Day: February 19, 2022

Senator Warner Heads to Munich Security Conference Where Potential Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is Top Concern

Eric Burk

Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) is participating in the Munich Security Conference amid a tense moment between Russia and Ukraine. On Thursday, Warner said on a call with reporters that the situation would be one of the main topics at the annual conference, which wasn’t held during the past two years due to COVID-19.

“The challenging thing is that we have seen no real de-escalation efforts by Putin and the Russian forces. There may have been some forces that have moved around a bit, but no indications of de-escalation,” said Warner, who is chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

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Commentary: Vanderbilt University Study Shows Why Biden’s Universal Government Preschool Program Would Be a Disaster

Virginia Star Staff

President Biden’s proposed $2 trillion-plus Build Back Better Act failed to gain US Senate approval in 2021, but efforts remain to move forward with a revised version that would include universal government preschool programs and taxpayer-funded child care subsidies.

As US Congresswoman Katherine Clark (D-MA) said recently about taxpayer-backed daycare: “It is the issue that has survived all the iterations, and it is going to be the issue that we are able to get over the line with in the Build Back Better agenda.”

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North Carolina State House Candidate Unloads on School Board over Critical Race Theory

Peter D'Abrosca

A candidate for North Carolina’s State House of Representatives blasted the Cabarrus County School Board (CCSB) for its support of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools. 

“As a parent, and I speak to other parents, and there’s a few things we don’t want,” Brian Echevarria said at a CCSB meeting Monday. “I’m biracial, I’m bilingual, I’m multicultural. The fact is, in America, in North Carolina, I can do anything I want, and I teach that to my children. And the person that tells my little pecan-colored kids that they’re somehow oppressed based on the color of their skin would be absolutely wrong and absolutely at war with me.”

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Genocide Games: China’s Human Rights Abuses Went from Unthinkable to Undeniable

Virginia Star Staff

Eight countries and hundreds of human rights organizations have condemned China for committing human rights violations against minorities.

Yet NBC’s coverage of the 2022 Winter Olympics has minimized the Uyghur genocide, despite 200 human rights organizations and eight governmental bodies, including Canada, the U.S., Holland, the U.K., Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and France, declaring that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has committed atrocities against ethnic Uyghurs and other minority groups.

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Morgan Stanley Criticized for Internship That Is Only Available to Gay or Non-White Applicants

Virginia Star Staff

On Tuesday, an equal rights group publicly called on investment bank Morgan Stanley to shut down an internship program that explicitly describes itself as only open to non-White applicants.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, a letter was sent to Morgan Stanley by the Project on Fair Representation, warning that the bank’s internship violated federal non-discrimination laws. The 2022 Freshman Enhancement Program is described on Morgan Stanley’s website as only available to “black, Hispanic, Native American, and/or LGBTQ+ freshman undergraduate student[s].” The internship has been promoted by several Ivy League schools, including Princeton University.

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Teachers Unions Ramped Up the Donations to Dems as They Pushed Their School Closing Policies

Virginia Star Staff
Randi Weingarten at AFGE

One of the largest teachers unions in the country donated $2 million to the left-wing Senate Majority Political Action Committee in 2021 after the Democratic Party voted against reopening public schools, according to data from the National Republican Senatorial Committee provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

On March 6, 2021, Senate Democrats unanimously voted against a Republican amendment to the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that would have ensured school reopening dollars were allocated to education institutions prioritizing in-person learning. Schools that were working to provide in-person learning for students five days a week would have been given full funding under the bill, while those that were completely closed would only get 25% of its allocated funding.

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‘Great Resignation’ Contributed to Inflation in 2021: Report

The Center Square

People switching jobs during the Great Resignation contributed to rising inflation in 2021, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

“The idea is as follows: By applying for jobs in a different firm, employed workers can elicit wage competition between the current employer and the new candidate employer. The firm that intends to poach the worker from their current employer has to offer a sufficiently large wage to make the offer attractive. And if a worker is particularly valued by their own employer, they may be offered a pay raise that is necessary to retain them in their current job,” authors Renato Faccini, Leonardo Melosi and Russell Miles wrote in Chicago Fed Letter No. 465. “In this context, if employed workers search more, wage competition among employers increases, leading to an increase in inflationary pressures; if they search less, wage competition falls and inflationary pressures decrease.”

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Biden Administration Sues Missouri over Pro-Second Amendment Law

Virginia Star Staff

On Wednesday, the Biden Administration announced its intention to sue the state of Missouri over a law passed last year that protects residents’ Second Amendment rights from federal government overreach.

As reported by The Hill, the lawsuit was announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland, targeting Missouri’s House Bill 85 as an alleged violation of the “Supremacy Clause,” which “is preempted by federal law and violates the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity.” Garland’s Department of Justice (DOJ) will argue that the law harms cooperative efforts between the federal government, state governments, and local jurisdictions.

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Convicted Hunter Biden Business Pal Uses Chinese Banking Associate to Plead for No Prison Time

Virginia Star Staff

Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner is making an unorthodox bid to avoid prison time for fleecing an Indian tribe, portraying himself to the sentencing judge as a victim of the Biden family’s “vitriolic media coverage” while using the presidential son’s Chinese business partner to make a case for leniency.

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Commentary: Shifting Natural Gas and Oil Jobs to the Renewables Sector Isn’t So Simple

RealClearWire

Within hours of taking office on January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order cancelling the cross-border permit for the Keystone XL pipeline as part of a plan to phase out natural gas and oil, eliminating thousands of family-sustaining jobs. At the same time, the Biden administration promised plenty of “good-paying” positions would be available in the renewable energy sector.

But the reality is that natural gas and oil jobs don’t easily transfer to the renewables sector, as a new analysis by Cicero, in coordination with North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) and American Petroleum Institute (API), shows.

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Biden Appoints Former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins to Serve as Top Science Advisor

Susan Berry, PhD

President Joe Biden has tapped former National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins to serve as his top science advisor, several months after allegations that Collins and White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci were untruthful in their assertions that NIH did not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China.

Biden announced Wednesday Collins will serve as Science Advisor to the President and co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology “until permanent leadership is nominated and confirmed.”

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‘Reckless Decision’: Biden Administration Adds Climate Roadblocks for Future Pipelines, Energy Projects

Virginia Star Staff

The Biden administration altered the official federal policy on approving new interstate natural gas facilities and pipelines, requiring a climate consideration.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced that it will begin to “undertake a robust consideration” of the environmental justice impacts of such fossil fuel projects before granting approval, according to a fact sheet published Thursday. The agency, which is the top regulator of domestic natural gas infrastructure, said its new policy will presume projects that cause 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year will have a significant impact on the environment.

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General Assembly Drafting Legislation to Potentially Build New Washington Commanders Stadium in Northern Virginia

Eric Burk

The Virginia General Assembly is working on legislation that may bring the newly renamed Washington Commanders to Northern Virginia. The NFL team is currently based at the aging FedEx Field just outside Washington, D.C., in Maryland, and the team has approached Virginia legislators about potentially building a stadium in the commonwealth. Both the House of Delegates and the Senate have passed bills that would create a football stadium authority to finance construction of the stadium; now, the chambers are evaluating each other’s bills, which have significant differences in tax incentives offered to attract the team.

“I would love to have a professional sports team and a football team in Virginia,” Governor Glenn Youngkin told The Virginia Star on Thursday. “We’ve got a Senate group and a House group in discussions in order to bring a very thoughtful bill to me. I believe that my job is to represent Virginia taxpayers, and so we’ll do a good deal. I just want to make sure that what comes out of the House and Senate gives us the capability to do a good deal because I sure would like Virginia to be the best place to raise a family, live, work, and have a professional sports team.”

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