Author: James A. Bacon
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The War on Virginia’s History
by Scott S. Powell and Ann McLean The United States is under a cultural and ideological attack that threatens its continuity and survival more than at any previous time in the 239-year history of the nation. And since the leaders of this attack think strategically, it should come as no surprise that Virginia would be…
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Youngkin Energy Plan Restores Emphasis on Cost and Reliability
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s energy policy needs to establish a better balance between cost, reliability, and environmental sustainability, says the Commonwealth of Virginia’s 2022 Energy Plan. In practice, that means backing off rigid timelines to achieve a net zero carbon electric grid and investing in emerging technologies such as hydrogen, carbon capture, and small…
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Motoring Mariners
by Kerry Dougherty I was surprised when my granddaughter excitedly phoned last night to tell me that due to flooding, school was cancelled today. I was reminded of the time area schools closed prematurely for snow and not a flake fell from the sky. But then I checked the forecast: High tide today could be…
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How to Think About Monuments
by James A. Bacon The conservative movement in Virginia faces a huge dilemma: how to build a “big tent” political coalition that is welcoming to African Americans and other minorities while resisting the cultural cleansing of everyone associated, however remotely, with the Civil War, slaveholding or segregation — including founding fathers of the republic such…
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It’s a Memorial, Not a Racist Ideology
by Carol J. Bova Accounts from lawyers, reporters, pundits and other outsiders have severely distorted the debate over the Confederate memorial in Mathews County. To The Washington Post, the controversy is about the ”enduring power of the Civil War’s legacy.” To the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs and Wilkie, Farr &…
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The Robert E. Lee of Appomattox
by Kenneth G. Everett Adversity is the first path to truth. Lord Byron, DON JUAN, Canto XII, Stanza 50 Few things in life reveal more clearly the true character of a man than his response to the circumstances of defeat and failure. The deepest impulses of the soul emerge when cherished hopes collapse and undertakings…
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Three Virginia Counties Are Great Places for Black People to Live
by Ken Reid In the aftermath of the nationwide orgy of riotous violence perpetrated by supporters of Black Lives Matter due to George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police in May 2020, both the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors and Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) School Board issued resolutions of “apology” for how…
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Complete and Total Incompetence & Negligence
by Jon Baliles There can be no more fitting title for this post than this jaw-dropping, migraine-inducing story from Tyler Lane at CBS6 about the repeated warning signs about fire safety that were not only missed — but flat out ignored — by Richmond Public Schools (RPS) officials in 2020 and 2021, which culminated in…
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GMU Rebates Tuition Increase Students
by James A. Bacon George Mason University, the last holdout among Virginia’s public universities in freezing tuition for in-state undergraduate students this year, has announced that it will rebate this year’s 3% tuition increase. Now all 15 public colleges in Virginia have acceded to a request by Governor Glenn Youngkin to forebear on raising tuition…
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Bacon Bits: Signs of the Times
I identify as a rattlesnake. The Department of Motor Vehicles has issued approximately 5,600 drivers licenses and other forms of identification with a “nonbinary” identification since an enabling law went into effect July 1, 2020, reports the Virginia Mercury. “For decades the government put lots of people in boxes in lots of ways,” said the…
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Media Gins up Anemic School Walkouts
by Kerry Dougherty You could almost hear the local media panting Tuesday morning. There were rumors that some Virginia high school students were going to walk out of school to protest the new parental rights policies of the Youngkin administration. You know, the Department of Education regulations announced earlier this month that support the principle…
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To Be Elected Or Not
by Jim McCarthy The exploits of Robin Hood and his band of merry men in the cover of Sherwood Forest have been colored heroic as they engaged in a redistribution of wealth from one class of Englishmen to another. The Sheriff of Nottingham was a spoiler, though his mission was one of law and order…
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Graph of the Day: Maternal Mortality
by James A. Bacon When writing about “systemic racism” in health care, journalists routinely cite the disparity in health outcomes between White and Black Women. Here in Virginia, the maternal death rate per 100,000 for Black women in 2018 was 37.3 — nearly twice the rate of 14.9 for White women. The disparity has grown…