Author: James A. Bacon
-
UVa Grad Students Want to Unionize
by James A. Bacon A group of University of Virginia employees comprised mainly of graduate students want to form a union, reports the Daily Progress. If successful, the workers would be affiliated with the Campus Workers of America. UVa last year committed to raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, so economic issues don’t…
-
Hey, College Kids, Take a Gap Year
by Kerry Dougherty I’m delighted to no longer be part of the parental tuition-check-writing cohort. Because if I were, I’d have to tell my kids that my checkbook was closed. Take a year off, I’d tell them. A “gap year.” That way they could escape the dystopian nightmare that colleges and universities have become as…
-
Nursing Home PPE Shortages and Deaths Still Rising
by Carol J. Bova After a review of over 15,000 nursing home reports submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), Brian E. McGarry, David C. Grabowski, and Michael L. Barnett published a paper in Health Affairs on August 20th. In “Severe Staffing and Personal Protective Equipment Shortages Faced by Nursing Homes During the…
-
Our Technology Future: SkyNet… or the Stone Age?
I’m having a bad day. First I couldn’t figure out how to auto-post Bacon’s Rebellion posts to Facebook. OK, I’m technically challenged, so I’ll hire someone to do it. Then I updated WordPress, which I do know how to do, but all the comments disappeared. I didn’t know how to fix that but, thankfully, my…
-
Will “Racial Healing” at GMU Foster More Racial Division?
by James A. Bacon The progressives’ imposition of identity politics on Virginia’s public universities continues apace. Hans Bader has already called attention to a July announcement by George Mason University’s new president, Gregory Washington, of a “Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence.” None of Virginia’s media outlets seem to have paid attention. Your humble…
-
Pardon Our Technical Glitch
Note to readers: It seems that all the comments on Bacon’s Rebellion have disappeared. This is likely related to an update to our WordPress software I made this morning. Unfortunately, I cannot identify the source of the problem, much less how to fix it. I have summoned help from our web host provider, but it’s…
-
Is There a Government Role for Rural Development?
by James A. Bacon John Accordino, a planning professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, has been giving extensive thought to a perennial problem, the nation’s urban-rural divide. As author of a newly published article and State and Local Government Review, he provides a broad overview of his thinking in a Richmond Times-Dispatch column. Accordino sees the…
-
Pressure Builds on Northam to Crank up Spending
by James A. Bacon In many ways Governor Ralph Northam has governed as a leftist-progressive Democrat bearing little resemblance to the moderate he proclaimed himself to be when he ran for office. He has expanded Medicaid, mandated a 100% carbon-free electric grid within 30 years, and turned over Virginia’s schools to zealots far more dedicated…
-
Who Killed Barbara Jean Monaco?
by Kerry Dougherty I was alone in the newsroom on that August day in 1985. It was lunchtime and the editor’s phone was ringing incessantly. “Dougherty. Virginian-Pilot, Ledger-Star,” I said, reciting the five-word greeting I always used because I thought it made me sound like a hard-nosed reporter. “Hello,” began a polite woman on the…
-
REC Coop to Invest in Battery Storage
by James A. Bacon Rappahannock Electric Cooperative (REC) is partnering with Charlottesville-based East Point Energy to install the first grid-scale battery-storage project by a Virginia electric cooperative. The project has a peak capacity of two megawatts and a duration of eight megawatt hours, enough to power about 1,000 homes for eight hours, the coop stated…
-
Democrats Govern in the Dark
by Shaun Kenney Del. Glenn Davis, R-Virginia Beach, was greeted with this notification as he attempted to log in for virtual voting: Whoops. Garren Shipley with the House Republican Caucus was more direct: Right now a member could be muted, attempting to get the Speaker's attention, and be ignored. The press and public would have…
-
House GOP Refuses Per Diems, Dems Cling to the Loot
by Kerry Dougherty Lemme get this straight. The Commonwealth of Virginia is facing a possible $2.7 billion shortfall over the next two years, due to lost revenue from the pandemic shutdowns. Yet, in the wake of this fiscal crisis, Democrats decided to award themselves a fat per diem – more than $200 a day it…
-
Sixty School Districts Going All Online this Fall
With 132 school divisions across Virginia, it’s hard to keep track of which school districts are doing what this fall to deal with the COVID-19 epidemic. The Virginia Department of Education has published a map, which it will update regularly, showing who’s doing what. It turns out the 60 school districts, including those in the…
-
Stoney Didn’t Comply with State Procurement Rules Either
by James A. Bacon The defense of Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney’s awarding of a $1.8 million statue-removal contract to a campaign supporter — that he followed state emergency procurement law, even if he didn’t abide by the City of Richmond’s law — has no basis in fact. Stoney’s defenders have argued that the public health…
-
Records? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Records!
by Dave Webster On July 30, 2020, I served a Virginia Freedom of Information Act request on House of Delegates Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn regarding her removal of the Lee statue and other artifacts from the State Capitol, specifically inquiring as to who she hired, how much they were paid, and where she stored the artifacts…