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Incoming Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares cleans house, reportedly fires entire civil rights division Posted at 5:45 pm on January 15, 2022 by Brett T. It was actually Friday, a day before he was sworn in, that Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares fired the entire civil rights division of the Attorney General’s Office. Local media says that Miyares Friday made 30 personnel changes, including 17 attorneys and 13 staffers. Louise Lucas is president Pro tempore of the Virginia Senate.

Election officials in the Texas county that includes the state capital, Austin, have rejected about half of applications for mail-in ballots, following new voting restrictions brought in by Republicans. The voter identification rules have led to the rejection of about half of the 700 mail-in ballots requested in Travis county for primary elections in March, according to the county’s clerk. The denied ballots in Travis county follow a similar trend across Texas, with officials in Harris county, which includes the city of Houston, and Bexar county, which includes San Antonio, also turning down a substantial number of mail-in ballot applications....

Former President Donald Trump will hold a rally tonight at the Canyon Moon Ranch Grounds in Florence, Arizona. The event will be Trump’s first foray into politics at the beginning of the 2022 midterm election cycle and further fuels speculation about his plans for 2024. The rally start time and speaker list are available below. The venue opens at 8 a.m. local time and doors for the event will open at 2 pm. Date: Saturday, January 15, 2022 Time: 4:30 pm MT, Trump to speak at 7 pm MT (9 pm ET, 8 pm CT) Location: Canyon Moon Ranch Grounds...

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday claimed President Biden was not comparing opponents of Democrats’ voting bill to racists and segregationists as “humans,” explaining that he was just comparing their “choice” to oppose the legislation during his speech in Atlanta earlier this week. “So I ask every elected official in America, how do you want to be remembered?” Biden said during his speech advocating a suspension of filibuster rules to pass voting legislation. “Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis...

Last month, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said she made an emergency request to the city’s Board of Supervisors for more money to help support a police crackdown on crime, including open air drug dealing, car break-ins and retail theft. “I’m proud this city believes in giving people second chances,” said Breed. “Nevertheless, we also need there to be accountability when someone does break the law . . . I was raised by my grandmother to believe in ‘tough love,’ in keeping your house in order, and we need that, now more than ever.” But a few days later, San...

Glenn Youngkin, the first Republican to win the state of Virginia since 2009, was sworn in as the state’s 74th governor on Jan. 15. Within hours of his inauguration, he signed 11 executive actions including lifting the mask mandate in Virginia schools and “ending divisive concepts, including critical race theory, in public education.” He also signed an executive directive rescinding the vaccine mandate for all state employees. The 55-year-old former business executive, in his inauguration speech at Richmond, emphasized a “common path forward” with “our deep and abiding respect for individual freedom.” Youngkin vowed to strengthen and renew the “spirit...

Jon Reeves first realized that treating climate anxiety would become a regular part of his job in 2016. He was then working in Massachusetts as a student counselor at Boston College, and the country was about to elect noted climate-change denier Donald Trump to the highest office in the land. “I definitely noticed that students were bringing climate change up as part of their overall concerns,” Reeves, a psychologist, told Yahoo News. “I think there was some stress that came along with the presidential election and concerns that the U.S. government wouldn’t do as much to mitigate climate change with...

NEW YORK (AP) — Just over a year ago, millions of energized young people, women, voters of color and independents joined forces to send Joe Biden to the White House. But 12 months into his presidency, many describe a coalition in crisis. Leading voices across Biden’s diverse political base openly decry the slow pace of progress on key campaign promises. The frustration was especially pronounced this past week after Biden’s push for voting rights legislation effectively stalled, intensifying concerns in his party that fundamental democratic principles are at risk and reinforcing a broader sense that the president is faltering at...

President Joe Biden has “betrayed us all,” Tulsi Gabbard said on Friday, accusing the president of going back on his promise to unite the country. Gabbard, who ran against Biden in the 2020 Democrat presidential primary, admitted that she supported him after dropping out of the race. “I know Vice President Biden and his wife and am grateful to have called his son Beau, who also served in the National Guard, a friend,” Gabbard said in a statement at the time in March 2020. “Although I may not agree with the Vice President on every issue, I know that he...

One of the largest hospital systems in the country is dropping its policy that counted race as a more important factor in determining COVID-19 treatment options than diabetes, obesity, asthma, and hypertension combined.This silliness was allowed at SSM Health, a nominally Catholic health system that operates 23 hospitals across Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. All hospital patients are “scored” as a means of triage in order to give those most in need priority treatment. SSM Health ignored the severity of a patient’s conditions in order to make race a weightier determining factor.Washington Free Beacon:SSM Health, a Catholic health system that...

Get ready to learn more Greek letters. Scientists warn that omicron’s whirlwind advance practically ensures it won’t be the last version of the coronavirus to worry the world. Every infection provides a chance for the virus to mutate, and omicron has an edge over its predecessors: It spreads way faster despite emerging on a planet with a stronger patchwork of immunity from vaccines and prior illness. That means more people in whom the virus can further evolve. Experts don’t know what the next variants will look like or how they might shape the pandemic, but they say there’s no guarantee...

At first, I thought some sanity would come from this regarding COVID. It’s here to stay, folks. The state of emergency must end because the virus is not going to be shut down. We all know that, and we should have guessed this would be the case. Joe Biden made a pledge to shut down the virus and his track record on keeping his promise has been a pile of hot garbage. Everyone is going to get COVID at some point in their lives now. It will be treated like the common cold and the flu every year, which is...

Former President Donald Trump ripped into outgoing Republican Arizona Governor Doug Ducey on Friday after “hearing rumors” that Ducey may run for the U.S. Senate. Trump wrote in a statement, “Rumors are that Doug Ducey, the weak RINO Governor from Arizona, is being pushed by Old Crow Mitch McConnell to run for the U.S. Senate. He will never have my endorsement or the support of MAGA Nation!”

The conservative majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked President Biden's COVID vaccination policy, stating that the administration had overstepped its authority with the rule, which would’ve applied to more than 80 million workers. Marcia Coyle, of The National Law Journal, and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, join John Yang to discuss....John Yang:And do you think you can (get to the rest of the people that either aren't vaccinated or don't want to be vaccinated)? Do you think you can add on to these numbers? The people who have already been vaccinated, do you think is it...

Tucker Carlson said that Justice Brett Kavanaugh is a “cringing little liberal” on his Fox News show. On his show on Thursday, he commented on the high court’s rulings on President Biden’s COVID-19 directives. Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh joined Chief Justice John Roberts and the other three liberals in upholding the requirement that medical facilities accept Medicare or Medicaid payments. According to conservative attorney Harmeet Dhillon who was on Tucker’s show, it is an “unfortunate” ruling “given the massive shortage that we have of healthcare workers right now in our hospitals.” Tucker broke in and said, “With no help from...

Maine health care workers opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate are hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will take the same position a Texas federal court recently took on the Department of Defense’s obligation to approve religious exemptions for active duty veterans.In a brief filed on Jan. 11 on behalf of 2,000 health workers in the Pine Tree state, the national civil liberties organization Liberty Counsel argued that it is discriminatory for hospitals to grant medical exemptions, but not religious ones, to health care workers opposed to taking the COVID jab. “The folks that are getting medical exemptions comparably pose the...

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to block President Biden’s vaccine-or-testing rule for large companies, General Electric said it would suspend the implementation of the mandate for its employees. The Boston-based maker of jet engines, wind turbines, and medical scanners confirmed the decision Friday via e-mail. GE is the first major company to announce a halt after the court’s decision to block the centerpiece of Biden’s push to boost COVID-19 vaccinations. GE holds a number of government contracts, so its 56,000 employees in the US originally fell under a separate vaccination mandate for federal contractors. The company paused that requirement in...

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, announced on Thursday that his office would not adhere to the Washington, D.C., vaccination mandate that goes into effect on Saturday. "The DC vaccine mandate kicks in this weekend. My office will not comply," Massie tweeted. "We will not show papers. We will not order takeout from restaurants that require papers for dine in. We will get our food from Virginia or we will bring it to work," he added.

We’ve seen this coming for a while now, like a slow-motion train wreck. After the National School Board Association (NSBA) sent a letter to the Biden administration comparing parents to domestic terrorists and even suggesting the PATRIOT Act might be used to reign them in. That turned out to be the last straw for a lot of parents and maybe also for the NSBA. The group apologized for the letter in late October but by that point the damage was done. Within days, five state associations canceled their membership in the national group. By early December the number of associations...

America First Political Committee today formally initiated actions to remove Censured Florida Congressman Carlos Gimenez (FL-26 Congressional District) from the Republican Party. Gimenez has become 'Persona Non Grata' in the 26th Congressional District and the State of Florida. Carlos Gimenez, a Republican in name only (RINO), otherwise known as a Socialist Democrat, has a long record of supporting radical socialist policy, dating back to his time as Miami-Dade Mayor. As Miami-Dade Mayor, Gimenez locked down and destroyed small businesses. Gimenez was also tainted with corruption and ethics accusations including unauthorized business dealings with Communist China. In Washington, D.C., Carlos Gimenez...