Day: February 22, 2022

Wason Center Poll Finds Slight Majority Disapproval of Youngkin’s Job Performance

Eric Burk

A Wason Center/Christopher Newport University Poll found Governor Glenn Youngkin’s current job approval trailing slightly, with 41 percent approval and 43 percent disapproval. Forty-five percent of voters polled said Virginia is heading in the right direction, and 41 percent say it is headed in the wrong direction. Both results are within the poll’s plus-or-minus 4.2 percent margin of error. The Center reported that those results fall largely along partisan lines — 80 percent of Republicans say Virginia is going in the right direction, while only 22 percent of Democrats said the same. Key Republican initiatives got mixed results.

“In this highly polarized environment, we see partisans running to their corners on how they view the direction of the Commonwealth and the job of the governor,” Academic Director of the Wason Center Quentin Kidd said in a press release. “Youngkin’s approval numbers are certainly lower than those of recent governors in Wason Center polling early in their term.”

“These polls were wrong during the campaign and are wrong now,” Youngkin spokesperson Macaulay Porter said in a statement. “Virginians endorsed Governor Youngkin’s grocery tax plan so overwhelmingly that outgoing Governor Northam included it in his budget proposal. Governor Youngkin’s initiatives have received bipartisan support and he looks forward to delivering on more promises that he made during the campaign.”

Read More

Commentary: Shutting Down Parents Does Not Help Public Education

Virginia Star Staff

As school districts start dropping the mask mandates, removing pornographic books from their libraries, and explicitly prohibiting critical race theory, it’s clear that the parent protests are working. School boards, even in progressive bastions like San Francisco, are currently being cleaned out and replaced by more pro-parent members. Moreover, politicians like the governor of Oklahoma are openly instituting a school choice model that would allow for different schooling models and have education dollars follow the student, not automatically go to the school.

Naturally, these developments invite more pushback (sometimes literally so) from those who believe they’re supporting public education. It was fine in the past to let various kooky parents carry on about the evils of teaching Harry Potter or sex ed; school boards and district leaders could simply yawn and carry on as before. However, now that it actually threatens their authority and influence, they can no longer ignore parents’ concerns..  

In general, opponents of protesting parents make the same points over and over. They deny that public schools have problems, play semantic games with critical race theory (“it’s just an abstract legal theory taught in law school,” etc.), and accuse angry parents of being misguided racists. In their view, parents who demand a more wholesome and academic experience for their children are actually demanding an exclusively white and privileged experience. And for good measure, they will add an anecdote about a heroic public school teacher changing lives, proving beyond any doubt that public schools are still doing noble work and are essential for a healthy, diverse society.  

Read More

Virginia Senate, House of Delegates Reveal Budget Proposals; Senate Doesn’t Include as Many Tax Cuts as Youngkin Wants

Eric Burk

The House and Senate money committees presented their biennial budget proposals on Sunday afternoon in preparation for passage later this week. Both the Senate Finance Committee and the House Appropriations Committee included more than $2 billion in additional education spending when compared to previous years, a key goal of Governor Glenn Youngkin. But differing amounts of tax cuts drew Youngkin’s attention. In separate legislation, the House has already approved Youngkin’s tax cuts and refunds, but the Senate has rejected or pared-down some cuts.

“The House budget provides nearly $5.3 billion in tax relief for all Virginians – including significant tax relief for our military veterans and common sense tax relief worth $1,500 to a typical Virginia family in the first year. This represents the priorities I outlined in the Day One Game Plan Virginians voted for last November. Speaker Gilbert and Chairman Knight have delivered on our shared promises,” Youngkin said in a Sunday afternoon press release. “While it does not include nearly enough tax relief, the Senate budget proposal also includes common sense, bipartisan priorities on which we can find common ground. I know Senator Howell and Senate Leadership are eager to work in good faith on these and other important priorities.”

Read More

Commentary: The Gathering Storm in the West

Virginia Star Staff

Canada is now governed by absurdism, and it is symptomatic of an ailing Western elite.

Liberal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week invoked martial law to arrest and financially destroy truckers on the charge that their largely peaceful protests are “dismantling the Canadian economy” that had already been dismantled for two years under some of the most draconian lockdowns in the world. The trucker “sect,” Trudeau added, is guilty of felonious “unacceptable views.” But his rhetoric still cannot square the circle of demonizing vital workers while conceding he cannot run his country without them. 

Read More

Commentary: The IRS Can’t Get the Basics Right, So Don’t Add to Its Authority

RealClearWire

All taxpayers are dealing with a disastrous filing season this year, with the IRS backed up on processing millions of returns and refunds from last year and communication from the agency nonexistent at best. But some taxpayers will have an added headache in the future as a result of an unnecessary new paperwork requirement that went into effect this year. Fortunately, however, legislation introduced by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) would address this issue by removing the burdensome new requirement.

Ever since IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig claimed last year that the “tax gap,” or the gap between what the IRS collects and what it believes it is owed, could be as large as $1 trillion, politicians and legislators have been scrambling to propose ways to collect all that missing revenue. That’s despite the fact that more sober analyses show that the $1 trillion figure is probably wildly exaggerated, that it is functionally impossible to wholly prevent tax evasion, and that a far greater concern is the IRS’s inability to handle its taxpayer service responsibilities.

But as far as proposals to collect all this supposed “extra revenue” go, most of the focus has rightly been on schemes to drastically increase the IRS’s enforcement budget and allow the IRS to snoop on taxpayers’ financial accounts. But another more targeted change has already gone into effect, and is already causing problems.

Read More

Canadian Trucker Urges Nationwide Strike over COVID-19 Rules in Viral Video

Peter D'Abrosca
police officers standing outside in the snow

In a now-viral video an unidentified man encouraged a national strike in every Canadian business sector, along with active support for those who are opposing COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates in the country. 

“You’ve seen what’s happening in Ottawa,” the man, whose face was blurred in the video, said. “Canadians are known around the world to be among the most kind, most peace-loving people anywhere. And so you know when Canadians star rising up by the millions, to oppose what their government is doing, something is horribly wrong.”

Read More

Michigan Basketball Coach Suspended for Rest of Regular Season after Striking Wisconsin Coach

Admin
Juwan Howard

University of Michigan head basketball coach Juwan Howard is suspended for the remainder of the regular season and is forced to pay a $40,000 fine, The Big Ten Conference announced Monday.

The ddisciplinary action comes after Howard struck Wisconsin assistant coach Joe Krabbenhoft on Sunday in Madison, Wis.

The Big Ten also found University of Wisconsin head basketball coach Greg Gard in “violation of the conference’s sportsmanship policy” and gave him a $10,000 fine.

Read More

Tulsi Gabbard Will Headline a Speech at CPAC in Florida

Virginia Star Staff
Tulsi Gabbard

Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii who ran for president in 2020 and has been critical of President Joe Biden, will headline a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), according to the event’s website.

Gabbard has sharply criticized “elite” members of the Democratic and Republican parties since leaving Congress just over a year ago, pushing back on rhetoric that she says is divisive and against policies embraced by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice. She has also defended Kyle Rittenhouse, saying that the charges brought against him were motivated by politics and “should be considered criminal.”

Gabbard, a staunch opponent to interventionism, has also criticized Biden’s handling of the crisis on Ukraine’s border with Russia. She also spoke out against Biden’s pledge to appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court instead of nominating someone based on merit.

Read More

Enthusiasm to Join Trump Social Media Platform, Truth Social, Causes Waitlists, Registration Delays

Virginia Star Staff
person holding a smart phone up

The enthusiasm to join former President Trump’s new new social media platform – Truth Social – on its official launch day appears to have overwhelmed the site.

The site went live Sunday night ahead of its official President’s Day launch. However, potential users in roughly the past 24 hours have reported problem getting on the platform.

“Due to massive demand, we have placed you on our waitlist,” read the message received by several users, according to Reuters.

Other users reported having trouble registering for an account amid the early scramble to join.

Read More

Biden DOJ Hurts Americans’ Trust by ‘Doing Bidding of the Radical Left,’ Former Official Warns

Virginia Star Staff
Attorney General Merrick Garland

Attorney General Merrick Garland has undercut his own promise to restore trust in the Justice Department by “doing the bidding of the radical left,” such as suing to block voter ID laws and launching FBI probes of school parents, a former top agency lawyer says.

Gene Hamilton, who served as counselor to Trump-era Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and William Barr, told Just the News he hoped Garland would focus the department on core law enforcement priorities and away from ideological agendas but has been sorely disappointed.

“For all of his rhetoric, and for all of his talk about returning the Department of Justice to norms and all of those other such things, Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice has betrayed the trust of the American people,” Hamilton said during an interview Friday on the John Solomon Reports podcast.

Read More

Trucker PAC Launches Fund to Support Protests Against U.S. COVID-19 Restrictions

Virginia Star Staff

A political action committee is funding a series of trucker protests against COVD-19 restrictions in the U.S., mirroring efforts by Canadian truckers to lift the country’s vaccine mandates and rules.

The Great American Patriot Project (GAPP) launched a campaign Wednesday intended to organize and fund several truck convoys to begin in early March across the United States.

Read More

Professor’s Race-Based Class Participation Policy Inspired by Chairman Mao

Virginia Star Staff

The “Class Discussion Guidelines” section of Ana Maria Candela’s “Social Change -Introduction to Sociology” syllabus, which instructs white male students to wait their turn to speak after “non-white folks” talk, opens with a quotation about speaking from Mao Zedong, the communist Chinese dictator who killed 45 million people.

“No investigation, no right to speak,” the quote reads in the document for the Binghamton University class.

Read More

U.S. Appeals Court Pauses $15 an Hour Minimum Wage Mandate for Outdoor Recreation Companies

The Center Square

A federal appeals court on Thursday halted a mandate from the Biden administration that required an hourly minimum wage of $15 for outdoor recreation companies operating on public land.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver granted an injunction in a lawsuit filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation against the Biden administration on behalf of outdoor recreational groups that have contracts with the U.S. government or operate on federal land.

Read More

Number of Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck Jumps Seven Percent, Report Shows

The Center Square

A growing number of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck despite increasing wages, a newly released report found.

PYMNTS and Lending Club released the report, which says that 61% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, an increase of 7 points since May 2021. The report also found 54% of Baby Boomers and seniors are living paycheck to paycheck.

Read More

Some School Districts Cancel ‘Diversity’ Programs After Backlash

Virginia Star Staff

As backlash grows against so-called “diversity” programs in public schools, some districts throughout the country have been canceling plans to implement such programs.

According to ABC News, one such program was in Colorado Springs School District 11, a district that serves over 26,000 students. In May of 2020, shortly after the accidental fentanyl overdose death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, the district was among the first in the nation to push for an “equity policy.”

Read More

Blue States Consider Letting Anatomical Males into Women’s Prisons, Hiding Their Backgrounds

Virginia Star Staff
barbed wire fence, outiside of a prison yard

As West Coast states deal with the fallout of putting anatomically male inmates in women’s prisons, the East Coast is looking to join the club.

Maryland is considering legislation similar to a California law that lets inmates choose their correctional facility based on self-declared gender identity, an option that concerned even transgender inmates in the Golden State.

A purported draft executive order by President Joe Biden would do the same to federal prisons, prompting GOP Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas to introduce opposing legislation.

Read More

Democrats ‘Aiding and Abetting’ Border Humanitarian Crisis, Says Arizona Sheriff

Virginia Star Staff

Democrats are “aiding and abetting” the humanitarian crisis along the southern border, as “women are being raped on a daily basis,” Arizona’s Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb said on Thursday.

“It shouldn’t matter whether you’re a Republican, Democrat or Independent,” Lamb told “Just the News, Not Noise” TV show cohosts John Solomon and Amanda Head. “If you care about human beings, you should absolutely care about border security. Why? Women are being raped on a daily basis … kids are being used as pawns, men are being extorted.”

Read More

Virginia’s Unemployment Claims Backlog Reduced by 89 Percent

Admin
Glenn Youngkin

On Monday, Governor Glenn Youngkin announced a nearly 89% decrease in the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) backlog. This is the first step in the governor’s day one game plan commitment to fix the VEC and put the government back to work for Virginians, according to a press release by Youngkin’s office.

Read More