Tag: James A. Bacon
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Hey, Where Did All the White Supremacists Go?
by James A. Bacon If you believe the political/pundit class, Glenn Youngkin rode the path to the governorship on the back of a White backlash against his predecessor’s efforts to rectify the last 400 years of wrongs against minorities. All the while last year, the experts warned of the looming threat of White supremacists against…
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Drug Offenses Down, Violent Crime Up in 2021
The Virginia State Police (VSP) has finally published its 2021 Crime in Virginia report. I’ll be out of action for much of the day today, so I’ll settle right now for posting a few highlights. Homicides. The number of homicides (murder/nonnegligent manslaughter) increased to 562 statewide in 2021, a rate of 6.49 per 100,000. The…
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Youngkin Appointees Can Expect the Queally Treatment
by James A. Bacon Any day now, Governor Glenn Youngkin will announce his appointments to the boards of Virginia’s public colleges and universities. He has used his bully pulpit to urge governing boards to suppress hikes in tuition and fees, and he has called upon administrators to preserve free speech and promote intellectual diversity. In…
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Colin Greene and the Emergence of Richmond’s Deep State
by James A. Bacon Colin Greene is still state health commissioner, but I’m predicting he’ll have to pull a Ralph Northam in order to last in his position. After he dared to express skepticism that “structural racism” is a useful explanation for racial health disparities, the left is eager to take him out. Even issuing…
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Virginia’s New Race-and-Healthcare Dogma
by James A. Bacon It is now outside the bounds of acceptable discourse in Virginia to question the proposition that “structural” racism accounts for health disparities between racial/ethnic groups. Virginia’s new health commissioner, Colin Greene, has been called on the carpet for expressing the view that racism is not a public health crisis and, in…
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What China Tells Us About U.S. Educational Achievement Gaps
by James A. Bacon Shaomin Li, a business school professor at Old Dominion University, specializes in studying China’s economy. His book, just published by the Cambridge University Press, “The Rise of China, Inc.,” is well worth reading for its description of how the Chinese political/economic system works. Li, whose job early in life was painting portraits…
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$93 Million for Virginia Trails
The Bacon Family has just returned from a nine-day hiking trip to Montana. We were not surprised that the trails at Glacier National Park, with its rivers and lakes and snow-capped peaks, were world-class spectacular. But we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the trails around Missoula, where we enjoyed two days of walking…
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“The Dreadful Frauds” — a CRT Take-Down
by James A. Bacon As Wokeism plays an increasingly dominant role in our society, conservatives and even liberals have begun subjecting the ideology to close scrutiny. Perhaps the most brilliant dissection comes from John McWhorter, an African-American and an old-school liberal. In Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America, McWhorter makes the…
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Oink! Another Supply Chain Disruption
by James A. Bacon Virginia-based Smithfield Foods has announced its intention to close its Vernon, Calif., meat-packing plant, which employs 1,800 people and pays $21 per hour on average. The company cited “high costs and over-regulation” for the decision. The costs of doing business in California “are significantly higher than other states where we operate,”…
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After Getting Fined, Del Rio Deletes Twitter Account
by James A. Bacon Last week, Jack Del Rio, the defensive coordinator for the Washington Commanders (formerly known as the Redskins) created a mini-furor when he referred to the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol a “dust up.” His remark proved to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, effectively killing (for…
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Right Decision, Terrible Reason
by James A. Bacon The decision to spike a deal to lure the Washington Commanders football team to Virginia has fallen apart. Commanders CEO Daniel Snyder had enlisted some bipartisan support for a proposal to create a Football Stadium Authority to finance construction of a stadium and a “mini city” around it in Loudoun County,…
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Bacon Bits: It’s Come to This
As long as you’re here, would you like to check out a book? With public libraries struggling for relevance in a world in which anyone can buy a book online, the Arlington Public Library has found a new role to play in the community: dispensing Naloxone (Narcan), a nasal spray that counters opioid overdoes. Deaths…
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Bacon Bits: School Meltdown Update
The latest news about our dysfunctional schools: Another day, another beating. A 15-year-old boy at Freedom High School in Prince William County was hospitalized Friday after three other students punched and kicked him in the head after an argument in the hallway. His injuries were not considered life-threatening. Prince William police said the case resulted…