Month: September 2022

Independent Pollster: ‘Virtually Impossible’ to Poll GOP ‘Submerged Voters’ After Biden’s Attacks on ‘MAGA Republicans’

Susan Berry, PhD

The chief pollster and founder of The Trafalgar Group says one consequence of Joe Biden’s recent venomous attacks on Trump supporters is it is now “virtually impossible” to poll and estimate as the midterms approach since 2022 Republicans have now become “submerged voters.”

Inciting extreme divisiveness close to a general election apparently has its cost when it comes to reliable polling, noted Robert Cahaly last week in a social media thread as he spelled out one of the effects of Biden’s Labor Day speech in Wisconsin on polling efforts.

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89 Percent of Virginia Schools Meet Accreditation Standards but Administration Says That Doesn’t Reflect Reality

Eric Burk

The Virginia Department of Education released the first accreditation data for schools since COVID-19 began, and 89 percent of Virginia’s districts are fully accredited for the 2022 through 2023 year, three percent less than 92 percent in the 2019 through 2020 period. But Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration isn’t celebrating the relatively small decrease; instead officials say that shows that accreditation standards don’t capture the reality of COVID-19 learning losses.

“These ratings call into question the effectiveness of our accreditation standards in identifying schools where students are struggling to achieve grade-level proficiency,” Superintendent of Public Education Jillian Balow said in a press release announcing the accreditation rate.

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Trump Launches New Super PAC That Will Spend Millions Backing Midterm Candidates

Virginia Star Staff

Former President Donald Trump’s close advisers are launching MAGA Inc., a new independent political action committee (PAC) that will spend millions to fund Trump-backed candidates ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Politico reported Friday.

MAGA Inc. will invest large sums of money into key November midterm races to help elect Republican House and Senate candidates that the former president is supporting, such as Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert and Ohio Senate hopeful J.D. Vance, Politico reported, citing people close to Trump. The PAC can spend an unlimited amount of funds and could substantially ramp up GOP efforts to win back both the House and Senate as Republicans have been outspent by Democrats in important races across the nation.

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Biden Slams Graham over Abortion Ban: ‘My Church Doesn’t Even Make That Argument’

Virginia Star Staff

President Biden is reportedly criticized GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham over his proposed bill to ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, saying, “My church doesn’t even make that argument now.”

“Think about what these guys are talking about: no exceptions – rape, incest – no exceptions, regardless of age,” Biden, who is Catholic, said about the bill Tuesday at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in New York City, according to The Hill. 

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Job Creators Network Partners with Newt Gingrich for ‘American Small Business Prosperity Plan’

ADN America

A small business advocacy group has partnered with former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich to announce a plan on Wednesday to boost small businesses, fix the economy and provide opportunities for all Americans. The group announced the plan at Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill Club with a variety of speakers, including Gingrich who appeared live from a virtual location.

The Job Creators Network says the purpose of their American Small Business Prosperity Plan is to give members of Congress and their midterm challengers specific policies that would move America toward a positive, pro-growth economic agenda.

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Commentary: States Are Showing Washington How to Relieve Inflation

Virginia Star Staff

Inflation continues to be the top concern for American voters going into the midterm elections. But rather than advancing responsible policies that will tame inflation, the federal government continues to pursue tax and spending plans that will raise the federal deficit, undermine growth, and do nothing to lower prices.

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Some Virginia School Districts Concerned About New Transgender Model Policies Draft

Eric Burk

Some school districts are already signaling resistance to new draft model policies from the Virginia Department of Education that will repeal current model policies controlling school district transgender policy.

“We want to assure you that Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) will continue its commitment to both implement and develop gender affirming policies for all ACPS students. As a School Board and division, we are concerned with these ‘model policies’ that do not align with our mission, vision and core values to support all students and staff, in particular our core value of ensuring that we provide a welcoming environment for everyone in our school community,” Alexandria City Public Schools said in a letter to students, staff and families.

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Federal Judge Strikes Down Vaccine Mandates from Biden

The Center Square

Sandy Brick felt her freedom was on the line. The Head Start teacher taught through the pandemic and opposed a federal “jab-or-job” mandate from the president.

Judge Terry A. Doughty, on the bench of a U.S. District Court in Louisiana, on Wednesday agreed. He ruled the federal government cannot require Head Start program teachers, staff and volunteers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, nor can it require adults or students to wear masks. His order “permanently enjoins the vaccine and mask mandate in 24 states,” a release from the Liberty Justice Center says, and impacts 280,000 teachers, staff and volunteers.

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Louisiana Department of Health Rescinds COVID Vaccine Mandate for Schoolchildren

Susan Berry, PhD

Louisiana parents opposed to COVID mRNA shots for their children won a victory as the state’s department of health rescinded its mandate that schoolchildren be injected.

The Louisiana Department of Health repealed its mandate Tuesday, leading Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) to file a motion to dismiss his lawsuit, Crews v. Edwards, against Governor John Bel Edwards (D).

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Democrats Block Release of Hunter Biden Financial Documents in Probe

The Center Square

Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee voted to block a resolution proposed by Republicans to coax out documents related to the investigation of Hunter Biden’s financial affairs.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the ranking member of the committee, spearheaded the resolution, saying he has tried multiple times to get the relevant Suspicious Activity Reports on the Biden family’s financial dealings from the U.S. Treasury Department but has been unable to obtain the documents.

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Rep. Spanberger Cursed at Rep. Good After He Defended Youngkin Transgender Policy and Criticized ‘Grooming’

Eric Burk

The monthly Virginia congressional delegation lunch with Governor Glenn Youngkin became contentious on Monday when conversation turned to the Virginia Department of Education’s new model policies to replace current transgender policies, eventually leading to Representative Bob Good (R-VA-05) defending the policies. Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07) cursed at Good, according to reports.

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Gov. Abbott Declares Mexican Drug Cartels Terrorists, Calls on Biden to Do the Same

The Center Square

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday issued an executive order officially designating certain Mexican drug cartels as foreign smuggled into the U.S. to kill Americans at an alarming rate.

In one year’s time, fentanyl killed nearly 20 times more people than those killed in terrorist attacks over decades.

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George Soros Network Bankrolled Activist Group Suing DeSantis over Martha’s Vineyard Flights

Virginia Star Staff

A nonprofit network that left-wing billionaire George Soros backs has bankrolled an activist group that is suing Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials over the state’s move to fly illegal migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

The advocacy law firm Lawyers for Civil Rights filed the lawsuit Tuesday with Alianza Americas, an immigration nonprofit, on behalf of “Vineyard migrants and all similarly situated people who are fraudulently induced to travel across state lines by DeSantis and the State of Florida.” Three nonprofits in Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) network have notably given almost $1.4 million to Alianza Americas between 2016 and 2020, according to OSF records.

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Medical Center Hides Pediatric Transgender Procedures After Exposure

Just the News

Health care settings that advertise surgical and hormonal procedures for gender-confused youth as young as 13 are throwing their offerings down the memory hole, following exposure by critics of such procedures for children.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center took down the pages for its transgender clinic and pediatric counterpart after conservative author Matt Walsh posted videos Tuesday of its officials calling the clinics financially lucrative and warning that resistant VUMC employees would face “consequences” for not participating.

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New Docs and Whistleblowers Reveal Joe Biden’s Involvement with Selling U.S. Natural Gas to the ChiComs

Virginia Star Staff

Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee have obtained bombshell documents proving that Joe Biden was deeply involved in the family business of selling American natural gas to the Chinese–while he was planning to run for President. According to multiple whistleblowers, the Biden family made promises to those who worked with them in 2017 and onward that they would “reap the rewards in a future Biden administration.” These explosive revelations “pose national security concerns,” Oversight Republicans proclaimed Tuesday night.

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Fed Hikes Interest Rates for Third Time in Four Months

Virginia Star Staff

The Federal Reserve has raised target interest rates by 75 basis points for the third time this year following a Wednesday meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.

The new target range for the federal funds rate is anywhere between 3% to 3.35% up from the current 2.37%, making it the most aggressive hike since the early 1980s. The Federal Reserve is expected to continue this trend into March of 2023 as an attempt to curb ongoing increases in inflation, CNBC reported.

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Commentary: U.S. Farmers Grab the Lobbying Pitchforks as Greens Sow Costly New Reporting Mandates

RealClearWire

Echoing conflicts from Sri Lanka to Canada to the Netherlands, tensions between farmers and green-minded government policymakers are building in the United States, where producers are squaring off against a costly proposed federal mandate for greenhouse-gas reporting from corporate supply chains.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in March proposed requiring large corporations, including agribusinesses and food companies, to report greenhouse gas emissions down to the lowest rungs of their supply chains as a means of combatting climate change, which environmental campaigners contend imperils the planet and life on it.

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New York City Education Department Fires 850 More Teachers for Refusing COVID Vaccine

Susan Berry, PhD

The New York City Department of Education has fired another 850 teachers and aides for refusing to comply with its COVID vaccine mandate, bringing the total number of school staff terminated over the mRNA shots that have not prevented the spread of infection to 2,000.

Some 1,300 department employees agreed to comply with the vaccine mandate by September 5 after taking a year of unpaid leave with benefits, the New York Post reported. The department informed personnel they would have to be vaccinated by that date or be “deemed to have voluntarily resigned.”

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom Rents Billboards for Ads Attacking Pro-Life States

Susan Berry, PhD

California Governor Gavin Newsroom (D) has fired up a new billboard campaign within pro-life states that promotes his state’s embrace of abortion.

The governor has rented billboards in seven states that have passed significant restrictions on abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

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Youngkin to Stump for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Kansas GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Derek Schmidt

Eric Burk

Governor Glenn Youngkin will attend a meet and greet in Kansas Thursday with gubernatorial candidate Attorney General Derek Schmidt, stop in Texas Friday for an appearance at the Texas Tribune Festival, and then headline an event for Georgia Governor Brian Kemp on September 27. Republican governors campaigning for other Republicans are a normal feature of an election year with a number of high-profile races, but Youngkin’s national appearances have also raised questions about Youngkin’s aspirations for higher office, which Youngkin himself has largely brushed off.

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Music Spotlight: Chase Wright

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee –In the past few years, a name that kept showing up in my feed was Chase Wright. (Not to be confused with another country singer/songwriter, Chase Rice.) Recently, as I was driving to work, I heard SiriusXM The Highway’s Storme Warren talking to Chase Wright. He invited him to become SXM The Highway’s next “Highway Find,” a platform that has launched many artists’ careers from Florida-Georgia Line to Carly Pearce.

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Gas Prices Rise for First Time Since June

Virginia Star Staff

Following nearly 100 days of declines, gas prices rose slightly Wednesday, and are forecasted to change little in the near future.

The national average price rose by about a cent to $3.68, snapping a 98-day streak of declines since prices peaked at $5.02 in mid-June, according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA). A slight increase was expected to occur soon after prices fell only four cents last week, the smallest decrease in months, which the AAA attributed to the impacts of “war, COVID, economic recession, and hurricane season,” in a statement Monday.

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Job Creators Network and Gingrich Call on Congress to Adopt Their ‘Small Business Prosperity Plan’

Just the News

The Job Creators Network rolled out a “small business prosperity plan” endorsed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Wednesday.

Job Creators Network President and CEO Alfredo Ortiz said small businesses need regulatory and tax policy certainty, and the prosperity plan gives lawmakers a roadmap to follow. He said that Congress and President Biden should make the Trump-era Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent.

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Appeals Court Panel Allows DOJ to Continue Reviewing Documents from Trump Raid

Just the News

A panel of three judges for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed the Department of Justice to continue reviewing documents the FBI seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, upending part of an earlier ruling from the district court judge.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this month enjoined further federal review of the documents and appointed New York Judge Raymond Dearie as special master to independently review them.

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Amazon Spends Big to Keep Drivers from Leaving

Virginia Star Staff

After years of high turnover that left some employees feeling expendable, Amazon is spending just shy of half a billion dollars for delivery partners to raise pay and provide benefits for drivers amid growing concerns of a labor shortage.

The $450 million investment into Amazon’s Delivery Service Partners (DSP) network gives money to partnered companies to offer drivers pay increases, alongside funding for new benefits such as a 401(k) plan and education and training programs, according to Amazon’s announcement. The announcement, which Amazon said is part of efforts to build and retain “great teams,” comes less than four months after internal documents were leaked revealing Amazon’s concern that if its current hiring practices and treatment of employees continued, it would run out of people willing to work for the company by 2024, according to Vox.

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‘Dismantling Capitalism’: California School District Sponsors Activist Training Facility

Virginia Star Staff

A California school district features a “social justice academy” to teach kids to be activists and challenge capitalism, homophobia and white supremacy, according to the academy’s website.

San Leandro High School in San Leandro, California, uses their Social Justice Academy to educate students on how to “disrupt systems of power and oppression,” according to the academy’s website. The academy is a three-year program aimed at students in 10th through 12th grade and requires the students to run an activist “campaign” as their final project.

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Report Reveals ‘Shocking Long-Term Gaps in Federal Oversight’ over Prison Deaths

The Center Square

The Department of Justice’s tally of how many people died while in custody missed hundreds of deaths over the past couple of years, a 10-month U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations probe revealed.

The problems spanned many years over multiple administrations, and committee staffers said there is widespread blame for the oversight. The investigation found that changes to the methods for collecting the data and a transition of the agency within the Justice Department responsible for carrying out the act’s requirements led to the problems.

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California Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Amazon

Just the News

California Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta announced on Wednesday an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, claiming that the retail giant “stifled competition and caused increased prices” in the state. 

“Amazon coerces merchants into agreements that keep prices artificially high, knowing full well that they can’t afford to say no. With other e-commerce platforms unable to compete on price, consumers turn to Amazon as a one-stop shop for all their purchases,” Bonta said. “This perpetuates Amazon’s market dominance.” 

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Commentary: Advances in Medical Testing Making Health Challenges Easier to Diagnose

RealClearWire

You may suffer from autoimmune pulmonary alveolar proteinosis, or aPAP, but you might not know it yet. Importantly, your doctor may not know it either. 

Thousands of Americans suffer from aPAP, a rare autoimmune lung disease caused by the progressive build-up of an oily substance normally present in the lungs called surfactant. In healthy people, surfactant forms a thin layer that lines the tiny air sacs (alveoli) of the lungs and helps them function while we breath. In people with aPAP, the surfactant over-accumulates, making the layer thicker in some air sacs and filling others, blocking oxygen from moving out of the air sacs and into the bloodstream. 

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Youngkin Announces 2022 GO Virginia Grants

Eric Burk

Four projects focused on business development and jobs growth won the 2022 Growth and Opportunity for Virginia (GO Virginia) grant awards totaling $1.2 million.

“GO Virginia allows us to invest in key projects that will enhance our economic growth by fostering workforce development and stimulating new business opportunities,” Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a Tuesday announcement. “These projects exemplify the innovative partnerships that GO Virginia grants were designed to promote, driving regional advancement and strengthening our Commonwealth.”

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New York State Board of Regents’ Regulation Requires Private Schools to Provide Education ‘Substantially Equivalent’ to Government Schools

Susan Berry, PhD

A new regulation announced by the New York State Board of Regents requires all of the state’s 1,800 private and religious schools to provide an education that is “substantially equivalent” to that offered by public, government-run schools.

The Board of Regents passed the new regulation last week unanimously and without debate, reported WABC.

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Commentary: Justice Department Desperate to Conceal ‘Classified’ Records

Virginia Star Staff

With one sentence, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon spoke for the majority of Americans who no longer have faith in the nation’s top law enforcement agency. “It is also true, of course, that even-handed procedure does not demand unquestioning trust in the determinations of the Department of Justice,” she wrote in her September 15 order denying the government’s request to prevent a third-party review of allegedly “classified” documents seized by the FBI during the raid of Mar-a-Lago last month.

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Schools Across Virginia Targeted by Fake Reports of Active Shooters on Monday and Tuesday

Eric Burk

Over a dozen school districts across Virginia were targeted by hoax reports of active shootings or other violence on Monday and Tuesday. That’s part of a broader wave of similar hoax calls targeting schools across the U.S.

“On Monday, Virginia State Police personnel responded to assist numerous local police and sheriff’s offices with reports of active shooters on school campuses,” Virginia State Police Public Relations Director Corinne Geller told The Virginia Star. “None of the threats were deemed valid, and the state police, through collaboration with the Virginia Fusion Center, is now working with those same local law enforcement agencies to investigate the source of the threats and to determine if there is any evidence to connect them.”

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Whistleblower: FBI Deliberately Miscategorizing January 6 Cases to Boost ‘Domestic Extremism’ Claims

Virginia Star Staff

On Monday, Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) claimed that a new whistleblower from the FBI told him that the bureau is “cooking the books” when it comes to cases related to the peaceful protests of January 6th, deliberately miscategorizing them so they can add to an apparent increase in “domestic extremism” cases.

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Migrants Whom DeSantis Flew to Martha’s Vineyard File Class Action Suit Against Him

Just the News

Some of the migrants whom Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis flew to Martha’s Vineyard have filed a lawsuit against him and state officials.

These migrants allege that the group boarded the planes under false pretenses. The governor sent two planes of illegal migrants to upper crust liberal enclave Martha’s Vineyard late last week, prompting horror from the area’s residents and outrage from Democratic politicians. Authorities promptly relocated the migrants from the wealthy area to a military base near Cape Cod.

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Federal Appeals Court Reverses Ruling on January 6 Subpoena to RNC, Dismisses Case

Just the News

A federal appeals court has reversed a lower court ruling ordering the Republican National Committee to comply with a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 committee, poking the Democrat-led investigation for vacillating on key issues and acknowledging there were “important and unsettled constitutional questions” about whether the panel is lawfully constituted.

The U.S. Circuit Court for Appeals or the District of Columbia said it was dismissing the case because the Jan. 6 committee withdrew the subpoena to the RNC seeking records of its dealings with a digital fund-raising vendor Salesforce.

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TikTok Lawyer Says Left-Wing Nonprofit Offered Him $400 to Post Propaganda About Trump and January 6

Virginia Star Staff

An attorney with a popular TikTok account has exposed a corrupt left-wing influence operation that pays social media personalities to post disinformation about former president Donald Trump and January 6.

Atlanta-based attorney Preston Moore claimed on Saturday that he was offered $400 by the nonprofit “Good Information Foundation” to post manipulative “propaganda” ahead of the 2022 mid term elections.

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Commentary: Mutual Funds Are Using Your Money to Push ESG

Admin

The mutual fund industry has gone “woke.” It’s not just the asset managers who screen socially “unacceptable” companies in industries involving, say, guns, fossil fuels, tobacco, or gambling. Those have been around for decades.

No, there’s something else amiss. And if you’re investing your hard-earned money, you might be part of the problem.

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Harvard Orders Students to Use Correct Pronouns, Says Wrong Pronouns Constitute ‘Abuse’

Admin

One of the nation’s most prestigious universities is ordering students to attend mandatory training on using “correct” pronouns for their fellow students, warning that using their real pronouns may constitute “abuse” and could lead to disciplinary action.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Ivy League school Harvard University now requires all students to attend mandatory Title IX training sessions. At these sessions, they are told, among other things, that “using the wrong pronouns” for students who believe they are a different gender constitutes “abuse,” and that “any words used to lower a person’s self-worth” are “verbal abuse.”

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Miyares, 50 Other Attorneys General Ask FCC to Expand Caller ID Authentication Requirement

Eric Burk

Attorney General Jason Miyares signed a letter along with 50 other attorneys general requesting the Federal Commissions Communications to do more to address illegal robocalls. The attorneys general say robocalls often come from foreign actors who spoof Caller ID to show U.S.- based numbers, and ask the FCC to expand which call network providers are required to authenticate Caller ID.

“Robocalls aren’t just annoying – they are illegal tools used to take advantage of the most vulnerable in our communities. We have to do more to protect Virginians from these scammers, which is why I’m encouraging the FCC to require more robocall protection technology,” Miyares said in a release.

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Clinton, Obama Economist Says U.S. ‘Has a Serious Inflation Problem’

The Center Square

Two top economists from Democratic presidential administrations are raising the alarm about inflation this week even as the Biden administration touts its progress on the issue.

Lawrence Summers, who served as Secretary of the Treasury for President Bill Clinton and Director of National Economic Council for President Obama, pointed to the latest consumer price inflation data, saying the U.S. “has a serious inflation problem.”

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