Month: April 2022

A new national poll shows that former President Donald Trump would beat Joe Biden 47 percent to 43 percent in a presidential match-up if the election were held today. Ten percent had no opinion.

The Insider Advantage National Survey, conducted for Center for American Greatness, polled 750 likely voters on April 21 to April 23.

Top Biden Officials Huddle with School Group That Supported the FBI Targeting Parents

Leaders from President Joe Biden’s Department of Education (DOE) met with an education group that supported the FBI targeting parents Monday.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and Deputy Secretary Cindy Marten met with representatives from the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) to discuss “how they are addressing students’ academic needs, tackling the social-emotional needs of students and staff, and using funds from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) to help with recovery efforts,” according to a DOE press release. The NASSP has previously called on federal authorities to intervene in conflicts between school administrators and concerned parents, lauding the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) when it announced plans to “use its authority” against parents.

Google Launches New ‘Inclusive Language’ Function

The search engine giant Google has rolled out a new feature that acts as an auto-suggestion for changing certain language to more politically correct terms.

According to the Daily Mail, users who type out certain words will be faced with several suggestions encouraging them to adopt language that is gender-neutral, or otherwise more politically correct. For example, “landlord” will yield suggestions such as “proprietor” or “property owner,” while “mankind” will lead to the suggestion of “humankind.” “Policeman” is now recommended to be “police officers,” while “housewife” is to be replaced with “stay-at-home spouse.”

China Bans Its Own National Anthem as Anger over Lockdowns Rises

China’s censors banned social media posts featuring the communist country’s national anthem after internet users co-opted its lyrics to protest Shanghai’s ongoing lockdown, multiple sources reported.

Censors are actively removing Chinese posts containing the first stanza of “The March of the Volunteers,” which features the lyrics “Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves,” NY Daily News reported.

Bernie Sanders Rallies with Starbucks Workers After Richmond Stores Unionize

April 26, 2022April 25, 2022 Peter D'Abrosca

As Starbucks stores around the country continue to unionize, a prominent U.S. Senator received a rockstar’s welcome in Richmond, where he went to galvanize employees of the coffee retail giant.

“It is an honor for me to be here,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told the crowd, “because you are extraordinary American heroes and heroines.

Elon Musk Secures Deal to Buy Twitter for $44 Billion

April 25, 2022 Admin

Billionaire Elon Musk reached a deal Monday to purchase social media giant Twitter for a sum of $44 billion.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said, per Reuters.

Free Speech Criticism Has Unlikely Source: The Press

April 25, 2022April 25, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

When the far-right website Infowars was banned by all the major tech platforms in 2018, mainstream media outlets didn’t come to the defense of founder Alex Jones, whom they described as a conspiracy theorist.

Two years later, the same outlets had a similar non-response when Big Tech imposed another media ban — this one on the New York Post, one of America’s oldest and most well-established newspapers.

Commentary: What Trump’s ‘America First’ Agenda Got Right in Central Europe, Ukraine, and the Politics of Security

Russia’s invasion not only poses an existential threat to Ukrainian sovereignty, but it also represents a direct challenge to American power and credibility globally. If Vladimir Putin prevails, the promise of the United States to act as a security guarantor through NATO in Europe or on its own anywhere will be in shambles.

Moscow is clearly pursuing two goals simultaneously: territorial gains in Ukraine as part of the revanchist ambition to restore the Soviet-era sphere of influence and, more importantly, degrading American strategic prominence, with the goal of driving the United States out of Europe.

Record Number of Hispanic Republicans Are Running for State House in Border State

April 25, 2022April 24, 2022 The Center Square

A record number of Hispanics in New Mexico are running for state House seats as members of the Republican Party, Axios reported Tuesday.

The state, which has the highest percentage of Hispanics in the country, has 18 Hispanic Republicans campaigning to be elected to the Democrat-controlled state House of Representatives, Axios reported. The candidates are largely running competitive districts, both urban and rural.

Commentary: Joe Biden and His Hostility to Conscience Rights

April 25, 2022April 25, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

In 2020, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against the University of Vermont Medical Center for forcing a nurse to assist at an abortion. Trump’s Department of Justice called the hospital’s bullying of the nurse “the kind of indecent coercion [that] violates everything this country stands for.”

In 2021, the Biden administration dropped this lawsuit. It did not want to defend the nurse. This rankled former Trump officials. “It is a dereliction of duty that is an insult to the bipartisan consensus that says you cannot force people to assist in abortions,” Roger Severino, the former head of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR) told Fox News.

Americans Support Trump’s China Tariffs as Republican Senators Push to Remove Them

As GOP senators seek to roll back former President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China now that he’s out of office, polling indicates Americans want to keep the harsh policies in place.

“For decades, Congress cut tariffs without much thought. But we cannot continue to do that when it comes to products made in China,” Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “We should do everything possible to move supply chains out of China, but this so-called ‘China bill’ is actually subsidizing manufacturing in Communist China. It’s ridiculous.”

Virginia Governor Plans to Elevate His National Profile Ahead of 2024

April 25, 2022April 24, 2022 Admin

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is looking to raise his national profile by establishing two new political groups in the aftermath of becoming the first Republican to win statewide in over a decade, Politico reported.

The move will allow the recently elected governor to have a larger role in the upcoming midterm elections, Politico reported. Youngkin, who is limited to one term as governor, has not expressed any interest in a 2024 presidential run, but has not ruled out the possibility.

Buttigieg Floats ‘Monthly Transportation Payment’ that ‘Covers Everything’ to Replace Car Payments

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg suggested that transitioning to a “monthly transportation payment” from monthly car payments could be in America’s future.

Buttigieg also said a “monthly mobility dividend” could lie further out in the future.

Judge Rules That Prisons Must Accommodate ‘Transgender’ Prisoners with ‘Gender-Affirming’ Surgery

A federal judge ruled on Monday that a federal prisoner is entitled to surgical procedures that will alter his body in order to accommodate his “transgender” identity.

As reported by USA Today, Judge Nancy Rosenstengel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois ordered the United States Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to provide a surgeon who will perform the operation for a prisoner going by the name of Christina Iglesias, a man who believes that he is a woman. The decision ended a case that has lasted for three years.

Arlington Approves Plan for Amazon’s HQ2 Development

April 25, 2022April 24, 2022 Eric Burk

The Arlington County Board voted unanimously Saturday to approve plans for development at Amazon’s HQ2, including the Helix, an up to 350-foot high spiral-shaped tower with indoor meeting spaces and a walking paths on the outside. The PenPlace plan also includes three 22-story office buildings, public park space, and retail…

Over 40 Terror Watchlist Suspects Crossed the Border Illegally on Biden’s Watch

At least 42 suspects on the United States terror watchlist have been arrested by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) trying to enter the country illegally across the southern border.

As reported by Fox News, the U.S. Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations reported that they have “arrested 42 subjects who were on the terror watchlist and attempted to enter the United States illegally” since January 20th, 2021. These individuals were all found in the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), which archives information on all foreign individuals who are “reasonably suspected” of being involved with terrorist organizations and activities.

Activist Aviator Says Cardiologist Tells Him 30 Percent of Vaccinated Pilots Would Fail Health Screenings Due to Vaccine Injuries

Joshua Yoder, an airline pilot and co-founder of the U.S. Freedom Flyers said during an interview Wednesday that a cardiologist told him that if the airlines were conducting certain health screenings, 30 percent of the pilots currently flying would probably be disqualified due to vaccine-induced heart conditions.

Yoder told tech millionaire and Vaccine Safety Research Foundation founder Steve Kirsch that his group has received hundreds of reports about pilots flying planes while suffering from adverse side effects from the COVID vaccines.

Budget Compromise Not Expected in Time for Veto Session

April 25, 2022April 25, 2022 Eric Burk

The General Assembly will be back in town Wednesday to vote on Governor Glenn Youngkin’s amendments and vetoes to legislation passed earlier this year, but are unlikely to have a budget compromise ready for approval by then.

“Informally, the chairs are going back and forth a little bit, and we keep getting briefed, but we have not really gotten to a point where we can do a final negotiation, if you will. There’s still significant differences there in what we we’re working on,” conferee Senator Emmett Hanger (R-Augusta) told The Virginia Star on Thursday. “We’ve got some tentative agreements, I guess you’d say.

Still Teflon: The Trump Comeback No One’s Talking About

Former President Donald Trump now enjoys the highest favorability rating among the seven U.S. political leaders tracked in the RealClearPolitics (RCP) polling average, marking a striking political transformation from where he was 15 months ago while leaving office.

Trump has a favorability rating of 45.8%, more than three points higher than President Joe Biden’s rating of 42.6%, according to the RCP average.

Twitter Bans Ads Contradicting U.N. Climate Science

April 24, 2022April 23, 2022 Peter D'Abrosca

Twitter will no longer sell ads with messaging that contradicts the United Nations’ (UN) scientists, according to a statement from the Silicon Valley tech giant.

“To better serve these conversations, misleading advertisements on Twitter that contradict the scientific consensus on climate change are prohibited, in line with our inappropriate content policy,” the statement says. “We believe that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetized on Twitter, and that misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis. This approach is informed by authoritative sources, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports.”

Commentary: The Pathological Nature of Wokeness

It is not often that two contrasting mainstream media events reveal so completely the nature of the deep dysfunction of modern culture. Yet that is precisely what happened last month.

Those two events are as follows: First, contrarian Substack writer and known anti-woke crusader Andrew Sullivan appeared on Jon Stewart’s new show, “The Problem With Jon Stewart.” I do not think I am being uncharitable when I call the appearance a disaster. Which, to be fair, is not entirely Sullivan’s fault, seeing as he was thrust into what was effectively a three-on-one fight (more like a dozens-on-one fight, if you include the studio audience). He was the lone dissenter against a pack of braying fanatics, egged on by a motley trio consisting of a grifter and two useful idiots, one of whom is the most famed enforcer of liberal dogma from decades past.

‘Detransitioners’ Come Out Against Sex Change Procedures and Gender Ideology

April 24, 2022April 23, 2022 The Center Square

Young women who regretted undergoing sex changes in their adolescent years spoke about their experiences and the adults who allowed them to transition in a Tuesday Substack article by Suzy Weiss.

The women, sometimes referred to as “detransitioners,” were given extreme biomedical interventions ranging from hormones and puberty blockers to double mastectomies in adolescence to relieve their gender dysphoria, according to the article. Several blamed the adults in their lives for failing them.

Fed Report: Inflation Passed on to Consumers, Will Continue for Months

April 24, 2022April 23, 2022 The Center Square

Newly compiled data from the Federal Reserve shows that inflation is hurting businesses, costing consumers, and likely not going away anytime soon.

The Federal Reserve released its “Beige Book,” a report that compiles reports from “Bank and Branch directors and interviews with key business contacts, economists, market experts, and other sources” from the 12 Fed districts around the country.

Mexican Governor Enhances Border Security Measures After Agreement with Texas Gov Abbott

The governor of the Mexican state Coahuila has enhanced security on his side of the border after an agreement with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, according to a video Coahuila Governor Miguel Ángel Riquelme Solís posted to Twitter Wednesday.

Riquelme Solís met April 14 with Abbott at the Texas Capitol to sign a joint memorandum of understanding (MOU) to combat illegal immigration and to clear up traffic on international bridges. In the memo, Riquelme Solis agreed to operate border checkpoints in Mexico and to deploy personnel and motor equipment to prevent certain immigrant crossings at ports.

Commentary: Retirees Turn Detective to Find ‘Lost’ Pensions

April 24, 2022April 23, 2022 RealClearWire

When Sam Semilia toted up his retirement finances, he was pretty sure that he was due a pension from his time working as a steam engineer for the Diamond Crystal salt company four decades before. Salty is one way to describe the search for his money, a four-year odyssey filled with shredded paper trails and assorted dead ends, along with a brief history of modern American capitalism.

Secret Service Says It Does Not Keep Records on Who Biden Meets at His Delaware Residences