Tennessee State Rep. John DeBerry: Progressives Use ‘Despicable Language’ Against Him and His Faith

Tennessee state Rep. John DeBerry (D-Memphis) this week publicly told members of the state and national Democratic Party apparatus that politicians will no longer sacrifice their beliefs just to have a “D” behind their name.

DeBerry said this during an interview with the Brooklyn, New York-based The Tablet, which is that area’s newspaper of the Roman Catholic Diocese.

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Commentary: Is Twitter, Facebook Censorship of New York Post Biden-Ukraine Story the Beginning of Social Tyranny?

Twitter and Facebook have both limited distribution of an Oct. 14 report from the New York Post’s Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge entitled, “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad” detailing an alleged meeting between former Vice President Joe Biden and Burisma executive Vadym who Biden’s son, Hunter, used to work for, in April 2015.

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Tennessee Crushes First-Day Early Voting Turnout Record

A total of 273,325 in-person and absentee votes have been cast by Tennesseans – a 91% increase in voter turnout over the first day of early voting in the 2016 presidential election and a 120% increase in turnout over the first day of early voting in 2012.

More than 167,000 Tennesseans cast ballots in-person Wednesday on the first day of early voting this week, and more than 105,500 absentee ballots already have been cast, according to data released Thursday by Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett.

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Battleground State Polling Shows Tighter Trump-Biden Race Than National Polls

While national polls may reliably forecast the national popular vote in a presidential election, given the electoral college map, battleground state polling is more meaningful — and in 2020 battleground polls show a much tighter race between President Trump and challenger Joe Biden.

In the RealClearPolitics polling averages on Thursday, Biden led Trump by 9.4% nationally but just 4.9% in key battleground states. In the battleground states, moreover, Trump on Thursday was running 0.5% ahead of where he was at this stage of the 2016 campaign, according to the RCP average — the 12th consecutive day on which the president outperformed his corresponding 2016 numbers.

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UAW Abandons Federal Lawsuit Seeking to Overturn Michigan Union Law

The United Auto Workers union abandoned a lawsuit over a Michigan law, which mandates that public sector union workers reauthorize their union membership annually.

Judge George C. Steeh of the Eastern District Court of Michigan approved the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) request, and stipulated agreement with defendants, to dismiss the case entirely Wednesday. UAW filed the lawsuit on Sept. 3 along with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

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WHO Study Finds Remdesivir Didn’t Help COVID-19 Patients

A large study led by the World Health Organization suggests that the antiviral drug remdesivir did not help hospitalized COVID-19 patients, in contrast to an earlier study that made the medicine a standard of care in the United States and many other countries.

The results announced Friday do not negate the previous ones, and the WHO study was not as rigorous as the earlier one led by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. But they add to concerns about how much value the pricey drug gives because none of the studies have found it can improve survival.

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Steve Bannon Presents: The CCP’s Ownership of Joe Biden

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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Awash in Red Ink: U.S. Posts Record $3.1T 2020 Budget Deficit

The federal budget deficit hit an all-time high of $3.1 trillion in the 2020 budget year, more than double the previous record, as the coronavirus pandemic shrank revenues and sent spending soaring.

The Trump administration reported Friday that the deficit for the budget year that ended on Sept. 30 was three times the size of last year’s deficit of $984 billion. It was also $2 trillion higher than the administration had estimated in February, before the pandemic hit.

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Judge Finds Cases Against Five in Whitmer Plot Can Move Forward

Prosecutors provided enough evidence to move toward trial for five Michigan men accused of plotting to kidnap the state’s governor, a federal judge ruled Friday in Grand Rapids.

A two-day preliminary hearing this week featured testimony by one of the FBI agents who ran the investigation, relying on confidential informants and undercover agents to thwart the purported scheme to abduct Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

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FCC to ‘Clarify’ Meaning of Section 230 Following Twitter Suppression of NY Post Story

Federal Communication Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced Thursday that he intends to move forward with a rulemaking to “clarify” the meaning of Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act.

Pai’s announcement comes one day after Twitter prohibited users from posting links to a New York Post story about alleged emails involving Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden and the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Twitter’s suppression of the story led President Donald Trump to call for the repeal of Section 230, which indemnifies internet companies from liability over content posted by their users.

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UK Must Prepare for a No-Deal Brexit, Boris Johnson Says

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that a potential no-deal break from the European Union is likely unless the bloc had a “fundamental” change in position.

The European Union and the United Kingdom have struggled to strike a trade deal amid their negotiations, leading each side to blame the other as the end-of-year deadline approaches, the Associated Press reported.

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Commentary: Let Them Call You Racist

All’s fair in love and war, unless what one has to say threatens war on the beloved pieties of progressivism. Stephanie Martinez and Lauren Witzke learned this lesson recently.

Martinez is a pro-Trump student at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. In early April, she joined the LMU student government as a “senator for diversity and inclusion.” But Martinez turned out to be a little too diverse in her views for her peers.

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Eight Commonwealth’s Attorneys Pledge to Not Enforce Pro-Life Laws

Eight Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorneys pledged that they will not enforce any laws criminalizing abortions. The pledge was signed by over 60 prosecutors and state attorneys general and expresses concern over attempts to pass laws limiting abortion. The Fair and Just Prosecution (FJP) organization published the pledge on October 14, as Congress holds confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

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Senate Lawmakers Pass Conference Report for Criminal Justice Reform Legislation

During potentially the final day of the lengthy 2020 special session, Senate legislators adopted and passed the conference committee report on a bill that allows judges in certain criminal cases to issue the sentences instead of the jury. 

The conference report that was unanimously agreed upon by the six conferees, two Republicans and two Democrats, passed the Senate by an almost exact party line vote of (Y-22 N-16). 

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Minnesota GOP Chair Claims Attorney General Ellison ‘Threatened’ Family That Hosted Trump Event

Minnesota GOP Chairwoman Jennifer Carnahan has accused Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison of abusing his power and threatened to file “a cease-and-desist order” against his office.

On Tuesday night, Felton Farms in Northfield, Minnesota, held a private MAGA rally with Eric Trump, where congressional candidate Tyler Kistner and Carnahan also made appearances. Carnahan, who accused Ellison of “using his office to play politics” and “threatening” the farm venue, announced that the Republican Party of Minnesota would be filing a cease-and-desist order against Ellison’s office.

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Lynchburg Registrar’s Office on Allegations of Improper Absentee Ballot Counting: ‘We Will Do Better in the Future’

The Lynchburg Registrar’s Office maintains that allegations of improper absentee ballot counting were a result of an unintentional oversight of ballot law. No Republican officials were present per The Code of Virginia.
On Monday, the only workers present to process absentee ballots were “non-party affiliation.” Emails shared with The Virginia Star reveal that some of these workers had identified as Democrats up until last year.

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TRUMPDATE: Latest from the Team Trump Virginia Campaign for October 17

Welcome to the Saturday edition of our daily Virginia Trump campaign update! We will provide our readers with daily updates on the Trump Virginia campaign from today to November 3 (and after…if need be!).

It’s officially 17 days until the election on November 3 – and 14 days until early voting in Virginia closes. President Trump meets Joe Biden in the final presidential debate five days from today.

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Gov. DeWine Signs into Law Expanded Tax Exemption for Spouses of Fallen First Responders

A new law signed by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine will increase tax exemptions for spouses of fallen first responders.

House Bill 17 was an expansion of previous legislation and increases the homestead tax exemption from $25,000 to $50,000. The legislation allows the spouse of a fallen first responder to exempt $50,000 of their home’s appraised value from property taxes or the manufactured home tax.

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Supreme Court Declines to Hear Tennessee’s Challenge to Federal Refugee Resettlement Program

The U.S. Supreme Court said this week it will not hear Tennessee’s challenge of the federal refugee resettlement program, which claimed it violated the 10th Amendment.

Tennessee’s Republican-led government had asked for the review, The Associated Press reported. The court filed its denial earlier, letting a lower court ruling stand.

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