President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Florida on Friday in response to a multi-story building collapsing in Miami-Dade County.
The declaration will allow FEMA to “coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures.”
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GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin rolled out a plan to combat human trafficking in Virginia. Youngkin’s plan calls for ramped up enforcement, survivor resources, and expanded education about human trafficking.
“When I am governor, we will not only bring the full weight of the law down on traffickers and buyers, we will also equip survivors to heal and flourish,” Youngkin said in a Thursday night stop in Falls Church.
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill on Thursday that will reverse the toll road expansion proposed earlier in the year.
The bill, SB 100, sent by the state legislature to DeSantis’s desk earlier this month will end the Multi-use Corridors of Regional Economic Significance (M-CORES) program and the specific provisions associated with it.
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The Republican-controlled Senate voted 25-5 Thursday to override Governor Doug Ducey’s veto of a bill that made technical corrections to previously enacted laws. Ducey vetoed SB1635 along with 21 other bills a month ago, following through on a threat he’d made in May over the legislature’s failing to send him a budget. It was the first time in 40 years, the Arizona Senate has overruled the governor.
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Republican members of the Ohio House of Representatives selected a new state legislator to replace former Speaker of the House Larry Householder — who was expelled from his position earlier this month.
The lawmakers selected Ohio State Highway Patrol staff Lt. Kevin Miller, one of 19 applicants — of which included Householder’s son — for the position and a resident of Franklin Township.
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) plans to sue the state of Georgia over its recently-enacted election integrity law, according to Friday reports.
SB 202, according to Washington Post, “discriminate[s] against Black Americans,” and is “is the first major voting rights case the Justice Department has filed under the Biden administration and comes as Republican-led state governments across the country have been seeking to impose broad new voting restrictions in the wake of President Biden’s victory over Donald Trump last November.”
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Tuesday was the deadline for candidates seeking an appointment to the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) to submit applications to the Florida Public Service Commission Nominating Council.
The Council will interview all the candidates and determine a select few for Governor Ron DeSantis to choose from in his decision to fill positions of two current members of the PSC, whose terms expire in January 2022.
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For several months, I have demanded that Governor Brian Kemp carry out a full forensic audit of Georgia’s ballots from the election last year. Growing evidence indicates that either fraud or gross negligence occurred that potentially swayed the result of the presidential election. But for one reason or another, Governor Kemp refuses to act. It’s long overdue for him to perform the job that he was elected to do. We simply can’t wait any longer.
On June 17, I held a press conference at the State Capitol in Atlanta exposing irregularities that occurred when ballots were tabulated in the presidential election. As the investigative news outlet Just The News reported, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger received a report in November that his office commissioned with a private contractor. The report exposed the disaster of the election in Fulton County.
Just The News reported that the contractor “recorded troubling behavior like the mysterious removal of a suitcase of sensitive election data known as polls pads, used to authenticate voters.” This contractor “also observed that sensitive election materials were left on a dock at a warehouse without supervision.” The full report documents troubling and revealing events that occurred throughout the entire process of Fulton County officials tabulating votes. It’s a disaster that should never happen again and should have never happened in the first place.
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PHOENIX, Arizona – Three Arizona House Republicans voted against an amendment to significantly expand school choice during Friday’s budget discussion. State Representatives Joel John (R-Buckeye), Michelle Udall (R-Mesa), and Joanne Osborne (R-Goodyear) all voted against the school choice legislation sponsored by State Representative Regina Cobb (R-Kingman) as amended by State Representative Shawnna Bolick (R-Phoenix).
HB 2898 as amended under Bolick would have added 14 provisions addressing Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program. In part, Bolick’s amendment would have opened up children of veterans and children in free or reduced-price lunch programs to ESAs, decreased the amount of time students must attend government schools full-time to be eligible for ESAs, allowed ESAs money to be used for educational therapies not covered by insurance and public transportation services, entitled children to equitable shares of funding otherwise allocated to school districts or charter schools for that child, and mandated the state to include ESA children in the statewide weighted student count for calculation of per pupil amount from the Classroom Site Fund (CSF).
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The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee filed a lawsuit to prevent the enactment of a new transgender bathroom sign law from taking effect on July 1.
The enacted law would require organizations to post a sign outside their bathrooms, if they allow individuals to use any bathroom — not one based on their biological sex.
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An order handed down by a Georgia judge today named several individual members of a county elections board as respondents in an election-related lawsuit, clearing the way for an intensive audit of 2020 absentee ballots in Georgia’s largest county.
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“They were doing things eagerly but incorrectly.”
That was a judgment rendered in a Georgia election monitor’s report last year detailing what the investigator said were a series of problems brought on by improperly trained temporary staffers handling the absentee ballot scanning operation in Fulton County.
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As conflict over Pentagon wokeness intensifies between uniformed and civilian adversaries, dissenters within the military have taken to social media aiming to win hearts and minds for the anti-woke faction.
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During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) expressed concerns over President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), David Chipman.
“Mr. Chipman is willing to lie to push his anti-gun agenda. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives deserves a better leader. Americans deserve a better leader,” Blackburn said of the concerning statements made by Chipman.
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There are lots of reasons why wokeism spread like wildfire once America lost its collective mind during the pandemic, quarantine, self-induced recession, and rioting of 2020.
Wokeism was never really about racism, sexism, or other -isms. Instead, for some, it illustrated a psychological pathology of projection: fobbing one’s own concrete prejudices onto others in order to alleviate or mask them.
So should we laugh or cry that Black Lives Matter’s self-described Marxist co-founder turns out to be a corporate grifter? Patrisse Cullors has accumulated several upscale homes and is under investigation by the IRS for allegations of the misuse of funds from one of her foundations.
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed U.S. Congressman from Tennessee (R) Mark Green to the newsmakers line to discuss his new bill addressing illegal immigrant children’s status in the state and that of refugees in Central America.
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President Joe Biden announced Thursday he has reached a bipartisan deal on an infrastructure package.
Biden endorsed a proposal put forward by a group of 10 Senators, including Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Rob Portman and Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
“We have a deal,” Biden said, according to NBC News. “They have my word, I’ll stick with what they’ve proposed. And they’ve given me their word as well. Where I come from, that’s good enough for me.”
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President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he would nominate Cindy McCain to be the U.S. representative to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture with the rank of ambassador, according to a White House press release.
McCain, the widow of former Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain, has been a critic of Donald Trump and endorsed Biden in the 2020 election, according to the Associated Press.
McCain is the chairman and director of the Hensley Beverage Company, a Phoenix-based alcohol distributor representing Anheuser-Busch, according to the McCain Institute website.
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The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims decreased to 411,000 last week as the economy continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Department of Labor.
The Bureau of Labor and Statistics figure released Thursday represented a decrease in the number of new jobless claims compared to the week ending June 12, when 418,000 new jobless claims were reported. That number was revised up from the 412,000 jobless claims initially reported last week.
Economists expected Thursday’s jobless claims number to come in around 380,000, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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Microsoft was given an advance copy of major antitrust legislation, a document given to Republican Rep. Thomas Massie by a whistleblower appeared to show.
The document is the original version of the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, one of Democrats’ six pending antitrust bills targeting Big Tech, according to Rep. Thomas Massie. Every page of the document, which the Daily Caller News Foundation obtained on Wednesday, is watermarked with the text “CONFIDENTIAL – Microsoft.”
“I just came into possession of a document that everyone needs to know about,” Massie said during the Judiciary Committee markup of the legislation on Wednesday. “It’s marked ‘CONFIDENTIAL – Microsoft.’ A whistleblower provided this. It’s the first draft of one of these bills that would’ve covered Microsoft. This begs the question: did Microsoft have this bill and the other bills that we are voting on today before I had this bill?”
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Roger Simon in studio to discuss his recent column on Joy Behar’s anti-gay remarks and Kamala’s eventual visit to the southern border.
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Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott will step down after more than 29 years with Customs and Border Protection, he announced Wednesday.
Scott will remain in his position for around 60 days as the agency transitions, he said in a private Facebook post. A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shared a screenshot of Scott’s Facebook message with the Daily Caller News Foundation and said the agency would make a formal announcement.
“I received my 3R letter today. For those not familiar, that is Federal government slang for the letter issued to (senior executive staff) level employees informing them of a directed reassignment,” Scott said in the post. “The recipient has 3 options – relocate, resign or retire. No rationale or reason is required, nor is it disciplinary.”
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Roger Simon in studio to weigh in on Williamson County’s director of schools and the brainwashing of K12 students through the divisive teachings of critical race theory.
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The number of homicides in six major cities across the country has increased compared to last year, disproportionately affecting black people, according to crime data.
Black people have represented a massive share of murder victims in six major cities through the first six months of 2021 compared to last year, which itself saw a large crime surge, according to data analyzed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The DCNF analyzed both police department data and homicide reports compiled by local news outlets to determine how black people have been victimized in the wake of the 2020 crime spike.
“We are seeing an uptick in violent crime across the country, specifically gun violence,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told The New York Times earlier this month.
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The Biden administration extended the nationwide eviction ban on Thursday in efforts to help tenants struggling to make rent payments during the coronavirus pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky extended the evictions moratorium until July 31, one month out from its scheduled June 30 end date, the agency said in a press release. The CDC said Thursday that this was “the final extension of the moratorium,” according to the AP.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated that the bans on evictions for renters and mortgage holders were “always intended to be temporary,” the Associated Press reported. She added that President Joe Biden “remains focused on ensuring that Americans who are struggling, through no fault of their own, have an off-ramp once it ends.”
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed conservative American and political consultant Roger Stone to the newsmakers line to discuss his new book coming out, his personal struggles, and rebuilding his life.
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House prices are at their highest point ever as the housing market continues to boom, leaving some buyers struggling to afford a home, according to a real estate group.
The median existing-home price topped $350,000 for the first time in May, a 23.6% increase from a year earlier, according to a Tuesday report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). While existing-home sales fell 0.9% from April to May, prices continued to increase as supply struggled to meet demand.
A combination of home buyers leaving cities, low interest rates, and constrained housing supply has caused prices to skyrocket, according to a report from Redfin. While the market has benefited sellers, some buyers have been priced out, the The Wall Street Journal reported.
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Tennessee had its lowest number of new unemployment claims last week since the impact of COVID-19 began in March 2020.
The state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development reported 4,736 new claims the week ending June 19. It’s the first time that total was less than 5,500 in a week since the week of March 14, 2020.
The previous low during that stretch was 5,789 for the week of Nov. 28, 2020.
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Are you having a hard time understanding why the housing market is heating up, and why the cost of essentials such as milk, eggs, and gas is climbing? Are you in the market for a used car? Then you know how expensive those are right now. And why can’t businesses find employees, yet millions remain unemployed? Economists agree the recovery isn’t like anything we’ve seen before. That’s because we’ve never had a situation before where the heavy hand of government shut down private enterprises on a nationwide scale. The market distortions are enormous. As states reopen, there is a herky-jerky feel to the economy that has many people unsettled.
Former Federal Reserve vice chairman Alan Blinder wrote in the Wall Street Journal recently, “the recovery is not linear. Rather, it is proceeding in fits and starts. Sales of physical goods, for example, dipped only briefly when Covid hit, recovered quickly, and are now well above their pre-pandemic levels. In stark contrast, businesses that deliver personal services, such as restaurants and hotels, suffered a devastating depression and are still below their pre-pandemic levels.”
By far the most uneven outcome so far since the economy crashed in spring 2000, besides the 7.6 million fewer jobs compared to pre-pandemic levels, has been inflation, which is up 5 percent the past 12 months.
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Former President Donald Trump released a statement blasting Arizona Governor Doug Ducey for his lack of support in examining concerns of election security for the November 2020 election.
Additionally, Trump pledged to never give Ducey his endorsement, should Ducey elect to run for another office. The two-term Governor is prevented from running for re-election due to the state’s term limit rules.
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Republican lawmakers in Michigan released a report Wednesday concluding there was no widespread fraud in the state’s November election, debunking many speculations, but they pointedly warned that the mailing of unsolicited absentee ballot applications creates “a clear vulnerability for fraud that may be undetected.”
“The serious, potential outcomes of these vulnerabilities versus the minor effort to request an application make a strong and compelling necessity to not provide such applications without a request from a voter – as was standard practice until this past year,” the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee concluded. “Therefore, the committee recommends the Michigan secretary of state discontinue the practice of mailing out unsolicited applications.”
The committee also recommended that the state strengthen voter ID requirements, not weaken them like Democrats in Congress have proposed, as the practice of absentee or not-in-person voting grows.
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After two months of drama, the election for a new Fulton County Republican Party (FCRP) chair remains on hold, but a resolution is pending. The outcome will likely determine whether the FCRP sticks to its establishment roots or veers in a direction more friendly to former U.S. President Donald Trump.
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PHOENIX, Arizona – State Representative Diego Rodriguez (D-Phoenix) has joined the attorney general race. Rodriguez made the announcement as the Arizona House convened once more to discuss the budget. As The Arizona Sun Times reported this week, House Democrats staged a walkout on Tuesday in protest of the budget.
“For too long, corporate lobbyists have been the ones calling the shots in our AZ. It’s time working families have someone fighting for them,” wrote Rodriguez. “I’m running for Attorney General to bring integrity, accountability and compassion to our justice system.”
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Court upheld the dismissal of Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax’s defamation lawsuit against CBS. The court said that Fairfax had failed to make the case that CBS’ actions were defamatory under heightened requirements of proof for public officials.
“Fairfax’s complaint fails to plausibly allege that CBS made the allegedly defamatory statements with knowledge or reckless disregard of their falsity, as required to state a claim for defamation of a public official,” the June 23 decision states.
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St. Paul Public Schools’ Equity Committee recently called for an end to school suspensions among other recommendations as a way to tackle inequities in the district.
The Equity Committee in the St. Paul Public School District was created in 2019 and is led by Superintendent Joe Gothard. The committee meets monthly to identify and examine “racial inequities” and equity disparities, as well as craft recommendations for the school board at large.
During a June 15 St. Paul Public School Board meeting, the Equity Committee brought forward a list of recommendations, including ending the use of suspensions in the district.
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Many conservatives noted that The Washington Post issued a misleading headline on Thursday that mischaracterizes the contents of a bill signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The legislation, HB 233, “requires state colleges and universities to conduct annual assessments of the viewpoint diversity and intellectual freedom at their institutions to ensure that Florida’s postsecondary students will be shown diverse ideas and opinions, including those that they may disagree with or find uncomfortable.” DeSantis signed the legislation on Wednesday in addition to two other bills aimed at boosting civics education requirements throughout the state at all levels.
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Fulton County, Georgia poll manager Suzi Voyles said this week that members of the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office pressured her to recant her declaring she saw potentially counterfeit ballots last November that favored Joe Biden. Voyles said this when she appeared Wednesday on The John Fredericks Show. Fredericks is the publisher of The Georgia Star News. Voyles said state officials asked her to go over her affidavit concerning potentially counterfeit ballots in January. “There just was something that felt a little off,” Voyles told Fredericks. “They had my testimony. They had my affidavits, and I couldn’t figure out what else could be said. It was very plain. It was very simple. It wasn’t a 5,000 page document. It was pretty well articulated in the document.” Voyles said the nature of the conversation aroused her suspicions. “As it continued on, it got to the specific box number and the batch numbers that were in question in that first affidavit. I’m thinking ‘Wait a minute. You have that printed out right there.’ There was nothing vague in my affidavit. It was very specific. I just felt it a little odd that if they were questioning me about my affidavit then…
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The Ohio House of Representatives passed an amendment, known as the Save Women’s Sports Act, which will ban transgender athletes from joining female teams in both high school and college sports.
Many Republicans celebrated the move and argued the amendment will protect the integrity of women’s sports throughout the state.
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PHOENIX, Arizona – Thursday, the Arizona House passed tax reforms to implement a flat tax rate and reduced income tax during the ongoing debate over the budget. With it, they ushered in a $1.9 billion tax cut and lowered taxes to about 2.5 percent.
House Republicans announced their victory early that afternoon.
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U.S. Representative Debbie Lesko (R-AZ- 08) introduced a bill intended to cease government funding to all organizations that decide to ignore federal laws.
The Stop the Outlay of Payments Act would immediately stop the use of taxpayer funds to any organization that has demonstrated an effort to violate these regulations.
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PHOENIX, Arizona – In an effort to speed along passage of the budget, Arizona House Republicans pushed through a rule change to limit debate on bills to 30 minutes. After that, amendments on that bill would be moved, explained, and voted on without debate, explanation of vote, or questions. Additionally, all protests were directed to be made in writing and submitted to the chief clerk.
The rule change passed along party lines, 31 to 29.
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Georgia’s public health state of emergency will end on July 1 under an executive order signed by Gov. Brian Kemp.
Kemp first declared a public health state of emergency on March 14, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The declaration helps the state easily access supplies and other resources needed to combat the spread of the coronavirus. It lifts certain medical and commercial transportation regulations.
Tuesday’s order extends the declaration by one day and one minute.
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The Florida Board of Governors (BOG) established a set of regulations designed to assist in the implementation for collegiate athlete compensation in Florida’s universities. According to the standards, athletes will be able to hire agents but will have to disclose contracts and payments to their university.
These measures were taken by the BOG due to a bill signed into law last year by Governor Ron DeSantis allowing college athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness, and will take effect July 1.
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After city employees went to clean graffiti off the streets of Minneapolis, City Council President Lisa Bender allegedly stopped the process. When Bender first heard about the clean-up work being done, she wrote that she assumed the city employees, “were talked into this [cleaning up the graffiti] by the business association.”
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Ohio has ended its drive to encourage residents to receive the coronavirus vaccine — awarding $1 million prizes to 5 different individuals and additional college scholarships to teenagers.
The lottery-style giveaway used taxpayer funds to award the prizes and paved the way for many states to follow its example.
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A Minneapolis restaurant, Broders Pasta Bar, is now adding an ‘equity’ charge to all checks. Broders official statement regarding the new charge says that, “Studies have also shown that there is inequity and built-in bias in the way consumers give tips. In general, Black or Brown servers receive less tips than Caucasian servers. There is gender bias as well.”
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed an amicus curiae brief Monday in the U.S. Supreme Court with 22 states signing on, demanding the court overrule a decision by the Sixth Circuit allowing state officials to surrender in lawsuits challenging state laws they don’t want to defend. The move comes as Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, is refusing to appeal adverse decisions striking down Arizona’s elections laws.
The brief relates to Kentucky v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, where Democratic Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear failed to appeal a court decision striking down a Kentucky law banning dismemberment abortions during the second trimester of pregnancy. Kentucky’s Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron is trying to intervene in order to defend the law.
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The Florida Democrat Party (FDP) announced the hiring of seven regional field directors in preparation for the 2022 election cycle.
As reported by Florida Politics, Democrats will be looking to capitalize on grassroots organizing and, they say, will hope to “get a head start on high-profile 2022 contests.”
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Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and other members of a bipartisan team of 21 senators announced an infrastructure plan that includes $579 billion in new spending over the next five years. President Joe Biden also announced his support for the deal on Thursday. Warner and Biden highlighted it as a win for bipartisanship. At the same time, Biden emphasized that he wouldn’t sign the bill without Democrats passing an additional larger infrastructure bill through reconciliation.
“This group of senators, and all the American people, can be proud today, because we’ve reaffirmed once again: we are the United States of America,” Biden said. “I know a lot of you in the press, particularly, doubt that unity is possible, that anything bipartisan is possible. It’s hard, but it’s necessary, and it can get done.”
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Reacting to the cancellation of the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act referendum, Americans for Prosperity – Tennessee (AFP-TN) State Director Tori Venable suggested one way members of the Tennessee General Assembly could react. “This ruling once again silences Nashville voters and taxpayers who continue to be saddled with harmful tax increases. Nashvillians are tired of Mayor Cooper and Metro’s spending addiction that put the city in jeopardy of a state takeover,” Venable said in an emailed press release.
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