by James C. Sherlock
Crime, especially violent crime, is a constant topic in private conversations and in public politics, and thus here on Bacon’s Rebellion.
Comments on BR crime-related articles turn quickly to race, often without basis in fact.
I will offer below the actual crime statistics by race from 2021, the latest available year, in an attempt to cure that.
Then I will write about the causes.
I will almost certainly be called a racist. Continue reading
Posted in Budgets, Children and families, Civil Rights, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Democracy and Western Civilization, Demographics, Education (K-12), Efficiency in government, General Assembly, Governance, Government Oversight, Health Care, Housing, Land use & development, Law enforcement, Mental illness and substance abuse, Parental Rights, Politics, Public corruption, Public safety & health, Race and race relations
Tagged James Sherlock
Suparna Dutta – Courtesy Yahoo.com
by James C. Sherlock
Virginia Republicans, not noted for organization, common approaches or dexterity, have been granted a gift by Democrats if they will accept it.
The Democratic majority in the General Assembly rejected the appointment of Suparna Dutta, a mother, engineer and an immigrant from India, to the Board of Education.
This happened because Senate Democrats, stalwarts of the left flank of the culture wars, were badgered and finally whipped into a unanimous vote against Ms. Dutta by a strange but tight-knit political relationship between leftists and Muslim activists centered in Northern Virginia.
Leftists, led by Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers outpost, Virginia Educators United, considered Ms. Dutta too patriotic. And anti-socialist.
The Muslim cabal, led by the Virginia Council of Muslim Organizations and Gov. Northam’s notorious (too many Asians) Secretary of Education Atif Qarni, considered her, well, too Hindu.
The Virginia Council of Muslim Organizations, vocal in support of freedom of speech for the highly controversial Abrar Omeish, does not offer the same to Ms. Dutta.
Her offense? She had been in a board meeting with Anne Holton, the wife of Sen. Tim Kaine. They were discussing the K-12 History Standards of Learning.
Ms. Holton said that she was “not comfortable” with calling the Constitution and the Declaration remarkable documents without qualifiers. And she defended strong central government planning and socialism as compatible with democracy and freedom.
Ms. Dutta debated her on those points.
That led, as such things do in modern America, to Ms. Dutta being called a “white supremacist” by progressives.
And officially designated as one by the unanimous vote of General Assembly Senate Democrats. Continue reading
by Asra Q. Nomani
Exclusive: In 2019, Abrar Omeish canvassed for support at a fundraiser for the anti-Semitic group American Muslims for Palestine and said she wanted to change the “narrative” on Palestinians. She was elected to office and launched a tirade against the state of Israel, which she smeared as an “apartheid” nation, repeating the talking points of an anti-Semitic brigade in the Woke Army. Here is the full transcript.
Last month, at Luther Jackson Middle School, parents gasped as a Fairfax County Public Schools board member, Abrar Omeish, stumbled through a clumsy speech and called the historic battle of Iwo Jima “evil,” even though the decisive victory by U.S. Marines led to eventual victory by Allied forces against Japan and Nazi Germany and its leader Adolph Hitler, ending the brutal genocide of Jews in the Holocaust.
In the days after, the remarks sparked a national outcry, even spilling over globally, with Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears, a former U.S. Marine, assailing the remarks and a pair of comedians asking indelicately: “How did this clown get elected to a school board?”
Editor’s note: For Asra’s twitter conversation on the event see here.
I know the answer because I witnessed it happen, and the answer reveals an unholy alliance that I expose in my new book, Woke Army, between the Democratic Party and rigid anti-Israel, anti-Semitic establishment Muslim leaders in the United States. These establishment Muslims include activists, politicians, and academics — from Women’s March co-founder Linda Sarsour to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), University of California at Berkeley academic Hatem Bazian. and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
What is particularly disturbing is that this Woke Army set its sights on K-12 schools and their children. School board member Abrar Omeish is Exhibit A in this dangerous alliance in K-12.
I saw it first-hand one Saturday night on Sept. 7, 2019, documenting the evening in video shared here for the first time.
Continue reading
by Arthur Bloom
I want to tell you why I like The 1619 Project. It has nothing to do with the history, all of which is known to any well-educated Virginian. Of course, these things are fundamentally propagandistic exercises, any leftist worth his salt would tell you that too. But it was symbolically very important. Here’s what it did: The New York Times shifted the locus and timeline of the American Founding from Plymouth Bay to Virginia, where it belongs.
It’s a common gripe of Virginians that when most Americans today think of the Founding, they tend to think of pilgrims in black-and-white, with buckles on their shoes, even though we were there first. The 1619 Project is helping to rectify this situation. I’m holding out for a 1607 Project. Give it time, the actual Jamestown fort wasn’t even rediscovered until around 25 years ago.
The New York Times was engaged in some powerful voodoo, not to be trifled with — if you look at everything through the lens of race you won’t see it — but it’s very real. Catholic education molded Nikole Hannah-Jones, and she went on to strike a hammer blow against Yankee cultural power. The Empire of Guadalupe rises.
This was necessary, because if the affirmative action lawsuit at Harvard is successful, Harvard will become even more Chinese, and its prestige will fall. Our people won’t go there anymore. That’s why I’m rooting for Conservative, Inc.’s devious plan to turn Harvard into a Chinese enclave, it’ll be the greatest thing they’ve ever done. These two things are mortal blows to the cultural prestige of Massachusetts. And as Massachusetts falls, Virginia rises.
Continue reading
by James Wyatt Whitehead, V
In 2012, seven states, including Virginia, formed the Electronic Registration and Information, Inc. (ERIC), with assistance from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Today, ERIC’s membership has risen to 32 states and the District of Columbia. ERIC’s mission is to assist states in maintaining accurate voting rolls.
Every 60 days, states that are members of ERIC send voting roll data to ERIC for analysis. Reports are generated and returned to the states who can then take any necessary action. The data sent appear to be the garden variety of voter information one would expect: who has moved in? Who has moved out? Who has died?
Security of the data seems to be of high importance to the leaders of ERIC. Membership in ERIC requires a one-time fee, plus annual dues. The budget requirements for ERIC are modest. What is not to like? ERIC provides a useful service to state election officials. Accurate voting rolls advance the common interests of all citizens.
Continue reading
Daniel Gecker Esq., President of the Virginia Board of Education. Appointed to the Board of Education by Governor Terry McAuliffe and reappointed to a four year term by Governor Ralph Northam. Date of expiration of appointment – June 30, 2023
by James C. Sherlock
Progressives, in the fullness of their dogma, oppose the entire Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights is specifically structured to limit the powers of government, which progressives find not only unsuitable, but unimaginable.
In the Golden Age of Progressivism in Virginia, 2020 and 2021, they controlled the governor’s mansion, the General Assembly, the Attorney General’s Office and all of the state agencies.
With total control, they took flight.
They have always known what seldom occurs to conservatives not prone to offend the Bill of Rights.
With total control of state government, progressives can enact and have enacted laws, regulations and policies that violate both the federal and state constitutions.
They know it will take a decade or more for courts to push back. Meanwhile they can call opponents “haters.”
After which the worst that can happen is that nobody is held accountable. Except the taxpayers.
I just exposed unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in the University of Virginia’s hiring process. that was implemented starting in 2020.
The same fertile progressive imagination is also present in the Board of Education’s new (in 2021) Standard 6. “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Equitable Practices performance indicators” (starting on page xv) in “Guidelines for Uniform Performance Standards and Evaluation Criteria for Teachers“(Guidelines). Continue reading
by James C. Sherlock
I offer for your consideration the text of a draft Intellectual Freedom Protection Act proposed this morning by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
FIRE is the leading American voice supporting academic freedom, free speech and due process. In doing so they defend democracy itself.
They are what the ACLU was before that organization abandoned the field as an impartial supporter of civil liberties to pick a side.
FIRE defends left and right equally.
I have below eliminated the preamble of the draft law for brevity. Lawyers can find the legal precedents referenced in the preamble here. Continue reading
Karl Marx
by James C. Sherlock
I have spent the last 15 years or so studying and reporting on the decline of scholarship and the rise of censorship at the University of Virginia and other state institutions of “higher learning.”
The enforced closing of minds has been targeted to resurrect an economic system that failed everywhere in the 20th century and cannot work in the 21st.
The decline has been led by UVa’s School of Education and Human Development not only at the University but also, more harmfully, in the policies and pedagogy developed for teaching in the public schools. That school, blind to redundancy, recently appointed an Associate Dean for DEI.
UVa’s School of Education, unfortunately close to Richmond, has dominated the councils of the Virginia Department of Education even under Republican administrations. But it most tragically ran free under Ralph Northam and his two worst appointees, Secretary of Education Atif Qarni and Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane.
Tragically, their tenures overlapped with complete domination by Democrats of the General Assembly and the COVID shutdowns.
The public schools, many operated under school boards in political agreement with the progressive left, will be trying to recover from those multiple simultaneous catastrophes for decades. Many will not recover if they remain as currently configured.
Some schools won’t last long as parents seek choices elsewhere. If true choices are offered that the poor can afford, entire divisions will collapse. Which is why, because too many school divisions are run for the benefit of the adults in the system, they will oppose choices.
Regardless, the steep decline in production of new teachers and the fleeing from chaos of experienced teachers, including those who have not yet been attacked in their classrooms, continues.
That is a classic death spiral. Continue reading
by Robin Beres
In a recent column for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Rep. Bob Good (R-VA 05), noted that as of this month, “the U.S. House of Representatives will be the only thing standing between Americans and the Democrats’ assault on freedom, the family, the economy and our national security.”
The GOP won the House majority by a slim margin in November 2022. So, if Good is so concerned about the Republicans’ ability to address so many pressing issues, isn’t it odd that he is being such a willing contributor to the humiliation the GOP is inflicting upon itself right now?
What should have been a quick vote on January 3 for a Speaker of the House — a requirement before Congress can begin working on any of the people’s business — ended in the House adjourning Tuesday with no Speaker. Three consecutive votes failed to garner enough support for GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA 23) to secure the gavel for his party.
The failure to elect a leader on the first vote is the first time this has happened in 100 years. The opposition is coming from a small group of far-right-wing Republicans who appear to be reveling in the chaos they are causing and the humiliation they have dealt to McCarthy. Bob Good is one of them.
I’m not sure what Good, who considers himself a biblical conservative, hopes to derive from this nonsense, other than reveling in the national attention. If he and his team of hyper-conservatives wanted to start this Congress making the GOP look like a bunch of inept buffoons, they’ve surely succeeded. If they wanted to give the Democrats a good laugh, they’ve also succeeded with that. Check out the Twitter picture of Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA 33), posing outside the House Chamber with a bag of popcorn. Continue reading
Posted in Democracy and Western Civilization, Elections, Governance, Leadership, Uncategorized
Tagged Robin Beres
by James C. Sherlock
This article is rendered as a letter responding to an old friend and mentor, the University of Virginia, my alma mater.
I can imagine the University’s response to my last article on its culture:
The changes we have experienced in the culture of the University, its pervasive progressivism, which some may see as toxic to a public university, are not unique to the University of Virginia, have been decades in the making and will be very difficult to change from within.
I note the pessimism, but do not share the conclusion. Change it must, and we must not shelter in place and hope it blows over.
I firmly believe that the University will not survive as a public institution, and will not deserve to survive, with a leadership structure monitored by a political Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) commissariat that tolerates no dissent from progressive orthodoxy.
I don’t believe it will survive hiring practices that render the faculty politically single-minded.
I don’t believe it will survive a student experience that has driven large majorities of students to respond to surveys that they feel afraid to engage in debate on topics related to progressive dogma.
How can we honestly say we promote diversity, but not diversity of thought?
Continue reading
By James C. Sherlock
Chloe Cole after childhood surgical transition to a boy (left) and de-transition to a girl (right) – Courtesy of Chloe Cole and the New York Post
The New York Post wrote recently:
At 12 years old, Chloe Cole decided she was transgender. At 13, she was put on puberty blockers and prescribed testosterone. At 15, she underwent a double mastectomy. Less than a year later, she realized she’d made a mistake.
Note the gracious acceptance of agency by this young woman, even though she made a “decision” at 12 that she was transgender. Some clearly think that a child of twelve is mature enough to make such a decision.
We see no such agency proclaimed by her parents, pediatrician, endocrinologist or psychologist. I am sure they were “supporting” that child.
No agency is apparently accepted by the state in which she lived. The state in which her doctors were licensed.
Let’s examine the agency of the adult players in such matters in Virginia.
Russian crowd control
by James C. Sherlock
America’s freedoms, guaranteed by its Bill of Rights and its three-branch government, have been the keys to America’s success since its founding.
Individual freedoms, protected, unleashed the creativity of hundreds of millions of citizens to make America the most dominant nation in the history of the world.
Broadly common moral standards have sustained support for that government. As moral standards evolved, with new concepts of morality emerging from the churches, America’s constitution and laws changed with them.
America has defined evil within Judeo-Christian traditions. As other religions began to be represented in America, they brought with them many of the same understandings of right and wrong.
We have struck democratic agreements that are lasting because they have attained sufficiently balanced support. Our violent rupture, the Civil War, was fought to extend freedom and succeeded in doing so.
Our laws have not always been just, but opposition to unjust laws generally began in the churches and attained majority approval. The great civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 60’s marched out of churches into history.
All of this is changing with the precipitous decline of traditional religion in American life. This decline has created a vacuum into which extremists, both left and right, have stepped with new secular religions of their own design. Continue reading
by James C. Sherlock
I recommend that every reader view a one-hour teleconference discussion between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and higher education leaders from around the United States.
You will watch a great and remarkably insightful man, in the middle of leading his country’s war for survival, speak and answer questions about preserving higher education, democracy and Western civilization in Ukraine and the world. Continue reading
Posted in Democracy and Western Civilization, Education (higher ed)
Tagged James Sherlock
