Tag: government

As the peak of the coronavirus pandemic appears to have passed, ten Republican-led states have all recorded the lowest unemployment rate on record.

According to The Hill, the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows ten different states with unemployment rates as low as just over 2 percent. Nebraska and Utah are tied for the lowest percentages in the country, at 2.2 percent each. They are followed by Indiana with 2.4 percent, and Kansas with 2.6 percent. The remaining six states are: Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma and West Virginia.

All ten states’ unemployment rates are currently the lowest on record since BLS first began tracking state-by-state percentages in 1976. Of these ten states, only one has a Democratic governor, with Laura Kelly in Kansas. All ten states have Republican majorities in their respective state legislatures.

Biden Federal Reserve Nominee Sarah Bloom Raskin Withdraws Nomination

Sarah Bloom Raskin, President Joe Biden’s pick for a key Federal Reserve position, withdrew her nomination Tuesday after receiving bipartisan pushback.

Raskin’s nomination faced fierce opposition by Republican lawmakers and industry groups that argued her previous positions on a range of topics including climate policy disqualified her for the job. Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee led by Ranking Member Pat Toomey have boycotted a vote to pass her nomination and four other nominations to the Senate for a floor vote since February.

“Unfortunately, Senate Republicans are more focused on amplifying these false claims and protecting special interests than taking important steps toward addressing inflation and lowering costs for the American people,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday. “I am grateful for Sarah’s service to our country and for her willingness to serve again, and I look forward to her future contributions to our country.”

James O’Keefe Releases Video Footage of Armed FBI Agents Raiding Project Veritas Journalist’s Home

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe released video footage from last November, showing armed FBI agents raiding and ransacking an employee’s home. The Feds raided two of O’Keefe’s employees’ homes on November 4, on the orders of federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. They raided O’Keefe’s apartment in Mamaroneck, N.Y., a couple of days later in connection with Ashley Biden’s allegedly stolen diary.

O’Keefe contends that he and his journalists were targeted because of their investigative journalism.

The footage begins with the FBI banging loudly on the door, and with the startled journalist responding shakily, “I’m sorry, what is this regarding?”

Drilling Permits Spiked Under Biden Administration Before Dropping Significantly

After a massive rise in the number of drilling permits approved in 2021, the total number has plunged to some of the lowest levels ever in 2022, all on the watch of the Biden Administration.

Politico reports that after the previous high of 643 permits that were issued by the Department of Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in April of 2021, just 95 permits were approved in January of this year. The sudden shift reflects the wildly different approaches taken by the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration when it comes to domestic energy production.

While President Donald Trump supported unlimited domestic production in order to establish national energy independence, Biden pledged to reduce the production of fossil fuels in order to combat “global warming,” and instead has tried to promote so-called “green” energy alternatives. But the fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the impacts on the global energy market, has forced Biden to consider restarting domestic production in order to offset rising gas prices.

Commentary: Civics Education Is More Important Than Ever

March 16, 2022March 15, 2022 RealClearWire

At its founding, American K-12 public education was meant to prepare young people to be active participants in our democratic republic. That should still be its highest purpose, especially when it comes to teaching civics.

Historically, public schools held fast to the principle that effective education must be non-partisan. Knowing they had great power to influence young minds, teachers used to be careful to choose content and pedagogies that restricted their ability to impose their personal political views on schoolchildren.

Today, maintaining non-partisanship is more important than ever in classrooms. Sadly, it’s increasingly dishonored. Civics has become a hot-button issue of late, particularly after remote learning allowed more parents to see what their children were actually being taught. Many were not happy with what they saw, and the debate over civics education is symptomatic of the larger divide that has become such a looming threat to American society.

Commentary: Biden and Obama Must Answer for Russiagate

March 16, 2022March 15, 2022 RealClearWire

What did Barack Obama and Joe Biden know about the Russiagate collusion hoax their fellow Democrats ginned up to kneecap Donald Trump – and when did they know it? How much did their chicanery contribute to Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade the Ukraine?

Those questions are coming into sharp relief following a definitive report by my RealClearInvestigations colleague Paul Sperry last week that places the worst political scandal in our nation’s history and Putin’s brutal war directly inside the White House.

Drawing on a wide range of documents, many never previously reported, Sperry details how the Obama administration worked closely with the Clinton campaign and a foreign government – Ukraine – in a “sweeping and systematic effort” to interfere in the 2016 election. It turns out Democrats were guilty of every false charge they lodged against Trump.

Shrinking Food Supplies, Soaring Prices Could Trigger Global Unrest, Key GOP Lawmaker Warns

March 16, 2022March 15, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

With U.S. and world food prices set to soar due to inflation and supply shortages stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a key GOP lawmaker is asking the Pentagon to study the potential for conflict if the global food supply shrinks by 5%.

U.S. farmers will pay $300-$400 more per acre to grow crops this year due to inflation and costs associated with the war in Europe, Georgia Republican Rep. Austin Scott warned Monday on the Just the News TV show.

Shipping is another issue, as trade is throttled by war-related disruptions and tough economic sanctions against Russia.

Commentary: High-Octane Solutions to the New Energy Crisis

March 16, 2022March 15, 2022 RealClearWire

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and soaring energy prices are a bracing wake up call to the West to abandon our anemic energy policies, which have pretended to be green but in reality have only shifted the dirtiest parts of our energy supply chains to bad actors like Russia and China. Western energy dependence on hostile powers limits our ability to preserve peace, to reduce our supply vulnerability, and to find the most cost-effective climate change solutions.

President Biden has acknowledged some of these problems, conceding that gasoline prices are too high and promising to do “everything in my power to limit the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump.” But gas prices continue to rise, up by 10% in the last week.

One option President Biden has not yet explored is working with Congress to fix our incoherent domestic fuel policy to improve fuel efficiency across the board and reduce the amount Americans pay for gasoline. Currently, the EPA regulates fuels and automobiles separately, instead of as a single system. Automakers have the technological know-how to make much more efficient car engines, but regulatory barriers prevent them from doing so because they do not permit the use of cleaner fuels that would reduce carbon emissions and enhance performance.

Central Bank Expected to Raise Interest Rates Wednesday

March 15, 2022March 15, 2022 Admin

The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates after its meeting Wednesday to combat the country’s soaring inflation, Axios reported.

The central bank is believed to raise its target fed funds rate by a quarter percentage point from zero after the end of the two-day meeting ending Wednesday, Axios reported. The Fed’s decision will outline the bank’s monetary policy for the near future and determine whether the U.S. economy enters a recession or continues surging price hikes, according to Axios.

Inflation has soared to nearly 8% year-over-year as of February while unemployment stayed below 4%, indicating that the Fed has been behind the curve in its effort to address sustained inflation, Axios reported. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is now reportedly tasked with fixing a delicate economy without crashing it despite a war in Ukraine and renewed COVID-19 lockdowns in China.

Biden’s Border Recipe: Let Illegals Flood the Country and Drastically Reduce Deportations

March 15, 2022March 15, 2022 Admin

After an historic year of illegal migrants entering the United States, the Biden administration has belatedly revealed the impact of another leg of its border strategy: a sharp reduction in arrests and deportations.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported Friday interior immigration arrests fell to 74,082 in fiscal 2021, down from 103,000 in 2020 and 143,000 two years ago.

Likewise, deportations fell a stunning 70% to 59,011 last year, the lowest number in 26 years. The lack of deportations marked a precipitous drop from the Obama and Trump years, when expulsions often topped 300,000 or more annually.

Manchin Says No on Confirming Raskin for Fed Position, Likely Derailing Biden, Fellow Dems’ Effort

March 15, 2022March 15, 2022 Admin

Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin said Monday that he will not support the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to become the Federal Reserve’s top banking regulator, placing a major obstacle in her path to Senate confirmation.

In February, Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee uniformly opposed Raskin’s nomination by refusing to attend a committee vote to advance her position. The no-show act also created a blockade to the nominations of several other Fed nominees, including Chairman Jerome Powell.

Raskin to be confirmed needs 51 yes votes – a simple majority – in a final Senate vote.

Commentary: Joe Biden’s Electric Car Plans Support the World’s Worst Humanitarian Abuses

March 14, 2022March 14, 2022 RealClearWire

In his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, President Joe Biden promoted electric vehicles (EVs), trumpeting his plans to establish “a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.” In so doing, Biden is unwittingly supporting the worst humanitarian abuses in the world. This is because of the way in which the materials used in manufacturing the batteries that power today’s EVs are obtained.

To obtain a reasonable amount of power per pound of battery weight, EV manufacturers generally use various forms of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, so named because the battery’s positive electrode, called the cathode, is largely made up of the highly reactive metal lithium (Li). To keep the cathode stable when a battery is not in use, the lithium is combined in a metal oxide matrix, with different manufacturers using different combinations of metals.

Most EV manufacturers combine lithium with nickel, cobalt and manganese to create a Li-Ni-Mn-Co oxide matrix to form the cathode. Tesla substitutes aluminum (Al) for the manganese, yielding a Li-Ni-Co-Al oxide matrix for the cathode on their batteries. Tesla maintains that their formulae is more cost-effective as less cobalt is required.

Farmers Hit Hard by Price Increases as Food Price Spike Looms

March 14, 2022March 14, 2022 The Center Square

Man in white shirt and jeans planting seeds in the ground of a garden

Goods and services around the country are becoming increasingly more expensive, but farmers may be among the hardest hit as inflation, supply chain issues, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are expected to send food prices soaring even higher.

That impact is being felt by farmers around the country.

“The cost of fertilizer is up as much as 500% in some areas,” said Indiana Farm Bureau President Randy Kron. “It would be unbelievable if I hadn’t seen it for myself as I priced fertilizer for our farm in southern Indiana. Fertilizer is a global commodity and can be influenced by multiple market factors, including the situation in Ukraine, and all of these are helping to drive up costs.”

Commentary: Ukraine Worked with Democrats Against Trump in 2016 to Stop Putin and the Bet Backfired Badly

March 11, 2022March 10, 2022 RealClearWire

Six years ago, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of their country, the Ukrainians bet that a Hillary Clinton presidency would offer better protection from Russian President Vladimir Putin, even though he had invaded Crimea during the Obama-Biden administration, whose Russian policies Clinton vowed to continue.

Working with both the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign, Ukrainian government officials intervened in the 2016 race to help Clinton and hurt Trump in a sweeping and systematic foreign influence operation that’s been largely ignored by the press. The improper, if not illegal, operation was run chiefly out of the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, where officials worked hand-in-glove with a Ukrainian-American activist and Clinton campaign operative to attack the Trump campaign. The Obama White House was also deeply involved in an effort to groom their own favored leader in Ukraine and then work with his government to dig up dirt on – and even investigate — their political rival.

Ukrainian and Democratic operatives also huddled with American journalists to spread damaging information on Trump and his advisers – including allegations of illicit Russian-tied payments that, though later proved false, forced the resignation of his campaign manager Paul Manafort. The embassy actually weighed a plan to get Congress to investigate Manafort and Trump and stage hearings in the run-up to the election.

Commentary: The Green Immoralists

March 11, 2022March 10, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry participate in a virtual meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, Thursday, September 17, 2021, in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

Thousands are dying from Russian missiles and bombs in the suburbs of Ukraine.

In response, the Biden Administration’s climate-change envoy, multimillionaire and private-jet owning John Kerry, laments that Russian president Vladimir Putin might no longer remain his partner in reducing global warming.

“You’re going to lose people’s focus,” Kerry frets. “You’re going to lose big-country attention because they will be diverted, and I think it could have a damaging impact”

Commentary: Sanctions Are an Act of War

March 10, 2022March 9, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

The United States is at war with Russia. Without a vote in Congress, a specific announcement by the president, or even meaningful awareness on the part of the bulk of the populace, the United States has stumbled into conflict with another nuclear power.

True enough, American “boots on the ground” are not yet (openly) engaged in combat in Ukraine. But the devastating sanctions put in place unilaterally by Joe Biden on Russian property constitute an act of war nonetheless. On Tuesday morning, Biden announced he was unilaterally banning the importation of Russian fuel and oil products into the United States. This decision is a direct attack on the Russian economy. It is designed to dictate a certain political outcome to the Russian government.

Such a dramatic act, therefore, constitutes participation in armed conflict against the Russian regime. It is an act of war.

Commentary: Even with ‘Defund the Police’ Discredited, Some Schools May Still Shun the Police

March 10, 2022March 9, 2022 RealClearWire

Des Moines Police standing at a crime scene

Des Moines this week suffered its first fatal school shooting – reigniting a controversy in the city after the district removed police officers from its schools last year.

Police say a group of teenagers in vehicles outside Des Moines’ East High School fired multiple rounds onto school property on Monday, killing a 15-year-old boy and critically wounding two female students who were bystanders. Six teenagers, some of them current Des Moines students, have been charged with first-degree murder.

The deadly drive-by shooting now hovers over the decision by Des Moines officials, along with about 30 districts across the country, to exile cops from schools. These moves were part of the “defund the police” movement that erupted after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. It’s a movement now reeling in the face of violent crime surging nationwide, punctuated by President Biden’s State of the Union vow last week to “fund the police.”

Commentary: Reject Liz Cheney’s War

March 9, 2022March 8, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

After nearly two weeks, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues with the Russian military steadily gaining ground and methodically taking control of key assets such as highways, bridges, airports, and power plants. As the Russians advance, they are also encircling and cutting off the main concentrations of the Ukrainian military. If those encirclements are completed, it could get ugly.

It’s into that cauldron that U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) would plunge the United States. On “Face the Nation” last week Cheney was nothing short of bellicose calling for escalation across the board.

Cheney wants Biden to expand already sweeping sanctions and seize the Russian Central Bank’s foreign reserves. Weaponizing the dollar and the banking system in this way, she apparently fails to realize, carries with it risks to dollar-supremacy and the global dominance of American financial institutions. As other nations watch America use the dollar and important elements of the international banking infrastructure such as the SWIFT system as weapons, they will realize their own vulnerability and take steps to protect themselves from U.S.-dominated financial systems. China already offers alternatives and Biden’s actions are the best advertising for those systems they could ask for.

Commentary: The FBI Goes on Trial in the Whitmer Case

March 9, 2022March 8, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

Jury selection begins in a Grand Rapids courtroom Tuesday morning in the federal trial of four men accused of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.

The long-awaited trial centers on the question of whether a loose band of misfits angry at pandemic lockdowns hatched a sinister plot to abduct Whitmer from her vacation cottage and possibly kill her—or if the foiled caper was yet another successful attempt by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to interfere in a election and sabotage Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Timing of the trial could not be worse for the scandal-plagued agency quickly losing the trust of the American people. Top FBI officials refuse to account for its role in the events of January 6, 2021, raising concerns even among some in Congress that FBI assets acted improperly before and during that day. The first trials of January 6 defendants start this month but the Justice Department has yet to make hundreds of thousands of FBI files available to defense attorneys.

One Year After Refusing to Negotiate with ‘Dictator’ Maduro, Biden Changes Course over Oil

March 9, 2022March 8, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

Just one year after refusing to negotiate with Venezuelan “dictator” Nicolas Maduro, President Biden appears to have changed course.

Democrats and Republicans have put pressure on Biden to cut off Russian oil imports over Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s escalating invasion of Ukraine. Russia and Venezuela are partners in several areas including oil. Putin and Maduro recently discussed increasing a “strategic partnership,” according to Reuters.

Reports of the negotiations preceded an expected announcement Tuesday morning by President Biden that the U.S. will ban oil imports from Russia.

Commentary: ‘Wokeness’ on Energy Is Weakness

As Joe Biden’s approval numbers sink further into the sewer, the only thing he’s building back better is 1970s-style inflation. Up until Biden, most polls usually named Jimmy Carter as one of the weakest and most inept presidents we’ve ever had. That was until Biden showed up and said, “Hold my beer!” Which you have to know has brought so much joy to Carter. Heck, he probably has a set of “Let’s go Brandon!” PJs that he wears every night as he thanks God for the gift of Biden.

Fact is, this country is now being “led” by a man who absolutely will go down as one of the worst presidents in our history. In just over a year, Biden has brought inflation roaring back to levels not seen in 40 years, has destroyed our southern border as millions of illegal aliens, along with Chinese fentanyl, flood the country, and now we have been involved in two major international debacles with Afghanistan and Ukraine. The list could go on, but perhaps that’s too depressing.

Rest assured, however, it’s not going to get better. Biden is like the anti-Midas, turning everything he touches into crap.

Stock Market Sinks, Oil Tops $130 as West Considers Russian Energy Sanctions

The stock market dropped during early trading Monday after the U.S. benchmark oil index briefly touched its highest level since the Great Recession.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index measuring 30 major U.S. corporations, dropped 0.94% as of early Monday. The S&P index, which measures 500 of the largest publicly-traded companies, fell more than 0.93% while the NASDAQ, an index largely comprised of technology firms, declined 0.98%.

Late Sunday, the benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures hit more than $130 per barrel for the first time since July 2008. The index remained high on Monday, hovering above $118 per barrel, up more than 3%.

NATO Countries Given ‘Green Light’ to Send Fighter Jets to Ukraine, Blinken Says

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that NATO member countries have a “green light” to send fighter jets as military aid to Ukraine.

The United States is reportedly in talks with Poland to send U.S. planes to replace any Soviet-era fighter jets that Warsaw sends to Ukraine, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Sending planes to Ukraine “gets a green light,” Blinken told CBS News on Sunday.

“In fact, we’re talking with our Polish friends right now about what we might be able to do to backfill their needs, if, in fact, they choose to provide these fighter jets to the Ukrainians,” he said. “What can we do? How can we help to make sure that they get something to backfill the planes that they’re handing over to the Ukrainians? We’re in very active discussions with them about that.”

Commentary: Trump Knew How to Handle Putin, But Biden Has No Clue

Sometimes we need time to pass and distance to extend to gain fuller perspective on what we did not see contemporaneously from too close. Indeed, G-d tells Moses that no person can see His face (which I teach as meaning an up-close encounter) and live, but people can see the back of G-d’s head (which I teach as meaning a more distant previous encounter, growing ever more distant). See Exodus 33:18-23.

In their October 22, 2012, debate, Obama mocked GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for expressing concern about Russia and Vladimir Putin:

Gov. Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that al Qaeda is a threat because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia. The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.

Captured Russian Soldier Says He Realized Moscow Lied When His Favorite Boxers Joined the Resistance

Ukrainian Protests Continue into the weekend for now it's 5th day, with actions happening at Trafalgar and the Russian Embassy.

A Russian prisoner of war claimed Moscow lied to soldiers before sending them to invade Ukraine.

Lieutenant Colonel Astakhov Dmitry Mikhailovich said soldiers were told Ukraine was “dominated by a fascist regime” and that “nationalists and Nazis had seized power,” according to a translation by the New York Post. He made the accusations during a media conference Thursday alongside two other captured Russian soldiers.

He explained that when he entered Ukraine and saw his favorite boxers, Ukrainians Oleksandr Usyk and Vasiliy Lomachenko, join the resistance, his doubts about the reasons for the invasion were amplified, the NYP reported.

Governor of Iowa Signs Bill Banning ‘Transgender’ Individuals from Women’s Sports

March 7, 2022March 7, 2022 Admin

On Thursday, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds (R-Iowa) signed a bill that will completely ban so-called “transgender” individuals from competing in girls’ and women’s sports, forcing them to remain with the teams of their actual biological gender.

The Hill reports that the bill, House File 2416, had previously passed the Iowa State House in February and was passed by the State Senate on Wednesday. Both chambers are controlled by Republican majorities.

The new law declares that “only female students, based on their sex, may participate in any team, sport, or athletic event designated as being for females, women, or girls.” The bill clearly defines “sex” as the “biological sex” listed on the individual’s birth certificate, and encompasses sports teams at all levels of school, community college, and college.

Russell Brand Tells His Growing Audience to Question What They’re Told

March 7, 2022March 7, 2022 Admin

Russell Brand sounds like Joe Rogan these days, or even Tucker Carlson.

The British comic came to fame stateside as the scene-stealing rocker in 2008’s “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Brand embraced a quasi-pundit status in the process, extolling socialism and smiting the West in books, documentaries and podcasts.

These days, his booming YouTube channel finds him questioning COVID-19 narratives, eviscerating the mainstream media and warning his 5 million-plus flock to question what they’re told. Always.

‘Tragic’: Border Officers Catch Several Female American Citizens Storing Nearly a Pound of Fentanyl in Their Bodies

March 7, 2022March 7, 2022 Admin

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in El Paso, Texas, in the last two weeks have intercepted multiple American women carrying fentanyl concealed in their private areas.

“It is tragic that people are willing to put themselves in these dangerous situations,” CBP El Paso Director of Field Operations Hector A. Mancha said in a statement. “This synthetic opioid is so powerful that if a package were to rupture inside the body, the consequences could be life threatening.”

On Feb. 24 a 31-year-old woman, who is a U.S. citizen, was carrying .394 pounds of fentanyl that she removed from her inside private parts after a pat down, where CBP officers at the Port of Ysleta felt something foreign in her private area during a secondary search, according to CBP.

U.S. Added 678K Jobs in February, While Unemployment Decreased Slightly

March 6, 2022March 5, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. economy added 678,000 jobs in February, according to a Friday report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS), beating economists’ expectations.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 678,000 in February, according to the BLS report, while the unemployment rate dropped to 3.8%, a pandemic low. Job gains were most pronounced in the leisure and hospitality sectors, which added a total 179,000 jobs.

“The labor market continues to be quite hot,” Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed, told The Wall Street Journal. “It looks like the labor market is still primed for lots of strong employment growth.”

Massive Bipartisan Coalition Introduces Legislation Banning Russian Oil Imports

March 6, 2022March 5, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

Senator Joe Manchin speaking at a press conference

A group of bicameral Republican and Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation Thursday that would prohibit the U.S. from importing Russian oil and petroleum products.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Joe Manchin unveiled the Banning Russian Energy Imports Act which would ban the import of Russian oil and petroleum to the U.S. amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. More than a dozen Democratic and Republican lawmakers announced their support for the bill.

The U.S. imported more than 670,000 barrels of oil per day from Russia in 2021, U.S. Energy Information Administration data showed. That figure represented a 24% year-over-year uptick compared to 2020.

U.S. Senate Votes to Strike Down Biden’s Vaccine Mandate for Health Care Workers and COVID National Emergency

March 5, 2022March 4, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted to strike down Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate targeting healthcare workers at federally funded facilities. The measure passed on a party-line vote of 49 to 44.

No Democrat senators voted with Republicans to repeal the mandate, but GOP senators were able to get the resolution through the Senate because six Democrats missed the vote, The Hill reported.

The bill was sponsored by Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who physician, and former military officer. Before voting began, Marshall argued that the CMS vaccine mandate is “not about public health or science.”

Federal Court Rules in Favor of Navy SEALs Who Refuse to Take Vaccine

March 5, 2022March 4, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (Dec. 15, 2020) – Hospitalman Roman Silvestri administers one of the first COVID-19 vaccines given at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP) to Lt. Cmdr. Daphne Morrisonponce, an emergency medicine physician, Dec. 15. NMCP was one of the first military treatment facilities (MTF) selected to receive the vaccine in a phased, standardized and coordinated strategy for prioritizing and administering the vaccine. (U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Imani N. Daniels/Released)

On Monday, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of a group of Navy SEALs who defied the U.S. Navy’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, dealing one of the biggest blows yet to the military mandate.

As reported by The Daily Caller, the court’s ruling was similar to a previous decision by a district judge in Fort Worth, Texas in January, who ordered a temporary halt to the Navy’s vaccine mandate while the case moved forward. The lawsuit was filed by a group of 35 Navy SEALs who all sought religious exemptions from being forced to take the vaccine.

The appeals court ruled that the Department of Defense failed to prove that the vaccine mandate served “‘paramount interests’ that justify vaccinating these 35 Plaintiffs against COVID-19 in violation of their religious beliefs.” The court noted that despite the Navy claiming to have a “compelling interest” in forcing all sailors to get vaccinated, it “undermined” its own mandate by preparing unvaccinated SEALs for deployment while the pandemic was still ongoing.

Commentary: Seven Major Failures of the Biden Presidency

March 2, 2022March 1, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

With President Joe Biden set to deliver his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night, it’s a good time to ask: How has Biden done as president and what is the actual state of our union?

According to the American people, things aren’t going great.

A CNN poll in early February asked Americans what they thought of Biden’s presidency and what he’s done right since entering office Jan. 20, 2021.

Commentary: Justices Must Stop the Legal System from Becoming a Quick-Return Investment Scheme for Trial Lawyers

March 1, 2022February 28, 2022 Admin

In the interest of a return to normalcy, we take this short break from COVID and Ukraine coverage to bring to your attention an actual conservative policy matter. The pesky trial lawyers and their junk science “experts” are at it again, providing certain justices of the Supreme Court an opportunity to show us they can still do the right thing.

I’m not pointing fingers at say, Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, but certain esteemed members of the court who had less than smooth sailing in their confirmation battles and for whom conservatives stormed the ramparts (figuratively speaking of course), have left us wondering if they were worth the battle scars. Here’s some low hanging fruit for them to pick off and make everyone breathe a little easier. All they have to do is vote to take a certain case.

The case involves a long-running dispute brought by the inventor of a special warming blanket called the Bair Hugger (now owned by 3M) which has proven to reduce post-operative infections and other complications and has been used in over 300 million surgeries worldwide to maintain patients’ body temperatures. The inventor, Dr. Scott Augustine made a fortune on this device but lost his rights to the product and its proceeds when he pled guilty to Medicare fraud in an unrelated matter. Dr. Augustine then invented a competing device and waged a campaign to discredit the Bair Hugger claiming that it caused infections. He then hired “experts” and funded studies to back up his claim. Except one of the actual authors of the studies called those studies “marketing rather than research.” As in not based on facts. The FDA admonished Dr. Augustine to stop the false campaign. And not a single physician who uses the Bair Hugger, or a single epidemiologist or any public health officials have supported Dr. Augustine’s contention.

Commentary: John Stankey Stinks up CNN Even More

Yo! John Stankey! We told you CNN was stinking up AT&T. Now you are making it worse!

In an interview with CNBC last week, AT&T boss John Stankey exchanged his trademark “Mr. Hollywood Casual” for “Doctor Evil Lite,” while dodging every sensitive question about CNN’s “Mother Zucker” debacle.

In fact, Stankey did the best non-stop weasel dance since the invention of “Whack-a-Mole.”

House Physician Lifts COVID Mask Mandate in Chamber Ahead of Biden’s State of Union Speech

The House over the weekend lifted its COVID-19 mask mandate, ahead of President Biden’s State of the Union on Tuesday night in House chambers before a joint session of Congress.

The change, which makes masks optional, was announced Sunday by Capitol Physician Brian Monahan.

“Individuals may choose to mask at any time, but it is no longer a requirement,” he said in a letter to lawmakers, who are returning Monday to Capitol Hill.

Arizona Senate Study Estimates 200K Ballots Counted in 2020 with Mismatched Signatures

Astudy of Maricopa County’s mail ballots in Arizona’s 2020 presidential election estimates that more than 200,000 ballots with mismatched signatures were counted without being reviewed, or “cured” — more than eight times the 25,000 signature mismatches requiring curing acknowledged by the county.

Commissioned by the Arizona State Senate, the signature verification pilot study was conducted by Shiva Ayyadurai’s Election Systems Integrity Institute, which released its final report to the public on Tuesday. Ayyadurai is an engineer and entrpreneur with four degrees from MIT who bills himself as the inventor of email, a claim which critics have alleged is exaggerated.

Of the 1,911,918 early voting mail ballots that Maricopa County received and counted in the 2020 presidential election, the county reported that 25,000, or 1.3%, had signature mismatches that required curing, but only 587 (2.3%) of those were confirmed mismatched signatures.

Missouri’s Auto Inspections Phased Out in Proposed Bill

After gradually reducing requirements for automobiles to pass a mechanic’s inspection before obtaining a registration, a bill in the Missouri state legislature would eventually end the program.

Currently, motor vehicles with more than 150,000 miles and 10 years from their manufacturing model year must pass a biennial safety inspection. House Bill 2499, sponsored by Rep. J. Eggleston, R-Maysville, changes the law to exempt motor vehicles with less than 150,000 miles and manufactured after Jan. 1, 2012.

During testimony on Wednesday before the House Downsizing State Government Committee, Eggleston said legislators in 2019 considered eliminating the inspection program but compromised instead and loosened requirements.

Commentary: Freedom Is the Essence of American Exceptionalism

February 28, 2022 Admin

Well Head where fluids are injected into the ground

President Joe Biden has continuously stated that “climate change” is the highest priority of his administration, fueled by Build Back Better spending. We are witnessing the disastrous impacts that establishing the wrong priorities can have.

On the day Biden became President, America was energy independent, our borders were secure, and the world was relatively peaceful.

Biden has done everything possible to shut down, curtail, and undermine American energy production. First, he shut down the permitted Keystone Pipeline. Then he eliminated fracking on federal lands, and slowed permits for new oil fields.

Postal Service Legislative ‘Fix’ Will Dump Workers on Medicare

February 28, 2022 Admin

A bill to “fix” the troubled United States Post Office (USPS) is on the verge of passage in the Senate but does it solve more problems than it creates? The Postal Service Reform Act of 2021, H.R. 3076 was scheduled for a vote earlier this month but was blocked by Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) on a procedural technicality. “We can’t afford to add stress on our already enormous national debt with poor financial planning, which I think this bill absolutely does,” Scott said of the bill.

Now it’s back and on track for a vote in the Senate.

The biggest financial liability facing the USPS is the legal requirement to fund 75 years of retirement health benefits in advance for its workers. Congress has found a way around that by dumping the future postal workers on to Medicare.

Two Key Senate Races Moved in GOP’s Direction by Noted Election Handicapper Cook Political Report

February 28, 2022 Admin

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Friday shifted its forecasts for two 2022 Senate races in the direction of Republicans.

The report moved the North Carolina Senate race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr moved from “toss-up” to “likely Republican.” And moved the Colorado Senate race, in which Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet is seeking a third term, from “solid Democrat” into the “likely Democrat” catagory.

The North Carolina GOP primary is now a competitive race between former President Trump-endorsed Rep. Ted Budd, former Gov. Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark Walker, with (with Budd and McCrory currently deadlocked).

Hacking Group ‘Anonymous’ Signals All-out Campaign Against Russia

February 28, 2022February 27, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

The infamous hacking group Anonymous appeared to declare an all-out digital war against Russia late this week, indicating the opening of a hacking front against Russian president Vladimir Putin amid his country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Anonymous is a loosely federated collective of hackers who regularly carry out digital sabotage of targets they claim deserve to be hacked. On Friday, a Twitter account purporting to represent some members of Anonymous issued a broad call for hackers to target the Russian government.

“Hackers all around the world: target Russia in the name of #Anonymous,” the account posted. “Let them know we do not forgive, we do not forget. Anonymous owns fascists, always.”

Commentary: They Can’t Make Trump Go Away

In the election of 2016, Donald Trump appealed to citizenship, sovereignty, and borders. This was a direct entreaty to the people as the ultimate source of sovereign authority, bypassing the ruling-class elites that dominate the media and the universities; his appeal also ignored political experts, pollsters, and government bureaucracy. In the postmodern world, the nation-state is under attack everywhere as the source of all evil, the cause of war, selfishness, racism, white privilege, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and all the other irrational phobias that make up the universe of political correctness. The idea of the nation-state itself is said to be irrational and arbitrary.

All of this overwrought criticism of nationalism and the nation-state overlooks a very significant point developed in my new book, The United States in Crisis: Citizenship, Immigration, and the Nation State: the nation-state is the only form of political organization that can sustain constitutional government and the rule of law.

No empire has ever been a constitutional democracy or republic, nor will constitutional government exist in global government. If, as is widely alleged, the dialectic of History is inevitably tending toward global governance and universal citizenship, then it is also tending toward tyranny.

Lawmakers Call for Investigation, Criticize Federally-Funded Critical Race Theory Program

February 27, 2022February 27, 2022 The Center Square

Republican lawmakers blasted a federally funded education program that trains researchers and teachers in critical race theory after The Center Square’s investigation broke news of the program. Now, one Florida U.S. Congressman is calling for an investigation into whether the program violates state law.

Newly uncovered Department of Education grant documents show that the department awarded $1,020,800 in a 2017 grant and $1,498,620 in a 2021 grant to a Florida-based program called Partners United for Research Pathways Oriented to Social Justice in Education (PURPOSE).

The taxpayer-funded program – led by Florida State University, which has partnered with Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University – offers participants one-year fellowships. Participants receive training in a range of issues, including critical race theory, during the fellowships.

DOJ Kills the China Initiative, Kowtowing to a Chinese-American Group with Documented Chinese Communist Party Ties

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the termination of the China Initiative Wednesday citing agreement with Asian-American groups critical of the anti-espionage strategy.

While announcing the termination of the China Initiative Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen launched the Strategy for Countering Nation-State Threats, a program aimed to counter espionage stemming from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In addition to the high-profile December 2021 conviction of Harvard nanotechnology professor Charles Lieber, the Department of Justice website lists eight examples of successful 2021 China Initiative cases, which include crimes such as the theft of GE trade secrets, misleading global financial institutions, lying on government grant applications, illegally exporting $100,000 of U.S. goods to a Chinese military university, economic espionage against Coca-Cola, two cases involving the theft of trade secrets related to pediatric medical conditions and the illegal exportation of cesium atomic clocks.

New Jobless Claims Dip to 232,000

The number of Americans who filed new unemployment claims decreased to 232,000 in the week ending Feb. 19, the Labor Department announced Thursday.

The Labor Department’s figure showed a decrease of 17,000 compared to the week ending Feb. 12, when claims increased to 249,000. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones estimated that new claims reported Thursday would total 235,000.

Last week’s jobless claim figure marked the first increase after three straight weeks of decline as the Omicron coronavirus variant caused workers to call in sick and businesses to temporarily close.

Biden SCOTUS Nominee Went Beyond Call of Duty to Defend Terror Suspects