Georgia gubernatorial candidate Vernon Jones said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is suing Georgia unfairly for its new voting law when officials in other states impose the same standards upon their voters. U.S. Justice Department officials announced last week they will sue the Peach State over its new voting law Senate Bill 202.
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Two of the largest companies in the daily fantasy sports industry, DraftKings and FanDuel, are backing a political committee’s efforts to legalize sports betting. The political committee, Florida Education Champions, is proposing an amendment that will allow sports betting at professional sports venues, pari-mutual facilities and through online platforms. The amendment would also raise money for education.
The amendment, as detailed on the Division of Elections website, states that if betting revenues are taxed, the monies would be required to go to the state Educational Enhancement Trust Fund.
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The first street in the United States to be named after a “Drag Queen” will be located in Nashville, Tennessee, naming the road “Bianca Paige Way.”
The city held a dedication ceremony on Saturday after the measure was approved by the Nashville metro council earlier last week.
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U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) wants the nationwide permit for the proposed Byhalia Connection Pipeline rescinded, and this week he took the matter up with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Cohen told the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that the pipeline endangers his constituents in Memphis.
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For nearly two decades, allegations of organ harvesting in communist China have emerged. Today, China’s organ transplant trade is estimated to be a $1 billion industry, reportedly fueled by the exploitation of “prisoners of conscience.”
After conducting an investigation, a seven-member international and independent China Tribunal issued a judgement in December 2018. The judgment concluded, “The Tribunal’s members are certain – unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt – that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims.”
China’s organ transplant industry began to increase dramatically in 2000. Hundreds of hospitals offered transplants, thousands of transplant surgeons were trained, transplant research was conducted by the military, and the immunosuppressant industry was subsidized by the state.
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The Republican Study Committee is urging the GOP to “lean into the culture war” as a “winning” issue, according to an internal strategy memo obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
RSC Chairman Jim Banks sent the memo Thursday to approximately 154 Republicans urging his colleagues to fight back against the ideology of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the “racial essentialism” that it teaches. Banks wrote that Republicans believe “individuals should be judged based on the contents of their character, not their skin,” and that America’s institution should be “colorblind, just as our Constitution is colorblind.”
“Here’s the good news,” the RSC chairman told his colleagues. “We are winning.”
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Protesters criticized Vice President Kamala Harris at the southern U.S. border this week as she made her first, long-delayed trip there as the Biden administration’s pointwoman for addressing the illegal immigration crisis.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top infections disease expert, resisted a directive from President Trump to cancel a research grant for a non-profit that was linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to a new book detailing the Trump administration’s handling of COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump issued a directive to Fauci and the National Institutes of Health in April 2020 to cut funding for a study examining how coronaviruses jump from infected bats to humans after it was reportedly linked to the lab in Wuhan, suspected of having leaked the virus.
The exchange between Fauci and the White House is detailed in an upcoming book by Washington Post reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta called “Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History,” according to Fox News.
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Vice President Kamala Harris is so out of touch with the illegal immigration crisis, Republicans argue, that she’s visiting the wrong part of the Texas border.
Ahead of Harris’ Friday tour of the El Paso Border Patrol Central Processing Center, Texas U.S. senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz implied that she didn’t know what she was doing.
Cornyn said Harris was going to the wrong place, posting a map on Twitter of where she should be going – the areas where the flow of illegal immigration is the heaviest – the Rio Grande Valley Sector.
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The World Health Organization predicts that vulnerable people will need yearly COVID-19 vaccine boosters and the everyday population will need shots every two years, according to an internal document, Reuters reported Thursday.
The document, Reuters reported, is an assessment set to be discussed Thursday at a board meeting of Gavi, a public-private partnership between health agencies, pharmaceutical companies, research institutions and non-profit organizations. The assessment recommends vulnerable people, such as the elderly, receive annual COVID-19 vaccine boosters, and the general population receive boosters every two years.
The document said boosters were necessary due to the emergence of new COVID-19 variants, and that vaccines would need to be regularly updated, according to Reuters, though the document did not show how these conclusions were reached.
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Tennessee’s role as a center for creating electric vehicles continues to expand.
On Tuesday, NOVONIX announced a $160 million expansion that is expected to create 290 new jobs at its Chattanooga manufacturing facility.
Since March 2017, NOVONIX has made anodes through its PUREgraphite brand. Anodes are a negative electrode used in creating lithium-ion batteries, specifically those used in electric vehicles.
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President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management helped a wealthy land developer secure county approval to build a neighborhood subdivision in 2006. Two years later, while working as a staffer for Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, the nominee received a below-market rate personal loan from the same developer.
The nominee, Tracy Stone-Manning, reported in her financial disclosure that in 2020 she paid off a $50,000 to $100,000 personal loan she had received from the Montana land developer, Stuart Goldberg, in 2008 at a 6% interest rate, which was about half the going rate of a personal loan at the time, according to federal reserve data. The American Accountability Foundation, a conservative watchdog group, said the terms of the loan raised “serious questions” about whether it constituted an “impermissible gift” to Stone-Manning in violation of Senate ethics rules.
Amid questions about the loan during her confirmation hearing in June, Stone-Manning described Goldberg as a friend who stepped in to help her family during the 2008 financial crisis.
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Anti-nuclear activist groups like the so-called Physicians for Social Responsibility, Ploughshares, Union of Concerned Scientists, Federation of American Scientists, and others criticize the U.S. and national security professionals for supposedly wrongly “demonizing” Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Hypocritically, these same anti-nuclear activists routinely “demonize” the U.S. national security community and any President and Congress that wants to modernize the U.S. nuclear deterrent to prevent World War III. More than one anti-nuclear activist has called me and my colleagues the “root of all evil” because we will not “give peace a chance” by engaging recklessly in yet another dangerously irresponsible act of unilateral disarmament—like banning U.S. ICBMs.
Maybe you have no idea how many times the U.S. has “given peace a chance” with consequences that make nuclear war more likely?
Under the Presidential Nuclear Initiative (PNI), the U.S. unilaterally reduced tactical nuclear weapons from 15,000 to 180. But Russia cheated on the PNI and now has at least a 10-to-1 advantage. (See Dr. Mark Schneider, “Russian Nuclear Force Expansion and the Failure of Arms Control” RealClearDefense October 24, 2019.)
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A federal judge in Florida temporarily halted President Joe Biden’s $4 billion debt relief program exclusively for farmers of color, saying in a Wednesday order that the program was racially discriminatory.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard sided with Scott Wynn, a Florida-based white farmer who sued to block the program in May. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) program was originally passed in March as part of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, with the intention of providing relief to “socially disadvantaged farmers.”
“Section 1005’s rigid, categorical, race-based qualification for relief is the antithesis of flexibility,” Howard wrote. “The debt relief provision applies strictly on racial grounds irrespective of any other factor.”
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee- Until I started writing this column, I had no idea of Canadian musicians’ influence on the country music industry. Country music is as big in Canada as it is in America. Tebey is a prime example.
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The Michigan Senate voted 19-16 to approve House Bill 4434, which aims to end the state’s participation in boosted $300/week federal unemployment program.
Republicans have argued the benefit hinders economic recovery 15 months after the pandemic started.
Business owners told lawmakers on June 17 they can’t find workers, even after hiking pay, signing bonuses, and flexible hours. Some industries have seen as many as 35% of workers not return post-COVID-19, leaving some gas stations wondering if they’ll get enough gas.
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U.S. Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA-12) asked U.S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona about school choice, but Cardona’s answers displeased the congressman, who later said the secretary “would rather prioritize schools over students.” Allen said this in a newsletter he emailed this week to his constituents.
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Earlier this week, the Florida Board of Governors (BOG) officially tapped Harvard Vice Provost for Research, Richard McCullough, as the next president at Florida State University (FSU).
He was confirmed by the board to succeed outgoing president John Thrasher and will be starting with a base salary of $700,000 per year with a car allowance up to $1,000 per month.
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The Minnesota House approved the housing budget on a vote of 72-59.
The $125 million measure aims to fund a plethora of programs to create more affordable and stable housing.
Included in the budget is an off-ramp to the eviction moratorium.
Renters can only be evicted for “seriously endangering” another tenant or property or who is eligible for renter’s assistance but won’t apply.
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Mesa Public Schools (MPS) is looking to adopt more equitable changes to their dress code policy – details of which the governing board hasn’t shared. The MPS Governing Board didn’t respond to request for comment from The Arizona Sun Times by press time – their communications staff told The Sun Times that district offices closed on Friday.
This week, MPS introduced a revamped policy that specifies certain, explicit restrictions, such as an outright ban on clothing that depicts “hate speech,” and limits any enforcement that might “reinforce or increase marginalization or repression of any group,” such as gender identity or expression and body type or size.
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The Virginia Police Benevolent Association (VPBA) blasted the Democrat Party’s candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, after none of them showed up to a candidate screening event Thursday.
“We are concerned and surprised that none of the Democratic candidates were willing to meet with our representatives and discuss issues that are important to our members,” Sean McGowan, executive director of the VBPA reportedly said. “This is the first time in the history of the Virginia PBA that an entire ticket refused to meet with our law enforcement representatives.”
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Governor DeSantis announced the deployment of Florida law enforcement officials and equipment to provide assistance to the border crisis presented in a joint letter by Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey.
Over 50 Officials from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), Florida Highway Patrol (FHP), and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have already made their way to Texas.
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The Vatican did not tell bishops not to move forward drafting a document on the Eucharist, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops clarified this week.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vox and multiple other outlets have claimed that the bishops were flouting a Vatican warning when they approved a measure June 18 to draft a statement on the Eucharist.
In a document issued June 21, the USCCB explicitly said that the Vatican did not tell the bishops not to move forward with the document.
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A bill signed into law by Governor DeSantis will establish a new workforce program in Florida that will focus on creating a network of employment resources for students while they are in school.
The bill, HB 1507, aims to create an easier transition for students who do not plan on taking the college route to gain successful careers.
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An Ohio lawmaker believes it’s now more important to make it easier for teachers to have guns in the classroom following an Ohio Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that school districts must require police-level training for employees to be armed.
Rep. Thomas Hall, R-Madison Township, introduced legislation in April that requires school employees to complete only concealed carry weapon training to carry a gun on campus.
In a 4-3 ruling, the court sided with a group of Madison Local Schools parents who sued the district in September 2018 to stop teachers from being armed without extensive training, including more than 700 hours of peace officer training. Madison Local Schools adopted a policy that required only 24 hours of training before staff could carry a concealed weapon.
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WELLINGTON, Ohio – The 45th President of the United States Donald Trump told The Star News Network in an exclusive interview after a rally at the Lorain County Fairgrounds on Saturday, “There’s no more important issue than the 2020 election.”
“People ask about the 2022 and 2024 elections, but we can’t wait until then,” Trump said, referring to policies and decisions by the Biden administration he said is leading to the destruction of the country.
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Tennessee ranks as one of the top states in the nation in terms of how it funds its pension systems, according to a report that the Arlington, Virginia-based American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) released this week. ALEC officials titled their report Unaccountable and Unaffordable, 2020. This annual report collects and analyzes each state’s unfunded public pension liabilities. The report finds state governments’ unfunded liabilities total $5.82 trillion nationwide – an average of $17,748 per person.
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WELLINGTON, Ohio – Former President Donald Trump will be delivering remarks at his first post-presidential rally Saturday, June 26 at the Lorain County Fairgrounds in Wellington, Ohio, about 40 miles southwest of Cleveland.
About 24 hours prior to the 7 p.m. start of the rally on Saturday, Wellington with its many Victorian-style homes and historic structures on the square was relatively bustling for a village of about 5,000 people.
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More evidence to confirm what many Republican lawmakers and free-market advocates such as Americans for Limited Government were saying from the start of the Covid pandemic, lockdowns would be one of the most tragic mistakes in American history.
The Rand Corporation and economists from the University of Southern California have released a new study examining the effectiveness of pandemic lockdowns, using data from 43 countries and all 50 US states.
“We fail to find that shelter-in-place policies saved lives,” the authors report. In the weeks following the implementation of these policies, excess mortality actually increases—even though it had typically been declining before the orders took effect.
And across all countries, the study finds that a one-week increase in the length of stay-at-home policies corresponds with 2.7 more excess deaths per 100,000 people.
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A biologically male runner has been banned from the women’s 400-meter Olympic hurdle event because the runner did not meet the World Athletics conditions on testosterone levels.
“CeCe [Telfer] has turned her focus towards the future and is continuing to train,” the transgender athlete’s manager said, the Associated Press reported, adding that Telfer will respect the decision. “She will compete on the national — and world — stage again soon.”
Transgender runner Telfer won the NCAA title competing for a women’s team in 2019, according to the AP.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Behind the Headlines host Karyn Turk to the newsmaker line to discuss her background and involvement in Clay Clark’s ReAwaken America Tour.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss the concept of the battered republican syndrome and the falsities of the current and past Democrat administrations.
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A majority of respondents believe that the federal government should push policies that reduce income inequality in the United States, according to a poll released Friday by Axios.
The Axios poll shows 66% of respondents say the government should work to lower the level of income distributed unevenly, up 4% compared to 2019.
Republicans surveyed who agreed the government should tackle income inequality increased by 5%, and Independents who responded similarly increased by 2%, according to the poll. Democrats saw an increase of 7% in favor of such policies compared to 2019.
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A key index used by the Federal Reserve to measure inflation showed that consumer prices leapt quicker over the last 12 months than they have in three decades.
The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index surged 3.9% in the 12-month period between June 2020 and May, according to the Department of Commerce report released Friday. The PCE index excluding volatile food and energy prices increased 3.4%, the biggest leap since the 1990s, CNBC reported.
Energy prices increased 27.4% while food prices increased 0.4% over the last 12 months, the report showed.
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Healthy Tennessee, a non-profit organization founded by Vanderbilt orthopedic trauma surgeon and former candidate for U.S. Senate Dr. Manny Sethi, will hold a free health fair and food distribution on July 17.
The Murfreesboro event will take place at Patterson Park Community Center and will provide free health screenings, educational information, and healthy living products for all attendees.
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Just 14 states saw positive employment growth between April and May while the majority of the growth was concentrated in a handful of states, according to the Department of Labor.
Fourteen states led by California, Florida and Texas experienced significant job growth, 35 states experienced stagnant job growth and Wyoming saw a decline in employment last month, according to a Department of Labor report released Wednesday. Overall, the unemployment rates in 21 states decreased between April and May while every state’s employment improved compared to May 2020.
While the U.S. continues to report increased job growth, the report showed that the vast majority of the growth has come from about a dozen states.
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Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said Thursday that opposition to Critical Race Theory is “rooted in racism.”
“Opposition to critical race theory is obviously rooted in racism and has just become the newest dog whistle for racists,” the Michigan Democrat tweeted Thursday, referring to a video in which Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley defended Critical Race Theory to the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday.
CRT holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet it teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit, objective truth and the adoption of race-based polici
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Hong Kong’s pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, sold out all 1 million copies of its final edition by 8:30 a.m. Thursday, according to the Associated Press.
The newspaper has been a frequent critic of Chinese and Hong Kong authorities trying to suppress democratic sentiment and the freedoms of the semi-autonomous city, the AP reported. The newspaper was forced to close its doors after it said police froze $2.3 million of its assets, searched its office and arrested five executives and editors last week for alleged foreign collusion, in violation of Beijing’s national security law.
The arrests were the first time the law has been used against journalists for their work, the AP reported. Apple Daily was the last pro-democracy print newspaper in Hong Kong. Its owner, Jimmy Lai has been arrested multiple times and sentenced to 14 months in prison for involvement with the pro-democracy demonstrations.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to discuss recent negotiations that praised bipartisanship and defined the parameters of humanity.
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Since the Biden Administration assumed power in January, many Americans could be forgiven for feeling like they’re being held hostage, tied up in the trunk of a car, and driven to a place they do not want to go. Nowhere is this more evident than on the immigration problem, where Biden has reversed numerous policies that kept American safe, and it seems he has done so for no other reason than because Donald Trump is the one who put them in place.
Because he is beholden to the radical Left for his ascension to the White House, Biden predictably has adopted the usual anti-borders agenda including catch-and-release, demoralizing ICE, and defunding border wall construction. His expected next move, the reversal of Trump-era rules to prevent the spread of COVID-19 into the United States, is nothing short of political sabotage.
While COVID-19 may be on the decline in the United States, thanks in large part to the Trump Administration’s work on Operation Warp Speed, the same cannot be said for many of the poverty-stricken, underdeveloped countries from which those who most often show up at our doorstep originate. Just as our nation is turning the corner on a deadly global pandemic, it makes absolutely no sense at this moment to ease up on health restrictions on foreign nationals seeking entry. Only someone with Machiavellian political motives would propose such lunacy.
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Minnesota Judge Peter Cahill on Friday sentenced former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin to 22-and-a-half years in prison for the May 2020 murder of George Floyd.
A jury in April found Chauvin guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, at the conclusion of a three-week trial that gained national attention.
Cahill in announcing the sentence urged people to read the legal analysis on how he reached his decision and said the amount of time was not based on “emotion or sympathy.”
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to discuss Biden’s agenda to go after legal gun sellers.
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RomaDrama Live!, the celebrity event happening this summer in Franklin, right outside of Nashville, Tennessee, featuring actors best known for their roles in romantic dramas and seasonal programming on The Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, Netflix, and more, has announced newly added celebrities to the lineup.
Set to appear are Jesse Metcalfe (seen on Dancing with the Stars, Martha’s Vineyard Mystery, Chesapeake Shores, and Desperate Housewives), Wes Brown (The Call of the Wild, Christmas At Graceland, Love Begins) Teddy Sears (Christmas In Evergreen, The Flash), Rob Mayes (John Dies At The End, Burning Blue, The Road Home for Christmas), and Shawlini Manjunath-Holbrook (Love, Fall & Order and host and producer of the Hallmark Channel’s The Bubbly Sesh Podcast), who will serve as a celebrity host for the event.
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger reacted harshly Friday to news that U.S. Justice Department officials, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, will sue the Peach State over its new voting law Senate Bill 202. “The Biden Administration continues to do the bidding of Stacey Abrams and spreads more lies about Georgia’s election law,” Raffensperger said on Facebook Friday.
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Bipartisan bills in the Ohio state House and Senate would allow last school year’s high-school seniors to voluntarily re-enroll in the fall, allowing them a second chance after a school year decimated by COVID-19 lockdown measures.
“Under a measure introduced this week by GOP Sen. Andrew Brenner, of Delaware, and Democratic Sen. Teresa Fedor, of Toledo, students who just finished their senior year could re-enroll in 12th grade this fall to take the same classes and get another round of eligibility for sports,” Associated Press reported.
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It’s thought that there is a time capsule in the pedestal of the Robert E. Lee monument in Richmond. The Virginia Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether or not the state can remove the monument, and in an announcement earlier this week Governor Ralph Northam said they will open the capsule when the monument is removed. He also invited Virginians to suggest new artifacts for a replacement time capsule to be placed at the site.
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A recipient of former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program benefits was arrested by Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents Wednesday.
The suspect, a female citizen of El Salvador, along with a male counterpart who is a U.S. Citizen, were caught attempting to smuggle four Mexican nationals across the border illegally, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) press release said.
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162 Minnesota school principals have joined in an effort to decenter Whiteness, called Good (Trouble) Principals. Their website reads that the principals who commit to causing Good (Trouble) will work towards decentering witness by, “Understanding that traditional organized Whiteness ensures domination through forms like PTAs and Unions. We purposefully call out and lift up historically non-represented voices of color in our spaces to hold weight and power.”
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger this week said former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani told “untrue statements about Georgia’s election” and suggested New York state officials were correct to suspend Giuliani’s ability to practice law. Raffensperger said this in an emailed press release.
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The second autonomous zone in Uptown Minneapolis was the epicenter of another night of violence, despite law enforcement trying to keep the streets clear. The Uptown autonomous zone, or Boogie World, was established in early June after U.S. Marshals fatally shot a wanted man, Winston Smith.
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