Month: December 2022

Dozens of U.S. churches have been targets of pro-abortion “hostility” since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a Family Research Council (FRC) report found.

On June 24, the Supreme Court overturned the ruling, causing an uproar among pro-abortion supporters. Nearly 30 attacks on churches were reported after the Dobbs decision that had explicit pro-abortion rhetoric, according to the report.

U.S. Media Outlet Has Extensive Partnerships, Financial Dealings with Orgs Tied to Chinese Communist Party Influence Operations

The China Project (TCP), a New York-based media outlet renowned for its China reporting, has had professional and financial ties with organizations that may have been headed by members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or members of alleged Chinese influence operations, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.

Over 20 organizations that may have been led by such individuals have apparently partnered with or financially sponsored TCP, including the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) and the Confucius Institute, the DCNF found. Both groups apparently began professional relationships with TCP after the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) identified them as CCP influence operations in 2018. Furthermore, the DCNF found that TCP’s “board director,” Clarence Kwan, may have been simultaneously serving as a director of an alleged CCP front group at the time he joined TCP’s board and provided initial equity in the company.

Biden’s Trans-Identifying Top Health Official: ‘I Have No Regrets’ About Lengthy Transition Because ‘I Can’t Imagine a Life Without My Children’

December 22, 2022December 22, 2022 Susan Berry, PhD

A Biden administration top health official who identifies as transgender and has encouraged parents and doctors to use puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to immediately “affirm” a child’s preferred “gender identity,” said during a public event he has “no regrets” that his “transition” took over ten years because he “can’t imagine a life without my children.”

As a headline at The Washington Stand noted, Dr. Rachel (born Richard) Levine appears to have admitted that “gender transition procedures can cause sterility.”

Stanford University Releases Guide Against ‘Harmful Language’ That Includes the Word ‘American’

December 22, 2022December 21, 2022 Susan Berry, PhD

Stanford University published a language guide Monday that announced the exclusion of the word “American” from the school’s websites and other online properties, a word which, the guide says, is “harmful” because it suggests an insult to those people from the other Americas.

The language guide, which was published Monday, is the culmination of a project launched in May and titled, “Introducing the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative Website” (EHLI).

Republicans Poised to Approve Massive FBI Funding Boost in Wake of Twitter Files Revelations

Republicans are set to approve a massive spending bill which includes billions of dollars in funding for the FBI despite recently leaked information which found the federal agency colluded with Twitter to censor users.

The bill designated $11.33 billion for the FBI “to investigate extremist violence and domestic terrorism,” according to a summary of the bill by the House Appropriations Committee. The total is reportedly $569.6 million more than the enacted levels for the 2022 fiscal year and $524 million more than the president requested.

Election Transparency Initiative Denounces Marc Elias’ Requested Change to Electoral Count Act Reform

December 22, 2022December 21, 2022 Bradley Vasoli

A right-leaning election reform outfit on Wednesday denounced the current version of legislation to reform the Electoral Count Act, particularly a provision urged by Democratic election attorney Marc Elias.

The original act was enacted in 1887 to prevent presidential election crises such as that of 1876, during which three states submitted competing groups of electors, forcing Congress to determine how to resolve the count. Ultimately Republican Rutherford B. Hayes emerged victorious over Democrat Samuel Tilden.

Youngkin Releases New Regulation Review Manual, Emphasizes Transparency

December 22, 2022December 21, 2022 Eric Burk

Governor Glenn Youngkin has released a list of more than 300 regulatory changes his administration plans to implement by July 2023, and also a manual for agencies on how to comply with the governor’s June Executive Order 19, focused on improving Virginia’s regulatory process and ordering a 25 percent reduction in total regulations.

“Our new Office of Regulatory Management is transforming how Virginians can access regulatory materials,” Youngkin said in a Tuesday announcement.

Commentary: CDC Funding Decisions Based Largely on Politics, Not Science

December 22, 2022December 21, 2022 RealClearWire

For the second year in a row, the Centers for Disease Control has been caught ignoring science and letting liberal interest groups set its policies.

In 2021, the American Pediatric Academy and the Children’s Hospital Association tracked COVID-19 statistics in children and the data show no relationship between mask mandates and the rate at which children caught the disease. In the face of this evidence – and other data showing that masks harm children’s development, the CDC supported masking students after being pressured by the National Education Association (the nation’s largest teachers’ union).

Blue State School Districts Are Mandating Masks for Christmas

Ahead of the holiday break, several schools in blue states are implementing mask mandates in light of the “tripledemic.”

Schools in states such as Pennsylvania, Washington and New Jersey are fearing a “tripledemic” of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza (flu) and coronavirus. To combat the “tripledemic” some schools are considering mask mandates while other states have already asked their students to mask up.

Commentary: Marxism Remains Relevant Only as a Destructive Force

Though Karl Marx’s theories were never valid, they changed the world by stoking grievance, focusing it on the status quo, demanding that the status quo be burned to the ground, and promising that a never-fully-defined utopia would spontaneously spring from the ashes.

House GOP Locates Emails, Texts Showing Pelosi Office Directly Involved in Failed January 6 Security

December 21, 2022December 21, 2022 Just the News

House Republicans gathered a trove of text and email messages showing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was directly involved in the creation and editing of the Capitol security plan that failed during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot and that security officials later declared they had been “denied again and again” the resources needed to protect one of the nation’s most important homes of democracy.

The internal communications were made public Wednesday in a report compiled by Republican Reps. Rodney Davis, Jim Banks, Troy Nehls, Jim Jordan and Kelly Armstrong that encompasses the results of months of investigation they did of evidence that had been ignored by the Democrat-led Jan. 6 committee. The lawmakers were authorized by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to do their own probe.

Transgender Suicide Stats Are ‘Exaggerated’ and Can Increase Suicide Risk, Psychiatrists Say

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

Transgender activists often tout the claim that youths with gender identity issues have a suicide attempt rate as high as 41%, but that exaggerated statistic may encourage suicide, multiple psychiatrists have argued.

The suicide rate of youth patients at the United Kingdom’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) was 0.03% over the course of a decade, according to an analysis of about 15,000 patients, and another clinic reported that 13.4% of their referrals were considered to be at high risk for suicide prior to their initial triage appointment, according to analysis by Dr. Alison Clayton, an Australian psychiatrist. Compared to this clinical data, transgender suicide statistics that activists promote typically draw from voluntary surveys and find a much higher risk of suicide among respondents.

Appeals Court Blocks Biden Vaccine Mandate for Federal Contractors

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

On Monday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Biden Administration’s rule mandating that all federal contractors receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, the 5th Circuit’s three-judge panel voted by a 2-1 margin to uphold a prior decision by a lower court that blocked the rule, first implemented by the Biden White House in September of 2021. That ruling came as a result of a lawsuit by the states of Indiana, Louisiana, and Mississippi seeking the overturning of the mandate.

Report: DOJ Demanded Data on House GOP Intel Staffers During Russia Probe

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

During the failed investigation into so-called collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and the Russian government, the Department of Justice (DOJ) used grand jury subpoenas to secretly obtain communications between staffers working for Republican members of the House of Representatives.

The New York Post reports that the first such demands came in November of 2017, when the DOJ ordered search engine giant Google to hand over information on two senior staffers for the House Intelligence Committee, which at the time was led by Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). The material was ultimately delivered to the DOJ by Google on December 5th.

‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ Public Libraries Agree to Allow Actor Kirk Cameron to Hold Children’s Faith-Based Story Hour Only After He Threatens Lawsuit

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 Susan Berry, PhD

Actor and author Kirk Cameron announced he scored two victories recently when two public libraries that had hosted a “drag queen story hour” for children finally agreed to allow him to hold a children’s faith-based story hour.

The libraries denied him their facilities at first, but then reconsidered once he threatened court action.

‘Twitter Files’ Reveal Platform Aided Pentagon Propaganda Efforts Abroad

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 Just the News

The most recent release of Twitter’s internal documents, dubbed the “Twitter Files,” details the platform’s cooperation with the Pentagon to promote propaganda materials in line with the military’s strategic geopolitical interests.

Released by The Intercept’s Lee Fang, the latest release detailed Pentagon requests that the platform either verify or “whitelist” a plethora of accounts it used to “amplify certain messages.” Whitelisting an account exempts it from spam and abuse flags while also making it more likely to trend.

Puberty Blocker, Cross-Sex Hormone Prescriptions Double in America’s Children Since 2017

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 Susan Berry, PhD

Health insurance claims data for treatment of gender dysphoria in children aged 6-17 years shows puberty blocker prescriptions have doubled since 2017, and claims for cross-sex hormones also doubled up until 2021.

According to data compiled by Komodo Health Inc for Reuters in October, in 2021, 42,167 children and teens between the ages of 6 and 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria, three times the number in 2017.

Feds Lost Track of 150k Migrants due to Biden’s ‘No Processing’ Policy, Training Video Shows

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 Just the News

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials lost track of 150,000 migrants that entered the United States due to the Biden administration’s “no processing” immigration policy, a training video from the federal agency shows.

The Biden administration launched “Operation Horizon” in November 2021 to try to locate 150,000 migrants that were released in the summer earlier that year, but the training videos published Tuesday by Fox News show that officials had difficulty tracking down the migrants due to a lack of identifying information.

Youngkin’s Budget Proposal Includes Item for 15-Week Gestation Limit for Abortions

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 Eric Burk

Governor Glenn Youngkin’s recent budget proposal includes a $50,000 item for adult correctional facilities to offset increased costs from establishing a “15-week gestation limitation for abortion.”

The item aligns with Youngkin’s request that legislators pass a pain threshold abortion ban in 2023. Such a bill will face stiff opposition in the Democrat-controlled Senate, where it will likely be sent to the Senate Education and Health Committee, chaired by Senator Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth).

Commentary: Twitter Files Point to Urgent Need for Platform Transparency

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 RealClearWire

December has been a whirlwind month in the Twitterverse. A new academic study argued that hate speech was surging on the platform, while new company owner Elon Musk countered that such tweets were being quietly hidden, so they didn’t count. High-profile journalists were abruptly suspended and restored with little explanation, with condemnations from the EU and UN. All the while, the so-called “Twitter Files” allowed an unprecedented inside look at the messy and controversial world of platform moderation. What can we learn from all of this about the how the social platforms at the heart of our digital democracies are run?

Commentary: This Christmas Season, I’ve Become a Hallmark Man

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

The following admission should embarrass me. Fortunately, I have reached the age where personal quirks more often bring amusement than shame.

Here’s my confession: I’ve begun watching Hallmark movies. Recently, I even spent two evenings with a Candace Cameron Bure film from the Great American Family. Yep, here I am, a guy in his early 70s, all alone and happily watching sappy movies.

Congress’ Massive Spending Bill Sets Aside Another $45 Billion for Ukraine

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

Congress appropriated an additional $45 billion in emergency assistance to help Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion in its yearly spending bill released early Tuesday.

The bill is Congress’ largest assistance package for Ukraine to date, following a $40 billion package signed into law in May, a $12 billion supplement in September and $800 million authorized in Congress’ defense spending budget, bringing the total anticipated support for Ukraine in 2022 to nearly $100 billion. It exceeds President Joe Biden’s $37 billion request for military, economic and humanitarian support for Ukraine despite some Republican opposition to offering a “blank check” to Ukraine.

State of Emergency in El Paso as Border Patrol Reports Record Illegal Entries

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 The Center Square

Blanketed babies in car seats on the sidewalk. People laying in blankets and sleeping bags on the ground. Hundreds pouring into downtown El Paso at a time. In November alone, more than 53,500 illegal foreign nationals were apprehended, and an additional 24,000 who evaded capture by law enforcement in the Customs and Border Patrol sector that includes El Paso.

Wells Fargo Ordered to Pay $3.7 Billion for ‘Illegal Activity,’ Including Mismanaging Accounts

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 Just the News

Federal regulators on Tuesday ordered Wells Fargo Bank to pay a $1.7 billion civil penalty and more than $2 billion in compensation to customers for what they say was “illegal activity affecting over 16 million consumer accounts.”

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Wells Fargo “repeatedly misapplied loan payments, wrongfully foreclosed on homes and illegally repossessed vehicles, incorrectly assessed fees and interest, charged surprise overdraft fees,” among other things.

Commentary: The FBI Copied Parts of the Debunked Steele Dossier Directly into Its Spy Requests

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 RealClearWire

The FBI relied more extensively on Christopher Steele’s debunked dossier in their Russiagate investigation than has been revealed, inserting key parts from it into their applications for warrants to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign.

Agents did this without telling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the precise wording was plucked directly from a political rumor sheet paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign or providing judges with any independent corroboration of the explosive allegations.

New Jersey Passes New Gun Control Law

December 21, 2022December 20, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

New Jersey’s state Senate narrowly passed a new concealed carry gun control legislation Monday, with one Democratic lawmaker joining Republicans in saying it is unconstitutional, according to NJ.com.

The bill would require gun owners who seek a concealed carry permit to purchase liability insurance and take training courses, while also increasing permit fees and restricting guns in “sensitive places” like schools, public parks, courthouses, bars and private property, according to the legislation. The bill received bipartisan criticism, with Republican state Sen. Michael Testa calling the bill “absolutely wrong” and Democratic state Sen. Nicholas Sacco saying it is unconstitutional and will face legal challenges, according to NJ.com.

Judge Rules Kari Lake Election Contest Will Go to Trial

December 20, 2022 Michael Patrick Leahy

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson ruled late Monday that Kari Lake’s election contest lawsuit will go to trial on Wednesday.

The judge’s ruling came hours after attorneys for the defendants–Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors–and the plaintiff, GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, delivered oral arguments in court on both sides of the defendants’ motion to dismiss all ten counts set forward in Lake’s 70 page lawsuit.

GOP to Pursue FBI ‘Secret Files’ Regarding Contact with Big Tech

On Sunday, Congressman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said that the new GOP majority in the House of Representatives will investigate recently-revealed examples of collusion between Big Tech and the FBI by pursuing any “secret files” the FBI may have kept on the matter.

The New York Post reports that Turner, the incoming Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that “it is my understanding from our contacts that we have had with the FBI that there are secret files that the FBI has of these contacts that they were having with social media and with mainstream media.”

Court Demands Southwest Airlines Reinstate Flight Attendant Fired over Religious Beliefs

December 20, 2022December 19, 2022 The Center Square

A federal judge has awarded a former Southwest Airlines flight attendant the maximum amount in damages allowed under federal law and issued an injunction against the airline and its union from discriminating against flight attendants because of their religious beliefs.

Judge Brantley Starr, ruling for the U.S. District Court Northern District of Texas, last week ordered Southwest to pay Carter back pay and other forms of relief that the jury awarded when she won her lawsuit in July.

Youngkin Announces $1.2 Million for Affordable Childcare in Southwest Virginia

December 20, 2022December 19, 2022 Eric Burk

Governor Glenn Youngkin announced $1.2 million in funds for an affordable childcare program in southwest Virginia; a Monday press release from the governor describes the Ready SWVA program as a way to help people enter the workforce.

“Finding quality, affordable and available childcare options for working families in Virginia has been an enduring challenge,” said Governor Glenn Youngkin. “Expanding access to providers while strengthening the current network is a necessary step in the right direction.”

Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: The 10 Steps to Save America

Most Americans know something has gone terribly wrong—and very abruptly—with the United States. They are certain that our wounds are almost all self-inflicted. The current pathologies are not a result of a natural disaster, an exhaustion of natural resources, plagues, or an existential war.

Crushing national debt and annual deficits, spiraling food and fuel costs amid “normal” seven-percent-plus annual inflation, bread-and-circuses entitlements, a nonexistent border, a resurgence of racial tribalism, pandemic violent criminality, and humiliation abroad—all these pathologies are easily cited as symptoms of a sick patient. Our crises are not as the Left maintains—a nine-person Supreme Court, the Electoral College, or the filibuster—all distractions from existential problems the Left largely created.

Commentary: Ohio PTA Reportedly Collaborates with TikTok

In late November, some Ohio parents received a brochure via snail mail detailing a workshop co-sponsored by their local PTAs and social media app TikTok.

Agendas for the event were included in the mailer but are also posted in media releases on the National PTA and TikTok websites dating back to 2019. “During the family workshops,” readers are told, “parents and teens will: Engage with a student panel about online safety and digital citizenship; Learn about available safety settings and privacy tools within TikTok; [and] Complete a guided activity together that helps illustrate why teens enjoy using TikTok for creative expression.”

Commentary: The Best Christmas Movies Ever

Critic, schmitic. How can you pretend to be engaged in objective aesthetic appraisal when you’re talking about movies that you first watched decades ago in your childhood living room, while your late mother was trimming the tree and your long-dead dad was setting up the Nativity scene? The feeling that washes over you the moment the opening credits begin has relatively little to do with these movies’ actual merits, if any. Of course they get to you: They’re part of what shaped you; they’re artifacts of the long-vanished era in which you grew up; like Proust’s bite of madeleine, they trigger tsunamis of precious memory; like attending a midnight Mass on Christmas Eve or a Yuletide performance of the Messiah, watching them is a cherished ritual, carrying meaning through time and underscoring the irretrievable nature of the past even as they make the past feel, briefly, just a bit less irretrievable.

Twitter Users Vote for Elon Musk to Step Down as CEO

Twitter users voted for owner and CEO Elon Musk to step down from his leadership role by a 15-point margin in a Sunday poll.

“Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll,” Musk asked in a Sunday afternoon tweet. The query came after Twitter implemented several recent changes in its policies, specifically instituting a policy prohibiting the sharing of real-time public information that resulted in the suspensions of several journalists.

Florida AG Moody Calls on Biden to Restore Top Drug Post to Address National Fentanyl Crisis

December 20, 2022December 19, 2022 The Center Square

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody on Monday called on President Joe Biden to reverse an Obama-era decision to make the Director for the Office of the National Drug Control Policy a cabinet-level position again.

Moody sent a letter to the president asking him to take action immediately before the public health authority Title 42 ends this week, “which will fuel a massive border surge and allow even more deadly fentanyl to flood into the country,” she said.

Commentary: China Insults a Submissive Biden Desperate to Talk to Xi Jinping

“Doubled-faced.” That’s how Beijing just described two senior Biden administration officials who had traveled to China, seeking to repair relations with the Chinese regime.

Last week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and Laura Rosenberger, the senior director for China at the National Security Council (NSC), flew to Langfang in Hebei province for talks with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng.

FBI Paid Twitter Millions, Had Close Relationship with Execs and Staff, Emails Show

December 19, 2022December 19, 2022 Admin

The FBI paid Twitter millions as a reimbursement for the time the company spent processing the FBI’s requests, according to internal documents published by author Michael Shellenberger Monday, in the most recent installment of Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s ongoing “Twitter Files.”

In an email with the subject line “Run the business – we made money!” an employee, whose name was redacted, reports to then-Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker, that the FBI paid Twitter nearly $3.5 million dollars between October 2019 and February 2021, Shellenberger reported. Baker, a former FBI agent, was the agency’s general counsel during Operation Crossfire Hurricane, and approved the surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page via improper use of the Steele dossier, according to a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

Supreme Court Delays End of Title 42 Immigration Rule

December 19, 2022 Just the News

The Supreme Court on Monday delayed the termination of the Title 42 immigration rule that was set to expire this week.

Chief Justice John Roberts issued the temporary hold in response to an appeal from Republican-led states seeking to keep the order in place, according to NBC News. Roberts gave the Department of Homeland Security, which had sought to end the order until 5 p.m. on Tuesday to respond to the Republican appeal, per the New York Post.

Biden Administration Reveals Plans for Post-Title 42 Immigration Policy

The Biden Administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a six-point plan for how to handle the immigration crisis after the end of the successful Trump-era policy of Title 42.

According to CNN, the seven-page outline repeats the false narrative used by the Biden White House that the administration inherited a “broken and dismantled immigration system,” blaming the crisis on the Trump Administration despite President Trump’s success in reducing immigration levels to the lowest points in modern history.

First-Ever Emmy Awards for Children Heavily Pushes LGBT Content

In the first Emmy Awards ceremony aimed at children, many of the speeches and award wins overwhelmingly promoted pro-LGBTQ content and other far-left concepts.

Fox News reports that the Children’s and Family Emmy Awards, created by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and hosted over the course of two nights, is intended for children ranging from “infancy to age 15.” Of all the programs that received an award, one out of four featured characters or stories that involved sexual preference or gender identity.

Scholars Work at ‘Decolonizing Light’ to Combat ‘Colonialism in Contemporary Physics’

A group of scholars at Concordia University in Montreal have dedicated themselves to “Decolonizing Light.”

The effort is not about banning flashlights, but rather advancing other ways of knowing about light, science and physics.

The group’s tagline is “Tracing and countering colonialism in contemporary physics.”

Trump Leads GOP Primary with DeSantis as Runner-Up: Poll

December 19, 2022December 18, 2022 Just the News

Former President Donald Trump is the top choice for the 2024 Republican presidential primary, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis coming in as the runner-up, according to a new poll.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll released Friday found that 48 percent of GOP voters said they would support Trump if the primary were held today, while 25 percent said they would vote for DeSantis. If Trump does not run in 2024, 48 percent of GOP voters said they would support DeSantis, with former Vice President Mike Pence as the runner-up with 15 percent support.

VA-04 Republicans Nominate Leon Benjamin for Special Election

December 19, 2022December 18, 2022 Eric Burk

Leon Benjamin is the Republican nominee for a special election in VA-04 after Benjamin won 57 percent of the votes in the first round of ranked choice voting in a Saturday canvass, Fourth District Republican Chairman Carey Allen told The Virginia Star.

“Thank you, VA-4, for your nomination to represent you in Washington! Together we will WIN this Special Election and ensure your voice is HEARD through the Halls of Congress. God bless you all,” Benjamin said in a social media statement.

Commentary: Let Cryptocurrency Implode with FTX

Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest makes for a fitting final act to this chapter of cryptocurrency history. The internet prodigy-turned-supervillain had been at large for a whole month since the spectacular collapse of his crypto trading platform, FTX. But Sam is no Butch Cassidy. Rather than vanishing, he spent his time tweeting, giving interviews, and most stupefying of all, making appearances at high-powered New York Times business conferences alongside the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Janet Yellen. Tucker Carlson speculated at the time that Bankman-Fried’s lavish donations to Democratic politicians had afforded him de facto immunity from prosecution. It seems that the goodwill has now run out.

Commentary: Republicans Can Thank the Federal Government’s Bungled 2020 Census for Their Razor-Thin House Majority