President Donald Trump released a video Thursday night condemning the people who broke into the Capitol this week. His focus is now on a smooth transition of power. President-elect Joe Biden is set to be inaugurated on January 20.
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ow that Democrats are poised to control the White House, Senate and House, the traditional game of finger-pointing and recrimination will begin inside the GOP.
The first instinct for politicians will be to assign blame, call names and jockey for position. But the 2020 election wasn’t just an election, it was a political watershed in which the rules and strategy for winning were rewritten.
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A joint session of Congress, completing its work in the early morning hours of Thursday after lawmakers had been forced to flee their chambers by a violent invasion of the Capitol, affirmed that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.
The proceedings concluded shortly after 3:30 a.m. EST, drawing to a close an chaotic day in the nation’s house of laws that saw one person shot dead inside the building after some rioters breached its security during a massive rally to support President Trump.
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Tens of thousands of posts containing news stories from The Star News Network’s Facebook pages were temporarily deleted Wednesday.
“Hi, we are currently experiencing an issue with Facebook and because of that the sharing is stopped and your Facebook accounts are paused,” a third party software used by The Star News Network to schedule and post stories to social media said by email.
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The House and the Senate will convene in a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 to hear any and all objections to the Dec. 14 outcome of the Electoral College in favor of Joe Biden, with challenges expected in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
This is President Donald Trump’s last chance to reclaim the White House, but win or lose on Wednesday, the President has already served America with one of the most consequential single terms in our country’s history.
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A group of rioters in Portland threatened to burn down a law enforcement precinct, hurled projectiles at officers and damaged police cruisers on Wednesday, authorities said.
Roughly 50 violent demonstrators, some of whom donned gas masks and shields, chanted “burn it down” in reference to a law enforcement headquarters in the city, according to a press release. Members of the crowd destroyed surveillance cameras outside of the precinct, tried to rip down a fence and used spikes to slash the tires of cop vehicles, the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) wrote.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Tennessee Star National Correspondent on the newsmakers line to weigh in on how Mike Pence will rule in Congress.
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The U.S. Justice Department has announced the results of Operation LeGend, which first launched in Missouri and then expanded to several cities, including Memphis. “Operation Legend removed violent criminals, domestic abusers, carjackers and drug traffickers from nine cities that were experiencing stubbornly high crime and took illegal firearms, illegal narcotics and illicit monies off the streets,” said former Attorney General William Barr, in a press release that the U.S. Justice Department released Wednesday.
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Tennessee will receive federal assistance in response to the bomb that exploded in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning after the Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a disaster declaration Tuesday.
Gov. Bill Lee formally requested a disaster declaration in a letter to President Donald Trump dated Dec. 25. Lee told reporters last week President Trump called him to express concern about the bombing and he intended to approve the disaster request.
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Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer tweeted a photo Wednesday of a prayer candle picturing former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
“Good morning,” Whitmer tweeted with a picture of the prayer candle.
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Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook’s annual compensation increased by 28% in 2020 even as the coronavirus pandemic sparked a recession, according to filings.
Tim Cook’s 2020 compensation totaled $14.7 million, which was mainly comprised of performance-based pay, according to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings released Tuesday, Business Insider reported. While the coronavirus pandemic sparked a recession in the spring, Apple consistently reported positive financial figures including increased revenue and growth throughout 2020.
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A group of Commonwealth’s Attorneys has released a letter to the General Assembly calling for more criminal justice reform. In the letter, the Virginia Progressive Prosecutors for Justice (VPPFJ) call for automated expungement of criminal records, ending mandatory minimum sentences, ending cash bail, abolishing the death penalty, and ending the “three-strikes” felony enhancement for petty larceny.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio who took listener calls of concern over fraudulent voting schemes.
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What if the real winner of November’s presidential election was Red China?
China apparently sees it that way. Its Global Times mouthpiece rejoiced that Joe Biden had selected “a group of ‘elites’” who would be “very ‘predictable’ in foreign policy with a multilateral mind-set.” A prominent Chinese professor, in a now-purged speech, lamented China’s loss of influence during Donald Trump’s presidency – but enthused, “now we’re seeing Biden was elected, the traditional elite, the political elite, the establishment, they’re very close to Wall Street,” and noted that “Biden’s son has some sort of global foundation. . . . There are a lot of deals inside all these.”
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Joe Biden will nominate federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland to serve as attorney general, according to Politico.
Biden’s decision comes after Democrats appear in striking distance of taking control of the Senate following runoff elections in Georgia on Tuesday. Raphael Warnock is projected to defeat Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler. Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff is currently leading David Perdue, a Republican incumbent who holds the other seat in Georgia.
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Not long before the tallying of and objections to the Electoral College results were disrupted by the violent protest at the Capitol, U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07) had repeated his intention to contest the election results.
Green on Wednesday announced his intention to object to the slates of electors in “certain states.”
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Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, despite their connections to socialists and other members of the political left, told Georgians this week that they will act in all state residents’ best interests. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s website reported that, with 100 percent of the vote collected, incumbent U.S. Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) lost to Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. Perdue got 49.79 percent of the vote, or 2,195,755 votes. Ossoff got 50.21 percent or 2,214,178 votes.
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Virginia State Delegate Lee J. Carter (D-Manassas) officially joined the governor’s race last Friday and is now part of the crowded Democratic field vying for the party nomination this summer.
Carter, 33, is the fifth Democrat to seek the Executive Mansion next November and had originally filed paperwork to raise money for a gubernatorial bid last month.
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State Senator Amanda Chase (R-Chesterfield) was present at the Washington, D.C. rally on Wednesday morning, and she told The Virginia Star that it was a historic day after historic voter fraud.
“It was very heartwarming,” Chase said. “The people that were there, they were good people. They were patriots, they love their country, they were there to peacefully show support. They weren’t there for destructive purposes at all.”
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Lawmakers kicked off the 2021 legislative session at noon on Tuesday, one day before Gov. Tim Walz is expected to announce loosening restrictions on indoor dining and other settings after an improvement in the state’s number of COVID-19 cases.
Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-East Gull Lake, told The Center Square in a phone interview one priority is to craft a new two-year state budget without raising taxes on gas, sales, or income.
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Governor DeWine held a 90-minute briefing during which Lt. Governor Jon Husted and Ohio Department of Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff contributed.
The following information was relayed by the trio during the Tuesday session.
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Pete Snyder’s Virginia 30 Day Fund has a new partner, the Barstool Fund, which is funding businesses who are still paying their employees even though they aren’t making enough to stay open.
“I’ve been ranting and raving lately about the plight of small businesses in the United States,” Barstool Sports Founder David Portnoy said in a video. “New York City just shut down in door dining. It’s like, ‘How do you expect these people to survive? How are restaurants going to survive?'”
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Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has appointed Dr. Danny Avula, director of the Richmond City and Henrico County health departments, to lead the Commonwealth’s ongoing COVID-19 vaccination program.
Northam made the announcement during a coronavirus press briefing on Wednesday afternoon, the first time he has provided updates on the virus to the public in the new year.
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Ohio Governor Mike DeWine held a video conference ceremony on Wednesday where he signed five Ohio legislative acts into law.
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Following a summer of civil unrest over social injustice throughout the Commonwealth, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D) announced the launch of the Office of Civil Rights on Tuesday.
The Office of Civil Rights will operate within the larger Office of the Attorney General (OAG) and is supposed to help ongoing efforts to protect against discrimination and the civil rights of all Virginians, according to a press release.
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Chief Judge Brian Amero filed a temporary injunction ordering Fulton County to preserve their general election mail-in ballots. Plaintiffs in the case organized by Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VoterGA) had hoped to obtain an order from this hearing allowing them to conduct a forensic inspection of the county’s mail-in ballots. The hearing took place virtually at 4 p.m. EST with Henry County Superior Court. Fulton County Elections Director Rick Barron was present on the line; the other election board members didn’t attend the hearing.
Attorneys from the Cheeley Law Group represented the plaintiffs. Their contentions concerned the events from State Farm Arena on November 3rd after 10:30 p.m. EST. Multiple reports noted that poll workers and media were informed that vote counting was finished for the night, and that they should leave. They requested to share the video evidence from that night with the court, but Amero declined.
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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced on Tuesday that the next phase of coronavirus vaccinations should begin in two weeks.
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Scott Golden, chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party, condemned the violence in Washington, D.C., and said the GOP is the party of law and order, a sentiment expressed by several state leaders.
Golden made the statement Wednesday in an email as well as on Facebook, which is available here.
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