Day: February 12, 2022

With Lengthy Friday Session, House Republicans Retaliate After Senate Blocks Youngkin’s Sec. Natural Resources Confirmation

Eric Burk

House Republicans took over six hours on Friday to pass several bills confirming low-level appointments made by former Governor Ralph Northam, a reaction to the Senate’s vote earlier this week to block Governor Glenn Youngkin’s appointment of former Trump EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler as Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources.

Republican leaders in the House and the Senate have been hinting at potential trouble over potential blocked nominees for weeks, but on Thursday, Senator Emmett Hanger (R-Augusta) told The AP that Youngkin seemed ready to move on from Wheeler’s confirmation.

Read More

Commentary: High Pressure Tactics in FBI Coverup Surrounding Whitmer Case

Virginia Star Staff
Gretchen Whitmer

For months, the lawyer representing Kaleb Franks—one of six men charged with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020—has produced some of the most detailed and damning reports to make a case for FBI entrapment. Defense attorneys last year discovered that at least a dozen FBI agents and informants were intimately involved in the abduction plot, brought to a dramatic conclusion in October 2020 when the men were arrested after an FBI informant drove them to meet an undercover FBI agent to buy materials for explosives.

With the trial date just weeks away, the Justice Department’s case is imploding amid numerous scandals.

The timing could not be worse for the government, especially the FBI, which is now under scrutiny for its suspected role in fomenting the Capitol breach on January 6, 2021. After all, the two events share many similarities, including plans to “storm” Michigan’s state Capitol building, the use of militia groups reportedly loyal to Donald Trump, and official designations that both represent “domestic terror” attacks.

Read More

Department of Homeland Security Says Trucker Protests Could Start in U.S. During the Super Bowl

Virginia Star Staff

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned U.S. law enforcement and public safety officials that a trucker convoy protest similar to the one taking place in Ottawa, Canada, could begin on American soil on Feb. 13, the day of the Super Bowl, Yahoo News reported.

The warning, which was distributed nationwide on Tuesday, told authorities the DHS “has received reports of a convoy of truckers planning to potentially block roads in major metropolitan cities in the United States in protest of, among other things, vaccine mandates for truck drivers,” according to senior law enforcement officials and documents obtained by Yahoo News.

Read More

Commentary: The Longevity of the COVID Emergency

RealClearWire

Two years after COVID burst on the American scene, leading to lockdowns, school closures, mask and vaccine mandates, and trillions of dollars in emergency government spending, the question on many minds is: When will the emergency end?

The answer to that question is not an easy one. An examination of past emergencies does not resolve it. Rather, it is clear that emergency situations, including this one, may be understood through various lenses, yielding different perspectives on what the endpoint will be.

Take, by way of comparison, World War II, an emergency that had at least four distinct endings because it had at least four distinct faces:

Read More

Federal Judge Blasts DOJ for False Account of Kamala Harris’ Whereabouts on January 6

Virginia Star Staff

A D.C. District Court judge overseeing numerous Capitol protest cases today accused the Justice Department of repeatedly falsifying the location of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris during the afternoon of January 6, 2021.

Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, openly doubted the validity of trespassing charges against Nicholas Rodean, indicted last March on several counts for his participation in the protest on Capitol Hill.

Read More

Connecticut Parents Enraged by Eighth-Grade Assignment Using Pizza Toppings as Metaphor for Sexual Likes and Dislikes

Susan Berry, PhD

A health class assignment to eighth-grade students in Enfield, Connecticut asked them to list their sexual likes and dislikes, using pizza toppings as a metaphor.

Parents of eighth grade students in a sex ed class at the John F. Kennedy Middle School in the Enfield Public Schools (EPS) district reported their children received an assignment that asked them to list their sexual likes and dislikes – and likened that to ordering toppings on a pizza.

Read More

Senators Introduce Bill to Prevent ‘Crack Pipe’ Funding

The Center Square

U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and John Kennedy, R-La., introduced new legislation Thursday that would block American Rescue Plan taxpayer dollars from being used to purchase and distribute crack pipes.

The Cutting Rampant Access to Crack Kits (CRACK) Act of 2022 comes after the Washington Free Beacon reported federal taxpayer dollars had gone to a program that provides syringes and pipes to drug users as a form of “harm reduction.”

Read More

Connecticut Governor’s Lifting of School Mask Mandate Depends on Legislature Voting to Extend His Emergency Powers

Susan Berry, PhD

Connecticut children cannot be certain they can finally be free of wearing masks in school since, although Gov. Ned Lamont (D) said he would end the state school mask mandate by February 28, that plan may depend on the legislature voting to extend his pandemic emergency powers, and then on individual school districts.

In his State of the State address Wednesday, Lamont told residents he will roll back some coronavirus restrictions, including the school mask mandate, adding, “You have earned this freedom.”

Read More

Biden Rejects U.S. Army Report Detailing Failures of Afghanistan Withdrawal

Virginia Star Staff

In an interview on Thursday, Joe Biden outright rejected an official investigative report by the United States Army that highlighted many of the failures that led to the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

As reported by the Daily Caller, the 2,000-page report was released by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request this week. The report included the sworn testimony of multiple commanders who were on the ground in Afghanistan and witnessed the failed withdrawal firsthand.

Read More

Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi Sue Biden over Minimum Wage Hike for Federal Contractors

The Center Square

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration again Thursday, this time for requiring federal contractors to pay a $15 an hour minimum wage. It’s the 21st lawsuit the attorney general has filed against the administration. Joining him are the attorneys general from Louisiana and Mississippi.

“The president has no authority to overrule Congress, which has sole authority to set the minimum wage and which already rejected a minimum wage increase,” Paxton argues.

Their lawsuit follows one filed last December by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of outdoor adventure guides, Arkansas Valley Adventures (AVA), ​​a licensed river outfitter regulated by the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife, and the Colorado River Outfitters Association (CROA). The CROA, a nonprofit trade association, represents more than 150 independent operators who primarily conduct business on federal lands using special use permits through Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management.

Read More

House Education Committee Promptly Advances School Mask-Optional Legislation

Eric Burk

RICHMOND, Virginia – The House Education Committee voted to advance school mask-optional language in a special meeting Friday; Senator Siobhan Dunnavant’s (R-Henrico) SB 739 was the only bill on the agenda.

As introduced in the Senate, Dunnavant’s original bill focused on in-person learning, but earlier this week Senator Chap Peterson (D-Fairfax City) moved to amend the bill to include the masking clause; that vote got broad support from both sides of the aisle. A later vote to pass the amended bill only had two Democrats supporting it, but that was enough to pass out of the Democrat-controlled Senate. On Wednesday, Delegate Amanda Batten (R-York) said that the sudden change surprised Republicans.

Read More