August 6, 2021 - The Virginia Star

Rhode Island Teachers Unions Sue Mom to Stop Release of Critical Race Theory Lessons

August 6, 2021 Admin

The Rhode Island mother who turned to public records law to learn what the school district was teaching her daughter is now a defendant in a lawsuit by the state and local teachers union.

The Rhode Island and South Kingstown chapters of the National Education Association sued Nicole Solas and the school district this week to stop the latter from releasing records sought by Solas, including curriculum and policies related to critical race theory, antiracism, gender theory and children’s sexuality.

The Congressional Budget Office Says the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Will Increase Deficits by $256 Billion over 10 Years

August 6, 2021 Admin

The Congressional Budget Office estimated Thursday that the bipartisan Senate infrastructure bill will add $256 billion to the deficit over the next decade, undercutting its backers’ claims the spending had been offset.

In FY2020, the deficit hit a record $3.1 trillion. So far in FY2021, the deficit is $2.2 trillion. The national debt is climbing to $29 trillion for the first time in U.S. history.

Republicans Sound Alarm on Biden Border Policy as COVID Spreads

August 6, 2021 Admin

As the number of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border reaches a 20-year high and COVID-19 cases consequently spike, Republican lawmakers are blasting the Biden administration for the converging security and public health crises.

July saw the highest number of illegal immigrants crossing the border in over 20 years, with a total of 210,000. Simultaneously, fewer MS-13 gang members have been caught crossing the border this year than in each of the previous three years, and COVID-positive migrants are flooding the Texas border town of McAllen.

Virginia Redistricting Commission Making Key Decisions on Tight Timeline

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Eric Burk

The Virginia Redistricting Commission is facing key decisions about how it will create legislative maps. The U.S. Census Bureau is expected to publish 2020 Census data later this month. When the commission receives the data on August 16, that will launch a 45-day deadline for the commission to create the maps for House of Delegates and Senate. But the commission is still debating key questions about how to draw the maps: should subcommittees be used, who should be on them, and should the maps be based on the current maps.

Commentary: Trump and Trump-Backed Candidates Are Major Threats to Democrats

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

One of the residual effects of last year’s chaotic election is the palpable fear of former President Trump that still haunts the Democrats. Their congressional antics, from the absurd post-election impeachment to the parodic House investigation into the Jan. 6 “insurrection,” confirm that they are still very much afraid of the man they ostensibly defeated last November. This has nothing to do with any threat that Trump or his supporters pose to the republic, as media alarmists insist. The actual source of Democratic trepidation can be found in their lackluster performance in the 2020 presidential and congressional elections combined with Trump’s clear intention to become very much involved in boosting Republicans in next year’s midterms.

First, a reality check concerning the 2020 election: Biden didn’t win a popular vote landslide as the Democrats still claim. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) totals, he won 81,268,924 of 158,383,403 ballots cast. In other words, 77,114,479 people voted for Trump or one of the third-party candidates. That nearly 49 percent of the voters cast ballots against Biden, despite the unprecedented support he received from the media and Big Tech cannot fail to worry rational Democrats. Nor can they help being unnerved by a poll conducted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) that strongly suggests their anemic 2020 congressional showing portends worse results in 2022.

Johns Hopkins Professor Says COVID Infection Provides More Immunity Than Vaccines

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

A doctor and professor with Johns Hopkins University said in a recent television appearance that, contrary to the official government narrative, those who actually catch the coronavirus and recover are approximately seven times more immune from future infections than those who receive a vaccine, as reported by the Daily Caller.

Dr. Marty Makary, during his interview on the Vince Coglianese Show, said studies have proven that “natural immunity is better against the Delta variant” than vaccines. “When you get infected with COVID, your body’s immune system develops antibodies to the entire surface of the virus. Not just the slight protein that the vaccines give you, but the entire surface. And so, you get a more diverse antibody portfolio in your system.”

Commentary: Government’s Failed COVID Messaging Is to Blame for Vaccine Hesitancy

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

It was always going to be Herculean to inoculate, with an untried vaccine, a multi-ethnic nation of 330 million, across a vast continent—in an era when the media routinely warps the daily news.

Some minorities understandably harbored distrust of prior government vaccination programs.

More Votes Counted Than Cast in Nevada 2020 General Election, Analysis of Voting Files Shows

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

An analysis of Nevada state voter data shows a 9,000-vote difference between those marked as having participated in the 2020 General Election and the number of ballots actually cast.

The non-partisan Voter Reference Foundation (VRF), which officially announced its launch this week, compared the states’ official certified vote totals to the state official voter files, which indicate how many individual Nevada voters were recorded as actually having cast ballots last November.

Jobless Claims Fall Below 400,000, Hit Economists’ Expectations

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims decreased to 385,000 last week as the economy continues its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Department of Labor.

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics figure released Thursday represented a slight decrease in the number of new jobless claims compared to the week ending July 24, when 399,000 new jobless claims were reported. That number was revised down from the 400,000 jobless claims initially reported last week.

Biden Administration Has Released over 7,000 COVID-Positive Migrants into Texas Since February

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The Biden government has released over 7,000 COVID positive illegal immigrants into the city of McAllen, Texas since mid February of 2021—including
over 1,500 infected migrants in just the past week, Fox News’ Bill Melugin reported on Wednesday.

“Despite the City of McAllen and its community partners’ best efforts, the sheer number of immigrants being released into the city has become a crisis: a crisis the City of McAllen did not create and has proactively tried to avoid for seven years,” the city said in a statement.

Border Agents Will Use Body-Worn Cameras in An Effort to Be More Transparent

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Border agents will be issued body-worn cameras in an effort to be more transparent, Customs and Border Protection announced Wednesday.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) expects to issue around 6,000 body-worn cameras by the end of 2021 as part of the agency’s new Incident-Driven Video Recording Systems program, according to the announcement.

The Border Crisis Is Killing Americans, Data Shows

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The drugs flowing over the border are leading to an uptick in fentanyl deaths, and experts are split about how to solve it.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has called fentanyl the “primary driver” of the record 92,183 drug overdose deaths in 2020. Many drug dealers use fentanyl to make money and smuggle it through the southern border mixed with other drugs like heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine to make them more potent — and more deadly — according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

Biden Nominee Helped Edit Radical Paper That Gloated the Feds Were Bungling Investigation into Tree Spiking Plot

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management was an editor for an issue of the radical Earth First journal that contained a non-bylined story gloating that federal investigators were bungling their investigation into an eco-terrorism incident the nominee was directly involved in.

The nominee, Tracy Stone-Manning, was one of the six members of the editorial collective for the June 21, 1991, edition of the radical environmental journal. One of the only stories in the 40-page issue that did not contain an author byline was a story celebrating the Forest Service’s move to deactivate their investigation into the 1989 Clearwater National Forest tree spiking incident in the absence of any solid leads.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka Dead at 72

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Richard Trumka, the leader of the AFL-CIO has died. He was 72.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, reportedly fighting back tears, announced Trumka’s unexpected death on the chamber floor early Thursday afternoon. Politico is reporting that Trumka is believed to have died as the result of a massive heart attack.

Federal Judge Rules Implementing Critical Race Theory Violates Civil Rights Law

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Critical race theory flies in the face of the federal Civil Rights Act by presuming that racial disparities are the result of racial discrimination, a federal appeals court judge wrote in a concurrence.

A black property owner alleged that a Texas navigation district committed racial discrimination by threatening to condemn properties and conspiring with city officials to keep property values low in his neighborhood, so it could acquire them for a channel improvement project. The East End of Freeport was created as a “Negro reservation” and remains majority-minority, though Hispanics heavily outnumber blacks.

Virginia Senate Passes Amended American Rescue Plan Act Allocation Bill

August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 Eric Burk

RICHMOND, Virginia — The Virginia Senate passed its amended version of the $4.3 billion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocation bill late Wednesday evening, after hours of debate on amendments. Although some Republican amendments, including a key law enforcement bonus proposal, were incorporated into the spending bill, many were not. Rejected amendments included a sweeping election integrity amendment and an anti-Critical Race Theory amendment. The final vote on passing the bill was 22-18. Many Republicans said that while they supported some elements of the bill, they disapproved of the process Democrats used, including a vote Wednesday evening to limit debate on each amendment to just three minutes.

Right before the vote to pass the budget, the Senate GOP caucus went into conference. When the senators returned, Minority Leader Thomas Norment, Jr. (R-James City) hinted that many of his caucus would vote against the bill. He said, “It is not so much about the substantive provisions of the budget that we have amended. Rather I believe that the vote you are about to see is going to be a reflection of the frustration and the indignation of the entire process.”