Day: February 12, 2024

IRS Blistered by Internal Watchdog for Lax Protections of Taxpayer Data after Criminal Leak

Virginia Star Staff

The IRS failed to revoke access to sensitive tax systems from contractors who failed background checks and doesn’t have protections for some of those systems to prevent unauthorized removal of taxpayer data, the agency’s chief watchdog warns in a stinging rebuke that comes on the heels of a devastating criminal leak of tax records.

“The fact remains that for some sensitive systems, the IRS does not have adequate controls to detect or prevent the unauthorized removal of data by users,” the Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) concluded in a report this month.

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Special Counsel’s Report Gives Impeachment Inquiry New Leads in Biden-Ukraine Saga

Just the News

On the heels of the long-awaited report by Justice Department special counsel Robert Hur on the possession and potential mishandling of classified documents by President Joe Biden, several of the memos cited in the report that were found in Biden’s possession are eliciting questions from Congress about why Biden retained those documents related specifically to countries where his son was conducting his foreign business dealings. The House Oversight Committee has demanded that the Department of Justice provide them access to the classified documents uncovered by the special counsel’s investigation.

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Commentary: Another Far-Left Progressive Admits the ‘Very Fine People’ Claim Was a Hoax All Along

Virginia Star Staff

Hard to Kill is a Steven Seagal action thriller from 1990 that garnered scornful reviews, though I loved it as a then-teenager. But that phrase, “hard to kill,” also aptly describes the “Very Fine People” hoax surrounding Charlottesville and the lingering myth that President Trump praised bigots there.

In recent days, liberal social media rabble-rouser actor Michael Rapaport stated on the Patrick Bet-David podcast that “the Charlottesville, that I ranted about, I was wrong… that there’s good people on both sides, and when you see the full quote, that wasn’t what he [Trump] said.” Rapaport has been a prolific Trump hater, producing vitriolic online rants that frequently go viral, earning him nearly 700,000 followers on X/Twitter.

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Judge Warns Fani Willis Could Face ‘Disqualification’ in Trump Case Due to Nathan Wade Relationship

Tom Pappert

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee warned on Monday that District Attorney Fani Willis could face “disqualification” from prosecuting her case against former President Donald Trump as a result of her admitted relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who she appointed to oversee the case.

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Senator JD Vance Explains How Ukraine Aid Package is a ‘Future Impeachment Trap’ for Trump

Kaitlin Housler

Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) joined Monday’s edition of Steve Bannon’s War Room to discuss the supplemental funding package currently being debated in the Senate and how it could be used as a tool to impeach former President Donald Trump if he were to be elected in November.

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Report: Joel Osteen Church Shooter Identified as Genesse Moreno, Also Went by ‘Jeffrey’

Admin

Post Millennial The individual who walked into Joel Osteen’s Lakewood, Texas church on Sunday, pulled out a gun and opened fire, has been identified as Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36. Moreno had a 5-year-old child when entering the church wearing a trenchcoat and opened fire when enterring the church. Local news reports that multiple sources have…

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Analysis: The Impact of the Potential Sale of U.S. Steel Could be Seismic

Virginia Star Staff
U.S. Steel

The potential sale of one of America’s largest domestic steel producers, U.S. Steel, has raised eyebrows among lawmakers in key battleground states and even garnered the attention of the White House.

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Report: Farm, Food Prices Rise Under Net-Zero Climate Rules

The Center Square
Farmer Working

Farms and families will pay significantly more under the Biden administration’s net-zero climate policies, a new report from an Ohio-based policy group says.

The Buckeye Institute’s Net-Zero Climate-Control Policies Will Fail the Farm shows farmers will see a 34% rise in operational costs under the policies and family grocery bills will increase 15% based on modeling.

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Teacher Who Exposed School’s ‘Woke Kindergarten’ Program Put on Leave

Virginia Star Staff

The San Francisco-area elementary school whose test scores dropped following implementation of the so-called “Woke Kindergarten” program suspended the teacher who exposed the controversial program.

On Thursday, the teacher who blew the whistle on the program was “summoned […] to a video conference” during which he was told to “turn in his keys and laptop and not return to his classroom […] until further notice,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

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D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser Reveals Efforts to Stop Gov. Youngkin’s Plan to Move Wizards, Capitals to Virginia

Tom Pappert

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Sunday authored an opinion column offering reasons why Monumental Sports and Entertainment should abandon its plans to move to Alexandria, Virginia, where Governor Glenn Youngkin is working with the General Assembly to build a new entertainment complex for the Washington Wizards and Capitals.

Bowser revealed the offer made to keep the sports teams in the district, stressed the city’s ownership position over the Capital One Arena property and outlined a series of concerns about the possible move.

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Operation Lone Star Border Security Funding Totals More than Multiple State Budgets

The Center Square

The Texas legislature has allocated more than $11.6 billion to border security efforts over a four-year period, the most in state history.

It totals more than multiple state fiscal year budgets and more than what the Trump administration allocated to federal border security efforts in Texas.

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Report: Unfunded Cost of Retirement Benefits Reaches $1.14 Trillion

The Center Square
New Jersey Capitol

New Jersey, California, New York, Texas and Illinois face a hundred billion plus deficit when it comes to paying for the benefits other than pensions promised to state retirees.

The State of New Jersey’s unfunded liability for post-retirement benefits other than pensions in state health care plans reached $174.9 billion in 2022. That was the highest in the country, according to a report by the American Legislative Exchange Council. The report stated the nationwide costs of state-sponsored post-retirement benefits reached $1.14 trillion in 2022.

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Commentary: Far from Environmentalists’ ‘Immoral’ Claim – We Need Children Now More than Ever

Virginia Star Staff
New Born Baby

In a recent television interview, environmental activist Donnachadh McCarthy informed the public that having more than two kids is selfish. McCarthy states in the interview that humanity has destroyed 70 percent of “nature” in one generation, presumably due to our so-called carbon footprint, although he doesn’t explain exactly how this has occurred.

“There’s a moral issue here,” he says. “How can we pass that on to the next generation? Every child in an industrial country like ours has around 505 hundred tonnes of carbon over their lifetime. That’s equivalent to 1000 years of electricity for a household. So each child has an impact, and we’re saying one is great, two is plenty, and three is selfish.”

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