Biden Administration Archives - Page 21 of 23

Arizona’s Democratic Senators Want More Homeland Security Personnel on the Southern Border

April 25, 2021April 24, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Arizona’s Democratic senators called on President Joe Biden’s administration to increase the number of Homeland Security personnel on the southern border to better respond to increasing number of migrants.

In a letter Wednesday, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly also requested that the White House reimburse Arizona for its deploying of approximately 500 National Guard members to better respond to the crisis.

“From recent conversations with local community leaders, law enforcement, and local Department of Homeland Security officials, it’s clear that their resources, staffing and capabilities are strained,” they wrote. “While additional resources were passed in the American Rescue Plan and provided by FEMA and DHS, additional personnel are needed at the border to ensure our communities are protected, and migrants are treated fairly and humanely.”

Biden Admin Appeals to Force Religious Doctors, Hospitals to Provide Trans Surgeries Despite Conscience Objections

April 25, 2021April 24, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Doctor with arms folded, holding stethescope

President Joe Biden’s administration filed an appeal Tuesday that seeks to force religious doctors and hospitals to provide transgender surgeries, regardless of religious objections.

Former President Barack Obama’s administration issued a mandate in 2016 requiring doctors and hospitals to provide transgender surgeries upon a mental health professional’s referral. The transgender mandate, an interpretation of an Affordable Care Act’s nondiscrimination clause, did not include conscience or religion exemptions.

An association of over 19,000 healthcare professionals, several religious organizations, and nine states challenged the mandate in two different courts, according to a website on the mandate run by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

Biden Lays Out Aggressive Climate Agenda at World Summit

April 25, 2021April 24, 2021 The Center Square

President Joe Biden hosted a virtual climate summit with dozens of world leaders Thursday, the same day the White House released a set of aggressive climate goals. Critics say the plan could jeopardize the economy at a time it is recovering from record-breaking unemployment because of the pandemic and governments’ response to it.

First among those priorities is a pledge to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by the year 2030.

“The United States is not waiting, the costs of delay are too great, and our nation is resolved to act now,” the White House said in a statement. “Climate change poses an existential threat, but responding to this threat offers an opportunity to support good-paying, union jobs, strengthen America’s working communities, protect public health, and advance environmental justice.”

Retired General Picked by Nancy Pelosi to Review Capitol Security Appears on Chinese Propaganda Network

April 24, 2021April 23, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Chinese government officials and state-controlled media agencies have recently ramped up their rhetoric against the United States on the issue of climate change, portraying the U.S. as not doing enough to limit greenhouse emissions even though China is by far the world’s biggest polluter.

One shot fired in the propaganda war came this week in the form of an interview that CGTN America, the U.S. affiliate of the Beijing-controlled China Central Television (CCTV), conducted with retired Army Lt. General Russel Honoré.

Honoré, who is founder of the environmental group Green Army, decried in the CGTN interview that a “large part” of the population in his native Louisiana denies the existence of climate change.

Senate GOP Counters Biden with $568 Billion Infrastructure Plan

April 24, 2021April 23, 2021 The Center Square

A group of Republican U.S. senators have unveiled a $568 billion plan that would look to rebuild and expand infrastructure nationwide and counter a more expensive proposal by President Joe Biden.

The GOP plan includes $299 billion for roads and bridges, $61 billion for public transit systems and $65 billion for broadband infrastructure. Also included in the plan is $20 billion for rail, $35 billion for drinking water and wastewater, $13 billion for safety, $17 billion in ports and inland waterways, $44 billion for airports and $14 billion for water storage.

Emphasized in the bill is the expediting of projects through regulatory processes and several measures to minimize new spending. The plan calls for repurposing federal COVID-19 relief funds that have remained unused, along with ensuring the federal debt is not increased.

American Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan Returning to Washington as Tensions Heighten

April 21, 2021April 20, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

United States Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said Tuesday that he was returning to Washington for “consultations” with top American officials as tensions increase between the two countries.

The former deputy secretary of state and appointee of former President Donald Trump said that “it is important for me to speak directly with my new colleagues in the Biden administration in Washington about the current state of bilateral relations between the U.S. and Russia.”

Sullivan added that he was returning to see his family, and that he would “return to Moscow in the coming weeks before any meeting” between President Joe Biden and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Commentary: Proposed Education Department Rule Would Prioritize Funding Critical Race Theory Grant Applications

April 20, 2021April 19, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The Biden Administration is wasting no time in working to promote highly controversial critical race theory and anti-racism concepts into curriculums nationwide.

A proposed rule from the U.S. Education Department seeks to prioritize funding grant proposals that support diversity and inclusion narratives within American History and Civics Education programs.

The department states on the Federal Register that such a move would “support the development of culturally responsive teaching.”

Commentary: The Joe Biden Who Never Was

April 20, 2021April 19, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

These are the most radical first three months of a presidency since 1933, the most divisive—and certainly the most dangerous. And its catalyst is the myth of ol’ Joe from Scranton who has unleashed furies and hatreds never quite seen in modern American history.

“Woke” Joe Biden

At an age when most long ago embraced a consistent political belief, late septuagenarian Joe Biden suddenly reinvented himself as our first woke president. That is ironic in so many ways because Joe’s past is a wasteland of racialist condescension and prejudicial gaffes. For much of the 1980s and 1990s, he positioned himself as the workingman’s Democrat from Delaware (or, as Biden once beamed, “We [Delawareans] were on the South’s side in the Civil War.”). In truth, he exuded chauvinism well beyond that of his constituents.

Biden’s concocted working-man schtick meant praising former segregationists of the Senate like Robert Byrd and James O. Eastland. He would talk tough about inner-city predators, even as he pontificated about his support for tough drug sentencing. Kamala Harris, without any political traction other than her race and gender, once predicated her unimpressive and early aborted presidential campaign on the single strategy of knocking Joe out of the primaries for his purported innate racism that hurt victims of color, such as herself, the deprived child of two Ph.Ds.

‘This is What Open Borders Agenda Looks Like,’ Trump’s ICE Chief Says

April 20, 2021April 19, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Tom Homan, former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said Monday that President Joe Biden sacrificed the U.S.’ safety at the southern border in order to win the 2020 election.

“This is open borders agenda, Joe Biden sold out this country and our border security to win the election, he wanted to win over the progressive left, have an open borders agenda, Homan said on “Fox and Friends First.” Biden called the border situation on Saturday a “crisis” for the first time while discussing the refugee cap.

“We’re going to increase the number [of refugees allowed into the country]. The problem was that the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up on the border with young people,” Biden said. “We couldn’t do two things at once. But now we are going to increase the number.”

Biden Administration Won’t Define ‘Sex’ as Biological as Title IX Review Starts

April 20, 2021April 19, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The Biden administration has rejected a petition to define sex in biological terms as it reviews the Trump administration’s Title IX policies on women’s sports and sexual misconduct proceedings.

The rejection came a day after the Department of Education announced it was soliciting public input on implementing President Biden’s March 8 executive order on sex discrimination.

The Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), a self-described radical feminist group that opposes transgender policies, said it was pleased that the department did not reject its legal arguments out of hand.

Biden’s Court Packing Committee Contains an Army of Professors Open to Altering Supreme Court

April 19, 2021April 18, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Joe Biden walking with his administration, wearing masks

President Joe Biden unveiled a new commission to explore the possibility of packing the Supreme Court. Although the commission does contain some constitutional originalists, it is heavily staffed by legal professors with revisionist views on the nation’s top judicial body.

The Biden administration unveiled a “Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States,” which will “provide an analysis of the principal arguments in the contemporary public debate for and against Supreme Court reform” — including “the length of service and turnover of justices on the Court” and “the membership and size of the Court.”

Although the White House insists that the commission is meant to be “bipartisan,” several of its members — both right-leaning and left-leaning — appear to hold some degree of revisionist views on the Supreme Court.

Commentary: Biden Intelligence Community Breaches Authority to Target the Right

April 19, 2021April 18, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The freshly reelected Republican senator from Nebraska had kind words this week for Joe Biden’s intelligence chiefs. “The American people are blessed to have an [intelligence community] as serious as ours,” Senator Ben Sasse said during Wednesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. He called the group, which included FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director William Burns, “heroes” and wanted a chance to “say thank you” in front of the American people.

Sasse, who is supposed to act as a fierce skeptic not a fawning cheerleader of the world’s most powerful intelligence apparatus, singled out Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines for praise. “Your opening statement . . . was incredibly strong,” Sasse swooned.

Haines, the top deputy to former CIA Director John Brennan during the Obama Administration, undoubtedly marveled at winning such a groveling endorsement from a sitting Republican senator—or perhaps she internally laughed at winning over yet another reliable GOP dupe. (In fairness, most Republicans on the committee joined in Sasse’s praise for Haines.)

Commentary: Ballot Equality and Who Really Defends the Votes of Black Americans

April 18, 2021April 17, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Buried in the liberal lie that vote security somehow “suppresses” votes of black Americans is the truth: it protects their vote security, as well. Even in minority communities, ballots themselves are color blind.

Deep in the cynical assertion that protecting votes is “racist” is the inference that black votes aren’t important enough to be protected. Liberals and their Democrat allies face two stumbling blocks in demonstrating legitimate concern about minority voting — the past and the present. They own the history of voting discrimination based on race, and they still practice it today.

To assert that vote security is “racist,” it must first be established that minorities are separate and unequal from other voters, and less competent at meeting voting requirements. But all Americans must show ID for driving, banking, voting in union elections, going to post-secondary school, and purchasing certain products. The Left’s anti–vote security influencers are currently focused on Georgia’s new voting laws, which require voter identity verification with photo ID. Democrats claim this discriminates against black voters in particular.

Schiff and Swalwell Went All in on the Dubious Russia Bounty Story

April 17, 2021April 16, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, hyped reports last year that the Russian government paid bounties to kill American soldiers, an allegation that the Biden administration now says is based on inconclusive intelligence.

Schiff and Swalwell, along with other Democrats, used reports of the alleged bounty payments to accuse President Donald Trump of turning a blind eye to Russian aggression against the U.S.

Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence panel, accused Trump and other Republicans of refusing to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin over the alleged bounties. In a tweet on Aug. 27, Schiff said that their silence put U.S. troops “in danger.”

Commentary: The GOP’s Trump Solution

April 14, 2021April 14, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The Wall Street Journal on Friday published an editorial headlined “The GOP’s Trump Problem.” It gets things terribly wrong. The GOP is Trump’s party and it is the Wall Street Journal that has the Trump problem.

Having been commendably supportive of the former president through most of his term, the Journal joined in the general embarkation of NeverTrumpers over the ostensible election results. The theory that inspired this headline is Trump had his chance but lost the election in a manner practically indistinguishable from defeated incumbents Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H. W. Bush in 1992 (when there were no suggestions of questionable results). The editors suggest further that Trump had exhausted any grounds he had for contesting the fairness of the counting of ballots, and that it was his duty to go quietly into that good night and do everything that he could to elect Republican senators in Georgia to preserve the Republican majority in the Senate and to enhance the likelihood of the reelection next year of Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia and his secretary of state Brad Raffensperger.

These state officials were to be embraced even though they had capitulated to the leader of the Georgia Democrats, Stacey Abrams, permitting the critical electoral votes of their state to be wrongfully cast for Joe Biden. They assumed Trump had to do all he could to keep those in his own party who had betrayed him in place. That is not normally how the system, or human nature, works.

DeSantis and Doctors Accuse Media, Big Tech of Hiding Harm from COVID Restrictions

April 14, 2021April 14, 2021 Admin

The media, academy and Big Tech are suppressing facts about the harms caused by COVID-19 lockdown policies, especially for younger generations, Gov. Ron DeSantis and public health experts said in a “roundtable discussion” on the novel coronavirus Monday.

These powerful American institutions are also misleading their audiences about the public health results from Florida’s open approach, which contrasted sharply with most states, they said.

The potential Republican presidential candidate hammered Google and its YouTube platform in particular for removing his earlier COVID-19 roundtable with the same doctors, branding it “misinformation.” Even some Florida news stations had their coverage removed.

Biden’s Cyber Nominee Is on Board of Think Tank Founded by Spygate Professor Stefan Halper

April 14, 2021April 14, 2021 Admin

President Joe Biden’s pick for national cyber director is on the advisory board of an intelligence think tank co-founded by Stefan Halper, the longtime political operative who worked as a confidential human source for the FBI during its investigation into the Trump campaign.

Chris Inglis, the former deputy director of the National Security Agency, was nominated for the cyber role on Monday, the Associated Press reported.

“We are determined to protect America’s networks and to meet the growing challenge posed by our adversaries in cyberspace — and this is the team to do it,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in an announcement of the nomination.

Commentary: Left is Using Supreme Court Commission to Change Court’s Decisions, Not to Improve It

April 13, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Today, President Joe Biden signed an executive order creating the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. The White House announcement and the members chosen for this commission raise serious questions about its real purpose and concerns about its impact on the independence of the judiciary.

The most obvious question is why the Supreme Court needs to be examined at all. The simple answer is that the left wants a judiciary in general, and a Supreme Court in particular, that is likely to decide cases that will further a leftist political agenda.

Results that are politically correct—not judicially correct—are what matter to the left, and the left is not satisfied with the current Supreme Court’s decisions of late. Therefore, it wants to create one in its own image.

Biden Admin Won’t Say How Much ‘Emergency’ Funding for Colleges Remains Unspent, Proposes Another $12 Billion Anyway

April 13, 2021April 12, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Disclosure: The writer of this piece served as the U.S. Department of Education’s Press Secretary from summer 2019 through the end of the Trump administration and was involved in the announcement of the creation of the Education Stabilization Fund transparency portal.

Congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden enacted $40 billion in additional higher education relief funding without any public information on if, or how, the $21.2 billion allocated in December 2020 had been spent.

Even though colleges and universities were required to report their spending on January 28 and then again on February 8, the Department of Education’s Education Stabilization Fund transparency portal is still showing spending data as of Nov. 30 of last year.

Commentary: Biden’s $2 Trillion Infrastructure Plan is Loaded with Corporate Welfare

April 13, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

President Biden has just unveiled a new $2.3 trillion “infrastructure” plan, but a shockingly large portion of this bill is actually unrelated to infrastructure.

The plan includes massive subsidies for corporations as well as state and local governments, and comes right after the administration’s proposed increase in the corporate tax rate, which would raise the rate from 21 percent to 28 percent.

There’s $300 billion for manufacturing, $100 billion for electric utilities, $100 billion for broadband, $174 billion for electric vehicles, and a whole lot more. A significant portion of this spending is directed at subsidizing big corporations.

Biden Picks Top Immigration Officials as Migrants Continue to Arrive at Southern Border

April 13, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

President Joe Biden announced two key immigration official nominations Monday as migrants continue to arrive at the southern border in record numbers.

Police Chief Chris Magnus of Tucson, Arizona, will be nominated to head Customs and Border Protection and immigrant rights advocate Ur Jaddou will be tapped to lead U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), according to a statement.

“They are highly-regarded and accomplished professionals with deep experience in their respective fields,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement, Bloomberg reported. “Together they will help advance the Department of Homeland Security’s mission to ensure the safety and security of the American people.”

Biden Admin Won’t Say How Much ‘Emergency’ Funding for Colleges Remains Unspent, Proposes Another $12 Billion Anyway

April 13, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

EXCLUSIVE: Republican Attorneys General Plan to Create Legal Roadblocks for Biden Agenda

April 12, 2021April 11, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Republican attorneys general are determined to mount numerous legal challenges against President Joe Biden, creating a formidable roadblock to the president’s agenda.

In less than three months since President Joe Biden was sworn into office, Republican states have waged war on his agenda, suing the administration on climate change, energy, immigration and taxation policy. But the conservative attorneys general who started filing the lawsuits in March said they aren’t done yet and expect to continue challenging the administration in court.

“We are sharpening the pencils and filling up the inkwells,” Louisiana Attorney General and former Republican Attorneys General Association Chairman Jeff Landry, who is leading two of the ongoing lawsuits against the Biden administration, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Commentary: The American Jobs Plan and the China Conundrum

April 11, 2021April 10, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

President Joe Biden’s new spending plan amps up rhetoric on national competition with China, maintaining the confrontational approach established by the previous administration. But whereas the 45th president championed what he called American energy dominance as a key element of grand strategy, the 46th seems bent on eschewing America’s natural resource advantages and playing to China’s strengths.

The White House fact sheet on the American Jobs Plan refers to China five times directly, claiming that the plan will “position the United States to out-compete China,” that China’s ambitions are one of “the great challenges of our time,” that the U.S. is “falling behind countries like China” on infrastructure, that “countries like China are investing aggressively in R&D,” and that the U.S. market share of plug-in electric vehicle (EV) sales is one-third of that in China — something President Biden “believes that must change.”

The president asserts that this plan will simultaneously reduce the risks posed by climate change and by China’s rise, but the evidence suggests his approach to energy will undermine the United States’ strategic positioning, not reinforce it.

Commentary: Biden Border Policy Goes South

April 11, 2021April 10, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

When the inevitable assessments of President Biden’s first 100 days in office begin to appear, his precipitous actions pursuant to illegal immigration at the southern border will be judged by most honest observers to have been his worst blunder. That is certainly the perspective of the majority of Americans, according to three recent public opinion surveys. An NPR/Marist poll, for example, found that 53 percent of respondents disapproved of Biden’s handling of immigration. An ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 57 percent were dissatisfied with his management of the situation, particularly as it affects unaccompanied minors. An AP/NORC poll found that 56 percent were unhappy with Biden’s performance on immigration.

Biden’s Nominee to Lead ATF Pushed Dubious Claim About Waco Siege to Call for Blanket Ban on Assault Rifles

April 11, 2021April 10, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The gun control activist who President Joe Biden is expected to nominate to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) claimed last year that members of the Branch Davidian sect shot down two helicopters during a standoff with federal agents in Waco in 1993.

David Chipman, the expected nominee, posted the comments as part of a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” event. He also called for tighter gun control measures, including restricting gun sales only to licensed gun stores and a ban on the manufacture and sale of so-called assault rifles.

Biden is expected to announce Chipman’s nomination on Thursday during an event where he will lay out a series of executive actions aimed at reducing gun violence.

Commentary: Stopping the Crisis at the Border

April 10, 2021 RealClearWire

"Open the border" tent with baby stroller in front of other tents.

I recently traveled to the southern border with colleagues from both sides of the aisle to see the unfolding crisis firsthand and come up with solutions. The surge and resulting chaos is well documented.

Customs and Border Protection reported more than 172,000 total encounters at the border in March, up 70% from February and more than five times the March 2020 numbers. This includes more than 53,000 migrant family members, a more than 1,000% increase from March 2020; nearly 100,000 single adult migrants, an increase of 275% versus last year; and nearly 19,000 unaccompanied children, double the amount that crossed our border in February and a nearly 500% increase from March 2020.

The reason for the crisis is clear. The Biden administration’s policy changes encouraged families and unaccompanied children, mostly from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, to come to our southern border and apply for asylum. Traffickers are telling families they can come into the U.S. if they pay to make the treacherous trip north, then apply for asylum at the border. Under the Biden policies, there is a lot of truth to that.

Commentary: Stopping the Crisis at the Border

April 10, 2021April 9, 2021 RealClearWire

Commentary: Biden’s Chamber of Confected Hatreds

April 10, 2021April 9, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The collapse of the Trump-hate fraud is forcing the American national political media, with infinite regret and trepidation, to subject the Biden Administration to an elemental level of oversight.

When Joe Biden accuses 40 states—including, implicitly, his own home state of Delaware—of “Jim Crow” racial bias in administering elections, the media simply cannot allow such nonsense to go unnoticed. In their delirium of happiness at having won the presidential election, the Democrats naïvely believed that they could go on running against Donald Trump, presumably because they believed that he could not possibly be less noisy and productive of a target-rich area of easily denigrated utterances than he was as president.

The former president has outsmarted his enemies, however, and has graciously allowed his successor to take center stage and blunder and misspeak on a level never approached in the history of his great office. Warren Harding invented the word “bloviate,” and both Presidents Bush were inexhaustible storehouses of malapropisms: “We’ve got them on the run, and they’re running,” said George W. Bush. But with Joe Biden, it never stops.

Abbott: Biden Administration Is Presiding over ‘Abuse of Children’

April 9, 2021April 8, 2021 The Center Square

Gov. Greg Abbott held a short press conference Wednesday night outside of the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio to discuss allegations about the abuse of migrant minors occurring at a federally run detention center.

Two separate state agencies received reports of child abuse and neglect occurring at the Freeman Coliseum, problems Abbott says “are a byproduct of [President Joe] Biden’s open border policies and lack of planning and fallout from those disastrous policies.”

Ten Percent of Migrant Minors Held in San Diego Convention Center Test Positive for COVID-19

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 The Center Square

Of the more than 700 unaccompanied migrant minors who were transported to the San Diego Convention Center from Texas, roughly 10% have tested positive for COVID-19, according to multiple news reports citing health officials.

The Department of Health and Human Services reported on March 30 that 70 of these minors tested positive; none required hospitalization.

The San Diego Convention Center is currently holding 723 girls between the ages of 13 and 17 – all of whom were transferred from federal shelters in Texas.

‘Reeks Of Hypocrisy’: Rubio Calls Out MLB over Deal with Chinese Media Conglomerate

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio accused Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred of hypocrisy on Monday over the league’s relationship with a Chinese media conglomerate that has backed Beijing’s opposition to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

“Since Major League Baseball now appears eager to use its ‘platform’ to demonstrate ‘unwavering support’ for fundamental human rights, will you cease your relationship with the Chinese Government?” Rubio wrote in a letter on Monday to Manfred.

The Republican accused Manfred of “woke corporate virtue signaling” for pulling this year’s All-Star game out of Atlanta in protest over a Georgia voting bill passed last month.

Human Traffickers Using Facebook to Lure Customers, Promising Safe Passage to U.S.

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Peter D'Abrosca

Group of protestors holding human trafficking signs

A report released Monday details how human traffickers are using Facebook – and the Biden administration’s new open border’s policies – to generate business and smuggle illegal aliens into the United States.

Public Facebook pages called “Migrants from Various Countries in Mexico” and “Migrants in the Mexico-U.S.A. Border Awaiting Hearing,” among others, were openly being used by smugglers on the Big Tech platform to scheme with would-be illegal aliens about how to break America’s immigration laws.

Commentary: U.S. China Relations Go from Bad to Worse

April 6, 2021April 5, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The most significant diplomatic event in the month of March was a rapid, seemingly irreversible deterioration of relations between the United States and China. Its signs were on display at the first high-level meeting between the two sides since President Joseph Biden took office on Jan. 20. Held in Anchorage, Alaska on March 18, it ended very badly indeed.

The encounter was unprecedented in the annals of great power diplomacy. Speaking first—with cameras present for what was supposed to be purely opening formalities—Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the U.S. would “discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, [and] economic coercion of our allies.” Blinken also criticized China for its lack of transparency on the origin of the COVID-19 virus and went on to say that “each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability” which the U.S. intends to uphold.

A lengthy and angry response came from Yang Jiechi, the leading architect of China’s foreign policy, who since 2013 has served as director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office of the Chinese Communist Party, joining the CCP Politburo in 2017. He upbraided the United States in a lengthy rebuke, in the course of which he charged the U.S. with hypocrisy on human rights, criticized America’s foreign interventions, and accused his counterparts of possessing a “cold war mentality.”

Streaming Service Hulu to Release Series Based on 1619 Project

April 5, 2021April 4, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The streaming website Hulu has announced that it has acquired the rights to stream an upcoming series on the “1619 Project,” a far-left narrative that falsely claims the United States was built on racism, as reported by The Hill.

The series, based on a series of articles at the New York Times by Nikole Hannah-Jones, will be produced by Roger Williams, Geoff Martz, and Shoshana guy. The production will be carried out by Lionsgate Films and Oprah Winfrey’s studio Harpo Films, as previously reported.

In a statement to Variety magazine, Williams called the 1619 Project “an essential reframing of American history,” and falsely claimed that “our most cherished ideals and achievements cannot be understood without acknowledging both systemic racism and the contribution of black Americans.”

13 States Sue Biden Administration, Demand Ability to Cut Taxes

April 4, 2021April 3, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey

Thirteen states sued President Joe Biden’s administration over an American Rescue Plan provision prohibiting states from cutting taxes after accepting coronavirus relief funds.

The 13-state coalition argued that the provision included in the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package preventing states from cutting taxes if they accept relief from the federal government is unconstitutional. The coalition, led by Republican West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, filed the federal lawsuit Wednesday evening in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

“Never before has the federal government attempted such a complete takeover of state finances,” Morrisey said in a Wednesday statement. “We cannot stand for such overreach.”

U.S. Added 916,000 Jobs in March as Economy Roars Back to Life

April 3, 2021April 2, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. economy reported an increase of 916,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate fell to 6%, according to Department of Labor data released Friday.

Total non-farm payroll employment increased by 916,000 in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, and the number of unemployed persons fell to 9.7 million. Economists projected 675,000 Americans would be added to payrolls prior to Friday’s report, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“There’s a seismic shift going on in the U.S. economy,” Beth Ann Bovino, an economist at S&P Global, told the WSJ.

GOP Senators Demand Intelligence Records on Hunter Biden’s Dealings with Chinese Energy Conglomerate

April 2, 2021April 1, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson called on the Biden administration Wednesday to turn over intelligence records regarding Hunter Biden’s work with a Chinese energy company with suspected ties to the Chinese military.

In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, Grassley and Johnson said that it is “imperative” for Congress to understand the relationship between the Biden family and CEFC China Energy, the now-defunct energy conglomerate.

CEFC China Energy paid Biden approximately $6 million from August 2017 to September 2018 for consulting and legal services, according to a report that Grassley and Johnson released last year.

The Republicans said in the report that banking regulators flagged some of the wire payments from CEFC to Biden for “potential criminal financial activity.” Grassley and Johnson also noted that CEFC’s founder, Ye Jianming, was an official in the mid-2000s for a front group of the Chinese Communist Party.

Commentary: Joe ‘Sanctuary City’ Biden

March 31, 2021March 30, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Drop dead. That’s the Biden administration’s message to victims of criminal illegal immigrants in joint stipulations submitted to the Supreme Court this month. The stipulations dismiss petitions filed last year asking the court to review two sanctuary city cases.

More on those cases later. In the Democratic fairy tale, sanctuary policies signal to victims of crime who are in the country illegally that they can work with police without fear of deportation — improving public safety. Sanctuary cities, goes the story, are safe cities.

Biden’s First 100 Days: Polling Versus Media Coverage of Getting the Pandemic Under Control

March 30, 2021March 29, 2021 Admin

RealClear Opinion Research recently conducted a poll about Biden’s first 100 days in office. One of the questions asked was how important it was to get the pandemic under control and public satisfaction with results to date.

The timeline below shows total daily mentions of the pandemic across television news, showing that starting with December 31, 2020, CNN and MSNBC sharply reduced their coverage and have mentioned the pandemic this year far less than last year, while Fox News is largely mentioning it the same number of times each day.

Commentary: Biden’s Fake Climate Apocalypse Has Real Consequences

March 29, 2021March 28, 2021 Admin

With the wave of executive orders and legislation coming from the Biden administration, and the cultural antics of his woke supporters, Biden’s war on fossil fuels has received insufficient attention. Yet energy is the lifeblood of our economy, and making traditional energy sources vastly more expensive is the single most destructive aspect of Biden’s policies. If this country does not successfully mobilize against these policies, the vast majority will experience a dramatic drop in their standard of living.

Supposedly the assault on fossil fuels — via regulation; cancellation of pipelines; concocting a huge, wholly imaginary “social cost of carbon”; taxes; and solar and wind mandates — is necessary to save the planet from imminent catastrophe produced by man-made global warming.

Secret Service Denied it was Involved in Hunter Biden Gun Case, but Purported Texts Suggest Otherwise

March 29, 2021March 28, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Texts allegedly linking the U.S. Secret Service to Hunter Biden’s 2018 gun case were uncovered by the New York Post on Friday.

In a Jan. 29, 2019 text message, Biden reportedly wrote that his former sister-in-law turned girlfriend Hallie Biden stole the gun from the trunk of his car and told law enforcement authorities, including the Secret Service, that she disposed of it over fears Biden would use the gun to harm himself, the Post reported. The purported texts appear to contradict the Secret Service’s denial of involvement in the incident.

Gallup CEO Warns Biden: 42 Million Migrants Want Entry to U.S.

March 29, 2021March 28, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The CEO of Gallup has publicly warned President Joe Biden that approximately 42 million people south of Texas want to migrate into the United States.

In a blog post published on Wednesday, Jim Clifton, the chairman and CEO of the Gallup polling company, warned Biden as he and his administration struggle to deal with the surge of migration at the border:

Here are questions every leader should be able to answer regardless of their politics: How many more people are coming to the southern border? And what is the plan?

Commentary: Biden’s Blaming Trump for Border Crisis Has Zero Credibility

March 28, 2021March 27, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

No one believes the Biden White House’s feeble attempt to blame the Trump administration for the current border crisis.

As the Biden administration unsuccessfully tries to deflect blame for the humanitarian disaster now occurring before America’s eyes, despite its directed media blackout, the administration is only succeeding at showing it knows it has a problem.

California Senators Call on Biden to Ban the Sale of Gasoline-Powered Cars in the U.S.

March 28, 2021March 27, 2021 The Center Square

California’s two U.S. Senators, both Democrats, are calling on President Joe Biden to ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars in the United States.

Sens. Diane Feinstein and Alex Padilla sent a letter to Biden urging him to “follow California’s lead and set a date by which all new cars and passenger trucks sold be zero-emission vehicles.”

Last September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who now faces a potential recall election, signed an executive order banning the sale of gasoline-powered cars in California by requiring all new cars and trucks being sold in the state to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035. Currently, electric vehicles account for less than 3 percent of all vehicle sales in the U.S.

13 States Sue Biden Administration over Federal Oil and Gas Leasing Ban

March 28, 2021March 27, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

A coalition of 13 states sued President Joe Biden’s administration Wednesday over its January ban of new oil and gas leasing on federal lands.

The 13-state coalition argued that President Joe Biden’s Jan. 27 executive order banning new oil and gas leases on federal lands was unlawful, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry announced the lawsuit alongside state lawmakers and energy officials.

“By executive fiat, Joe Biden and his administration have single-handedly driven the price of energy up — costing the American people where it hurts most, in their pocketbooks,” Landry said during a press conference Wednesday. “Biden’s Executive Orders abandon middle-class jobs at a time when America needs them most and put our energy security in the hands of foreign countries, many of whom despise America’s greatness.”

‘The Crisis Will Continue, and Worsen’: Immigration Experts Say Border Crisis Will Continue Despite Mexico’s Policies Limiting Migration

March 27, 2021March 26, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The current migrant crisis in the U.S. will continue to worsen despite Mexico implementing travel limits on March 18 at its southern border, immigration experts say.

Mexico announced non-essential travel restrictions at its southern border due to COVID-19 as thousands of Central American migrants continue to enter the country en route to the U.S.

“The crisis will continue, and worsen, until such time as the [Biden] administration decides to take steps to end it,” Ira Mehlman, the media director of the Federation For American Immigration Reform (FAIR), told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Biden Team Ignored Warnings from Career Immigration Officials That Their Actions Could Cause a Border Crisis

March 25, 2021March 24, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

The Biden administration ignored career immigration officials’ warnings of an impending surge in the number of migrants arriving at the southern border, The Washington Post reported.

The administration has repeatedly refused to refer to the situation as a crisis, despite a seeming inability to curb the increasing flow of migrants, the Post reported. The administration’s mixed messaging, which often appeals to liberal activists, has hampered efforts to halt the influx of migrants at the southern border, according to the Post.

Biden Admin Customs and Border Protection Admits to Releasing Illegal Alien Families Without Setting Court Dates

March 24, 2021March 23, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Under the administration of Joe Biden, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has begun releasing entire families of illegal aliens back into the U.S. from their custody without setting a date for them to appear before an immigration court, as reported by Breitbart.

Breitbart’s Randy Clark, himself a veteran of the Border Patrol, said that CBP has sent notices to border patrol agents and other immigration enforcement authorities that families are to be released without a formal “Notice to Appear.” Two anonymous officials seemed to confirm Clark’s account.

“This is insane,” one official said. “It is another pull factor that will overwhelm us. We are creating an entirely different class of aliens we will have to deal with years from now. We will never find most of these aliens once they are released.”

Border Patrol Holding Thousands of Migrant Children Past The Legal Limit, Some Detained Longer Than 10 Days

March 23, 2021March 22, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

Customs and Border Protection has held at least 800 unaccompanied migrant minors in custody for over 10 days, Axios reported

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can legally hold unaccompanied minors for 72 hours, though over 3,300 were in custody over the limit as of Saturday, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by Axios. Over 2,200 unaccompanied minors were held for more than five days and around 820 were in custody for over 10 days.

The number of unaccompanied minors in CBP custody for over 10 days has quadrupled in the last week, Axios reported. Only around 180 unaccompanied minors were in CBP custody for over 10 days as of last Monday.