A Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) officer on Saturday morning shot and killed a man who charged at the officer while carrying two butcher knives. The incident happened during a routine traffic stop at Clarksville Pike and Ed Temple Boulevard, said MNPD spokesman Don Aaron at a press conference Saturday.
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The United States is historically a Christian country, that is, it was founded by Christians and its population remains largely Christian to this day. The speeches and statements of our presidents, our official holidays, the prayers that are said before the opening of Congress and the Supreme Court, the imagery we see on official buildings all attest to the religious, indeed Christian, foundation of our nation. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court in an 1892 decision declared explicitly that “we are a Christian nation.”
Nevertheless, at least until recent days, Americans have understood that we live in a pluralistic society where Protestants, Catholics, Jews, even atheists, were equal before each other and equal before the law. There was no official church at the federal level that would require belief, assent, or obedience. This is not to say that there have not been dark times in our history when we failed to live up to our ideals. Catholics may recall times when our churches were burned and there were riots against us. But the highest American aspiration has always been that all should be treated equally, that a Jew should get the same treatment in a court of law as a Methodist or a Muslim.
Our twin understanding of our country’s deep religious roots coupled with an ideal of religious freedom grew out of the English tradition of religious toleration. The English had an official state church, but the English also recognized the importance of providing dissenters with some measure of freedom. The Act of Toleration of 1689 provided this freedom.
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Arizona’s Democratic senators called on President Joe Biden’s administration to increase the number of Homeland Security personnel on the southern border to better respond to increasing number of migrants.
In a letter Wednesday, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly also requested that the White House reimburse Arizona for its deploying of approximately 500 National Guard members to better respond to the crisis.
“From recent conversations with local community leaders, law enforcement, and local Department of Homeland Security officials, it’s clear that their resources, staffing and capabilities are strained,” they wrote. “While additional resources were passed in the American Rescue Plan and provided by FEMA and DHS, additional personnel are needed at the border to ensure our communities are protected, and migrants are treated fairly and humanely.”
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Editor and Publisher of the Nashville based New Review Press, Rebecca Bynum in studio to talk about her latest book by Albert Norton, Jr. called Dangerous God: A Defense of Transcendent Truth which examines the underlying destruction of faith through societal metanarratives.
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One of the most fateful decisions of Donald Trump’s presidency happened just weeks after Inauguration Day.
In March 2017, Republican lawmakers joined Democrats to demand Jeff Sessions, a former Senate colleague and Trump’s new attorney general, recuse himself from anything related to the investigation into alleged Russian election collusion. Sessions’ two brief meetings in 2016 with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak—a figure who appeared often in collusion-related drama—amounted to evidence of collusion, collusion perps insisted.
Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) were just a few top Republicans who asked Sessions to step aside—so he did.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act’s Attorney Jim Roberts to the newsmakers line to discuss the Election Commission’s official verification satisfactory petition signatures to get the referendum on the ballot and the calculated deception of Mayor Cooper.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to discuss Joe Biden’s job creation concepts to those of make-work programs during the Depression and some funny coincidences about Q.
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President Joe Biden’s administration filed an appeal Tuesday that seeks to force religious doctors and hospitals to provide transgender surgeries, regardless of religious objections.
Former President Barack Obama’s administration issued a mandate in 2016 requiring doctors and hospitals to provide transgender surgeries upon a mental health professional’s referral. The transgender mandate, an interpretation of an Affordable Care Act’s nondiscrimination clause, did not include conscience or religion exemptions.
An association of over 19,000 healthcare professionals, several religious organizations, and nine states challenged the mandate in two different courts, according to a website on the mandate run by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
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President Joe Biden hosted a virtual climate summit with dozens of world leaders Thursday, the same day the White House released a set of aggressive climate goals. Critics say the plan could jeopardize the economy at a time it is recovering from record-breaking unemployment because of the pandemic and governments’ response to it.
First among those priorities is a pledge to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by the year 2030.
“The United States is not waiting, the costs of delay are too great, and our nation is resolved to act now,” the White House said in a statement. “Climate change poses an existential threat, but responding to this threat offers an opportunity to support good-paying, union jobs, strengthen America’s working communities, protect public health, and advance environmental justice.”
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Chicago police officers may have to check with their supervisor before chasing suspects on foot, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday. The mayor promised to announce details of a new policy “soon,” Fox 32 Chicago reported.
“No one should die as a result of a foot chase,” Lightfoot said.
Chicago law enforcement’s use of force faced new scrutiny after an officer chased and fatally shot 13-year-old Adam Toledo on March 29. Video of the incident released last week shows Toldedo dumping what appears to be a firearm a split-second before he turns and raises his hands. Allegedly, he was handed the gun by Ruben Roman, who allegedly had just used it to fire eight rounds at a passing vehicle. Apparently, no one was hit, according to Fox32.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed The Federalist Contributor Michael Waller to the newsmakers line to clarify his first-hand account of the Capitol riots on Janauary sixth and address the media backlash of Senator Ron Johnson for referencing it in the recent investigative hearing.
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The governor of Kansas has vetoed a bill that would have banned biological males from participating in women’s sports.
Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the “The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” Thursday, saying in a news release that the legislation “sends a devastating message that Kansas is not welcoming to all children and their families, including those who are transgender — who are already at a higher risk of bullying, discrimination, and suicide,” according to local outlet KMBC.
“As Kansans, we should be focused on how to include all students in extracurricular activities rather than how to exclude those who may be different than us,” Kelly said. “Kansas is an inclusive state and our laws should reflect our values. This law does not do that.”
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Human smugglers have been transporting migrants into the U.S. illegally in groups of over 100 people, mostly comprised of families and unaccompanied minors, border officials said Thursday.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials encountered three large groups totaling 320 illegal migrants near Edinburg, Texas, over a two-day span, according to the agency. Officials apprehended 229 family members, 86 unaccompanied migrant minors and five single adults.
“Even with the spread of the COVID-19 virus, human smugglers continue to try these brazen attempts with zero regard for the lives they endanger nor to the health of the citizens of our great nation,” CBP said in a statement.
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FEC records show that Jack White, a Fairfax County attorney who had a solid Q1 finance report, donated to Biden for President twice and the Biden Victory Fund PAC twice during the 2020 presidential election, just months before he announced his campaign for the Republican nomination for Attorney General.
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The Florida Legislature passed a bill instituting a “parental bill of rights” and sent it to the desk of Governor Ron DeSantis.
The bill, HB 241, worked its way through the Florida House and then passed through the Florida Senate on Thursday. It was passed on a nearly party-line vote, with Sen. Lauren Book (D-32), the lone Democrat, siding with Republicans and voting to approve the bill.
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Citing the “grave threat posed by Enbridge’s unlawful operation of its pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac,” 28 entities filed friend of the court briefs in support of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s motion to remand in State of Michigan, et al v Enbridge Energy, et al.
Four Native American tribes, the attorneys general of 16 states and the District of Columbia, six environmental organizations and the Great Lakes Business Network, and two state governors filed briefs expressing support of the attorney general’s efforts to ensure the lawsuit her office filed last November remains in Ingham County Circuit Court.
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A coalition of gun rights organizations and individuals are suing the City of Winchester over its ordinance banning firearms in city buildings, parks, and places near permitted events. The lawsuit, announced Wednesday, focuses on violations of the Virginia Constitution.
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Politicians who want to defund the police won’t step foot in Minneapolis without their own personal security details.
U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Maxine Waters are both progressives who vocally support measures to defund the police. However, both of them used private security or an actual police escort when visiting Minnesota, the center of the defund movement.
Omar spent $3,103 on security in her home state in the first financial quarter of 2021, which spans from the beginning of the year through March, per Federal Election Commission records. One of the companies she hired, Aegis Logistics, provides armed and unarmed bodyguards. The other, Lloyd Security Services, provides video surveillance and intrusion detection — a vital service in a city that has experienced about 6,000 cases of theft so far this year after huge cuts to the the law enforcement budget.
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Coca-Cola officials who criticized Georgia’s new voter integrity law may have ended up hurting their company’s bottom line, according to a new poll from Rasmussen. “A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 37 percent of American Adults the company’s stand against the new Georgia law makes them less likely to purchase Coca-Cola products. Twenty-five percent say they are more likely to buy Coke, but 30 percent say the company’s political stance doesn’t make much difference,” Rasmussen Report said.
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As sales slowly improve, Ohio’s restaurants and bars now face another issue that threatens ongoing COVID-19 pandemic recovery efforts: lack of employees.
Ohio Restaurant Association President and CEO John Barker believes the intentions behind continued federal and state stimulus benefits are good, but a consequence is a lack of available employees as the state eases COVID-19 restrictions and customer traffic increases.
“Unemployment is an issue. There’s no question about it,” Barker said. “The intention by the government, both at the federal and state level, was to take care of people who are displaced and very much in need. It was the right thing to do. The problem we have now is these are looking like they’re going to be extended all the way through the fall. On top of that, people are getting big stimulus checks. And in some cases, they may be making more money staying at home than going back to work. And so, it’s a combination of factors.”
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The state of Virginia is set to eliminate all accelerated math courses in the state’s public schools before the 11th grade, ostensibly as part of an “equity” plan to make math classes easier for all races, according to Fox News.
The change was made by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), and was announced by multiple county-level school districts and officials. Formally known as the Virginia Mathematics Pathway Initiative (VMPI), this plan essentially removes all options for students who would normally elect to take a more advanced level of math if they have demonstrated a proficiency in the subject, and instead keeps the curriculum at the most basic level for every grade up to 11th grade.
Ian Serotkin, a member of the Loudoun County school board, commented negatively on the change in policy on Facebook Tuesday. “This initiative,” he explained, “will eliminate ALL math acceleration prior to 11th grade. This is not an exaggeration, nor does there appear to be any discretion in how local districts implement this. All 6th graders will take Foundational Concepts 6. All 7th graders will take Foundational Concepts 7…Only in 11th and 12th grade is there any opportunity for choice in higher math courses.”
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For the last month, U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL-02) has been embroiled in investigation and public scrutiny since a New York Times story broke detailing an alleged illicit relationship Gaetz had with a 17-year-old girl and being a part of sex trafficking.
Immediately, Gaetz went public about the accusation by appearing on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and flatly denied the entirety of The Times’ report and claimed the allegations are part of an extortion plot.
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The Florida Legislature is working through two pieces of legislation aimed at curbing foreign influence in Florida’s colleges and universities, primarily research institutions.
The Florida House has already passed HB 7017 unanimously and sent it to the Senate for consideration. The bill will require state agencies and political subdivisions to disclose foreign grants and donations of over $50,000 or more to the state. Also, all donations of any size will be required to be reported from seven hostile nations. Among those nations deemed hostile are: China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela.
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On Thursday, the Tennessee House passed a bill increasing parole eligibility and reducing parole violation punishments for inmates. The “Reentry Success Act of 2021” creates a presumption that eligible inmates must be granted parole on their eligibility date.
Additionally, parole violations that aren’t felonies or Class A misdemeanors would result in 15 days’ imprisonment for the first violation, 30 days for the second, 90 days for the third, and either one year or the remainder of the prisoner’s sentence for the fourth – whichever is the shorter of the two. Other changes to present law under the Reentry Success Act of 2021 include clarification that victims may submit videos for their victim impact statements, and waiving certain application costs for restricted drivers licenses. Felonies or Class A misdemeanors committed as part of parole violation would require prisoners to serve out the maximum of their sentence.
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