Month: December 2021

Newt Gingrich Commentary: Abolish the Georgia State Income Tax

Virginia Star Staff
Newt Gingrich

The time has come to abolish the Georgia state income tax.

Sen. David Perdue was exactly right in proposing to eliminate the state income tax. He was also right in suggesting that he could work with the Georgia state legislature and find ways to return money to the people of Georgia rather than focusing it on the state bureaucracies.

The money is clearly there. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported, “Despite pandemic, Georgia ends fiscal year with a record $3.2 billion jump in revenue.” The article went on to note, “The state saw revenue grow 13.5% over 2020. … Besides the boon in state tax collections, Georgia is also receiving about $4.7 billion or so from the latest federal COVID-19 relief plan.”

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Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles Talks Vaccine Incentives, Response, and County Owned Hosptials

Julie Carr
Andy Ogles

Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles in studio to discuss Mayor Cooper’s attempt at another vaccine incentive program, and the public health response in Maury County.

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Biden’s Head Start Vaccination Requirement Could Have Detrimental Effects on Montana’s Rural Students

Virginia Star Staff

President Joe Biden’s administration put a policy in place that requires all employees in a federal education program to get the COVID-19 vaccine, which program directors argue will have a detrimental effect on Montana’s programs that assist underserved communities in the state.

If enforced, the requirement will have a negative impact on Montana’s Head Start program, according to program directors and information provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation by the state’s Department of Justice (DOJ). The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), along with the White House, has mandated the vaccine for teachers and staff who work for Head Start and Early Head Start programs nationwide.

Head Start includes preschool programs for 3 and 4-year-old children, while Early Head Start programs are for infants, toddlers and pregnant women to “promote the school readiness of children ages birth to 5 from low-income families by supporting their development in a comprehensive way,” according to its website.

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Biden Says ‘Willing to Lose’ Presidency over Decisions Including Pandemic, Afghanistan, Middle Class

Virginia Star Staff

President Biden this past weekend suggested he would be willing to lose his presidency over his decisions on several key issues including his widely criticized withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In a CBS “Sunday Morning” interview in which he was asked whether he was discouraged by the criticism over his handling of the pandemic and other first-year challenges, Biden answered “No.”

“But look,” he continued. “One of the things we did decide, and I mean this, my word as a Biden, I know what I’m willing to lose over. If we walk away from the middle class, if we walk away from trying to unify people, if we start to engage in the same kind of politics that the last four years has done? I’m willing to lose over that.”

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Analysis: The ‘Green Energy’ Supply Chain Has a Slave Labor Problem

Virginia Star Staff

Jewhar Ilham last saw her father seven years ago.

“I don’t even know if he’s alive,” said Ilham, a Chinese-born Uyghur Muslim. “My cousin, she was a nurse, she was sentenced to 10 years for having a photo and an article of my father in her cell phone.”

Ilham’s father, Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, is an accomplished academic, having taught economics at Minzu University of China in Beijing and received several international awards including five Nobel Peace Prize nominations. But Chinese authorities arrested Tohti, who researched human rights violations committed by the Chinese Communist Party-controlled government, in 2014 and later sentenced him to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of “separatism.”

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China Cuts Checks to American Social Media Influencers to Hype Olympics, Downplay Boycotts

Virginia Star Staff

China’s government is paying social media influencers in the U.S. to promote the Beijing Olympics and distract from diplomatic boycotts over its human rights violations, according to disclosures filed with the Department of Justice.

The Chinese consulate is paying Vippi, a New Jersey based public relations firm, $300,000 to have influencers on Instagram, TikTok and Twitch promote the Beijing Olympics, according to the disclosures. The influencers will also be required to promote U.S.-China cooperation on issues including energy and climate change.

The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics have inspired diplomatic boycotts from the U.S., Australia and the U.K. due to China’s purported ethnic cleansing and torture of Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic minority in Western China.

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Commentary: U.S. Drug Agents Ramp Up Fentanyl Counterattack on Chinese Mainland — as DEA Faces Its Own Troubles at Home

RealClearWire

U.S. drug agents are expanding operations in China – six years after America’s largest trading partner and global rival emerged as the main source of chemicals used to make highly lethal fentanyl. It’s now claiming 65,000 American lives a year.

The small crew of about a dozen Drug Enforcement Administration agents, including those in new outposts in Shanghai and Guangzhou, is nearly double the number in 2018. They face what seems like mission impossible: collaborating with Chinese agents to try to bust traffickers hidden somewhere in a sprawling export supply chain that’s linked to 160,000 companies.

“It’s such a massive chemical industry, and then there are layer upon layer of traders, brokers and freight forwarders,” says Russ Holske, the DEA’s director for the Far East, who set up the new offices in China before he retired. “It’s a daunting challenge.”

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Commentary: The Corrupt and Mediocre Heroes of the Left Are Imploding

Virginia Star Staff

With fits and starts, we are slowly returning to reality after four years of mass hysteria. Our media-deified, progressive icons are finally being exposed as the deceivers they always were.

From the moment details emerged surrounding Jussie Smollett’s hate-crime hoax, any sane, non-woke person could have recognized he was more than just a pathological liar. Smollett was also a conniving, mean-spirited egoist. He was intent on rescuing his fading acting career by libeling the Chicago police, smearing white Trump supporters as violent racists, and self-servingly advancing the lie of a purported hate crime epidemic against blacks.

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Supermarket Giant Strips Unvaccinated Employees of Their Benefits

Virginia Star Staff

Supermarket chain Kroger announced Tuesday it will eliminate paid emergency leave for unvaccinated employees who contract COVID-19 in addition to requiring some of them to pay a monthly $50 health insurance surcharge starting in 2022, according to a company memo.

The country’s largest supermarket chain, which employees roughly 465,000 workers, issued an internal company memo announcing the changes, which will start on Jan. 1, a company spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Kroger is tightening their COVID-19 related policies as U.S. businesses face uncertainty over President Joe Biden’s recent federal vaccination mandate.

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Phill Kline Commentary: It’s Not Good When Public Officials Fear Transparency

Virginia Star Staff

Politics is getting in the way of government transparency, preventing the sort of accountability on which our governing institutions depend for maintaining public trust and legitimacy.

In Wisconsin and elsewhere around the country, public officials are steadfastly refusing to answer basic questions about their official conduct from the people’s elected representatives. These are not salacious questions about their personal conduct, or fishing expeditions designed to stir up political scandal. Legislators are merely seeking to better understand how appointed bureaucrats and elected officials administered the 2020 elections amidst a pandemic and an unprecedented, and in many cases unlawful, infusion of private monies into public election offices.

Pennsylvania’s Attorney General, for instance, has sued to block a legislative subpoena seeking voter information as part of an investigation of the state’s voter registration system, known as SURE. Even though there is ample precedent for disclosing this type of information, the AG’s lawsuit argues that it would violate citizens’ right to privacy, as though allowing lawmakers to access government records would automatically compromise the security of that information.

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Facing Labor Shortages, Several Large Hospital Systems Drop Vaccine Mandates

Virginia Star Staff

Several large U.S. hospital systems have dropped their COVID-19 vaccine requirements for employees in the wake of a U.S. district court’s temporary halt of the Biden regime’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

After months of protests, the mandate forced thousands of hospital employees to either resign, or be terminated because of their refusal to get vaccinated.

Louisiana-based federal Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction on November 30, blocking the federal government from mandating the experimental injections for workers at Medicare or Medicaid-funded healthcare facilities in 40 states.

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Lucas Hoge Performs Songs from His New Holiday Record, ‘12.25,’ at the Listening Room

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Lucas Hoge has released a new Christmas album, 12.25 that is not to be missed. He along with some help from friends, Jamie O’Neal and the Swon Brothers played a (mostly) Christmas show featuring new and traditional music at the renowned Listening Room.

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Virgina Gov. Northam Proposes Partial Grocery Tax Cut, Other Youngkin-Inspired Tax Policies

Eric Burk

Continuing his “Thank You, Virginia” tour, Governor Ralph Northam announced that his upcoming budget proposal will include tax cuts and refunds, including some similar to those Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin has called on Northam to include in his budget.

“When Virginia cuts taxes next year, it should be done in a way that benefits working people,” Northam said in a Tuesday press release. “Many professionals made it through the pandemic fine, as their work simply moved online. But workers haven’t been so lucky when their jobs require close contact with other people. Some jobs simply can’t move online—restaurant workers, early childhood educators, home care attendants, and others—and we all depend on the people who do this work. Virginia can help working people by eliminating the state grocery tax, providing one-time rebates, and giving a tax break to people who are working.”

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Northam Announces New Grants That Will Push Virginia to 90 Percent of Universal Broadband Access

Eric Burk

Governor Ralph Northam, Senators Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-Virginia-07) stopped in central Virginia Monday to announce the allocation of $722 million in grants to localities for Virginia’s universal broadband push. Northam’s announcement states that money, alongside over $1 billion in matching funds from partners, will push Virginia to 90 percent of its goal of universal broadband.

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Commentary: One Chart Explains Biden’s Inflation Disaster

Virginia Star Staff

We’ve told you before about Stephen Moore’s Committee to Unleash Prosperity and his must-read Hotline but the Friday, December 10 edition was a Pulitzer Prize winner, or would be if conservatives ever got Pulitzer Prizes. You can read the entire newsletter through this link and we highly recommend you do so, because in one edition it pretty well destroys the entire Biden Democrat agenda.

The lead article shows the effects of Biden’s inflation disaster in one chart. And Steve Moore explains “inflation isn’t going away. No, it isn’t transitory. And, sorry, no, CNN, it isn’t good for you!”

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Progressive Lawmakers Offer Unwitting Path for January 6 Prisoners to Sue Federal Government

Virginia Star Staff

Some of the most progressive Democrats in Congress are supporting new legislation that could help an unexpected group: those who were arrested and imprisoned without trial for playing a role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Democratic Reps. Hank Johnson (Ga.) and Jamie Raskin (Md.) on Wednesday reintroduced the Bivens Act, which would allow citizens to recover damages for constitutional violations committed against them by federal law enforcement officials.

The bill, which the lawmakers first introduced last year, seeks “to provide a civil remedy for an individual whose rights have been violated by a person acting under federal authority.” It would do this by adding five words — “of the United States or” — to a longstanding provision enacted in 1871, known as Section 1983, which gives individuals the right to sue state or local officials who violate their civil and constitutional rights. The additional words would include federal officials in the statute.

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Pro-Life Ad Mocks Pro-Choice Men — ‘Her Body, Her Problem’

Virginia Star Staff

A new ad produced by the pro-life group Live Action mocks men who support abortion rights, pointing out that males benefit from abortion by avoiding responsibility and commitment.

Four men in the video explain why they are pro-choice, with reasons including disgust for women’s bodies, fear of women’s sexuality and the ability of males to avoid financial responsibility for any children they bear.

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Environmentalists Are Blocking the U.S. from Controlling Its Renewable Energy Future, Experts Say

Virginia Star Staff

Regulations pushed by environmentalists for decades have hamstrung the American mining industry, making the U.S. renewable energy needs increasingly dependent on foreign adversaries, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Extensive permitting processes under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) make it extremely difficult to open mining projects in less than a decade, according to experts. The nation’s weakness in producing minerals required for technologies such as solar panels, electric vehicles and wind turbines has set it far behind the likes of China and Russia which have secured burgeoning green energy supply chains.

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Clinton Says Critical Race Theory Was a ‘Stalking Horse’ for Anger About Remote Schooling

Virginia Star Staff
Hillary Clinton

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said critical race theory was a “stalking horse” used by Republicans in the Virginia gubernatorial race to capitalize on anger parents harbored toward remote schooling during the pandemic.

“One of the things that I think happened in Virginia, after having schools closed for so long, people were really focused on schools and education,” Clinton said in an interview on “Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist.

“I don’t think that the Democrats and Terry [McAuliffe] understood how disoriented parents, particularly moms, were about the experience that they had gone through,” she said.

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Harry Potter Author Slams Police for Allowing Biological Men Identify as Women in Rape Reports

Virginia Star Staff
J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, criticized Scotland’s government for logging male rapists as “female” simply because they claim to be women.

“War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman,” Rowling posted Sunday on Twitter, alluding to George Orwell’s dystopian classic, “1984.”

Police in Scotland will record rapes as being committed by a woman in instances where the perpetrator has male genitalia and has not taken any steps to legally become a woman, as long as the rapist insists they are female, The Times reported.

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U.S. Gymnasts Reach $380 Million Settlement in Larry Nassar Sexual Abuse Case

Virginia Star Staff

The organizations at the head of U.S. gymnastics have agreed to a $380 million payout for the victims of longtime team doctor Larry Nassar – a convicted child molester who sexually abused several members of the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics team, as well as hundreds of other aspiring gymnasts. He is currently serving 40-175 years in prison for his crimes.

The Wall Street Journal reports that it is one of the largest-ever payouts for victims of a sexual abuse scandal.

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Pelosi Plans to Run Again, Stay on as Democratic Leader, Despite Earlier Promise, Report

Virginia Star Staff

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly will continue on in her capacity as the chamber’s top Democrat after she turns 82 this year.

Pelosi will file and run for reelection in her northern California district next year (her 18th term) and is considering whether to stay in leadership, despite an initial promise to give up her role as top House Democrat, CNN reported over the weekend.

Pelosi will primarily spend the next year raising money for Democrats as they attempt to hold onto their narrow majority in the lower chamber.

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37 Percent of Democrats in College Say They Refuse to be Friends with a Republican Voter

Virginia Star Staff
A man with a track backpack walks across the BYU campus in autumn.

New polling from Axios and Generation Lab shows that Democrat college students are far more likely than their Republican classmates to refuse to date, work for, or even be friends with someone who voted for the other party’s presidential candidate.

71 percent of Democrats in college said they would not go on a date with someone who voted for the GOP presidential candidate. 41 percent would not shop at a business owned by the same. 37 percent would not be friends with someone who voted for that candidate, and 30 percent would not work for that person.

Republicans in college were far more tolerant of those with differing views. Though 31 percent said they would not go on a date with someone who voted for the opposing presidential candidate, only 7 percent said they would not work for or support a business owned by the same. 5 percent of Republicans in college said they would not be friends with someone who voted for the Democratic presidential ticket.

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University Spent $80,000 on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Training for STEM Faculty

Virginia Star Staff

A recent FOIA request filed by Campus Reform revealed that the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) spent $80,000 on a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training created by the Kardia Group, LLC. The agreement was signed in 2018 and included two series of meetings and workshops for the Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 semesters.

The Kardia Group was founded in 2004 and describes themselves as a “leading strategic partner in the transformation of the culture, functionality, and success of the academic endeavor.” Its website lists resources and services ranging from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to “transformational change for groups.”

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California to Ban Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers, Lawn Mowers

Virginia Star Staff
Leaf blower moving leaves downstairs

A California environmental regulator approved a measure banning new purchases of small off-road engines including leaf blowers and lawn mowers beginning in 2024.

The measure will also affect portable generators and recreational vehicle engines which will need to meet “more stringent standards” in 2024 and zero-emission standards in 2028, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) announcedThursday. The vote was part of the state’s aggressive climate program and goal to achieve a “zero-emission future” as outlined by an executive order Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in September 2020.

“Today’s action by the Board addresses these small but highly polluting engines. It is a significant step towards improving air quality in the state, and will definitely help us meet stringent federal air quality standards,” CARB Chair Liane Randolph said in a statement. “It will also essentially eliminate exposure to harmful fumes for equipment operators and anyone nearby.”

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Stanford Administrators Unsure Whether Old Ropes Are Nooses, but Send Campus-Wide Email Anyway

Virginia Star Staff

Stanford University administrators sent a campus-wide email regarding two ropes with loops discovered in a tree along a walking trail — even though there was no indication that the ropes were hung due to racist intent.

As reported by The Stanford Daily, the Stanford University Department of Public Safety believes that the ropes had been present for up to two years. However, Vice Provost for Institutional Equity, Access and Community Patrick Dunkley and Senior Associate Vice Provost and Dean of Students Mona Hicks informed students that “a noose is a potent symbol of anti-Black racism and violence that is completely unacceptable under any circumstances.”

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Dr. Christopher Weiss, Professor of Atmospheric Science at Texas Tech, Talks Tornados in Out of Season December

Julie Carr
Dr. Christopher Weiss of Texas Tech

Monday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas Tech, Christopher Weiss to the newsmakers line to talk about last Friday’s out of season tornados that ravaged Kentucky and parts of Middle Tennessee.

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Commentary: The Republican Party’s Multiethnic, Working-Class Coalition Is Taking Shape

Virginia Star Staff

In the 2016 Republican Party presidential primary, decades of dissonance between the party’s aggrieved grassroots and its blinkered elite spilled out into the open. For years, the chasm widened between the GOP’s heartland base, the river valley-dwelling “Somewheres” from David Goodhart’s 2017 book, The Road to Somewhere, and the party’s bicoastal “Anywhere” rulers. The foot-soldier Republican “Somewheres,” disproportionately church-attending and victimized by job outsourcing and the opioid crisis, felt betrayed by the more secular, ideologically inflexible Republican “Anywheres.”

Donald Trump, lifelong conservative “outsider” and populist dissenter from bicoastal “Anywhere” orthodoxy on issues pertaining to trade, immigration, and China, coasted to the GOP’s presidential nomination. He did so notwithstanding the all-hands-on-deck pushback from leading right-leaning “Anywhere” bastions, encapsulated by National Review magazine’s dedication of an entire issue to, “Against Trump.” Trump’s subsequent victory in the 2016 general election sent the conservative intellectual movement, as well as the Republican Party itself, into a deep state of introspection.

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Congressman Mark Green on Biden Army Navy No-Show, Tennessee Tornados, and Democrat Thirst for Authoritarianism

Julie Carr
Mark Green

Monday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee’s 7th District to the newsmakers line to weigh in on Biden’s absence from the Army-Navy football game, Build Back Better bill, and the Democrat desire for an authoritarian government.

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Commentary: Union-Mandated School Shutdowns Are Having Major Consequences

Virginia Star Staff

Recently, a report compiled by Mike Antonucci for the Defense of Freedom Institute confirmed that the teachers unions had a heavy-handed role in the COVID-related shutdowns that consumed much of the country starting in March 2020. And the “never let a good crisis go to waste” unions were in prime form in the process. The California Teachers Association, for example, issued a “bargaining advisory” in May of 2020, in which it states, “When exercising a ‘get for the give’ approach to bargaining concessions, locals should consider strengthening or implementing consultation procedures language in the CBA (collective bargaining agreement).” The union added, “Now is the time to secure (contract) language improvements that we have wanted for some time.”

While the California Teachers Association was busy instructing its local teachers unions how to milk the shutdown, Antonucci notes that it was successful on a statewide basis by “winning a ban on teacher layoffs, a substantial reduction in required instructional minutes, and the elimination of public accountability data collections for 2020, including those for academics, absenteeism, graduation and suspension rates, and college readiness.”

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Virginia General Assembly Hit by Ransomware Attack

Eric Burk

The Virginia General Assembly has been hit by a ransomware attack affecting key legislative systems as legislators and staffers prepare for the 2022 session that begins on January 12. Multiple state agency websites were offline Monday afternoon.

The Legislative Information System (LIS), which hosts legislation and the Code of Virginia, warned in an error message, “We’re experiencing a service outage with some of our servers. The Budget Portal, Law Portal, Reports to the General Assembly, and some other data may not be accessible. Our team is currently working to restore the service. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

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VP Harris to Announce $540 Million Private Investment to Slow Immigration from Central America

Virginia Star Staff
Kamala Harris talking to Administration about immigration policy

Vice President Kamala Harris is set on Monday to announce $540 million in private corporate investments in Central America’s Northern Triangle – a facet of the Biden administration’s plan to slow migration from the region by making it more livable.

The new funding is in addition to the $750 million in private sector dollars the vice president announced in May.

President Biden in the early months of his presidency tasked Harris with helping stem the flow of illegal migration across the U.S. southern border by addressing what the administration refers to as root causes including poverty, corruption, crime and natural disasters, prominent in the Northern Triangle, from which many of the migrants are now coming.

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Landmark Democratic Initiative Virginia Clean Economy Act Under Fire From Republicans

Eric Burk

The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) is one of the signature pieces of legislation Democrats passed during their control of Virginia’s General Assembly and the governor’s mansion. It set deadlines for utilities to be 100-percent carbon, set energy efficiency standards for utilities, declared that solar and wind are “in the public interest,” created a Virginia Community Flood Preparedness Fund, and brought Virginia into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI,) a program where utilities have to bid for carbon dioxide emissions allowances.

The day after the act passed out of the House in February 2020, House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) called Democrats’ actions including the VCEA historic, but warned that those bills would have far-reaching impacts, including higher energy prices for citizens and businesses.

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Commentary: Civilizational Self-Destruction, Not Omicron, Is Killing Us

Virginia Star Staff
Person on bus with mask and headphones on

Last week in this space, I included a few words about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s remarkable new book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health. I also included a link to Kennedy’s appearance on “Tucker Carlson Today.” 

It was a remarkable exchange and I commend both the book and the interview to your attention. I disagree with Kennedy about various things, including the efficacy of vaccines in general, but his assessment of the highest-paid employee of the federal government, Anthony Fauci, is worth the price of admission. 

As I remarked a couple of weeks ago, I thought I had done writing about COVID. Surely, I thought, the hysteria is on the wane. Most people are rational. They know that the flimsy porous masks you see everywhere are useless tokens of conformity. They understand that the disease is serious for only a tiny part of the population. They also know staying home and practicing “social distancing” has its own liabilities, not least of which is a diminution in the potency of one’s immune response.

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Federal Watchdog: Border Protection Anti-Terror Unit Investigated American Journalists

Virginia Star Staff

A Customs and Border Protection division used government databases intended to track terrorists to investigate as many as 20 U.S.-based journalists, according to a federal watchdog.

Yahoo News published a report on the investigation in which the news outlet also found the Counter Network Division also made quires on congressional staffers and perhaps members of Congress.

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Commentary: Escape to a Good State, but Don’t Ruin It

Virginia Star Staff

My elementary and high school teachers never did a good job of explaining American federalism. They left me and, I suspect, many of my fellow students confused. Perhaps they were a little confused themselves: If the federal government’s laws are supreme and can overrule state’s laws, why not just have all laws uniformly adopted at the federal level?

The federal government was not, of course, intended to be what it has become: the daily manager of every citizen’s life. The founders envisioned a federal government that remained in the background, available when it was necessary to get all the states fighting together to win a war, present to help explain a unified foreign policy, and above all to guarantee that goods and people could flow freely from one state to another with no impediment. (That last point is the reason for the interstate commerce clause.) Any national government more aggressive than that would never have been adopted by the liberty-minded states that had just won the Revolutionary War, and even that proved a hard sell: Two years and the addition of a Bill of Rights were required before a sufficient number of states were willing to ratify.

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CBO: Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ Plan Could Add $3 Trillion to the Debt When Accounting Tricks Removed

The Center Square

President Joe Biden has repeatedly touted that his “Build Back Better” spending bill would not add to the national debt, but the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis released Friday countered that claim.

Republicans requested the CBO examination before voting on the bill, asking what the cost would be if spending provisions in the bill are continued for 10 years, instead of expiring sooner.

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New Study Suggests Natural Immunity Is More Protective over Time Than COVID-19 Vaccine

Virginia Star Staff

According to a new study out of Israel, the immunity individuals experience after recovering from COVID-19 is better than the protection experienced by individuals following an immunization against the virus.

Scientists who looked at the country’s health database over a number of months found that COVID infections and severe illness were higher among individuals who were vaccinated than those who recovered from the illness – those with natural immunity.

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Report: More Than Half of Federal School COVID Relief Funds Used for Non-Pandemic Purposes

Virginia Star Staff

This week’s Golden Horseshoe Award goes to the U.S. Department of Education for approving pandemic relief spending plans by school districts that include millions for upgrading athletic facilities, installing security cameras, purchasing floor shiners and other non-pandemic related projects.

Approximately $190 billion in pandemic funding under both the Trump and Biden administrations was allocated to schools to safely reopen and protect teachers and students.

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Amazon Removes Matt Walsh’s Children’s Book ‘Johnny The Walrus’ from LGBT Book List

Virginia Star Staff
Matt Walsh

Amazon removed Daily Wire host Matt Walsh’s children’s book, “Johnny the Walrus,” from its LGBTQ+ bestseller list on Friday.

Walsh’s book reached the top spot on Amazon’s LGBTQ+ bestseller list last weekend, according to the Daily Wire. However, as of Friday, the book can no longer be seen on the list at all, apparently having been removed.

“Amazon has removed my bestselling LGBT children’s book from their LGBT book list. This is an unconscionable attack on gay rights and a horrific example of homophobia and gay erasure,” Walsh posted on Twitter on Friday morning.

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Federal Appeals Court Considers Dissolving Preliminary Injunction on Biden Vaccine Mandate

The Center Square

A federal appeals court in Ohio will consider a Biden administration court filing aimed at dissolving a nationwide injunction that derailed the administration’s COVID-19 private employer vaccination mandate.

Friday’s filing was a response to a Louisiana businessman’s motion to shoot down the government’s attempt to vacate a Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in November, when the New Orleans court halted the vaccination mandate over “grave statutory and constitutional issues.”

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Democrat-Linked PR Firm Lobbies Against Bill Blacklisting Chinese Drone Manufacturer

Virginia Star Staff

A public relations firm run by former Democratic operatives and tied to foreign influence campaigns is working on behalf of a Chinese drone manufacturer blacklisted for alleged human rights abuses to lobby a provision contained in Congress’ bipartisan legislative package targeting China.

DJI, a drone maker based out of Shenzhen, China, has paid CLS Strategies $190,000 in 2021 to lobby on drone legislation including the American Security Drone Act, according to lobbying disclosure forms. The act was reintroduced by Republican Sen. Rick Scott in January and prevents the federal government from procuring drones manufactured or assembled in China, with certain exceptions.

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Poll: Approval for Biden’s Handling of Economy, Coronavirus Sinks Further

Virginia Star Staff

Approval of President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy and coronavirus sank even further in recent days, according to a new CNBC All-America Economic survey.

Roughly 46% of respondents approved of Biden’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic while 48% disapproved, marking the first time his pandemic approval rating is underwater, according to CNBC.  Biden’s economic approval also plummeted, with 37% approving and 56% disapproving.

“The Covid (approval) number is actually I think the more important one,” said Micah Roberts, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies, the Republican pollster for the survey. “As goes COVID, so goes the Biden presidency, and that’s really proving to be quite true.”

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Columbia Student Workers Strike for $140 Million in School Funds

Virginia Star Staff

Amid ongoing calls for increased student-employee compensation, student protests at Columbia University Wednesday resulted in “physical harassment against faculty” and staff, according to an email obtained by Campus Reform.

Provost Mary C. Boyce sent the following message Thursday: 

“Yesterday’s Morningside campus protest by the Student Workers of Columbia-UAW included instances of physical harassment against faculty, students, and staff. These individuals were attempting to go to work, pursue their studies, or enter or exit their dormitories, and several incurred injuries when they sought to enter campus. No matter our differences at the bargaining table, violence has no place in this process, and we denounce these actions in the strongest possible terms.”

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Emails Reveal University President ‘Struggled with Supporting Free Speech’ for Christian Activist’s Appearances on Campus

Virginia Star Staff

A Christian activist’s appearances at Salem State University prompted the institution to change its free speech policies while being legally compelled to uphold the individual’s First Amendment rights. 

Campus Reform has previously covered the activist, Chike Uzuegbunam during his legal fights to exercise free speech as he publicly promotes his religious views, which have come under scrutiny for their purported anti-LGBTQ messages. 

In October 2020, Uzuegbunam won his Supreme Court case against his institution after Georgia Gwinnett that his speech, which included controversial flyers, “should not be constitutionally protected,” Campus Reform reported in March. 

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Report: Online Inflation Soars Heading into Busy Holiday Season

Virginia Star Staff
Person on laptop

Online prices soared to record highs in November, according to Adobe Analytics.

Prices online surged 3.5% on a year-over-year basis as of November, the biggest increase since 2014, when Adobe started tracking the cost of goods on the internet and the 18th consecutive year of online inflation, according to the Adobe Digital Price Index (DPI). Prices on a month-to-month basis dropped 2% due to holiday discounts, according to Adobe.

“Census Bureau data shows that the e-commerce share of non-fuel retail spending has tripled over the last decade as more expenditures like groceries and home improvement move online,” Marshall Reinsdorf, former senior economist at International Monetary Fund, said in the report.

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Commentary: Jussie Smollett — Another Liar and Perjurer Made by the Media for TV Crime Entertainment

Virginia Star Staff
Jussie Smollett

I guess I first knew Jussie Smollett was fated for disaster when he did the unthinkable: an American trying to perpetrate a fraud on Nigerians.

Add to that: He had the full-throated backing of Kamala Harris, our vice tweeter, and of our Tweeter-in-Chief. In Harris’s words: “@JussieSmollett is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know. I’m praying for his quick recovery. This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.” Uncle Joe (or whoever tweets for him) posted this: “What happened today to @JussieSmollett must never be tolerated in this country. We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie.”

The Insatiable American Fascination with Crime, Crooks, Detectives, and Courtroom “Trials of the Century”

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New York State Attorney General Letitia James Backs Out of Gubernatorial Race

The Center Square

New York State Attorney General Letitia James surprisingly announced Thursday she was suspending her campaign for the next year’s Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Instead, she said she will run for re-election.

“There are a number of important investigations and cases that are underway, and I intend to finish the job,” she said in a tweet posted at noon on her personal site.

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