Bacon's Rebellion

  • Geology and the Civil War

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Catherine Furnace, Page County

    Just about any aspect of Virginia history is intertwined with the Civil War, and geology is no exception.

    Pictured is the Catherine Furnace on Massanutten Mountain. Some of the pig iron used in Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond to manufacture cannons and other items for the Confederacy came out of this furnace. Workers dug the iron ore out of open trenches (sample shown) further up the mountain. At the furnace, the ore was melted and molded into pig iron. The blocks that constitute the walls of the furnace are Massanutten Sandstone, which came from outcrops nearby.

    Iron ore, Massanutten Mountain

    There is a story that the operator of the furnace during the war was a Union sympathizer who helped Union soldiers escape capture. He was arrested as a result of those activities. However, his captors realized that he was the only one around who knew how to operate the furnace and thus he was released on bond.

    Then there were Melrose Caverns, on Rt. 11 near Harrisonburg. When Union General Nathaniel Banks camped near the spot in 1862, his troops soon discovered the cave and began exploring. For some time, the Union Army used the cave to store ammunition and other arms.

    It turns out that Union soldiers were like soldiers everywhere and in every time. They left their mark on their surroundings. They carved their names into the walls and columns in the caverns, along with etchings of American flags and regimental coats of arms.

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  • Should SATs Be Optional in College Admissions?

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    James A. Bacon

    Ben Castleman (left) and Stephen Farmer address the UVA Board of Visitors.

    By James A. Bacon

    What might a meritocratic admissions system at the University of Virginia look like now that the Board of Visitors has banned racial preferences across the board?

    Board members got a glimpse at some of the factors that could be considered and the tradeoffs involved during a discussion two weeks ago during its March meeting about the use of standardized test scores in evaluating applications.

    UVA President Jim Ryan kicked off the discussion by noting that during the COVID epidemic, UVA had joined many other colleges and universities in jettisoning the once-ubiquitous practice of requiring applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores. Since then, Harvard, Yale, Stanford and MIT, among others, have reinstituted mandatory submissions. Ryan was not convinced, however, that UVA should follow their lead. He said he is leaning toward what he termed a “text flexible” approach that would accept Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) test results for in-state students as well as other substitutes.

    Standardized college-admission tests like the SATs and the ACTs are predictive of academic success at UVA, said Benjamin L. Castleman, a professor of economics in education who led a faculty group that delved into the value of the tests. UVA students scoring in the 1500-to-1550 range for SATs earned 3.72 GPAs on average. Students scoring in the 1300-to-1350 range earned 3.42 GPAs on average.

    But many other factors predict a student’s academic performance, he added. When other factors including high school grades are taken into account, the added predictive value of SATs is a modest 10% to 20%, he said.

    (more…)

  • DEI at UVA: the Backlash Begins

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    James A. Bacon

    From a document attached to a letter addressed to the UVA Board of Visitors.

    by James A. Bacon

    At the direction of Board of Visitors Secretary Susan Harris, a compilation of nearly 50 letters and email messages to the Board and President Jim Ryan was distributed to Board members Tuesday. The letters were almost uniformly critical of the Board’s decision earlier this month to abolish the office of Equity, Inclusion & Community Engagement.

    Many authors declared themselves to be “ashamed” by the action, and several vowed to cease donating to the University. Many described the vote as racist, sexist, and homophobic; several decried it as “fascist.” Some letters criticized Ryan for failing to stand up to the Board, while a few urged him to be true to his values and fight back.

    The purpose of distributing the emails was not clear. The cover letter from the clerk of the Board said only this: “Susan Harris tried to send you an email over the weekend that contained the emails that had been received in regards to the DEI decision that was made. The file was very large and many of you most likely did not receive it. The attached file contains all of the messages to both the President’s Office and the BOV Office on the DEI decision.”

    Several days ago, Governor Glenn Youngkin, who supported the Board’s decision, declared on national TV that “DEI is done” at UVA. He might want to read the letters and re-evaluate his appraisal of the political dynamics at play.

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  • Big Pharma Greed — or Low Risk Tolerance?

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    “All over this country, the American people are asking why it is that they pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs?” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders noted in a screed published a couple of years ago. “Why is it that nearly one out of every four adults in America cannot afford their prescription medication?”

    Sanders’ answer: greedy Big Pharma companies and the gutless politicians who won’t stand up to them.

    Insulin, a compound for which American diabetics pay many multiples of what it costs to manufacture, has been singled out for special attention. In this case, according to the populist narrative, greedy pharmaceutical companies share the blame with greedy middlemen known as pharmaceutical benefit managers.

    Whatever morsels of truth these characterizations might contain, there is very much more to the explanation of why drug costs are so high in the U.S.

    Consider, the story of Civica, Inc., which was formed to make insulin and other generic drugs more affordable. The company opened a manufacturing facility in Petersburg in 2022, inked a deal in 2023 to produce injectable insulin for the state of California under the brand of CalRx, and planned to start shipping in 2024. The company CEO now concedes that goal was “ambitious.”

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  • Petitions Don’t Save Beloved Businesses

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    One of my pals texted me last weekend to see if I wanted to go to a movie. There was a time when we went almost weekly, but, like many other film lovers, we got out of the habit when our idiot governor closed movie theaters during covid.

    Don’t get me started on Ralph Northam’s reign of terror.

    That’s not what we’re here to talk about today.

    “Black Bag” looks good,” she texted.

    I checked. A spy film, starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender? Yes!

    “I know it’s a tired theater, but let’s support the Beach Cinema and Alehouse. It may be closing.” I replied.

    “Save the Cinema!” she shot back.

    Worried that front-page news about the possible sale of the 34-year-old oceanfront movie complex (historic, by Virginia Beach standards) might mean massive crowds, I hopped online first thing Saturday morning to reserve tickets.

    I needn’t have fretted.

    There were just two others reserved seats in the entire theater.

    TWO. Continue reading.

  • Is the Caterwauling About Proposed Budget Cuts Justified?

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Image credit: Bing Image Creator

    As the federal government careens toward a fiscal train wreck, Virginia Democrats are bellyaching about the lousy service in the dining car.

    Congressional Republicans are proposing cuts to federal entitlements such as Medicaid and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), says Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Mamie Locke. The cuts could result in a shift of $350 million to the state budget and Virginia taxpayers.

    “Under the Trump Musk economy food prices are skyrocketing,” Locke said. “We should be having a conversation about strengthening programs that help feed hungry people and not weakening them like the Congressional Republicans’ plan calls for.”

    Are Locke’s concerns valid? Would cuts to federal programs force hundreds of thousands of Virginians into penury unless the state intervenes with giant spending increases of its own? Given the abysmal state of journalism in Virginia, it’s impossible to know. Media accounts of the Democrats’ jeremiads provide zero context to help readers reach an informed judgment.

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  • Two Energy Updates: RGGI and an Offshore Wind Reversal

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    Steve Haner

    The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative held its latest auction for carbon emission allowances last week and produced a price of $19.76 per ton. Because Virginia is no longer a participant, that probably saved electric utility customers another $100 million. 

    The March 2025 price, in reality a tax on the use of hydrocarbon fuels, was lower than during 2024, when it peaked at $25.75. The price dropped below $20 a ton largely because the organizers of the auction released more than 8 million allowances from its “cost containment reserve” to better balance supply and demand. 

    But the $19.76 price is still 33% higher than the carbon tax Virginia utilities paid in the final auction that included Virginia, in December 2023. Should Virginia return to RGGI, as Democrats led by their gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger will surely promise, that price would likely result in $400-500 million in annual carbon tax receipts.

    Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) had the Air Pollution Control Board repeal the regulation that placed Virginia under the RGGI regime. A local circuit court has ruled that action was invalid, but that is on appeal and the same judge recently decided to let the state remain out of the compact pending that appeal. 

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  • A Little Perspective on the Federal Budget Debate

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    President Obama and Sen. Alan Simpson, 2010. Picture credit: New York Times

    There has been much commentary on this blog lately about the size of the national debt and the need to cut federal spending. Many of those commenters point fingers at Democrats as being the big spendthrifts. I would like to add a little perspective to this discussion.

    When reading the obituary for the late U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming), I was reminded that President Barack Obama appointed Simpson, along with Democrat Erskine Bowles, as co-chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Unlike most such commissions, this one came up with a set of serious recommendations, many of which President Obama included in his budget proposals.

    For example, in his 2014 budget proposal, Obama included a deficit reduction package. That package included proposals that would have reduced the national debt over ten years. Included were substantial savings in Medicare and the adoption of an alternative cost-of-living adjustment affecting Social Security. According to one analysis, “coupled with the deficit-reduction steps that the President and congressional leaders already have enacted, this package would bring total deficit reduction achieved to $4.5 trillion over the decade.”

    The Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, declared, “This [deficit reduction] package would reduce the deficit by $1.8 trillion over the next decade and go somewhat beyond stabilizing the debt as a share of the economy, setting it on a slight downward path.” Another, more middle-of-the-road think tank, the Committee for a Responsible Budget, was more cautious. It commented that while the Obama deficit reduction package “would be a very welcomed package of savings but would almost certainly need to be followed with additional deficit reduction in order to put the debt on a truly sustainable path.”

    I did not take the time to research how much of the Obama package was adopted by Congress. However, surely whatever was adopted, any chances of “stabilizing the debt as a share of the economy” and getting it “on a truly sustainable path” were blown apart by the 2017 Trump tax cuts followed by the COVID relief measures.

    The bottom line: A Democrat president proposed a serious plan to reduce the deficit, including structural changes in entitlement programs. Contrast that with the situation today.

     

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

  • Oh, All Those Drug Ads

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    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Del. Tom Garrett (R-Goochland.)

    Tom Garrett, who was formerly a state senator, then a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and is now a member of the House of Delegates from Goochland County, has called on President Trump to rein in drug prices.

    One of his suggestions is to prohibit drug companies from advertising. Saying that many of the large pharmaceutical companies spend more on advertising and marketing than they do on research and development, he contends that “America is the most overmedicated society on Earth.” He concludes, “Ending direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising wouldn’t just rein in an industry that prioritizes marketing over innovation — it would save lives, free up resources for real research, and lower drug costs for everyday Americans.”

    I agree with him. There is just one little problem: the U.S. Supreme Court has held that pharmaceutical advertising is protected speech under the First Amendment.

    (more…)

  • DEI Won’t Die Easily

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    James A. Bacon

    Still alive. UVA’s DEI website one week after Board of Visitors abolishes DEI.

    by James A. Bacon

    One might think that revamping a website would be an easy start to complying with the Board of Visitors’ order to dismantle the Division for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at the University of Virginia. Retitle the home page. Put up an “Under Construction” logo. Post a statement indicating that changes are coming. Do something!

    But a full week after the Board’s unanimous vote, the website still stands, as if nothing had changed. The home page still proclaims the DEI division’s mission, highlights DEI initiatives, and links to DEI-related web pages. To all outward appearances, everything continues as before. George Mason University has managed to scrub its website of DEI references in conformity with a Trump administration executive order, but UVA has not.

    The website is symbolic of the challenge the Board of Visitors faces in carrying out its order. DEI most definitely is not “dead,” as Governor Youngkin prematurely proclaimed earlier this week on Fox News.

    The Board resolution is often vague; there is no clear definition of what constitutes “DEI,” an amorphous concept that can be interpreted in many ways. The UVA leaders charged with enacting the sweeping changes are the very same people who erected the DEI system, the influence of which extends into every nook and cranny of the institution. Disentangling racial preferences from admissions, hiring, promotions, scholarships, discipline, and other aspects of university life will be a complex and delicate task. Meanwhile, outright resistance can be expected from faculty members, a few of whom have already spoken out.

    The Board resolution required President Jim Ryan to report back on his progress within 30 days. Don’t expect much. The mandate is mission impossible, even for someone who shares the Board’s goals. The task likely will take 30 months… if not longer.

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  • This DEI Crackdown Goes Too Far

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    James A. Bacon

    I fully support the move to purge woke gibberish from Department of Defense websites, but deleting historical sites is not the way to go about it. Unfortunately, that is precisely what happened to the Richmond Armory, believed to be the oldest armory for Black militia in the United States.

    A photo gallery of the armory in downtown Richmond and an article detailing its role in Virginia National Guard history have been taken down after the U.S. Defense Department directed the removal of content promoting DEI in the military by March 5, reports VPM News.

    This is absurd. As museum director Shakia Gullette Warren noted the information about the Armory was part of the historical record. Segregation is part of Virginia history. It’s not something we should dwell on obsessively, but it is something that must be acknowledged and should be remembered as a past to which we wish never to return.

    Unless the materials were drenched in the divisive rhetoric of critical theory, I can see no justification for removing them from public view. Conservative foes of DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) engaging in this kind of overreach, are guilty of the same offense — imposing their ideological world view in the public domain — they accuse the left of. And they will suffer a public backlash from it.

    What we don’t know who is who made the decision, or why. Was some anti-DEI zealot behind the information purge, or did some National Guard bureaucrat order the deletions in excessive abundance of caution in complying with the Trump administration guidelines? Whatever the case, the material needs to be restored and the history of Black militias in Virginia properly remembered. — JAB

  • A Victory for Transparency

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    James A. Bacon

    Kudos to Danny Avula, City of Richmond mayor, for upholding government transparency in the release of documents sought by the Richmond Times-Dispatch that had been withheld on the grounds that they were executive “working papers.”

    The University of Virginia should pay heed. Just because you legally can refuse to turn over working papers doesn’t mean you have to. (See my previous post for the blanket use of the working-papers exemption to withhold information on how decisions are made at UVA.)

    The documents sought by the RTD shed light on the use of taxpayer dollars to fund nonprofit organizations. The city’s practice was to grade the groups seeking financial support and to fund those scoring over 75. The city auditor found that many groups receiving taxpayer dollars fell short of the score, but the city’s FOIA officer refused to turn over spreadsheets with the details. The working-papers exemption, she said, shields records and correspondence “prepared by or for a public official … for his personal or deliberative use.” 

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  • Fog and Shadows

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    James A. Bacon

    Decision-making at the University of Virginia is shrouded in secrecy — and leadership is just fine with that.

    by James A. Bacon

    Last week the University of Virginia Board of Visitors faced a history-making judgment: how to respond to Trump administration demands to dismantle its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion programs. Tensions during the meeting, held in the Rotunda conference room, ran high. The exchange of views got heated. And a momentous decision was reached: to shut down the university’s DEI apparatus. But the discussion was conducted in closed session, and board members are sworn to keep their deliberations confidential. The public has no idea what facts and logic impelled the Board to make one of the most consequential decisions it will ever grapple with.

    Virginia’s flagship university has a huge transparency problem — one that goes far beyond Board of Visitors making critical decisions in closed session. Presidential task forces conduct their business in secret. Investigative reports paid for with taxpayer dollars are withheld from the public. And efforts to pry open information using the Freedom of Information Act are routinely blocked.

    As culture wars play out nationally, UVA has reached a critical juncture in its storied, 200-year history. The Board of Visitors appointed by Governor Youngkin is seeking to overturn policies and practices that have defined the institution for years. Regardless of where they stand in this controversy, UVA students, employees, alumni, taxpayers, and even the general public have a right to see how these decisions are being made, who is making them, and why they’re making them.

    The culture of fog and shadows runs deep. President Jim Ryan is part of the problem. The Board of Visitors is part of the problem. Even the university counsel’s office, which answers to Virginia’s attorney general, is part of the problem. The transparency issues plaguing UVA are likely endemic across Virginia’s system of higher education. But some manifestations of secrecy are unique to UVA, its organizational culture, and decisions made by its leadership.

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  • Unless Targeted, Extra Math Funds Will Be Wasted

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    Steve Haner

    Chris Braunlich

    by Chris Braunlich,

    Writing in the blog Bacon’s Rebellion, Arlington parent and self-described “Obama Democrat” Todd Truitt has come out swinging against a Virginia budget amendment to spend $12 million extra “to improve student performance in mathematics.”

    His argument?  Without Governor’s amendments, these extra funds won’t help math outcomes and will probably hurt.

    Mr. Truitt’s main point is that it offers school divisions “blank checks totaling almost $10.2 million … to continue promoting the math-ed equivalent of whole language/balanced literacy.”  That’s a lot of money that runs the risk of following millions more tossed down a rabbit hole of faddish math pedagogy over the last nine years opposing, for example, memorizing the “times tables.”.

    But as noted in 2023 by the late Rick Nelson, who served as a Visiting Fellow at the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, “University of Virginia cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham explains that math is about more than fact memorization. but as a foundation, because of the brain’s structure, for all the basic arithmetic facts (such as 8 + 7 and 42/6), answers must be “not calculated but simply retrieved from memory.”.

    Yet, as former teachers union president Nelson documents, in 2016 Virginia moved away from the practice of practicing math facts.  The result was that, by 2024, Virginia ranked 46th in Math recovery from the effects of not teaching math facts and from school shutdowns during Covid.

    (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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