Bacon's Rebellion

  • If Politics Ruined PJM, is More Political Control the Fix? Maybe.

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    Steve Haner

    Former FERC Chair Mark Christie

    by Steve Haner

    State elected leaders want more control over the regional electricity marketplace that manages the power grid in Virginia and 12 other neighboring states. They have a point in their complaints about PJM Interconnection Inc.’s problems but they are also deeply engaged in blame shifting for higher energy costs. 

    Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) was one the several state governors who called Monday for major changes in the governance of the regional transmission grid operator, with an open threat that Virginia might leave entirely if demanded reforms were not adopted. The speech was covered by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, but with little focus on just want Youngkin and the others are asking for. Youngkin also said nothing about what would replace PJM, given Virginia is a major power importer.

    Top on the governors’ joint list of reforms is an opportunity to choose, or at least nominate, two members for the 8-seat PJM governing board. What Youngkin and the newspaper didn’t mention is that one of the names they put forward is Mark Christie. Christie is the former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and spent 17 years on the Virginia State Corporation Commission. He spoke right after Youngkin.

    PJM, one of several regional transmission organizations around the country regulated by FERC, is currently governed by a board chosen by the multiple generation and transmission companies which are part of its network. Some of the most controversial energy decisions within its footprint, from eastern North Carolina to west of Chicago, are largely out of the control of state and local authorities.

    Christie’s prepared remarks, which he shared with Bacon’s Rebellion, and we share with you in full (with some of the acronyms explained), get into that history. A key excerpt follows:

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  • And in More Charlie Kirk-Related Developments in Virginia….

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    James A. Bacon

    ***** Sponsored Content *****

    A graphic promoting a community gathering titled 'Free Speech & Civil Discourse' in honor of Charlie Kirk, featuring silhouettes of diverse people, with event details including date, time, and location.

    This memorial to Charlie Kirk focusing on free speech and civil discourse is being organized by the University of Virginia chapters of the Young Americans for Freedom, College Republicans, and Turning Point USA. Charlottesville residents are encouraged to participate in person. Others may watch it remotely. Click here to view the livestreamed event when it begins at 5:00 p.m. today.

  • “Comeback Tour” at Virginia Tech to Honor Charlie Kirk

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    James A. Bacon

    by Scott Dreyer

    Virginia Tech

    As our region and nation reel from the senseless violence that recently stole the life of conservative icon and free-speech advocate Charlie Kirk, there is also a sense among many that a kind of invisible line has been crossed: not only how has political violence struck America again, but how can some publicly take a ghoulish delight in the cold-blooded murder of a 31-year-old, leaving his wife a widow and his two children, ages 3 and 6, fatherless and now too young to ever hold any memories of their dad?

    Among those posting to social media expressing opinions that can be interpreted as condoning, excusing, or even celebrating Kirk’s assassination are a nurse at LewisGale, an employee of the Roanoke City Police Department, and professors at both Roanoke College and Virginia Tech. 

    The Roanoke Star has reached out to those entities for statements; these stories are developing.

    Not only are some celebrating the bloodshed, but others seem to now be threatening other conservatives with violence, apparently in hopes of silencing them.

    For example, leftwing talker Keith Olbermann seemed to threaten CNN commentator Scott Jennings with a tweet on X, “You’re next, (expletive),” a tweet Olbermann later deleted but which Jennings flagged for FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate.

    (more…)

  • All the Lovely People

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    James A. Bacon

    A cartoon pig wearing glasses and a suit stands in front of a blackboard, gesturing as if giving a presentation.

    Charlottesville writer Scott Johnston’s new book is a lark, but it makes a serious point about society’s new norms, status seeking, and virtue signaling in the wealthy enclaves of New York.

    Listen to the latest Oinkonomics podcast.

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

    A man with grey hair and a beard is speaking into a microphone at a public event, wearing a blue checked shirt and a dark blazer, set against a teal backdrop.
    Scott Johnston

    American society seems more divided than at any time since the 1960s, when the Vietnam War was raging and the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak. What’s really scary today is that we’re not at war, and the gains of the Civil Rights Movement have been consolidated and institutionalized. What is driving the discord? The root of the increasingly acrimonious divisions in our society, I would argue, has been the spread of critical theory, and the reactions, and perhaps overreactions to it.

    Very few Americans can actually define critical theory. Not many have even heard of it. But its precepts have trickled down through academia, school systems, and elite media into the popular culture. Basically, critical theory views human interactions through the paradigm of oppressors and oppressed. This set of ideas is commonly referred to as wokeness.

    Today, I am talking to Scott Johnston, a Charlottesville novelist, about his latest work, “The Sanderson’s Fail Manhattan.” The novel is set in Manhattan, not Virginia. But it explores how wokeness plays out, not just in academia and politics, but in the everyday interactions of the educated elites who have most fully embraced it. “The Sanderson’s Fail Manhattan” takes place in New York City, but it easily could have been set in Fairfax County.

    Scott is a Northerner, transplanted to Virginia. He graduated from Yale, worked on Wall Street, and launched several successful businesses. His 2019 novel, Campusland, skewers political correctness run amok at his alma mater. It’s hilarious, and I recommend it highly. He explores similar themes in the Sanderson’s Fail Manhattan, which was published this summer.

    Good day to you, Scott.

    (more…)

  • Another Virginia Trump Nominee Runs Afoul of Trump

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Erik Seibert, former interim U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of Virginia

    Poor Donald Trump.  His appointments as U.S. Attorney in Virginia are proving to have too much independence and integrity. First there was Todd Gilbert in the Western District. Now, there is Erik Seibert in the Eastern District.

    Seibert’s office was overseeing the investigation of Letitia James, New York Attorney General, for mortgage fraud regarding her purchase of a house in Norfolk. After he refused to seek an indictment after investigators were unable to find incriminating evidence of fraud, the Trump administration made it clear that it wanted him out. He then resigned. Unlike Gilbert’s resignation, this one made national news.

    Seibert had been serving as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District since January. In May, President Trump formally nominated him for the U.S. Attorney position. Both of Virginia’s Democrat Senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, had supported Seibert.

    Shortly after appointing Culpeper attorney Mary Cleary to be the interim U.S. Attorney, Trump announced that he intended to nominate White House aide, Lindsay Halligan, for the post. Halligan had been one of Trump’s attorneys in the case regarding his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.  Most recently she has been in charge of removing “improper ideology” at the Smithsonian. Halligan has no prosecutorial experience. Before joining the Trump defense team in the Mar-a-Lago case, she had primarily handled insurance claims.

    (more…)

  • Signs of the Times

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Campaign sign for Abigail Spanberger, featuring her name and the word 'Governor' against a blue background.

    This weekend I spent time in the center of Virginia. That would be that area west of I-95, south of I-64, and east of the Blue Ridge–encompassing Powhatan, Buckingham, Cumberland, Campbell, Bedford, and Franklin counties. Some I just passed through on the main highway (Rt. 60); others I spend more time in on lesser roads. The weather was gorgeous; the roadside goldenrod glorious.

    A campaign sign for Winsome Earle-Sears for Governor 2025, featuring her image and the outline of Virginia, set in a landscaped yard.

    This is Republican country; deep red. Youngkin carried it with 77 percent of the vote in 2021; Trump got 73 percent last year. All the General Assembly members from these counties are Republicans; their representative in Congress is a Republican.

    Last year, anyone driving through this area would have been overwhelmed with campaign signs for Trump. This year is notable for the lack of campaign signs.

    There were some signs for Earle-Sears scattered throughout, but not many, considering the large area covered. What surprised me were the signs for Spanberger. There were almost as many, if not as many, as there were for Earle-Sears. (I wasn’t keeping an actual count, so this report is based on my impressions. And, after all, in politics, that is usually what counts.) One interesting note was the presence of signs for Miyares. There was one large, banner sign for him, as well as an occasional yard sign.

    I am not sure what this signifies, if anything. It could be a sign that Republicans in this area are either not excited about the election itself or not excited about Earle-Sears. Either way, that could mean be another sign that she is in trouble.

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    James A. Bacon

    A joyful older man sitting at a desk with a laptop, holding a coffee mug. The top text reads, 'TAXES ARE THE PRICE WE PAY FOR A CIVILIZED SOCIETY.' The bottom text states, 'I SHOULD BE GETTING A HUGE TAX REFUND CHECK NEXT YEAR.'

    View more memes at The Bull Elephant.

  • From the Classroom to the Culture War

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    A close-up of the book cover titled 'Culture-Bending Narratives' by Jason Locy, displayed on a stack of books with a soft focus background.

    Earlier this year “Morning Joe” host, Joe Scarborough, said his daughter, a student at the University of Virginia, is afraid to raise her hand in class. “If she says anything polticallly incorrect she knows she’ll immediately be cancelled,” he said.

    Great.

    It happens everywhere. Colleges and universities have become intolerant left-wing indoctrination centers.Several days ago, I stumbled upon this essay on Facebook. The author gave me permission to reprint it, but asked to remain anonymous. I suspect it’s because of some of the backlash he got on his post.

    He attended another Virginia state university.

    The Dangerous Redefinition of Words And The Legacy of Charlie Kirk

    It’s time we stop trying to silence each other and listen. When I was in college, I watched newly graduated professors change the definition of words to mean something completely different from their etymological roots, to suit an ideological agenda.

    When asked to define “racism” in a mandated sociology class, I replied something along the lines of – “prejudice of another based on the other’s ethnic background or race” – my sociology professor, a freshly minted Ph.D from UT, told me I was wrong – that it actually is “the oppression of one group by a class with more power” or some other postmodern redefinition, conveniently none of which had to do with race, the literal root word of “racism”.

    When I asked “If a black person who owns a restaurant refuses service to a white person simply because they are white, is that racism?” I was told “No”, because “black people are systemically or structurally oppressed” or something along these lines.

    Regardless of the truth of black people being an oppressed class or not, changing the definition of “racism” to not include “race” meant something was terribly wrong here. If I didn’t go along with the redefinition of the word, I was academically penalized. I got a C on the exam where this was later asked.

    Guess why? Continue reading.

  • 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

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    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

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    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. 

    (more…)

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

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    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. 

    (more…)

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

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    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.

    (more…)

  • 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.

    (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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