WVR Blog

No more masks in North Carolina: The proposal, which was voted on following an intense debate, was approved along party lines and will now head to the House for further scrutiny. The Hill reports: The North Carolina state Senate voted along party lines Wednesday to ban anyone from wearing masks in public, even for health reasons. Republican supporters of the ban said it would help law enforcement crack down on protesters who wear masks. They say demonstrators are abusing COVID-19 pandemic-era practices to hide their identities following a wave of pro-Palestine protests nationwide and at North Carolina universities. By their faces they will know them...

Biden races the clock: Biden’s administrative state in recent months appears to be working overtime to cement his agenda into the fabric of America. For example, the administrative state implemented 66 significant rules in April alone, a number that is greater than any month since the Reagan administration, a Regulatory Studies Center analysis found. Biden’s administrative state published 111 more regulations than Trump implemented at the same point in his term, Axios reported. Many of the rules will protect the progressive agenda of “climate change,” such as limiting auto tailpipe emissions and forcing power plants to cut carbon dioxide emissions. The rules implemented during an upcoming “lookback period” can be reversed in a potential Trump administration via the Congressional Review Act. Any rules put into action before the deadline cannot be reversed. When the “lookback period” begins in 2024 is murky, but Axios reported Biden’s deadline to range between next week and September.

The gravy train is over: “The reason Kevin got involved financially in the first place was that he could see that no one was going to help Hunter,” said an associate of Morris’s in an interview with POLITICO.The individual continued: “Now, four and a half years later, there’s still no help — and now Kevin is completely tapped out. So just when Hunter is facing two criminal trials starting in a few weeks, he has no resources. It’s pretty dire.” The entertainment lawyer confirmed the associate’s account to POLITICO. Hunter Biden faces two upcoming criminal trials in June — one set to start in less than two days over federal gun charges and the other set to begin on June 20 in California over allegations of tax evasion.Morris is said to be facing severe financial constraints, which could leave Hunter Biden without any means to pay for legal services such as expert witnesses as he heads to trial. In January, Morris admitted to the House Oversight Committee that he had loaned Hunter Biden

The tale of the tapes: Mr. Garland, in a May 15 letter to the president, said that the “committee’s needs are plainly insufficient to outweigh the deleterious effects that the production of the recordings would have on the integrity and effectiveness of similar law enforcement investigations in the future.” Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte asked Republican leaders not to continue with the contempt proceedings. “It is the longstanding position of the executive branch held by administrations of both parties that an official who asserts the president’s claim of executive privilege cannot be held in contempt of Congress,” Mr. Uriarte wrote to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in a May 16 letter. .... In a statement, Mr. Comer slammed President Biden’s move as politically motivated and reiterated that his committee will move forward with the resolution to hold Mr. Garland in contempt of Congre

Radical Democrats keep losing it: Things are out of control in the Oversight Committee as there have been repeated outbursts from Marjorie Taylor Greene. The hearing has been tied up after Greene insulted the appearance of another member. Greene: I would like to know if any of the Democrats on this committee are… pic.twitter.com/vl2LWpkbm2 — Acyn (@Acyn) May 17, 2024 AOC has had enough of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s outbursts pic.twitter.com/OlItyszihs — Acyn (@Acyn) May 17, 2024

Public schools continue to fail downward: The latest math scores from 2022 show the largest declines in the fourth and eighth grades since we began tracking these scores in 1990. Math scores for both grade benchmarks have been in a free fall since 2013. The decline is not isolated to one region of the country. As a matter of fact, according to NAEP, “Fourth-grade mathematics scores declined across all regions of the country and in 43 states/jurisdictions.” Not only do we see scores decline, but “a larger proportion of fourth-grade students performed below NAEP Basic in mathematics in 43 states/jurisdictions.” But I'm sure they all got passing grades anyway...