Month: May 2024

House Report Finds Widespread Misconduct in Union Votes by Biden Labor Board

Virginia Star Staff
Mail in Ballot

The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) expansion of mail ballot elections has led to widespread mismanagement, misconduct and procedural irregularities by the agency, according to a report released Thursday by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

The NLRB issued a decision in November 2020 expanding regional agency directors’ ability to order that union elections operate by mail rather than the traditional manual ballot due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the decision, voter turnout has decreased while both institutional issues, like employees interfering in elections, and integrity issues, like inappropriate voter solicitation and the number of lost or void ballots, have increased, according to the report.

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Coalition of 22 State AGs Call on Biden to Reject Treaty Drastically Expanding WHO Authority

Virginia Star Staff
Biden WHO

A coalition of 22 state attorneys general have sent a letter to Joe Biden voicing their opposition to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) proposed pandemic treaty and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR).

Attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia, led by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, raised concerns that the proposed agreement threatens U.S. sovereignty by giving the WHO “unprecedented and unconstitutional powers over the people of the United States.”

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Commentary: On Mother’s Day, Let’s Celebrate the True Strength and Empowerment Motherhood Brings

Virginia Star Staff
A mother with her children

At just 11 years old, I watched as a midwife cared for my mother and delivered my baby sister. A spark burst into a flame inside of me, and I knew from that moment on that I wanted to be a part of the beauty and wonder of birth and be a mother myself one day.

One of the most rewarding aspects of my now almost 40-year career as a nurse and a midwife has been seeing women tap into their truest potential as they become mothers.

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Commentary: DHS’ Secrecy About ‘Disinformation’ Regulation Docs

RealClearWire
Nina Jankowicz

Nearly two years after Nina Jankowicz briefly led the Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security, she’s launched an organization demanding transparency and the public release of documents about the public debate on disinformation. An interesting move, likely without true transparency in mind.

My organization, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, has spent the same two years fighting DHS for documents on the federal board Jankowicz managed. We’re filing a second lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act to fight continued government stonewalling of our requests. Thus far, DHS has refused to provide unredacted versions of documents that outline its purported authorities to regulate disinformation. Nor will the agency release more information about its work on misinformation related to “irregular migration” and “Ukraine” before the board was disbanded in August 2022.

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Government Sets Rules for Spy Agencies Buying Commercial Data on Americans

The Center Square
People on phones

The government has put together new rules to guide how U.S. spy agencies buy and use mounds of highly personal information from smartphone apps, automobiles and other connected devices.

The new framework policy, from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, does not require agencies to get a warrant before buying or searching commercially available information, or CAI.

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Analysis: Biden’s EV Mandates Would Hinder the Commercial Trucking Industry

Virginia Star Staff
Truck on Road

Converting America’s medium- and heavy-duty trucks to electric vehicles (EV) in accordance with goals from the Biden administration would add massive costs to commercial trucking, according to a new analysis released Wednesday.

The cost to switch over to light-duty EVs like a transit van would equate to a 5% increase in costs per year while switching over medium- and heavy-duty trucks would add up to 114% in costs per year to already struggling businesses, according to a report from transportation and logistics company Ryder Systems. The Biden administration, in an effort to facilitate a transition to EVs, finalized new emission standards in March that would require a huge number of heavy-duty vehicles to be electric or zero-emission by 2032 and has created a plan to roll out charging infrastructure across the country.

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Big Business Takes Major Step Back from Politics as Trump and Biden Head for Rematch

Virginia Star Staff
Google Sign

Big businesses appear to be taking major steps back from politics compared to the 2020 election ahead of the contentious November rematch between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

While many corporate executives weighed in on divisive political issues during the previous cycle, some expressed fatigue to the WSJ over engaging in 2024. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a recent memo that he didn’t want the corporation to “fight over disruptive issues or debate politics” following employee protests over the Israel-Hamas war, adding that “we are a workplace,” according to the outlet.

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Black Lives Matter Group Sues Massive Liberal Foundation Claiming ‘Egregious Mismanagement’ of $33 Million in Funds

Virginia Star Staff
BLM

A liberal foundation controlling roughly $1 billion in assets faces accusations of “egregious mismanagement” of funds from the largest Black Lives Matter group in the country.

Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLM GNF) filed a lawsuit on Monday accusing the Tides Foundation of mishandling funds donated to a “Black Lives Matter Support Fund” administered by Tides, arguing the funds belong to them. Tides, however, contests this by claiming that donations to the fund were actually intended for smaller BLM organizations.

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Justice Department Sues Iowa over Immigration Law After Warning

Just the News
Kim Reynolds

The Justice Department sued the state of Iowa on Thursday, after the state failed to stop a new immigration law that makes it a crime for people to be in the state if they were previously denied admission to the United States.

The lawsuit is the second legal action taken against the state over the new law, which goes into effect in July. The first was a lawsuit from a civil rights group that was filed earlier Thursday. The department warned Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds that it would sue last week if she did not stop the law by May 7.

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Commentary: A Bill to Ensure Fair Representation for American Citizens

Virginia Star Staff

The House of Representatives finally acted Wednesday to remedy an injustice that has been getting worse as the number of illegal aliens coming into the United States has skyrocketed: the distortion caused by including noncitizens when determining how many House members each state gets.

The House passed HR 7109, the Equal Representation Act, to mandate a citizenship question on the census form and use of only the citizen population in the apportionment formula for representation applied after every census.

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Loudoun Firefighters, County Board Ratify Collective Bargaining Agreement

The Center Square
Fire Fighters

Loudoun County’s Board of Supervisors ratified a collective bargaining agreement with its firefighters Tuesday, the first such agreement in the county’s history and one of many popping up across the commonwealth.

“I don’t know when I’ve been happier and prouder to make a motion,” said Board Chairwoman Phyllis Randall, D-At Large. “If I were a crier – and I just might – I would be crying right now.”

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Florida Representative Draws Up Articles of Impeachment Against Joe Biden over Delayed Israel Aid

Just the News
Cory Mills

Florida GOP Rep. Cory Mills is drawing up articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden on Thursday, over his delay of weapons and aid to Israel for invading Gaza.

An impeachment precedent was set, conservative lawmakers argue, when former President Donald Trump was impeached for the same offense in 2019, after he decided to withhold aid for Ukraine.

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Commentary: China’s Land Grab

Virginia Star Staff
Farmland

At both the federal and state levels, elected leaders are paying more attention to national security threats stemming from Chinese-owned real estate in the United States.

The totality of Chinese-owned real estate in the United States remains unknown and, under current law, is unknowable. For agricultural land, Chinese-owned acreage reportedly only constitutes a small share of the United States’ total, but has increased rapidly in recent years, suggesting a growing threat that would best be managed now before it turns into a significant problem.

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Climate Activists Target Magna Carta with Hammer and Chisel

Virginia Star Staff
Protesters Magna Carta

Two elderly climate activists attempted to break the glass surrounding the Magna Carta on Friday.

The protesters, affiliated with the disruptive protest outfit Just Stop Oil, used a hammer and chisel to break the glass enclosure holding the Magna Carta at the British Library, footage posted to X by the protest group shows. The enclosure sustained minor damage, and the document was not damaged, according to the British Library.

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Commentary: Judge Cannon Puts Jack Smith on Trial

Julie Kelly
Jack Smith

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon may have just indefinitely postponed Donald Trump’s espionage and obstruction trial but that doesn’t mean her federal courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida will lie dormant over the next few months.

In officially vacating the existing May 20 trial date—an impossibility considering the defendant will be in a Manhattan courtroom for the foreseeable future—Cannon declined to set another date, calling it “imprudent” at this stage of the process. She noted a “myriad” of unresolved matters in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 42-count indictment against the former president and his two co-defendants, Mar-a-Lago employees Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Olivera, for willfully retaining national defense information and attempting to impede the government’s investigation.

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Cornell President to Step Down, Third Leader of Ivy League School This Year

Just the News
Cornell President

Cornell University President Martha E. Pollack has announced her resignation, making her the third leader of an Ivy League college to step down this year.

Pollack, a computer scientist, made the announcement Thursday and said she’ll leave the Ithaca, New York, school in June, according to The Hill newspaper.

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Lawyer for Steve Bannon Releases Statement After Appeals Court Upholds Bannon’s January 6 Contempt Conviction

Admin

The Court of Appeals panel held today that it does not have the authority to overrule the 1961 panel of the Court that issued the decision in the Licavoli case on the definition of the word “willfully” as used in the Contempt of Congress statute.  Mr. Bannon will now seek redress before the full Court of Appeals, which has the authority to overrule Licavoli.

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Missouri AG Demands DOJ Turn Over Communications Relating to Prosecutions of Former President Trump

Kaitlin Housler

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for Department of Justice records relating to the investigation or prosecutions of former President Donald Trump on Thursday.

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U.S. Fails to Counter Threat of Chinese Land Ownership, Report Finds

Virginia Star Staff
Tractor towing hay on a farm

The United States government is not appropriately addressing the threat posed by growing Chinese ownership of American land, according to a report released by the Heritage Foundation Thursday.

The federal government is woefully ill-equipped to track Chinese-owned real estate in the country, despite the serious threat these Chinese Communist Party-affiliated entities can pose to critical U.S. infrastructure, according to the report. The report calls on federal and state leaders to take action, such as increasing transparency and conducting more critical reviews of land purchases.

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The Number of Cubans Recruited to Fight for Russia in Ukraine is Approaching 5,000, More than the Media Reports

ADN America
Russian military

Several media outlets have finally begun to acknowledge what ADN reported last year about young Cubans being recruited and lured to work in Russia, but then forced to risk their lives on the battlefields in Ukraine. Sources from the Cuban community tell ADN that the number of Cubans recruited to fight for Moscow is close to 5,000, not 400, as reported by the international press.

The bait-and-switch scheme was first revealed by ADN on September 6, 2023 as a result of dogged investigation by the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, an international human rights organization dedicated to combating totalitarianism in Cuba and in the Western Hemisphere.

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Antisemitism in Public K-12 Schools Spotlights Activist Teachers and Radicalized Students

Just the News
Kids in a classroom

Prominent acts of antisemitism at K-12 schools nationwide since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel are raising questions about what students may have been learning before the Hamas attack that could have sparked such a quick radicalization.

School “walkouts” with praises of Hamas, student shouts of “F*** the Jews,”  and teacher-led bullying of Jewish students have been reported at Berkeley Unified School District in California. On the other side of the country, the New York City Education Department has also been hit with massive walkouts and is facing a lawsuit from Jewish teachers who say they were subjected to severe, repetitive acts of antisemitism that were perpetrated by students and ignored by other faculty members. Meanwhile, Maryland’s Montgomery County School District, which borders Washington, D.C., has been accused of repeatedly failing to punish antisemitic student behavior.

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Ford Shareholders Reject Proposal to Audit Child Labor in Electric Vehicle Supply Chain

Virginia Star Staff
Ford electric vehicles

Shareholders at auto manufacturing giant Ford Motor Co. voted down a proposal Thursday requiring that a report be compiled on the use of child labor in its electric vehicle (EV) line.

The proposal, which was presented by the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) at Ford’s annual shareholder meeting, called for Ford to report to shareholders the extent to which the company’s EV supply chain involves, depends or relies on child labor outside of the U.S., according to Ford’s proxy statement. The NCPPR called for the report due to the prevalence of child labor in the harvesting of the components used to craft EVs, particularly cobalt, which is commonly sourced from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

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Commentary: Polls Showing Trump Behind Are Off the Mark

Virginia Star Staff
Donald Trump

For the past several months, the public has been inundated by polls. national polls, state polls, issue polls. Yet, the 64-dollar question remains: Who is winning for President, Trump or Biden?

Over the past two months, the two presumptive nominees have swapped first place multiple times with Trump mostly in the advantage. So, the short answer is that the race is so close that neither is really ahead, at least we cannot say who is ahead in that national ballot test with high certainty. Trump is probably ahead very narrowly and has been since February.

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Trump Civil Fraud Judge’s Talks with Attorney Under Investigation by Ethics Commission: Report

Virginia Star Staff

The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct is investigating an alleged interaction between a New York real estate lawyer and the judge who issued a $454 million judgement against former President Donald Trump, according to NBC New York.

Real estate lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey said he had a conversation with Judge Arthur Engoron a few weeks before the judge’s decision was due, NBC New York reported. Democratic Attorney General Letitia James of New York sued Trump in September 2022, alleging he overstated the value of real estate holdings in order to obtain loans.

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Trump Finds Success in Court with Three of Four Cases Facing Significant Delays

Just the News
Donald Trump

At one time, unfavorable outcomes in the four court cases against former President Donald Trump seemed likely to be politically damaging for the three-time campaigner, but as the cases have faced scrutiny and delays, public opinion has recently shifted.

Yesterday, the Georgia Appeals Court agreed to hear an appeal in the state election case brought by controversial Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Earlier this week, a Florida judge indefinitely suspended the federal trial in the classified documents case.

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Jordan Demands Nathan Wade Testify over Fani Willis Prosecution of Trump

Just the News
Nathan Wade

Wade served as a special prosecutor on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s prosecution of Trump and 18 codefendants over his efforts to challenge the 2020 election results in the Peach State.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan asked that former special prosecutor Nathan Wade testify before the panel as to his role in an ongoing criminal case against former President Donald Trump.

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Music Spotlight: Scotty McCreery

Bethany Bowman
Scotty McCreery

To say 2024 has been a banner year for Scotty McCreery would be an understatement. From his beloved North Carolina State making it to the NCAA Final Four to recently being added to the prestigious roster of Grand Ole Opry members, you would think that there wasn’t much left for the 30-year-old to accomplish.

In 2011, 17-year-old McCreery beat out Lauren Alaina to win American Idol. In June 2018, McCreery married the love of his life, Gabi, and in 2022, they welcomed a son, Avery. Since becoming a solo artist, the Triple Tigers recording artist has garnered five number-one hits, including the fan favorites “Five More Minutes” and “Damn Strait.”

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Commentary: Try a Little Honesty About Israel

Virginia Star Staff
Pro-Israel students

Scan news accounts of anti-Israel campus and street protestors. Read their demands and manifestos. Collate the confusion after October 7 from the Biden administration.

Here are ten of their most common untruths about October 7 and the war that followed.

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Two-Thirds of University Protesters Arrested Weren’t Even Students, Police Say

Admin

The majority of people arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) while clearing a pro-Palestinian encampment at George Washington University (GWU) were not students, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith said on Thursday.

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Senate Bill Would Ban Student Loan Forgiveness for Protestors Convicted of a Crime

The Center Square

Republican U.S. senators introduced a bill that would ban student loan forgiveness for protestors convicted of a crime while protesting on U.S. college campuses.

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Labor Board’s Pro-Union Ruling Could Have Devastating Consequences for Free Speech

Virginia Star Staff
Construction worker

A judge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last week ruled in favor of a case that has serious implications for free speech by employers when talking about unions, legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Judge Brian Gee found that the NLRB was correct in its assertion that certain comments made in interviews in 2022 by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated federal labor law amid a national unionization campaign at the company. Jassy’s comments were about how union members would be “better off” without a union because there would be less red tape between employees and management, and came as the Biden administration has pushed to promote unionization. However, the judge’s decision could significantly chill free speech.

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Restoring History: Movement to Return Confederate-Linked Names to Schools Garners Traction

Just the News
Teacher and Student

A movement to restore the names of Confederate military leaders on schools is garnering traction in a Virginia county, with the school board set to vote on the matter this week amid fierce opposition from minority groups.

Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary School were renamed Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School after the Shenandoah County School Board passed a resolution in July 2020 that condemned racism and affirmed the creation of an “inclusive environment.”

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Media Trumpet Study Finding Gas Stoves Impact Health While Ignoring Studies with Different Results

Just the News
/A person cooking on a gas stove

Stanford researchers recently claimed to have found a link between childhood respiratory illnesses and the use of gas stoves.

The study, which was reported last week across multiple national news outlets, posed an interesting contrast to a study in February funded by the World Health Organization and published in The Lancet that found no such link and appeared to received no mention in any such outlet.

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Commentary: Manhattan Is on Trial

Virginia Star Staff
Donald Trump

Like so many Americanos, I’m spending more time than I should listening to news out of Manhattan, where the local prosecutor there has charged the leading Republican candidate for president with 34 felony counts of being Donald Trump. I challenge anyone to find more than this in the charges and specifications. I really should ration myself on trial news. I could even take a day off. I’m beginning to know how Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day must have felt as though the news out of the trial is pretty much the same from day to day.

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Laken Riley’s Alleged Killer Indicted, Also Accused of Being ‘Peeping Tom’

Virginia Star Staff

A Georgia grand jury has formally indicted the man accused of killing 22-year-old student Laken Riley on ten charges, including murder, kidnapping and being a peeping Tom.

Jose Ibarra is charged with malice murder, three counts of felony murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, tampering with evidence and interfering with a 911 call for help, Superior Court of Clarke County records show. The 26-year-old Venezuelan national was also handed down a “peeping Tom” charge related to his activities the day of Riley’s murder.

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Democrats Out-Fundraising Republicans in 2024 Election Cycle Despite Biden’s Poor Polling Numbers

Just the News
Bill Clinton with Joe Biden

Despite President Biden’s poor polling numbers, Democrats are out-fundraising Republicans in the 2024 election cycle where the GOP could retake the White House and Senate.

The Republican Party is significantly behind the Democratic Party in fundraising as former President Donald Trump is facing criminal charges on state and federal levels and Biden is viewed very unfavorably by Americans. However, the new Republican National Committee chairman is hopeful for the 2024 election as donations are starting to pour in amid Trump’s trials.

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California Mayor Cites Surge in Border Encounters as Evidence of Federal Enforcement Failure

Virginia Star Staff
Mayor Bill Wells

Republican El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells cited a surge in border encounters as proof of federal enforcement failures, Newsweek reported.

Wells pointed out the concerning surge in border encounters within San Diego County, noting a major shift in migration patterns and federal border enforcement efforts. He stated that San Diego County experienced an unprecedented 37,370 border encounters in April, exceeding the figures in sectors like Tucson, El Paso, and Del Rio for the first time in over two decades. Wells expressed astonishment and concern over the escalating border encounter numbers, according to Newsweek.

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