Day: December 22, 2020

Virginia Legislators Blast 5,593 Page House Bill Passed Just Hours After Legislators Get The Full Draft

Eric Burk

The U.S. House of Representatives leadership gave legislators just hours to consider a 5,593-page omnibus spending bill incorporating over $900 billion of coronavirus relief and $1.4 in government funding for fiscal year 2021. The bill was made available on Monday afternoon, with voting beginning on Monday evening, where it passed just after nine p.m.

“After several delays and last-minute haggling, we finally began receiving text of the COVID relief bill at 11:30 am this morning. This bill is likely to be thousands of pages, so I’m canceling my afternoon appointments & digging into the bill. As Reagan said, “Trust, but verify,” Congressman Ben Cline (R-VA06) tweeted.

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Commentary: Biden’s Latest Identity Politics Pick is a Radical with a Land Grab Scheme

Virginia Star Staff

New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland — a Native American through her mother’s lineage — is the newest addition to Biden’s identity politics bingo card. Haaland was tapped for Secretary of the Interior, a position with control over conservation and oil and gas drilling on public lands, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and a swath of other agencies like the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Indian Education. 

Environmentalists were titillated to see a Native American nominated to take charge of land conservation and Native affairs, especially after President Trump authorized oil drilling, pipelines, and the border wall on land considered by some Native activists to be sacred. 

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Virginia’s Robert E. Lee Statue Removed from U.S. Capitol

Jacob Taylor

Virginia’s statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee was removed from its place in the National Statuary Hall of the United States Capitol by a crew of workers overnight.

Every state is allowed to have two statues on display in the hall and Lee has stood along with President George Washington as representatives of the Commonwealth since 1909.

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Bedford County Passes Resolution Opposing Repeal of Qualified Immunity

Eric Burk

The Bedford County Board of Supervisors (BOS) unanimously passed a resolution repudiating efforts to repeal qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that provides extra protection to law enforcement officers from personal liability while on-duty unless they commit willful misconduct. An effort to repeal qualified immunity was defeated in the Virginia Senate during the recent special session.

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Coronavirus Vaccines Can Guard Against New, More Contagious UK Strain, Experts Say

Virginia Star Staff

The two coronavirus vaccines that have been approved for emergency use authorization in the U.S. will be able to combat a new, more contagious strain of the virus in the U.K., experts said Monday.

Vaccines made by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna will be effective against the new strain, which is “very similar” to previous strains at the genetic level, University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation affiliate assistant professor Vin Gupta told CNBC. The Food and Drug Administration has approved both vaccines for emergency use authorization after large-scale human trials showed efficacy of more than 90%.

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Pelosi Claims ‘Faith-Oriented’ Lawmakers Say They ‘Don’t Believe in Science’

Virginia Star Staff

Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Monday that “faith-oriented” people in Congress have told her they “don’t believe in science.”

The California Democrat spoke Monday on the house floor where she discussed coronavirus relief and the recently approved vaccines, accusing the White House of spreading “quackery” notions of herd immunity.

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Cornell Student Government Members Expel Fellow Senators Who Voted Against Disarming Police

Virginia Star Staff

Activist members of the student government at Cornell University are waging an ideological war against fellow Cornell Student Assembly members who recently voted against disarming campus police.

From launching recall petitions and rallying against their fellow representatives in November, to earlier this month ousting some of them from subcommittees or the entire assembly, these activist student government members say they are motivated to set right what a “white-cis-het” group of their peers did in voting down the disarmament resolution.

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Tennessee Nurse Who Fainted After Receiving COVID-19 Vaccine Says It Was Due to Underlying Condition

Corinne Murdock

The nurse who appeared to faint after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine in a viral video has recovered, according to a statement issued by her employer. Tiffany Dover, a nurse at CHI Memorial Hospital, reportedly came close to passing out due to a medical condition unrelated to the vaccination.

The hospital also cited information from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website, which stated that fainting sometimes occurs after all types of vaccinations.

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Famed Chemist Tells the World: Scientists Are Totally ‘Clueless’ About the Origin of Life

Virginia Star Staff

Students across America are taught an origin of life story that goes a little something like this: billions of years ago, energy from the sun, lightning, and Earth’s heat combined with the planet’s early atmosphere of hydrogen, methane and other gases, creating chemical reactions that formed molecules in a primordial soup that eventually produced a cell, in other words, life.

But one prominent professor argues that that simplistic explanation is not only unproven, it’s highly improbable.

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Forty Churches, Schools, and Businesses Ask Northam to Not Enforce Virginia Values Act

Eric Burk

Forty churches, schools, and businesses have signed a letter to Governor Ralph Northam, asking him not to enforce the Virginia Values Act (VVA), which was passed by the General Assembly and signed by Northam last April. In Northam’s press release, proponents of the bill said it would protect LGBTQ Virginians from workplace discrimination, but religious leaders warn that the bill threatens a $100,000 fine if religious organizations refuse to hire someone who doesn’t agree with their beliefs on marriage or sexuality.

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Commentary: Medical Ethicists Legitimize ‘Woke’ Science, Death Panels

Virginia Star Staff

Since March, the Left has proclaimed itself the guardian of science in dealing with the COVID-19 epidemic. Its champions are the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Dr. Fauci. All in the past have rendered valuable service to the public, and often life-saving aid.

Yet the mixture of COVID-19, the first national quarantine, and Trump Derangement Syndrome have combined to give us reason to question their judgment. These authorities variously have issued conflicting recommendations to wear, then not to wear, and finally to wear masks. Or they have both criticized and then advised travel bans.

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Mercer Student Jailed in Caymans For Breaking COVID Lockdown Rules

Peter D'Abrosca

A student at Mercer University in Macon has been ordered to spend four months in jail in Cayman Islands for breaking the British territory’s COVID-19 lockdown rules, according to several reports. 

“Skylar Mack and her boyfriend, Cayman Islands-based competitive Jet Skier Vanjae Ramgeet were jailed immediately after their sentences were handed down on Tuesday,” Fox News said last week. 

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Rep. Ilhan Omar Urges Biden to Cancel $50,000 of Student Debt Per Person

Virginia Star Staff

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) has introduced a “bold resolution” asking President-elect Joe Biden to federally remove $50,000 of student loan debt per person.

The congress member introduced the resolution alongside Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Maxine Waters, and Alma Adams. The resolution outlines a path for Biden to use “excessive authority” to remove student loan debt while simultaneously ensuring there are no tax liabilities for federal student loan borrowers.

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Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections Rejects Challenge to Remove Voters from Rolls

Peter D'Abrosca

The Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections struck down a challenge to remove nearly 8,000 voters from the the county’s rolls before Georgia’s January 5 U.S. Senate runoff election. 

“For the reasons I will discuss, I don’t believe there is probable cause to challenge these voters,” Athens-Clarke County Attorney Judd Drake said to open deliberations.

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CVS Begins Effort to Administer COVID-19 Vaccinations

Jacob Taylor

CVS announced Monday that it has formally launched its program to administer COVID-19 vaccines to residents and staff of long-term care facilities and will begin its efforts in Virginia on December 28th, according to a press release. 

The company said that its teams will start administering doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine this week across 12 states – including Ohio, Connecticut, Florida and Oregon, among others – and expects to vaccinate a total of four million residents and staff at over 40,000 long-term care facilities through the program. 

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