Bacon's Rebellion

  • Bacon in the News: Joe Luter RIP

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    A smiling older man with gray hair, wearing a blue and white striped shirt, seated indoors.
    Joe Luter

    Joe Luter, the Norfolk-born businessman who rescued Smithfield Foods from near bankruptcy and built it into the nation’s largest producer of pork products, passed away last month. Read his obituary here. The size of the bacon market was estimated to be $15.2 billion in 2024. According to one online source, Virginia-based Smithfield accounted for 27% of the U.S. bacon market in 2022. And according to a highly credible source (me), Smithfield’s smoked bacon is incredibly delicious.

    Smithfield thick cut bacon packaging, featuring cherrywood smoked bacon with a bowl of food in the background.

    For what it’s worth, Luter had retired from Smithfield before corporate leadership agreed to sell the company to a Chinese corporation. China represents the world’s largest market for pork products. Fortunately for Americans, the Chinese have never developed a taste for American-style bacon, so the bacon that Smithfield makes in the U.S. stays in the U.S. — JAB

  • Teacher Pay and Student Performance

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A scatter plot titled 'State by State: Rising Payrolls, Falling Performance' showing the relationship between changes in school payroll percentages from 2019 to 2023 and changes in NAEP rankings from 2019 to 2024, with Virginia marked as an outlier.

    In a newly published study, Open the Books calculated the relationship between the increase in a state’s average teacher pay between 2019-2023 and the increase (or decrease) in NAEP (National Assessment for Educational Progress) test performance between 2019 and 2024. It found a mild negative correlation: “Higher overhead costs are associated with lower test scores.”

    Virginia is a serious outlier. Pay increases (31%) in the Old Dominion exceeded those in all but four other states, while the drop in NAEP ranking (15 places) was the second worst in the nation. I invite readers to chew upon these numbers in the comments. Continue reading to see the data. — JAB

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  • New Scholarship Tax Credit Hangs on Future State Decision

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Derrick Max

    As early voting in the gubernatorial race in Virginia is about to begin, students in the Commonwealth hang in the balance.  While Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) was able to implement a landmark school accountability measure that will help inform parents and the public about our students’ true performance, most of his other efforts at more fundamental education reforms were blocked by the progressives in the General Assembly.   

    Now, a landmark federal education reform has drawn a sharp new line in the sand. The question for every Virginian, and most critically for gubernatorial candidates Abigail Spanberger and Winsome Earle-Sears, is this: Will our next governor embrace the transformative potential of the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC) established in the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), or will she slam the door on a generation of students?  The tax credit will be available in states which have agreed to participate beginning in 2027. 

    From a free-market perspective, the diagnosis of what ails our public school system is clear. For too long, we have treated education as a one-size-fits-all government monopoly, with a top-down bureaucracy more responsive to powerful teachers’ unions than to the needs of students and families. The result? Stagnation, a lack of accountability, and children, particularly those from low-income families, trapped in underperforming schools. 

    The data in Virginia is a damning indictment of this status quo. While we have seen significant increases in per pupil spending in Virginia, we are getting very little for this investment.  On the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a mere 31% of Virginia’s fourth graders were proficient in reading, and only 40% in math. The numbers are even more grim for eighth graders, with only 29% proficient in both subjects. The state’s own Standards of Learning (SOL) tests paint a slightly rosier picture this year, but continue to be a deeply misleading, picture, creating an “honesty gap” that masks the true depth of the crisis from parents. Virginia was also ranked dead last in the nation for math recovery and 41st for reading recovery between 2019 and 2024. This is not just a failure; it is a betrayal of our children’s future. 

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  • Fairfax School Leaders Won’t Say Why They Are Destroying Students’ Identification Documents

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora
    Republished with permission from IW Features.

    Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid seems to be playing dumb about her district’s directive to destroy student identification records. As I previously reported in IW Features, Fairfax County Public Schools issued new guidance to school registrars this summer, telling them to purge copies and digital uploads of students’ personal identification documents from school records. 

    On July 1, Dave Anderson, Fairfax County Public Schools’ senior district manager for student registration, sent an email to school-based registrars – labeled as confidential – that states: “Based on recent Division Counsel guidance reflective of FCPS Policy and the Code of Virginia, FCPS will no longer retain copies of identification documents, including the student birth certificate, in the student’s cumulative file… For clarification purposes, identification documents refer to copies of a parent’s photo ID, such as a driver’s license, passport, etc.”

    A document from Fairfax County Public Schools discussing the directive to destroy student identification records, including personal documents like birth certificates and parent photo IDs, sent by Dave Anderson to school registrars.

    Earlier this month, IW Features sent an email to Reid and School Board Chair Sandy Anderson asking why. The email states, “On July 1, Dave Anderson sent FCPS school registrars an email directing them, under guidance from chief legal counsel, to purge student identity documents. What is the reason?”

    On September 10, Reid responded in an email, “I will check in with staff to identify what document(s) you are referring to and respond as appropriate.”

    (more…)

  • Gaslighting for DEI

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    James A. Bacon

    Community DEI proponents must stop ignoring the law. It is illegal to consider race, gender, ethnicity or other protected traits in employment and admissions decisions at U.Va.

    by Scott Douglas Gerber

    The Sept. 4, 2025 op-ed by “5 U.Va. Community Members” about my Aug. 15, 2025 open letter to Interim President Paul Mahoney (both published in the Cavalier Daily) is a disturbing exercise in gaslighting.

    Most notably, the 5 never say a word about what anti-discrimination law actually is. The first point I made in my open letter, and the only point I made about DEI, was that “Unfortunately, as almost everyone probably knows, the University likely violated anti-discrimination law and stonewalled the Department of Justice during former University President Jim Ryan’s DEI-fueled presidency. Ryan resigned because of it.” To his credit, Interim President Mahoney reminded U.Va.’s Faculty Senate on Sept. 5, 2025 that “Compliance with federal law is a condition of research grants.”

    I know that many members of the University community do not want to hear it, but the “federal law” that both Mahoney and I are referencing is this: except for a few narrow exceptions that do not apply to today’s U.Va. (for example, taking race into account in a remedy for adjudged discrimination against people of color by the defendant in a lawsuit), it is illegal to consider race, gender, ethnicity or other protected traits in employment and admissions decisions — even a little bit, and even if people think it would make U.Va. “better,” to quote my recent critics, to do so. See Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University & North Carolina, 600 U.S. 181 (2023) (companion cases); 42 U.S.C. §2000d, et seq. (Title VI) and 42 U.S.C. §2000e(2), et seq. (Title VII). Indeed, because U.Va. is a public university, it is constitutionally barred from doing so. 

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  • About Those Gay-Straight Alliance Meetings in Chesterfield Schools…

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Parents not notified of the staff-initiated events

    by George Mason

    Parents in Virginia’s Chesterfield County, a suburban community outside Richmond, are raising alarms after discovering that Robious Middle School has been holding Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) meetings during the instructional day without notifying families or requiring parental permission.

    A Sept. 10, 2025, school announcement invited students to an interest meeting:

    “The Gay Straight Alliance club, or GSA, will be having an interest meeting for all students this Friday. In the GSA, students will make new friends, play games, have discussions about LGBTQ topics, make a positive impact at Robious, and have a Pride Party at the end of the year. All students are welcome to join, no matter how they identify! Come to the Library on Friday during Roundtable if you’re interested in joining.”

    A school employee concerned about parental exclusion told Restoration News the club has grown so large that it now meets by grade level. “Why would parents want their children introduced to LGBTQ topics during the instructional day by school employees, without their permission?” the staff member asked.

    Parents say the meetings are not mentioned in the school’s weekly newsletters and are only posted in student announcements. “To my knowledge, parents have no way of knowing unless they specifically seek out the information,” the employee added.

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  • Not Sweet

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    sherlockj

    Not Sweet

    by James C. Sherlock

    I have written here for years about Virginia’s worst nursing homes and the inevitable abuse that comes from ritual understaffing as a business model. The activities of the nursing home operating companies are funded by Medicare and Medicaid and overseen by federal and state health authorities.

    To make short a very long story that I have been telling for those same years, government oversight hasn’t proven to work.

    Here in Virginia, the General Assembly passed new legislation this year after the Colonial Heights scandal in December.  

    It took that body more than four decades to strengthen state oversight, both in increased VDH oversight authority and by increasing the staffing of its nursing home inspection program.

    Secretary of Health and Human Resources Janet Kelly is leading an effort to make the Department of Health’s Office of Licensure and Certification — the inspectors of nursing homes — not only larger, but better. Her Departments of Health, Medical Assistance Services (Medicaid) and others are engaged in the effort to improve oversight. As a member of the Governor’s new Commission on the matter, I have seen their plan and been briefed on its execution to this point. Progress in both is extraordinary.

    That is exceptionally good news.

    Virginia has a number of excellent nursing facilities. Just not enough of them.

    Because of COPN, lack of competition drives occupancy rates very high compared to national norms. Inexplicably, the worst performing and lowest staffed facilities in Virginia are the most crowded. That will be investigated.

    Worse news is that the regulators — health care people — are swimming upstream against a strong current from a HUD program that insures mortgage loans for purchase, refinancing and rehabilitation of facilities to the buyers of our worst nursing homes. There are big fees and no loan risk to the lenders.  The only risk to the buyers in forfeiture of the property itself. Which they would not have bought without the program.

    That one HUD program fully funds the massive and very high-speed penetration into the nation’s nursing home portfolio of the very people I have made a journalistic career investigating. They have come quickly to dominate the markets for nursing home acquisitions in the Mid-Atlantic states, the Midwest and recently as far west as Colorado and South Dakota.

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  • New Estimate of State Tax Cut with Conformity: $2.3 Billion in 3 years

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    Virginia’s Department of Taxation has now released its estimates on the revenue changes that would result if the state’s tax laws were amended next year to conform to the new federal tax rules signed by President Donald Trump. 

    To taxpayers, the question is will they get a big tax cut at the state level. To the politicians in Richmond and the headline writers at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the question is how much money the state will “lose.” The money won’t be lost; it can be found in people’s pockets.   

    The amounts in question are similar to but more reliable than those estimated earlier this summer by The Tax Foundation and reported here. The staff at the Department of Taxation also examined more of the provisions of the complicated OBBBA, including some which could be viewed as pending tax increases on state residents. The net impact according to the state’s projections is $2.3 billion over three years (lost revenue to some, tax savings to others). 

    Deputy Commissioner Kristin Collins had the Tax Department’s usual easy-to-follow slide deck for the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee Tuesday. 

    Anticipating that major federal changes were coming following Trump’s inauguration, the General Assembly disconnected the state’s normal process for conforming to federal tax changes. Virginia’s state income tax starts its calculation with federal adjusted gross income, and the OBBBA changed that multiple ways.

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  • Is Online Civility Possible?

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    A colorful and cartoonish illustration of a grinning troll-like character with green hair, wearing glasses and a white shirt, sitting at a cluttered desk filled with various humorous characters and a computer displaying online comments.
    Internet troll. Image credit: Bing Image Creator

    There are days when I simply can’t read many of the comments on my own website.

    Yesterday, for instance.

    When I glanced at the post late in the day I saw 166 comments. That should be a good thing. Imagine, 166 thoughtful folks weighing in to affirm, augment or argue with my position on fascism.

    Indeed, there were some excellent, intelligent observations. Some clever comments.

    By afternoon, however, the comments had degenerated into a predictable back and forth between the same  handful of folks who sit at their computers to bicker and attack each other all day.

    Some people need jobs.

    Backbiting and endlessly trading insults may be entertaining for the participants, but it’s tedious for the rest of us.

    Jim Bacon told me recently that he was thinking about terminating comments on baconsrebellion.com. In fact, this week he wrote a post similar to this one, asking for thoughts about the move before shutting down the comment feature.

    When I worked at The Virginian-Pilot we encountered a similar problem. The anonymity that comes with online comments – which allows readers to voice opinions without fearing repercussions – also allows petty keyboard warriors to say nasty things they’d never utter if their names were attached.

    Eventually The Pilot just shut it down.

    I really don’t want to do that. Continue reading.

  • Are Urban Heat Islands Behind “Global Boiling”?

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    Two prominent American climate researchers who focus on data rather than models have examined 40 years of summer temperatures at Reagan National Airport. They found the hottest summer days are barely warmer than in the 1980s, an imperceptible change, but the coolest overnight temperatures have gotten dramatically warmer. 

    The change in the hottest daily highs amounted to half of one degree Fahrenheit but the coolest of the overnight lows were 5 degrees warmer.  This is not the first time it has been demonstrated that mainly what has happened over recent decades is the nights are less cool, especially in urbanized areas. But this was a key Virginia weather station in Virginia’s most populous region reinforcing the point.

     John Christy and Roy Spencer have long been interested in and published about the impact of human urban development on the “climate change” or “global warming” so widely reported. They are also two of the five authors of a recent Department of Energy report on the claims that greenhouse gas emissions are the culprit, a report that disputes the alarmist conclusions. The “scientists” who accept the “consensus” are in court trying to suppress the report, so I wanted to give you a chance to download and read it.

    Christy was cited in a previous Bacon’s Rebellion post of mine making similar points about how what is seen as overall global warming was really about the nighttime temperatures. If greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide or methane are the main cause of the rise, it ought to be uniform with no big disparity between daytime and nighttime changes, Christy says.

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  • Sign of the Times

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    From the Winchester Star:

    The Winchester Star has made the difficult decision to end online commenting on stories posted to our website, beginning today.

    Unfortunately, most of the comments had become back-and-forth personal attacks between screen names, which we enabled by providing an anonymous forum, but we’re no longer comfortable continuing it.

    We know the comments had a following from those who saw them as lively and entertaining. We enjoyed many of them, too, but the level of rancor among a small group of regular commenters dissuaded others from entering the discourse, defeating the intent of commenting and turning our comments section in a fight club for a select few.

    I’ve considered taking the same step at Bacon’s Rebellion, and for precisely the same reason. I’d like to hear from readers first, though. Occasionally, we hear from people who have remarkable stories to tell and insights to add based on their personal experience, and I’d hate to lose that. But I wonder how many BR readers actually view the comments. And I’d like to know if many are dissuaded from participating by the rancor they see there.

    Leave a comment or contact me directly at [email protected]. — JAB

  • From Hong Kong to Hampton Roads — Financial Sense with Neena Moorjani

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Neena Moorjani smiling, wearing a green dress and earrings, promoting financial literacy and education.
    Neena Moorjani

    Jim Bacon launches the Oinkonomics podcast with Neena Moorjani, an advocate for financial literacy who volunteers on tax preparation and teaches practical money skills to low‑income and military families in Virginia Beach. You don’t have to be wealthy to build wealth in America, Neena says.

    The episode covers Neena’s immigrant background, the importance of starting savings and investing early, tax tips for lower‑income households, credit and debt pitfalls, negotiating medical bills, and simple steps parents can take to teach children good financial habits.

    Listen and subscribe on Podbean.

    Transcript (lightly edited)

    A cartoon pig wearing glasses and a suit stands at a podium, gesturing towards a chalkboard filled with mathematical formulas and graphs.

    James Bacon: Hello, everybody. I’m Jim Bacon, and this is the Oinkonomics Podcast.

    By the latest count, there are 4.6 million podcasts worldwide. Why does the world need another podcast?

    Well, here in Virginia, there are only 60 podcasts worth listening to, according to FeedSpot, which fancies itself an authority on the subject. Only a handful of those are devoted to politics and public policy, and only one of those, from what I can tell, routinely explores conservative points of view. Virginia needs more than one conservative voice in the pod-osphere.

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  • Introducing the Oinkonomics Podcast

    Posted on

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    James A. Bacon

    A pig wearing glasses and a suit stands at a desk in front of a chalkboard with mathematical equations and a graph.

    It’s never too late to teach an old pig new tricks. In 2002, I launched Bacon’s Rebellion as a digital newsletter. In 2005, I switched to blogging. Now, as the world has moved decisively to podcasts, I’ll give podcasting a try. I’ll be interviewing people involved in the arts, sciences, culture, business, and politics on matters of interest to Virginians. I like the idea of engaging in conversations that allow the participants to explore an issue in depth. Old guys like me may not be technologically savvy — it will take me ten times longer to master the technology of producing a podcast than most young people would — but perhaps my decades of lived experience will yield a few insights worth sharing.

    Although the podcast will lean libertarian/conservative, I plan to hold conversations with thoughtful people across the partisan/ideological spectrum to explore what ails our society and what Virginians can do to build more prosperous, livable and sustainable communities. While seeking to understand our differences in our increasingly fractious society, I’ll also be looking for common ground.

    Why name the podcast Oinkonomics? In part, it’s an homage to my name, Bacon. But it is also suggestive of my partiality for using economic frames of reference — resource scarcity, alternate opportunity cost, return on investment — for analyzing public policy issues. At the same time, I acknowledge that people are not always economically rational. Human nature is a stubborn thing. In combination, economics and human nature are pretty useful prisms through which to view the world. I hope listeners will agree. — JAB

  • Being Normal Doesn’t Make You a Fascist

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    An illustration of four figures in military-style uniforms marching together against a backdrop of sunburst rays.

    by Kerry Dougherty

    This is going to be short. It’s early Sunday morning and I’m writing from a small town in Mississippi where I stay when I am lucky enough to get to Ole Miss football games. 

    These are my thoughts on a sunny September morning before I head to church and then home:

    People who hold normal opinions – or those that were normal until America went woke about 15 years ago – are not fascists.

    Holding traditional values is not fascist.

    Believing that countries should have borders and control who crosses them is not fascist.

    Wanting to keep more of what you earn is not fascist.

    Patriotism is not fascist.

    Love of God is not fascist.

    A belief in American exceptionalism is not fascist.

    Wanting to protect unborn children is not fascist.

    Wanting to punish criminals is not fascist.

    Supporting cash bail is not fascist.

    Cheering traditional families is not fascist. Continue reading.

  • Youngkin: “Nobody who would cheer murder should be allowed within 100 yards of a student.”

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Scott Dreyer

    Governor Glenn Youngkin

    Many across Western Virginia and our nation have had nerves raw and on edge, first since the chilling video of a man knifing to death Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska, 23, on a light rail train in Charlotte, NC, and then the outrageous news that the killer had been arrested and released 14 times previously. Then, on the eve of the 24th anniversary of 9/11, an assassin who turned out to be a 22-year-old student killed conservative icon and free-speech advocate Charlie Kirk.

    Perhaps most gruesome of all has been a chorus of voices that have publicly seemed to justify, condone, or even celebrate Kirk’s murder, an act that left his wife a widow and two young children fatherless. As some have pointed out, a survey of those postings shows an inordinate number seem to come from people who work in education, medicine, or counseling, fields that should imply caring and nurture, and that have large access to impressionable children. Moreover, a disproportionate number of the posts are coming from women.

    The reasons and implications of this are still unclear.

    The Old Dominion has not been spared the vile, heinous posts celebrating or even glorifying violence.

    Chesterfield County is a wealthy, suburban area on the south and west sides of Richmond, and School Board Chairperson Dot Heffron allegedly made comments on a personal Instagram account after Kirk’s assassination, “Call me old-fashioned, but I remember when we used to be okay with shooting Nazis.”

    (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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