Month: May 2024

New Documentary Details Female Sexual Assault Survivor’s Story of Being Incarcerated with Trans Inmate

Virginia Star Staff
Female inmate

A sexual assault survivor gave an inside look at living in a female prison with male criminals identifying as transgender in a new documentary by the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) released Tuesday.

The six-minute documentary, part of IWF’s “Cruel & Unusual Punishment: The Male Takeover of Female Prisons” series, focuses on the story of Evelyn Valiente, a sexual assault survivor and former inmate at the Central California Women’s Facility. Valiente, who is using a pseudonym to protect her identity, was forced to share a housing unit with a male inmate identifying as a woman while serving time for killing someone in a shooting.

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Big Tech Championed Zero Emissions but Now Its Power-Hungry Data Centers are Straining the Grid

Just the News
Data center

For years, tech giants in California and Washington have been leading the charge to eliminate fossil fuels from the grid. Microsoft, Google, Meta and Apple, for example, are members of Climate Group RE100, an organization of major corporations who are dedicated to accelerating “change toward zero-carbon grids at scale by 2040.”

In 2018, Apple proclaimed that it was globally powered entirely by 100 percent renewable energy.

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Commentary: OpenAI and Political Bias in Silicon Valley

RealClearWire
ChatGPT app on a smartphone

AI-powered image generators were back in the news earlier this year, this time for their propensity to create historically inaccurate and ethically questionable imagery. These recent missteps reinforced that, far from being the independent thinking machines of science fiction, AI models merely mimic what they’ve seen on the web, and the heavy hand of their creators artificially steers them toward certain kinds of representations. What can we learn from how OpenAI’s image generator created a series of images about Democratic and Republican causes and voters last December?

OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4 service, with its built-in image generator DALL-E, was asked to create an image representative of the Democratic Party (shown below). Asked to explain the image and its underlying details, ChatGPT explained that the scene is set in a “bustling urban environment [that] symbolizes progress and innovation . . . cities are often seen as hubs of cultural diversity and technological advancement, aligning with the Democratic Party’s focus on forward-thinking policies and modernization.” The image, ChatGPT continued, “features a diverse group of individuals of various ages, ethnicities, and genders. This diversity represents inclusivity and unity, key values of the Democratic Party,” along with the themes of “social justice, civil rights, and addressing climate change.”

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Trump Endorses Virginia Rep. Bob Good’s Primary Opponent

Virginia Star Staff
John McGuire Bob Good

Former President Donald Trump endorsed the primary opponent of Republican Virginia Rep. Bob Good, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, on Tuesday.

Trump announced his support behind Republican state Sen. John McGuire of Virginia via a post on Truth Social. Trump has often attacked Good in recent months after Good endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president in 2023.

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Dr. Peter McCullough: ‘Unsafe’ COVID Vaccines ‘Need to Be Pulled Off the Market’

Virginia Star Staff
Dr. Peter McCullough

An outspoken doctor continues to be vocal in his opposition to COVID-19 vaccines despite backlash from the media and medical establishment. Now, he’s bringing attention to a strain of bird flu showing up in humans.

Dr. Peter McCullough joined Liz Collin Reports this week to share his insights.

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Trump Hints at Holding Fauci Accountable, Says He’ll Consider Pardoning Julian Assange If Reelected

Virginia Star Staff
Anthony Fauci and Donald Trump at a White House press conference in 2020

Former President Donald Trump hinted at holding Dr. Anthony Fauci accountable if elected president, and noted that he’ll consider pardoning Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Trump commented on potentially prosecuting Fauci in an interview with Tim Pool moments before his speech at the Libertarian National Convention, telling the podcast host he’ll be “taking a look at that very seriously.” Trump also vowed to commute “Silk Road” founder Ross Ulbricht’s sentence at the conference.

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Commentary: Signs of America’s Declining Power and the Emerging Multipolar World

Virginia Star Staff
President Biden walking in front of a line of international flags

During Bush’s years as president, Democrats frequently criticized his foreign policy, complaining that he acted like a cowboy, pursuing wars unilaterally without the imprimatur of the “international community.” Internationalism was a particular obsession of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, who lambasted the Bush administration for snubbing the United Nations and upsetting France with its Iraq policy.

Obama was mostly a darling of foreign leaders, as he ceded American power and prestige in a bid to right what he considered the historic wrongs of colonialism and western chauvinism. This was evident in his obsession with completing the Iran deal, participating in the Kyoto accords, assisting NATO attacks on Libya and Syria, and in the general tone of public diplomacy during the Arab Spring.

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Anti-Narcotics NGO Warns of Fentanyl Addiction Among Migrants Reaching Mexico-U.S. Border

ADN America
US Border Crossing

An organization that helps those with drug addiction on the Mexico-U.S. border warned that fentanyl consumption has reached migrants arriving in Ciudad Juárez, where some already arrive with drug problems from their countries, according to Mexican government statistics and a report published by the EFE Spanish news agency.

Julián Rojas Padilla, coordinator of Harm Reduction in the Compañeros Program (HRCP), a civil association that supports consumers who want to quit substances, told Spanish language media outlets that fentanyl mixed with other drugs in Juárez has become a popular new and dangerous choice of narcotics reaching the migrant population.

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Governors, Lawmakers, and AGs Team Up to Stop WHO from Seizing More Power over U.S. Health Decisions

Just the News
Ken Paxton

Republican governors, attorneys general and lawmakers are working together to create maximum pressure to stop the World Health Organization from seizing new powers to impose decisions on the United States and other member countries during future public health crises.

The political leaders are warning that changes the WHO wants to make to its member agreements, which are generally supported by the Biden administration, would insert foreigners into the doctor-patient relationship here in America.

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Biden Environmental Agenda Under Fire for Increasing Costs for Americans

The Center Square
James Comer and Joe Biden

The Biden administration’s energy policies are increasingly costly for Americans, a newly released report says.

U.S. House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., released the report, which argues Biden’s energy policies have increased costs for Americans and hurt the economy.

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Julie Kelly Commentary: The Absurd Alito Flag Controversy Is a Good Sign

Julie Kelly

While it is excruciating to endure the latest political crisis manufactured by Democrats and the leftwing news media, I advise a different approach.

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Biden’s Health Department Looks to Push Equity Requirements on Transplant Lists

Virginia Star Staff
Joe Biden and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is looking to push equity requirements on hospitals providing kidney transplants, according to a recent proposal.

The proposal, announced May 8, will help President Joe Biden’s administration’s plan to address “racial bias” when it came to wait times and “profiteering and inequity” by transplant hospitals, Secretary Xavier Becerra said in the press release. HHS’ proposal would incentivize hospitals to prioritize low-income patients via a point system and create “health equity” plans to address patient gaps.

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House Republicans Forcing Tough and Defining Votes on Democrats Ahead of November Election

Just the News
Committee on House Administration chairman Bryan Steil

Ahead of the November election, Republicans have forced tough votes on Democrats that may hurt their chances at the polls. From election security to law enforcement to illegal immigration, House Republicans have passed bills that most House Democrats have voted against, despite Americans’ prevalent concerns about those issues.

According to the Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll, conducted with Noble Predictive Insights in March, when given a range of top concerns, 45 percent of likely voters said inflation/price increases, 44 percent said illegal immigration, and 24 percent said the economy/jobs.

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Virginia RNC Committeeman Candidate Tim Anderson Claimed GOP Would Not ‘Tolerate’ Donald Trump in 2024

Tom Pappert
Tim Anderson

Virginia RNC Committeeman Candidate Tim Anderson claimed in a November 2022 interview that Republicans would not “tolerate” former President Donald Trump as the Republican Party’s nominee in 2024.

Anderson, who formerly represented District 83 in the House of Delegates, predicted to News 3 on November 15, 2022 that Trump’s candidacy would “splinter” the Republican Party and provoke an inter-party “civil war” that would ultimately result in another candidate becoming the nominee in 2024.

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Biden Admin Shells Out Taxpayer Cash on Foreign LGBT Events as Pride Month Approaches

Virginia Star Staff
Pride event in France

The State Department is funding an array of LGBT pride events across the globe ahead of June, some of which include events focused on children, federal grant records show.

Biden’s State Department is bankrolling a gay film festival, an LGBT community conference and other pride events in Australia, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria in the lead-up to June, according to grant records. Some observe June as “Pride Month” to commemorate the Stonewall riots, a series of clashes between LGBT people and the police after law enforcement raided a gay bar.

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Biden Environmental Agenda Under Fire for Increasing Costs for Americans

The Center Square
President Joe Biden

The Biden administration’s energy policies are increasingly costly for Americans, a newly released report says.

U.S. House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., released the report, which argues Biden’s energy policies have increased costs for Americans and hurt the economy.

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Conservative College Professor Investigated for Racism After Accusing Black Student of Plagiarism

Virginia Star Staff
William Ascher

A Claremont McKenna College professor was dragged through a yearlong investigation over racism allegations — and ultimately cleared — after he accused a black student of plagiarism, according to a recently published report.

Professor William Ascher, a distinguished scholar whose CV notes he has worked as a professor of government and economics at the conservative college for nearly 25 years and also previously served as dean of faculty, faced the probe after he reported the student to the school’s Academic Standards Committee.

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Commentary: Trumpophobia and the Left’s Projection of Their Own Failures

Virginia Star Staff
Donald Trump

As Trump continues to show leads in critical swing states, as various lawfare-inspired cases against him seem to the public to be more persecutions than prosecutions, and as Joe Biden appears daily more incoherent and lost, the left on spec has resorted to warning the nation about all the supposedly catastrophic consequences of a future Trump presidency.

Ironically, the left seems oblivious to the reality that one reason Trump leads Biden in the polls is precisely because voters can compare the four-year record of the prior Trump presidency to Biden’s last 40 months.

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Pro-Palestinian Protests Evolve Off Campus, Hinting at What’s to Come This Summer

Just the News
United Auto Workers Union strike

The past spring semester for universities across the United States was marked with “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” and pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protests largely at commencements – that is, if commencement wasn’t canceled completely due to demonstrators – but now, the protests appear to have reached a new phase, potentially foreshadowing what is to come for America this summer.

A pro-Palestinian encampment popped up in Clark Park in West Philadelphia this week, according to local outlet 6ABC, marking the first encampment on city property.

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Biden and Red States Are on Immigration Collision Course Heading for Supreme Court

Virginia Star Staff
President Joe Biden in front of the Supreme Court building (composite image)

The Biden administration is currently waging a legal campaign against Republican-led states, arguing their laws that effectively restrict illegal immigration are unconstitutional.

The Department of Justice has so far filed lawsuits against three different states for enacting laws that largely empower police to enforce immigration rules. However, these state leaders, in the backdrop of an unprecedented border crisis, say they have no choice but to take up the issue themselves because the Biden administration won’t — and other Republican states may soon follow suit.

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China Pumps Tens of Billions Into Key Industry Amid Tech War with U.S.

Virginia Star Staff
Xi Jinping

The Chinese Communist Party has launched a $47.5 billion state-backed investment fund to strategically boost the semiconductor industry in competition with the U.S., Reuters reported Monday.

The 344 billion yuan investment is the biggest of three funds that have been established, with the first being created in 2014, providing 138.7 billion yuan in capital, and the second in 2019, providing 204 billion yuan, according to Reuters. China is subsidizing its semiconductor industry in a bid to compete with the U.S. in the manufacturing of the technology, with chips showing good potential in both military and consumer aspects.

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Julie Kelly Commentary: Meltdown in Florida

Julie Kelly

“I’m going to ask that you just calm down. I understand this is sensitive and it’s difficult, but these questions are briefed and they’re before the Court.” So said Judge Aileen Cannon to David Harbach, one of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s lead prosecutors in the government’s espionage and obstruction case against former president Donald Trump, during a hearing on Wednesday. While temperatures spiked outside the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida throughout the day, so too did the climate inside Cannon’s courtroom.

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Pending Pandemic Agreement and International Criminal Court Decisions Fan Fears of Globalism

Just the News
Wisconsin US Rep Glenn Grothman

The World Health Organization’s pending global pandemic agreement and the International Criminal Court’s application for arrest warrants of leaders of a democratic country fighting terrorists are raising concerns about globalism, which critics say is supported by President Joe Biden’s policies.

“We ought to get out of the WHO altogether. That’s obvious,” Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., told the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show this week. “We do not want any future American administration, like the Biden administration, to say, because the WHO is doing something – recommending certain vaccines, recommending certain treatments – that we, therefore, have any obligation whatsoever to go along with that sort of thing.”

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KC Fed Analysis: Migrants Cooled Overheated Labor Market, Slowed Wage Growth

The Center Square
Farm Workers

The increase of migrant workers during the last two years cooled an overheated labor market and slowed wage growth across industries and states, according to an analysis of government statistics.

“The influx of immigrant workers appears to have helped alleviate the severe staffing shortages in certain industries that were pervasive during the pandemic’s volatile period,” Elior Cohen, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, wrote in the organization’s Economic Bulletin. It serves Colorado, Kansas, western Missouri, Nebraska, northern New Mexico, Oklahoma and Wyoming.

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Commentary: Memorial Day’s Forgotten History

Virginia Star Staff
Memorial Day

In the years following the bitter Civil War, a former Union general took a holiday originated by former Confederates and helped spread it across the entire country.

The holiday was Memorial Day, an annual commemoration was born in the former Confederate States in 1866 and adopted by the United States in 1868. It is a holiday in which the nation honors its military dead.

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Commentary: Latest Alito Flag ‘Scandal’ Shows How the Left Thinks being an American is Un-American

Virginia Star Staff
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito

Appealing to heaven is “provocative,” says The New York Times.

The Times reported Wednesday that—gasp—Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito flew an “Appeal to Heaven” flag last year at his vacation home in New Jersey.

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Study Finds Teen Marijuana Use Tied to Dramatic Increased Risk of Psychosis

Virginia Star Staff
Teen boy in trouble

A study published Wednesday found that teens who use cannabis are 11 times more likely to be diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, according to NBC News.

The study was led by researchers from the University of Toronto and examined teenage patients who used cannabis within the last year and those who did not, according to NBC News. When the study was further limited to teens who were sent to the emergency room or hospitalized, it showed a 27-fold increase in the likelihood of being diagnosed with psychotic illness.

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CNN Sees Lowest Primetime Ratings in Three Decades

Virginia Star Staff
CNN Newsroom

The cable news channel CNN has suffered its lowest primetime ratings since 1991, in yet another indication that traditional television news coverage, as well as increasingly left-wing media, has taken a massive hit to its viewership in recent years.

As reported by the New York Post, the week of May 13th through May 19th saw the channel’s 8 PM to 11 PM programming draw just 83,000 viewers in the most crucial demographic of viewers between the ages of 25 and 54. In that same time period, Fox News saw over 186,000 viewers in the same demographic and the same time slots. MSNBC came in second with 111,000 viewers.

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Venezuelan Gang Members Arrested Thousands of Miles from Border

The Center Square
ICE arresting suspect

Venezuelan Tren de Aragua prison gang members are being arrested thousands of miles from the border after having illegally entered the U.S. in Texas.

The Venezuelan prison gang is well-known for orchestrating murders, bribery schemes and money laundering, drug and arms trafficking, and kidnappings for ransom money. In March, U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Maria Elvira Salazar, both Florida Republicans, called on the president to officially designate Tren de Aragua as a Transnational Criminal Organization.

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Commentary: Deepfakes, Disinformation, Social Engineering, and Artificial Intelligence in the 2024 Election

Virginia Star Staff
Computer Programmer

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its integration within various sectors is moving at a speed that couldn’t have been imagined just a few years ago. As a result, the United States now stands on the brink of a new era of cybersecurity challenges. With AI technologies becoming increasingly sophisticated, the potential for their exploitation by malicious actors grows exponentially.

Because of this evolving threat, government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), alongside private sector entities, must urgently work to harden America’s defenses to account for any soft spots that may be exploited. Failure to do so could have dire consequences on a multitude of levels, especially as we approach the upcoming U.S. presidential election, which is likely to be the first to contend with the profound implications of AI-driven cyber warfare.

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Texas Sues Biden over ‘Gender Identity’ Guidance in Workplace

The Center Square
Business Meeting

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued three federal agencies Tuesday to “stop an unlawful attempt to redefine federal law through agency guidance” that mandates “gender identity” accommodation in the workplace.

Paxton sued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and other federal officials to block April 29 EEOC guidance that redefines the meaning of “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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Trump Vows to Fight Central Bank Digital Currency, Keep Crypto Independent

Just the News

Former President Donald Trump is vowing to fight any effort to create a central bank digital currency in the United States, saying the “right of self custody” is the key to the future of America’s cryptocurrency.

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Release from Gasoline Reserve Raises Doubts Biden will Replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Just the News

The Biden Administration announced Tuesday that it would release 42 million gallons of gasoline from the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve. The release, the Department of Energy explained, is “strategically timed and structured to maximize its impact on gas prices.” This will, according to the DOE, help lower prices at the pump during the summer months when prices tend to go up along with demand.

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Illegal Immigration Under Biden Has Contributed to Housing Shortage, Experts Say

Virginia Star Staff
Illegal Immigrants

The surge of illegal immigration under President Joe Biden has exacerbated an already costly housing market for average Americans by worsening a shelter shortage, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The U.S. currently has an estimated shortage of 4 million to 7 million homes as developers struggle to keep up with demand amid harsh financial conditions and burdensome regulatory processes, according to Pew Charitable Trusts. Average Americans looking for a home are being squeezed by rising housing costs due to inflation and elevated mortgage rates, but the recent influx of illegal immigrants is putting even more stress on the system by aggravating the current shortage of supply in the housing market at a rate that developers can’t keep up with, according to experts who spoke to the DCNF.

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While Trump Faces Felony Charges, New York-Based Clinton Campaign Only Faced Fines for Its Records Issue

Just the News
Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton’s New York-based presidential campaign was hit with an administrative fine by the Federal Election Commission following the 2016 election when the FEC found the campaign misrepresented campaign expenses by describing the opposition research that produced the discredited Steele Dossier as a “legal expense.” The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid $113,000 to settle the charges, the Associated Press reported.

Yet, Donald Trump faces felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records to conceal campaign violations in the same state, echoing the alleged violations in the Clinton case and indicating a double standard in how the violations were handled by investigators.

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Rand Paul Says Fauci ‘Could Be Indicted’ for Deleting Records

Virginia Star Staff
Anthony Fauci

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., contends there are grounds to prosecute Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of the COVID-19 pandemic in America, based on congressional testimony from a top aide to the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“The most important knowledge that we learned is that [Dr.] David Morens, 20-year assistant to Fauci, was purposely evading FOIA, which is the law. More than that, he was also destroying evidence,” Paul told The Daily Signal, referring to the Freedom of Information Act and Morens’ testimony Wednesday before a House select subcommittee.

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