Author: James A. Bacon
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Seeking Social Media Expertise
Thanks to the generosity of our readers, Bacon’s Rebellion has accumulated enough cash to pay a starving college kid or out-of-work bartender a decent stipend over the summer to ramp up a social media campaign for the blog. I’m looking for someone who: Has experience in social media. Familiarity with Facebook is more important than…
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Flight from New York
“New York is a great place to live, but I wouldn’t want to ride out a deadly viral epidemic there.” That pretty much sums up the attitude of tens of thousands of Gothamites — mostly of the wealthier sort — who have fled the city during the onset of the COVID-19 tribulations. In March, the…
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A Sad Serenade
I met Alex in the Kroger parking lot this morning when I was making my weekly grocery-store run. It was a beautiful sunny day. Joggers, walkers and cyclists were out everywhere, and Alex was serenading passers by with his accordion. A home-made sign said he was out of work and needed money for rent. His…
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Northam’s Indefensible Philosophical Premise
by James A. Bacon Virginia tax revenue fell $700 million in April compared to the same month a year ago, a 26.2% drop. That decline, of course, reflects the nose dive in the economy that generates tax revenues. In response to this news, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Governor Ralph Northam made a telling comment…
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Woohoo! Most of Virginia Moving to Phase 1 Lockdown Relief!
by James A. Bacon At long last Governor Ralph Northam is relaxing, ever so slightly, his strangle grip on Virginia’s economy and personal liberties by allowing the state (well, most of it) to enter Phase 1 reopening. Most restrictions will remain in place. Entertainment and recreational businesses will remain closed. Restaurants still cannot provide indoor service.…
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Virginia’s Sloppy Prisoner Release Plan
by Kerry Dougherty Are you concerned that Virginia has opened its prisons and hustled inmates out over fears of COVID-19? Brace yourself. The news just got worse. Not only are criminals being rushed out of prison, they’re being released without re-entry preparations. The cell doors open and the convicts are suddenly on their own. What…
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Bacon’s Rebellion Challenge: Donate Your COVID Recovery Check to Charity
by James A. Bacon So, I got my government COVID-19 check in the mail. I like getting money from the federal government, especially when it’s a tax refund. But I did nothing to deserve this particular sum. I have not been an economic victim of the epidemic (not yet, anyway) and I feel totally undeserving,…
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Observations from a Distance Learning Pioneer
by James A. Bacon Last week I published a table showing the level of online enrollment at Virginia’s leading higher-ed purveyors of distance education. The table exaggerated the extent to which distance learning occurs by failing to distinguish between students enrolled in distance learning-only programs and students who took an occasional distance learning class. James…
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Who Has Ralph Northam’s Ear?
by Kerry Dougherty Why appoint a task force if you’re going to ignore its recommendations? That’s what many Virginia business leaders wondered last week when they saw Gov. Ralph Northam’s arbitrary rules for reopening the commonwealth. On April 24, the governor merrily announced the formation of a “diverse” 24-member “Covid-19 Business Task Force” to advise…
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COVID-19 in Black and White
by James A. Bacon For many social justice activists — please note, I refrain from using the potentially inflammatory term social justice “warriors” — racial disparities in the United States are a fixation. They have made an issue of the fact that African-Americans are more likely than whites to contract the COVID-19 virus than whites,…
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Another Murderer Freed in Virginia
by Kerry Dougherty Let’s see, who’s next on the Virginia Parole Board’s Get-Out-of-Jail-Free conveyor belt? Oh look, it’s Irvian Cotton. Another murderer serving a life sentence. They’re getting out of prison so fast, I’ve lost count of how many violent criminals have been sent home in recent weeks. If you were in these parts back…
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Who Sets the Protocols for COVID-19 Testing and Tracing – the State or Localities?
by James A. Bacon The Northam administration plans to dispatch $650 million of federal helicopter dollars directly to cities and counties to help cover the cost of responding to the COVID-19 epidemic. The state’s priorities for monies received under the federal CARES Act are expanding testing and hiring public health staff to conduct contact tracing,…
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The Curious Case of Hispanic COVID-19 Patients
by James A. Bacon In Fairfax County, Latinos comprise about 16% of the population yet 60% of the county’s COVID-19 cases. A recent health study described the neighborhood of a Hispanic woman profiled by WAMU, Ana Mejia, as an “island of disadvantage.” A third of the neighborhood’s children live in poverty, and more than half…
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Cop Killer’s Release on Hold
by Kerry Dougherty Looks like Vincent Martin can unpack his bags. The convicted cop killer is going to spend at least another 30 days in a cell, despite the best efforts of Gov. Ralph Northam’s parole board to set him free. Martin, 64, was scheduled to be sprung yesterday, but at the last minute the…
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Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, and the Domino Effect
by James A. Bacon More than 600,000 Virginians have filed for unemployment claims since mid-March, when the COVID-19 epidemic started hitting Virginia and Governor Ralph Northam’s emergency decrees shut down large sectors of the economy. That’s roughly one person out of seven in the state’s workforce. After the first wave of closings, the number of…