Bacon's Rebellion

  • Don’t Bet Against Virginia’s Economy

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Derrick Max,

    Governor Glenn Youngkin (R)

    If you only read the headlines, you might think Virginia’s economy is teetering on the brink. A recent Cardinal News story declared that the Commonwealth’s GDP growth has fallen from 6.2 percent to 1.7 percent, and touted warning signs spelled out in “three new (economic) reports” that claim to show serious trouble ahead. Setting aside the fact that one of those three reports has had to revise its gloomy estimates upward after Virginia outperformed every metric they cited as reported by TJI’s Steve Haner, the implication from these reports is that Virginia’s economy is sliding backward.

    Virginia’s reality tells a very different story.

    Yes, GDP growth slowed this year. But that statistic, stripped of context, gives a distorted picture of Virginia’s true economic health. The 6.2 percent figure the article celebrates was a short-term rebound after pandemic disruptions and included massive federal infusions; it was never sustainable. A return to 1.7 percent growth isn’t collapse — it’s normalization far more in line with historic levels. The deeper truth is that Virginia’s economy is restructuring in ways that will strengthen, not weaken, Virginia’s long-term prosperity.

    Beyond the GDP Headline

    GDP is a lagging indicator; it measures what has already happened, not what is coming next. And what’s coming next for Virginia is enormous. Since Governor Glenn Youngkin took office in 2022, the Commonwealth has secured more than $125 billion in new private investment, a record pace according to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and well above the $81 billion gained under Governor Northam. Those dollars represent new plants, new jobs, and long-term tax revenue that will materialize over the next decade.

    (more…)

  • Dysfunction Junction

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Virginia’s statewide contests near an end.

    by Gordon C. Morse

    So, here we are. The morning steals upon the night. The election approaches. Two weeks to go.

    About this debate last week. It raised a number of questions and not just about the two candidates for attorney general.

    Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate, said he was sorry for sending out hateful text messages three years ago speculating on the violent demise of then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his family.

    Is he? Is Jones truly sorry? A year or two ago – or immediately after sending those comments – did Jay say to himself, wow, maybe I shouldn’t have expressed those thoughts in a place where I might have to revisit them?

    The messages were sent to a female Republican member of the House of Delegates, which is curious on its own. Did he reconsider, express regret and ask her to erase what he wrote? Once nominated for statewide office this year, did Jones anticipate potential problems and take preemptive action? Did he get out in front of it and publicly apologize? Did he seize the initiative?

    Nope. He didn’t do any of those things and it’s reasonable, on that basis, to doubt the quality of his judgment.

    (more…)

  • Marc Elias’ Political Machine Rides to the Rescue

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    The powerful Democrat law firm that bankrolled the Steele dossier is now defending a Virginia candidate accused of running in a district where she doesn’t reside.

    Four printed voting flyers featuring the word 'VOTE' alongside the American flag.

    by Jacob Grandstaff

    Once again, the Elias Law Group has arrived to defend an embattled Democrat, this time in Stafford County, Virginia. The firm, founded by Marc Elias—the same political operative who bankrolled the now-infamous Steele dossier against President Donald Trump—has made a career of jumping into state election cases whenever Democrats’ electoral interests are threatened.

    This week, Elias’s firm came to the defense of Stacey Carroll, the Democrat nominee for Virginia’s 64th House District, who faces allegations that she doesn’t actually live in the district she’s seeking to represent.

    The lawsuit to remove her from the voter rolls—and thus from the ballot—was filed by three local voters, who have gathered evidence that Carroll registered at an address in the district while residing outside of it—a clear violation of the Virginia Constitution’s residency requirement.

    Carroll’s lawyers at Elias Law Group have filed a motion to dismiss on three grounds.

    (more…)

  • No Kings: Aging Hippies with a Bloodlust

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    A bar counter with a glass of water in the foreground and a TV in the background displaying a college football game.

    Like most normal Americans I was too busy on Saturday to even notice the No Kings protests.

    I was doing what many of us do on Saturdays in the fall: Watching college football.

    In fact, I’d forgotten all about the protests until I checked Facebook Sunday night and saw that several of my geriatric friends were posting merry photos of themselves carrying placards.

    I’d rather watch football from noon until 2 a.m., I thought, but you do you.

    Yesterday, though, I scrolled through social media and what I found was alarming.These weren’t just aging hippies getting some much needed exercise and sunshine.

    The protests had a dark undertone. Seems the left has moved on from just celebrating abortion to celebrating assassination.

    Clearly, Jay Jones is not the only Democrat wishing death upon his political opponents. The Depends gang is similarly murderous. In fact, this desire to destroy Trump and his supporters is spreading among the left.

    It wasn’t just one whacked out protestor with a bloodlust. There were lots of them. Continue reading.

  • Former Swim Captain Blasts Spanberger’s Stance on Trans Athletes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Spanberger’s mushy messaging on protecting girls in sports disqualifies her from being governor, says Lily Mullens, former Roanoke College swim team captain.

    A young woman wearing a Roanoke College swimming shirt is speaking at a podium during a press conference, expressing her views.
    Lily Mullens

    by Scott Dreyer

    On October 9, the two candidates for governor — Democrat Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger and Republican Lt. Governor Winsome Sears — engaged in their only debate.

    Many have decried that there was only one sixty-minute debate, which allowed only superficial handling of many important issues, while many other crucial topics never even came up.

    But at least there was one debate between them, because in the race for the next lieutenant governor, the Democrat candidate Ghazala Hashmi has not agreed to any debate against her GOP opponent John Reid.

    One topic in the gubernatorial debate was whether the two would continue to honor Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s policy to restrict bathroom and locker room access in schools to people of their specific, natural gender from birth.

    (more…)

  • Democrats Dominate Energy Discussions With GOP MIA

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    Clean Virginia Director Brennan Gilmore and Sen. Schuyler VanValkenberg, D-Henrico.

    By Steve Haner,

    “The energy bills are…” shouts the emcee on the stage. “Too damn high” comes the immediate response from a crowded meeting room in the east end of Richmond October 16. 

    That call and response mantra constantly punctuated a long and creative presentation on Virginia’s energy dilemma from the point of view of the activist group Clean Virginia. The point of view varies greatly from the Thomas Jefferson Institute’s views on why electricity prices have been rising in Virginia and are likely to rise even more.  

    The rising cost of living and the pinch it creates on Virginia’s families and businesses is arguably the political issue in this 2025 election season that has the broadest impact. Everybody needs electricity. 

    As the campaign season comes to its close, Democrats have spent far more time talking about rising energy costs than have most Republican candidates. Politics like nature abhors a vacuum. Rising energy prices and the wave of data center electricity demand have created another of those “giant sucking sounds” that concern voters, rightly. 

    Clean Virginia, Virginia’s largest non-party, non-corporate campaign donor, is using its rallies to shape voter opinions for November and the legislative agenda for the coming 2026 General Assembly.   

    Argue with Clean Virginia’s interpretation and recommendations as much as you want (and we do), the event itself – one of four across the state this month – was a clever show, packed with punchy progressive messaging that was clearly being enjoyed by the audience of mostly young activists. The tee shirts with the slogan were tempting, because Thomas Jefferson Institute agrees bills are higher than they should be.  

    (more…)

  • “No Kings” Demonstrations in Virginia

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Demonstrators in Richmond Photo credit: Richmond Times Dispatch

    Thousands of Virginians participated in “No Kings” demonstrations yesterday to protest actions of the Trump administration.

    Crowd-size estimates are always tricky to judge.  Organizers tend to exaggerate turnout; police departments have begun to shy away from providing estimates; often, press reports do not identify the source of the estimates. With those caveats in mind, here is a sampling of crowd sizes around the Commonwealth (if the report identified the source of the estimate, it is noted in the comments):

    Richmond—The Capitol Police estimated 3,500-4,000 in attendance. The organizers claimed more than 14,000 participated. The difference may be a result of different venues. The demonstration started in Capitol Square, where the Capitol Police were on duty, and proceeded up Broad St. to Monroe Park at VCU. 

    Hampton Roads—Virginia Beach:  3,000 (organizers); Williamsburg: 5,000 (organizers)

    Charlottesville—“at least 10,000” (organizers)

    Roanoke—“over 2,000”

    Staunton—1,700

    Fredericksburg—“More than 2,000”

    Demonstrations were also scheduled in Norfolk, Chesapeake, Newport News, Fairfax, and other localities, but press reports were not available this afternoon.

    There was no violence reported nor any arrests. Demonstrators in Staunton recited the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the Star-Spangled Banner.

    In anticipation of the demonstrations, Gov. Glenn Youngkin had put the Virginia National Guard on “state active duty conducting training.” It is not clear what such status entails, although reportedly “a task force made up of a ‘Quick Reaction Force’ and ‘Ready Reaction Force’ are set to be staged outside of Richmond on Friday, including a ‘Non-Lethal Weapons Platoon.’ Presumably, other National Guard troops placed on active duty during the weekend were to report to their readiness centers (they are no longer called armories) where weekend training is usually held.  Since there was not much

    National Guardsmen picking up trash near White House. Photo credit: Fox 5 Washington, D.C.

    for them to do, perhaps the Governor could have had them be useful by picking up trash when the demonstrations were over as was the case in D.C. earlier this year.

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A cartoon depicting a politician sitting at a desk with paperwork, speaking to a woman, addressing voters' concerns with the comment about answering difficult questions after being hired.

    View more memes at The Bull Elephant

  • UVA’s Weldon Cooper Backpedals on Economic Gloom Yet Again

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner,

    In April, economic prognosticators at the University of Virginia published a prediction that Virginia would lose 32,000 jobs during 2025. The Al Gore-like jeremiad was promptly adopted by Virginia Democrats who used it in speeches and advertising to claim Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin and his chosen successor, Winsome Earle-Sears, were mismanaging the economy.

    As the negative ad blitz was reaching its peak near Labor Day, the same deep thinkers at the same once-trusted Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service issued a follow up that quietly adjusted that prediction downward, this time asserting the state’s end of year employment numbers would reflect an 11,700 decrease from the end of 2024. The Democrats kept using the more worrisome but discredited larger number.

    A new report just popped up and now the prediction is that Virginia will lose just 1,800 jobs this calendar year. The trendline alone makes that also shaky. To try to keep you from noticing, the authors introduced and overused the word “stagnation” to describe the situation Virginia faces as all states absorb the headwinds from the new tariff regime and federal spending reductions. The new headline is their claim the state’s unemployment level will reach 4.8% next year, a jump from the 4.6% they predicted in the August report.

    That gave the Democrat Abigail Spanberger’s campaign and the Democratic mudslingers at Blue Virginia enough ammunition to issue another condemnation of Youngkin’s economic leadership, with plenty of side references to President Trump’s tariff regime and reductions in the federal workforce. But given that the initial predicted job losses were nothing but an in-kind campaign contribution masquerading as research, this unemployment projection should also be taken with skepticism.

    (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A grumpy-looking cat with a humorous caption stating 'My favorite vegetable? BACON.'

  • UVa to Trump: No Thanks

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    UVa faculty and student demonstrate against proposed federal compact Photo Credit: VPM

    The University of Virginia has declined to sign the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” proposed by the Trump administration.

    In exchange for agreeing to a long list of terms, institutions signing the contract were offered “allowance for increased overhead payments where feasible, substantial and meaningful federal grants, and other federal partnerships.”  (The terms of the compact are discussed at length here.)

    In his letter to the Secretary of Education, Interim President Paul Mahoney stated that the institution agreed with many of the principles outlined in the compact and that UVA “leads in several of these areas and is committed to continuous improvement in all of them.”  However, with regard to receiving favored treatment on grants in exchange for agreeing to the compact, he stated, “We seek no special treatment in exchange for our pursuit of those foundational goals. The integrity of science and other academic work requires merit-based assessment of research and scholarship. A contractual arrangement predicating assessment on anything other than merit will undermine the integrity of vital, sometimes lifesaving, research and further erode confidence in American higher education.”

    The administration had originally extended this opportunity to eight other institutions, in addition to UVA: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University, Darthmouth University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Arizona, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, and the University of Texas at Austin. 

    UVA joins MIT, Brown, Penn, and USC in rejecting the compact so far. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Trump administration has now invited Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Kansas and Arizona State University to a meeting to discuss the compact.

  • Loudoun County Public Schools Are Abusing Students’ Free-Speech Rights

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A large group of people holding signs and banners at a protest, advocating to restore girls only and boys only locker rooms, showers, and bathrooms, while opposing Policy 8040.
     Loudoun County parents rally against Policy 8040; photo credit: Suzanne Satterfield

    by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora
    Republished with permission from IWFeatures

    Last week, a federal judge ruled that Loudoun County Public Schools’ (LCPS) leadership must delay the suspensions of male students who asserted their discomfort about a female student being in the boys’ locker room at Stone Bridge High School.

    America First Legal’s Ian Prior, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, told IW Features, “We are pleased that the Court granted the preliminary injunction and that the suspensions and findings against our clients will not go onto their permanent record while we litigate this case to a successful conclusion.”

    In May 2025, a female student who claimed to be transgender entered the boys’ locker room and recorded the boys on her phone. In the video recording, three boys questioned why there was a girl in the boys’ locker room. One of them said, “Why is there a girl? I’m so uncomfortable, there is a girl. A female bro. Get out of here.”

    LCPS’s Title IX Office “investigated” the incident. Rather than taking issue with the fact that a female student recorded 15-year-old boys in their own locker room––which is illegal––the “investigation” found that the boys violated Title IX by vocalizing their discomfort.

    (more…)

  • Former UVA Health Leaders Accused of “Hostile Takeover” in Bombshell Federal Lawsuit

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Exterior view of a modern hospital building at dusk with illuminated windows and a clear sky.
    UVa Hospital

    A newly filed federal lawsuit accuses former leaders of the University of Virginia Health System of orchestrating a coordinated campaign of corruption, fraud, and retaliation – even comparing the institution’s leadership to a criminal enterprise. It is alleged that as a result of this behavior, multiple patients died.

    Filed on October 3 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, the lawsuit brings sweeping allegations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The plaintiffs — four former UVA physicians and the families of two deceased patients — claim that high-ranking officials at UVA Health engaged in repeated illegal conduct to enhance their careers and financial standing at the expense of staff and patient safety.

    “This case arises out of a hostile takeover of a revered medical system,” the lawsuit begins, “by a cadre of individuals determined to maximize revenues and rankings, thereby inflating their own career prospects and financial gain, through concerted, repeated, and consistent illegal acts.”

    (more…)

  • AG Debate: Miyares v. Jones

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Chris Saxman

    Debate winner:

    Attorney General Jason Miyares who prosecuted a strong case against Jay Jones but also was able to present himself as a statesman.

    Outstanding performance.

    Circumstances and Jay Jones:

    Former Delegate Jay Jones gave a strong performance given the circumstances.

    The problem for Jones is the circumstances. But he reassured his base that he will go after Trump and that might be enough in this election.

    Win or lose this election, Attorney General Jason Miyares came across as a statesman.

    Strong, competent, and effective.

    Frankly? Miyares was gubernatorial last night.

    Unreported story — post-debate claims

    (more…)

  • Spanberger, Hashmi Have Massive Leads in Campaign Funds

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner,

    Total funding of Virginia’s major party candidates for Governor. For 2025 it is complete through September 30, with many weeks more to go. Source: VPAP, citing Virginia Board of Elections data.

    Two of the three Republicans running for statewide office in Virginia this year are being crushed in the fundraising contest.  Only Jason Miyares, the incumbent Republican candidate for Attorney General, has raised more funds than his Democratic opponent, Jay Jones. 

    All campaigns had a deadline of Wednesday night to report on their donations and expenses for the month of September.  The two big events that have added some suspense to the election, the gubernatorial candidate debate and the stories about Democrat Jones’ texts threatening violence, were still in the future when the books closed.

    With a billionaire Republican president in office and a near-billionaire Republican finishing his tenure in our Governor’s Mansion, one might expect at least a level financial playing field.  Between the two, they know who to call.   It is not the case that the candidate with the most money always wins, but there are few examples in recent history of candidates overcoming funding gaps this deep. 

    Democrat candidate for Governor Abigail Spanberger reported donations and in-kind support totaling $12.6 million in September (the link is to the Virginia Public Access Project’s overnight compilation).  Republican Winsome Earle-Sears reported a very healthy $9 million, with the biggest difference being she received less in in-kind campaign support than Spanberger did.  Television ads and mailers paid for by non-candidate committees still have impact.

    (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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