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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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
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!”
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.
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.
The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) mandates that Dominion Energy Virginia, the state’s major electric utility, rapidly shift its power generation to wind and solar. Dominion’s latest Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) provides dramatic evidence that this shift does not work, making blackouts inevitable. Making it work would be fantastically expensive with the average customer paying over $40,000 for batteries by 2030.
First let’s look at how it does not work. There is a nifty little graphic showing this on page 62 of the IRP which is here.
The graphic summarizes Dominion’s VCEA compliance plan. It is a vertical bar showing the installed mix of generating capacity in 2030. The vertical scale is megawatts (MW) and the height of the bar is the projected maximum summer power demand for that year, which is about 33,000 MW.
The bar is divided into different colored segments for each generator type such as solar, wind, gas, nuclear, etc. The height of each segment is the amount of installed capacity at that time in MW.
Dominion actually flags solar pointing out that it makes up 23% of the available capacity. They also point out that solar, wind and batteries together make up 34% of capacity. Note that the battery segment is very small and batteries are not generators. The bar also includes a little bit of imported power making installed capacity less than peak demand.
The problem is obvious. Peak summer demand typically occurs after 4 p.m. when there is no solar generation. Moreover, it is often caused by a stagnant high-pressure system called a Bermuda high with very low winds so there is no wind power either. Plus, these highs are regional in scale so the neighbors may have no extra electricity to sell.
Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic candidate for governor, has released her “Growing Virginia Plan” for economic development. I’ll save you the trouble of reading it and boil it down for you: Do more of what Virginia is already doing.
The only new thought reflected in this compendium of business-as-usual practices is to denounce the “chaos in Washington” unleashed by the Trump administration’s tariffs and DOGE initiative. Translation: Whatever ails Virginia is Trump’s fault.
Otherwise, the “plan” does little more than restate the aims of existing state programs in workforce development, international trade and marketing. There is no analysis of Virginia’s economic challenges (other than taking note of Trump-generated chaos), no data, no goals, no vision, and nothing remotely original or fresh. As governor, it appears, Spanberger would consign economic development to the existing bureaucratic apparatus without changing a thing.
Unfortunately, the Republican challenger Winsome Earle-Sears, who has yet to issue her own plan, boggled the response. Her campaign issued a statement referred to Spanberger as “Spendberger” and likened her program to an “arsonist’s plan on fire safety.” While rhetorically colorful, the response ignored the “Growing Virginia Plan” in favor of attacking her track record as a congresswoman who supported inflationary Biden initiatives. Translation: Whatever ails Virginia is Spanberger’s and Biden’s fault.
Child sex predators, rapists, repeat offenders, and fugitives from justice are among those released to the streets despite ICE detainers.
by Victoria Manning
A FOIA request by Restoration News reveals that the sanctuary jurisdiction Fairfax County has released 205 illegal alien criminals onto the streets since February 2025. Only 7 arrested criminals were turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Among those released to the streets — rather than taken into ICE custody — were violent criminals including an accused child rapist, child sexual predators, fugitives from justice, and over a dozen charged with malicious wounding or strangulation.
Democrats’ sanctuary policies protect violent illegal aliens at the expense of the safety of Americans—including children.
Here is a portion of the charges against the illegal aliens released to the streets in Fairfax since February:
Vehicular manslaughter with a DUI
10 charges related to child sex crimes, including:
Rape of a victim under 13
Aggravated sexual battery of a child under 13
Forcible intercourse with victim under 13 and aggravated sexual battery with 2 victims under 13
July 2025 PJM capacity auction for contracts beginning July 2026
by Steve Haner
The regional electricity marketplace that serves Virginia, PJM Interconnection, was shocked (pardon the pun) by last year’s high price auction to secure future excess generation capacity, needed for days of tight supply. In response, several changes were made to the process to lower the price faced by the member utilities and their customers.
It didn’t make much difference. For the PJM region, the bid price for future firm generation capacity has settled at $329.17. Last year, the price was set at $269.92 for most of the PJM territory. The new price is an improvement for the Dominion Energy Zone, which reached $444.26 in the 2024 auction, and for the Baltimore Gas and Electric Zone, which hit $466.35. For that price, the generator promises to make available one megawatt of generation for the entire day.
The prices from the summer 2024 auction are now being paid by the PJM load serving entities, including Virginians. The auction looks forward by a year, and the new $329.17 price will apply for contracts starting in July 2026. Just two years ago, that price was less than $30 per megawatt day. Compared to last year, the pressure on Dominion’s part of Virginia dropped but utilities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other parts of PJM are looking at even higher costs, including those in Western Virginia outside Dominion Zone.
July 24 PJM capacity auction results, setting prices beginning July 2025.
One of the reforms imposed after the 2024 auction was to set an artificial cap on the price. The auction that started last week went right up to that pre-agreed maximum price of $329.17. Without the cap, it likely would have been higher. Does that indicate the rules interfered with finding the correct price?
The underlying supply and demand mismatch that is driving this should concern all energy customers in the PJM region. This is yet another sign that PJM is losing too much of its dispatchable coal and gas generation, although another of the reforms applied was to keep open several plants that were otherwise going to close. Even with that extra supply, prices stayed high. Like the price cap, there is an economics message in that, too.
Northern Virginia’s business community rises from its slumber to address challenges of the AI revolution.
by James A. Bacon
Like the legendary Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep for 20 years and woke up to a whole new world, Northern Virginia’s business community has emerged from its lengthy snooze to realize that it needs to reinvent its regional economy. The result is a new “NOVA Roadmap” that seeks to free the region from its dependence upon federal employment and contracting.
The Fairfax Chamber of Commerce plan seeks to hitch Northern Virginia’s economy to emerging, fast-growth technology sectors by building data centers and other digital infrastructure and creating a new curriculum for developing critical skills needed in the emerging economy.
“’Wait and see’ is not an option,” said Fairfax Chamber CEO Julie Coons when introducing the plan Monday. “Urgent and coordinated action is essential. Recent federal workforce losses could cost Virginia billions in GDP and tax revenue if we fail to act.” (See the Richmond Times-Dispatch account here.)
Northern Virginia was the dynamo that drove economic growth in Virginia for nearly a half century. But the growth machine, dependent upon surging federal spending, has been sputtering for years now. Population and job growth in the Northern Virginia MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) have slowed to the point where they have been overtaken by metropolitan Richmond metro, which no one would call a boom town.
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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