In a hyperbolic rant on the floor of the U.S. House, a Democrat member of Congress from Tennessee made outlandish claims about the mostly peaceful protests at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. on January 6.
“This was an assault on the Constitution, an assault on Congress, it was a felonious assault,” Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) said Tuesday evening. “It was [an] attempt to murder Congress and our processes to elect our President of the United States.”
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The U.S. economy is poised to continue a massive recovery that began after labor markets bottomed in April with 25 million jobs lost during Covid, with 16 million of the having been recovered since then — provided that President-elect Joe Biden does not kill the rest of the recovery that began on President Donald Trump’s watch.
Really, all Biden needs to do right now is almost nothing, and allow the U.S. economy to fully reopen once the Covid vaccine has been fully administered and the number of daily new cases approaches zero.
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The United States Supreme Court reinstated a requirement Tuesday that women seeking to obtain abortion pills must pick up the pills in person from a hospital or medical office rather than receiving them by mail.
The case is the Supreme Court’s first ruling on abortion since Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court, the New York Times reported, and the three liberal justices dissented.
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Unlike Trump’s first impeachment in early 2020, 10 House Republicans ultimately supported the Democrat-led effort the second time around and voted to impeach the president.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced the sole article of impeachment on Tuesday accusing President Donald Trump of inciting insurrection. On Jan. 6, a pro-Trump mob clashed with Capitol Police and stormed the Capitol itself, forcing lawmakers into hiding and resulting in the deaths of five people.
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Tennessee Star National Correspondent live from Washington to weigh in on the Trump impeachment and whether or not he could pardon himself.
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Lt. Gov. and Speaker of the Senate Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) announced Wednesday the state Senate committee assignments for the 112th General Assembly.
McNally praised his fellow Senate members in announcing the assignments.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed TN (R) Senator Paul Bailey to the show to discuss the upcoming special session and legislative session in the Tennessee General Assembly.
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President Donald Trump on Tuesday hailed the completion of 450 miles of border wall completed long the U.S.-Mexican border and praised the men and women of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
At a news conference held at the Mexico–U.S. border in Reynosa–McAllen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, Trump said the border is more secure than it’s ever been.
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Arguably, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is the most incompetent, destructive, negligent, no good, irresponsible mayor in American history. And he’s got plenty of competition right now. San Francisco’s London Breed, Ted Wheeler in Portland, and Bill de Blasio in New York City are all top contenders. Blue City mayors bent on destroying civilization are plentiful, but Garcetti is the worst member of this odious gang.
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YouTube became the latest social media platform to ban President Donald Trump, announcing late Tuesday that he wouldn’t be able to post new content for seven days.
YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, said it took the action against Trump because of the potential for violence to be sparked from his content. The massive video-sharing platform joined Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, Reddit and many others in suspending or banning the president, Axios reported.
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Former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and several of his top aides were reportedly told that they will face charges for their role in the Flint Water Crisis, which began in 2014 and left the city of approximately 100,000 without clean water for years.
Two people aware of the charges told the Associated Press on Tuesday that the Michigan attorney general’s office has made their defense lawyers aware of the coming charges and told them to shortly expect court appearances. The nature of the charges against Snyder, a Republican, former heath department director Nick Lyon and other his aides remained unknown.
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Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles is calling on the Tennessee General Assembly to dump any state-held equity and debt in the Big Tech companies over their “war on freedom of speech.”
Ogles made the announcement on his Facebook page Wednesday, available here. It is addressed to Governor Bill Lee, Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge), House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) and the other members of the Legislature.
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The Georgia man who was found dead in his home Saturday after being charged in connection to the mostly peaceful protests in Washington, D.C. on January 6 committed suicide, police confirmed.
“The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office told Heavy that the cause of death was suicide,” Heavy confirmed. “[Christopher Stanton] Georgia died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, they said.”
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is scheduled to deliver the 2021 State of the State address at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time today at the Georgia House of Representatives.
This, according to a press release that Kemp’s staff emailed Wednesday.
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Republican lawmakers in Georgia appear ready to cave and work with Democrats on the removal of yet another Confederate statue.
“The state legislative effort to remove the figure of Alexander Stephens from the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol and replace it with a likeness of the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis will begin in earnest on Wednesday with a bipartisan resolution promoting the change,” according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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Three Virginia state Senators called for Governor Ralph Northam on Wednesday to reopen public schools across the Commonwealth and mandate in-person learning as an option for families struggling with virtual instruction.
Just hours before the General Assembly kicked off its 2021 session, Senators Joe Morrissey (D-Richmond City), Siobhan Dunnavant (R-Henrico) and Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax City) held a press conference to discuss the matter.
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A Georgia Gwinnett College student appeared before the Supreme Court on Tuesday to defend free speech on campuses. The student, Chike Uzuegbunam, was prohibited by campus officials from speaking about the Christian faith on campus twice in 2016, following alleged complaints from other students.
A day before the Supreme Court hearing, Uzuegbunam published an opinion piece recounting his experience at the college and throughout the subsequent court hearings. Uzuegbunam explained that he was barred from passing out fliers and discussing his faith with fellow students publicly. According to his account, he was having one-on-one conversations with students when he was stopped by a campus official and told he needed to file a request for a speech zone.
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State Sen. Chuck Wiger, DFL-Maplewood, introduced a bill Monday that would add Minnesota to a popular vote compact, securing the state’s electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote.
According to a press release from the Senate DFL, Wiger’s bill would add Minnesota to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. States that are a part of this agreement “pledge their states’ electoral votes to the presidential and vice presidential candidates who win the national popular vote as opposed to the popular vote in their particular state.”
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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) signed two bills on Tuesday – one establishing requirements for low-speed electronic scooters, the second modifying employment laws.
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The Virginia General Assembly 2021 regular session began on Wednesday in Richmond with a relatively standard yet important first meeting of the Democratic-controlled state Senate.
Just as it was during last year’s special session, the Senate and its 39 members met in-person in a socially distanced space at the Science Museum of Virginia while the House of Delegates convened virtually.
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With mass vaccination efforts now a month in, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has released a new online tool to help Virginians determine their eligibility for the COVID-19 vaccine under the state’s multi-phase plan and when they can get it.
Completing the process is relatively simple and should not take more than 5 minutes maximum. Here is a step-by-step rundown
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Speaking in a mostly empty House of Delegates Chamber on Wednesday night, Governor Ralph Northam delivered an optimistic State of the Commonwealth address. In the live-streamed speech, Northam acknowledged the suffering caused by COVID-19 and an economic downturn, but highlighted stories of heroic Virginians from the past year. He touted the progress Virginia’s government made towards progressive goals in 2020, and called for more change.
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Georgia State Rep. Sandra Scott (D-Rex) has put forward separate bills that would, if enacted, require that law enforcement officers wear body cameras on-the-job. Law enforcement officers might also have to submit to a citizen review board. Members of such a board would review law enforcement officers’ actions while those officers served in the line of duty. Scott would also strip law enforcement officers of certain legal immunities they have as they do their jobs and make them liable to a lawsuit or other civil liability.
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The Georgia House Education Committee introduced legislation to fund education savings accounts for qualifying parents. House Bill 60, or the “Georgia Educational Scholarship Act,” proposes granting certain state educational funds to parents directly rather than schools.
The bill would allow students with circumstances including poverty, foster care, active duty military parent(s), disability, bullying, or mandated distance learning to apply certain state educational funds to attend the participating school of their choice.
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The Virginia House of Delegates voted against extending the regular session from 30 to 45 days on the first day of the regular session. The move by House Republicans to block extending the session means that the Democrat-controlled General Assembly will have a short amount of time to handle standard government business and check off items from their progressive wish list.
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Despite COVID-19 cases spiking around the same time, Tennessee experienced a marked decrease in flu cases last month. Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) data sets from the last week of 2019 and 2020 revealed a 90 percent decrease in overall flu cases. The end of December registered a significant increase in COVID-19 cases, near the all-time high in the state’s positivity rates.
TDH recorded over 6,700 flu cases in the final week of 2019, as compared to just over 600 during the last week of 2020. Last month, the percentage of individuals with flu-like illnesses visiting the reporting healthcare sites was exactly 2 percent; the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) baseline for Tennessee sits at around 3 percent. According to the CDC, two or more consecutive weeks that fall under 2 percent reporting constitutes a “non-influenza week.”
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The United States House of Representatives voted Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump for the second time by a count of 232 to 197, including 10 Republicans. This marks the first-ever a president has been impeached twice.
The Democrat-led effort to try once again to oust the president is based on remarks he gave January 6th at the “Save America Rally,” which was attended by hundreds of thousands of people from across the country.
The congressmembers pushing for impeachment insist President Trump is guilty, in essence, of “inciting a riot” in his speech.
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The Democrat-led House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump on Wednesday.
The final vote of 232 to 197 marks the second time the House voted to impeach Trump, who has just seven days remaining in office. Trump is the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice.
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One thing recent history has taught America is the first storyline of major tragedies or controversies is never the most accurate.
Americans were told by the Bush administration that they were sucker-punched by a surprise attack on 9/11 by terrorists, only to learn the CIA and FBI had significant advance evidence of the plot and its players and failed to connect the dots.
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The Tennessee National Guard will send troops to Washington, D.C. for the Presidential Inauguration. The measure is in concert with increased security preparations spurred on by the Capitol Hill riot and current reports of planned protests nationwide.
According to reports, the Tennessee National Guard will supplement additional personnel to include communications specialists, chaplain support, and Military Police.
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House Democrats are proceeding apace with their plans to impeach President Donald Trump before his term ends on Jan. 20 when Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, accusing Trump of inciting insurrection after the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 following the Save America Rally he spoke at challenging the outcome of the 2020 election.
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U.S. Representative Mo Brooks (AL-05) on Tuesday responded to the “scurrilous, George Orwellian” attacks that Democrats are making against him over his “Save America” rally speech on January 6.
An official censure was proposed by U.S. Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL-23) and Tom Malinowski (D-NJ-07), the Washington Examiner said.
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Minneapolis Police Union President Lt. Bob Kroll announced that he intends to retire at the end of January in a letter to union members, The Star Tribune reported.
Lt. Bob Kroll, 58, said he originally planned on retiring in May, but that he decided it was in his family’s best interest to retire sooner, according to The Star Tribune. Kroll attracted attention in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes.
“Most difficult for me as I made this decision was to see how our noble profession has been demonized,” Kroll wrote in the letter obt
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Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07) denounced the Congressional efforts to remove from office or impeach President Donald Trump.
In his press release, Green alluded to President-elect Joe Biden’s consistent call for unity – the hallmark of his campaign and official theme for his upcoming inauguration.
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The Trump administration is expected to alter its coronavirus vaccine distribution guidance, recommending that people aged 65 and older are made eligible to be inoculated, The New York Times reported.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Department of Defense are expected to announce the new guidance at a noon press conference, an anonymous official briefed on the announcement told the Times. The change to the recommendations is intended to quicken the distribution of the coronavirus vaccine, which has been far behind pace.
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In the weeks since the November presidential election, numerous liberals, leftists, and other opponents of President Donald Trump have called for a purge of him and his supporters from public life.
Just days ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 20, those purges have begun in earnest.
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PBS is distancing itself from a former employee featured in a Project Veritas video who appeared to defend violent attacks on the White House, proposed re-education for the children of President Donald Trump supporters, and praised the COVID-19 deaths of GOP voters.
“This employee no longer works for PBS,” a PBS spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “As a mid-level staff attorney, he did not speak on behalf of our organization, nor did he make any editorial decisions.”
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President-elect Joe Biden’s administration will make minority and women-owned small businesses their “priority,” his transition team tweeted Sunday.
“Our focus will be on small businesses on Main Street that aren’t wealthy and well-connected, that are facing real economic hardships through no fault of their own,” Biden said during the video.
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Twitter has reportedly purged over 70,000 accounts from its platform for sharing “harmful QAnon-associated content.”
The social media website began cracking down on Twitter activity after rioters supporting President Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol on Wednesday, committing acts of vandalism and postponing the certification process as members of Congress were forced to evacuate the building.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed CCO Elaine Parker of Job Creators Network to the newsmakers line to discuss their advocacy for small businesses nationwide.
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Last week Silicon Valley silenced the president. In unison, the social media giants, with an assist from Amazon and Apple, also eliminated their most popular conservative competitor and announced that their own moderation policies would now extend to other companies. Meanwhile, CNN openly called for Fox News to be banned from cable, while a major talk radio network issued new speech rules to its hosts, extending tech’s moderation policies to the offline world. Beyond all this, Congress and the European Union called for powerful new regulation of online speech.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Hans von Spakovsky who the Manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation to the newsmakers line to discuss the importance of election integrity.
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Tennessee Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) on Tuesday was re-elected for his third term as Speaker of the Senate, while State Representative Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) returned as House Speaker.
The Tennessee House Republican Caucus tweeted, “The 112th General Assembly convened today in Nashville! Congratulations to our re-elected Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton, newly elected Speaker Pro Tem Pat Marsh, and all our members as they were sworn into office. @CSexton25 @marsh4tn”.
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Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN-05) submitted a letter to President-elect Joe Biden requesting the revocation of the recently-approved TennCareIII. In his concluding remarks, Cooper claimed that the agreement was unethical and accompanied by potentially criminal affairs.
“There is still information surfacing about this unprecedented waiver, including secret side agreements that are unprecedented and probably illegal,” wrote Cooper. “As we learn more, enabling us to further evaluate our state’s cruelty to its deserving poor and its vulnerable hospitals, I will be back in touch with you.”
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ATLANTA, Georgia – Two Georgia state senators who said they wanted to fight for the state’s election integrity after the November 2020 presidential election learned Tuesday they will no chair committees that they previously presided over. State Sen. Burt Jones (R-Jackson) will no longer chair the Committee on Insurance and Labor. State Sen. Brandon Beach (R-Alpharetta) no longer oversees that body’s Transportation Committee.
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On Tuesday, The federal government granted Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s and other states governors’ request to release reserve COVID-19 doses being held back to ensure second doses of the vaccine are available.
Whitmer has blamed the federal government for the state’s slow COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced on Monday that flags would be flown at half-staff on all public buildings until Wednesday in honor of a U.S. Capitol Police Officer who was killed during riots last week.
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Governor Ralph Northam has moved Virginia legislators into vaccination Phase 1b, meaning they will be among the first eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccinations. That includes members of the House of Delegates, who are holding meetings virtually.
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Delegate Dan Helmer (D-Fairfax) has introduced a bill that would largely ban conventions as a nomination process for political candidates. Effective in 2024, HB 2020 would, with some exceptions, effectively prohibit forms of nomination that exclude voters who might have difficulty making it to a meeting.
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Former business executive and multi-millionaire Glenn Youngkin is planning to join the Virginia governor’s race as a Republican candidate and expected to make an official announcement soon, according to reporting from The Washington Post.
Youngkin, 54, would be the third GOP candidate to declare for the 2021 election and the only conservative hopeful with no experience running for or holding elected office.
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