Month: April 2021

General Assembly Passes Tennessee Election Integrity Act Requiring Ballot Watermarking

Corinne Murdock

After Senate passage yesterday, the House passed the “Tennessee Election Integrity Act” requiring watermarking on paper absentee ballots. Local election commissions would be required to create unique watermarks for paper absentee ballots. Additionally, election officials must write the word “rejected” and the reason for rejection across the face of a rejected ballot.

Only one individual voted against the bill – State Representative Jason Powell (D-Nashville). Powell didn’t give an explanation on the House floor hearing as to why he voted against the act. As The Tennessee Star reported on Monday, the bill received unanimous and bipartisan support in the House.

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Federal Judge Reinstates 48-Hour Waiting Period for Tennessee Abortions While Appeal Underway

Corinne Murdock
pregnancy test

Tennessee’s 48-hour waiting period law for abortions was restored temporarily as the state makes its appeal. The decision was made on Friday by U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman. He vacated his prior opinion while the state makes an appeal.

In response, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery issued a press release explaining that this decision recognized that Tennessee’s law is “likely constitutional,” and therefore could be enforced.

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Tennessee Senate Passes Election Integrity Act Requiring Watermarks on Ballots

Corinne Murdock

The Senate passed the “Tennessee Election Integrity Act,” which requires each county election commission to put watermarks on their ballots. Electronic absentee ballots would be exempt. The act received unanimous, bipartisan support.

Under the Tennessee Election Integrity Act, each county election commission must have their watermark approved by the state coordinator of elections. None of the publicly-available sample ballots will have the watermark. Additionally, signature verification of the voter on absentee ballots will no longer be considered the final verification necessary before counting the ballots – the approved watermark will be. If an absentee ballot is rejected, the official must write “rejected” across its face and include the reason for rejection.

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Commentary: President Biden’s Tax Hike Hits Keep on Coming

RealClearWire
Joe Biden

Just over three months into his presidency, Joe Biden has been nothing if not active. Fresh off proposing two bills that could end up costing taxpayers $5 trillion over the next decade, the President is now proposing yet another $1.5 trillion spending package. This plan, intended to fund expanded childcare and education initiatives, would include huge tax hikes that would act as yet another sucker punch to a still-rebounding economy.

About the only tax increases the President hasn’t supported thus far arewealth taxes and financial transaction taxes. But just because the tax hikes in this package are less exotic doesn’t mean they wouldn’t prove to be harmful.

In keeping with Biden’s ongoing efforts to undo the 2017 tax reform law, the first tax increase proposed is the restoration of the top tax bracket to 39.6 percent, the level it was at before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) lowered the rate to 37 percent. The top individual rate isn’t the most influential piece of the tax code on economic growth — as the Tax Foundation estimated prior to the passage of the TCJA — but it’s also far from the only tax hike that Biden is proposing.

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Law Professor May Be Fired After Personal Blog Post Criticized Chinese Government

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Tom Smith

The University of San Diego is formally reviewing a law professor who made a blog post critical of the Chinese Communist Party.

“If you believe that the coronavirus did not escape from the lab in Wuhan, you have to at least consider that you are an idiot who is swallowing whole a lot of Chinese cock swaddle,” wrote Professor Tom Smith on his blog The Right Coast. He later clarified that the reference was to the Chinese government, not the people in the country.

When he first published the March 10 post, the USD Law School placed him under investigation, citing complaints of bias. Now, the law school has sent his case to administration for a formal review.

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Medical Experts Predict an Increase in Cancer Deaths Due to COVID

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National Cancer Institute

Delayed diagnoses and missed screenings due to the coronavirus pandemic will likely result in increased cancer deaths, medical experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“We have not yet seen the real impact of COVID-19 on cancer diagnosis and deaths,” warned Dr. Julie Gralow, executive vice president and chief medical officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. “Screening for cancer (mainly breast, cervical, and colon) clearly dropped dramatically early in the pandemic, which will likely contribute to a later stage at diagnosis due to the delay/omission of screening that will be seen in the future.”

Lawmakers, health officials, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called on health care providers to cancel non-essential or routine appointments, surgeries, and procedures to preserve personal protective equipment and prevent the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

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Police Groups, Unions to Argue Against Minneapolis Police Racism Probe in Meeting with DOJ

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Minneapolis Police Department

Top police organizations and unions will reportedly express concern to Attorney General Merrick Garland about his racism probe into the Minneapolis Police Department, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The groups are expected to confront Garland and other Justice Department (DOJ) officials about the investigations during a meeting Friday afternoon, the WSJ reported. While many of the groups’ leaders have endorsed various police reforms since George Floyd’s death last year, they worried a broad probe would be unproductive and hurt rank-and-file officers.

“We recognize that there needs to be more oversight, there needs to be some reform in place, but we need DOJ to work with us because there has to be buy-in from the line men and women who do this job,” David Mahoney, president of the National Sheriffs’ Association and sheriff of Dane County, Wisconsin, told the WSJ.

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Commentary: Elections Have Consequences; Cheating Doesn’t

RealClearWire

Barack Obama liked to remind us that “elections have consequences.”

Boy, do they! For conservatives like me, the months since Democrats took over the White House and the Senate have been a tsunami of consequences. How do you think I like it when Joe Biden’s handlers aim 60 executive orders at the tip of his pen to effectuate a fundamental transformation of this country? Or when the Democrat-controlled Congress tries to push through statehood for the District of Columbia in order to guarantee their continued control of the Senate? Or when the southern border is turned into a 2,000-mile illegal-immigrant processing center?

Unfortunately, the dictum that “elections have consequences” is not recognized as a legitimate principle when Republicans defeat Democrats. That was obvious when Donald Trump won the 2016 election and spent the next four years being vilified as a Russian puppet, a racist and a danger to the republic. You see, Democrats consider elections to be their most legitimate means of seizing power, but not necessarily the most effective. For them, politics is the continuation of war by other means, and they have been waging war against not just Republicans, but against the Constitution for at least the last 50 years.

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Black Lives Matter Doesn’t Mention Attempted Stabbing on Official Page About Police Shooting of Ohio Girl

Peter D'Abrosca

Black Lives Matter’s official page on the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, who was fatally shot by a Columbus Police officer last week, is noticeably devoid of details regarding the incident. 

“At the exact same time the verdict of Derek Chauvin was being read for murdering George Floyd, police wasted no time in senselessly taking another Black child,” the page says. 

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Federal Government Will No Longer Fine Illegal Aliens for Failure to Leave the U.S.

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Border Patrol Encounters Another Commercial Vehicle Involved in Human Smuggling Attempt

The federal government will no longer fine illegal aliens who fail to depart from the U.S. and it plans to pursue the cancellation of any currently outstanding debts for people who previously incurred such financial penalties.

“There is no indication that these penalties promoted compliance with noncitizens’ departure obligations,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “We can enforce our immigration laws without resorting to ineffective and unnecessary punitive measures.”

While U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had already stopped issuing such fines as of Jan. 20, 2021 — the day that President Biden was sworn into office — two delegation orders pertaining to the collection of the fines were rescinded on Friday, according to a Department of Homeland Security press release.

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Hawley Plan Gives ‘Marriage Bonus’ to Married Parents with Young Children

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Josh Hawley

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley introduced a bill Monday aimed at providing support for families with young children.

Hawley’s plan would give single parents with children under 13 $6,000 in parent tax credits and married parents with children under 13 $12,000 in parent tax credits, according to a press release.

“Starting a family and raising children should not be a privilege only reserved for the wealthy,” Hawley said in a statement. “Millions of working people want to start a family and would like to care for their children at home, but current policies do not respect these preferences.”

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‘Anti-Racist’ Professor with BLM Syllabus Offers ‘Diversity Bingo’ Extra Credit

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Black Lives Matter sign

A University of Florida professor gave students a “Diversity Bingo” extra credit assignment, which called for students to find people of various ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations.

The course, titled Problem Solving with Computer Software, is a general requirement course for all business majors at the University of Florida. “Diversity Bingo” was offered to students in the class as an extra credit assignment.

The assignment appears within a chapter dedicated to problem-solving specify, using groups and critical thinking strategies. Within this chapter students learned about Problem Definition, Idea Generation, and Decision making. The professor also included this assignment as being relevant to the material.

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Census Bureau Announces States in the South, Northwest Pick up Congressional Seats

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Texas and Florida are slated to gain congressional seats during the decennial redistricting process, while California and New York are set to each lose one, the U.S. Census Bureau announced Monday.

The U.S. Census Bureau released the decennial state population and congressional apportionment totals Monday, outlining how many districts each state will have for the next decade. The data also determines how many Electoral College votes each state will have through 2032, and allocates how federal money is distributed to each state for schools, roads and other public projects.

The release was originally scheduled for December, but faced delays due to the coronavirus pandemic and the Trump administration’s unsuccessful effort to exclude non-citizens from the count.

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Commentary: Coddling Criminals Is a New Front in the War on the Middle Class

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"We who believe in freedom cannot rest," sign

The middle class is the traditional bedrock of American society. They are the rule followers, the volunteers, the middle managers, and small business owners. Being rule-oriented, they support the police and stability, as they have a stake in maintaining the status quo. Their values are defined by their economic and social position: self-sufficient, conscientious, and, lately, anxious.

The middle class is under pressure from numerous directions. Wages have been flat for 50 years, while prices have gone up, particularly for the traditional perquisites of middle-class existence: homes, healthcare, and education. Globalization and mass immigration increase the labor pool against which Americans must compete. Inflation and debt eat away at the ability of families to accrue wealth. And diversity and crime have made it so many families need to spend a small fortune (and a lot of time commuting) to recreate the lifestyle they enjoyed growing up.

Lately, riots and racial tension create additional anxieties for the middle class. The nihilism of these displays is alien to the middle class’s quest for security.   

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Growing Number of Black Leaders Embrace Voter ID, Reject Biden’s Jim Crow Claims

Admin
Mail in ballot with U.S. flag

Mark Robinson knows a thing or two about the political appeal of voter ID. After all, he became North Carolina’s first ever African-American lieutenant governor last November running as a Republican who vowed to restore voter identification for the state’s elections.

And he won, even as the GOP’s top of the ticket fell to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

So Robinson chafes when he hears national Democrats like Joe Biden and Stacey Abrams claim that asking for an ID to vote is as disenfranchising as the voter suppression tactics of the Jim Crow era.

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Florida Lawmakers Negotiate Budget Deal

Grant Holcomb
Jay Trumbull

After a week of negotiation, Florida’s lawmakers reached a deal determining spending difference for Florida’s $92.2 billion budget.

One of the largest contingents of the budget has been allocated for education. Twenty-two billion dollars of the budget is dedicated to school spending, which includes one-time $1,000 bonuses for all K-12 teachers and principals. The proposal is backed by Governor Ron DeSantis.

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Gov. Kemp Signs Georgia Lodging Tax, Income Tax Credit for Teachers Bills

The Center Square
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp

Hotels, motels, short-term rentals and most lodging facilities in Georgia will be required to pay a $5-a-night excise tax as of July 1.

Gov. Brian Kemp signed House Bill 317 into law. It imposes the fee on all lodging facilities and rooms except those that do not provide shelter and extended-stay rentals. Extended-stay rentals allow guests to occupy a room or facility for at least 30 consecutive days.

HB 317, which Kemp signed Wednesday, also requires online short-term rental companies such as Airbnb to collect hotel and motel excise taxes and pay them to local governments.

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Florida Senate Passes Elections Bill, Restrictions on Social Media Platforms

Casey Owens

On Monday, April 26th, 2021, the Florida Senate voted 23 to 17 in favor of of a controversial bill (SB 90) regarding election administration and its tightening grip on mail-in voting. SB 90 includes changes to the current Election Code like, supervising and reducing the number of mail-in ballot drop boxes used by a supervisor of elections, and requiring voters to submit an application for a mail-in ballot every two years rather than every four years. 

 Democrats in the Florida Senate who voted against the bill say that SB 90 retains voting restrictions that that are unnecessary and will have disproportionate negative effect on Hispanic, Black, and older voters. They also commented on how the proposed measures of the bill is in reaction to the voting fraud allegations made by former President Trump in the 2020 elections. 

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Ohio Democrats Attack GOP Plans to Rewrite State Election Laws

The Center Square
Elizabeth Walters

Ohio Democrats blasted a Republican proposal to rewrite the state’s election law to stop off-site ballot boxes, eliminate early-voting options and strengthen Ohio’s voter ID regulations.

The proposal, however, also includes creating an automated voter registration plan and easier access to absentee voter requests.

Reps. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, and Sharon Ray, R-Wadsworth, plan to introduce what they call a comprehensive modernization and reform bill, while Democrats believe it’s more extreme restrictions on the right to vote that continue across the country.

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Minnesota Firms Would Pay a Combined Corporate Tax Rate of 35.1 Percent Under Biden Plan

The Center Square
Joe Biden

The combined state and federal corporate tax rate in Minnesota would reach 35.1 percent under President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, representing a tie for the third highest levy among the 50 states, according to a new study from the Tax Foundation.

U.S. corporations currently pay a 21 percent corporate income tax rate to the federal government, the Tax Foundation reported, but they also pay additional corporate taxes in 44 states and Washington, D.C. State corporate income tax rates range from zero to 11.5 percent, so the current combined average paid by corporations is 25.8 percent, the study said.

Corporations based in six states – Ohio, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming – are charged no state income tax, though they have to pay their share to the federal government, the Tax Foundation said.

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Dash Cam Shows Drunk Michigan Dem Resisting Arrest, Invoking Whitmer’s Name

Peter D'Abrosca
Police arrest screen cap

Police dash camera video of the recent arrest of state Rep. Jewell Jones (D-MI-11) shows the drunken 25-year-old resisting arrest, and invoking the name of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) as a threat to the arresting officers.

In the video, police attempt to obtain Jones’ driver’s license, which he refuses to give them. Eventually, he begins struggling with the two arresting officers, ending up detained in the grass on the side of I-96.

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Republican Jeanne Seaver Announces Bid for Georgia Lieutenant Governor

Chris Butler
Jeanne Seaver

Georgia resident Jeanne Seaver, a Republican who was one of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s grassroots coordinators, has declared her candidacy for lieutenant governor. “I have heard from voices all over the state who said they are sick and tired of candidates and elected officials coming to them every two to four years to go out and work for them and help get them elected and then you never hear from them again,” Seaver told The Georgia Star News Monday.

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Williamson County School System Officials Deny They Are Pushing Critical Race Theory, Critics Call it Marxist

Chris Butler

Staff at the Williamson County School System say on their official website that they are not implementing Critical Race Theory (CRT) into their curriculum, although other people insist that, yes, it has infested the schools.

And those same people who want the alleged Critical Race Theory removed said WCS officials must withdraw from it immediately.

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Mexican National in Tennessee Sentenced to Eight Years for Conspiracy to Distribute Over 50 Grams of Methamphetamine

Chris Butler
Close-up of barbed wire at a prison

Federal officials in Tennessee announced this week that a Mexican national was sentenced to 100 months in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute and possess more than 50 grams of methamphetamine. This, according to a press release that officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee published on their website.

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Analysis: Three Vulnerable Senate Democrats Give GOP Shot Retaking Upper Chamber

Neil W. McCabe
Maggie Hassan, Michael Bennet and Catherine Cortez

Republicans did not have a great year in 2020, but 2022 could be a much better year than anyone is expecting–especially if they target these three vulnerable Senate Democrats who each won their seats with 50 percent of the vote or less.

Democrats control the Senate, but barely. The 50-50 split means Vice President Kamela Harris is needed to break ties–and that a single Democrat could stop his party’s agenda at anytime.

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Chuck Schumer’s 2017 Warning About the Intel Community Seems to Have Come True

Admin

Weeks before Donald Trump took office, Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer issued an ominous warning.

“You take on the intelligence community? They have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you,” the New York Democrat said in an interview with MSNBC on Jan. 3, 2017.

Schumer was responding to Trump’s criticism of an intelligence community assessment that said Russia interfered explicitly to help the Republican win the 2016 election.

“He’s being really dumb to do this,” Schumer said of Trump.

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UK Universities Could End Up Paying Students Back for Services Not Provided During COVID

Admin
College students in caps and gowns

Universities in the United Kingdom have been instructed to pay students thousands of dollars because they had ‘”less valuable” experiences due to the universities’ COVID-19 actions. 

The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) is an independent body that reviews students’ complaints against higher education institutions. It does not have the power to regulate or punish the institutions, however.

OIA recently shared several complaints students have made about the impact coronavirus has had on their educational experiences.Universities in the United Kingdom have been instructed to pay students thousands of dollars because they had ‘”less valuable” experiences due to the universities’ COVID-19 actions. 

The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) is an independent body that reviews students’ complaints against higher education institutions. It does not have the power to regulate or punish the institutions, however.

OIA recently shared several complaints students have made about the impact coronavirus has had on their educational experiences.

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Email Shows Biden Nominee Pushed Essay Comparing Police to KKK

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Kristen Clarke

President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division circulated an essay from self-proclaimed Marxist poet Amiri Baraka defending cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal and referring to police officers as members of the Ku Klux Klan, according an email from her days at Columbia University.

Kristen Clarke forwarded the Baraka essay in an email on June 25, 1999, to her mentor, the late historian Manning Marable.

She suggested that the essay, entitled “Mumia, ‘Lynch Law’ & Imperialism” be placed in a magazine Marable edited and used for a panel on the death penalty.

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Report: U.S. National Debt Closer to $123 Trillion, Nearly $796,000 Per Household

The Center Square

The U.S. national debt is closer to $123 trillion, more than four times what the Treasury Department is reporting, Chicago-based Truth in Accounting calculates in its new annual analysis of the nation’s finances.

The federal government has $5.95 trillion in assets and $129.06 trillion worth of bills resulting in a $123.11 trillion shortfall, or a debt burden of $796,000 per U.S. household.

Because of this massive amount of debt and repeatedly poor financial decisions made by lawmakers, TIA gave the U.S. government an “F” grade for its financial condition.

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Senate Foreign Relations Committee Overwhelmingly Approves Bill That Orders Assessment Into Lab Leak Theory

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Joe Biden signing order

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee overwhelmingly approved a wide-ranging and bipartisan bill on Wednesday that lays out a unified strategic approach towards the threat China poses to America’s national and economic security.

Among the measures in the 281-page Strategic Competition Act of 2021 is a provision ordering the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to produce a report assessing the likelihood that COVID-19 could have entered the human population due to a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and other origins theories such as zoonotic transmission and spillover.

“It is critical to understand the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic so the United States can better prepare, prevent and respond to pandemic health threats in the future,” the bill states. “Given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on all Americans, the American people deserve to know what information the United States possesses about the origins of COVID-19, as appropriate.”

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Chinese Coca-Cola Scientist Stole Trade Secrets, Committed ‘Economic Espionage’

Admin
Coca-Cola

A Chinese-born chemist who worked for Coca-Cola was found guilty Thursday of multiple spying-related charges including economic espionage and stealing trade secrets.

Xiaorong You, a Chinese-born American citizen, stole trade secrets related to the development of the bisphenol-A-free (BPA-free) coating found within soda cans and used it to start a new company in China, which subsequently received millions of dollars from the Chinese government in grants, the Department of Justice announced Thursday. The BPA-free technology trade secrets that You stole was worth almost $120 million.

Documents and evidence presented during You’s 12-day trial showed that she intended to benefit the Chinese Communist Party, the DOJ said. Dow Chemical, PPG Industries, Sherwin Williams and other major U.S. chemical corporations had developed the BPA-free technology that You stole.

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Another Professor Indicted for Receiving Secret Support from China

Admin

A professor at Southern Illinois University received an indictment for concealing his support from the Chinese government.

According to a United States Department of Justice press release, Mingqing Xiao — who teaches mathematics at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale — “fraudulently obtained $151,099 in federal grant money from the National Science Foundation (NSF) by concealing support he was receiving from the Chinese government and a Chinese university.”

Accordingly, he was charged with two counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement. He faces the possibility of twenty-year sentences for each of the former, as well as a five-year sentence for the latter. All three charges are punishable by fines of up to $250,000 each.

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Vanita Gupta, Former Obama DOJ Official and Civil Rights Lawyer, Narrowly Confirmed as Associate Attorney General

Admin
Vanita Gupta

The Senate confirmed civil rights lawyer Vanita Gupta to be the Associate Attorney General Wednesday.

Gupta, who will be the third-ranking official at the Department of Justice, was confirmed 51-49, with Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski joining all 50 Democrats voting in favor.

“I have looked at her record, I have had an extensive sit down with her,” Murkowski said before the vote. “I am impressed with her credentials … and the passion that she carries with her with the work that she performs.”

Murkowski acknowledged Gupta’s confirmation was contentious, but said her passion was “impactful.”

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Apple, Retail Groups Continue Lobbying Congress on Chinese Slave Labor Bill

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Apple storefront

Apple and several retail trade groups continued lobbying policymakers in the first quarter of this year on a bill to prohibit American firms from using Chinese forced labor, according to disclosures filed with Congress this week.

Apple paid Fierce Government Relations, a Washington, D.C. firm, $90,000 to lobby the House and Senate on multiple pieces of legislation, including the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, according to Fierce’s lobbying disclosure filing.

The tech giant also paid $90,000 to Invariant LLC, another Beltway-based firm, to work on several bills and to monitor “legislative action on workforce and supply chains in China.”

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Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative Draws Concern Over Lowering Academic Standards

Eric Burk

A proposed Virginia Mathematics Pathways Initiative (VMPI) has Republicans concerned after Loudoun County School Board member Ian Serotkin warned about the plan on Facebook, first reported by Fox News. Serotkin wrote that there are some good things in the initiative, like enabling students to take calculus in high school. But Serotkin also warned that the VMPI would end math acceleration before 11th grade.

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Commentary: Seven Wild Examples of Congress’s Corrupt 2020 Earmarks, Exposed

Admin
Capitol with money around it

A fight is raging in Congress over proposals to restore the practice of spending “earmarks,” small provisions slipped into spending bills quietly authorizing millions for local projects and special interests. But a new report reminds us that despite a “ban” on earmarks being implemented in 2011, the practice never fully went away. 

Published by the advocacy group Citizens Against Government Waste, the 2021 Congressional Pig Book exposes 285 earmarks from fiscal year 2020, totaling $16.8 billion. Here are 7 wild examples of corrupt earmarks the new report exposes.

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Rebecca Bynum of Nashville’s New English Review Press Talks Next Book, Stones of Contention by Timothy Ives

Julie Carr

Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed CEO and Editor in Chief of local publisher New England Review Press Rebecca Bynum in studio to discuss her new book coming out in May called Stones of Contention by Timothy Ives which deals with the current debate of stone formations found in a New England forest.

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