Day: March 18, 2023

Pence Tells Iowans U.S. Must Continue to be ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ in Ukraine

M.D. Kittle

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Taking a different position than his old boss on a key foreign policy issue, former Vice President Mike Pence told a gathering of Iowans Saturday that the U.S. must continue to help provision Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression. While he repeatedly trumpeted “Trump-Pence” successes, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate definitely differs with potential top presidential race rivals, former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, on U.S. involvement in the war-torn European country.

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Janet Yellen’s Policy Would Destroy Small U.S. Banks While Bailing Out Chinese Depositors, Experts Say

Virginia Star Staff

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated during her testimony at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on March 16 that she, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation board, the Fed board, and President Joe Biden would only safeguard uninsured deposits at banks whose failures they determine would pose “systemic risks” to the economy, which will destroy small regional banks, according to experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

On the other hand, it will enable big banks to be more reckless because their depositors will be made whole if they fail. In the case of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), this will include many Chinese companies that will be getting reimbursed by community banks, according to Reuters.

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FBI, DOJ Investigating TikTok Parent over Surveillance of Americans: Report

Virginia Star Staff

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are investigating Chinese company ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, for surveilling Americans, according to Forbes.

The DOJ Fraud Section and the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia subpoenaed information from the company about its employees’ efforts to access the location and other private information of American journalists through TikTok, Forbes reported, citing an anonymous source. The FBI is conducting interviews on the same subject.

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Republican Lawmakers Unveil New Plan to Spike Biden’s Student Loan Bailout

Virginia Star Staff

Several Republican lawmakers announced on Friday that they will introduce a Congressional Review Act (CRA) to reverse President Joe Biden’s attempt to cancel student loan debt, according to a press release sent to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, John Cornyn of Texas and Joni Ernst of Iowa made the announcement shortly after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) ruled that the CRA, a congressional oversight tool to reverse rules by federal agencies, can be used to counter the Biden administration’s student loan cancelation proposal, according to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions’ press release. The senators argue that the plan does not cancel debt, but shifts the burden to the taxpayers.

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Rachel Levine Promises Idea of Transgender Children Will Soon Be Normalized, Has ‘Highest Support’ of Biden Administration

Susan Berry, PhD

Transgender Assistant Secretary for Health for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Rachel Levine recently praised the work of children’s hospitals, such as Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC) in Hartford, for their “gender-affirming care” clinics that provide children and teens with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries, such as elective double mastectomies.

Levine (born Richard Levine) told a very welcoming audience at CCMC’s Pediatric Grand Rounds in February that “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex Americans, especially our youth … need our attention because they’re being attacked and … are attempting suicide at an alarming rate.”

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Dem-Linked Nonprofit Sues DeSantis Admin for Records on Decision to Reject AP History Class

Virginia Star Staff

A left-wing watchdog organization sued Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration on Thursday for allegedly withholding records relating to the decision to reject the AP African American Studies course.

American Oversight filed a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Education claiming the government agency is allegedly not responding to eight public records requests for the communications between state agencies, DeSantis’ office and outside parties discussing the decision to reject an AP African American Studies course because it lacked “educational value and historical accuracy.” The lawsuit comes after DeSantis rejected the college-level course because it violated state law against the teaching of CRT.

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Virginia Bill Would Expand Tax Credit for Farmers Donating Crops

The Center Square

As thousands of Virginia families grapple with food insecurity, the state could soon renew and expand tax credits for farmers who donate surplus crops to nonprofit food banks under a bill sent to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk this session. 

Before the close of this year’s legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill that would allow farmers who donate food crops or “wholesome food” to a nonprofit food bank in the commonwealth to claim a tax credit equal to 50% of the fair market value of such donation. In total, each farmer could claim a maximum of $10,000 in tax credits for donations starting in the 2023 tax year. The bill has a sunset date of Jan. 1, 2028. 

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Commentary: Legacy Media Ignored Voting Irregularities in 2020 Election

RealClearWire

The lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Services, set to go to trial on April 17, may turn out to be a seminal case in First Amendment jurisprudence, with effects that reach well beyond Fox. In a nutshell, Dominion charges that Fox defamed them by putting on air people who claimed that Dominion’s voting machines yielded incorrect results, to the benefit of Joe Biden. More than this, the plaintiffs have secured, through depositions, evidence that Fox News hosts and news executives themselves disbelieved the claims their on-air guests were making.

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Commentary: The Way Government Lost 15 Million Acres of Public Land in the United States

Virginia Star Staff

Leave it to the United States Government to lose track of almost three states worth of public land. Only an institution with so little incentive and ability to allocate resources for the betterment of human wellbeing could instantiate such a catastrophic waste of potential.

The following is a story of an engineer named Eric Siegfried, a Montana man who caught public officials in almost unimaginable levels of incompetence and waste. It is also a cautionary tale about the way extreme misallocations of resources are the predictable outcome of America’s current form of land use governance, which systematically severs control over certain resources from anyone equipped to use them rationally and effectively.

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Over Two Tons of ‘Missing’ Uranium Found in Libya

Virginia Star Staff

On Thursday, more than two tons of radioactive uranium that had previously thought to have been missing was discovered in a Libyan warehouse, easing concerns about the possible nuclear threat of the missing materials.

As the New York Post reports, Khaled Mahjoub, a spokesman for the Libyan National Army (LNA), released the statement revealing that the uranium was discovered in southern Libya, contained in at least 10 barrels; video taken from the recovery shows workers counting up to 18 barrels.

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