Bacon's Rebellion

  • Academic Armageddon

    Posted on

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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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    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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    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

  • Far Left Stages Polident Protests

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    “Region Rises Up”?

    Seriously?

    Another case of an excitable weekend headline writer sacrificing accuracy for alliteration.

    The Hampton Roads Region has a population of about 1.7 million. If a couple of thousand of sore losers gathered with hand-lettered protest signs in Norfolk on a sunny Saturday, that hardly merits such a sweeping headline.

    Unless, of course, it fits your legacy media anti-Trump narrative.

    I don’t know about you but I was out and about on Saturday. I didn’t notice an uprising. Did you? All I saw were folks enjoying the balmy summer temperatures.

    Yet, apparently “more than 2,000” aging protesters showed up at Norfolk’s Town Point Park on Saturday for a struggle session as they work their way through the fifth stage of grief. They vented their anger over the Trump’s administration’s efforts to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse in government agencies

    That’s an odd thing to be protesting.

    Incidentally, you could almost smell the Ben-Gay just from looking at the photos of the Boomers. Anyone with an Ensure pushcart could have made a killing. Continue reading.

  • Map of the Day: Where the Old People Are

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Source: Stat Chat

    The 2020 Census reported that approximately one in five Virginians (22.6%) were aged 60 and older, placing Virginia in the United Nations’ “aging society” category, writes Sol Baik for the Weldon Cooper Center’s StatChat blog. The “Eastern Shore” counties, clustered to the east and west of the Chesapeake Bay, had the highest percentage of seniors (36.8%). The Eastern Shore also had the highest percentage of what Bacon categorizes as the “really old” (85 or older), while the Southwest region has the higher percentage of oldsters with disabilities (41%). Read more here.

    — JAB

  • Student Funding, Family Choice

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Image credit: Bing Image Creator

    by Calder Svensen

    The landscape of American education is shifting. With the potential dissolution of the Federal Department of Education, states have a rare opportunity to rethink how education dollars are spent. Rather than waiting for broad, national solutions that may never materialize, Virginia should lead in designing an approach that prioritizes flexibility, choice, and long-term benefits for students.

    A Student-Centered Funding Model

    Picture a family — two working parents raising a child, navigating each stage of the child’s education with limited options. Early on, they struggle with the high cost of daycare, unable to access public pre-K until age four. As their child moves through school, they make decisions based on what’s available, not necessarily what’s best. By high school, they worry about how to afford college or vocational training, knowing the cost could leave their child with years of debt.

    Now, imagine an alternative: a student-account model that gives families direct access to their child’s allocated education funds while keeping resources within the state’s education system. Rather than being locked into a single school assignment, these accounts allow parents to see exactly how much funding is allocated per student and decide how best to use it — whether for public school, homeschooling, or alternative education.

    (more…)

  • Detours and Delays

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Image credit: Bing Image Creator

    by Calder Svendsen

    Scheduling is nine-tenths of the job, as any successful — or unapologetically unsuccessful — parent will tell you. Love, life lessons, and the hard knocks of parenting certainly have their place, but they’re more like the mortar holding together the mileposts of daily life. The real challenge isn’t just shaping a child’s future — it’s managing the day-to-day. School, in whatever form parents can afford, should be a steady road in the rocky terrain of adolescence.

    Yet every year, the school calendar is riddled with off-ramps and detours — days off for teacher training, midweek breaks for holidays, and early dismissals scattered throughout. What should be a structured system instead feels like a fragmented patchwork, where districts attempt to accommodate every obligation but end up satisfying none.

    Childcare, at any age, is a balancing act of career, home, and relationships — to say nothing of the actual work of parenting in between. But when the school schedule becomes so inconsistent that it adds stress instead of structure, we have to ask: who is it really serving?

    (more…)

  • The DEI Debate, So Far, Is Stupefyingly Superficial

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Image credit: Chat GPT

    Virginia Tech President Timothy Sands held a special meeting Friday to discuss the impact of the Trump administration’s order to shut down higher-ed Diversity, Equity & Inclusion programs across the country. Tech’s Board of Visitors voted recently to comply with the directive, and Sands said that the university would no longer require diversity-and-inclusion training for incoming students.

    As summarized by Radio IQ, however, Sands said it’s important for members of the campus community to be politically active and explain to friends and neighbors about why they believe diversity in higher education is vital to democracy. “I appreciate all of your willingness to engage, whatever way you can. Because we have to be able to make that case for the public.”

    Sands did not elaborate upon his thinking — at least Radio IQ did not mention it in the article, which went on to cover other issues that the Tech president addressed in his two-hour Q&A — but there is enough there to warrant a closer look.

    Sands is using “diversity,” a concept no one disagrees with, to shield a broader amalgam of concepts in “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion,” including a slew of controversial propositions intrinsic to the word “equity.”

    (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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