Author: James A. Bacon
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Just as We Need Them More Than Ever, Virginia Libertarians Have Dissolved Themselves
by James A. Bacon In a profound disagreement over philosophy, The Libertarian Party of Virginia has voted to dissolve itself. In a 7 to 5 vote, the state central committee contended that the national image of the party was now “functionally indistinct from other alt-right parties and movements.” But the national Libertarian Party declared that…
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Insanity Gives Way, Briefly, to Street Art
So much to blog about and so little time. Jon Baliles, some of whose columns we republish on Bacon’s Rebellion, has been distracted by his duties as a board member of the Richmond Street Art Festival, so he has been unable to report on the latest inanity and insanity in River City. But the art…
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College “Equity” and the Student Pipeline Problem
by James A. Bacon It’s sad to see that my friends at the Partners for College Affordability & Public Trust (once a sponsor of Bacon’s Rebellion) have embraced the “social justice” paradigm for higher education. I whole-heartedly endorsed their mission when it focused on containing the rising cost of college attendance generally and advocated increased…
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Great Moments in the Annals of Virginia Transportation
by James A. Bacon Two recent news nuggets provide a juxtaposition that calls into question the sanity of Virginia’s transportation policy. Item #1: The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) will pay the lead contractor on the long-delayed Silver Line rail extension $207 million more as part of an agreement reached in July, reports The Washington…
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VCU Police Department Signals Its Wokeness
by James A. Bacon A new “resource” will be available to the LGBTQIA+ community in Richmond. Virginia Commonwealth University — yes, the same institution that recently lost $470,000 in a cyber scam — has assigned two campus patrol officers as “campus LGBTQIA+ liaisons.” A recent university announcement noted that VCU Police Chief John Venuti has…
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Watch Out, Nigerian Princes Are Using Bitcoin and VPNs Now
by James A. Bacon Nigerian scam artists are upping their game. Ten or twenty years ago, they bombarded the Internet with tales of African potentates and lost fortunes that only the favored email recipient could help recover… if he or she could provide a small bank deposit first. There were so many of these entertaining…
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Truancy Morass
by John Butcher In a follow-up to his post on chronic truancy in Virginia, Capt. Sherlock writes, “We have decided, with laws reflecting our decisions, that children must attend school.” (Emphasis in original). If only it were that simple. Va. Code § 22.1-254 provides: Except as otherwise provided in this article, every parent, guardian, or…
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“Our Life Is Always Threatened”
by James A. Bacon Last week an unidentified White man draped a noose from the statue of Homer at the University of Virginia. Without any evidence of the perpetrator’s motive, University Police and President Jim Ryan promptly proclaimed the incident a hate crime. Yesterday, a group of 60 or so students gathered near the statue…
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Remember When News Outlets Engaged in Fact-Checking?
by Kerry Dougherty Dang it. The BYU women’s volleyball story had everything the corporate media salivates over: A conservative Christian school and an alleged racial slur against an African-American female athlete. Pity that like so many other stories that feed the narrative that America is just a nanosecond away from Jim Crow and that conservative…
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Presumed Racist Until Proven Innocent
by James A. Bacon Around 11:15 p.m. last Wednesday, a White male dressed in dark clothing climbed the statue of the blind poet Homer on the grounds of the University of Virginia and hung a noose around its neck. The next day University President Jim Ryan declared the incident to be a “hate crime” and…
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Who’s “Legislating from the Bench” Now?
by Jim McCarthy “It’s not the court’s place to legislate,” the judge stated in local media after dismissing a case seeking to have two books declared obscene upon her ruling that such ban violated Virginia and federal law. “Look, the General Assembly is a citizen legislature. We’re not lawmakers. Things like this happen and a…
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The Trouble with Guaranteed Student Loans
by Dr. A Schuhart I benefitted directly from the guaranteed student loan program. Unlike most of my colleagues, I was a first-generation college student, and I took out loans for both BA and MA degrees. I would not have attended college were it not for this program, so I have always been grateful for it.…
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Stop Comparing January 6th To September 11th
by Kerry Dougherty Stop. Just stop. Stop with the hyperbole. Stop exaggerating. Stop minimizing horror in a craven pursuit of politics. It happens all the time. For example, I’ve always cringed whenever I hear comparisons between Hitler and any contemporary political figure. There was only one Adolph Hitler. He was vile and he killed six…
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Jeanine’s Memes
Normally, I’d say, “Last one out, turn off the lights.” But Governor Gavin Newsome beat me to it. (From The Bull Elephant)
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Va. Colleges Fare Pretty Well in Free-Speech Rankings
by James A. Bacon Three Virginia universities scored in the top 25 institutions in the 2022-23 College Free Speech Rankings published this week by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). The College of William and Mary scored 12th among the 203 institutions ranked in the national survey of 44,900 undergraduate students. George Mason…