration and made available for free. Only 58% say they are “somewhat” or “very” likely to do so, according to a poll released yesterday by the Virginia Commonwealth University school of government.

    Last month State Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver said that he planned to mandate a COVID-19 immunization once it was safely released to the public. Focused on “accessibility, affordability and fair distribution” of a vaccine, Governor Ralph Northam said he was not planning a mandate at that time. As it turns out, two thirds of those responding to the VCU poll said they oppose requiring everyone to get a COVID-19 vaccine. 

    As I have blogged previously, there are legitimate questions to ask about the efficacy of any vaccine. No vaccine is 100% effective. Various experts have opined that a vaccine likely to meet FDA approval would immunize between 75% and 90% of people exposed to the coronavirus. People have to balance the potential protection against the risks of side effects such as fever, fatigue and headaches.

    In the poll, 63% of Independents and 59% of Democrats said they were very or somewhat likely to get the vaccine, while only 49% of Republicans saying they were. It will be fascinating to see if those numbers flip as the vaccine issue becomes polarized along partisan lines, as appears to be happening. (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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