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Bacon Meme of the Week
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Contrary to Popular Belief, Data Centers Slow the Increase in Energy Prices
by Derrick Max
For several years, opponents of data center growth in Virginia have advanced a simple political narrative: data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity, therefore they “must” be driving up electric bills for ordinary Virginians.
It is an emotionally intuitive and persuasive argument. It is also increasingly unsupported by the evidence.
A new analysis from the Institute for Energy Research directly examined electricity prices, electricity demand growth, and data center concentration across all 50 states. The findings should fundamentally reshape the debate in Virginia, home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers.
The report found no statistically significant correlation between the number of data centers in a state and either current electricity prices or faster price increases over time. In fact, the ten states with the most data centers, including Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois, and Ohio all had electricity prices almost identical to the national average.
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The Bravest Democrat in the 2026 General Assembly took on Louise Lucas
by James C. Sherlock
Del. Garrett McGuire (D-Fairfax County) You know how sometimes you try to do the right thing for the right reason, and it blows up in your face?
One of the newest members of the General Assembly is freshman Delegate Garrett McGuire, D-Fairfax. He is either the bravest of the Democrats or one who committed a rookie mistake.
His HB 1423, as introduced, stated in part:
§ 1. That the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (the Department) shall analyze the existing authority for oversight and accountability of group homes and make recommendations for increasing the oversight and accountability of group homes. (emphasis added)
So, knowingly or not, Del. McGuire asked for an assessment of increased oversight, accountability, and investigation into the Medicaid-funded business of Senate Finance and Appropriations Chair Louise Lucas.
Right thing to do. Prescient even. But Del. Garrett is unlikely to be well received in Democratic circles, who may be asked whether they, too, are interested in improving client safety at Lucas Lodge. Or if the Justice Department investigation is still driven solely by Republicans mad about redistricting. Or something.
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SCOTUS Ends Racial Segregation of Voting Districts
Virginia Beach’s race-based voting districts are now in the crosshairs.
by Victoria Manning
Democrats across the nation created voting maps shoving black voters into racially apportioned districts. Forced segregation was wrong at the water fountain and it’s equally wrong at the ballot box. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) just ruled race-based voting districts unconstitutional—impacting state and local voting maps across the nation including Virginia Beach, VA.
The Louisiana v. Callais case began when a judge ordered the state of Louisiana to redraw its voting maps to specifically include a majority-minority district based on race. A group of voters then challenged that new district in court as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. It ultimately ended up on the high court’s docket.
SCOTUS ruled in Callais that creating voting districts based on race is an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.” The court held that the Voting Rights Act that guarantees a person’s right to vote not be denied because of race still holds, but the drawing of districts must focus on the “enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment’s prohibition on intentional racial discrimination.” They also determined that states can still draw districts based on nonracial factors, including “to achieve partisan advantage.”
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Virginia Supremes Speak
Ai-generated image by Grok The Virginia Supreme Court has struck down the redistricting amendment on the grounds that lawmakers violated the state constitutional procedure for placing amendments on the ballot. I’m leaving for vacation today, but I’ll post reactions on the blog — in the order they arrive in my inbox (newest on top) — until I have to head to the airport. — JAB
Statement of House GOP Leader Terry Kilgore Statement on Supreme Court Ruling
GATE CITY, Va–House GOP Leader Terry Kilgore issued the following statement regarding today’s ruling from the Supreme Court of Virginia:
“Today’s ruling establishes once again that the Constitution of Virginia means what it says. The rule of law requires that Virginians have an opportunity to review a Constitutional Amendment before they vote for the House of Delegates in a meaningful way. You cannot violate the Constitution to amend the Constitution.”
Attorney General Jason Miyares issued the following statement through Fair Maps following this morning’s Virginia Supreme Court ruling:
“Virginians spoke loud and clear in 2020 that voters should pick their elected officials, not the other way around. Today, their voices were heard over the shamefully deceptive rhetoric and language of an unconstitutional effort by Richmond Democrats to carve up the state for themselves. We thank the Justices for their swift action to uphold the rights of our fellow Virginians all across the Commonwealth.”
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The Day Grant Saved America
As Virginia celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, there’s another anniversary we should honor as well: the Wilderness Campaign.
by Shaun Kenney
“They came to a crossroads in the track out of the eastern reaches of The Wilderness. If they turned left it would mean they were heading north. If they turned right — south. And from their throats burst a tremendous shout of exultation. It was in the darkness and dust that they had what they later remembered as a rebirth of themselves as men and as an army. Through their ranks came Ulysses S. Grant, and they shouted for him and waved their hats in the air for him.”
— Gene Smith, “Lee and Grant” (p. 201)
While I have no idea why Virginia 250 is sputtering, I am absolutely shocked to see that Virginia isn’t doing anything cohesive to celebrate and promote the founding of America.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but America is a Virginian idea, created by Virginians, bled for by Virginians, where Virginia conceded her western claims which entitled her to be a nation unto herself, where Virginians — Jefferson among them, but George Mason and George Wythe as well — articulated the reasons for the separation with Great Britain, where the American War for Independence resolved itself at Yorktown, where Virginians led by James Madison forged the U.S. Constitution, and where the Virginia Dynasty from Washington through Monroe led the early republic for 32 of its first 36 years.
What is little disputed is that the two bonds that kept the United States together were the words Liberty and Union — “Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable!” was Senator Daniel Webster’s reply to South Carolina’s John Calhoun when the prospect of nullification, an idea floated by Jefferson and Madison in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves, hovered around the debate between states’ rights and the scope of the federal government. President Andrew Jackson threatened to call up the troops and South Carolina submitted to the Union, for a time.
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Government Oversight of the Integrity of Healthcare Programs in Virginia – Part 1
Senator Louise Lucas, president pro tempore of the state Senate. by James C. Sherlock
This author’s unbroken experience over many years has been that majorities in the General Assembly have sought to protect the healthcare industry from competition (COPN) and leave it alone to operate as it sees fit. They have not wanted oversight because many of their largest donors and most influential constituents in the healthcare business have not. It has proven both embarrassing and enraging to watch.
Their constituents who are not in the business have had no idea how much danger that has put them in.
Over the author’s 15 years of investigative reporting on healthcare in Virginia, it has proven difficult to build and maintain a consistent, integrated picture of state government oversight of program integrity. That traces to the fact that healthcare program integrity has not in that time been consistent, well-funded, or integrated in Virginia. Yesterday’s headlines about issues in Portsmouth are the tip of the iceberg. We need to do much better.
Key pieces of the puzzle include:
- Who and how many in the Virginia government are responsible for overseeing government healthcare programs?
- If and how they exercise that responsibility;
- Their complaint, investigation, and reporting mechanisms;
- Their various authorities and responsibilities to sanction errors and fraud; and
- The level of internal coordination within the Virginia government of those authorities, responsibilities, and actions.
All five change regularly, driven by both federal and state decisions, and program integrity oversight hasn’t worked well in Virginia yet. Webster’s defines a system as “a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole.” As defined there, Virginia has had no healthcare oversight system. There has been no “unified whole”.
Some of that is Virginia’s fault, some not. We’ll look.
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Dominion’s Fantasy PIPP Application Should Be Rejected or Resubmitted
by Steve Haner
Dominion Energy Virginia has asked the State Corporation Commission (SCC) to allow it to begin collecting the cost of a low-income energy subsidy program, adding a small monthly charge to all its customers. The application should immediately be dismissed because it fails to recognize how the 2026 General Assembly expanded the program.
At the very least, the SCC should direct the utility to amend its application to reflect the legislative changes that go into effect next January 1. The participation and ultimate cost of the program are going to expand rapidly under House Bill 884. The monthly charge Dominion has applied for will not even come close to paying for it.
The program is the Percentage of Income Payment Program, or PIPP, discussed often on Bacon’s Rebellion since the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act created it. It caps the monthly electric bills of eligible participants at ten percent of their income, with the balance paid by increasing the bills of everybody else. The money also covers past due bills in the PIPP households.
The utility is also dealing with several other major cost increases expected this year – a much higher fuel factor charge, and the need to start collecting a carbon tax from its ratepayers – so perhaps it had reason to low-ball this third bill addition. It only asked to add 16 cents to that illustrative 1,000 kilowatt hour monthly bill so often discussed.
That is estimated to produce about $14 million in PIPP revenue for the 12 months starting November 1. But the 2026 legislation, signed by Governor Abigail Spanberger (D), allows Dominion to expend up to $100 million annually on subsidies and administrative costs, if needed. That is likely to be exactly what Dominion will need to collect.
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Meet the Soros-Funded Prosecutor Taking Soft-on-Crime to a New Level
Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano could have saved Stephanie Minter by simply doing his job.
AI-generated image by Grok. by Drew DiMeglio
Sierra Leone national Abdul Jalloh, 32, has been arrested more than 30 times in Fairfax County, Virginia. From five malicious wounding cases in a two-year span to additional assault, battery, and theft-related offenses, Jalloh racked up quite the rap sheet between his initial capture by immigration officials in 2018 and his most recent arrest in February. Yet somehow, the list still wasn’t long enough for Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano, who dismissed the violent charges in each case.
The consequences: Jalloh was released to the streets, where he allegedly went on to stab Stephanie Minter, a Fairfax-born single mother, to death earlier this year.
The Fairfax County Police Department had warned Descano’s office that Jalloh posed a danger to the community. The attorney’s office responded with silence.
The egregious leniency Jalloh received was not a fluke. In fact, it was by design.
Descano’s website proudly featured the following statement until recent, interestingly timed edits: “If two people commit the same crime, but only one’s punishment includes deportation, that’s a perversion of justice and not a reflection of the values of Fairfax County.”
How can that be? The two people did not commit the same crime if one entered the country illegally and the other did not—that is, unless you think illegal immigration is not a crime.
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FBI Targets State Sen. Louise Lucas
“I wake up every morning with a fight in my heart.” Louise Lucas at redistricting town hall. by Kerry Dougherty
Democrat Louise Lucas has been the queen of machine politics in Portsmouth for decades. Graceless in victory, venomous in defeat, relentlessly partisan, full of braggadocio and vulgarities, Lucas has prospered while the city she represents has become increasingly dysfunctional.
Casino gambling and weed were what she offered the people. Not only are they businesses that prey on the poor, but both lend themselves to certain business irregularities.
So when news broke Wednesday morning that the FBI and DEA were raiding Lucas’ district office, her cannabis business and reportedly her Medicaid waiver services center, no one in the commonwealth who has watched Lucas in action was shocked.
Some knee-jerk Democrats tried to paint this as a Trump administration vendetta resulting from the recent redistricting referendum, but The New York Times quickly reported that that these raids were part of a sweeping fraud and public corruption investigation that began three years ago, during the Biden administration.Just how serious did the suspected fraud have to be for Biden’s politicized DOJ to investigate a Democrat?
The Washington Post reported, The specifics of the probe remain unclear, though the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the investigation, said it involved allegations of bribery related to the cannabis dispensary. One of those officials said the investigation began during the Biden administration.
Once Trump is taken out of the equation, Lucas’ allies will inevitably pivot and claim the investigation is racially motivated.
Let them. The search warrants were signed by a federal judge. Ten separate locations were reportedly raided yesterday.While the media is focusing on Lucas’ cannabis business, her bigger problem may be with Lucas Lodge LLC her Medicaid waiver service for the disabled. Investigative reporter Jim Sherlock has been reporting on widespread corruption in Virginia’s nursing home and home health industry on baconsrebellion.com. We plan to run his series beginning this weekend. Continue reading.
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News Bulletin – FBI at Lucas Lodge
by James C. Sherlock
This author was just contacted by a local TV station, which notified him that the FBI is currently executing a search warrant at Lucas Lodge in Portsmouth. L. Louise Lucas, President Pro Tempore of the Virginia Senate and Chair of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, is the CEO of Lucas Lodge.
For anyone wanting to know the background of the Lucas Lodge story, read Jim Sherlock’s dogged reporting on Bacon’s Rebellion. — JAB
Part 1: Betrayal
Part 2: The Virginia General Assembly
Part 3: Out-of-Control Programs
Part 4: Portsmouth
Part 5: Lucas Lodge LLC
The Virginia Senate’s Louise Lucas Dilemma
For broader context, here’s a list of Sherlock’s coverage of the nursing home industry and Medicaid fraud generally. The Lucas Lodge story is the tip of the iceberg of what warrants public attention.
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Virginia’s “Fitness Tax” Was Never Really About Gyms
It was about expanding government taxation to fund equity-based redistribution in Virginia schools.
Loudoun County resident Scott Mineo is doing great work as a citizen journalist. You can read his X posts under the name of “A Guy on X Striving to Be the Virginia Change Agent” @VaChangeAgent. He’s not a journalist, but he does love to dig into documents. And there’s a lot to probe in the avalanche of bills submitted to the General Assembly each year. Not all pass — those he profiles below didn’t — but they do reveal how the rising generation of leftist legislators hopes to advance the “equity” agenda. — JAB
Most Virginians heard the headlines. “Democrats want to tax gym memberships.” But after digging through HB978, HB900, SB730, committee records, fiscal language, and revenue allocation formulas, something much larger begins to emerge:
The proposed “fitness tax” was not an isolated policy idea.
It was part of a sweeping attempt to permanently expand Virginia’s taxation system into the modern service economy — and redirect a massive portion of the new revenue toward equity-based education funding structures across the Commonwealth.
The gym tax was simply the politically visible tip of the spear. The real story was buried much deeper in the legislation. And most Virginians never saw it.
Continue reading Scott’s post.
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In the Business of Health Care Fraud, Virginia is Minnesota
by James C. Sherlock
Health care fraudsters are often treated by Virginia elected officials in the same way moonshiners were in this state, as local heroes pursued only by the feds. Many prefer not to interrupt the product flow. They simply want a taste from the jar.
Dick Hall-Sizemore, a dedicated contributor to BR and a good man, wrote in a comment on this author’s article on restructuring Medicaid: “Having that much money at stake should be an incentive to go after fraud. Even a relatively small reduction in fraud can amount to big bucks.”
He is exactly right. But “should be “is a plea, not an observation.
Dick’s goals cannot be fully realized in Virginia and other states as long as elected officials treat Medicare and Medicaid as found money. With a ton of money at stake that is mostly federal, too many state politicians continue to view the fraudsters as harmless and motivated donors rather than as criminals. But the outcome of the worst frauds is the destruction of the lives and the premature and suspicious deaths of Virginians who cannot help themselves. Corrupt public officials have been around as long as governments themselves. The majority of Virginia elected officials at the state and municipal levels are on the take. Bribery is legalized here through unlimited campaign donations at both the state and local levels.
Members, the Governor, and the Attorney General, in January of this year, accepted campaign donations from those who have long been committing fraud in plain sight. Some of the most powerful members of our legislature treat healthcare fraud as a means to funnel money into the “communities.” One senior member has been identified by state inspection results as violating state laws and regulations. There is a word for that.
With $20B in Medicaid funds and $24B from Medicare flowing into Virginians’ pockets every year, medical services fraud has become a major industry in the state. It is stolen for the same reason Willy Sutton robbed banks. Federal estimates put annual healthcare fraud nationwide at over $50 billion, which would make Virginia’s share over $1 billion a year. Bet the over. In Virginia, this author’s years of research and reporting show that $1B a year appears to be a major underestimate of the take from fraud in the nursing home industry alone.
A recent headline shows law enforcement chipping away at fraud. The case recovered $10 million that had been stolen over a six-year period. It is easy to see that a joint federal-state investigation and prosecution at that level likely costs more than the recovery. But this author applauds it nonetheless.
The biggest problem is with the regulators. The General Assembly hobbles them, but they have not, in 60 years, used the authority they do possess to stop fraud. This author tends to lay that at the feet of the political appointees who make the decisions, not the career staff.
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Just What Fairfax Schools Need: More PhDs
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Fuel Price Spike Hits Your Dominion Bill Next. Pow!
by Steve Haner
The typical Dominion Energy Virginia electric bill could rise another $22 this summer to cover the rising cost of the fuel it uses and the cost of its purchased power, according to the company’s latest filing on its fuel charge with the State Corporation Commission.
The utility’s costs of fuel and purchased power are collected in a direct pass-through charge designated Rider A on bills, and for residential consumers it is one of the charges still visible on their monthly invoice. Right now, a consumer using 1,000 kilowatt hours per month is paying $29.68 for the current fuel charge and another $2.91 to slowly pay off the fuel cost spike that resulted from the war in Ukraine.
Dominion’s application projects its fuel costs for the 12 months beginning July 1 as $2.7 billion and seeks recovery of over $1 billion for the costs it did not anticipate during this current 12-month period. If collected all at once starting July 1 the charge for 1,000 kwh would reach $51.47 month, plus the $3 bucks in deferred costs.
It wasn’t that long ago that $50 a month would cover the whole electric bill in many households. At the beginning of 2026 here in Henrico a 1,000-kwh residential bill totaled $171.51, including the local taxes. The full fuel cost would be almost a 13 percent increase.
It has been a busy time over at the SCC with Dominion filings. The only newspaper that even pretends to cover the SCC, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, chose to ignore the fuel filing and instead wrote this week about an SCC decision on solar customers who use net metering. That’s about 65,000 customers. All 2.7 million Dominion customers care about the fuel charge, which is often an even larger portion of an industrial customer bill.
The media in Virginia is also still ignoring the flashing red warning light about the coming costs of compliance with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The futures market price that was the basis of this Bacon’s Rebellion post, $41 per ton, started this morning instead at $52 per ton.
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