Working with the legislature, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) delivered a record-setting $765 million budget for teachers in the Sunshine State.
“These investments include $550 million to continue elevating minimum teacher salaries, as well as $215 million to provide all of Florida’s eligible public school principals and teachers with $1,000 disaster relief payments,” a press release from the governor’s office said.
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U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist (D-13) leads all Florida Democrats in the 2022 gubernatorial primary in a recently released St. Pete Polls survey. In the poll, Crist came away with 55 percent of respondents, while likely candidate and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried only drew 22 percent.
Only 11 percent of voters are supporting other candidates and 12 percent are undecided.
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The Biden Administration didn’t give The Tennessee Star any specifics about the unaccompanied migrant children being imported into the state. They didn’t disclose which companies they contracted to transport the children.
In response to a request for specifics concerning one of several midnight flights from earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) relayed to The Star the basic objectives of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).
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A judge in Georgia is temporarily stopping the audit on absentee ballots in Fulton County, Georgia that was allowed earlier last week.
Henry County Superior Court Judge Brian Amero, the same judge who granted the initial audit, ruled as officials within the county have filed numerous motions in an attempt to stop the audit.
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One in five Tennessee public school students from across six districts were chronically absent last year during the pandemic. Vanderbilt University’s Tennessee Education Research Alliance (TERA) discovered this during a study of around 150,000 students across about 250 schools. They also discovered that the majority of chronic absenteeism cases occurred among English Learners, minority students, and economically disadvantaged students. The state classifies 10 percent or more of classes missed as chronic absence.
Nowhere did the report mention which six districts were studied. The Tennessee Star asked TERA spokespersons which districts they’d researched. They didn’t respond by press time. TERA noted that these districts’ chronic absenteeism rates have been climbing since 2018, but they’d jumped significantly last year with virtual learning.
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In the months leading up to November’s election, voting officials in major cities and counties worked with a progressive group funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and its allies to create ballots, strategically target voters and develop “cure” letters in situations where mail-in ballots were in danger of being tossed out.
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National Guard troops are slated to decamp from Capitol Hill this week, nearly five months after thousands were deployed to safeguard Congress amid fears of further unrest after the violent Jan. 6 insurrection.
Personnel will fully depart the U.S. Capitol grounds this week, military officials and congressional aides said Monday, nearly five months after thousands were deployed to safeguard Congress allegedly over fears of unrest after the Jan. 6 reported “attempted insurrection” by former President Trump supporters, Politico reported.
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Republican Governors from across the country traveled to the Volunteer State this week for a series of multi-day meetings and presentations.
The Nashville event has allowed hundreds of people to attend the conference, as this is the first major event the organization has held since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Mayor of Maury County, Andy Ogles to the studio to give more details on MuleFest coming to downtown Columbia this Friday.
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A Chinese Communist Party-controlled news outlet paid major newspapers and magazines over $1.95 million between November and April to run advertisements stylized as news stories, according to a Justice Department disclosure filed Monday.
Time Magazine received $700,000 from the outlet, China Daily, for “advertisement expenses” during the six-month time period, the filing revealed. The Chinese propaganda outlet also paid a combined $1.26 million for advertisements in The Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, The Globe and Mail and the Financial Times during the timeframe, according to the filing.
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In the 4 months since the Democrats took control in Washington, never once have they indicated they understand the severity of the crisis on our southern border—a feat that requires a thick set of blinders.
In April, Customs and Border Protection apprehended more than 178,000 people trying to illegally cross our border. Almost 14,000 of them were unaccompanied children or single minors. Drug seizures were up 6% from March, and we’ve already seized more fentanyl this year than we did all last year. On top of all that, law enforcement officials are still catching smugglers trying to pass off counterfeit face masks, prohibited COVID test kits, and banned pharmaceuticals.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Star News Network’s Washington Correspondent Neil McCabe to the newsmakers line to discuss Vish Burra and the Hunter Biden laptop presentation and the MSM’s continued disinterest.
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A Border Patrol agent was arrested in Laredo, Texas, Friday after allegedly smuggling illegal migrants into the U.S., Customs and Border Protection announced Tuesday.
Border Patrol Agent Rodney Tolson, Jr. was routinely assigned to lane inspections at an interior checkpoint where he allegedly conspired to transport and smuggle illegal migrants into the U.S. for payment from around Feb. 9, 2020, through March 26, 2019, according to an indictment.
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Former State Rep. Joe Carr, currently running for Rutherford County mayor, disclosed certain people accused him of harassment while he worked at a state agency, but he described the allegations as “a big nothingburger.” Carr addressed these allegations in a nearly 1,200 word post on Facebook Tuesday.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to weigh in on the current Rasmussen poll that breaks down systemic racism and the potential for the secession of states.
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee- Life Promotions, organizers of the nation’s largest, family-friendly, music festival, Lifest, is thrilled to bring a new event to the Nashville area, Lifest Music City. This inaugural festival will be hosted July 29-31, 2021 at Hideaway Farm, the former home of country music legend Johnny Cash in Bon Aqua, Tennessee. This scenic farm was the center of Johnny’s universe for over 30 years and is just a short drive from Nashville.
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Every day I read online about systemic racism, transgender issues, President Joe Biden’s latest faux pas, and other American social ills.
All well and good. I’ve written about some of these same issues as well. But are we elevating the trivial at the expense of the significant? Many of our citizens are focused on the ongoing cultural battle over subjects such as racism and transgender athletes.
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In a recent Newsweek article, senior reporter Jason Lemon alleges there is “significant data showing” that the U.S. is plagued by “systemic racism.” As evidence of this, he claims the “NAACP found that from 2017 to 2020, Black men were five times more likely than white people to be stopped by law enforcement without a valid reason.”
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Andy Ogles in studio who talked about growing frustration from conservatives around Tennessee and the transgender bathroom bill.
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President Joe Biden has funneled nearly 20 times as much taxpayer money to the abortion industry as Barack Obama had at this point in his presidency, according to an analysis by a leading pro-life organization.
In office for only four months, Biden has directed almost $500 billion in federal funding to the abortion industry through legislation and executive action, in some cases bypassing longstanding restrictions that prevented taxpayer dollars from directly paying for abortion.
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On Tuesday, the United States Senate confirmed one of Joe Biden’s most controversial federal nominees, Kristen Clarke, to a key leadership post in the Department of Justice, as reported by the Daily Caller.
Clarke was confirmed as head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division with 51 votes, when Republican Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) sided with the chamber’s 50 Democrats to confirm her nomination. As previously reported, her nomination originally stalled in the Judiciary Committee after the committee vote to advance her nomination ended in a tie, before Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) brought the motion to a full floor vote to advance it out of the committee.
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On Tuesday, the Republican Governors Association (RGA) reportedly ejected MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell from their spring conference in Nashville.
Lindell claimed that he’d been invited to the event; his spokespersons didn’t respond to The Star about these claims. Earlier that same day, Lindell announced publicly on Steve Bannon’s show, War Room Pandemic, that he would confront Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp over the election.
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Administrators within the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) are calling on students to report — anonymously — any acts of bias, discrimination, harassment, or intimidation motivated by prejudice. LCPS spokesman Wayde Byard told The Virginia Star Wednesday that students may use what they call the Share, Speak Up, Speak Out: Bias Reporting Form to report instances of prejudice or bias.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Rutherford County Mayoral candidate Joe Carr to the
newsmakers line to announce his candidacy and why he’s running.
Booksellers are scheduled to release a book later this year that Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan wrote about reforming the Republican Party, but details about how much money Duncan will make were unavailable Wednesday. Members of Duncan’s staff as well as publishers at the New York-based Simon and Schuster did not return The Georgia Star News’ emailed requests for comment before Wednesday’s stated deadline.
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The Commonwealth Forward PAC is a new Democratic PAC founded to fight lobbyists and corporate interests, even within the Democratic Party, and is funded primarily by $525,000 from the Michael Bills-funded Clean Virginia Fund. Bills has donated $3 million to the fund in 2021, according to the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP.)
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Virginia’s State Board for Community Colleges (VCCS) wants officials at Dabney S. Lancaster Community College (DSLCC) and Patrick Henry Community College (PHCC) to revisit decisions to not change their names, according to a press release. According to PHCC Board Chair Janet Copenhaver, the VCCS board will change the name if the PHCC board does not.
“They sent us a letter back last week saying that they voted unanimously not to accept that name and that we had ‘x’ amount of time to come up with a new name or they would rename it.
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Business, political, and religious leaders are urging Florida Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott to take up immigration reform legislation which would add security to around 490,000 immigrants in Florida.
Democratic Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said at a panel hosted by the American Business Immigration Coalition he is urging Florida’s senators to take up bipartisan legislation offering a pathway to citizenship for children, brought here by illegal aliens, classified under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status. Dyer noted almost 20 percent of Orlando population was born in another country and their status as workers drives Central Florida’s economy.
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Ohio has continued to see an increase in vaccination rates across all age groups following the announcement of the Vax-a-Million program, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said this week.
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Florida State University has settled a lawsuit filed by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) on behalf of Jack Denton, the former Student Senate President who was removed from his role for criticizing Black Lives Matter.
After the death of George Floyd, Denton advised fellow students in a Catholic group chat not to donate to Black Lives Matter, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or Reclaim the Block, leftist organizations who support anti-Catholic teachings.
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Chris Harvey, the elections director within the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, has decided to leave the agency for a different position.
Harvey oversaw the 2020 elections and was responsible for implementing a new voting system and machines in the state of Georgia.
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Just 14 months after the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Michigan House approved a bill that requires the government reimburse private businesses for COVID-19 fines based on restrictions that were found unconstitutional.
The vote was 74-34.
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President Joe Biden is traveling to Cleveland, Ohio to deliver a speech on his economic efforts since taking office earlier this year.
At his address at Cuyahoga Community College, Biden is expected to claim the solution to the country’s economic setback is his massive “infrastructure” plan — dubbed the “American Jobs Plan” — and the coronavirus “relief” bill passed earlier this year.
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Heading into Memorial Day weekend, Floridians can expect for gas prices to decrease for the first time in over three weeks after the attack on the Colonial Pipeline.
While the majority of the state receives gas from the multiple ports on Florida’s coast, the disruption of the pipeline caused widespread panic-buying among the parts of the state that do use it, which in turn caused gas prices to increase as demand was high and there was limited supply.
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The former lead prosecutor assigned to the case of ex-Brooklyn Center Police officer Kimberly Potter has resigned, citing partisan politics and casting doubt on whether justice can be effectively pursued in today’s political climate.
Prosecuting attorney Imran Ali wrote the following in resignation letter:
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The Ohio legislature has become the latest to propose a law that would ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory to children in public schools.
House Bill 322 would prohibit the teaching of all of the following, according to the state House’s website:
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The Biden Administration responded through White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki last Friday concerning reports of migrant children being flown into Tennessee. Psaki offered some remarks – though she refused to answer whether the Biden Administration purposefully ignored Tennessee leaders’ wishes when it came to housing migrant children.
During Friday’s White House Daily Briefing, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy pressed Psaki about how the Biden Administration appeared to ignore Governor Bill Lee’s decision to decline housing unaccompanied migrant children in Tennessee.
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Members of Tennessee Stands told supporters in a newsletter this week that Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is weak on immigration and refugee resettlement issues. “We have a crisis at the border and it’s undeniable. And while there are many areas we could point to regarding the Lee administration where things are not always what they seem, one of the most glaring for most of his time in office has been immigration and refugee resettlement. Lee is weak on enforcing a conservative immigration policy and has a propensity to use the guise of Christianity to support refugees pouring into our state,” according to the newsletter.
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The Tennessee Star discovered that unaccompanied migrant children were flown May 11 on a commercial flight – three days before flights documented by initial breaking news. Previous reports discovered that the unaccompanied migrant children were flown into a private airport on May 14 – Chattanooga’s Wilson Air Center. It is unclear how many other flights carrying migrant children came into Tennessee prior to these documented incidents on May 11 and 14. A source who was on the flight informed The Star that they encountered a man chaperoning 10 to 15 migrant children between the ages of 10 and 14 onto an American Airlines flight. The chaperone was described as a bilingual Hispanic male wearing street clothes, speaking fluent Spanish to the children and English to the source – he’d chatted with our source for around 45 minutes at a ticket counter. The chaperone informed our source that he was “escorting all these young men to Chattanooga for a shelter.” The group of migrant children reportedly had new-looking cell phones, clothes, shoes, and backpacks. The source added that some of the children were playing games or talking in Spanish on their phones.
The group of migrant children and their chaperone reportedly boarded the plane first and went to the back of the plane. They flew from Dallas Fort Worth Airport to Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport, also known as Lovell Field on American Airlines flight number 3901. They arrived around 1 a.m. EDT on May 12.
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The journey of Central American migrants to the U.S. border—a perilous trip across thousands of miles of mountains and deserts—starts in places like the dry corridor in western Honduras.
Many of the region’s one million small farmers still live in adobe huts with no running water. Corrupt Honduran officials have invested too little in stabilizing or modernizing the region, allowing violent gangs to extort families. Recent droughts and hurricanes have created widespread hunger.
These longstanding problems throughout Central America are driving the current crisis on the southern U.S. border, where more than 170,000 migrants arrived in March in search of jobs and asylum. As the Biden Administration grapples with this mounting surge, it’s proposing a $4 billion long-term plan (the biggest ever for the region) to attack the root causes of migration—corruption, violence, and poverty—in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
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An apparent drive-by shooting at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis was caught live by news cameras Tuesday morning, as Black Lives Matter supporters gathered to observe the one-year anniversary of Floyd’s death in police hands.
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Tennessee will be celebrating 225 years of statehood under the theme “Untold Tennessee,” starting on its founding date – June 1. The very first celebrations for Tennessee Statehood Day will take place that day at Nashville’s Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, Knoxville’s Blount Mansion, and a live music performance in historic downtown Jonesborough. Following that, Governor Bill Lee will embark on a 95-county tour, visiting each grand division throughout June.
At Nashville’s Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, the Tennessee State Museum will unveil a new, self-guided tour and online exhibition of 100 artifacts representing art, community, innovation, service, and transformation. The museum will maintain this exhibit until May 31 of next year. Knoxville’s Blount Mansion will commemorate the 55 men who pushed for Tennessee’s statehood with a parade from the nearby James White’s Fort to the mansion, historical reenactments, and remarks from Lee and other state leaders. Historic sites surrounding the museum continue to celebrate with a months-long series of special events. In historic downtown Jonesborough, Country Hall of Fame members The Oak Ridge Boys will perform after a speech from Lee at the Washington County Courthouse.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles in studio to describe more of the events to take place at this weekend’s MuleFest in Downtown Columbia.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Roger Simon and MauryCounty Mayor Andy Ogles in studio to discuss the hypocritical example that elite power-mad politicians continue to display.
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A Trump administration commission tasked with promoting “patriotic education” is calling on the Biden administration to withdraw a proposal to fund history and civics programs informed by critical race theory (CRT).
The 1776 Commission met in D.C. Monday despite being disbanded by President Biden on his first day in office. It published its final report just two days before the presidential transfer of power.
The proposed federal rule would prioritize funding for history and civics curricula that consider “systemic marginalization, biases, inequities, and discriminatory policy and practice in American history” and incorporate “racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives.” It favorably cites Boston University professor Ibram Kendi, the foremost popularizer of “anti-racism,” and the New York Times’ 1619 Project.
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An “avalanche” of “expanding and accelerating” demographic forces is driving global birth rates down at alarming rates, demographers warned The New York Times.
“A paradigm shift is necessary,” German demographer Frank Swiaczny, former United Nations chief of population trends and analysis, told the Times. “Countries need to learn to live with and adapt to decline.”
The publication described ghost cities in northeastern China, South Korean universities scrambling for students, hundreds of thousands of demolished properties in Germany, and shut down maternity wards in Italy, and warned that countries like Hungary, China, Sweden and Japan are already pushing to balance the combination of “swelling” older populations with the needs of young people.
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Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration has rescinded the rule that Whitmer broke over the weekend.
Whitmer apologized Sunday after photos posted over the weekend showed her dining with at least a dozen others at The Landshark Bar & Grill in East Lansing, Michigan. Breitbart News first reported the news on Sunday.
Michigan’s May 15 order formerly mandated that no more than six people may be seated at the same table, and the governor has faced heavy criticism throughout the pandemic for strict COVID restrictions that have forced many Michigan restaurants and businesses to shutter their doors.
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The corporate press spent much of the pandemic dismissing the theory that COVID-19 could have accidentally leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology because former President Donald Trump talked about it, according to Washington Post senior reporter Aaron Blake.
“It has become evident that some corners of the mainstream media overcorrected when it came to one particular theory from Trump and his allies: that the coronavirus emanated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, rather than naturally,” Blake wrote in an analysis piece published Monday. “It’s also true that many criticisms of the coverage are overwrought and that Trump’s and his allies’ claims invited and deserved skepticism.”
Blake explained that the media was justified in being skeptical of the lab leak theory because Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had leaned in “hard” to the theory without providing “even piecemeal evidence” to support their claims.
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Congressman Mark Green (R-TN-07) was the featured speaker along with Americans For Prosperity (AFP) President Tim Phillips at an “End Washington Waste” event hosted by AFP-Tennessee Monday evening.
The discussion focused on President Joe Biden’s $4 trillion infrastructure proposal, which was called out several times throughout the evening for being a “tax and spend” bill.
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As economic figures cast doubt on a post-COVID economic boom, the latest polling data show Americans lack confidence in the economy under President Joe Biden.
New polling data released by Gallup Monday shows Americans are not confident in the economy and are largely unhappy with the nation’s current trajectory.
The poll found only 36% of Americans are “satisfied with the way things are going.” Specifically on the economy, Americans also are pessimistic.
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