Month: September 2021

Virginia Redistricting Commission Spends a Week Providing Clarification to Map Drawers

Eric Burk

After a strategy shift, the Virginia Redistricting Commission spent its two meetings this week discussing guidance from legal teams about how to ensure legal compliance with the Voting Rights Act (VRA), and how to consider political subdivisions, communities of interest, and partisan equity. Republican and Democratic legal teams shared different analyses of how to ensure compliance with section two of the VRA, which requires that districts not dilute the voting power of protected minorities. Democratic legal counsel argued that map drawers must create majority-minority districts where possible including through coalitions of minority groups. Republican counsel said that while creating those districts was permissible and even likely to happen, explicitly instructing the mapdrawers to consider race fell outside the legal criteria under which race can be considered, violating the Equal Protection Clause.

The commission debated the issue for hours across two meetings on Monday and Wednesday and defeated three proposals to say the mapdrawers “shall,” “may,” or “shall provide where practicable,” the majority-minority districts.

Senator Ryan McDougle (R-Hanover) summarized the debate over the “shall” language Monday: “This motion specifically means that we’re going to get sued one way or the other — one counsel is saying we specifically can’t do this, one counsel is saying we specifically have to do this.”

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Sen. Paul: Gen. Milley’s Calls to China Could Have Sparked ‘Accidental Nuclear War,’ Wants Polygraph

Virginia Star Staff

Republican Sen. Rand Paul said Wednesday that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley “could have started an accidental nuclear war” if he indeed made unauthorized phone calls to China in the final weeks of the Trump presidency to assure Beijing that the U.S. would not attack the country.

The assertion that Milley made two such calls is reportedly included in an upcoming book titled “Peril” by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

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U.S. Officials Confirm Six Measles Cases Among Afghan Refugees in Virginia, Wisconsin

Virginia Star Staff

Six Afghan refugees in Virginia and Wisconsin have tested positive for the measles, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.

The cases were reported among Afghan refugees who were evacuated to the U.S. after the Taliban took over Kabul, according to the AP. The cases were reported four days after flights bringing Afghans to the U.S. were suspended because some of the refugees had measles, the AP reported.

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Recall of Loudoun School Board Member Beth Barts Has Hearing Set for October

Eric Burk

Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge Jeanette Irby declined Wednesday to recuse herself from the recall case of School Board Member Beth Barts. Barts’ attorney Charles King had motioned for local judges to recuse themselves, arguing that an outside judge is necessary to consider testimony from local officials. On Monday, Judge Stephen Sincavage said he would recuse himself, saying he has children in the school district, according to Loudoun Now.

“I am not recusing myself from this matter,” Irby said, according to The Loudoun Times-Mirror.

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COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy Latest Issue in Gubernatorial Race

Eric Burk

How to encourage more Virginians to get the COVID-19 vaccine is the latest battleground in the gubernatorial race. On Monday, Terry McAuliffe announced his “Virginia is for vaccine lovers” plan with a push for school divisions to require the vaccine and ensure health care providers follow federal guidance. His plan also includes business incentives, enhanced marketing, and a voluntary COVID-safety compliance certification.

“COVID is here. It’s not going away anytime soon, so we have to do everything that we possibly can to keep our children in school, build the strongest economy, and we’ve got to really get serious, and we’ve got to fight this deadly infection of COVID,” he said on a Tuesday press call.

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Commentary: Breaking Up America

Virginia Star Staff

I never thought I’d be writing about secession or anything close. Not in a million years. “America, the Beautiful” is my favorite national song, bringing tears to my eyes with its “sea to shining sea.” Giving up the magnificence that entails would be heartbreaking on so many levels.

But the times being what they are and the man occupying the presidency being who he is, not to mention those surrounding him being who they are, plus the issues that divide us from national defense to education to immigration to race to public safety to the pandemic to values in general being so intractable, I feel compelled to discuss secession or division as if they were a real possibility worth considering.

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Report: Facebook Aware Instagram Makes Teen Girls Feel Bad, Leaked Research Shows

Virginia Star Staff
woman with blonde hair in bed on her laptop

Facebook is aware that Instagram, an image-sharing social media platform it owns, has harmful effects on the self-esteem of teen girls, according to leaked research seen by The Wall Street Journal.

Internal research, documents and research reportedly show that Facebook has studied the harmful effects Instagram can have on its users, especially teen girls, according to the WSJ.

“We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” one slide from an internal research report read, with another saying that “teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression.”

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Pennsylvania Governor Recalls Secretary Nomination Amid Legislative Election Probe

Virginia Star Staff

Gov. Tom Wolf recalled his nomination for acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid on Monday after alleging that Senate Republicans would not vet her fairly amid the chamber’s controversial election investigation.

“It is clear that instead of providing advice and consent on my nominee for Secretary of the Commonwealth, they instead plan on using her confirmation as an opportunity to descend further into conspiracy theories and work to please the former president [Donald Trump] by spreading lies about last year’s election, instead of working together to address real issues facing Pennsylvanians,” Wolf said in an emailed statement to reporters on Monday.

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Marijuana Use Soaring Among College Students While Alcohol Use Drops, Study Finds

Virginia Star Staff
two people passing a blunt

Marijuana use among college students has surged while alcohol use dropped, according to a recent National Institute of Health and National Institute of Drug Abuse study.

The “Monitoring the Future” study found that 44% of college students said they used marijuana in 2020, an increase from 38% in 2015. More, “daily” or “near daily” marijuana use among college students increased from 5% to 8% over the last five years.

The number of college students who said they consumed alcohol, on the other hand, dipped from over 62% in 2019 to 56% in 2020, according to the report. Binge drinking among college students, defined as having five or more drinks in one outing, decreased from 32% in 2019 to 24% in 2020.

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New York Times Quietly Updates Report After Calling Hunter Biden Laptop Story ‘Unsubstantiated’

Virginia Star Staff
Hunter Biden

The New York Times quietly removed its assertion that the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop prior to the 2020 election was “unsubstantiated” from a story published Monday about a Federal Election Commission complaint related to the matter.

The Times reported Monday that the FEC ruled in August that Twitter did not violate any laws by temporarily blocking users from sharing the Post’s Oct. 14 story on a “smoking gun” email from Hunter Biden’s laptop showing that an executive of a Ukrainian gas company had thanked him for an introduction to then-Vice President Joe Biden. The Times called the story “unsubstantiated” when its article on the FEC’s decision was first published early Monday afternoon.

“The Federal Election Commission has dismissed Republican accusations that Twitter violated election laws in October by blocking people from posting links to an unsubstantiated New York Post article about Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son Hunter Biden, in a decision that is likely to set a precedent for future cases involving social media sites and federal campaigns,” Times reporter Shane Goldmacher stated in its original version of his report Monday.

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Commentary: Biden’s Medical Apartheid

RealClearWire
Joe Biden

Events this weekend showcased the intense bifurcation of America into two separate realities. As our country observed the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, former presidents gathered, sans Donald Trump, in New York for a solemn ceremony — wearing masks even though they are fully vaccinated and were outside. In Shanksville, Pa., George W. Bush leveraged the occasion to take a not-very-veiled shot at the MAGA movement, comparing its most fervent adherents to the 9/11 terrorists.

Meanwhile, at stadiums across America, massive crowds of rowdy, unmasked college football fans tailgated, packed into stadiums, and also recalled the grim events of 2001, but in far more boisterous displays of patriotism.

This same-day divergence highlights the sharply divided nation of 2021. That chasm will now only widen as Joe Biden targets many of those same people, the ones unwilling to live under the thumb of onerous government virus mitigation restrictions. These ineffective mandates may nominally emanate from science, but they moreover stem from a preference for coercion and control by Democrat politicians, all with the assistance of powerful business interests, including Big Tech and Big Pharma.

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Commentary: The Other Back to School Story

RealClearWire

Back to school stories this year will focus, naturally, on the Covid-19 pandemic’s toll on students and families and on remedying these difficulties.

But another story is being shortchanged: it’s about how parents sought new options for their children like homeschooling, small learning pods, and micro-schools, with civic entrepreneurs and their partners creating new organizations or expanding existing ones to meet this demand.

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Democrats Plan to Hike Taxes to Pay for Their $3.5 Trillion Budget

Virginia Star Staff

House Democrats will consider nearly $3 trillion in tax hikes over the next decade in an attempt to pay for their $3.5 trillion budget that includes most of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda and would overhaul the nation’s social safety net.

The hikes are predominantly focused on wealthy Americans and large corporations. Among the increases is a top income tax bracket of 39.6%, up from 37%, which Democrats say would raise $170 billion in revenue over the next decade.

A summary of the proposals leaked Sunday, and was first reported by The Washington Post.

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Democrats Introduce Another Voting Bill, But Odds of Becoming Law Are Slim

Virginia Star Staff
Tim Kaine and Amy Klobuchar

Senate Democrats are set to release their new, trimmed down voting bill, but despite unanimous support from their caucus it faces a steep climb to become law.

The bill, titled the Freedom to Vote Act, is Democrats’ response to a series of voting restrictions passed in Republican-controlled states across the country. But despite its framework, constructed around a compromise plan proposed by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, it must still clear a filibuster to pass the Senate, meaning at least 10 Republicans would have to sign on in support.

The legislation, introduced by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, drops some of the more contentious provisions included in the For the People Act, Democrats’ previous legislation that fell to a GOP filibuster in June. While the new bill would no longer restructure the Federal Election Commission and requires a nationwide voter ID standard, it includes automatic registration provisions and would make Election Day a national holiday.

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Americans Support Governors’ Revolt Against Federal Vaccine Mandate, Poll Shows

The Center Square

New polling shows that the majority of Americans do not approve of President Joe Biden’s new vaccine mandate.

Biden announced the mandate last week, which includes requirements that any business with more than 100 employees ensure they are vaccinated or be tested weekly. Biden’s announcement included a range of other federal rules that are estimated to affect 100 million Americans.

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Lawmaker Gears Up to Grill Pennsylvania Department of State on Voter-Registry Errors Uncovered by Democrat Auditor General

Bradley Vasoli

As Pennsylvania Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee Majority Chair Cris Dush (R-Wellsboro) investigates recent elections, Democratic lawmakers against tightening election security must contend with a withering 2019 audit of Pennsylvania’s voter registry.

At his investigation’s initial hearing last Thursday, Dush announced his intention to hold the Department of State (DOS) accountable for the mismanagement identified in the audit by calling the department to testify at the committee’s next hearing to be scheduled soon. 

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Wisconsin Representative Tiffany Demands ‘Full Membership’ to United Nations for Taiwan

Hayley Feland

Wisconsin Representative Thomas Tiffany (R-07-WI) wrote a letter to the Biden Administration demanding full membership to the United Nations for Taiwan. In a tweet about the letter, Tiffany said, “America doesn’t need a permission slip from Communist China to support our allies.”

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Open Fairfax County School Board Files Motion to Reconsider Elaine Tholen Recall

Eric Burk
Elaine Tholen for Fairfax County School Board, Dranesville

The Open FCPS Coalition is calling for the court to reconsider the recall case against Fairfax County School Board member Elaine Tholen. In a Monday press release, the coalition alleged that the prosecutor who said there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue the case had conflicts of interest.

“Following James Hingeley’s decision to not represent the over 5,000 voters that signed a recall petition against Elaine Tholen, it was revealed that Hingeley actually campaigned with Ms. Tholen in 2019,” the release states.

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An Analytical Review of the Central Scientific Facts About the Efficacy of Face Masks and Claims They Reduce the Transmission of COVID-19

Virginia Star Staff

In a terse essay titled “Science and Dictatorship,” Albert Einstein warned that “Science can flourish only in an atmosphere of free speech.” And on his deathbed, Einstein cautioned, “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.”

With reckless disregard for both of those principles, powerful government officials and big tech executives have corrupted or suppressed the central scientific facts about face masks. The impacts of this extend far beyond the issue of masks and have caused widespread harm and countless deaths.

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Commentary: Terry McAuliffe is the Abortion Candidate

Admin

While pro-life candidate for governor, Glenn Youngkin continues to talk about rational pro-life measures, like preventing taxpayer funding for abortions and passing a Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, pro-abortion former governor Terry McAuliffe, is sounding one note all over Virginia: he is promising to prevent any new pro-life law and to ultimately help see Roe v. Wade codified in the Virginia Constitution.

Terry McAuliffe is making protecting abortion promoters his top priority as witnessed in his comments and actions at two events in Virginia yesterday. At a small business forum sponsored by the Multicultural Chamber Alliance in Fairfax, VA, McAuliffe’s opening remarks focused on how proud he was to have kept Virginia’s abortion facilities open as governor and stopped any new pro-life laws from being enacted. Unsurprisingly, the small business leaders were not very excited, and the only applause was from his own cheer squad that he travels with.

Later in the afternoon, he returned to Charlottesville where he made a campaign stop at the local abortion facility to promise to “be a brick wall against any anti-choice (pro-life) laws. He said clearly to those present, “I will always fight to protect women’s clinics!” Obviously, the campaign funding he has received from the abortion industry is calling the tune he dances to. Their goal is to get him elected so as to protect the abortion industry in the Commonwealth. They have no interest in protecting women’s health or the lives of the babies they carry.

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Commentary: Americans Can’t Afford Joe Biden’s America

Virginia Star Staff

Americans are tapped out. They are struggling to pay for higher prices at the pump, the grocery store, and just about everywhere else. Friday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics August Producer Price Indexes  report showed on an unadjusted basis, the final demand index rose 8.3 percent for the 12 months ended in August, the largest advance since 12-month data were first calculated in November 2010.

The Producer Price Index is a precursor to what retail prices will be doing in months ahead, and the August report is more bad news. The 8.3 percent annual increase in final demand signals that Americans will be paying much more for goods and services in coming months and verifies what everyone who pays their own bills already knows, Joe Biden’s America is a much more expensive place to live and it is going to get worse.

It is time for Congress to just put a stop to the madness and refuse to pass the budget reconciliation bill. Our nation cannot afford to hit the accelerator when we are already feeling the inflation pain from our prior debt excesses.

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Virginia Manufacturers Criticize Biden’s ‘Heavy-Handed’ Vaccine Mandate

The Center Square

A new federal policy, which would require many private businesses to enforce COVID-19 vaccine mandates or weekly testing, has come under criticism from Virginia manufacturers.

President Joe Biden announced a new rule Thursday, which will require private businesses that employ 100 or more people to require every worker be vaccinated against COVID-19 or receive weekly tests. The rule, which will be promulgated through OSHA, is expected to face legal challenges from Republican states. It will affect about 100 million people nationwide.

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FBI Fires Lead Investigator in Whitmer Kidnapping Plot

Peter D'Abrosca

After an investigation into Special Agent Richard Trask, accused of beating his wife after the pair attended swingers’ party in July, the FBI agent who once lead the investigation into the plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has been fired. 

“Trask was fired, according to a source familiar with his case, while awaiting trial on a charge of assault with intent to do great bodily harm and allegations he smashed his wife’s head against a nightstand and choked her after a dispute stemming from their attendance at a swingers’ party in July,” The Detroit News reported. 

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The Taliban Controls a Vast Array of Weapons After America’s Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Virginia Star Staff
Afghan, coalition forces advance into Taliban heartland British Lt. Col. Andrew Harrison, 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment commander, conducts a shura with Tor Ghai village elders after ISAF and ANA secured the village during a recent operation. (Photo courtesy of Task Force Helmand Public Affairs)

When the Taliban assumed control of Afghanistan last month, the group took possession of a U.S.-funded weapons stockpile worth tens of billions of dollars.

The U.S. invested nearly $83 billion in bolstering the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), more than $24 billion of which went to funding weapons, vehicles and other equipment, according to a Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report published in July. The amount of funding for weapons, vehicles and equipment is based on a 2017 Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimate that roughly 70% of the investment went towards other budget items like training.

In the aftermath of the shocking collapse of the Western-backed Afghan government last month, U.S. defense officials estimated that Taliban militants took dozens of aircraft including Blackhawk helicopters and thousands of vehicles, communications equipment and weapons. Republican lawmakers demanded the Biden administration provide them with a full accounting of the equipment that was in the Taliban’s possession while GOP members of the House Armed Services Committee introduced a bill requiring the White House to share the information with Congress.

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College Student in Missouri Filmed Throwing Away 2,977 9/11 Memorial Flags

Virginia Star Staff
American Flag blowing in the wind

A student senator at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri was filmed tearing out and throwing away nearly 3,000 American flags featured in a 9/11 memorial on campus, as reported by the New York Post.

The student, Fadel Alkilani, was captured on video Saturday as he tore the flags out of the ground and stuffed them into multiple large garbage bags. The student filming the incident, Nathaniel Hope, confronted Alkilani; Hope said that Alkilani falsely claimed that the memorial was “in violation of school rules,” and “was also saying profanity.” In the video posted to Twitter, Alkilani, who is wearing a face mask, stops for a few moments when he realizes that he is being filmed, then quickly walks away with the bags, calling Hope “weird” before leaving the scene.

The 2,977 flags were placed in the grass on the campus’s Mudd Field for the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks in 2001, with each flag representing one of the victims of the attacks in New York City, Arlington, Virginia, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania on that day. This has become a common tradition around the country every year since 2001, often organized by conservative student groups.

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New Poll Suggests Little Change among Californians in Recalling Governor, But Large Partisan Divide

Virginia Star Staff

Anew poll on the recall election for California Gov. Gavin Newsom shows voters appear essentially locked into their position on whether to remove the embattled Democrat lawmaker.

The poll released Thursday by the nonpartisan The Public Policy Institute of California found 58% of likely voters surveyed oppose removing the governor from office, compared to 39% who support recalling him.

The numbers are largely consistent with those the pollsters collected in March and May – 40% to 56% and 40% to 57%, respectively, in the largely Democrat-leaning state.

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Democrats See Trump Supporters and Unvaccinated as Bigger Threat Than Taliban, China: New Poll

Virginia Star Staff

A majority of Democratic voters believe that supporters of former President Trump and unvaccinated Americans pose a bigger threat to the nation than the Taliban or China, according to a new Scott Rasmussen poll.

Among Democrats, 57% believe that Trump supporters are a serious threat to the nation, and 56% believe the same about unvaccinated individuals.

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Merit System Is Unjust Because It Rewards Productive Individuals, Professors Argue

Virginia Star Staff
Woman on laptop working outside

Professors from the University of Arizona and the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs are arguing that “success and merit” are “barriers” to the equity agenda. 

“Admitting that the normative definitions of success and merit are in and of themselves barriers to achieving the goals of justice, diversity, equity and inclusion is necessary but not sufficient to create change,” professors Beth Mitchneck and Jessi L. Smith recently wrote for Inside Higher Education.

Mitchneck and Smith attributed those definitions to a “narrow definition of merit limited to a neoliberal view of the university.” Specifically, they express concern that universities receive funding and recognition based on the individual performances of professors’ own work such as peer reviewed journals and studies. 

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FDA Will Need More Time to Decide If Juul Can Sell E-Cigarettes

Virginia Star Staff

Health officials delayed a decision Thursday on whether e-cigarettes made by Juul and other top companies can stay on the U.S. market.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it needs longer than the Thursday deadline to determine if Juul and other select companies’ products can continue to be sold in the U.S., according to a press release.

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Commentary: Cancel Culture is Both a Scarlet Letter and a Reign of Terror

RealClearWire

In a recent Atlantic article, Anne Applebaum compares our college campuses to New England Puritanism. She did so by drawing on the storyline of the novel “The Scarlet Letter,” wherein Hester Prynne suffers eternal ignominy for having sex and getting pregnant outside of wedlock. So, too, Applebaum wrote, do many today receive a scarlet “C,” marked for shunning at the behest of a “Cancel Culture.”

While Applebaum’s comparison is helpful, a more fitting reference exists, one both historical and literary. The French Revolution, which began in 1789, provided the backdrop for Charles Dickens’snovel “A Tale of Two Cities.” It tells a tale with parallels to the college experience of today.

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Facebook Buys up the Outstanding Invoices of Minority-Owned Small Businesses

Virginia Star Staff

Facebook is spending $100 million to buy up the outstanding invoices of small businesses owned by women, racial minorities, veterans, disabled people and LGBTQ+ people, the company announced last week.

The Invoice Fast Track Program allows certain “small, midsize and diverse-owned businesses” to submit outstanding invoices to Facebook. The tech giant then buys the invoices, giving the business cash immediately, and the business’ customers pay Facebook instead.

The program is designed to help “diverse-owned” businesses improve their cash flow and hire more employees, according to the program’s description.

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Alaska Airlines Fired Flight Attendants for Saying Democrat Transgender Bill Harms Women

Virginia Star Staff
N615AS Alaska Airlines 2000 Boeing

Alaska Airlines fired flight attendants for questioning its support of a proposed federal law that would open women’s spaces to biological males, according to complaints filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Their union, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, allegedly refused to defend their Title VII employment rights against religious discrimination during the proceeding and “disparaged” the employees’ Christian beliefs.

The Seattle-based air carrier, which once decorated a plane with the logo of Nirvana’s first music label Sub Pop, did not respond to queries from Just the News about the allegations and why employees shouldn’t fear official retaliation for expressing their views.

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Biden Vaccine Mandate for Federal Workers Does Not Apply to USPS

Virginia Star Staff

President Joe Biden’s executive order mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for all executive branch employees does not apply to the U.S. Postal Service, according to a USPS spokesperson.

“The COVID-19 vaccination requirements included in the White House executive order issued on September 9, 2021, for federal employees do not apply to the Postal Service,” a USPS spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email on Friday.

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Commentary: Winning the Cold Civil War

Virginia Star Staff

We find ourselves in a cold civil war. But we have no real generals. A war without generals is no war at all. There is no liberty or death, only death, the death of our once cherished republic. Leading Republicans who should be our generals fight battles, sometimes with spirit, but they don’t seem to see the war in its entirety, particularly its cultural aspects.

This is a war not over the size of government or taxes, but over the American way of life. The war is between those who salute the flag, and those who take a knee. Those who believe that America is built on freedom, and those who believe America is built on racism. Those who are convinced that America is good, and those who are convinced America is bad. These differences are too large to bridge. This is what makes it a war. In this case, a cold civil war.

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Texas Governor Signs Law Preventing Social Media Companies from Banning People for Their Views

Virginia Star Staff
Gov. Greg Abbott signs law

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law Thursday preventing social media companies from banning users for their political views.

The law, known as HB 20, prohibits social media platforms from banning or suspending users, and removing or suppressing their content, based on political viewpoint. The bill was introduced by state Sen. Bryan Hughes partly in an effort to combat perceived censorship of conservatives by Facebook, Twitter, Google-owned YouTube, and other major tech companies.

“Social media websites have become our modern-day public square,” Abbott said in a statement. “They are a place for healthy public debate where information should be able to flow freely — but there is a dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative viewpoints and ideas.”

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North Korea Restarting Nuclear Reactor Was Likely Inevitable, Expert Says

Virginia Star Staff
Nuclear power plant

North Korea was likely always going to restart its nuclear reactor regardless of which presidential administration was in office, an expert on the region told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in late August that North Korea had restarted a plutonium-producing 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon in July 2021, after previously shutting it down in 2018.

Bruce Klingner, the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF that while it’s unclear whether the timing of the restart was meant to send a message, North Korea probably was planning for the reactor to become operational again for a while.

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Justice Breyer to Those Pushing Court Packing: ‘What Goes Around Comes Around’

Virginia Star Staff
Justice Stephen Breyer

Justice Stephen Breyer issued a stark warning to those pushing to pack the Supreme Court: “what goes around comes around.”

Breyer made the remark during an interview with NPR published Friday, ahead of the release of his new book, “The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics.” He has pushed back on calls to add seats to the court — and on progressives urging him to retire — on multiple recent occasions.

“What goes around comes around,” he said. “And if the Democrats can do it, then the Republicans can do it.”

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White House Advisor Says Biden is Prepared to ‘Run Over’ Republican Governors Who Fight His Vaccine Mandates

Virginia Star Staff

A White House senior advisor said Thursday that Joe Biden is prepared to “run over”  Republican governors who “stand in his way” on vaccine mandates.

Following Biden’s shocking, widely-panned authoritarian speech Thursday afternoon, multiple Republican-led states announced plans to sue the Regime over its “unconstitutional” mandate forcing businesses with more than 100 employees compel vaccinations.

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Legal Challenges Await Biden’s Vaccine Mandate

The Center Square

President Joe Biden’s controversial vaccine mandate has sparked major pushback and talks of legal challenges, likely setting up a tense court battle that could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Biden announced the new mandates in a speech Thursday, saying his executive changes will affect 100 million Americans. Notably, his new rules would require all federal employees to get the vaccine and require that any employers with 100 or more employees ensure their employees are vaccinated.

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Last Missile Fired by U.S. Military in Afghanistan Killed Only Innocent Family, Not ISIS ‘Facilitator’ as Gen. Milley Claimed

Virginia Star Staff

The last missile fired by the United States Military in the 20-year war in Afghanistan struck only an innocent Afghan man and his family in Kabul— not ISIS militants, the New York Times reported on Friday.

The blast killed ten members of the extended family of a civilian aid worker, Zemari Ahmadi, and three of his children, Zamir, 20, Faisal, 16, and Farzad, 10; Mr. Ahmadi’s cousin Naser, 30; three of Romal’s children, Arwin, 7, Benyamin, 6, and Hayat, 2; and two 3-year-old girls, Malika and Somaya.

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Commentary: New Study Vindicates States that Canceled Expanded Unemployment Welfare Early

Virginia Star Staff

Debate over the welfare state is once again making headlines. On Monday, the expanded unemployment welfare system was finally allowed to expire after more than a year. Originally created as a “short-term” measure authorized for a few months in March 2020 then repeatedly extended, these benefits paid many of the unemployed more than their former jobs, with benefits reaching up to $25/hour in dozens of states.

Dozens of Republican-led states chose to end the benefits early. This week’s termination of enhanced benefits was in the Democrat-run states that maintained the expanded payouts, and with their lapse, the debate over whether these benefits were disincentivizing work was reignited.

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Pfizer-BioNTech to Seek Approval to Vaccinate 5-Year-Olds

Virginia Star Staff

BioNTech, the vaccine maker collaborating with Pfizer, is set to seek worldwide approval for its COVID-19 vaccine for children between the ages of 5 and 11 within the coming weeks, according to company executives.

“Already over the next few weeks, we will file the results of our trial in five to 11-year olds with regulators across the world and will request approval of the vaccine in this age group, also here in Europe,” Chief Medical Officer Oezlem Tuereci told Der Spiegel, according to Reuters.

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They Took It: The University of Texas at San Antonio Abolishes ‘Come and Take It’ Football Chant

Virginia Star Staff
University of Texas at San Antonio Inaugural Football Game

The University of Texas at San Antonio is no longer using “Come and Take It” as a football chant.

In August, university President Taylor Eighmy expressed concern that “Come and Take It” is inseparably linked to political debates, including those over gun rights. 

The chant is emblazoned on a flag waved at UTSA’s football games and also used as a rallying cry during the fourth quarter. 

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Amazon to Pay Employees’ Full College Tuition in Latest Attempt to Attract More Workers

Virginia Star Staff

Amazon will begin paying college tuition for hundreds of thousands of its employees in an effort to attract more workers, the company said Thursday.

More than 750,000 hourly Amazon employees nationwide will be eligible to have their full college tuition paid for at one of hundreds of partner universities, according to the announcement. The billion-dollar online retailer said it would also pay for employees’ associate degrees and high school tuition.

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College Textbook Blames COVID Deaths on Americans Who Oppose Lockdowns

Virginia Star Staff

A textbook assigned to students at a North Carolina community college states that COVID-19 protocols “saved tens of thousands of lives” while Americans who disagreed with those restrictions caused deaths.

“Most Americans responded to the pandemic by limiting their social contact, covering their faces when going out, and washing their hands thoroughly after they did,” the passage begins and then continues with, “yet lives were lost because some Americans held beliefs that were at odds with the facts.”

The textbook appeared in the POL 120: American Government course at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte.

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Andrew Yang Leaves Democratic Party to Form His Own Third Party

Virginia Star Staff

Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang will soon be announcing the launch of his very own political party, after he has officially left the Democratic Party, the New York Post reports.

The former entrepreneur is set to announce his new party alongside the release of his new book, “Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy,” which comes out on October 5th. The book’s publisher, Penguin Random House subsidiary Crown, promotes the book as “a powerful and urgent warning that we must step back from the brink and plot a new way forward for our democracy.”

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