Bacon's Rebellion

  • Million Dollar Job Opportunity

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    James A. Bacon

    I knew UVA’s woke administrators were well-compensated. But who knew the president was raking in about a million bucks a year?

    Logo of the University of Virginia featuring a stylized dome and columns with stars.

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Thinking about a career switch? Need to earn more money? Want to live in a mansion with a staff?

    Have I got an opportunity for you: there’s an opening in the president’s office at the University of Virginia.

    Far be it from me to pick on Virginia’s flagship university, but when I took a gander at embattled former UVA President Jim Ryan’s pay and compensation package, I was stunned.

    Whatever made me go into journalism, I wondered.

    As best I can tell, the university president’s salary is funded mostly by state money and endowments. 

    I knew UVA’s woke administrators were well-compensated. But who knew the president was raking in about a million bucks a year?

    Here’s how it breaks down: Ryan’s base salary was a whopping $912,200 with a $100,000 bonus and deferred compensation. In addition to other benefits, of course.

    “Other benefits” include a car allowance (he couldn’t afford a Ford Fiesta without help?) club memberships and a full year’s salary upon leaving office.

    In 2024, Ryan earned a $200,000 bonus for surpassing the university’s $5 billion capital campaign goal ahead of schedule. Continue reading.

  • Virginia Election Wildcard: What If Trump Wins the Nobel Peace Prize?

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    James A. Bacon

    by Paul Goldman

    Close-up view of a gold Nobel Prize medal featuring the profile of Alfred Nobel.

    Just when the Virginia GOP thought it couldn’t get worse this year. They lose votes every time Trump’s name is in the newspaper. So, what happens if he gets the Nobel Peace Prize? Does he suddenly go from albatross to asset?

    Remember, the Norwegians gave the prize to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. As a long-time anti-Vietnam War protester, this disgusted me: The Nixon-Kissinger policy had intentionally extended the war for several years for political reasons, not shortened it. Nothing the Norwegians dominating the Nobel committee picking the winner might do would shock me.  

    That having been said: Looking at the history of the 111 individual winners over the years, Trump winning is not another Virginia GOP MAGA fantasy. Three sitting American Presidents have won: Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Barack Obama. The latter conceded he really hadn’t been in office long enough to do anything worthy to win the prize. 

    Wilson won for his work to create the League of Nations. Wilson never got the United States to join. Indeed, when campaigning around the country to generate support for joining the League, Wilson suffered a stroke, leaving him secretly paralyzed in the White House for the remainder of the second term. The League of Nations was a key part of the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty’s punitive anti-German terms led directly to the rise of Adolf Hitler and thus the second world war. 

    (more…)

  • Restore the Battle Streamers

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    James A. Bacon

    A collection of multi-colored battle streamers with gold lettering, representing various Civil War battles, laid out on a table.

    by Donald Smith

    Summertime in Washington, D.C., is NDAA Time. NDAA, as in the National Defense Authorization Act. The federal government dispensed with proper budget procedures a long time ago. Everything it does is now funded by continuing resolutions, omnibus bills, or other confounding mechanisms. The NDAA, though, always passes because it funds the Defense Department.  Hence, crafty politicians attach anything and everything to some spot deep in the depths of the NDAA language. They know it’s a sure-fire way to get controversial matters enacted, often without most Americans knowing about it. 

    Congress created the Naming Commission through the Fiscal Year 2021 NDAA. Earlier this month, Democrat members of the House of Representatives responded to President Trump’s recent re-re-naming of Army bases by inserting an amendment into the FY 2026 NDAA. From Roll Call, on July 17th:

    The Trump administration has undone a 2022 congressionally chartered commission’s renaming of military bases and ships that had for years celebrated the Confederacy, but as of this week both the House and Senate are poised to consider at least a partial reversal of President Donald Trump’s moves.

    The House fiscal 2026 NDAA contains an amendment by Rep. Marilyn Strickland, D-Wash., that would ensure all the formerly Confederate-linked facilities, assets and streets across the U.S. military are renamed along the lines proposed by the 2022 commission to honor other warriors or certain values.

    OK, then.  If this is NDAA amendment season, then here’s another amendment Congress can enact: return Confederate battle streamers to Army National Guard unit colors.

    (more…)

  • The Last Man Standing in Prince William

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    James A. Bacon

    A portrait of a man with a beard, wearing a gray suit and tie, against a dark background.
    Bob Weir

    by Chap Petersen

    Last week, Prince William County Supervisor Bob Weir (R-Gainesville) died at the age of 62 of colon cancer.  It struck suddenly, as it usually does. Most of his constituents and fellow politicos had no idea he was ill until he was dead.

    Bob was a unicorn in Virginia politics. He was a small-government Republican who fought resolutely against the world’s largest companies and their plans to build endless fields of data centers in Prince William’s Rural Crescent.

    Bob first called me in the summer of 2023 to get me involved in the Digital Gateway project. He was a kindred spirit. Totally independent in words and actions. Not beholden to special interests or large donors.

    With his passing, the County loses a singular man of courage. Who will step up to replace his voice?

    The issue is not just in Prince William County; it is systemic in Virginia.

    Over the past generation, the parties have traded control of the Governor’s mansion and Assembly. But no matter which party has control, there is a “hidden hand” dictating policy in both Richmond and the hinterlands. And that flows directly from Virginia’s refusal to enact campaign finance reform.

    (more…)

  • Autumn’s Unsettling

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    James A. Bacon

    A diverse group of people standing in line to vote on Election Day, with a ballot box in front and a banner that reads 'ELECTION DAY' surrounded by autumn leaves.

    by Gordon C. Morse

    It’s mid-summer and hot. Let’s imagine the fall, cooler air and assume James Carville is right.

    “The Democratic Party,” he wrote in The New York Times, “is steamrolling toward a civilized civil war.”

    Carville would hold off the fight temporarily. Need more Democrats in Congress, he says. Focus on the 2026 congressional elections and seize upon President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which Carville calls “a big, steaming doggy nugget of epic proportions.”

    After that, game on.

    Virginia could easily end up being a battlefield in the coming clash and how civilized will it be? You wonder.

    Before that, a quick trivia question: Who ran Lt. Gov. Richard Davis’ 1982 campaign for the U.S. Senate?

    James Carville. He got famous later and now claims soothsayer status.

    But let’s go with it and, for the purposes of conjecture, declare Republican Winsome Sears an also-ran in her bid for governor in November. Many people have reached that conclusion and it naturally invites complacency. But I’m just postulating here.

    Because assuming that Spanberger has the fall election in the bag, you may also easily conclude that the present meager Democratic majority in the Virginia House of Delegates will become less meager.

    (more…)

  • UVA Launches Presidential Search Committee

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    With Senate Democrats warning the University of Virginia to wait until next year to appoint a new president, the Board of Visitors has embarked upon its first crucial step — selecting a 28-person search committee.

    According to a university statement released yesterday, the special committee tasked with recommending candidates to the Board of Visitors to serve as UVA’s 10th president includes “a diverse group of UVA students, faculty, staff, alumni and former and sitting members of the Board of Visitors.”

    The group will be charged with incorporating “a broad and inclusive range of perspectives from across UVA’s vibrant community as the presidential search moves forward.”

    Board members appointed by Governor Glenn Youngkin will be firmly in control of the search. Not only will nine board members serve on the committee, but Rector Rachel Sheridan will chair the group, and Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson will serve as vice chair.

    (more…)

  • Youngkin Being Careful On His Way Out

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Governor Glenn Youngkin. Photo Credit: Associated Press

    With one foot out of the Virginia Governor’s Executive Mansion and both eyes on the White House, Gov. Glenn Youngkin is being careful not to cross Donald Trump. In recent comments he has praised Trump actions and downplayed or publicly ignored any negative effects on the Commonwealth of recent Trump initiatives.

    Tax and spending bill

    He recently lavished praise on Trump’s tax and spending bill, saying that it would result in tax relief of about $2,800 per family. Most Virginians should not start counting on that level of tax relief. What Youngkin did not say was that that figure is an average and that the actual distribution of the bill’s tax benefits is highly skewed to high-income families.

    The Tax Policy Center  largely agrees with the average tax benefit, but goes on to report, “The biggest beneficiaries would be households making between $460,000 and $1.1 million (the 95th-99th income percentile), who would get an average tax cut of $21,000, raising their after-tax incomes by 4.4 percent.” Further down the income ladder, middle-income households ($67,000-$119,000) would get an average tax cut of $1,800, which would raise their after-tax income by 2.3 percent. Lastly, the lowest -income households, those making less than $35,000, would get an average tax cut of $150, or less than one percent of their after-tax income.

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  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

    A humorous text image depicting two cowboys in the desert, discussing a tree draped in bacon that turns out to be a ham bush.

    What does a bacon tree look like? And what kind of song would AI compose for “The Ballad of the Bacon Tree”?

    (more…)

  • Constitutional Law 101

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Gavin Grimm

    The lawyers in the federal Dept. of Education and the Youngkin administration either don’t understand a court decision or are choosing to ignore it.

    The department has notified the school districts of Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William that their policies allowing transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity violate federal law. Specifically, it asserts that the policies violate Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. The complaint that sparked the investigation and departmental action claimed the localities granted “greater rights to students whose ‘gender identity’ does not match their biological sex than it does to students whose ‘gender identity’ matches their biological sex.”

    According to the Washington Post, the department gave the school districts “10 days to ‘voluntarily agree’ with a proposed resolution to, among other things, rescind the existing gender-identity policies; issue a memorandum to schools explaining that future policies must separate students strictly on the basis of sex; and adopt ‘biology-based definitions of the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ in all practices and policies relating to Title IX.’”

    Gov. Youngkin praised the federal department’s action, saying the school districts had ”got away with this behavior because the Biden administration backed them up.” He went on to claim, “These school divisions have been violating federal law, deliberately neglecting their responsibility to protect students’ safety, privacy and dignity, and ignoring parents’ rights.”

    There is a major problem that the feds and Youngkin seem to be overlooking. In 2020, the Fourth U.S. Court of Appeals, in Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, upheld a district court finding that a school’s policy preventing a transgender student from using the restroom that matched the student’s gender identity violated the rights of the student under Title IX. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider the case on appeal.

    In summary, what the Dept. of Education is claiming in its letters to the school districts is exactly the opposite of what the federal appeals court has said the law is. The policies of the school districts are in line with the decision of the appeals court. The last time I checked, a federal appeals court ruling supersedes the interpretation of the law by a federal agency. To be fair to the Dept. of Education, perhaps all their lawyers have been fired.

  • A Power Play Remarkable for Its Audacity

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    James A. Bacon

    A group of politicians standing behind a podium with a sign that reads 'PROTECT OUR #1 RANKED SCHOOLS'. One elderly man in a suit speaks while others listen attentively.
    Former Governor L. Douglas Wilder defended DEI in Richmond yesterday as Senate Democrats assailed the Trump administration for enforcing Title VI Civil Rights law. Image credit: The Virginian-Pilot

    by James A. Bacon

    The lead of this Virginian-Pilot article might be a tad inaccurate, but it hits close to the mark:

    Virginia Democratic legislators said Thursday that they would not confirm a permanent replacement for former University of Virginia president Jim Ryan, who was ousted last month under pressure from the Trump administration.

    I don’t think they actually said that. Technically, state legislators don’t have the authority to reject a university president; only the institution’s board of visitors does. But lawmakers do have the power to reject board members nominated by the governor. What Senate Dems did yesterday was threaten to use that power to block Governor Glenn Youngkin’s latest round of nominations with the ultimate goal of packing the UVA Board with Democratic appointees who will pick a president more to the lawmakers’ liking.

    House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, put it this way: The UVA board “needs to listen very clearly They probably should put a freeze on any hiring, because we will not support whatever it is that they do. This is an illegitimate board right now that has been appointed and been told that they will not be appointed permanently.”

    If you were offered the presidency of UVA, would you take the offer knowing that the legislature could boot you out in a year?

    (more…)

  • Maybe I Should Start Posting Cat Videos on Bacon’s Rebellion

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    James A. Bacon

    Nick Freitas’ posts are showing up on more of my news feeds. The Republican delegate from Culpeper is amassing an impressive social media following — 272,000 followers on X. His clips are short, punchy and funny. The dude’s got a sense of humor! — JAB

    But it’s not all political….

  • File This Under, “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”

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    James A. Bacon

    Virginia Tech is implementing a new admissions-application process for the next academic year. Snowed under by a record 57,600 first-year applications last year, Tech will be using AI to help sort through all those essays.

    A woman sitting at a table, reading a paper, next to a humanoid robot while other students are focused on their work in a classroom setting.
    Image credit: Bing Image Creator

    States the Virginia Tech news bureau:

    The changes include shifting the university’s early admissions application deadline from Nov. 15 to Nov. 1 and integrating a new approach to evaluating applicant essays that pairs human reviewers with an artificial intelligence (AI)-supported model developed by Virginia Tech researchers.

    The new review process replaces a system in which each essay was initially scored by two human reviewers with a model that includes one human reviewer and one AI reviewer. 

    Said Juan Espinoza, vice provost for enrollment management: “Utilizing AI will enable us to review essays more quickly and consistently, which benefits students by allowing our admissions committee to make admissions decisions earlier.”

    Holy smokes. Students are increasingly using AI to write their college essays. Now universities are using AI to evaluate those essays. Where does this end? — JAB

  • Reid Sides with Parents in K-12 Reform

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    A man smiling while wrapped in an American flag, showcasing a confident and friendly demeanor.

    It’s conventional wisdom that voters don’t read the position papers of political candidates. If so, John Reid’s foray into K-12 school reform may not do much to energize his campaign for lieutenant governor. That would be a shame because, love him or hate him, Reid speaks common sense with clarity on a discussion made opaque by buzzwords and mumbo jumbo that substitute for thought.

    Sounding the theme that gave Governor Glenn Youngkin his winning edge four years ago, Reid says, “parents aren’t the problem, they’re the foundation. And it’s time we treat them that way.”

    Reid will be attacked as radical and transphobic no matter what. But voters should note that he doesn’t call for purging leftist content about sexuality, ideology and gender identity from schools. Rather, he wants to shield children from such controversial material without parents giving their OK. The same goes for mental-health and gender-related services, which should never be provided without parents being notified.

    “Families,” says Reid in his Reid Revolution account on Substack, “deserve full visibility” into what their children are being exposed to.

    The culture war raging in Virginia public schools is about whether the so-called “progressives” who have captured the K-12 education system in many localities can use their power to drive radical social transformation in defiance of the wishes of many if not most parents. Reid is basically saying, to borrow a line from Pink Floyd, “Hey, teacher, leave our kids alone!”

    (more…)

  • Beach Elections: The Product of a Judge and a California Professor

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    James A. Bacon

    A transparent ballot box with a check-marked voting slip placed inside against a gradient background.

    by Victoria Manning

    Virginia Beach voters will decide in November whether to change their system of electing local government officials. The system in place now, dictated by an unelected judge with the advisement of a biased California professor, conflicts with the city charter.

    That California professor helping the case, Bernard Grofman, is a favorite choice of Democrats as a consultant in redistricting cases across the nation. District Court Judge Raymond Jackson appointed Grofman as a “Special Master” to completely rewrite the Virginia Beach voting system. In 2021 Grofman trashed Donald Trump and Republicans, calling them liars and conspiracy theorists. Now he’s helping Jackson force the city of Virginia Beach to change the way it elects its city council and school board.

    The question on the November 4th ballot is “Should the method of city council elections set forth in the Virginia Beach City Charter be changed from a modified 7-3-1 system to a 10-1 system?”

    The 10-1 system put in place by Judge Jackson consists of 10 district seats and 1 at-large seat on the city council and school board. For city council, the at-large position is that of Mayor. In the modified 7-3-1 system, there are 7 districts, 3 at-large, and 1 Mayor for city council. For school board it is 7 districts and 4 at-large positions. Continue reading.

  • Bacon’s Rebellion Proud to Be Part of Shadowy Clique of Puppet Masters

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    James A. Bacon

    A colorful cartoon illustration depicting a group of men gathered around a table covered with a conspiracy map, with various characters expressing exaggerated facial expressions.
    Vast right-wing conspiracy. Image credit: Bing Image Creator

    by James A. Bacon

    I didn’t know it but, apparently, I’m part of the vast right-wing conspiracy. I’m so clued in to the machinations of the conservative claque seeking to rid higher-ed of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion that I predicted that George Mason University President Gregory Washington might be forced to step down over DEI policy.

    As the old saying goes, the perception of having power is in itself a form of power. In a column published Tuesday, contributors to the Chronicle of Higher Education lumped me with the Department of Justice, the Youngkin administration, the Manhattan Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the National Review, and the Washington Free Beacon as part of the shadowy army arrayed against DEI at GMU and the University of Virginia.

    That’s good company. It’s nice to be part of the power elite. I only wish my co-conspirators knew it!

    I doubt that most of the individuals cited in the Chronicle column have the slightest idea who I am. But as long as campus lefties think I’m part of the conservative media elite, that’s consolation of a sort.

    Let me launch the critique of this latest nonsense with the paragraph in the Chronicle that’s all about me (!!) as a way to approach the column’s larger thesis.

    (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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