February 2022 - Page 9 of 9 - The Virginia Star

Former President George W. Bush Donates to Pro-Impeachment Republicans

February 2, 2022February 1, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

Former President George W. Bush’s most recent donations to Republican candidates included maximum contributions to the campaigns of two Republicans who voted in favor of impeaching President Donald Trump.

Politico reports that the only donations made by the 43rd president in the year 2021 were to the campaigns of Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Bush gave the maximum possible amount of $5,800 to Cheney in October, while also giving $2,900 to Murkowski’s campaign. According to FEC filings, Bush had also previously donated to Cheney’s first campaign for the House of Representatives in 2016; Cheney is the daughter of Bush’s former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Both represent small portions of each candidates’ respective war chests, with Cheney finishing the year with $1.9 million and Murkowski raising $4.7 million; but the symbolism of the former president only donating to Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump speaks volumes about the ongoing divide between the previous generations of Republican leadership and the rising “America First” movement, led by Trump.

Two Police Officers Killed in Virginia College Shooting

February 2, 2022February 1, 2022 Admin

Two police officers have died following a shooting Tuesday afternoon at Bridgewater College in Virginia, authorities stated.

The shooting occurred at 1:20 p.m., and a male suspect was apprehended at 1:55 p.m., the college stated in a press release.

In an email sent to students and faculty shortly after 5:00 p.m., Bridgewater College President David Bushman identified campus police officer John Painter and campus safety officer J.J. Jefferson as the two casualties.

U.S. Truckers Plan Their Own Freedom Convoy from California to Washington, D.C. to Protest Authoritarian COVID Mandates

February 2, 2022February 1, 2022 Admin

Inspired by their Canadian brethren, American truckers have decided to form their own nationwide “Convoy to DC” in protest of the Biden regime’s authoritarian COVID policies.

The group’s Facebook page, Convoy to DC 2022, already has over 131,000 thousand followers.

“We are part of many large groups who believe in our founding fathers. We believe everyone has a voice. We support our freedom. Help us spread the word about this group and together we all can make it a better place. God Bless America,” the page reads.

NSA Inspector General ‘Concerned’ About Surveillance of Americans’ Communication Devices

February 2, 2022February 1, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

On Monday, the office of the Inspector General at the National Security Agency (NSA) released a report showing that the agency failed to follow basic internal guidelines and court-ordered procedures in its surveillance of American citizens’ communications.

According to CNN, the report showed that the agency abused a loophole in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). While Section 702 allows the government to collect such communications of foreign citizens on foreign soil without a warrant, it prohibits the government from doing so with American citizens. The loophole allows the NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to use this section to collect American communications without a warrant if they believe “a query is reasonably likely to return foreign intelligence information.”

The inspector general’s report “revealed a number of concerns involving [U.S. person] identifiers used as query terms against FISA Section 702 data.” Furthermore, some of these NSA queries “did not always follow NSA procedural and policy requirements.” Among other discrepancies, information gathered on “selectors,” or particular search terms in an investigation, were not properly documented; in addition, the NSA’s internal query tools designed to automatically prevent the processing of queries involving any Americans associated with the selectors ultimately failed to do so, thus allowing Americans to be investigated and monitored.

Analysis: Coming to Grips with the Facts About Masks

February 2, 2022February 1, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

Allegations that “masks work” and “don’t cause harm” have been enforced by governments and corporations around the world for more than 18 months through arrests, firings, censorship, fines, and denial of access to schools, supermarkets, hospitals, streets, and other public spaces. This has made it virtually impossible for many people to live without complying with mask mandates.
In recent weeks, however, more medical scholars and media outlets are coming to grips with facts about masks that Just Facts has been documenting for more than a year and painstakingly compiled in a September 2021 article sourced with more than 50 peer-reviewed science journals. Here’s a sample of people who are speaking up about the facts and their implications:

Dr. Vinay Prasad—an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco—has written an article that examines the scientific evidence for masking children and concludes that:

Migration from Blue States to Certain Cities Spikes Cost of Living There

February 2, 2022February 1, 2022 The Center Square

The cost of living is skyrocketing in certain “migration destination” cities where those fleeing mostly blue states are landing, according to a newly released report.

Redfin released the analysis, which shows that cities like Atlanta, Phoenix and Tampa have seen higher rates of inflation than the country overall. According to the report, those increases are “double the inflation rates in San Francisco and New York, places people are moving away from.”

“Migration into those places is one reason for rapidly rising prices of consumer goods and services,” Redfin said. “Because of high inflation, including rising home prices, the financial advantage of living in what are now relatively affordable places is likely to diminish.”

RNC Members Push Resolution to Expel Cheney, Kinzinger from House GOP Conference

February 2, 2022February 1, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

A Republican National Committee member and former Trump adviser is asking the party to vote Thursday on a resolution demanding that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy expel Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the House GOP conference for their participation on the Democrats’ Jan. 6 investigation committee.

Senate Committee Advances Minnesota Sen. Klobuchar’s Legislation to ‘Rein in Big Tech’

February 2, 2022February 1, 2022 Admin

Sen. Amy Klobuchar appeared on Fox News’ Special Report Thursday night, primarily to promote an antitrust bill aimed at reforming laws that govern Big Tech and increasing competition.

A bipartisan U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted 16-6 Thursday to advance the legislation — The American Innovation and Choice Online Act — as bipartisan lawmakers seek to curtail the power and influence of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and others.

In short, the bill would prevent companies from “unfairly preferencing their own products and services” on their platforms while prohibiting “specific forms of conduct that are harmful to small businesses, entrepreneurs, and consumers.”

Virginia House of Delegates Passes Bill Rewriting Virginia Law Addressing Mandatory Reporting of Offenses Committed on School Property

February 2, 2022February 1, 2022 Eric Burk

RICHMOND, Virginia – The House of Delegates passed a bill significantly rewriting a section of Virginia law that handles crimes committed on school property and how officials report those offenses to law enforcement and parents. On Tuesday, eight Democrats crossed the aisle to help pass the bill, 59 to 40.

Biden Boomerang: Newly Released State Memos Undercut Democrats’ Ukraine Impeachment Story

February 1, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

Just months before Joe Biden forced his firing, Ukraine’s chief prosecutor was told by U.S. State Department officials that they were “impressed” with his anti-corruption plan and fully supportive of his work, according to newly released memos that cast doubt on a key Democrat impeachment narrative.

During former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial two years ago, House Democrats alleged that Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired in March 2016 because State officials were widely displeased with his anti-corruption efforts and not because Shokin’s office was investigating the Ukrainian gas firm that had given then-Vice President Biden’s son Hunter a lucrative job.

Schweizer: Has $31 Million from the Chinese Compromised President Biden?

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Neil W. McCabe

The investigative journalist whose new book “Red Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win” exposes Chinese Communist Party influence in the United States told The Star News Network President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and his family collected $31 million from the CCP and military-intelligence entities under its control.

“The Biden Family has collected some $31 million from deals in China. You’ve got intelligence officials involved, or at least indirectly involved, which raises very troubling questions about whether the Biden Family is compromised,” said Peter Schweizer, whose new book exposes the Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated Capitol Hill, Wall Street, sports, entertainment and higher education.

Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Joe Biden and the Uses of Nihilism

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

Chaos is the new, the intentional, normal. A pandemic of nihilism has been unleashed upon the land. As in Lord of the Flies, when laws, rules, protocols, traditions, and customs are mocked and dismantled, primitive human nature in the raw is unleashed.

Madness now reigns in every quarter, from the iconic to the irrelevant to the fundamental. Statues of Lincoln, Douglass, and Jefferson are toppled or defaced. The rules of capitalization have been altered. We are told that 1619, not 1776, was our founding date—and this by a “civil rights” activist-journalist who had no idea of the date that the Civil War began.

Quite quickly after the revolutionary boilerplate, America began reverting to its natural Hobbesian or Thucydidean essence. If you dispute that, look at looted packages along the Union Pacific tracks in Los Angeles. Try walking the nocturnal streets of Chicago or Baltimore. Visit the sidewalk homeless of San Francisco. Fly over our constipated ports. Drive into our empty new car dealerships. Pull up to our European-priced gas pumps. Shop in the emptying shelves of our Sovietizing food and discount stores. The common theme of the upcoming Super Bowl halftime show, apparently, is that the entertainers must have written lyrics threatening the police, denigrating women, using the N-word . . . and be worth $100 million.

North Korea Reports Having Launched Missile Capable of Hitting U.S. Territory Guam

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

North Korea acknowledged Monday having test-fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of striking the U.S. territory Guam.

South Korea and Japan first reported Sunday that the Hwasong-12 missile had been launched – making it the seventh nuclear-capable missile having been launched since 2017 by the rogue nation.

The North Korean state news said the missile was fired as a test and took a high trajectory to avoid flying over neighboring countries. The projectile flew just under 500 miles before landing in the sea between Japan and the Korean Peninsula.

Pipeline Rupture Causes Massive Oil Spray Into Amazon Rainforest

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

A South American energy company was forced to halt operations of a pipeline traveling through the Amazon rainforest after a rupture caused a large leak of crude oil, multiple sources reported.

OCP Ecuador, which generates about $133 million in annual revenue transporting oil in the region, had immediately started a clean up and mitigation effort when the leak was discovered, the company said in a statement Saturday. The rupture was likely caused by a rock fall in the area which damaged the pipeline infrastructure, NBC News reported.

Roberto Grijalva, OCP Ecuador’s Operations Manager, said the company was committed to taking all measures necessary to prevent further damage to the environment. The Ecuadorian government, meanwhile, added that it was closely monitoring the rupture.

Federal Study Pays Minors to Report Sexual Behavior Without Permission from Parents

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

A federal study asks underage boys to report their sexual behavior to a mobile app in exchange for up to $275 all without requiring permission from their parents, The Washington Free Beacon reported.

Researchers at Columbia University funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have spent more than eight million dollars of taxpayer money on a study that pays gay and transgender minors as young as 13 to track their sexual behavior on an app called MyPEEPS without parental permission, the Free Beacon reported. Questions such as whether or not they have “condomless anal sex” are asked as part of the study.

Amazon Whistleblower Who Was Imprisoned and Beaten in China Asks Company for Apology

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

A Chinese man alleging that he was imprisoned and tortured after he revealed substandard working conditions in factories making Amazon products is asking the company for an apology.

Tang Mingfang spent two years in prison after he shed a light on working conditions inside Foxconn factories manufacturing Amazon Echo, Echo Dot and Kindle devices, he told The Guardian. Tang said he was beaten and tortured by Chinese authorities during his internment.

“I think Amazon should give me an explanation, tell me if I really deserve to be sent to jail?” Tang said. “If not, Amazon should give me an apology, along with its partner, Foxconn, to assist me to appeal for a redress, and provide compensation.”

Virginia Senate Committee Advances Parole Board Transparency Bill

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 The Center Square

A Virginia Senate committee advanced legislation that would increase parole board transparency by making their votes on whether someone receives parole available to the public upon request.

Senate Bill 5, sponsored by Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke, advanced through the General Laws and Technology Committee on a 14-1 vote with substantial bipartisan support. Current law does not prohibit the parole board from disclosing information regarding parole votes, but does not give them any obligation to do so.

Speaking to the committee, Suetterlein said his legislation would simply make the votes public, which is similar to almost every other action undertaken by the state government.

26-Year-Old Biological Male Sentenced to Girls’ Juvie For Molesting a Child after Coming out as Trans

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

An adult biological male child molester will be housed in a juvenile detention facility for girls because he began identifying as a woman after being taken into custody, according to Fox News.

William Tubbs, a 26-year old who now goes by “Hannah,” pled guilty to molesting a 10-year-old girl when he was two weeks shy of 18, Fox News reported. Prosecutors said that Tubbs grabbed the 10-year-old victim by the throat, locked her in a bathroom stall and put his hands down her pants, Fox News reported.

Tubbs did not claim to be a woman until after he was taken into custody for the attack, prosecutors told Fox News. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon refused to prosecute Tubbs as an adult.

Republicans Staunchly Opposed to House Democrats’ China Bill, Potentially Delaying Its Passage

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

House Republicans are staunchly opposed to Democrats’ proposed bill to bolster American competitiveness against China, potentially complicating their goal of passing legislation by the beginning of March.

White House officials have said that passing the bill before President Joe Biden’s March 1 State of the Union is a top priority, but the House bill is a stark departure from the Senate’s legislation that sailed through on a bipartisan vote in June 2021. And while House Democrats can pass their version without Republican support if nearly all of them vote in favor, there is no guarantee that their bill would reach the 60 votes necessary to pass the Senate.

Further, any House-passed bill would likely head to a conference, where House and Senate leaders would privately meet in an attempt to work out their differences and compromise on a bill that can pass both chambers. Not only would that process require additional time, but Senate Republicans would have great leverage given the chamber’s 60-vote threshold.

University Diversity Training Uses Same Redacted Slur It Punished Professor for Putting in Exam

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

A public university forced a law professor to take “sensitivity training” that used the very “expurgated slur” he was punished for including in a law exam question, according to a First Amendment lawsuit seeking $100,000 in damages.

The University of Illinois Chicago allegedly violated its agreement with Jason Kilborn not to require such training after the Rev. Jesse Jackson joined black student protests demanding his firing last fall.

Kilborn’s employment discrimination question of 10 years, which the lawsuit claims prompted “one or two” complaints for the first time in 2020, referred to a hypothetical plaintiff whose managers “expressed their anger” at her by “calling her a ‘n___’ and ‘b___’ [sic].”

Dozens of Firearms Stolen from Trains in Los Angeles

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

In the latest train robbery in the city of Los Angeles, dozens of firearms, including handguns and shotguns, were stolen from a cargo train in a massive raid.

As reported by ABC News, three suspects arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) last summer were found to be in possession of some of the new .22-caliber handguns from the stolen cache. The guns were found to match the larger batch of 36 handguns stolen from the train that had been bound for Tennessee, according to police.

One of the suspects admitted that the guns were stolen while the train was in the Lincoln Heights rail yard, which has become a prime target for train robberies in recent months. Later, two more suspects were arrested with shotguns that were found to have come from a larger batch of 46 shotguns that had also been stolen from the train.

REPORT: More than 18 Christian Universities Actively Promote Abortion Providers

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

Person sitting down. Praying hands on a Bible

Students for Life of America’s (SFLA) recently documented dozens of Christian-affiliated schools that maintain ties with or reference to Planned Parenthood.

Campus Reform found many of these schools are also tied to abortion in other ways. Below is a sampling of Christian-affiliated universities and colleges that promote abortion advocacy and providers.

Texas Christian University

Affiliation: Disciples of Christ

Suspended Professor Who Was Forced to Take Diversity Training Sues University

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

A professor who was targeted and suspended after using censored language in a test question to make an example of employment discrimination just filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC).

The controversy began in 2020 when Jason Kilborn, a law professor at UIC, posed a hypothetical question in an exam surrounding illegal discrimination in the workplace. The question referenced anti-black and anti-women slurs, but were not fully spelled out. Instead, they were simply displayed by their first letters, “n” and “b.”

Despite keeping the words censored, a petition was launched against Kilborn condemning him for the contents in question. A short time after, UIC suspended Kilborn and announced he would be forced to take a five-week diversity training course in order to return to teaching.

Commentary: The GOP Can Reclaim the Child Tax Credit – And Use it to Win in 2022

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 RealClearWire

As part of his Contract with America, House Speaker (and my former boss) Newt Gingrich helped first introduce the Child Tax Credit (CTC), passing it in 1997. Originally the idea of President Ronald Reagan, the CTC was founded on the conservative principles that raising children is God’s work, and parents should not be punished or held back for choosing family in a country that is always moving forward. President Trump continued this tradition by doubling the CTC in 2017. As Speaker Gingrich said during a 1995 speech, “We believe that parents ought to have the first claim on money to take care of their children rather than bureaucrats.”

Democrats reformed the CTC in 2021, as part of their wildly overdone American Rescue Plan. They’ve sought to continue their changes to the CTC in the even-more-overdone Build Back Better Act (BBB), a hulking Frankenstein of bad Democratic ideas. But the new version of the CTC may be an exception. It continues fulfilling Speaker Gingrich’s contract, empowering families to work and earn, and to raise their children with their own values. The spirit and core of that policy is even better reflected by flat, poverty-busting monthly disbursement of the credit. It’s the only salvageable ship in the sinking BBB fleet.

The CTC – in its 2021 form – does not stray too far from the $500-per-child tax cut that was initially passed in 1997. The payments, which provided eligible families with up to $300 per month for each qualifying child under age 6 and up to $250 per month for each qualifying child aged 6 to 17, stimulated regional economies, protected families from rising costs, provided direct cash relief, and removed bureaucratic hurdles.

Commentary: The End of America Is Not That Hard to Imagine

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 RealClearWire

Lately, we keep hearing about this or that “threat to the republic,” ironically mostly involving something Republicans are doing or purporting to do, but I’m starting to think maybe (stop me if you’ve heard this before) the real threat is a cabal of powerful people who don’t want to give up power.

My recent column about the parallels between a science fiction novel and the Biden White House raised a couple of key questions: How much of what we know “for certain” is just a reflection of dubious assertions we have been told so often that we take them for granted? Assertions that, if not lies, are untested allegations and assumptions that fit a narrative we have been programmed to accept at face value?

In other words, how much of what we know for sure is just wishful thinking (ours, or someone else’s)? Are we living in some kind of mass psychosis that lets us forget about real and present dangers to our nation and our future while we focus on boogeymen?

Youngkin $300 Tax Refund Bill Advances in House Finance Subcommittee

February 1, 2022January 31, 2022 Eric Burk

A House of Delegates Finance subcommittee advanced a bill to provide a $300 income tax refund for individuals and $600 for married persons for the 2021 tax year, a key promise from Governor Glenn Youngkin’s Day One Game Plan.

“Virginia has seen a steady increase in its tax revenues, and it’s far exceeding the forecasted growth, largely due to an increase in non-withholding taxes and a standard deduction below the federal level. Virginians have overpaid on their taxes as evidenced by the state’s surplus, and should have some of their money repaid. The aid given to Virginia from the federal government to facilitate the Commonwealth’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in Virginia ending its 2021 fiscal year with a surplus of over $2.6 billion,” HB 935 sponsor Delegate Roxann Robinson (R-Chesterfield) said in the Monday subcommittee meeting.