Bacon's Rebellion

  • Substandard Schooling for All!

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    File this under “You just can’t win.”

    Parents of Fairfax County school children have had enough. For decades these folks were accustomed to excellence in public education. They proudly sat atop the Virginia educational heap. Shoot, Fairfax is home to Thomas Jefferson High School, widely considered the best public high school in the country:

    “Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is a Fairfax County public magnet school so competitive that its 17-percent acceptance rate is identical to Georgetown University’s. Since 2008, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report have both ranked it the number-one high school in the country three times,” according to Washingtonian Magazine.

    So, imagine parents’ chagrin when they found that the county was completely unprepared for distance learning when the governor ordered the schools closed last spring. Fairfax County’s experiment in virtual education was a complete disaster.

    This is not what families in one of Virginia’s wealthiest counties expect or will tolerate.

    To make matters worse, militant teachers groups in Northern Virginia — including a bona fide union, the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers — made their opposition to in-person learning abundantly clear earlier this summer. (more…)

  • Do Summer Camps Warrant Bail-out Funds?

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    James A. Bacon

    Camp Mount Shenandoah: less screen time, more time outdoors

    by James A. Bacon

    A philosophical question to ponder: If the Commonwealth of Virginia shuts down an entire industry by executive order to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, what moral obligation does it have to help the businesses survive the epidemic?

    Literally no industry in Virginia has been more impacted by the emergency shutdown than overnight summer camps. Summer camps do not comprise a particularly big industry — one guesstimate is that 75 establishments generate in the realm of $100 million a year — so they cannot be said be be economically “essential.” But they are essential, camp advocates say, for the mental health of thousands of Virginia kids, who need physical activity and social interaction.

    Many industries have been slammed by the emergency shutdown. However, none but the summer camps have been entirely shuttered for all three phases. Camps generate 90% or more of total revenue from seven to 12 weeks during the summer, and if they are forced to close during that period, there is no way to make up for lost revenue. (more…)

  • Covid-19 Testing for Nursing Homes – the Strange Case of Heritage Hall

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    sherlockj

    By Carol J. Bova and James C. Sherlock

    The Department of Health and Human Services announced that it would begin to provide 2000 nursing homes with a point of care (POC) rapid-response testing assessment instrument and an initial supply of COVID-19 test assays starting July 20th.

    Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma said, “It gives nursing homes the ability to swiftly identify residents that need to be isolated and mitigate the spread of the virus.”

    Eventually, 15,000 analyzer instruments and an initial supply of SARS test assays for those instruments will be distributed nationally directly to nursing homes.

    Devices have been allocated to the first 23 of Virginia’s nearly 300 nursing homes.

    Heritage Hall. Tommy East is the President and CEO of American Healthcare, LLC, which controls Heritage Hall nursing homes. Mr. East is also listed as a director and officer for each Heritage Hall facility. He is the sole nursing home industry representative on the Virginia Board of Health.

    Seven of 18 Heritage Hall nursing homes made it to the head of the line for the first 23 analyzer systems and test assays distributed in Virginia by the CMS program. Heritage Hall is the largest Commonwealth-based operator of nursing homes.

    (more…)

  • As COVID Looms, W&M the Latest to Cut Executive Compensation

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    W&M President Katherine Rowe

    by James A. Bacon

    We won’t know for another week or two, when kids show up on campus, what enrollments will be at Virginia’s colleges and universities. Due to massive uncertainties engendered by the COVID-19 epidemic, no one is sure how many students who committed to attend will appear when dormitories open in the next week or two. Higher-ed institutions across the state are bracing for the worst. Indeed, uncertainty is so acute that some college presidents and senior officers are proactively taking pay cuts.

    College of William & Mary President Katherine Rowe and two senior colleagues, the university’s provost and chief operating officer, are the latest. Rowe, who earned $672,000 last year, is asking the Board of Visitors to reduce her compensation by 15% through the end of the year. The other two executives have voluntarily taken cuts of 12%.

    University of Virginia President Jim Ryan and other school leaders have announced 10% salary cuts. Ryan racked up $1,189,000 in compensation last year. Virginia Commonwealth University has said that “employee furloughs may be necessary.” Among those furloughed would be President Michael Rao. (more…)

  • Saylor Invests a Quarter Billion in “Digital Gold”

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Michael Saylor

    It’s one thing for some geeks in a garage to spin up a new Bitcoin currency. It’s another when a sophisticated data-analytics company with nearly a half billion dollars in revenues dives in the cyber-currency. MicroStrategy Inc., one of Northern Virginia’s more prominent IT firms, has invested $250 million from its cash stockpile to purchase 21,454 Bitcoins.

    CEO Michael Saylor is none too optimistic about the long-term future of the economy. Returns on its $550 million cash hoard are declining, and the dollar is weakening.

    “Those macro factors include, among other things, the economic and public health crisis precipitated by Covid-19, unprecedented government financial stimulus measures including quantitative easing adopted around the world, and global political and economic uncertainty,” Saylor said. “We believe that, together, these and other factors may well have a significant depreciating effect on the long-term real value of fiat currencies and many other conventional asset types, including many of the assets traditionally held as part of corporate treasury operations.” (more…)

  • UVa Task Force Doubles Down on “Anti-Racism”

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The University of Virginia’s Racial Equity Task Force has released its final report, recommending 12 initiatives to promote “systemic change” and racial equity, and it’s everything you’d expect it to be. Reflecting the blinkered thinking of the academic Left, the report provides a lot of navel-gazing, virtue-signaling and window dressing while doing nothing to change the power structure at UVa or address the underlying causes of racial disparities in Virginia.

    The task force proposes investing hundreds of millions of dollars toward equity initiatives, committing to “represent Virginia” in its study body demographics, hiring more minority faculty, and providing “anti-racism education” to all members of the University community. In contemporary academic parlance, “anti-racism” ideology insists that white privilege and white fragility underlie a system of white supremacy and must be extirpated. In other words, adopting these recommendations would place UVa among the institutions that replace critical thinking about race, poverty and justice with Leftist dogma.

    Nothing in the report, “Audacious Future: Commitment Required,” alludes to the high and increasing cost of attending UVa, the practices driving the increasing costs, or the burden those costs impose upon all lower-income students of whatever color. Nothing in the recommendations would threaten the mechanisms by which UVa transfers wealth from tuition-paying students to faculty and staff in the form of greater pay, perks and prestige. The proffered solution is to paper over the high costs by steering more academic aid to minority students. (more…)

  • Worthy Cause, Wrong Approach

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    James A. Bacon

    The Pellerito family: “We go through each day just trying our best. What are the new rules? What is right?”

    by James A. Bacon

    Give Amanda Chase credit for one thing: She knows how to get into the news. Whether the resulting headlines help the Chesterfield state senator win the Republican Party nomination for governor is quite another matter. The latest brouhaha over her refusal to wear a mask in a Harrisonburg restaurant is not likely to help.

    After making a campaign stop in New Market over the weekend with rock musician Ted Nugent, Chase visited Vito’s Italian Kitchen in Harrisonburg for a meal. She did not wear a mask. On two separate occasions, according to her Facebook account, employees denied her service, even though she explained that she had an underlying health condition that did not allow her to wear one. Upon providing a letter from her doctor, she was provided service but “not without being harassed and belittled in front of other store patrons.”

    Katharine Nye Pellerito, who owns the restaurant with her husband, posted her own version of the encounter on Facebook. Chase got confrontational and threatened to sue, she wrote. “The uncertainty of Covid … as it threatens our ability to maintain our restaurants has been exhausting, to say the least. Last night was tough. We go through each day trying our best What are the new rules? What is right? What does the law expect? Who is going to yell at us for trying to do the right thing today?” (more…)

  • Law School Deans Ask for Mandated Anti-Racism Training

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    University of Virginia law school dean Risa Goluboff

    by Hans Bader

    As lawyers like Barack Obama have noted, law school is already a year too long, with lots of nonessential classes. As a result, law students often graduate with over $150,000 in student-loan debt. Yet law students may soon be required to take more unnecessary classes.

    One hundred and fifty law school deans have asked the American Bar Association to require that “every law school provide training and education around bias, cultural competence, and anti-racism.” These include the deans at the University of Virginia, the University of Richmond, and the College of William & Mary.

    In their letter, the deans argue that “preparing law students to be lawyers requires that they should be educated with respect to bias, cultural awareness, and anti-racism. Such skills are essential parts of professional competence, legal practice, and being a lawyer. … We are in a unique moment in our history to confront racism that is deeply embedded in our institutions, including in the legal profession.” (more…)

  • A Constitutional Approach to Avoiding Evictions in Virginia

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    There has been extensive discussion here about minimizing residential evictions in Virginia in the time of COVID. I will offer a constitutional approach to achieving that objective.

    A Broad Consensus

    The Governor and General Assembly want to avoid evictions of residential tenants who are unable to pay rent due to COVID-related issues beyond tenant control. So does every landlord in Virginia. And indeed I think every citizen. We have broad consensus on that point.

    The Democratic Governor and Democratic majorities in both houses of the General Assembly can do whatever they wish with legislation. In this case they may wish to create a temporary, COVID-related rent payment program.

    But they will have to pay for it, as opposed to asking landlords to eat the costs.  That seems to me a valid and effective use for federal COVID money.

    And the executive branch will have to administer it, not the courts and not the landlords.

    (more…)

  • Everyone Has the Capacity to Be Great

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    The following post republishes an excerpt from B.K. Fulton’s new book, “The Tale of the Tee: Be Kind and Just Believe.” Fulton, an African-American Christian,  entrepreneur and philanthropist, co-wrote the book with Jonathan Blank, who is Jewish, a lawyer and an activist. The two men did not know each other prior to June 14, 2020. A single act of kindness began an e-mail thread that provides the basis of this book. — JAB

    by B.K. Fulton

    What can we learn from [the] people who change the world for the better in spite of the obstacles? What their work tells me is that the real genius in the world is in recognizing the genius in others. My hypothesis is that we all have the capacity to be great. God distributes talent generously throughout our species and all of us get to have the life we are willing to work for. It is in our naked self-interest to invest in everyone – every girl and every boy on the planet – because we have no idea where the cure for ALS is coming from. We have no idea where the cure for cancer is coming from. We have no idea where the cure for Alzheimer’s is coming from. What we do know for sure is that the cures that will help your family and mine are randomly distributed somewhere out there in the world. What we do know for sure is that the cure we need right now might just be [reading this message]. What we do know for sure is that the antidote for all that ails us is YOU. I challenge you to decide to be GREAT. Because if a person on the margins can achieve at the highest levels, what is our excuse for dabbling in mediocrity? (more…)

  • Pining for the Days of Hanging Chads

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A Virginia voting booth. How quaint!

    by James A. Bacon

    It’s been twenty years since the Bush-Gore presidential election that brought the term “hanging chads” into common parlance. But that controversy, which plunged the nation into intense partisan acrimony, was mere dress rehearsal for what could be coming. Thanks to the COVID-19 epidemic, there likely will be an unprecedented volume of mail-in ballots in the 2020 presidential election. And if you thought it was difficult determining votes from punch cards that left dangling bits of paper, just wait until we start sorting out the confusion over mail-in ballots.

    The potential for electoral chaos was driven home here in Virginia by the recent mass mailing of mail-in ballot request forms by a Washington, D.C., nonprofit, the Center for Voter Information. A new Virginia law allowing no-excuse early voting for the 45-day period before election day. Asserting that voting by mail “keeps you healthy and safe,” the mailer urged voters to “just sign, date and complete the application.” The application forms had the recipient’s name and address pre-filled out.

    “Our phones have been ringing off the hook because of the absentee ballot forms,” Susan Saunders, Suffolk’s voter registrar, told the Suffolk News Herald. “It has created vast confusion.” (more…)

  • Let-Em-Out-of-Jail Policy Ends in Tragedy

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Last spring, at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, Gov. Ralph Northam announced that he wanted to release about 2,000 state prisoners to save them from the pandemic that promised to turn the prisons into COVID-19 killing fields.

    These would be inmates with less than a year to serve and who were not deemed to be public safety menaces. He urged local officials to do the same with their jails.

    As it turned out, predictions of mass deaths in correctional facilities were wrong.

    So were promises that only non-violent offenders would be freed. In fact, the parole board embarked on a freeing frenzy of convicted killers. And at least one judge made a fatal mistake by freeing a violent detainee.

    Oh, and guess how many inmates — in all of Virginia’s prisons and jails — have died of COVID-19?

    Last time I checked – yesterday – the number stood at 15. (more…)

  • Another Perspective on Evictions

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    A more realistic depiction of an eviction

    By Dick Hall-Sizemore

    As has been reported on this blog, the Virginia Supreme Court granted Governor Northam’s request to extend the moratorium on evictions related to non-payment of rent.

    The court was closely divided, 4-3. The dissenting opinions are quite convincing. It is obvious that the majority, cognizant of the dilemma caused by thousands of tenants out of jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic and facing eviction from their homes, decided to give the Governor, General Assembly, and (implicitly) Congress one more chance to come up with a solution.

    Evictions generally

    Rather than debate the merits of the Court’s decision,  I am largely responding to, and following up on, Jim Bacon’s recent post regarding evictions and what happened to the federal CARES funding that has been provided. (more…)

  • Renters Didn’t Make the Governor’s List

    Posted on

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    I just completed a survey of the 50 states to see how many of their legislatures were in regular session or special sessions called to deal with COVID issues between April 1 and August 15, 2020.

    That 4.5-month period started when enough was known about COVID to start taking legislative action to back up Governors’ emergency decrees. It ends just before Virginia’s General Assembly will convene in special session to deal with COVID-related measures and other issues.

    Thirty-eight of the 50 state legislatures have been either in regular session during that period or in special sessions called to deal with the COVID emergency.

    Virginia is one of the 12 whose legislatures have not been in session. The others are Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and West Virginia. (more…)

  • Fool Me Once

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    sherlockj

    By James C. Sherlock

    I want every tenant who cannot pay his rent because of COVID to be able to stay in his home. I want every landlord who supports them to be paid for their forbearance so they can pay their own bills.

    This post starts with both of those goals in mind.

    It is about a Governor and a Virginia Supreme Court who created horrible judicial precedents that never needed to happen.

    Jim Bacon’s column this morning well summarized the issues with the Virginia Supreme Court’s August 7 order: IN RE: AMENDMENT OF EIGHTH ORDER EXTENDING DECLARATION OF JUDICIAL EMERGENCY IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19 EMERGENCY.

    That order reimposed until September 7 a previous Supreme Court denial of residential landlords’ access to the courts to gain adjudication of unlawful detainer actions by tenants accused of failure to pay rent and it banned eviction orders on that same basis.

    The Governor and the General Assembly

    Governor Northam has been hesitant to call the General Assembly into session because he cannot ultimately control what legislators do when they meet. Republicans and some Democrats appear poised to try to limit, especially in duration, some his virtually unlimited emergency authorities under Virginia law. When written, the drafters of that law simply did not imagine an emergency that would last for more than a month or two.

    (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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