In June, we counted 23 articles written about the prospect of a new or cold civil war in the United States. In July, that number doubled to 46. That’s no mere “uptick.”
Right or wrong, these prognostications from both Left and Right are significant for what they reveal about the nature of the political division in the United States. Interest in this topic will only increase as we approach the election in November and whatever lies beyond it.
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Two NASA astronauts returned to Earth on Sunday in a dramatic, retro-style splashdown, their capsule parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico to close out an unprecedented test flight by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.
It was the first splashdown by U.S. astronauts in 45 years, with the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to carry people to and from orbit. The return clears the way for another SpaceX crew launch as early as next month and possible tourist flights next year.
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In 2014 I ran for the United States Senate against well-known and established incumbent Lamar Alexander. Our underfunded and understaffed campaign garnered over 271,000 votes. The largest vote total of any statewide campaign to that point and not win an election. When we lost in 2014, I thought it was over. I was wrong! We were just getting started.
Fast forward to 2020 and Tennessee once again can send a constitutional conservative to the United States Senate to stand alongside President Donald Trump. Dr. Manny Sethi is that man.
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Gov. Ralph Northam is asking the Virginia Supreme Court to extend a ban on evictions until Sept. 7 amid thousands of pending cases, but some critics worry about the economic impact.
The ban was first implemented earlier this year to prevent Virginians from losing their homes because of the economic hardships caused by the shutdown over COVID-19. With hardships continuing statewide and the governor pulling back on the reopening of Hampton Roads, he has requested an extension.
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Were Joe Biden given a Catholic rating, it would be zero. He not only stands against central moral teachings of the Church but has also promised to violate her religious freedom. Should he win, he would resume the persecution of the Little Sisters of the Poor and other Catholic groups. Despite all of this, Biden seeks the Catholic vote, and is receiving help from bad Catholics burrowed within the Church. What Archbishop Carlo Viganò has called the “deep Church” is working hard for Biden’s election.
Exhibit A of this perverse phenomenon is the National Catholic Reporter’s recent puff piece on Biden — “How Joe Biden’s Catholic roots have shaped his public life.”
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In the first 12 days of early voting, turnout among Tennessee Democrats is 58 percent higher than in 2016. Republican turnout for early voting is 5 percent higher than four years ago, according to data from the Secretary of State’s office.
Overall, early voting turnout is about 15 percent higher than in 2016, with nearly half a million Tennesseans having cast ballots early so far.
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Police Departments across the country are in crisis as calls to defund the police, rioting, and the Covid Crisis threaten to sap existing resources.
A new study by the Police Executive Research Forum showed that almost half of the 258 departments surveyed are facing budget cuts. Portland City council approved a $15,000,000 dollar budget cut last month as the city struggled with riots. The Portland Police Department was forced to pay over $5,000,000 in overtime to deal with the unrest.
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A Confederate statue will remain on a Texas county courthouse lawn, commissioners voted unanimously Thursday.
Parker County Judge Pat Deen said county documents did not provide any evidence that the statue had ever been officially owned by the county, the Forth Worth Star-Telegram reported. Deen said the statue is actually property of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. United Daughters of the Confederacy was founded in Nashville in 1894 and seeks to preserve the history of the Confederate States, according to its website.
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One influential pork company has received most of the money from an Iowa program designed to support farmers who euthanized their hogs after the coronavirus devastated their industry, newly released data shows.
Christensen Farms, one of the nation’s largest family-owned pork producers, has received $1.86 million from the Iowa Disposal Assistance Program, or 72% of the $2.6 million the program has paid to date.
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Michael Allen Carbo, Jr., of Chisholm, is the latest suspect to be identified using forensic genetic genealogy, a method in which law enforcement works with genetic genealogists to link crime scene DNA to commercial genealogy databases. He is the prime suspect in the murder of Nancy Daugherty over thirty years ago.
Although investigators went on to collect DNA samples from over 100 people, and the Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) was able to create a full DNA suspect profile from evidence at the scene, the case went cold. The problem was, Carbo never committed any high-level crimes that warranted his DNA making it into a state database.
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The Buckeye Institute Wednesday joined an amicus brief supporting private school students in a July 7 lawsuit between several states and the federal government.
At issue is a federal rule initiated by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, directing the U.S. Department of Education to share federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) funds between private and public schools.
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As the automotive industry fills the demand for electric cars, the country – and the world – will need thousands more plug-in charging stations for vehicles powered by batteries alone. And because they’re being asked to invest before that demand arrives, automakers and charging companies are struggling to raise the numbers.
Currently electric vehicles make up only about 1.3% of total new vehicle sales in the U.S., according to the Edmunds.com auto site. Electrics are much bigger in other countries, accounting for 2.6% of global new vehicle sales last year, the International Energy Agency says. There are now 26,000 electric vehicle charging stations open to the public in the U.S., with more than 84,000 plugs.
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Voting rights groups and Democrats filed two, separate lawsuits in Ohio Friday that the parties said were aimed at making voting easier in the battleground state this November amid the coronavirus pandemic. The legal action aims to expand online and email ballot applications and
Republicans, including Secretary of State Frank LaRose, criticized the efforts. A GOP spokesman accusing the groups of “indifference to election security.”
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Nashville Metro At-Large Council Member Steve Glover, in a fiery Facebook Live video, criticized the city’s 34 percent tax increase and said Nashville is “at war” to save its economy as people are afraid of COVID-19.
Glover posted the video on his Facebook page last week. Glover said it’s time to reopen Nashville and that “laying off people is not taking care of our city.”
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U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has scheduled a return trip to Tennessee Monday to appear alongside U.S. Senate candidate Manny Sethi.
Members of Sethi’s campaign said in an emailed press release Saturday that the pair will appear in Jackson and then Cordova.
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In his 1989 farewell address, President Reagan asked the rhetorical question, “Are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?”
He followed up with the answer:
Our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalized it. We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom – freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise – and freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs protection.
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California Rep. Karen Bass, who has emerged as a leading contender to be Joe Biden’s running mate, praised the Church of Scientology during a 2010 ribbon-cutting ceremony for one of the controversial group’s facilities in Los Angeles.
Bass, 66, served in the California General Assembly when she spoke at the event, held on April 24, 2010.
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Some evil people in the U.S. justice system are smiling right now.
They got their wish.
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A lengthy email from a counselor in Plano Independent School District (PISD) sent to colleagues contained three attachments including, among other things, a list of overtly Marxist media for use in classrooms, and a study guide for those “trying to become better allies.”
The attachments highlight materials like The 1619 Project (which claims America’s history is based on racism and slavery), talking points concerning the deaths of George Floyd; Breonna Taylor; and Ahmaud Arbery; and suggested reading lists including Marxist and Communist literature.
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As deliberations continue in Congress over how to allocate another $1 trillion worth of stimulus money, governors and mayors say they need more than the $139 billion already allocated to their states in March to cover revenue shortfalls.
A total of $150 billion was allocated to help state, local and tribal governments with specific COVID-19 response programs.
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A protest over the Confederate statue in Franklin’s downtown public square has attracted supporters and detractors, with both sides arguing in person and on social media.
Protestors want the statue, which some people call “Chip,” removed from the premises. According to the City of Franklin’s website, the statue has overlooked downtown Franklin since 1899.
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Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein praised China Thursday as a country “growing into a respectable nation” and cautioned against holding the country accountable for the coronavirus pandemic.
“We hold China as a potential trading partner, as a country that has pulled tens of millions of people out of poverty in a short period of time, and as a country growing into a respectable nation amongst other nations. I deeply believe that,” Feinstein said during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting Thursday, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
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The Tennessee Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday concerning the citizens’ right to vote via absentee ballot.
The cases presented (Earle J. Fisher et al. v. Tre Hargett et al. and Benjamin Lay et al. v. Mark Goins et al.) have become the focal point of the ongoing debate surrounding the efficacy of absentee and mail-in ballots and voters’ rights to absentee and mail-in ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Sen. Rand Paul, who was in Knoxville Saturday for a town hall event in support of Dr. Manny Sethi for U.S. Senate, said he has never seen a more sincere opponent of Obamacare.
“I guess that’s what sort of bothers me is that people would lie about that,” said Paul. “Obamacare has really messed up healthcare. I think it’s been a disaster for the country.”
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President Donald Trump said he will take action as soon as Saturday to ban TikTok, a popular Chinese-owned video app that has been a source of national security and censorship concerns.
Trump said he could use emergency economic powers or an executive order to enforce action on TikTok.
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The additional $600 weekly federal unemployment benefits expire Friday after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rejected a White House offer to temporarily extend them.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that, “Senate Republicans tried several ways to extend the expiring unemployment assistance. Democrats blocked them all and refused another dime for COVID-19 relief unless they get to pass a bill that includes an unrelated tax cut for rich people in blue states.”
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Several reports and national surveys indicate that private and charter schools provided more meaningful educational services during state shutdowns than public schools did, and more parents are choosing nontraditional educational options this fall.
A nationally representative survey conducted by Education Next found that while there was “a lot of lost ground on learning” during coronavirus shutdowns in the spring semester, there was “a more robust response in the charter school sector and in the private school sector” among respondents.
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Ohio House Democrats introduced a new bill this week that would repeal House Bill (HB) 6, which bailed out nuclear power plants in the state. HB 6 was at the heart of the $60 million corruption scandal that led to state Rep. Larry Householder (R-Glenford) being stripped of his House speakership position.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) arrested Householder and four other people on July 21 for allegedly having “worked to corruptly ensure that HB 6 went into effect by defeating a ballot initiative to overturn the legislation,” according to the DOJ press release.
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Minnesota is facing a grim next few fiscal years.
Minnesota Management and Budget (MMB) Commissioner Myron Frans on Friday warned legislative leaders of a $4.7 billion projected revenue shortfall for fiscal years 2022-23 after restrictions put in place to slow the spread of COVID-19 caused tax revenues to plummet and costs to increase.
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Many of the costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic aren’t easily visible, such as Michigan’s 2,000 COVID-19 nursing home residents’ deaths, the increasing number of opioid overdoses, and the bankrupted businesses due to government-mandated restrictions and less consumer demand.
More than 2 million people lost their jobs within months after Michigan’s first case of the virus, pushing hundreds of thousands of people onto federally bankrolled food assistance programs, spiking costs by nearly $60 million over two months.
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Governor Mike DeWine has issued several new recommendations in the wake of an uptick in coronavirus cases.
The number of coronavirus cases in Ohio has recently gone over 90,000 and almost 3,500 people have died, according to The COVID Tracking Project. Thirteen Ohio counties are under the Level Three Public Health Emergency. Level Three means that a county has “very high expose and spread” of the coronavirus.
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A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN-04) said the congressman is solidly pro-gun despite voting for a proposed law that Gun Owners of America said would confiscate guns from members of the U.S. Armed Forces.
As The Tennessee Star reported Saturday, members of the Democratic-majority U.S. House of Representatives passed that bill, H.R. 6395, late last month. The vote was 295 to 125, according to the House website, with 108 Republicans saying yes to it — with three of them, including DesJarlais, representing Tennessee.
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U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said Friday that the United States has a way to hold China accountable for unleashing COVID-19 upon the world.
Blackburn said this during a tele-town hall with U.S. Senate candidate Bill Hagerty. Hagerty and opponent Manny Sethi both want to replace the retiring U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) in the August 6 Republican primary.
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The U.S. economy contracted a record-setting, inflation-adjusted, annualized 32.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020 according to the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis as tens of millions of Americans waited out the Chinese coronavirus in their homes, not venturing out much except for work and needed supplies.
The second quarter comprises of April, May and June, when in Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey 25 million jobs were lost by April and then 8.8 million came back in May and June as states slowly began reopening.
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Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s re-election campaign paid her husband’s consulting firm more than $600,000 in the first three weeks of July, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show.
Omar’s campaign has now paid E Street Group, the consulting firm run by Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, more than $1.7 million since August 2018, according to FEC records.
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Apart from exposing once again the obtuseness, the moral bankruptcy, and the almost inexpressible hatred of the president that possesses the Democratic congressional leadership, Attorney General William Barr’s appearance at the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday clarified in a few minutes why the national interest requires the reelection of the administration.
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In a bizarre and brazen attempt at long-term self-preservation at the expense of her boss, President Trump, GA Governor Brian Kemp and business owners struggling for survival, Dr. Deborah Birx donned her scarf and embarked on a 14-state blatant CYA tour to revive her sagging reputation.
To small business owners struggling for economic salvation and unemployed hard-working Americans with rent and mortgage payments due, Dr. Birx has a simple message: let them eat cake.
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Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his cohort and ex-over Ghislaine Maxwell hosted “constant” orgies on Epstein’s private Caribbean island, accuser Virginia Giuffre says in newly released court documents.
The documents are transcripts of depositions from Giuffre’s previously settled 2016 civil lawsuit against Maxwell, whom Giuffre says sexually abused her along with Epstein, attorney Alan Dershowitz, and the U.K.’s Prince Andrew. The documents were made public for the first time Thursday evening, according to the New York Post.
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Portland Police have earned almost $5.4 million in overtime during the weeks-long protests and riots in the city.
Overtime earnings through July 22 have reached $5,351,383, police told Fox 12 Oregon. Officers have also raked in an additional $1.2 million in accrued time compensation, according to the local outlet.
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An all new LIVE STREAM of War Room: Pandemic starts at 9 a.m. Central Time on Saturday.
Former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon began the daily War Room: Pandemic radio show and podcast on January 25, when news of the virus was just beginning to leak out of China around the Lunar New Year. Bannon and co-hosts bring listeners exclusive analysis and breaking updates from top medical, public health, economic, national security, supply chain and geopolitical experts weekdays from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon ET.
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Pharma giants GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur have announced they will supply 100 million doses of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine to the United States as governments buy up supplies in hopes of securing a candidate that works.
The United States will pay up to $2.1 billion “for development including clinical trials, manufacturing, scale-up and delivery” of the vaccine, the two companies based in Europe said in a statement. Sanofi will get the bulk of the funds.
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Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announced Friday that the government will postpone highly anticipated legislative elections by one year, citing a worsening coronavirus outbreak in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.
The Hong Kong government is invoking an emergency ordinance in delaying the elections. Lam said the government has the support of the Chinese government in making the decision to hold the elections on Sept. 5, 2021.
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday again endorsed U.S. Senate candidate Bill Hagerty on Twitter.
“@BillHagertyTN, an outstanding man and one of the best Ambassadors ever (Japan), is running an excellent campaign for the Senate,” Trump tweeted.
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The scene is perfectly set, full of trickery and magic: from a seemingly abandoned train station, a towering figure of a man in a cape and a hat emerges out of a cloud of smoke. The man decides to do a few magic tricks for a couple of children and is caught by the knowing gaze of a beautiful and exotic looking woman, dressed in fur. She registers a look of slight disapproval at the man in the cape, as if she caught a child fumbling through a cookie jar. But her disapproval quickly melts away and she forgives the man for being playful.
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A 17-year-old from Tampa, Florida, was arrested Friday for allegedly carrying out the massive Twitter hacking scam on July 15, according to WFLA.
Graham Ivan Clark was arrested Friday around 6 a.m. and faces 30 felony charges in the alleged scam, which prosecutors have dubbed the “Bit-Con” hack, according to a press release from Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew H. Warren.
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A federal appeals court Friday threw out Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, saying the judge who oversaw the case did not adequately screen jurors for potential biases.
A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new penalty-phase trial on whether the 27-year-old Tsarnaev should be executed for the attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Breitbart colleague Allum Bokhari to the line to discuss Google censorship.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss how teachers’ unions are only interested in the interests of bureaucrats.
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Rep. Bob Cupp (R-Lima) has been selected to replace Larry Householder (R-Glenford) as Ohio’s new Speaker of the House.
After being charged with participating in a $60 million corruption scandal, Householder was removed in a 90-0 vote. Householder, who is accused of being part of a “racketeering conspiracy involving a 2019 nuclear power plant bailout bill” faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
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Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH-04) continually questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci about whether protests cause the spread of the coronavirus during the House’s coronavirus hearing on Friday.
Despite Jordan’s repeated attempts to get Fauci to answer this question, Fauci side-stepped the question and said that he didn’t have “any scientific evidence that protests spread the coronavirus,” but rather it was crowds that increased the “acquisition and transmission” of the coronavirus.
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