Tag: Republicans

Commentary: Paul Ryan Was an Ineffective Leader of the Republican Party

Virginia Star Staff
Paul Ryan

We aren’t actually governed by Paul Ryan, whose brief time as House Speaker ended in what can only be described as a surrender. Ryan bolted from the Speaker’s chair the minute the 2018 elections were over. He was happy to leave Congress to take a “cashing-in” job on the Fox Corporation board while his party took an electoral bath in those midterms he could blame on Donald Trump.

But as readers of The American Spectator know, in this space we’ve been exploring the premise that Americans are governed by people who suck. And Ryan put himself in that category even from outside the elective-office sphere this week when he offered up a tired and tiresome narrative about the future of the Republican Party.

What is it with these washed-up politicians, who are clearly the party’s past, demanding the GOP follow their instructions as to its future? Do we have to exhume the remains of Nelson Rockefeller and Thomas Dewey or conduct seances with them for guidance in how to defeat the 21st-century Left?

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Republicans Launch Election Investigations in Multiple States as Arizona Audit Forges Ahead

Virginia Star Staff
Governor Tony Evers gives his first State of the State address in Madison, Wisconsin, at the State Capitol building on Jan. 22, 2019. He addressed a joint meeting of the Assembly and the Senate. Seen here, from left, are Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Tyler August, R-Lake Geneva, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester and President of the Senate Roger Roth, R-Appleton.

Republicans in multiple U.S. states are mounting investigations into the circumstances surrounding the 2020 election, moves that come amid the contentious ongoing audit of election results in Maricopa County, Ariz.

The Arizona audit — which includes a hand recount of over two million ballots — has reflected bitter partisan divisions in the state, with Republicans and Democrats squaring off in a series of volleys over the conduct of the audit and the political fallout surrounding it. Establishment media outlets have joined in Democratic attacks against the audit, with CNN claiming that the process is “bogus” and FiveThirtyEight calling it a “partisan inquisition.”

Nevertheless, efforts are underway in several states to undertake investigations similar to Arizona’s, though none are anywhere near as large in scope as is that in Maricopa, the state’s largest county.

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Utah Legislature Passes Resolution to Ban Critical Race Theory from Schools

Virginia Star Staff
House Speaker Brad Wilson

Republicans in Utah’s state legislature passed a resolution on Wednesday to instruct the state’s schools to ban Critical Race Theory from their curriculum, as reported by Breitbart.

During the vote in the Utah House of Representatives, every single Democrat walked off the floor in protest of the bill, thus allowing the legislation to pass with only Republican votes. The “House Resolution on Critical Race Theory in Public Education” was subsequently passed by the Utah Senate. Because the measure is a resolution rather than a bill, it did not need the signature of Governor Spencer Cox (R-Utah) in order to pass.

House Speaker Brad Wilson (R-Utah) said that with the resolution, the state legislature was “calling on the state school board to look at the curriculum and determine what the right parameters for this discussion to happen.”

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Businesses, Republicans Raise the Alarm over Biden Taxes

The Center Square
Local icecream shop with chalkboard menu

As President Joe Biden promotes his several trillion dollars in proposed federal spending, Republicans and small businesses are raising the alarm, arguing the taxes needed to pay for those spending plans are a threat to the economy.

The House Ways and Means Committee met Thursday to discuss infrastructure development and in particular the impact of proposed tax increases to pay for it. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the ranking member on the committee, argued that only 7% of Biden’s proposed infrastructure bill goes to infrastructure and that raising taxes would incentivize employers to take jobs overseas.

“As bad as the wasteful spending is, worse yet, it’s poisoned with crippling tax increases that sabotage America’s jobs recovery, hurts working families and Main Street businesses, and drives U.S. jobs overseas,”  Brady said. “We cannot fund infrastructure on the backs of American workers.”

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Republicans Release Plan to Address Growing Inflation Under Biden Administration

The Center Square
High gas prices

Congressional Republicans grabbed headlines this week after releasing an aggressive budget they say would cut taxes and spending, but key measures in the plan also would address one of the country’s most serious economic problems.

The House’s Republican Study Committee released a budget that lays out several measures to deal with inflation, a growing concern among economists after the latest federal data showed a spike in consumer prices. Notably, the index for used cars and trucks rose 10%, the largest one-month increase since BLS began recording the data in 1953. Food and energy costs rose 0.9% in the month of April, prescription drugs rose 0.5%, and gasoline rose 1.4% during the same month. The energy cost index rose 25% in the previous 12 months.

Republicans on the committee say their plan would address concerns over inflation by balancing the budget within five years, thereby eliminating the need to monetize debt, a process where the federal government prints money to make payments on what it owes. The national debt has soared to more than $28 trillion and is expected to continue climbing under President Joe Biden’s new spending plans.

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Commentary: The Representation of Paycheck Americans

Virginia Star Staff
Donald Trump speaking at his rally

Like an aging diva, blinded by the lights that obscure an empty auditorium, U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) desperately imitates her supposed rivals to woo her already-departed fans. Robust and confrontational, the Reagan-style ideals of limited government, personal responsibility, and optimism are poison to her beltway cocktail circuit. Cheney’s recent speech is a clinic in the Republicans’ second-place strategy that has kept them out of power in Congress for most of the post-war era.

“I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” Cheney said. “We have seen the danger that he continues to provoke with his language. We have seen his lack of commitment and dedication to the Constitution, and I think it’s very important that we make sure whomever we elect is somebody who will be faithful to the Constitution.”

What a load of crap. Cheney has shirked her constitutional duty to check uniparty power and the right of citizens to challenge leftist authority.

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Conservative Hispanic Leaders Explain Why Texas Voters Are Shifting Republican

Virginia Star Staff

The Republican party in Texas is drawing Hispanic voters disillusioned by the Democratic party’s extreme values, two female Hispanic Republican leaders with Democratic backgrounds told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

South Texas saw both a liberal decline and a conservative surge during the 2020 election, the New York Times reported, a surge that has emboldened Republicans hoping to win in Latino communities throughout the United States. Hispanic female Republicans are stepping up to the plate, the publication reported.

“I am starting to see this need to connect with the Hispanic community and let them know nationwide that it’s the Republican party that offers opportunities,” Adrienne Pena-Garza, chair of the Hidalgo County Republican Party, told the DCNF.

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A Majority of Americans Support ‘Vaccine Passports’ for Some Activities, Poll Finds

Virginia Star Staff
Photo of two passports in person's hand

A majority of Americans support requiring proof of vaccinations when traveling on planes and attending events with large crowds, a Gallup poll released Friday shows.

The survey found that 57% of Americans supported requiring proof of vaccination on airplanes and that 55% supported requiring proof for events like concerts, shows and live sports. Just 43% and 45% of Americans said they were opposed, respectively.

Majorities of Americans, however, rejected “vaccine passports” for dining at restaurants, going to work and staying in a hotel. Just 40%, 45% and 44% of Americans supported requiring proof of vaccination for each activity.

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Commentary: Republican Leadership Follows in the Footsteps of Democrats

Virginia Star Staff

The Republican Party is riding hard into a box canyon chasing after donor rolls and privileges while its enemies take aim from the walls above at the base it drags along below.

Earlier this year, on the eve of Donald Trump’s second impeachment, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) denounced the former president’s conduct surrounding the Capitol building riot as “a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty,” adding that there was “no question . . . President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” Trump shot back, calling McConnell a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack.” 

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Iranian Foreign Minister Said He Had No Knowledge of Israeli Airstrikes Until Kerry Tipped Him Off

Virginia Star Staff
John Kerry with Sarah Rosen Wartell in background

Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif claimed he did not know that Israel was behind 200 military airstrikes in Iran until secretary of state John Kerry tipped him off, a new translation of a leaked audiotape reveals.

The New York Times buried the revelation of Kerry’s treasonous behavior deep in a story about the leaked audiotape last week.

Kerry is now the Biden administration’s United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.

Amid calls for him to resign or be fired, the corporate media and State Department officials stepped up to the plate to defend Kerry, saying Zarif had already heard about Israel’s actions from the media before Kerry blabbed about it. At the same time, Kerry claimed (unconvincingly) that none of it was true.

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In Podcast Interview with ‘The Dispatch,’ Former President George W. Bush Calls ‘White Anglo-Saxon Protestantism’ Exclusionary

Julie Carr

In an interview with former aide Sarah Isgur and Steve Hayes of The Dispatch to promote his new book that features portraits of immigrants, former President George W. Bush called for ‘immigration reform’ that keeps ‘Dreamers’ in the US and provides a path to citizenship for illegal aliens currently in the U.S., criticized Republicans who support ‘laws based on Anglo-Saxon traditions,’ and claimed ‘White Anglo Saxon Protestantism’ is exclusionary.

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Commentary: Cancel Culture and Why It Only Works on Republicans

Virginia Star Staff
Andrew Cuomo and Ralph Northam

With cancel culture running rampant and the court of public opinion more powerful than ever, it’s no wonder many Americans are afraid to speak their minds. We’ve watched as people get taken down for reasons ranging from wrong think on Twitter, to allegations of racism, bigotry or sexual assault. The latter of which seems to be a favorite tool of the Democrats, one which they dig up seemingly every time someone “problematic” pops up in opposition to their agenda.

We saw this with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, where wildly unfounded accusations were made, leading to an extensive investigation which found nothing. The Kavanaugh hearing, one of the most divisive in history, proved Democrats are willing to play dirty to win, even at the risk of destroying an innocent man’s life and reputation.

However, conservatives and elected Republicans always seem to get caught up in legal battles when these things come up, because they take a defensive stance, accepting the left’s narrative by trying to prove their innocence.

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Republicans Push Back After Biden Lays Out Democratic Agenda

The Center Square
Tim Scott

U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and other Republicans are speaking out against President Joe Biden’s agenda, which has become increasingly more wide-ranging and expensive since he took office.

Biden addressed Congress and the nation Wednesday night, when he laid out a litany of aggressive gun control, taxes and spending proposals. He also spoke on the historic nature of his vice president’s race and gender, police reform, and the war in Afghanistan.

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Commentary: Census Data Update and If GOP Will See Apportionment Gains

RealClearWire

Going into this decennial reapportionment, it appeared that states’ congressional delegations were poised for widespread reshuffling of the deck.  New York was on the cusp of losing two seats, while Texas and Florida were in a position to pick up three and two, respectively. Given the legislatures that control redistricting in these states, it seemingly offered substantial opportunities for Republicans to redraw the lines in ways that boosted their chances in the House significantly.

Instead, the reapportionment numbers announced by the U.S. Census Bureau on Monday were something of a wash.  Only seven states lost seats while six gained seats.

There were notable outcomes here: California lost a seat for the first time in its history. Rhode Island – widely expected to be reduced to a single-member state – held onto its two House seats (in fact it wasn’t a terribly close shave). New York, even with COVID deaths pushing it toward a loss of two seats, lost just one.

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Commentary: Senate Republicans Just Handed Matches to Arsonists

Virginia Star Staff

One of the most fateful decisions of Donald Trump’s presidency happened just weeks after Inauguration Day.

In March 2017, Republican lawmakers joined Democrats to demand Jeff Sessions, a former Senate colleague and Trump’s new attorney general, recuse himself from anything related to the investigation into alleged Russian election collusion. Sessions’ two brief meetings in 2016 with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak—a figure who appeared often in collusion-related drama—amounted to evidence of collusion, collusion perps insisted.

Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) were just a few top Republicans who asked Sessions to step aside—so he did.

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Commentary: Manchin Saves the Filibuster for Now, so House Democrats Call Supreme Court Packing ‘Infrastructure’

Virginia Star Staff
Joe Manchin

On April 7, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) penned an oped for the Washington Post entitled, “I will not vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster,” appearing to foreclose any possibility of President Joe Biden ramming through major changes to law on a slim partisan basis expanding the Supreme Court, nationalizing election law, expanding statehood to D.C. or Puerto Rico, and so forth.

“The filibuster is a critical tool to protecting that input and our democratic form of government. That is why I have said it before and will say it again to remove any shred of doubt: There is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster,” Manchin wrote, appearing to salvage the nation’s two-party system — for now.

But not so fast, say House Democrats, who last week unveiled a plan to expand the Supreme Court from nine to 13 justices, the Judiciary Act of 2021.

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Commentary: The GOP’s Trump Solution

Virginia Star Staff
Former President Donald Trump

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.

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

Virginia Star Staff
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

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.

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Commentary: Down with Asa Hutchinson and Other Useless Republicans

Virginia Star Staff

On Tuesday, the Republican-led Arkansas legislature overrode Governor Asa Hutchinson’s Monday veto of the aptly named “Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act” (SAFE Act). The SAFE Act would prevent vulnerable minors from irrevocably transforming their bodies according to the dictates of an extreme ideology that sees no value, let alone the reality in, the primordial human sexual dimorphism and all that it implies and demands.

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Conservatives Celebrate as Another University Waves Goodbye to Its Confucius Institute

Virginia Star Staff
Student Brandon Fontaine

Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island will close its Confucius Institute, according to an announcement by President Ross Gittell. 

“After 15 years of values language and cultural programs provided through the Confucius Institute at Bryant University, we have chosen not to apply for continued funding at the expiration of the Confucius Institute contract,” Gittell wrote on March 22, “The university will evaluate changes that are taking place in China regarding U.S.-China Relations before making any future commitment.”

Gittell maintained that developing students’ “global mindset is a cornerstone of Bryant’s mission,” noting that the university will still offer “high quality business education through our curriculum offerings in Zhuhai [China].”

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Trump Tells Supporters Who Don’t Want the Coronavirus Vaccine That It’s Safe and Effective

Virginia Star Staff

Former President Donald Trump urged Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine Tuesday evening, touting the treatments as safe and effective in fighting the virus.

“I would recommend it,” Trump said during a Fox News interview. “And I would recommend it to a lot of people who don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly.”

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New York Republicans Seek to Impeach Cuomo as AG’s Office Ramps up Investigation

The Center Square

As New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday announced the attorneys who will conduct the independent review on the sexual harassment allegations against Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Republicans in the state Legislature said they intend to seek the embattled leader’s impeachment.

James appointed Joon H. Kim and Anne L. Clark to look into the sexual harassment allegations. Kim is a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Clark focuses on employment law.

James said the state is committed to a thorough review and heralded Kim and Clark as experts. Kim and Clark will be able to issue subpoenas, depose people and review records. They will give James’ office a weekly update throughout the investigatio

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Omar: ‘We’re Sending Money to Less People than Trump’

Virginia Star Staff

Rep. Ilhan Omar said she is disappointed that Democrats are “ultimately sending money to less people than the Trump administration.”

The $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package passed Saturday by the U.S. Senate includes $1,400 stimulus checks for individuals making up to $75,000 and married couples with a joint income of up to $150,000. Unlike the two previous relief bills — which included $600 and $1,200 stimulus payments — higher-income earners won’t receive partial checks.

“I see it as a really disappointing development. We obviously are now ultimately sending money to less people than the Trump administration and the Senate majority Republicans,” Omar told CNN Friday night.

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Commentary: Republicans Against the Family

Virginia Star Staff

The coronavirus pandemic, real and exaggerated, has provided a unique opportunity to fortify the family and undermine the hegemonic cant of a regime that is hostile to Middle Americans. 

Public school enrollment is down across the country, while homeschooling is on the rise, which should be good news for those frustrated with a system out to teach children what to think rather than how to think. 

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Commentary: A Special Election to Recall Gov. Gavin Newsom Could Push California Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire

Virginia Star Staff

In 2010, California voters approved Proposition 14, which fundamentally changed how general elections are conducted in the state. Prior to Prop. 14, the general election ballot would include the names of every qualified party’s nominee. The new system created the “jungle primary,” an open primary in which all registered voters could vote for any candidate running, regardless of party affiliation, with just the top-two finishers appearing on the ballot in November.

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Trump Vows to Help Elect ‘Strong, Tough, and Smart Republican Leaders’ at CPAC Appearance

Virginia Star Staff

Former President Donald Trump returned Sunday to the public arena for the first time since leaving office, promising an enthusiastic audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that he will help Republicans win “a historic struggle for America’s future.”

“As we gather this week we’re in the middle of a historic struggle for America’s future, America’s culture and America’s institutions, borders and most cherished principles,” he said.

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Lindsey Graham Says VP Harris Could be Impeached if GOP Takes Back House

Virginia Star Staff

Lawyers for Donald Trump said it over and over: Impeaching and convicting the former president would set a terrible new precedent ripe for abuse.

Before the trial began, Trump lawyer Bruce Castor laid out his team’s arguments.

“We will argue that the entire proceeding is unconstitutional, bad public policy, and is setting a bad precedent for the nation,” Castor said. “We will argue that every person in the United States is entitled to due process of law, even if it is the president of the United States. And the president of the United States during the House impeachment was afforded no due process of law.”

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Commentary: Now That Democrats Have Successfully Pulled Off Their ‘Decapitation’ Strategy, Will Americans Reward or Punish Them?

Virginia Star Staff

In their latest entry in their litany of hypocrisy, the Democrats are trying assiduously to suppress the very opposition strategy they engaged in during the Trump Administration.

It is ironic, and in many instances unnecessary. By and large, Republicans and populists would never engage in many of these political tactics. Nevertheless, the Democrats are trying preemptively to extinguish a Republican-populist version of their “resistance” by using the execrable and rightly condemned Capitol riot as a pretext to equate legitimate “opposition” with treasonous “sedition.”

The Democrats’ “resistance” was no organic, spontaneous uprising. It was a well-orchestrated political operation. Knowing what they did to undermine the Trump Administration, the Democrats know what they must do to stop it from happening to them. In other words, there is a history lesson the Democrats are trying to rewrite.

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Commentary: Our Future

Admin

This is no time for despair. This is no time for discouragement, and this is certainly no time for violence. Now is the time to use every constitutional prerogative at our disposal to peacefully fight for the future of our country.

I was deeply disappointed by the outcomes in the Georgia elections and the congressional certification of the electoral college vote making Joe Biden the next President of the United States. However, this is the reality we face, and it is time to acknowledge it.

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Analysis: How the GOP Lost Control of Washington, and What Comes Next

Admin
Washington DC

ow that Democrats are poised to control the White House, Senate and House, the traditional game of finger-pointing and recrimination will begin inside the GOP.

The first instinct for politicians will be to assign blame, call names and jockey for position. But the 2020 election wasn’t just an election, it was a political watershed in which the rules and strategy for winning were rewritten.

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Republican Party Treasurer Ron Kaufman Worked with Democrat Howard Dean, Their Firm Helped Major Bernie Backing PAC

Virginia Star Staff

As the Republican National Committee’s annual winter meeting approaches, GOP insiders are voicing concern over a top RNC establishment figure who is up for reelection.

The RNC will meet for three-days on Amelia Island, Florida, starting on January 6, the same day Congress convenes for what is shaping up to be a contentious session for the certification of the Electoral College vote for Joe Biden.

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Commentary: The Most Important Week of the Century

Virginia Star Staff

Three big things are happening this week that could decide America’s fate. First, a run-off election in Georgia on Tuesday for two U.S. Senate seats that will determine the balance of power in the Senate. Second, Congress meets for a joint session on Wednesday to formally count the votes of the electoral college. And third, Americans from across the country will rally in support of election integrity on Wednesday on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Here’s a quick look at all these moving parts and ways you can make a difference in the saving America from a Marxist-Socialist takeover.

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Commentary: Donald Trump is The Essential Man

Virginia Star Staff

Once upon a time, there was a president called Ronald Reagan – a model of decency and probity, at once great and self-effacing, who, above all, was truly in love with America and saw it as his sacred mission to preserve and strengthen American freedom. During his eight-year tenure, he revitalized the U.S. economy, snapped us out of what his disastrous predecessor had referred to as “our malaise,” and helped bring down the Soviet Union.

Then he walked off into the sunset. And for the next seven presidential terms, we had to make do with mediocrity and self-dealing. Both parties were dominated by crime families – sorry, I mean political dynasties. The Bushes were uninspiring. The Clintons were pure slime.

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Commentary: Sorry, Democrats What Goes Around Comes Around

Virginia Star Staff

Democrats who are unhappy that Republicans are skeptical of the 2020 election results have no one to blame but themselves. Democrats cannot understand why Republicans would question the election results in spite of the fact that Democrats sought to undermine anti-voter fraud measures in the run-up to the election; that Republican observers were not allowed to observe vote counting; and that massive numbers of Biden votes were counted in the middle of the night while no Republican observers were present. Of course, in recent years, Democrats have repeatedly disputed unfavorable election results, pushed wild conspiracy theories, and lied about their opponents. A quick review of recent political history seems in order.

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Commentary: America’s Union Agenda at a Crossroads

Virginia Star Staff

The war for the soul of America is mirrored in the war for the soul of its major political parties. The establishment Democrats contend with a progressive insurgency and the establishment Republicans contend with a populist America First insurgency. But above all, the corporate bipartisan glue that connects the establishment Democrats to the establishment Republicans means they have more in common with each other than with their respective insurgencies.

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Commentary: Play the Game or Be Played Like a Chump

Virginia Star Staff

By now, you may have forgotten the story from all the way back in August when various bugmen and D.C. lizard people convened to run a series of “war games” on the upcoming presidential election. Dubbed the Transition Integrity Project, the group of Democratic Party operatives, Bushite neocons, and lawfare swamp creatures warned of a tumultuous Election Night at the end of which neither candidate would concede, followed by a months-long political and legal battle, going all the way to Inauguration Day, that would stress our republic to its breaking point.

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Commentary: Trump Shouldn’t Cling Bitterly, But Rise Again

Virginia Star Staff

It is a tainted election, with a poor result and a disquietingly unprepossessing presumptive president-elect. The current president did great damage to himself by his frequent lapses into boorish self-obsession. He also had an outstanding  term of achievement in the face of unprecedented obstruction and illegal harassment, as well as the almost unanimous and hysterical antagonism of a totalitarian opposition media. And so he’s being evicted. Taking his place is a ramshackle coalition of big media, big money, big tech, big league sports, Hollywood, most of Wall Street, and an odious ragtag of urban guerrillas masquerading as civil rights crusaders. 

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Commentary: Will We Be Citizens or Subjects?

Virginia Star Staff

A decisive moment comes and passes, a fleeting chance for action. People rise to the occasion or not, their measure taken and place in history assigned.

We, the citizens of the United States, have reached such a moment. For those who still remember the old republic, the questions it poses are self-evident. Do we make a stand or nervelessly surrender our rights? Do we affirm ourselves citizens—an historically rare and noble title—or do we accept becoming subjects, the fate of most humankind? 

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Commentary: Republicans’ Populism Without Trump

Virginia Star Staff

November’s result should not obscure the fact that Trump bequeathed Republicans a winning populist strategy. The question is whether there can be populism without his persona. Republicans should seek to find out, or at least they should be if they have any political sense. Trump has drawn Republicans the populist blueprint; now someone else must build from it.

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Commentary: Republicans Have a Moral Obligation to Support the Pennsylvania Lawsuit Against Universal Mail-in Ballots

Virginia Star Staff

Will we allow our election system for future elections to be upended by a single state supreme court, which happens to consist of partisan hacks? If the answer is no, then the only option is to fight the open lawlessness in Pennsylvania with every channel and tool of both the judicial and legislative processes.

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Commentary: In Georgia, Weak Republican Politicians Pave the Way to Their Own Demise

Virginia Star Staff

If he [Trump] continues to disillusion voters … by saying that the elections were rigged and that your vote doesn’t matter, this could have severe consequences for the administration in trying to keep those two seats Republican,” pollster-pundit and alleged Republican Frank Luntz said on “Squawk Box.”

In this stern admonition Luntz indicates what he considers to be the greatest danger facing Republicans in the runoff race for the two Senate seats in Georgia on January 5. Luntz’s warning puts his own spin on what purports to be an objective analysis of the forthcoming election. But Luntz’s comments do not seem to be especially convincing. Why would I think that because Trump has refused to concede openly and emphatically (when there is no need for him to do that now or ever), Republican candidates in Georgia’s senatorial races will be taking a severe hit?

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Commentary: The Pressure to Make Allegations of a Mass Fraud During the 2020 Presidential Election Disappear is Enormous

Virginia Star Staff

So what is the state of play regarding the 2020 presidential election? There seem to be two main positions.

One is that Joe Biden won the election, narrowly but with sufficient latitude that any challenge is bootless. A corollary of that contention is that the adults in the room, be they Republicans or Democrats, should get with the program and accede to the Narrative.

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Commentary: A Retired Professor’s Retrospective on How Academia and Society Have Gone Separate Ways

Virginia Star Staff

I landed in Washington, D.C., in 1965 as a graduate student. For a conservative, the landscape was barren.

There was no conservative administration, no national newspaper that competed with the liberal New York Times and Washington Post, no conservative think tanks that rivaled the Brookings Institution or Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and no conservative majority in Congress.

Over the previous 32 years, the Democrats occupied the White House for 24 years, and both houses of Congress for 28 years. For all practical purposes, Washington and national politics were a Democratic Party monopoly.

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Commentary: An Unserious Movement for an Unserious People

Virginia Star Staff

We all should probably acknowledge that we Americans, in many ways, have become an unserious people. No serious civilization and society would allow a fraction of what is taking place here—from the absurdity of our education system to the dominance of big tech monopolies to our current form of elections. A list of our nation’s follies demonstrating our unseriousness would fill pages. But it’s not just about the American people as a whole: conservatism is an unserious movement (if one can even call what exists a movement), and Republicans are deeply, deeply unserious as a political party. 

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Georgia GOP Vote Chief Blames Trump And His Voters For Apparent Defeat

Jason M. Reynolds

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), who is on the defensive with his fellow Republicans over his handling of the election and the recount, is now lobbying a serious accusation against U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and blaming President Donald Trump for not receiving more votes.

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Where the Republican Party Stands: Virginia’s Political Shifts in the 2020 Election

Corinne Murdock

The 2020 election outcomes revealed a telling political trajectory occurring in Virginia and the nation. Final tallies indicated that Republicans’ future chances of winning in the state may be ever-slimming. A consistent theme across the board – Republicans fell short with the unprecedented number of absentee voters.

Although Republicans increased their presidential vote totals from 2016 by about 185,000, Democrats increased their votes by nearly 400,000. In every election since 2008, Democratic candidates had only enjoyed about a 10,000 vote increase per year.

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Commentary: Republicans Leading in the Senate May Save America from Democratic One-Party Rule

Virginia Star Staff

States are still counting votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina — and with disputed deadlines currently allowing absentee ballots to still be received days after the election in Pennsylvania and North Carolina — it is simply too close to call the presidential race.

President Donald Trump carried Ohio, Florida and Iowa by big margins despite many mainstream news polls saying he would lose those states handily — which are little better than astrology at this point — and is still promising to take the race for the White House to the Supreme Court with litigation, presumably challenging any late ballots that come in.

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Commentary: Will Maximum COVID Fear Keep Democrats at Home on Election Day?

Virginia Star Staff

In the closing days of the presidential campaign, amid a surge in support for President Donald Trump in many battleground state polls, media outlets are reporting rising confirmed Covid cases in states like Wisconsin and New Mexico but also nationally as the cold and flu season kicks into gear.

“Wisconsin faces Covid-19 crisis as coronavirus cases continue to rise, governor says,” reads one headline from CNN.

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Commentary: Trump Hit on a Great Truth That Recalibrated Foreign and Domestic Policy and Shifted Republican Orthodoxy

Virginia Star Staff

What was, is, and will be the Trump agenda?

Against all odds, what elected Trump in 2016 was a recalibration of American foreign and domestic policy—and the art of politicking itself.

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