Category: Politics

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to take up a challenge to Texas’ law intended to prevent minors from accessing porn websites.

Texas’ law, which it enacted in June 2023, requires websites that publish “sexual material harmful to minors” to confirm its users are over 18 years old. A district court initially blocked Texas from enforcing the law, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals later allowed it to take effect.

Moderna to Receive $176 Million from U.S. Government to Develop mRNA Bird Flu Vaccine

July 3, 2024 Just the News

The award money will come through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Moderna is set to receive $176 million from the U.S. government to develop a mRNA vaccine for bird flu in humans.

Sen. Tim Kaine Defends President Joe Biden After Abysmal Debate as Opponent Hung Cao Promises to ‘Flip Virginia Red’

July 3, 2024July 2, 2024 Tom Pappert

Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) at a campaign stop on Monday defended President Joe Biden after his poor debate performance provoked calls for the 81-year-old president to end his reelection campaign and allow a younger candidate to face former President Donald Trump in November.

Kaine confirmed he continues to support the 81-year-old president after Petersburg Vice Mayor Darrin Hill called for Democrats to “turn down the noise” about Biden’s candidacy, reported USA Today.

Commentary: Beware of Artificial Intelligence’s Influence on the Election

In recent weeks we’ve seen multiple stories involving the two leading presidential candidates — Joe Biden and Donald Trump — signaling the rising dangers of Artificial Intelligence and related technology during an intense campaign. The examples run from alleged misinformation and video distortion to flat-out false imagery. The warnings are certainly apt.

Sure, AI has the potential for great benefits, whether in the healthcare field or even something like your GPS, but it also holds potential for terrible misuse in politics. Specifically, to get technical, it’s the so-called “generative AI” that can be directed to produce bogus human voices, imagery, text, and video. It can be used to create some of the worst “fake news.”

Major Pediatric Medical Organization Plotted Ways to ‘Circumvent’ Child Sex Change Bans, Emails Show

Members of America’s leading pediatric medical association discussed possible ways to “circumvent” red states’ bans on sex change procedures and drugs for children, according to emails obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The emails are part of a trove of documents that show how the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the country’s largest professional association of pediatricians with a membership of 67,000 doctors, quietly partnered with transgender activist groups, such as the Human Rights Campaign and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), to push child sex changes nationwide.

White House Signs Deal with Panama to Crack Down On Major Illegal Immigration Route to U.S.

Panama's president-elect, José Raúl Mulino

The Biden administration on Monday inked a deal with the Panamanian government to help stop illegal migration along the Darien Gap, a sign that the country’s new president is following through on a major campaign promise.

The White House announced a Memorandum of Understanding with Panama, an initiative that will deploy American screening officers to assist their government deport migrants who cross the Darien Gap, a vast jungle region between Panama and Colombia that hundreds of thousands of migrants trek across every year en route to the U.S. The announcement followed a pledge by then-presidential candidate Jose Raul Mulino to close Panama off to illegal immigration.

Commentary: The Federal Government Loses More Money than Could Ever Be Accounted For

July 3, 2024 RealClearWire

Not long after Jeremy Gober started running a sleep center, he quit treating patients for narcolepsy and sleep apnea and went full-time submitting bogus insurance claims. According to Gober’s 2022 indictment, he committed at least one especially sloppy error: One of his make-believe billings included a Medicare claim for treatment in March 2018 for a patient who’d died in December 2017. Before Gober was caught, Medicare and California’s healthcare system, Medi-Cal, ended up paying him a total of $587,000 for claims that turned out to be fiction.

The payments to Gober were part of $260 million the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spent from 2009 through 2019 to reimburse healthcare providers in 15 states and Puerto Rico for services to patients who were dead, according to the inspector general of the HHS, which administers Medicare and Medicaid — programs with combined expenditures of $1.7 trillion.

China Expands Its Surveillance Capabilities in America’s Backyard, Report Finds

China’s surveillance efforts off the coast of America’s shores are expanding, according to a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Monday.

China has been closely collaborating with Cuba — located just about 200 miles off the coast of Florida — to expand its military and intelligence presence on the island since at least 2019. Satellite imagery reviewed by CSIS appears to show that Cuba is building on its existing infrastructure in the region and now has multiple signal intelligence (SIGINT) facilities on the island, furthering concerns that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is attempting surveillance efforts inside the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal.

First Democrat Lawmaker Calls on Biden to Exit 2024 Race

July 2, 2024 Admin

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, is calling on President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.

House Democrat Plans to File a Constitutional Amendment to Invalidate Supreme Court Ruling

Democratic New York Rep. Joe Morelle announced Monday that he will file a constitutional amendment that will virtually invalidate the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.

ESG Initiatives Go Beyond Investment Banks to Include Biden Initiatives, Digital Content

Though well known by now that Environmental, Social and Governance metrics have become integral to U.S. business operations, the World Economic Forum is also advocating for ESG principles, but in a distinctive manner.

The international non-governmental organization, think tank, and lobbying organization based in Geneva recently released a white paper titled “Making a Difference: How to Measure Digital Safety Effectively to Reduce Risks Online.”

Three Out of Four Electric Vehicle Charging Developers Say They Can’t Get Enough Electricity For Their Stations

Green Energy Failure: Supply chain issues, financing, fleet-adequate solutions, engineering costs, and inadequate software among roadblocks cited in the survey.

Businesses building electric vehicle charging stations say that finding enough electricity is a major — perhaps fatal — problem.

Virginia A.G. Jason Miyares Teases Run for Governor at Trump Rally Where Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears was Not Invited

July 2, 2024 Tom Pappert

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares hinted he may announce his run for governor following the conclusion of the 2024 presidential election. Miyares made the remarks while attending former President Donald Trump’s rally in Chesapeake, Virginia on Friday.

Miyares made the comments after National Review asked the attorney general whether he was considering a run to succeed Governor Glenn Youngkin, who is unable to seek another term.

Commentary: The Lies We Have Lived Through

July 2, 2024 Virginia Star Staff

After last Thursday’s debate, Biden himself laid to rest the Democratic lie that he was robust and in control of his faculties. In truth, he demonstrated to the nation that he is a sad, failing octogenarian who could not perform any job in America other than apparently the easy task of President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief in charge of our nuclear codes.

In 2019, Democratic primary candidates often hit rival Joe Biden for his apparent senior moments and incoherence. During the 2020 campaign, Biden often became in bizarre fashion animated and nasty (“you ain’t black”/“fat”/“lying dog-faced pony soldier”/“junkie”).

Commentary: TikTok and Instagram Turned Me into a Leftist, but X Helped Me Escape

July 2, 2024 Virginia Star Staff

Social media plays a significant role in shaping the opinions of those 35 and under — it’s the primary news source for most in that age group, one survey found.

Some stats report that daily screen time for 16- to 24-year-olds is nearly eight hours among females and seven hours among males. To put that in perspective — that’s equivalent to the average time in a school day.

Post-Debate Poll: 72 Percent of Voters Think Biden Lacks Cognitive Health for Presidency

Among Democratic registered voters, 45 percent said Biden should step aside

A vast majority of registered voters think President Biden lacks the mental capacity for the presidency, according to a new CBS News poll conducted after the first presidential debate.

Trump Moves to Reverse Verdict in New York Case After Historic Supreme Court Ruling

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers moved quickly Monday night to take advantage of the Supreme Court ruling that he enjoyed immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts, sending a letter notifying the judge in his New York hush money case that they intend to ask to set aside the verdict reached by a jury last month, according to multiple sources.

Trump Ally Steve Bannon Arrives at Federal Prison for Four Month Sentence: ‘I’m a Political Prisoner’

July 1, 2024 Admin

Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon reported to prison Monday and is now officially in custody, according to The Associated Press.

Tennessee GOP Chairman Scott Golden: Biden’s Disastrous Debate Performance ‘Puts Pressure’ on NY Judge Merchan to Jail Trump

July 1, 2024 Kaitlin Housler

TN Republican Party Chairman Scott Golden

Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Scott Golden said President Joe Biden’s performance during Thursday’s CNN debate against former President Donald Trump “puts pressure” on New York Judge Juan Merchan to sentence Trump to prison on July 11.

U.S. Drivers Killed Fewer Pedestrians in 2023, Except in Pennsylvania

Pedestrian deaths are finally starting to drop across America to pre-pandemic levels.

Pennsylvania, however, bucked the national trend. Drivers killed 192 pedestrians in 2023, eight more than in 2022, and 25 percent more than in 2019, according to an analysis from the Governors Highway Safety Administration.

Harvard Law’s Dershowitz Compares Lawfare Against Trump to McCarthyism, Says the Future is Dark

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz say the political lawfare against former President Donald Trump is a return to the McCarthyism of the 1950s.

“I know lawyers who have been asked to defend Donald Trump on First Amendment grounds,” Dershowitz said on the Wednesday edition of the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “They would normally take the case, but they say, ‘we can’t afford it for our family because they’re coming after our bar license.’ It’s exactly what happened during McCarthyism.”

Commentary: SCOTUS Rulings, Biden-Trump Debate Shake Up Political Landscape

July 1, 2024 Virginia Star Staff

What a week it’s been! We started off with Justice Amy Souter Barrett writing the SCOTUS ruling in Murthy v. Missouri. At issue was whether it was okay for the federal government (the FBI and related elements of the American Stasi) to pressure social media and data-hoovering companies (Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.) to suppress opinions they didn’t like about things like COVID, the 2020 election, and the Jan 6 jamboree at the Capitol.

‘Social Justice Lawyers’ Told WPATH to Avoid ‘Evidence-Based Review’ of Sex-Change Guidelines for Minors, Docs Reveal

July 1, 2024 Virginia Star Staff

The World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) avoided “evidence-based” reviews of child sex-change procedures on the advice of “social justice lawyers,” a court filing states.

Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall of Alabama filed a motion for summary judgment in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama Wednesday, seeking to beat back a challenge to Alabama’s law restricting the procedures. The Alabama attorney general’s office accused WPATH of placing “advocacy concerns” at the forefront of the creation of the organization’s “Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8” (SOC-8), which was based in part on the advice of the “social justice” attorneys who advised the organization to avoid seeking evidence-based recommendations.

Mean Speech Not Protected at Public Universities, Appeals Courts Rule