Bacon's Rebellion

  • Where’s the Local Media on This National Story?

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    James A. Bacon

    Norfolk house at the center of a national controversy. Image credit: The New York Post

    by James A. Bacon

    A big national story has landed in Virginia, and state media, which could help the public sift through conflicting charges and countercharges, have been totally silent.

    In a 2022 trial heard around the world, New York Attorney General Letitia James famously secured a $354 million judgment against Donald Trump and the Trump Organization for submitting inflated property valuations to secure favorable loans. Trump and his defenders claimed that the valuations were subjective, the loans were repaid, and the prosecution was purely political.

    Now Trump is president, and he’s retaliating against his tormenters. In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director William Pulte accused James of playing fast and loose in a real estate transaction of her own. It appears that in a 2023 application for a $220,000 mortgage, James declared that she intended to occupy a Norfolk, Va., house as her “primary residence.” But she lives in New York, and she has conceded that her niece lives in the modest, single-family dwelling. Read the details in this New York Post account.

    Most recently, a report of irregularities has surfaced of James’ involvement in a 2008 real estate transaction in Martinsville, Va. Documents show her as a co-purchaser of a single-family home on a “final foreclosure accounting” (her name was misspelled as Lititua) but her name did not appear on the deed as it should have. The report could not identify a connection between James and the other buyers but noted that her mother resides in Martinsville.

    So, James stands accused of submitting inaccurate information in real estate-related legal documents — just as she charged Trump of doing, though on a much smaller scale. As with Trump, there is no evidence that anyone was harmed from the alleged (though heavily documented) misstatement.

    (more…)

  • A Quiz

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Can you identify the following:

    1. The company whose LinkedIn description is “________Company has been providing commercial and residential work on appliance repair and installation, plumbing, and electrical services for over 34 years. We give you quality work at reasonable prices, and the best service! Work is performed for businesses, private individuals, warranty companies, and in subcontractor capacity. As a female-, veteran-, and minority-owned company, we are able to help federal contractors meet their diversity requirements.”
    2. The young business executive who, upon assuming co-leadership of a major national firm lamented the lack of racial and gender diversity in his industry and lauded the efforts of his firm to to address those disparities. “The second we stepped into this role, we emphasized that this approach was not only going to continue, but it was going to be one of our key priorities.”

    (more…)

  • Case Study: How to Slant a Routine News Story

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    James A. Bacon

    Image credit: ChatGPT

    by James A. Bacon

    The Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors yesterday named Thomas “Teddy” Gottwald as interim president of the school’s governing body, succeeding former president John Adams who resigned for personal reasons last week.

    Gottwald disclaimed any desire to continue serving as president beyond June. Although VMI has been embroiled in controversy — most recently the board declined to renew the contract for Superintendent Cedric T. Wins — the appointment does not signal a change in direction for VMI.

    Of greater interest is how The Washington Post treated this routine story. The new reporter covering VMI, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff is… I can’t bring myself to say he is more “objective,” so I’ll say… less subjective than his odious, agenda-driven predecessor Ian Shapira. But he’s still a creature of the left, with all of its biases and preconceptions.

    Let’s start with the headline: “VMI selects controversial Youngkin donor as new interim board president.” Sub-head: “Teddy Gottwald, who quit the board days ahead of its 2020 vote to remove a Stonewall Jackson statue, was reappointed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2022. He will serve through June.”

    The headline sets the Post’s narrative-driven context right off the bat. Gottwald, whatever his other attributes, is “controversial.” How so? He quit in 2020 days before a board vote to remove the Stonewall Jackson statue from post. Thus, for readers, the five-year-old Stonewall Jackson controversy becomes Gottwald’s defining characteristic — even though he never voted on the issue himself!

    (more…)

  • Business Needs Certainty. So Do Voters.

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    James A. Bacon

    by Chris Braunlich

    Asked nearly 40 years ago what he needed most, less regulation or lower taxes, a small manufacturer of machine tools replied: “We need both,” he said, “but the thing we need most is certainty.”

    “Businesses have to plan out months and years,” he said. “We have to plan for employee salaries, tax rates, benefit costs, energy prices, selling cost, and the value of the dollar if we export or import. There’s a huge risk of failure trying to know what all that will be two years or even two months down the road, and if we’re wrong our businesses and our employees get hurt. The worst thing for a business is uncertainty.”

    Nothing about that has changed.

    Economists are free to argue about the viability of tariffs, although most conservative and even liberal economists tend to line up with the legendary Thomas Sowell over Paul Navarro.

    But one thing about which there should be no argument: imposing massive tariffs with a heretofore unknown formula that is defective, even on countries with which the U.S. has a trade surplus, on products we cannot make (think:  coffee, chocolate, and bananas), and on islands populated only by penguins does not inspire confidence in the process.

    Nor does watching the bottom drop out of the stock and bond markets, and its effect on the 61 percent of American adults holding stocks in personal or retirement accounts.

    It might be comforting if these actions were explained coherently. But they aren’t: those advising the president seem to have tested a variety of themes to justify them, almost as if the evidence was gathered after the decision had been made. Only after a week had passed did the White House even unite on the message that it was all just a masterclass in trade negotiation.

    So, putting a “pause” on most tariffs (but keeping them on neighbors Mexico and Canada) while making clear the goal is not abandoned and we have to do it again in 90 days creates chaos for American businesses who hire Americans to make or supply products to Americans.

    Which is why your retirement account remains volatile.

    It is no different for Virginia business owners. 

    (more…)

  • Virginia Beach Dems Oppose Ending Discrimination in Schools

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    James A. Bacon

    Republicans vote to uphold civil rights laws by committing to end DEI.

    by Victoria Manning

    On April 8th, the Virginia Beach School Board adopted a resolution with a 6-3 vote committing to end discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices. They must still vote to formally remove DEI policies at a future meeting. The Democrats on the board opposed ending discriminatory equity practices in schools with one member, Alveta Green, doubling down and belittling students of “European descent.”

    Not only is the DEI agenda a violation of civil rights laws, it’s also harmful to academic progress for all students.

    According to the American Civil Liberties Union, it’s illegal discrimination “if a person or a company intentionally treats you differently based on your race, ethnicity, or national origin.” That’s exactly what has been happening in educational institutions across the nation in the name of “equity”—including in Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS).

    On April 22, the Virginia Beach School Board will hold its next meeting. Far-left activists are already assembling to attend and oppose anti-discrimination laws from being enforced. Those opposed to racist, discriminatory, equity policies can email the school board at [email protected] and show up to the meeting at 6:00pm. Details can be found on the district’s website.

    The Department of Education has taken a firm stand against woke policies, warning districts that a lack of compliance with their updated standards could jeopardize their funding. Just a few examples of discriminatory practices in VBCPS that could cost the school district a loss of $75 million in federal funding:

    Continue reading.

  • Academic Armageddon

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The Trump administration has thrown the U.S. higher-ed sector into a blind panic by directing institutions to dismantle their DEI programs and limiting the percentage of federally funded research grants that can be applied to overhead.

    But you ain’t seen nothing yet, John Tomasi, president of the Heterodox Academy, told attendees of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA) today at its annual conference in Charlotte, N.C.

    The administration has several other levers to pull, including rewriting the rules for student loans, taxing endowments, and tightening immigration standards for overseas students, Tomasi said.

    “They’re just getting started,” he said. “Armageddon is coming.”

    Under pressure from the Trump administration, the boards of visitors at Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia, George Mason University, and Virginia Commonwealth University have voted to eliminate their DEI programs. These and other institutions are also scrambling to adapt to an executive order restricting overhead to 15% of a federal research grant. Because most universities siphon off much larger percentages to cover their overhead costs, the order blows holes of millions of dollars in university budgets. UVA has already begun reviewing all new hires, capital projects, pay raises and bonuses.

    (more…)

  • Big Church Vs. Little Church

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    James A. Bacon

    by Chap Petersen

    Image credit: Bing Image Creator

    Last Thursday, my law firm filed a First Amendment appeal with the Virginia Supreme Court to protect a small congregation in Fairfax County at risk of losing a $4 million dollar property due to an archaic legal principle favoring national denominations, which neither own nor invest in their members’ properties.

    Shalom Presbyterian Church was an independent church formed by Korean-speaking immigrants in 1988. Soon after forming, it bought land to build a future church home. As with most small churches, the deed to that land was held in the name of “Trustees” for the congregation.

    A decade later, Shalom Church joined a “regional presbytery” of Korean-speaking churches affiliated with the Presbyterian Church of the USA. They did not retitle their property. Nor did they accept any financial benefits. The engagement was merely social.

    In 2007, the Trustees borrowed $2.0 million to build a new church sanctuary. The mortgage payments were solely made by the congregation, who also paid for the insurance and upkeep. The Deed of Trust only mentioned the congregation and its Trustees.

    In 2016, the Trustees transferred title to a newly formed corporation, solely owned by church members. Again, the denomination had no role.

    (more…)

  • DEI Enforcers Muscle VA Beach Schools

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    James A. Bacon

    Image credit: ChatGPT

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Oh look. Far-left Democrats in the General Assembly want to play FAFO.

    For those unfamiliar, that means “eff around and find out.”

    And they’re gambling with Virginia Beach public schools to do it. If you have kids in those schools you should be on the phone telling those radicals to back off and mind their own business.

    If they want to run the schools let them run for school board.

    Four members of the local delegation to Richmond: Sen. Aaron Rouse, Del. Alex Askew, Del. Kelly Convirs-Fowler and Del. Michael Feggans fired off a letter last week to the Virginia Beach School Board, urging them to bow down at the altar of wokeness.

    They’re trying to shame and bully school board members into reversing their 6-3 April 8 vote to scrap DEI from their schools. This is to comply with the Trump administration’s directive to either jettison wasteful and counterproductive DEI programs or lose federal funding.

    By the way, Virginia Beach slurps up $74 million a year from Washington, making this a very wise decision,.

    “DEI initiatives are not radical – they are responsible” insist these political mid-wits who supposedly represent some of us in the state capitol.

    Fact is, these far-left Dem politicians don’t represent many of us. In fact, they are ideologues with a dangerous agenda. Continue reading.

  • More Fairfax Tax Hikes Coming

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Arthur Purves

    For the past 25 years, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has been increasing real estate taxes three times faster than household income.  That trend continues this year.

    Residential assessments increased by an average 6.2% this year, which means that unless the supervisors adopt a reduced property tax rate, the average homeowner’s real estate tax will increase 6.2%.

    However, a 6.2% tax increase is not enough for the Board of Supervisors.  Instead of reducing the rate to offset the assessment increase, the board under the leadership of Chairman Jeff McKay is actually adding 1½ cents to the tax rate!  This increases the average homeowner’s tax hike to 7.5% – the largest real estate tax hike in ten years!

    The tax bill for the average homeowner would increase from $8,659 to $9,312, a $653 increase.

    Chairman McKay is advocating a new meals tax as an alternative to the 1½ cent rate increase. However, even with the meals tax, the average real estate tax would still increase 6.2% due to higher assessments. Businesses already pay about 15 taxes.  For restaurants, the meals tax would make it 16 taxes.

    The Board of Supervisors will decide on the tax rate and the meals tax by May 6, following the board’s budget hearings to be held at the Government Center on Tuesday-Thursday, April 22-24.

    (more…)

  • Making America Great Again

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Is this what makes America great again?

    • Government withdrawing, or threatening to withdraw, funding based on engagement in policies decreed by the President to be illegal (no legislation or court action)
      • DEI—numerous universities
      • Trans athletes—Maine
    • President, by decree, overriding state election laws.
    • President, by decree, sanctioning law firms whose members have represented entities that have represented clients who have sued the government or who have been involved in investigations against him as a private citizen. Those sanctions include stripping members of security clearances, withdrawing contracts from firms represented by those firms, and forbidding the firms’ lawyers from entering federal property, including courthouses. See here, here, here, here, here, and here.
    • President orders Department of Justice to investigate individuals, not on suspicion of crime, but because they were critical of him.
    • Masked federal officers seize woman on street and hold her in detention without charges.
    • Federal authorities sweep up alleged criminals and fly them to another country to be held in prison, without any court proceedings. (In some countries, this is called “disappearing.”) Later admitting that there was a court order prohibiting deportation of one of those removed.
    • President breaks treaty he helped negotiate and imposes tariffs on country’s top trading parties.
    • President declares long-standing trade deficits a “national emergency” and imposes sweeping tariffs on all countries, including close allies.
    • By decree, President “clarifies” U.S. Constitution in clear contravention to U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
    • U.S. officials deliberately falsifying federal records.
    • President orders all grant programs, previously authorized by law, to be paused until administration can determine if the programs align with the President’s agenda.
    • Executive agencies cancelling programs and funding established by Congress in law. (See here for one example.)
    • Investors selling off U.S. bonds, usually considered a “safe haven” for investors.

    Before you answer, consider:

    1. What your answer would be if the President were someone of the opposite party; and
    2. The precedents that would be set for any other president, i.e. a Democrat, if the courts uphold these actions.

    Finally, can anyone identify a period in this country’s history (“again”) when such actions were considered to have made America great?

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

  • Any Wonder No One Trusts Legacy Media?

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Far be it from me to offer advice to the stupidest businessmen and women alive – news media executives – but here’s a thought.

    If you’re wondering why no one trusts you or wants your products anymore, consider the simple, long-ago mission of the news industry: 

    Tell the truth to the public.

    You blockheads no longer do that. Instead, you sacrifice accuracy and truth-telling for virtue signaling.

    Here’s an example of the kind of fiction the media spins today:

    This is the tragic final chapter in a local story that hit the news in June of 2023, when a successful and beloved local dentist, 68-year-old Abbey Horwitz, was found stabbed to death in his waterfront Virginia Beach home.

    His accused killer? 

    Michael Aaron Horwitz, his son, who was pretending to be a woman. Continue reading.

  • No Rubber Stamps Wanted Here

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    In addition to making a person really sick and miserable, the flu can be deadly. According to Virginia Dept. of Health data, 243 Virginians have died due to flu during the current flu season (Aug. 1, 2024 to March 29, 2025). Five of those deaths were children. During its peak, the week ending Feb. 8, 11 percent of all emergency room visits were for diagnosed cases of flu. Children constituted the largest segment of emergency room visits.

    A flu vaccine has long been available. Unlike some other vaccines, it is not mandatory. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimated that, during the 2023-2024 season, the “influenza vaccination prevented 9.8 million influenza-related illnesses, 4.8 million medical visits, 120,000 influenza-related hospitalizations, and 7,900 influenza-related deaths.” Furthermore, it went on to report that the “influenza vaccination prevented the highest number of hospitalizations and deaths among older adults aged ≥65 years.”

    (more…)

  • DEI: a 30-Day Update

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Screen grab from the UVA Education School DEI page.

    by James A. Bacon

    Monday marked the 30-day deadline for University of Virginia President Jim Ryan to report back to the Board of Visitors about what he had done to execute on the board’s directive to dismantle the university’s DEI bureaucracy and end racial preferences.

    Ryan did, in fact, submit a report to the Board. Of course, as has become standard practice, the administration declined to release it to the public. Bacon’s Rebellion was advised to try filing a Freedom of Information Act request.

    Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth University, and George Mason University also are shutting down their DEI programs, and their strategies are likely to bear similarities to UVA’s. Given the fact that the universities are dismantling DEI under coercion from the Trump administration, which is threatening to yank hundreds of millions of federal research dollars if they do not comply, one can predict a minimum of enthusiasm for the mandate and a maximum of foot dragging and obfuscation.

    I have no idea of what Ryan told the Board. But I thought it worthwhile to update members of the public on the little that outsiders can deduce of what UVA has accomplished so far.

    There are superficial signs of change at Mr. Jefferson’s University, but it is too early to tell whether UVA will abide with the spirit of the directive or subvert it through pettifoggery, literalism or malicious compliance.

    The indisputable news is that UVA has taken down its university-level “Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” website. DEI offices of some academic units either have taken down their websites or rebranded them. Other web pages appear to be works in progress. The education school, for instance, still has a page tagged with “office-diversity-equity-and-inclusion” in its URL but has replaced the content with the words, “Access Denied.”

    (more…)

  • Hospitalizations from Drug Use Disorders Persisted in 2024

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Source: Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association

    Hospital discharges for patients diagnosed with drug-use disorders leveled off in 2024 compared to the previous year but remain elevated compared to the pre-COVID era, according to data released by the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association. Discharges numbered 64,460 last year, up marginally from 64,248 the previous year. In 2020 the number was 57,997.

    The Richmond metro area was ground zero for the drug plague. The City of Richmond led the list, accounting for 6.9% of total discharges. Henrico County (4.5%) was No. 3, and Chesterfield County (4.1%) No. 6. Fairfax County (5.6%), the most populous locality in Virginia by far, recorded the second largest number of discharges.

    An evaluation of other clinical conditions in the patient population showed that “mental diseases and disorders” accounted for 27% of all drug-related discharges, followed by alcohol or drug use (21.3%), stated the VHHA press release. — JAB

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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