House Passes Bill to Study Potential Universal Healthcare in Virginia

The House of Delegates voted 55 to 45 on Thursday to initiate a study of how to fund a potential universal healthcare program in Virginia. HB2271 says the study should examine both a publicly-funded model administered by the Commonwealth and a publicly-funded model administered by a private entity. The report would be due in October 2022.

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Newt Gingrich Commentary: Small Business Will Continue to Suffer Unless We Reopen Society

Small businesses have been decimated by the pandemic shutdowns. Many have struggled to survive. Many have had to lay off employees. If they haven’t closed their doors yet, the next six to nine months will be a real challenge.

There is some help on the way. The Small Business Administration has released a second round of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) — a forgivable loan program designed to assist small businesses with money to stay afloat. Part two of the PPP opened on Jan. 15.

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Commentary: Civic Virtues as Moral Facts Trying to Recover the Other Half of Our Founding

Until a half century ago or so, there was a moral consensus, however fraying, that informed and shaped the exercise of freedom in the Western world. The self-determination of human beings, of citizens in self-governing political orders, presupposed a civilized inheritance that allowed free men and women to distinguish, without angst or arduous effort, between liberty and license, good and evil, honorable lives and dissolute and disgraceful ones. Few would have suggested that liberty and human dignity could long flourish without a sense of moral obligation and civic spirit on the part of proud, rights-bearing individuals.

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Mitt Romney: 84 Percent Approval Rating with Utah Democrats

Republican Utah Sen. Mitt Romney is far more popular with Democrats and unaffiliated voters than he is in his own party, The Daily Caller reports.

The 2012 Republican presidential nominee has an impressive 84 percent approval rating among Utah Democrats, while only a third of GOP voters approve of what he is doing.

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GOP Unleashes Wave of Pro-Life Bills in Democrat-Controlled Congress

Republican lawmakers have unleashed a wave of pro-life bills into the Democrat-controlled Congress this week.

The flood of pro-life legislation occurred the same week that President Joe Biden enacted policy allowing taxpayer dollars to fund abortions abroad. Days earlier, Biden marked the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade by promising to both appoint judges who respect the ruling as precedent Friday and to codify Roe v. Wade.

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Rep. Matt Gaetz Travels to Wyoming to Criticize Liz Cheney at Rally

Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) traveled to Wyoming for a rally on Thursday at the state capitol, where he denounced the state’s At-Large Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) for her vote in favor of President Donald Trump’s second impeachment, as reported by Fox News.

Speaking to a crowd of Wyoming Trump supporters, Gaetz declared Cheney to be a member of the “establishment in both political parties [that] have teamed up to screw our fellow Americans for generations.” Gaetz also slammed Cheney’s hawkish approach to foreign policy, saying that “there’s basically two things that Liz Cheney has done in the United States Congress: Frustrate the agenda of President Trump, and sell out to the forever war machine.”

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Elizabeth Warren Urges More Regulation to Prevent ‘Dramatic Swings’ in Stocks Like GameStop

Senator Elizabeth Warren called for an SEC investigation into Reddit posts and other entities, according to a letter she sent to the Acting Chair of the SEC.

After Redditors discovered large hedge funds had shorted massive quantities of GameStop ($GME), retail investors bought $GME in a frenzy, sending it surging  600%, and causing hedge funds to lose approximately $5 billion dollars. Popular investment platforms such as Robinhood responded by halting the ability of investors to freely purchase more shares, making their only option to sell.

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Cuomo Administration Pushes Back Against Accusations It Withheld Data on COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths

Hours after New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a scathing report over how the state reported deaths at nursing homes due to COVID-19, state Heath Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker went on the offensive.

Zucker claimed the attorney general’s report affirmed the total number of deaths overall and that the state has repeatedly said its policy is to count deaths by where they occurred.

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Commentary: Who Killed the Anti-War Democrats?

After three generations the anti-war tendency within America’s oldest political party has been thoroughly alienated from its leadership and rendered impotent. The absence of this political failsafe means that America’s destructive overseas interventionism is less accountable than ever.

As the 1968 presidential election cycle kicked off there was little reason to suspect that Lyndon Johnson would not continue to serve as president. He had succeeded to the office following the much loved and mourned John F. Kennedy after his assassination in 1963 and won in such a landslide in 1964 that he was immediately able to undertake a raft of ambitious new programs known as the Great Society. 

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Biden Restores Taxpayer-Funded Abortions, Expands Obamacare

President Joe Biden issued executive actions Thursday to direct U.S. tax dollars to promoting abortion here and abroad, and to expand Obamacare. 

The actions not only will mean federal funding for abortions in other countries, but could restore more federal funding to Planned Parenthood. 

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Democrats Push Massive Stimulus Package over Republican Objections

President Joe Biden’s administration and Democrats in Congress have vowed to press forward with the president’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package amid Republican objections to the bill’s size, even if they do so without any GOP votes.

Biden has argued that the relief package is not only popular among a majority of Americans but is also necessary to combat the economic toll imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. Though Biden campaigned on a message of unity and bipartisanship, his administration rejected a Republican pitch to split the plan into smaller pieces and has said that it must move quickly to pass the package even if it means doing so without Republicans’ help.

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House Passes Bill to Study Potential Universal Healthcare in Virginia

The House of Delegates voted 55 to 45 on Thursday to initiate a study of how to fund a potential universal healthcare program in Virginia. HB2271 says the study should examine both a publicly-funded model administered by the Commonwealth and a publicly-funded model administered by a private entity. The report would be due in October 2022.

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Bill Prohibiting Solitary Confinement Use in State Prisons, Juvenile Facilities Reports Out of Virginia Senate Committee

A bill in the state Senate that would prohibit prisons and juvenile facilities run by the Virginia Department of Corrections (DOC) from placing offenders in solitary confinement was reported out of the Rehabilitation and Social Services Committee on Friday.

Specifically, Senate Bill 1301 does not outright ban the use of solitary confinement – defined as 17 or more hours in a cell for juveniles and 20 or more hours for adult prisoners – but more so restricts the practice and implements safeguards against misuse

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