Month: November 2021

Antifa Agitator Admits He Advanced on Rittenhouse and Pointed His Gun at Him Before He was Shot

Virginia Star Staff
Gaige Grosskreutz on the stand

The antifa agitator who was shot in the arm by Kyle Rittenhouse admitted on Monday that he was shot only after he had advanced on the teen and pointed his gun at him. Gaige Grosskreutz took the stand on the fifth day of the Rittenhouse trial, hoping to strengthen the prosecution’s case against the teen. Instead, one of the prosecuting attorneys was seen literally face-palming during his cross-examination.

Defense attorney Corey Chirafisi also forced Grosskreutz to admit that he’s “affiliated” with the violent Peoples Revolution, a Milwaukee-based communist militia group; that his gun permit had expired; that he had lied to the police shortly after the shooting; and that he has $10 million staked on Rittenhouse being found guilty.

Grosskreutz testified earlier that after hearing the initial gunshots, he had only followed Rittenhouse because he believed he was an active shooter. He also said that even though he was armed with a handgun, he did not intend to shoot Rittenhouse.

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Hackers Allegedly Breach Nine Companies Involved in Defense, Energy, and Other Vital Sectors

Virginia Star Staff
Ryan Olson

A security firm claims that foreign hackers have infiltrated at least nine companies in several crucial sectors of the economy and government, including defense, energy, technology, and others, according to CNN.

Palo Alto Networks (PAN) shared the information on the breaches with CNN, showing that other affected sectors include education and healthcare. They say that the National Security Agency (NSA) is working with cybersecurity researchers to expose this and other ongoing efforts by foreign entities to hack American infrastructure. PAN’s report included information contributed by a division of the NSA which focuses exclusively on threats against American industrial defense bases by foreign hackers.

Examples of the breaches include the inconspicuous theft of passwords, with the goal of using these passwords to remain inside these networks for a prolonged period of time without anyone even being aware that there was a breach. This would allow hackers to freely receive sensitive data sent over basic communications such as email or information contained on internal storage drives.

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Commentary: Chief Justice of the Court of Natural Law

Virginia Star Staff
Justice Clarence Thomas

Recently, the Heritage Foundation and the Scalia School of Law at George Mason University honored Justice Clarence Thomas on the 30th anniversary of his joining the Supreme Court. A day of panels featuring former Thomas clerks and prominent legal scholars commented on his legacy and future. The justice responded that evening. 

Yet even a full day of often enlightening panels and speeches, doubtless to be supplemented in the years to come by law review issues, articles, and books, misses the crucial fact about Thomas’ jurisprudence that has made him the indispensable justice: his overarching focus on natural law. 

In America natural law comes to sight in the principle of equality, which continues to confuse both conservatives and liberals. With the Democrats’ embrace of “equity,” they have cast aside equality as a principle. Conservatives have never been comfortable with equality to begin with, as Harry Jaffa consistently pointed out in his work. Equality does not mean socialism but rather government by consent, and all the institutions that follow from the preservation of this fundamental element of justice. The clearest expositor of this principle, as Thomas explains, has been Abraham Lincoln, when he attacked the evil of slavery. 

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ANALYSIS: PolitiFact and Facebook Spread Gravely Dangerous Falsehood About the COVID-19 Survival Rate

Virginia Star Staff

In a PolitiFact article titled “Why the COVID-19 Survival Rate Is Not Over 99%,” staff writer Jason Asenso argues that about 1.7% of U.S. residents who contract COVID-19 die from it. However, he uses a naive approach to calculate this figure, and legitimate methods show that the average COVID-19 survival rate is firmly over 99%.

Medical journals have documented the deadly harms of exaggerating the fatality rate of COVID-19. Nevertheless, Facebook is amplifying PolitiFact’s false claim by using it to censor genuine facts about this issue.

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Commentary: Trump Justice Department Official Invoked Executive Privilege at January 6 Select Committee

Virginia Star Staff

In a 15-page letter obtained by American Greatness and prepared by his attorney, Jeffery Clark,  the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division in President Trump’s last few months of office, invoked executive privilege today before the January 6 Select Committee.

Clark, who has been under intense media scrutiny for attempting to address election illegalities in the 2020 presidential election, was subpoenaed by the committee on October 13. Committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D- Miss.) claimed Clark thwarted “the peaceful transfer of power.” Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee last month prepared a lengthy report accusing Clark of working with Donald Trump to overturn the election results.

Harry W. MacDougald, Clark’s lawyer, explained to Thompson why Clark would not testify. “Because former President Trump was properly entitled, while he held office, to the confidential advice of lawyers like Mr. Clark, Mr. Clark is subject to a sacred trust—one that is particularly vital to the constitutional separation of powers,” MacDougald wrote. “As a result, any attempts—whether by the House or by the current President—to invade that sphere of confidentiality must be resisted.”

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Oil Prices Surge Again After OPEC Ignores Biden

Virginia Star Staff

Oil prices surged again Friday after foreign producers ignored the Biden administration’s repeated requests to boost output and resolve global shortages.

U.S. crude oil surpassed $80 per barrel while the lead foreign index broke $81 per barrel, both rising more than 1.5% compared to one day earlier, on Friday morning, according to the latest data. The Middle Eastern cartel Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its Russian counterpart, collectively known as OPEC+, rebuked the Biden administration Thursday and chose not to alter previously announced plans.

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Deal Struck: Gilbert for Virginia Speaker of the House, Kilgore for Majority Leader

Eric Burk

Minority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) and Delegate Terry Kilgore (R-Wise) have come to an agreement where Gilbert will run unopposed for Speaker of the House, and Kilgore will run unopposed for Majority Leader. The two delegates jointly sent a message to the caucus Friday afternoon, describing the agreement.

“We are writing to you today to let you know that we have come to an understanding with one another about our intentions with respect to seeking leadership roles. Todd is proud to endorse Terry for Majority Leader, and Terry is proud to endorse Todd for Speaker. Ultimately, any final decision will be left up to you,” they wrote.

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BREAKING: Top Politics Reporter Neil W. McCabe Joins The Star News Network as National Political Editor

Star News Staff

The Star News Network, the constellation of nine state-focused news sites hired veteran Washington reporter and editor Neil W. McCabe as the network’s national political editor, in its next step in the 50-state buildout.

“I met Neil when he was at Breitbart News covering Capitol Hill and the two of us ran the Breitbart-Gravis polling project during the 2016 presidential election,” said The Star News Network’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy.

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Commentary: Joe Biden’s Domestic Terrorism Backstory

Virginia Star Staff
President Joe Biden talks on the phone with Senator Rob Portman, R-Ohio, following the Senate vote to pass the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, Tuesday, August 10, 2021, in the Oval Office Dining Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

“Where are the real domestic terrorists?” wonders Julie Kelly. As it happens, the intrepid American Greatness reporter is in luck. Domestic terrorist Nidal Hasan is on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. As embattled Americans might wonder, who is this guy? What did he do to land in prison? And what, if anything, does Joe Biden have to say about it? 

Nidal Hasan, 51, is an American-born Muslim who earned a degree in psychiatry, joined the U.S. Army, and attained the rank of major. Trouble is, Hasan considered himself a “soldier of Allah” and in 2009 he was communicating with al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki about killing American soldiers. The FBI knew all about it, but as “Lessons from Fort Hood” confirms, the Washington office of the FBI dropped the surveillance on Hasan and took no action against him. 

Major Hasan was a partisan of the Taliban and in November of 2009 Americans were being deployed from Fort Hood, Texas, for duty in Afghanistan. On November 5, 2009, Hasan yelled “Allahu Akbar!” as he opened fire. Hasan gunned down 13 unarmed American soldiers, including Private Francheska Velez, who was pregnant and died crying “my baby!” 

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Analysis: The Biggest Loser of the Durham Indictments May Be James Comey’s FBI

Virginia Star Staff

Special Counsel John Durham’s latest criminal case is as much an indictment of James Comey’s FBI as it is of the primary source of the Steele dossier, whom Durham accuses of repeatedly lying to agents.

The Steele dossier was the central evidence used by the FBI to win four consecutive FISA warrants targeting Trump’s campaign — and in 39 pages of painstaking detail the indictment lays out just how flawed and fake central elements of the dossier were.

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Woke Teachers Go Viral After Sharing Their Shocking Classroom Behavior on Social Media

Virginia Star Staff

Woke K-12 teachers ranting about their leftist agendas are ubiquitous on social media, particularly the Twitter account “Libs of TikTok.”

As universities ramp up their efforts to train K-12 educators on how to teach components of leftist and woke ideologies, Campus Reform decided to give parents and community members a look in the classroom with information on the higher education programs and academic theories that trained some of teachers behind those infamous videos.

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Cotton, Klobuchar Plan to Rein in Big Tech’s ‘Monopolistic’ Practices with New Bipartisan Bill

Virginia Star Staff
Amy Klobuchar and Tom Cotton

Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar unveiled a bipartisan bill Friday intended to restrict how major tech companies acquire and merge with smaller firms.

The bill, titled the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, is a companion to antitrust legislation advanced out of the House Judiciary Committee in June. If enacted, the law would shift the burden in antitrust cases to the acquiring party for mergers greater than $50 million, meaning that the acquiring firm would have to prove that its acquisition of another company was not anti-competitive.

The bill explicitly targets Big Tech companies, and it applies to firms with market capitalizations over $600 billion, at least 50,000,000 U.S.-based monthly active users or 100,000 monthly active business users. This would include Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple.

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New Court Documents Detail Alleged Web of Lies Used to Fabricate Steele Dossier, Frame Trump

Virginia Star Staff

The indictment of Igor Danchenko, the primary source for the discredited Steele dossier, provides damning evidence alleging the Russian analyst repeatedly lied to the FBI. But it’s only part of a larger portrait emerging in federal court records chronicling how the U.S. government was bamboozled into investigating Donald Trump for Russia collusion by a circle of players connected to Hillary Clinton.

Just a few weeks before his arrest Thursday, Danchenko was served in late September with a federal subpoena in a separate civil case brought by executives connected to the Russia-based Alfa Bank. That case, like the indictment, has produced evidence Danchenko contrived the intelligence he provided to former MI6 agent Christopher Steele in 2016.

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Immigration Reforms Tucked in Democrats’ Spending Bill Will Be A Gift to Big Tech

Virginia Star Staff

Several immigration provisions tucked inside the Democrats’ spending bill are set to greatly expand the number of legal, high-skilled immigrants admitted to the U.S., handing large tech companies a major victory.

The provisions, included in the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act, propose a number of changes to the immigration system intended to help relieve the green card backlog and admit more immigrants. The bill proposes “recapturing” green cards that were authorized but never actually issued due to administrative complications, as well as exempting visa applicants from numerical and country limits if the applicants pay a fee.

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George Soros, Unions, Other Far-Left Entities Donated Heavily to Defeat Pro-Police Ballot Measure in Austin, Texas

Virginia Star Staff
Police lights on top of car

A ballot measure aimed at increasing the number of police officers in the city of Austin, Texas was defeated in Tuesday’s election after hundreds of thousands of dollars was spent against it by George Soros, unions, and other organizations from outside of Texas, as reported by Fox News.

The question before voters, known as Prop A, would have required the city to hire two police officers for every 1,000 residents, and would subsequently increase officer training to accommodate the new hires. The measure was put on the ballot in response to a surge in violent crime in the wake of last year’s violent race riots, and a subsequent decline in the number of officers due to the “defund the police” movement as well as increasingly strict vaccine mandates.

The bulk of the money spent against Prop A came from outside the state of Texas. Chief among them was the far-left Equity PAC, which was given $500,000 by George Soros’s Open Society foundation, contributing to a total war chest of around $1.2 million. Other culprits include the equally far-left group known as the 1630 Fund, which spent $100,000 against Prop A, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, which spent another $100,000. Another Soros-linked group, the Fairness Project, spent $200,000 to defeat Prop A.

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J6 Detainee Subjected to Post-Lawyer Meeting Strip Search

Virginia Star Staff
Capitol Riot

Immediately following an in-person meeting with his defense attorney, Robert Morss, a January 6 detainee held in part of the D.C. jail system used exclusively to incarcerate Capitol defendants, was subjected to a strip search where he was verbally and physically abused by prison guards.

Morss, a former Army ranger with three tours of duty in Afghanistan, was arrested in June and later indicted on numerous counts including assaulting a police officer and disorderly conduct. (Morss is named in a multi-defendant case with others who battled police near the lower west terrace tunnel, where law enforcement officers from D.C. Metro and Capitol police were attacking protesters.) In July, Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee to the D.C. District Court, denied Morss’ release pending trial.

Morss met with his attorney, John C. Kiyonaga, in advance of a status hearing scheduled for Friday afternoon. After Morss returned to the so-called “pod,” prison guards informed him he would need to be strip searched.

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Newly Declassified Documents Show Extensive FBI Investigation of Saudi Links to 9/11 Attacks

Virginia Star Staff

Newly declassified documents from the FBI give a sense of the depth of the bureau’s investigation into potential ties of the Saudi government to the 9/11 terror attacks.

According to The Hill, the FBI investigated how much support Saudi officials — including one at their embassy in Washington — may have given to three Saudis involved in the attacks, including “procuring living quarters and assistance with assimilating in the country.”

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PR Firm Deletes Clinton Advisor from Its Website After Trump Dossier News

Virginia Star Staff

Public relations firm kglobal deleted the company profile of executive Charles Dolan, a former advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, from its website Thursday following his implication as a source of information for Igor Danchenko, a Russian analyst involved in creating the Steele dossier.

Danchenko was indicted by Special Counsel John Durham on several counts of lying to the FBI and arrested Thursday, The New York Times first reported. Danchenko, a Russian analyst, was used by British ex-spy Christopher Steele as a primary source of information in creating the infamous Steele dossier, which spurred allegations of collusion between former President Donald Trump and Russia.

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Professor Canceled Because He Wasn’t Upset over a Fake Racial Bias Incident

Virginia Star Staff
Steven Earnest

A professor at Coastal Carolina University was canceled after he emailed his department questioning their reaction to a perceived racial bias incident that proved to be baseless.

“Free speech and basic civility are disappearing,” the theater professor Steven Earnest told Campus Reform. “So, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I still am.”

On Sept. 16, a non-White visiting artist working with non-White theatre students at the South Carolina university wrote a list of names on the board so that the students could connect as a group.

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Healthcare Group Severs Ties with Aaron Rodgers After He Criticized COVID Vaccine Politics

Virginia Star Staff

A major healthcare company has severed a longtime partnership with Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers after Rodgers revealed that he had contracted COVID-19 while unvaccinated and criticized what he said were the unreasonable politics surrounding the COVID vaccine.

Rodgers this week slammed what he characterized as a “woke mob” perpetuating a “witch hunt” against individuals unvaccinated against COVID-19. The football player himself has taken criticism for not getting the shot and subsequently contracting the disease.

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New Facebook Lawsuit Alleges Tech Giant Conspired to ‘Crush’ Competition

Virginia Star Staff

Executives of a now-defunct photo app filed an antitrust complaint against Facebook on Thursday alleging the company schemed to end their company.

The complaint, filed by executives of a start-up image app called Phhhoto, alleges that Facebook employed anti-competitive business tactics to throttle the smaller company after it refused a business deal with the tech giant. Specifically, the suit alleges that Mark Zuckerberg personally downloaded the app, approached Phhhoto for a partnership and later pursued a campaign against the start-up after no deal materialized.

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Zillow to Shut Down House-Flipping Business, Lay Off 2,000 Workers After Disastrous Earnings

Virginia Star Staff

Zillow is closing down its home buying and selling business and laying off 25% of its workforce after the online real estate company missed its third-quarter earnings estimate.

The company announced in a statement attached to its earnings report Tuesday that it would be shutting down its Offers program, which buys and sells houses, after the company reported a net loss, partly due to failures in its Offers division. Zillow attributed the change to its inability to accurately forecast the housing market.

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Top Texas University Employees Donated Overwhelmingly to Democrats in 2020 Election

Virginia Star Staff

The overwhelming majority of employees at ten of the top Texas universities who contributed campaign money throughout the 2020 election cycle donated to Democrats, a Campus Reform investigation has revealed.

Using publicly available data from the Federal Election Commission, Campus Reform analyzed the donation records of the employees of the universities in Texas for the 2020 election cycle.

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Microsoft Draws Jeers for ‘Utterly Bananas’ Introductions Highlighting Pronouns, Race and Hairstyles

Virginia Star Staff

Microsoft was ridiculed on social media Thursday for including land acknowledgments, pronoun statements and references to hairstyles in its corporate introductions.

While giving presentations during the Microsoft Ignite 2021 conference on Tuesday, Microsoft employees recognized that the land they were currently standing on previously belonged to Native American tribes.

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House Passes Infrastructure Bill as Democrats Pave Way for Huge Social Spending Package

Virginia Star Staff

The House passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure spending bill late Friday night, advancing legislation held for ransom for months by Democrats’ left flank to ensure passage of a much more expensive social spending package.

The House vote completed about 11:30 p.m. was 228-206, with 13 Republicans joining all but six Democrats in support of the infrastructure spending plan and sending President Joe Biden a much-needed victory for his signature.

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Top GOP Lawmakers Pledge to Hold Fauci Accountable on Wuhan Gain-of-Function Research

Virginia Star Staff

Leading Republican lawmakers from both the House and the Senate pledged to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci and the National Institutes of Health accountable following a Daily Caller News Foundation report on documents showing the agency had concerns about funding gain-of-function research in China in 2016.

The documents, obtained by the White Coat Waste Project and provided exclusively to the DCNF, show that two subordinates of Fauci reached out to the nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance in May 2016 with concerns the group was planning to engage in gain-of-function experiments on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, only to drop the issue after EcoHealth downplayed their concerns.

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Immigration Attorneys Refuse to Be ‘Complicit’ in Biden’s Restarted Trump-Era Migrant Removal Program

Virginia Star Staff

Some immigration attorneys are refusing to be “complicit” in former President Donald Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols that were reinstated by the Biden administration and expected to go into effect as early as mid-November, BuzzFeed News reported Thursday.

The attorneys said they won’t offer pro bono legal assistance to migrants enrolled in Trump’s Remain in Mexico program because of the alleged dangers and rights violations migrants are subjected to, according to BuzzFeed. Immigration advocacy groups said they will keep assisting migrants at the southern border, but worry the reinstatement of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) will result in more people than attorneys can effectively represent.

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Commentary: The Navy’s New Emphasis on ‘Diversity’ Puts the Nation at Risk

Virginia Star Staff
group of Navy members sitting on bleachers

After the 2020 summer of riots, the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations stood up Task Force One Navy (TF1N) on July 1, 2020. After a six-month effort, the final 142-page report was submitted on January 28, 2021 Its two operating assumptions are, first, that the Navy, as an institution, is systemically racist, and, second, that “Mission readiness is stronger when diverse strengths are used and differing perspectives are applied.” Notwithstanding several key military principles—such as unit cohesion, strict discipline across the chain of command, and, well, uniforms—the Navy is now ideologically committed to the mantra that “diversity is strength.”

Not surprisingly, considering the key entering assumptions, the task force report identified problems with Navy systems, climate, and culture; and submitted almost 60 recommendations aligned with four lines of inquiry: Recruiting, Talent Management/Retention, Professional Development, and Innovation and STEM (as well as a fifth line for miscellaneous recommendations).

One should be skeptical, however, about the entire exercise and the recommendations that flow from it. It inaccurately depicts the proud institution of the United States Navy as systemically racist—a slander that has more potential to undermine morale, good order, discipline, and military effectiveness than any geostrategic adversary. 

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100 Nations Agree to Non-Binding Pact to End Deforestation by 2030

Virginia Star Staff

The U.S., China and more than 100 other nations signed onto a pact to end deforestation by 2030 at the ongoing United Nations climate summit, the U.K. announced.

“Conserving our forests and other critical ecosystems is indispensable — an indispensable piece of keeping our climate goals within reach as well as many other key priorities that we have together: ensuring clean water, maintaining biodiversity, supporting rural and Indigenous communities, and reducing the risk of the spread of disease,” President Joe Biden remarked on Tuesday.

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Loudoun County Schools Chief Orders Outside Review of How His Office Handled Sexual Assault Claims

Virginia Star Staff

The superintendent of Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia announced he has commissioned an outside review of how his office handled allegations of sexual misconduct at two high schools.

“We believe we have followed all mandatory reporting protocols and aided law enforcement to the fullest extent allowed in all investigations regarding these matters,” Superintendent Scott Ziegler wrote in a Nov. 5 email to parents and staff. “We acknowledge that these matters need to be fully reviewed.”

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Virginia Democrats Concede Control of House of Delegates, Completing GOP Election Sweep

Virginia Star Staff
Eileen Filler-Corn

Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates conceded control of the chamber to Republicans several days after the state’s off-season elections saw massive Republican gains in the state.

Democratic Del. Eileen Filler-Corn publicly announced the transfer following the concession of Democratic Del. Martha Mugler in a hotly contested race in the state’s Hampton Roads region.

“While the results of the election were not in our favor, our work for the people of Virginia goes on,” Filler-Corn said in a statement.

Democrats over the past two years had wielded majorities in the state House and Senate, as well as control of the state’s governorship, to pass a large package of progressive policies, including marijuana decriminalization and gun control.

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Addiction-Based Mental Health Crisis Still Getting Worse in Virginia

Eric Burk

During the beginning of COVID-19, hospital inpatient volume and emergency department visits decreased, in part due to people postponing treatment. But the same data showed an increase in the number of patients getting treatment for alcohol, drug use, and related mental disorders, the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) reported in April. In a Friday press conference, VHHA Vice President of Data and Analytics David Vaamonde reported that increased treatment for those kinds of disorders continued into the first two quarters of 2021 — one of only two Major Diagnostic Categories (MDCs) that saw growth since the beginning of the pandemic.

“We’re looking at MDCs where volumes actually increased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have alcohol and drug use, and drug induced organic mental health disorders, obviously a very concerning trend there, and then diseases and disorders of the respiratory system and infectious and parasitic diseases,” Vaamonde said, adding that the respiratory, infectious, and parasitic categories line up with what a COVID-19 patient would have.

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Job Creators Network Calls for Reversal of Biden Vaccine Mandate Following Judicial Ruling

Cooper Moran

The Job Creators Network (JCN) on Saturday called for a complete reversal of President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate, after members of the federal judiciary blocked the measure.

A three judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted a temporary stay against the broad mandate, citing “cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the Mandate”

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Newt Gingrich Commentary: 2021 Lessons for Republicans

Virginia Star Staff
Man in camo holding an American flag

The 2021 elections are filled with key lessons for Republicans.

Vice President Kamala Harris had already warned in a Virginia visit late in the campaign that “what happens in Virginia will in large part determine what happens in 2022, 2024 and on.”

If Republicans learn the lessons of 2021 – and apply them to 2022 and 2024 – they can prove Harris was truly prophetic.

It is already clear that the Democrats’ power structure in Washington has learned nothing. In 2009, after losing Virginia and New Jersey, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through Obamacare four days later. Remember, she said cheerfully “Congress [has] to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.” 

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Texas Officials Have Arrested over 8,500 Illegal Migrants Since Gov. Abbott Launched Operation Lone Star

Virginia Star Staff

Texas law enforcement officials have made more than 8,520 criminal arrests of illegal migrants since Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March, a Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Wednesday.

Around 1,600 of the arrests were for criminal trespassing and about 6,800 felony charges were filed against illegal migrants from the time Abbott’s directive was issued through Oct. 28, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Press Secretary Ericka Miller told the DCNF.

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America First Policy Institute Establishes Political Arm

Cooper Moran
Two men hosting a radio show at a small booth

The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) announced on Friday that the organization will launch a political arm in order to advance their cause.

The new group, America First Works, will seek “to transfer power back to the American people and away from government elites by engaging in grassroots advocacy to affect change at the federal, state, and local level.”

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Commentary: Financial Stability Is Key to Being Able to Leave Job for Refusing Vaccine Mandate

Virginia Star Staff
Joshua Mawhorter

Until recently, I was a California teacher working in two charter schools, one as a full-time classroom teacher of Government/Economics and sometimes U.S. History, and the other as a part-time independent study teacher who assists families with a program primarily based around homeschooling. I have taught for about five years and love teaching.

Last week, I was fired from one school and put on unpaid administrative leave at the other because of my refusal either to take and demonstrate proof of the COVID-19 vaccine or test weekly. I even filed a religious exemption stating the following that was rejected:

“As a committed follower of Christ, I religiously and philosophically cannot submit to either a government vaccine mandate or weekly testing.

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Coronavirus Is Fading as the Top Issue on Americans’ Minds, Polls Show

Virginia Star Staff

COVID-19 is taking a back seat when it comes to the economy, education and more, recent polls show.

In a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, only about 12% of American adults surveyed said they would list public health issues, which include COVID-19, as a top priority, below economic issues like the job market and inflation. The poll also showed 73% of respondents saying political leaders should focus on growing jobs and the economy and two-thirds of voters, including a majority of both Republicans and Democrats, agreeing that “inflation is a very big concern for me.”

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Republicans Vow to Fight White House Plan to Pay Migrants Who Entered Country Illegally

The Center Square
U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the McAllen station encounter large group after large group of family units in Los Ebanos, Texas, on Friday June 15. This group well in excess of 100 family units turned themselves into the U.S. Border Patrol, after crossing the border illegally and walking through the town of Los Ebanos.

Congressional Republicans say they will fight a White House plan to pay up to $450,000 in reparations to migrants separated from their families under the Trump administration after entering the country illegally.

After The Wall Street Journal reported on the plan earlier this week, President Joe Biden called the report “garbage,” only to be corrected by his spokesperson the next day.

At issue is former President Donald Trump’s policy of prosecuting all adults who entered the country illegally, in accordance with federal immigration law, including those with children. The Biden administration rescinded the policy, along with many other immigration enforcement efforts.

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John Fredericks Commentary: Rams, Cowboys Look to Cement Their Status in NFL Week 9

John Fredericks

Well, we knew there would be one week where I took the proverbial pipe. Last week was it, when I posted an abysmal 4-7-1 record, getting blown out of several games. Like my late dad Sam always said: “Better to be blown out by halftime than lose in the last second. The money lost is the same, but at least you saved time.”  

He was a die-hard New York Jets fan, so we know he got blown out a lot. My boys are off this week, as my son Jack’s girlfriend Kristi is dealing with some health issues and they are all still recovering from the Astros World Series implosion. So I’ll go it alone. This is redemption week, I feel a 9-3 coming on. My total record for the season ATS is still a stellar 54-32-2, a full 22 games over .500. I’ll put that up against any of the Vegas wise guys that charge you a fee for football picks. Mine are free! Maybe I have a new career in the making? Oh, I also predicted the Youngkin win in Virginia and plus eight House seats. So I nailed that one, too.  

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Twitter Users Slam Article Claiming White Women ‘Killing America’

Virginia Star Staff

Twitter users criticized a Wednesday article by Wajahat Ali which argued white women are “killing America” by voting for Republicans.

“The cult of Karen will always turn on people of color on a dime to uphold oppressive systems that ensure they remain influential and powerful handmaidens of white,” Ali claims.

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James O’Keefe Speaks Out After FBI Raids Homes of Project Veritas Journalists

Virginia Star Staff

On November 4, the FBI raided the apartments and houses of Project Veritas Journalists and former journalists, Veritas founder James O’Keefe announced in a video online Friday. [The FBI raided O’Keefe’s apartment early Saturday morning. See update below].

Project Veritas is a non-profit journalism enterprise that “investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions” in an effort to hold the powerful to account and achieve a more ethical society.

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Virginia Attorney General-Elect Commits to Investigating Sexual Assaults in Loudoun Schools

Virginia Star Staff

Virginia’s Republican Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares said during a press conference Thursday that he plans to investigate Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) and the recent sexual assaults that took place on its campuses.

“Do you plan to investigate Loudoun County Public Schools and the recent sexual assaults that have happened there?” a journalist asked during the press conference.

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Report: Hospital ERs Swamped with People Reporting Blood Clots, Heart Problems, Tingling Arms

Virginia Star Staff

Hospitals worldwide are being swamped with patients suffering from serious illnesses that are not believed to be COVID-related. Health officials say that the phenomenon is due to people avoiding visits to the doctor during the pandemic, and paying for it later. Others say that emergency rooms are filling up with people with vaccine injuries.

Mark McGowan, the premier of Western Australia said in a recent interview that the country is seeing a huge uptick in hospitalizations, and no one knows why.

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North Carolina Adopts New Congressional Map That Favors Republicans

Virginia Star Staff

The North Carolina General Assembly on Thursday finalized the state’s new U.S. House map that gives Republicans a distinct advantage over Democrats.

The map creates 10 safe Republican seats, three safe Democratic seats and one competitive seat, up from the current 8-5 map now. North Carolina is the only state where the legislature has full control over the redistricting process, meaning that the new lines can skirt what would be an all but certain veto from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and go into effect.

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Voters in Mathews, Middlesex, and Nottoway Elect to Keep Confederate Monuments

Eric Burk

Three Virginia counties voted against referenda to remove local confederate monuments, continuing a pattern begun in 2020 when voters in six counties also voted to keep their monuments. Mathews County voted resoundingly against removal, 80.06 percent to 19.94 percent. Middlesex County voted 77.31 percent against removal, and Nottoway County voted 67.84 percent against removal.

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Judge Temporarily Blocks Biden Vaccine Mandate for Private Firms After Texas Sues

Virginia Star Staff

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday revealed that a federal court had issued a temporary block against the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate against private companies after the state brought suit against it.

Paxton revealed the development on his Twitter accounts. “Yesterday, I sued the Biden Admin over its unlawful OSHA vax mandate,” he wrote. “WE WON. Just this morning, citing ‘grave statutory and constitutional issues,’ the 5th Circuit stayed the mandate.

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Border Patrol: 27 Percent of Migrants Arrested at Border Are Repeat Offenders, Many with Other Criminal Convictions

The Center Square

Federal law enforcement officers arrested more than 17,300 migrants with past convictions of other crimes attempting to cross the border illegally last fiscal year. That’s up from 9,447 in fiscal 2020.

The federal government’s fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.

An additional 8,979 in fiscal 2021 were of migrants with outstanding arrest warrants against them from other law enforcement agencies.

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