Bacon's Rebellion

  • The Link, the Vista, and K-12

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Twenty-five years of student housing generating students

    by Joe Fitzgerald

    History, arithmetic, evidence. Those are just some of the things that suggest a student housing glut is a major factor driving enrollment growth in Harrisonburg City Public Schools. They’re also some of the things City Council members can legally and politically ignore in making decisions about the city’s future.

    Since Sunchase opened in 1999, every three bedrooms of housing targeting JMU students has generated one new K-12 HCPS student.

    But JMU student housing doesn’t have people in that age range, and some of that housing is in the county, you say. Bear with me.

    Start with this graph.

    Line graph comparing the number of off-campus housing beds for JMU students and the HCPS census from 2005 to 2020.
    *Source: HRHA housing studies, news sources
    **Source: Harrisonburg City Public Schools

    New off-campus JMU housing and growth in K-12 are roughly parallel except for the one blip. That blip came when a previous City Council changed zoning rules to make it harder to build new apartment complexes. But the change didn’t kick in for three years, and developers built while the building was good, adding more than 3,000 beds of student housing.

    (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

    A humorous image featuring a doctor giving dietary advice to a person, while a man is seen in water with a pig, humorously telling it to swim.

    (Haha! Not so crazy. For those who missed it, check out my post from earlier this year, “Attack of the Killer Swine.”)

    Wait, there’s more news about pigs and bacon! The Wall Street Journal profiled Virginia’s very own Smithfield Foods, which has genetically engineered a super pig that produces more bacon!

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  • Hold the Presses! Gregory Washington Still Has a Job!

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    James A. Bacon

    Against the backdrop of hysterical warnings that the George Mason University Board of Visitors might fire President Gregory Washington, GMU’s first Black president, at its meeting today, the Board gave him a raise. It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement — only 1.5 percent — but it was a raise. Apparently, that means he still has a job.

    Portrait of Gregory Washington, the first Black president of George Mason University, smiling in a suit against a natural green background.
    Gregory Washington

    Let’s review the tape of what the media were saying about the GMU president, who has been on the defensive as the Department of Justice, the Youngkin administration, and the Board of Visitors pushes back against anti-Semitism and racial preferences at the Northern Virginia university.

    The New York Times a couple of days ago:

    Faculty members said they were concerned that a pileup of investigations would be used to justify toppling him, as happened with Dr. Ryan. [at the University of Virginia].

    “We’re worried it’s going to be high noon on Friday,” said Tim Gibson, an associate professor at George Mason and the president of the Virginia state conference of the American Association of University Professors, a faculty rights group.

    VPM News yesterday:

    A growing number of George Mason University faculty are concerned about the fate of President Gregory Washington, whose annual performance review is set for the upcoming Board of Visitors meeting Friday morning — amid an onslaught of federal investigations.

    (more…)

  • Campus Union Joins No-Confidence Movement

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    James A. Bacon

    Event poster for a teach-in titled 'Boards of Visitors, Bargaining, and You' discussing university governance and collective bargaining rights, scheduled for July 31 from 7:00 to 8:30 PM via Zoom.

    by James A. Bacon

    The “no confidence” campaign against the University of Virginia Board of Visitors is gaining momentum with the United Campus Workers of Virginia (UCWV) joining the effort. Strikes and lawsuits are among the options available to protesters, although, as one panelist put it in a “teach-in” yesterday, strikes by state employees are illegal in Virginia and hard to pull off. “There’s probably a lot of steps in between [a strike] and where we are now.”

    The union representing graduate students and other employees at UVA, Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the College of William & Mary also is keeping close tabs on the GMU Board of Visitors, which was meeting today amidst widespread fears that it might oust President Gregory Washington in disputes over anti-Semitism and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. The UVA Board is scheduled to meet in a special session Monday to discuss the search for a new president.

    In a zoom meeting open to public participation yesterday, the UCWV provided insight into what leftist elements in Virginia’s public universities are thinking and doing. From the remarks made in the meeting, it was evident that UCWV members sympathized with the UVA Faculty Senate’s recent 46-to-6 “no confidence” vote against the UVA board but faced a steep learning curve to understand the governance of public universities.

    The meeting took place against a backdrop of a battle royale between Governor Glenn Youngkin and state Senate Democrats over control over the governing boards of Virginia’s public universities.

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  • Conforming to Trump’s Tax Law Would Save Virginians $1.4 Billion

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    Should the 2026 Virginia General Assembly choose to conform state tax laws to the full set of new tax rules at the federal level, Virginia families and businesses might save as much at $1.4 billion annually. That is a fresh estimate from the Tax Foundation, which looked at the impact of full conformity in all 50 states. 

    Jared Walczak is vice president of state projects at the Tax Foundation and is well known and respected in Richmond, where he worked as a legislative aide with a keen interest in tax matters. His team’s estimates are just that, and the Virginia Department of Taxation may be coming up with different numbers, but the Tax Foundation report can start the debate. 

    They might prefer we didn’t, but the time to press candidates for governor and for the General Assembly about these issues is now, before the November election. The recent good news about the state finishing yet another budget cycle with a healthy surplus should be part of the conversation. In his introduced budget in December, outgoing Governor Glenn Youngkin could propose which of these provisions he would adopt. 

    Virginia’s default position on the income tax for years has been to conform to federal tax rules and definitions. Generally, conformity should be the goal because of how it simplifies tax compliance. But it has been more than a decade since Virginia was an automatic or “rolling” conformity state. The list of variances has gotten very long and may now grow again.

    Anticipating big changes under new President Donald Trump, the 2025 General Assembly inserted a firm commandment in the final budget making it clear that no federal changes adopted by Congress would be automatically adopted in Virginia, even those with minimal fiscal implications.  

    The Tax Foundation labels our current position as “static conformity” and also reviews the other states’ postures. That will leave the next governor and the 2026 legislators with a long list of decisions to make, some of them on highly popular federal provisions such as the new individual deductions for tip income and overtime income. 

    (more…)

  • Make America Safe for Anti-ICE Doxxers!

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    James A. Bacon

    A person wearing tactical gear and a mask holds a paintball gun, walking past a storefront, while another individual behind them carries a megaphone.
    Masked ICE agent in Los Angeles, trailed by what appears to be a masked protester. Photo credit: Reuters

    by James A. Bacon

    Federal immigration agents would be forbidden from wearing masks when making arrests under a bill that Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine plan to introduce to Congress, reports Axios Richmond. The proposal represents in part a response to incidents in Chesterfield County and Charlottesville courthouses where plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials wore masks when detaining illegal immigrants.

    Democratic lawmakers oppose ICE agents wearing masks because…. Well, it’s not entirely clear from the Axios article what the thinking is behind the proposed bill. Axios notes that raids by ICE agents in plain clothes have fed fears that people were being kidnaped and that ICE impersonators have been harassing people, “creating … chaos and uncertainty in some communities.”

    None of that warrants a ban on face masks. If the problem is ICE officials wearing plain clothes, then require them to wear uniforms. If the problem is impersonating ICE officials, then make such subterfuges illegal. The problem isn’t the wearing of masks in the abstract, or the proposed bill would say something about anti-Israel protesters who conceal their identities with masks. Critics (not necessarily Warner and Kaine) have likened the use of masks to secret police tactics.

    ICE agents wear masks for a reason. Here’s an AI-generated summary:

    “Increased Threats: ICE officials have reported a significant rise in threats and assaults against their agents, with claims of a 500% increase in assaults during operations. This alarming trend has led to concerns for the safety of agents and their families, prompting the use of masks to conceal their identities.

    (more…)

  • Richmond, Pay the Man His Money!

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    James A. Bacon

    A smiling older man wearing a blue baseball cap with a lion logo, glasses, and a blue shirt that reads 'I'M A PROUD BROTHER.'
    Marvin Grimm. Image credit: WRIC

    by Jon Baliles

    A strange story appeared this week almost out of nowhere and seems to have caught everyone by surprise, including the Mayor, who has spent the last few days fumbling the situation like a rookie running back. Graham Moomaw at The Richmonder broke the news Monday that Governor Youngkin sent the city a letter scolding the government for dragging their feet in adhering to a new state law that requires localities to match state compensation to pay those wrongfully convicted of a crime for time served in prison.

    The city owes $5.8 million to Marvin Grimm, who was wrongly convicted at age 20 and sentenced to life in prison for the death of a three-year old boy in 1976 but was exonerated last year. The state approved a $5.8 million allocation to Grimm during the General Assembly earlier this year. The city owes the same amount because the General Assembly passed a new law that took effect July 1 which requires localities where the wrongful conviction took place match the state compensation. It was bipartisan legislation approved 99-0 in the House of Delegates and 40-0 in the Senate.

    The Governor’s letter warned the city that the state could withhold state funding if the money is not paid to Grimm by August 15th. Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, wrote the law and told Moomaw, “Richmond is obligated to pay it. That is the statute that we passed. The governor is doing what we directed him to do in that statute.”

    The Governor is also doing something the city so far has chosen not to do — answer Mr. Grimm’s attempts to receive his due compensation.

    (more…)

  • Hashmi a Radical on Abortion, Gun Control

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    James A. Bacon

    A woman speaking into a microphone, wearing a white jacket with black trim, appearing engaged and confident.
    Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D-Chesterfield) Photo credit: VPM

    by Jacob Grandstaff

    State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, the Democrats’ pick for Virginia’s Lt. Governor, has cultivated a social policy record more suited to San Francisco and New York City than the commonwealth she seeks to represent. From her attacks on the sanctity of life to her assault on Virginians’ Second Amendment rights, her agenda represents a direct affront to key principles that makes Virginia great—valuing life and the right to defend it.

    A champion for abortion extremism

    Hashmi is not only pro-choice; she’s pro-abortion. In fact, she voted to limit the information women could access to make an informed choice. Additionally, she enjoys massive support from the abortion lobby. She even brags of Virginia’s abortion tourism industry for women who want to kill their babies but can’t do so legally because of pesky right-to-life laws in other states.

    In 2020, Hashmi voted for the Reproductive Health Protection Act. This expanded who could perform abortions to include nurse practitioners. It also eliminated mandatory ultrasounds and 24-hour wait times, which in the 2010s helped reduce abortions by around 32 percent in the commonwealth.

    By expanding provider eligibility and removing mandatory in-person counseling, the bill made it easier for abortion providers to mail mifepristone and other abortifacients to women after the FDA approved telehealth abortions the following year.

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  • Shell Game

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    sherlockj

    Shell Game

    by James C. Sherlock

    We note that the owners of Medical Facilities of America (MFA) have renamed their entire 51-facility chain “Lifeworks Rehab”.  

    They can change it weekly if they wish.  There are no rules on that front.

    We are left to presume it is happenstance that now none of the bad MFA headlines and stories can easily be traced to them.  The same coincidence happened in December 2024 when the Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center scandal exploded.  At that point the same guys retired their Innovative Healthcare Management flag and moved Innovative Healthcare’s facilities under their MFA label.  

    Those facilities advertised at that point that they were “under new management”.  I wrote about it.  They removed that claim from the websites.  

    Now “Lifeworks Rehab”.  All is forgiven.

  • LCV Attack Ads: Three Swings, Three Misses

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    School bus? Storage battery? No, utility profit center.

    By Steve Haner

    The best defense has always been a good offense.  With Virginia Democrats under some political pressure over their wind, solar and electric vehicle addictions (not enough pressure, in my opinion), Virginia’s environmental activists are counterattacking at Republicans who won’t drink their green Kool-Aid.

    The Virginia League of Conservation Voters has announced a digital media buy aimed at nine Republican House members who voted against some of LCV’s favorite bills.  The claim is that Republican votes caused rate increases which enriched some unnamed big energy company.  Dominion Energy is unnamed in the ads, of course, because it gives more money to Democrats than it does Republicans in Virginia.  It has spent twice as much so far this cycle buying Democrat loyalty as Clean Virginia has, and that is saying something.  So Democrats have to tiptoe around Dominion this year, but that’s another story.

    You can see the ads here and here.  In this old comms guy’s opinion, I’ve seen better. The longer one in particular is confusing, but they are both worthless unless somehow they get tied to the individual candidates and the election. Instead, the message in the tag line is “clean energy lowers prices.”  No, and it isn’t even that clean, but that’s also another story.

    In explaining why it did this, LCV’s release on its website cited three specific 2025 bills, two of which passed and one of them vetoed.  Let us explore those bills in the order in which they listed them, and why someone might have voted against them.  None of them lower any prices at all. 

    House Bill 2266, which was signed into law, is described by them as cutting “excessive interconnection costs …to make small clean energy projects more affordable and bring projects online faster.”  Well, no, but it directs the State Corporation Commission to work with the utilities on improving that process. That is not a bill that this observer targeted as obnoxious. I should have.

    (more…)

  • Let’s Run the Medicaid Numbers Before Hitting the Panic Button

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    A green cartoon character with a wide grin and outstretched hands, accompanied by the text 'DON'T PANIC' in bold, yellow letters.

    Aubrey Layne was a great public servant in Richmond before he moved back to Norfolk to take a job as chief administrative officer of Sentara Health. He did a superior job as Secretary of Transportation under Gov. Terry McAuliffe and then as Secretary of Finance under Gov. Ralph Northam. He earned my respect as a nonpartisan straight shooter. So, when he says that the Medicaid cuts enacted in the “Big Beautiful Bill” are a cause for concern, I pay attention.

    In a recent Richmond Times-Dispatch column, he warns that Virginia “will face difficult decisions that could directly affect access to care for low-income families, children, seniors and individuals with disabilities.” Safety-net hospitals and rural providers who rely disproportionately on Medicaid revenues, he says, will be particularly hard hit.

    In contrast to the hysterical, people-will-die narrative dominating Virginia’s news coverage, Layne argues that Virginia can handle the fallout of the Big Beautiful Bill — its various provisions will cost Virginia $26 billion over 14 years, according to the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services — through fiscally smart investments in primary care and the social determinants of health.

    I wish he’d delved deeper in his analysis. What kind of investments in primary care? Which social determinants of health are even fixable? Indeed, is the magnitude of the problem remotely as bad as the sky-is-falling chicken littles are proclaiming? Admittedly, that’s a lot to ask of a 750-word op ed.

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  • Education Issues, Choices Facing Virginia’s Voters

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    Steve Haner

    By Derrick Max 

    Virginia’s education system is in crisis. The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores are a wake-up call: only 31% of Virginia’s fourth graders are proficient in reading and only 40% in math, and just 29% of eighth graders meet proficiency standards in both reading and math. Worse, nearly one in three Virginia students can’t demonstrate even the partial mastery in reading necessary to demonstrate grade level proficiency. 

    Yet our state Standards of Learning (SOL) tests tell a very different – and dangerously misleading – story. While NAEP exposes the truth, Virginia’s SOL tests label students “proficient” even when their skills are far below grade level. Parents are left in the dark, believing their children are on track when they are not. 

    Virginia can – and must – do better. 

    The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy’s Vision for Virginia 2025: Education Policy lays out a plan to finally hold schools accountable, restore parents’ trust, and put our students back on the path to excellence. 

    Here’s how: 

    (more…)

  • “A Weak and Ineffective Republican”?

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Todd Gilbert, in his new office as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Va. Photo credit: Roanoke Times

    Todd Gilbert may be having mixed feelings today.

    The U.S. Senate has a custom whereby a member can veto a presidential nomination for a district court judgeship or U.S. Attorney in his or her state. It is called a “blue slip” and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has said that he will keep honoring that tradition.

    President Trump, using his favorite word for something he doesn’t like, has called this custom or tradition a “hoax.” “The only way to beat this Hoax,” he wrote, “is to appoint a Democrat or, a weak and ineffective Republican. Therefore, I would never be able to appoint Great Judges or U.S. Attorneys in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Virginia, and other places.”

    Gilbert was a long-serving member of the Virginia House of Delegates and served as Speaker from 2022-2024. He was known as one of the most conservative and outspoken Republican members. He has been nominated by Trump to be the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia. The two U.S. Senators from Virginia, both Democrats, have voiced their support for him. While awaiting his confirmation by the U.S. Senate, which has been deemed to be “as good as a done deal,” he has been appointed and sworn in as the interim U.S. Attorney for the district.

  • An Alleged Wrongful Death in Colonial Heights Revisited

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    sherlockj

    An Alleged Wrongful Death in Colonial Heights Revisited

    by James C. Sherlock

    I published in February 2025 a series of articles on a nursing home wrongful death scandal that was revealed when police swarmed Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center (Colonial Heights) in late December of 2024.

    The government has alleged in court that a woman, helpless with cerebral palsy and diabetes, died in late October last year after prolonged suffering from sepsis suffered as a result of criminal abuse and neglect at Colonial Heights.

    Criminal charges have been filed against 19 members of the facility staff.

    I wrote in February in Virginia’s Nursing Homes and the Courts: No charges have been filed against any corporate manager or owner in either of the two Colonial Heights cases. … Perhaps the indicted employees are not the only culprits. 

    Perhaps indeed they are not.

    I mentioned in the story that Mr. Moshe Rajchenbach holds a mortgage on Colonial Heights. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data show he has been far more involved than that.

    (more…)

  • A Word of Caution

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    It irritates me a great deal to have an AI “answer” appear whenever I try to search the internet for information. AI is so notorious for misinformation that I wonder that the Googles of the world put it out there. I customarily ignore the AI “information” that appears. However, it was impossible to ignore one that recently popped up; it was so outrageous.

    In searching for some information pertaining to a recent article on Bacon’s Rebellion, I keyed in the following question:

    Does the Fairfax County circuit court assign cases to judges on a random basis?

    Here is the answer that AI provided:

    Fairfax County Circuit Court generally assigns cases to judges on a random basis, according to the U.S District Court (Northern District of Iowa).

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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