State House of Representatives Returns to Work, But Not to Normal

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – While the Tennessee House of Representatives returned to committee and subcommittee meetings this week, the situation was anything but normal.

The Tennessee General Assembly adjourned on March 19, after passing a limited number of bills and a reduced fiscal 2021 budget, in the interest of slowing the spread of COVID-19. At the time, the General Assembly was to stand in adjournment until June 1.

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Commentary: Can the Economy Withstand a Second Round of COVID-19?

Some 100 million people in China are now back in lockdown as fears of a second wave surge. Now that the US and the rest of the world is opening up, the probability of infection will most likely go up, as will the number of infections. What does that mean for the economy?

First, uncertainty and fear of another lockdown will negatively influence business decisions and overall economic recovery. Even if your business survived the first wave, would you be willing to go all in, invest, rehire people, renew leases, etc., if you think you will be shut down in the autumn?

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Authorities Investigating Fatal Memorial Day Shooting, Eighth Officer-Involved Shooting This Month

Tennessee authorities announced Tuesday that they are investigating a Memorial Day shooting that resulted in the death of a Washington County man.

According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), deputies with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report around 11:40 p.m. of a male subject threatening to harm himself and a relative at home. Deputies arrived at the scene and encountered Gary Dorton on the front porch, armed with a large knife.

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Inside the New Poll Showing Unpopularity of Mayor Cooper’s Proposed Property Tax Increase

Live from Nashville, Tennessee Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.– Leahy was joined on the newsmakers line by Nashville Smart’s Lonnie Spivak.

At the top of the second hour, Spivak reviewed recent Triton Polling data which showed that almost a third of Davidson County registered voters disapproved of Mayor John Cooper’s 32% property tax increase. He was certain that with such unfavorable polling results that Mayor John Cooper should definitely rethink his direction.

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Breitbart’s Joel Pollak on His New Book ‘Red November: Will the Country Vote Red for Trump or Red for Socialism’

On Tuesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed Joel Pollak who is a South African-American Conservative political commentator, writer, and attorney. Pollack also currently serves as the Senior-Editor-at-Large for Breitbart News.

During the third hour, Pollack discussed his new book, “Red November: Will the Country Vote Red for Trump or Red for Socialism” in which he describes the Democratic primary process and the resurrection of Joe Biden.

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Commentary: Life Is Risky

Perhaps the most unserious response to the coronavirus pandemic has been the facile assertion that lockdowns, the destruction of the economy, and the suppression of our historic freedoms are all justified if they “save just one life.” As Joe Biden put it on Twitter, “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: No one is expendable. No life is worth losing to add one more point to the Dow.”

While every person is unique and has an immortal soul, we do not do anything and everything to save lives from all hazards, nor should we. Adults know that there are no easy solutions to most problems, and real life consists of tradeoffs.  

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YouTube Automatically Deletes Any Comments That Contain Certain Phrases Insulting to Chinese Communist Party

YouTube’s enforcement algorithm is automatically removing any comments that contain one of two Chinese-language phrases that are critical of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Any comment posted to YouTube, which is owned by Google, that contains the phrase “共匪,” which stands for “communist bandit,” or “五毛,” which translates to “wumao” and stands for “50-cent party,” is deleted within seconds without notification to the user, The Verge reported Tuesday.

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Michael Patrick Leahy and State Senator Kerry Roberts Discuss What Tennessee General Assembly’s Agenda Will Be When It Reopens

Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – Leahy was joined in the studio by Tennessee state Senator Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield).

During the second hour, Roberts disclosed that he was still unsure of what the Tennessee General Assembly’s agenda might be once it reopens next week. He added that the predicted models of the coronavirus have not materialized and that the pandemic has truly become a political tool and was in favor of staying and working but not unless the public was allowed.

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ICE Agents Arrest Convicted Killer of NYPD Officer

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took custody of a Panamanian national earlier in May, over 40 years after he was convicted of killing a New York City police officer.

ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division assumed custody of Carlos Celestino Payne-Archer, a 64-year-old man and Panamanian national, on Thursday, the agency announced in a press release. The apprehension came after Payne-Archer was convicted of first-degree murder of an NYPD detective in March 1978.

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Florida, Georgia Would Happily Play Host to Republican National Convention If It Leaves North Carolina

After President Donald Trump took to Twitter to threaten pulling the Republican National Convention out of Charlotte, N.C, other southeast states with Trump allies as governor have offered to host the convention.

The GOP convention is scheduled for late August in Charlotte. North Carolina entered phase two of its reopening plan amid the coronavirus pandemic last week under Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who has been cautious in lifting restrictions.

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Health Care Group: It Would Cost $440 Million to Provide 3 Million Tests for All Nursing Home Residents and Workers

Testing every nursing home resident and care facility worker in the U.S. for COVID-19 would cost $440 million in federal and state funding, a health care group found. 

Doing so would require almost 3 million tests, according to the American Health Care Association’s National Center for Assisted Living, an industry group representing nursing homes and assisted living centers that calculated how much it would cost for states to receive adequate funding so all resident and care facility workers could be tested.

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Sue Ellen Browder Wrote Fake News for Cosmopolitan and Now Regrets Misleading Women on Feminism

LANDER, Wyo.—Sue Ellen Browder wrote fake news before “fake news” was ever a thing. Except she prefers not to call it that—not because she’s embarrassed to admit she wrote fake news (although she’s certainly not proud), but because she thinks the term “fake news” is too vague to understand.

Browder, a Cosmopolitan magazine writer for 20 years, describes what she wrote as “propaganda.”

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Lara Trump Blasts Mainstream Media, Tells Tennessee Why Donald Trump Must Not Only Win Reelection but Must Win by a Landslide

Lara Trump told Tennesseans Tuesday that voters must reelect her father-in-law President Donald Trump by a significant margin come November —  so that his political opponents have no room to deny the results of the upcoming election.

Lara, who is married to one of the president’s sons, Eric, said this during a tele-town hall with Bill Hagerty. Hagerty is running to replace the retiring U.S. Lamar Alexander (R-TN).

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Despite Allegations, Minnesota DFL Picks Joe Biden to Keynote State Convention 

The Minnesota DFL Party announced Tuesday that former Vice President Joe Biden will be the keynote speaker for its upcoming state convention.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the two-day convention will be held virtually on Saturday and Sunday. During the convention, the DFL will announce its U.S. Senate endorsement, as well as Minnesota’s DNC representatives, presidential electors, and delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

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EXCLUSIVE: Female U.K. Scholar False-Flagged as Flynn’s Russian Spy Recruiter

  The Cambridge University academic portrayed in the mainstream media as retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn’s Russian mistress and spy recruiter told the Star Newspapers about her ordeal—caught in the web of fake news and the Russian Collusion Hoax. “In April 2016, the Obama administration renewed General Flynn’s security clearance—it was a top secret/sci, sensitive compartmentalized information, it is the highest clearance there is—so all is fine but, then suddenly in August 2016, the FBI start secretly investigating him for being a Russian spy—that is why they needed me to be his recruiter,’ said Svetlana Lokhova, a former By-Fellow of Cambridge’s Churchill College. Margot Cleveland wrote for The Federalist: “This honey pot storyline originated with Lokhova’s mentor at Cambridge, the official MI5 historian, Professor Christopher Andrew, when on February 19, 2017, Andrew penned an article for the London Sunday Times, “Impulsive General Misha Shoots Himself in the Foot.” The Times article is no longer available, but Cleveland continued: “That article portrayed the unnamed Lokhova’s brief meeting with Flynn during a dinner event two years prior at Cambridge as the beginning of a compromising relationship between Flynn and a Russian spy.” Luke Harding, one of the earliest and most prolific…

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Commentary: Michigan Deserves Compensation from China

Washington is right to demand financial compensation from China, whose leaders must be held accountable for lying to the world about the devastating COVID-19 pandemic that originated in their country. Michigan should throw its weight behind the effort, as well.

Around 4,500 Michiganders have already paid the ultimate price for China’s deadly coronavirus coverup, and thousands more are fighting for their lives against this ruthless disease every day. While the federal government’s bold emergency initiatives have helped save countless American lives, our country should have never had to fight this invisible enemy in the first place.

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Federal Appeals Court Temporarily Stops Petitioners from Gathering Electronic Signatures Amid COVID-19

Ohioans seeking to collect electronic signatures for petitions during the coronavirus must temporarily stop doing so, a federal appeals court ruled.

The U.S. 6th District Court of Appeals said in its Tuesday judgment that even though the coronavirus has made it “difficult” for petitioners to gather signatures, it does not mean it can’t be done.

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Coalition of Michigan Gyms Sues Whitmer, Cites Infringement on Constitutional Rights

An organization representing more than 120 Michigan gyms has filed a lawsuit against the state to protest continued closures from the coronavirus pandemic.

The lawsuit, filed Friday by the League of Independent Fitness Facilities and Trainers, names Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Robert Gordon, the director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. It alleges that the executive orders shutting down gyms are “broad and overreaching” and “not narrowly tailored to their purpose, as required under constitutional law,” according to a statement from LIFFT.

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Ilhan Omar Says She Believes Tara Reade, Will Vote for Biden Anyway

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) said in a recent interview that she believes the sexual assault allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden, but will vote for him anyway.

Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has been accused by a former Senate staffer, Tara Reade, of sexually assaulting her in 1993. According to Reade’s account, Biden kissed her and penetrated her with his fingers without her consent – an accusation Biden has denied.

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Nashville Fatal Overdose Numbers Spike Sharply During COVID-19 Restrictions

Nashville seems to have had an increase in the number of overdoses since March, according to statistics the city’s Metro Public Health Department provided Tuesday.

Mid-March was right around the same time that local, state, and federal officials in the United States first restricted people’s movements and other freedoms because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of overdose deaths for March, April, and May of this year are substantially higher than March, April, and May of last year, according to the Metro Public Health data.

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