Author: James A. Bacon
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Honey, I Shrunk the Newspaper
Newspapers are dying slow deaths of a thousand small cuts. Here’s the latest from the Richmond Times-Dispatch… According to Executive Editor Chris Coates, beginning July 4, the RTD will switch to a “digital-only format” on the following holidays: Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’…
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Senator Lucas’ “Big Gamble”
by Kayla Owen Virginia state Senator and Chair of the powerful Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, Louise Lucas, is known for her love of casinos, skill games, and other gambling enterprises. Her greatest political gamble may be unfolding before our eyes this week. When Virginia’s biennial 2024-2026 budget was signed on May 13, 2024, just…
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The June 18 Primary: Money, Trump and Identity Politics
By Ken ReidIt’s not an exact science to get lessons from primaries, where turnout can be as low as 10% and when voters can choose which primary they want to vote in (as is the case in Virginia). But I will go ahead and play political scientist here and give you some takeaways from what…
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Cao Sweeps the GOP Primary… Almost
by James A. Bacon Hung Cao won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate yesterday by an overwhelming margin, collecting nearly 62% of the votes in a five-man race. Scott Parkinson trailed in the No. 2 position at 11%. Cao could almost claim a sweep. He reaped a majority of votes in every locality but one.…
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Fissures in the Education-Industrial Complex
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s public-school districts are fracturing along the same lines of the culture war as the rest of American society. Four school districts have pulled out of the Virginia School Board Association (VSBA) on the grounds that the training and advocacy supplied by the 118-year-old organization does not reflect their values. The…
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Note to Readers: BR Website Upgrade
Bacon’s Rebellion is in the midst of a website upgrade, and some issues are cropping up that didn’t appear on our test site. Please bear with us as we work through them. WordPress is no longer supporting the design/layout theme we were using, Coraline, with the result that functionality and security are expected to degrade…
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Defending Jon Baliles: An Answer to the Lost Cause of Dick Hall-Sizemore
by Paul Goldman Does Bacon’s Rebellion recognize the validity of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States? I’m not sure and here’s why. Had Dick Hall-Sizemore written his response to Jon Baliles’ column, “Bonding With (or Against) the People,” prior to the Civil War, he would have caught Jon with his constitutional…
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Keeping Up with Wokeness: “Indigiqueer”
by James A. Bacon In the thought bubble of intersectional oppression, language mutates faster than COVID-19. It’s almost impossible for us normies to keep up. I consider it a point of professional pride to stay up to speed, but even I find it astonishing at how rapidly the woke mind virus is evolving. Delving into…
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Meteorologists Hype the Weather. It’s What They Do Best.
by Kerry Dougherty There was a time when I was fluent in Celsius. Today I have to turn to Google to translate. But back in the summer of either 1982 or 1983 I remember a headline in The Irish Press that was something like this: “Dublin Sizzles In 22-Degree Heat.” I was living in Ireland’s…
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Bonding With (or Against) the People
by Jon Baliles There has been a lot of activity across the region recently about bond ratings and localities issuing bonds. It is a timely comparison of priorities of local leaders, a glimpse of a possible future and what happens if you have people in charge who worry more about getting the big, shiny project…
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EOCR: the Enforcement Arm of DEI
by James A. Bacon How many Diversity, Equity & Inclusion employees work at the University of Virginia, and how much do they cost? Those are important questions, but they miss the big picture. Employees classified as “DEI” are only part of a large bureaucratic apparatus designed to transform the University in line with a social-justice…
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Careful There, Dems, These Are Your Voters
by Kerry Dougherty I’m not in the habit of offering political advice to Democrats, but they might want to consider toning down the “convicted felon” rhetoric. Ever since Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony charges in New York, the left has become a Greek chorus, chanting “convicted felon” every time they mention his name.…
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The Buck Stops Where, Exactly?
by Jon Baliles The city’s voter registrar is in the news again this week, and not because there is a primary election next week or huge elections both nationally and locally in November. This week, Graham Moomaw reported in the Virginia Mercury that the city’s Human Resource Department conducted a review of the Registrar’s Office…