Day: March 31, 2023

Trump Prosecutors Cross Perilous Rubicon, Now Face Test over Credibility, Consistency and Clock

Just the News

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg thrust America into uncharted political and legal waters when he secured a grand jury indictment against Donald Trump. Soon his team will face withering scrutiny that will test three crucial elements of his case: the credibility of his witnesses, the clock known as the statute of limitations and the consistency of his application of fraud law. The latter, which has received little media scrutiny, may prove prosecutors’ most Herculean challenge as the courts for both New York and the nation have a very clear and high-bar definition of what constitutes the act of defrauding, something that is assumed to be a central element of the hush money scandal.

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Minister Rips Biden Administration for Refusal to Condemn Nashville Shooting as ‘Hate Crime’ Against Christians

Susan Berry, PhD

A Presbyterian minister condemned the Biden administration’s refusal to denounce the Nashville school shooting as a “religious hate crime against Christians.” Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Christian Defense Coalition, said in a statement Thursday that President Joe Biden and his administration’s failure to declare the shooting at the Covenant Christian school a hate crime against Christians “is deeply troubling and concerning.”

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Caravan of More than 1,000 Migrants Crosses into El Paso Illegally as Chaos Erupts in Mexico

Virginia Star Staff

A caravan of more than 1,000 migrants crossed illegally into El Paso, Texas, Wednesday as chaos erupted in recent days on the Mexican side in Juarez.

Agents apprehended the group, which was mostly comprised of Venezuelans, Wednesday, El Paso Border Patrol Chief Anthony Good said late Thursday. The incident follows chaos in Juarez, where nearly 40 migrants died Monday in a shelter fire.

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Commentary: Dethroning King Dollar

Virginia Star Staff

Joe Biden is dethroning King Dollar in real time. The US dollar’s financial dominance is under siege from a uniquely bad combination of foreign and domestic policies, and Americans should be deeply concerned by the fallout if the dollar loses its 80-year reign as the world’s reserve currency.

In just the past weeks, China conducted the first major LNG sale in renminbi instead of dollars, struck a major deal with Brazil to conduct trade in their own currencies, and just announced the sale of 65,000 tons of LNG to France denominated in yuan. This dovetails with the Biden administration’s inflationary policies and ham-handed sanctions on Russia that accelerated foreigners’ flight from the dollar at the very moment the world doubts if the dollar remains a safe and reliable store of value.

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Virginia Gov. Youngkin Proposes Amendment to ‘Stopgap’ Budget to Include Medicaid Renewal

The Center Square

As Virginia resumes the Medicaid renewal process that was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Glenn Youngkin is asking the General Assembly to amend the “skinny” budget passed during the legislative session to include millions in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act to support the process.  

The General Assembly adjourned at the end of February without a finalized budget. Instead, lawmakers approved a “stopgap” budget bill that included just a few items, including funding to address a calculation error that overstated the amount of state aid Virginia schools could expect to receive. 

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Connecticut Archdiocese of Hartford Investigates Possible Eucharistic Miracle

Susan Berry, PhD

The Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, issued a statement Tuesday about its ongoing investigation into a possible Eucharistic miracle that was reported at St. Thomas Church in Thomaston earlier in March.

Rev. Joseph Crowley, pastor of St. Thomas, announced on March 5 after the distribution of Holy Communion that a lay eucharistic minister had witnessed a possible miracle when the vessel holding the hosts showed more hosts had appeared.

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Commentary: The Post-Normal World After COVID

Virginia Star Staff

Like most polls, Gallup polls are usually paid advertisements for whomever commissions them and therefore deserving of as little attention. However, the indefatigable Sharyl Attkisson recently reported on the results of one such survey and that did draw my attention. Evidently, 47 percent of Americans say life will never go back to pre-pandemic normal. I was somewhat stunned! How could 53 percent be thinking we could go back? 

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Border Authorities Detail Smuggling Routes, Warn of Greater Surge in Chinese Illegally Crossing Into US

Virginia Star Staff

Border authorities in the U.S. are expecting a further increase in the number of Chinese migrants crossing illegally at the southern border, and have identified key ways they are entering the country, according to an internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) document exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The document, which was circulated via an internal email to CBP personnel, warns of more Chinese nationals entering the U.S. via the southern border due to a broader message from smugglers about routes into the country. The document details key smuggling routes, and notes that the Chinese nationals are entering in higher numbers due to religious persecution against the Christian faith.

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Kirk Cameron Welcomes Critics at His Library Events as ‘Opportunity’ to Change Their Mind

Just the News

Actor and author Kirk Cameron told Just the News that he welcomes his critics at the library events he’s holding for his national book tour as an “opportunity” to potentially change their mind.

“I hope that they all come to the events,” Cameron said following his “Brave Story Hour” book tour event at the Cleveland Park Library in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. “I will give you the red carpet treatment because we’re here not to cancel people, we’re here to love people. I don’t see people who oppose love, joy, peace, patience and kindness as enemies so much as an opportunity to maybe hear something that could change your mind.

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Commentary: The Energy Transition Is a Delusion Indeed

RealClearWire

The “energy transition” continues to receive thunderous applause from all the usual Beltway suspects, an exercise in groupthink fantasy amazing to behold. For those with actual lives to live and thus uninterested in silliness: The “energy transition” is a massive shift, wholly artificial and politicized, from conventional energy inexpensive (Table 1b and here), reliable, and very clean given the proper policy environment, toward such unconventional energy technologies as wind and solar power. They are expensive, unreliable, and deeply problematic environmentally in terms of toxic metal pollution, wildlife destruction, land use massive and unsightly, emissions of conventional pollutants, and in a larger context large and inexorable reductions in aggregate wealth and thus the social willingness to invest in environmental protection.

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Music Spotlight: Jaye Madison

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee- Doing what I do, I get sent a lot of artists to check out. A Facebook friend told me to check out the Jaye Madison band. I listened and they could absolutely sing. But normally I deal with PR representatives or managers. In a few days, I got contacted by 37-Media about this amazing new duo, Jaye Madison.  This time I really paid attention. Their song “Down” was unlike anything I had heard in a while. It wasn’t country, but it did have a rock/soul/R&B vibe and it was outstanding.

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Los Angeles, Cook Counties Post Biggest Population Losses in U.S. in 2022

Virginia Star Staff

The number of people who used to live in Los Angeles County and Cook County in Illinois continues to plummet.

Los Angeles County posted the largest population decline of all counties in the United States in 2022, falling by 90,704 and continuing a downward trend. It lost nearly twice that amount (180,394) in 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2022 estimates released Thursday.

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