Month: December 2021

Commentary: A Market-Driven Solution to the Student-Loan Debt Spiral

RealClearWire
Graduation caps being thrown in the air.

It’s calculated that somewhere north of 45 million Americans have run up $1.73 trillion worth of college debt. The numbers may surprise a lot or a little, which is really not the point.

The main thing is that debt now measured in the trillions is in a sense a logical midpoint to the federal government’s unfortunate involvement in the financing of college education. “No one spends the money of others very carefully” is a truth as old as humanity (or money) is, and the trillions worth of federal student loan debt vivify this truth. We know this because the hangovers (literal and figurative) from time spent on campus continue to grow.

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Commentary: The Madness of Anthony Fauci

Virginia Star Staff

It’s nearly impossible to select the most maniacal comment made by Dr. Anthony Fauci in his nearly 70-minute interview with “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan that aired over the weekend. Joe Biden’s chief coronavirus advisor and miniature global menace spent more than an hour denying responsibility for his documented mistakes, bragging about his self-appointed role as the world’s doctor, hogging credit for the vaccines, and attacking anyone who has challenged his unrivaled ego and track record of failure.

Portraying himself as a victim rather than the cruel, megalomaniacal tyrant he is, Fauci took aim at Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Congressional co-sponsors of the “Fire Fauci Act,” which would zero-out the salary of the federal government’s highest-paid bureaucrat and audit Fauci’s correspondence and financial transactions during the pandemic.

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Commentary: Unions Aligning with America First

RealClearWire

After intense negotiations, the United Auto Workers secured a new agreement with Ford, General Motors, and their suppliers that effectively prohibits a vaccine mandate for employees by requiring only “voluntary” disclosure of vaccination status for union members. This hard-won validation for workers points to a larger opportunity for the America First movement and organized labor to acknowledge that they are natural allies.

On critical issues ranging from medical privacy to border security and foreign trade, the emerging populist and nationalist consensus of the New Right creates an obvious home for unionized Americans. The America First cause can, in turn, help revitalize private-sector unions and guarantee a more prosperous society for our country, with a stronger middle class through a better diffusion of economic and political power.

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European Union LGBT Ambassador Does Photoshoot as Trans Virgin Mary

Virginia Star Staff

Riccardo Simonetti, LGBT ambassador to the European Union Parliament, dressed as a transgender Virgin Mary for the cover of a Berlin-based queer magazine.

The photos show a bearded Simonetti in a tunic and veil, holding a baby who is presumably representing Jesus. In another photo he is holding the baby with another man, who appears to represent Joseph, wrapping his arms around Simonetti.

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Commission Passes School Upgrade Funding Recommendations to Virginia General Assembly

Eric Burk

Virginia’s Commission on School Construction and Modernization recommended actions for the General Assembly and the Governor to take to help fund upgrades and new construction in schools.

A June report to the Commission found that 41 percent of school divisions are at or above capacity, and 29 percent are nearing capacity. More than half of school buildings are over 50 years old, and divisions in Western Virginia, Southwest, and Southside have the oldest buildings with a median age of 58 years.

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Sports Betting in Virginia Exceeds $2 Billion in Wagers Cast Since January Launch

Eric Burk

Virginia’s new sports betting continues to set records, with $427 million in wagers cast in October thanks to five weekends of football, postseason baseball, and the opening of the NBA season. Sportsbetting was launched in the Commonwealth on January 21, and October’s results helped make Virginia the fastest state to exceed $2 billion, according to a PlayVirginia press release.

“It took Old Dominion a little less than nine months to reach the milestone. The previous record-holder, New Jersey, took about 10 months to reach $2 billion in wagers,” PlayVirginia said.

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Commentary: Court’s Legitimacy Depends on Overturning Roe v. Wade

RealClearWire

When the U.S. Supreme Court takes up Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization today, it will be asked to overrule Roe v. Wade, the court’s 50-year-old precedent that created a constitutional right to abortion.  Legions of commentators are turning out to defend Roe, claiming that the Supreme Court’s legitimacy depends on reaffirming it.  They are wrong.

The majority’s opinion in Roe has undermined the court’s legitimacy for nearly a half-century. Roe relied on dubious reasoning to remove a contentious policy issue from the reach of the American people, placing all abortion policy in the hands of the unelected and unaccountable judiciary. As a result, Roe has politicized the court and poisoned the judiciary. The most legitimate thing the Supreme Court can do is overrule Roe.

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Space Force General Claims American Satellites Are Under Attack on Regular Basis

Admin

A top general with the United States Space Force says that other nations often threaten and even outright attack American satellites in space, as reported by the New York Post.

General David Thompson revealed the alarming developments in an op-ed with the Washington Post, published on Tuesday. In the article, Thompson says that “the threats are really growing and expanding every single day. And it’s really an evolution of activity that’s been happening for a long time.”

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Leaked Documents Show Chinese President Xi Ordered Uyghur Genocide in ‘Top Secret’ Speeches

Admin

Documents obtained by human rights activists from the People’s Republic of China show that Xi Jinping, the country’s president, ordered the implementation of measures to persecute Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang Province in “top secret” speeches during the 2010s.

Xi reportedly gave the orders in a series of speeches and statements, Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow with Victims of Communism, claimed in a Twitter thread on Nov. 29, citing 317 pages of documents leaked to the Uyghur Tribunal this past September.

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A Firsthand Look into Texas’ ‘Operation Lone Star’

Admin

RIO GRANDE VALLEY — The alarm clock sounded at 3 a.m. local time. It was dark and the skies were clear from the storm that had just passed. Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Lt. Craig Cummings, who was driving me around the valley, joked that we may face a more dangerous situation than the border had in store for us because of the tornado-like winds and torrential downpour that had swept through the area just hours before.

We decided the early morning would be the best time to capture suspected human smuggling attempts. Texas troopers with DPS supporting Operation Lone Star, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s initiative to combat nefarious activity from entering his state, dotted the roads making their presence known.

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Commentary: Redditors Flock, Amplify ‘Antiwork’ Movement

Admin

When it comes to blaming the masses, no one seems to take the fall more than young people: Weird food trends, the “baby bust,” and now, a labor shortage all seem to be attributed to Millennials and Gen Z. Now, following “The Great Resignation” comes a new phrase, “antiwork.” It’s a movement pointing out the flaws in work and employment. The subreddit grew from 76,000 to 1,019,000 subscribers from January 2020 to November 2021, according to Vice. And they planned a “Blackout Black Friday” strike. So, what’s this movement, and how far will it go?

What is antiwork?

This isn’t simply a lazy act of defiance. The antiwork movement has to do with burnout, mental health, wages, benefits, employer treatment, and many other factors. The pandemic saw many people working themselves to the bone but for low pay under toxic management. Then came The Great Resignation, where millions voluntarily left their jobs. Nearly 40% of those were service jobs— restaurant, hotel, bar, and health care workers, and others—also known as those who are famously underpaid. Now, employees from nearly every workforce sector in the U.S. are coming forward to expose poor treatment and overworking, among other issues.

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Commentary: Our Enemies Wait as We Destroy Ourselves

Admin

Is the United States becoming like the old Soviet Union in a way that people fail to see because of the noise and the distractions of electoral politics, mass entertainment masking as news, and mass indoctrination masking as entertainment? 

We are becoming a meritocracy that punishes merit and rewards folly. We have all the disutility of a meritocracy—the snobbishness, the restless ambition, the inclination to see merit only in what can be measured or paid for; even the tendency to pull intelligent people out of their native regions and set them down, like gilded tumbleweeds, in places without memory or character. But we get none of the benefits. We punish truth-telling and intelligence, and reward stupidity. 

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Judicial Watch Moves to Depose Chicago Mayor Lightfoot over Racist Interview Policy Under Oath

Admin

Judicial Watch filed a motion on Nov. 23 on behalf of The Daily Caller News Foundation and reporter Thomas Catenacci, asking the court to depose Chicago Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot to discuss her allegedly racist interview policy under oath.

Lightfoot failed to comply with court-ordered deposition in August after a representative refused to answer a series of questions of the Democrat’s policy to interview journalists of color, according to the Judicial Watch press release.

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Anti-Trump Group Donated $85k to Atlanta Election Judges, Now Auditors Want Some Repaid

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A liberal nonprofit that accused President Donald Trump of unleashing a “surge in white supremacy and hate” donated $85,000 last fall to election administrators in Georgia’s largest county as part of a campaign to turn out black votes in the 2020 election. Auditors now want some of that money returned.

The Fulton County Auditor declared this month that county election officials failed to spend all of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s grant for buying absentee ballot drop boxes and did not comply with one of the grant’s primary requirements to publicly disclose how many ballots were collected in the boxes.

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Kenosha Police Bodycam Video Shows NBC Producer and Freelancer Weaseling Out of Jury Tampering Rap

Admin

A freelance photographer and his NBC contact were caught on camera trying to squirm their way out of trouble in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last month, when the freelancer was stopped for running a red light while trying to keep up with the Rittenhouse jury van.

Kenosha police on Tuesday released the body camera video of the November 17 stop. James Morrison, the driver of the vehicle, identified himself as an NBC producer.

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Commentary: Was Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Father Part of Brutal Marxist Military Dictatorship in Somalia?

Virginia Star Staff

If Rep. Ilhan Omar wants white Americans to apologize for the sins of their ancestors, she should be transparent about her father’s apparent leadership role inside a genocidal Marxist regime.

Omar’s father, Nur Omar Mohamed, passed away last year from COVID-19 complications. Upon his death, Minnesota’s progressive, Omar-friendly Sahan Journal praised “his climb in the military hierarchy, eventually becoming a colonel.” Yusuf Ismail Faraton, another colonel who served alongside Omar Mohamed, told Sahan Journal (which was founded in partnership with and using money from Minnesota Public Radio) that Omar’s father “played a significant role in the war” Somalia waged with Ethiopia from 1977-1978 (the Ogaden War). Other outlets like the Blaze have also reported that Omar’s late father served during the 1982 Somali-Ethiopian Border War.

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State Sen. Suetterlein Re-Introduces Virginia Parole Board Vote Transparency Bill

Eric Burk

Senator David Suetterlein (R-Roanoke) has introduced a bill to make individual Virginia Parole Board members’ votes public records and open to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

“The parole board has significant authority over individual Virginians’ liberty and the Commonwealth’s public safety,” Suetterlein said. “And the public gets to know, when someone is charged with a crime, who the police officer is that arrested the person. Who the prosecutor who pursued the criminal charges was. Who the judge that oversaw the case was. Who the appellate court judges that upheld the cases were. And then the parole board has the power to reduce that sentence effectively and their action is done in private. Their votes are not recorded, which is most unusual. I was not able to find any other board in Virginia where their actions and their individual votes are not recorded.”

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Conservative Clergy of Color Calls on Corporations to Divest from Black Lives Matter Christmas Boycott Campaign

Cooper Moran

Conservative Clergy of Color, a non-partisan civil rights advocacy group, called on corporations to stop funding the Black Lives Matter organization, due to the group’s call for a boycott.

The boycott, entitled “Black Xmas,” encourages its supporters to engage in a “boycott of white capitalism” by encouraging consumers to stop “spending with White corporations.”

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Virginia Department of Health Monitoring COVID-19 Spread Through Sewage Sampling

Eric Burk

The Virginia Department of Health is sampling sewage at 25 sites across the Commonwealth as part of its COVID-19 monitoring program. The weekly sampling began September 13 and will run through July 2022, but researchers have been testing COVID-19 detection through wastewater since 2020. The VDH is using the program as a piece of its detection of future surges in the virus.

“Infected individuals shed the SARS-CoV-2 virus in their bodily waste. As such viral density in sewage water can give a good estimate of the number of infected individuals in a community. In fact, these values may spike before people even feel sick, and outbreaks can be identified over a week before cases are detected by traditional means,” a November 19 newsletter from the University of Virginia Biocomplexity Institute and the Virginia Department of Health states.

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Commentary: Steve Bannon Deserves His Day in the Court of Public Opinion

Virginia Star Staff

If Steve Bannon can be indicted for “contempt of Congress,” and the approval rate for Congress at about 21 percent, the Biden Justice Department should probably just go ahead and indict the other 270 million Americans who also have contempt for Congress. The specious indictment of our friend Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress is just another demonstration that Democrats consider the process to be part of the punishment and are using it to harass and bankrupt another conservative enemy.

Bannon, to his credit, is having none of it and has decided to fight back in the court of public opinion as well as in the court of law.

Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein of POLITICO report the Justice Department on Sunday night accused Steve Bannon’s defense team of lodging “frivolous” legal complaints in order to cause a public dust-up with prosecutors as he battles criminal charges for attempting to thwart the House’s Jan. 6 select committee.

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GOP Spokeswoman: Biden’s Removing Columbia’s Castro-Linked FARC from Terrorist List ‘Legitimized and Emboldened Terrorists’

Neil W. McCabe

  The communications director of the Republican National Committee blasted President Joseph R. Biden’s Jr.’s removing today the Marxist guerillas fighting under the name Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and undermining the democratic government of Columbia. “Biden’s decision has legitimized and emboldened terrorists who have murdered, kidnapped, and…

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Rep. Eric Swalwell Calls Parent Protestors ‘Looney Carnival Barkers’

Peter D'Abrosca
Eric Swalwell

A California congressman is facing backlash for a series of tweets slamming unvaccinated Americans and parents who choose not to vaccinate their children.

“I’m losing my Covid patience [thread]. I’ve tried to reason with the unvaxxed. I’ve directed some to medical pros. I don’t judge but hear them out and steer them to facts. The unvaxxed love to say it’s about choice. But you know who doesn’t have a choice? My 3 kids under 5,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA-15)  said on Twitter. 

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Sen. Grassley Asks Congress to ‘Expose the Extensive Ties’ Between China, Biden Family

Virginia Star Staff

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Congressional Democrats to investigate the ties between the Chinese Communist regime and the Biden family during an impassioned speech Monday.

The senior-most Senate Republican, together with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), released more evidence earlier this month showing Hunter Biden’s ties to Chinese businessmen affiliated with the Communist government.

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Republicans Warn of ‘Censorship’ from ‘Radical’ New Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal

Virginia Star Staff
Parag Agrawal

Republican lawmakers are raising concerns that Twitter’s new Chief Executive Parag Agrawal may threaten conservative political speech on the social media platform.

Agrawal, Twitter’s former chief technology officer who was announced as CEO following Jack Dorsey’s decision to step down early Monday, has previously highlighted the perceived threat of online “misinformation,” calling to depart from free speech considerations in favor of other concerns in an interview with MIT Technology Review in November 2020.

“Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation and our moves are reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation,” Agrawal said. “The kinds of things that we do about this is, focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.”

Agrawal previously oversaw development efforts on Bluesky, a decentralized social media platform intended to “better control abusive and misleading information.”

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Warning to Woke CEOs: Public Doesn’t Want Companies Speaking Out on Social Issues, Study Finds

Virginia Star Staff

Most voters say companies should not speak out on social issues, while most corporate executives think they should, a new opinion survey has found.

While 63% of corporate executives “agree unequivocally that companies should speak out on social issues,” only 36% of voters feel the same, according to a poll conducted by the Brunswick Group.

“As the data show, the organizational impulse to weigh in on any and every social issue is disregarded by audiences, disconnected from what people want, and even diminishing to corporate reputation,” the advisory firm explains.

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Federal Reserve Study Contradicts Biden on Climate Risks to Banks

Virginia Star Staff
Joe Biden

The Federal Reserve concluded that weather disasters are “not very” bad for financial institutions despite the Biden administration’s warnings that climate change is an “emerging” threat to banks.

“We find that weather disasters over the last quarter century had insignificant or small effects on U.S. banks’ performance,” the report, published in November by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, stated. “This stability seems endogenous rather than a mere reflection of federal aid.”

The report added that extreme climate events “actually boosts profits” for larger banks because of increased loan demand. In addition, smaller banks are adept at avoiding mortgage lending in flood prone areas using local knowledge of the region they are based.

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Democrat Anti-‘Disinformation’ Group Still Funding Organizations Behind Steele Dossier

Virginia Star Staff
Dan Jones

A Democrat-backed nonprofit intended to combat alleged “disinformation” paid large sums of money to organizations responsible for the Steele dossier, which advanced false claims regarding former President Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia.

The Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP) is nonprofit run by Daniel J. Jones, a former staffer of Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, that has received funding from prominent Democrat and left-wing donors, including George Soros.

The organization’s mission is to “educate the public on matters such as foreign election interference, global extremism, corruption, and coordinated disinformation,” according to filings with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

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Philadelphia Republican Election Official Al Schmidt to Resign

Cooper Moran

Republican Al Schmidt, who is the only GOP member with a seat on Philadelphia’s election board, announced on Tuesday that he will resign from his position.

Schmidt, who has received harsh criticism from former President Donald Trump, is accepting a position as president and CEO of The Committee of Seventy.

The commissioner will step down in the middle of his third term.

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Labor Board Orders New Union Election at Amazon Warehouse

Virginia Star Staff
Amazon warehouse in Maryland

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered a new unionization election at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, ruling that the company violated federal labor law during the first election.

“Today’s decision confirms what we were saying all along – that Amazon’s intimidation and interference prevented workers from having a fair say in whether they wanted a union in their workplace – and as the Regional Director has indicated, that is both unacceptable and illegal,” Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) President Stuart Appelbaum said in a statement Monday.

“Amazon workers deserve to have a voice at work, which can only come from a union,” he continued.

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Commentary: Harvard’s ‘Lawfare’ Programs Are an Omen of Elections Decided Not at Polls — But in Court

Virginia Star Staff

Before the Donald Trump-inspired challenges of the 2020 presidential election, Democrats and liberals alleged fraud and formally contested the results of the 2000, 2004, and 2016 Republican-won presidential elections. Those earlier challenges spurred the creation of a network of election litigators on the left — what J. Christian Adams, a conservative ex-Justice Department attorney pitted against them, calls a “linear build-out” of “some 30 groups” responsible for a lot of sudden changes in election law last year amid the pandemic.

For the closely fought 2020 presidential election, 29 largely Democrat-controlled states and the District of Columbia loosened voting laws, most expanding access to mail voting, according to the liberal Brennan Center for Justice. In response, after former President Trump’s efforts to contest his narrow loss, 19 largely conservative states tightened their voting laws, the Brennan Center reports. The latest changes have provoked a wave of litigation, overwhelmingly from the left.

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Biden Administration Refuses to Release Full Number of Illegal Alien Population

Virginia Star Staff

In an unprecedented move, the Biden White House still has not yet released an official total of the number of illegal aliens who are currently occupying the United States, the Washington Free Beacon reports.

Although the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has given those numbers to Congress in a report, that report has not yet been made public. Common practice dating back to the Obama Administration has been to release the report publicly shortly after the Congressional briefing, with a focus on the number of possible visa overstays. Congress has warned that “the large number of annual in-country alien overstays threatens national security and the integrity of legal immigration.”

The report in question is formally called the “Entry/Exit Overstay Report,” and documents foreigners who were originally approved to stay in the United States with a visa, but whose visas have since expired. The report is compiled using travel data across multiple agencies, including DHS and the State Department.

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Twitter Says New ‘Safety’ Rule Won’t Stop Users from Sharing Videos or Photos at Public Events

Peter D'Abrosca

Twitter implemented a new safety initiative Tuesday that has caused confusion among many of its users. 

“In addition, you may not share private media, such as images or videos of private individuals, without their consent,” the company said in a blog post. “However, we recognise [sic] that there are instances where users may share images or videos of private individuals, who are not public figures, as part of a newsworthy event or to further public discourse on issues or events of public interest. In such cases, we may allow the media to remain on the platform.”

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Federally Funded Critical Race Theory Program Removes ‘Critical Race Theory’ from Description

Virginia Star Staff

Five years ago, the U.S. Department of Education approved a grant application for a summer research program whose “core feature” was introducing student fellows to “critical race theory.”

The feds approved a five-year extension of the original grant for the Research Institute for Scholars of Equity (RISE) this year, with one notable and unexplained omission: the term “critical race theory.”

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Empower Oversight Wins Appeal, Obtains Documents on Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General

Cooper Moran

Empower Oversight, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization with the goal of enhancing oversight of government, won an appeal for six Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, allowing the group to access documents previously undisclosed.

The organization sought documents related to multiple reports of misconduct in the Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General (FHFA-OIG).

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Commentary: The Twin Pillars of Biden’s Failure

Virginia Star Staff

Everything has gone so terribly wrong for the Biden Administration, and in the ways that were widely predicted, that it is hard to believe Joe Biden could be perceived as a successful or at least potentially successful president if only he had avoided being such a tool of the Democratic extreme Left. On the afternoon of his inauguration, he killed the Keystone XL Pipeline and curtailed fracking and offshore oil and gas exploration, and ordered the end of construction of the southern border wall. The consequences have been over 200,000 illegal migrants entering the United States across the southern border most months and the rise in the price of gasoline from approximately $2 a gallon to $5 a gallon across the country.         

As practically everyone outside his immediate entourage saw and predicted, these were disastrous errors. The excuse regularly given in the case of the wall was that Biden had inherited a “broken” immigration policy. In support of this outrageous falsehood, all that could be offered was the tear-jerking fabrication about children being separated from their parents and confined to cages that reminded that eminent authority on modern European history, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of “Auschwitz.” 

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‘Academic Fiasco’: Duke Student Leaders Vetoed Pro-Israel Student Organization

Virginia Star Staff
Christina Wang

The Duke Student Government (DSG) recently “chartered” a chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI), only to uphold its president’s veto of the organization days later.

The Chronicle reported that the Nov. 10 approval followed SSI’s stated intention to be “clear and confident pro-Israel voice on college campuses and to support students in grassroots pro-Israel advocacy.” 

Five days later, however, the outlet reported that the DSG president, Christina Wang, vetoed the body’s approval of SSI over a now deleted social media interaction reportedly between the group and an individual that did not conform to expected conduct for a student organization.

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Commentary: Congressman Grothman’s Rate Caps Will Harm the Neediest Americans

Virginia Star Staff

The need for loans has arguably never been greater in America following the COVID-19 pandemic. A 2020 study conducted by Bankrate.com shows that just 39% of Americans can cover a $1,000 emergency cost without taking out a loan. In a time of economic uncertainty, lenders offer a last resort option for many who are struggling to make ends meet and support themselves and their families. 

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Conservative Organizations Launching Efforts to Influence Virginia Republican Policy in 2022 General Assembly

Eric Burk

The Virginia Family Foundation announced its Vision for Virginia slate of policy priorities on Monday. That’s part of the organization’s push to influence legislators ahead of Virginia’s 2022 General Assembly session. The list highlights traditional conservative policies including traditional families, small government, and free markets.

“For the past several years Virginia’s government has walked away from time-honored principles, like religious freedom, individual liberty, and limited government, which can all be traced back to Virginia’s historic past,” President Victoria Cobb said in an email announcing the platform. “In Virginia, not only did we need new political leadership, we desperately needed a renewed vision for the people of Virginia to rally around.”

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