Gov. Mike DeWine (R) Thursday signed HB 244 into law, a bill that disallows schools and universities from forcing their students to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Until the three COVID-19 vaccines, developed by Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer, respectively, receive full approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), that law will stand, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer.
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The GOP-led Michigan Senate approved the Unlock Michigan campaign on a 20-15 vote, likely ending the 1945 law employed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to exercise pandemic powers for the past 16 months.
Democrats and Republicans exchanged heated remarks over COVID-19 policy.
“This petition will hamstring our leaders of both parties — from preventing or slowing the spread of a deadly disease. This is about our ability to react to other pandemics and disasters in the future,” Sen. Rosemary Bayer, D-Beverly Hills, said pre-vote.
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Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services Commissioner Alison Land asked for about $216 million in American Recovery Plan Act funds in a presentation to legislators. Her number-one ask was $75 million to increase salaries to retain and attract staff to Virginia’s troubled mental health facilities.
A week ago, Land closed admissions at five of the state’s eight mental health facilities. On Thursday, she told the Joint Subcommittee to Study Mental Health Services in the 21st Century those closures were necessary to help reduce the number of patients at dangerously understaffed facilities.
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The Walt Disney Company announced they are moving around 2,000 jobs from California to a new campus in Florida, which has yet to be built. It will be in Lake Nona, and the move will take approximately 18 months.
“Florida’s business-friendly climate” was one of the main reasons they decided to make the move while California’s lockdown measures have shuttered Disneyland’s doors for three months.
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Members of the Georgia House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee are scheduled to meet Monday to address Atlanta’s rising rates of crime. State Rep. J. Collins (R-Villa Rica) chairs the committee. Those committee members are scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. Monday, July 19, in Room 406 of the Coverdell Legislative Office Building in Atlanta.
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Glenn Youngkin and Terry McAuliffe have already raised a combined $40 million, according to new finance data through June, reported by the Virginia Public Access Project. A VPAP graphic shows that previous years through 2001, previous fundraising through June never reached $20 million. The June period is the first reporting period after the parties nominated their candidates.
Due to $12 million in personal loans, Youngkin out-raised McAuliffe in the January through May period. But McAuliffe’s June fundraising beat Youngkin. McAuliffe raised about $7.5 million in June, while Youngkin raised about $3.6 million.
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The Phoenix Suns Arena will now be known as the “Footprint Center,” named after their new partner: local material science and environmentalist company, Footprint. This partnership will reportedly advance environmentalist initiatives concerning plastics. The company’s main initiative is eliminating single-use plastics entirely.
Included in the partnership are the valley’s professional men’s and women’s basketball teams, the Phoenix Suns and Mercury, as well as the professional men’s soccer team, Real Mallorca.
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The Arizona Free Enterprise Club completed its rankings of how Arizona legislators performed during the 2021 legislative session, and one Senator and six House members scored a perfect 100%. AFEC ranked them based on election integrity, income tax policy, “regulatory relief and ongoing government overreach from the covid-19 pandemic, banning critical race theory in our taxpayer-funded institutions and school choice.”
The seven legislators with a perfect score are Sen. Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) and Reps. Jacqueline Parker (R-Mesa), Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), John Fillmore (R-Apache Junction), Joseph Chaplik (R-Scottsdale), Shawnna Bolick (R-Phoenix), and Travis Grantham (R-Gilbert).
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After The Tennessee Star reported on a petition signed by teachers nationwide who vowed to teach Critical Race Theory even if it was outlawed in their respective states, the nonprofit that circulated the petition appears to have pulled it offline.
“Lawmakers in at least 21 states are attempting to pass legislation that would require teachers to lie to students about the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history,” a Zinn Education Project’s petition said.
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How often during the last year of woke, have middle- and lower-class Americans listened to multimillionaires of all races and genders lecture them on their various pathologies and oppressions?
Million-dollar-a year university presidents virtue signal on the cheap their own sort of “unearned white privilege.”
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Members of a group who oppose the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act announced this week they have filed suit against the Davidson County Election Commission. “Save Nashville Now” members announced the lawsuit against the Davidson County Election Commission in a newsletter to their supporters Tuesday.
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Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed former Tennessee Speaker Beth Harwell in studio to talk about her time as speaker for eight years. Leahy: We are joined in studio by our good friend, former Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives Beth Harwell. You know, Beth, as I look at the country today and I look at the problems we have, I’m a big believer in the concept of federalism and state sovereignty, as you are. Harwell: Absolutely. Leahy: Now I look at this and I say, you know what? I think the most important job in America today is to be the speaker of the House of Representatives in a red state legislature. That’s how I see it. Harwell: It’s a great job. It really is. And I thoroughly enjoyed being speaker. And you’re right. Federalism is so key. And I think we’ve seen this in the COVID thing because certain states have handled the crisis differently than other states. Certain cities have been doing things differently. And you’ve seen a sharp contrast.…
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed former Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell in studio to talk about her future aspirations and the direction of the country.
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Hope Blanchard is from Falmouth, Massachusetts. She grew up with her mother being a huge country music fan. When she was very young, not many from her town listened to country music.
She recalled, “My mom stayed at home and took care of us and that (country music) was what was always on.”
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The push to create “equity” and more “social justice” in public schools in America’s largest state rests on this basic premise: “We reject ideas of natural gifts and talents,” declares the current draft of the California Math Framework, which also states that it rejects “the cult of genius.”
Informed by that fundamental idea, the 800-page Framework calls for the elimination of accelerated classes and gifted programs for high-achieving students until at least the 11th grade.
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The 10 Republican members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee signed a letter Wednesday calling on President Joe Biden to withdraw his nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management in a letter Wednesday over her involvement in a 1989 eco-terrorism incident.
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Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa sent a letter to the Justice Department Wednesday asking for more information regarding missing phones used by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team during the Russian collusion investigation.
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Roger Simon in studio to comment on Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s response to Cuba’s cries for freedom.
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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 who’s who in news media and knowing Tucker Carlson.
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Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) introduced a bill on Tuesday that would limit President Joe Biden’s ability to roll back current border restrictions put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19.
The legislation, known as the SHIELD Act, strengthens Title 42 , which was put into place by former President Donald Trump in an effort to limit the coronavirus over the course of the pandemic
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The U.S. Department of Education (ED) awarded Tennessee $830 million in funds to reopen and secure schools. The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) earned these funds based on their American Rescue Plan (ARP) Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Plan (ESSER). All states may submit an ARP ESSER plan. So far, ED reports that 40 states have submitted one.
According to the ED press release, this latest funding brings Tennessee’s total ARP funds to nearly $2.5 billion.
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed former Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell in studio to discuss her background and weigh in on the Texas Democrat behavior.
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Republicans have argued for months that federal unemployment benefits are keeping Americans from going back to work, and a new survey seems to support that claim.
The survey from Morning Consult released Wednesday found that 1.8 million Americans have turned down jobs even though they were unemployed saying, “I receive enough unemployment benefits without having to work.”
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Millions of American families will begin to receive monthly cash payments Thursday as part of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that President Joe Biden signed into law in March.
The payments are an expansion of the Child Tax Credit, and will continue for a year before requiring congressional renewal. As many as 90% of American families are eligible to receive hundreds of dollars a month for each child they have, and some experts believe that the policy could ultimately cut child poverty in half.
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The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims decreased to 360,000 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 slight increase in the number of new jobless claims compared to the week ending July 3, when 386,000 new jobless claims were reported. That number was revised up from the 373,000 jobless claims initially reported last week.
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Tennessee’s revenues for the month of June exceeded the budget by $372.3 million, putting the year-to-date surplus at $2.8 billion, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration Butch Eley announced Thursday.
State taxes for June 2021, which is the eleventh month of the current fiscal year, were $321.1 million more than June 2020.
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During the Arizona Senate hearing on the election audit in Maricopa County Thursday morning, audit officials reported discovery of issues such as ballot duplicates and surpluses, voter roll data, and machine security. The audit officials testifying were Senate Liaison Ken Bennett, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, and digital security firm CyFIR founder Ben Cotton. Cyber Ninjas is conducting the audit.
The Arizona Sun Times checked the Arizona legislature website at 8 am MST. The website was down. All that was displayed was an error message that said service was unavailable. The website remained that way until sometime after the Senate hearing began.
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Gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin will not participate in the Virginia Bar Association’s upcoming debate due to a conflict of interest presented by the moderator.
The Virginia Star reported last week that Youngkin’s campaign was considering sitting out of the debate if PBS’ Judy Woodruff was named the moderator. Woodruff customarily moderates the Virginia Bar Association’s gubernatorial debate.
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Black Lives Matter activists have been asking questions about Florida’s new law, dubbed as the “anti-riot” law as a result of the many anti-communist protests taking place across Florida.
The law enhances penalties for criminals committing acts of violence during a protest as well protestors could be charged with felonies if they block roadways. A driver may also be granted immunity if they drive through protestors blocking a road.
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An advisor for Governor Doug Ducey sent letters Wednesday to two Arizona school superintendents letting them know their policies of requiring unvaccinated students exposed to COVID-19 to quarantine is illegal. Education policy advisor Kairlin Harrier told the superintendents of Peoria Unified School District and Catalina Foothills School District their policies violate a new law, HB 2898, which states, “A school district or charter school may not require a student or teacher to receive a vaccine for covid-19 or to wear a face covering to participate in in-person instruction.”
Harrier went on, “The policy must be rescinded immediately.” She pointed out that children under age 12 haven’t even received approval from the federal government to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Children ages 12-15 only received approval for the vaccine in May.
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump announced this week he will not endorse Georgia State Sen. Butch Miller (R-Gainesville) to replace current and outgoing Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan. Trump announced the news on his website this week.
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A U.S. Senate candidate in Ohio is speaking out against a provision in the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion proposed budget that would allow amnesty for some illegal aliens.
“Joe Biden’s crisis at the Southern border is already grossly out of hand, and the Democrat plan to grant mass amnesty to illegal immigrants in their budget will only make things worse,” J.D. Vance said in a press release.
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A man set fire to a dumpster behind Stella’s Fish Cafe, in Minneapolis, which led to tens of thousands of dollars in damage. According to Bring Me the News, “security footage shows two men going into the alley area by Stella’s dumpsters around 3:04 a.m. on July 6. One man… was wearing a bulletproof vest.”
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The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted nine to one to ask staff to draft an ordinance for a five-cent single-use plastic bag tax for presentation to the board in September; part of the drafting process includes a period of public outreach.
Supervisor James Walkinshaw introduced the proposal on Tuesday. He said, “There was an environmental survey of the Chesapeake Bay done several years ago and they discovered that the floor of the Chesapeake Bay is littered with plastic bags which is disrupting the habitat and ecosystem of the floor of the Chesapeake Bay, not to mention the micro-particles that come from torn plastic bags that unfortunately make their way into the food supply and the water supply and that all of us are ingesting.”
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The Florida Department of Education (DOE) adopted new education standards regarding how topics like Holocaust Education, Civics and Government, Character Education, and Substance Abuse Prevention, will be taught in schools.
In the press release on Wednesday, the DOE stated that the new standards are set to strengthen Florida’s education standards which are already “nationally recognized.”
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On Wednesday night, riots and protests erupted again after the city of Minneapolis and 7 Points Uptown decided to remove the “peace garden” where a memorial for Winston Smith was located. The garden, also known as Boogie World, was a second autonomous zone established in Minneapolis after a wanted man, Winston Smith, was shot and killed by U.S. Marshals on June 3.
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Thursday called for two of the top elections officials in Fulton County to be fired after numerous mistakes in the election process have been discovered.
“Fulton County’s continued failures have gone on long enough with no accountability. Rick Barron and Ralph Jones, Fulton’s registration chief, must be fired and removed from Fulton’s elections leadership immediately. Fulton’s voters and the people of Georgia deserve better,” Raffensperger said in a tweet.
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Virginia ended Fiscal Year 2021 with a $2.6 billion surplus, the largest in Virginia’s history, with a 14.5 percent revenue growth over FY 2020.
“We have effectively managed Virginia’s finances through the pandemic, and now we are seeing the results—record-breaking revenue gains, a recovery that has outpaced the nation, and recognition as the best place to do business,” Governor Ralph Northam said in a press release.
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U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA-04) this week used race to disparage people who believe in originalism when interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Johnson, who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, made these remarks during a hearing about diversity on the federal bench.
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday requesting the federal assiatance to aid Cuba in providing internet access to the country.
The request comes amid the protests in Cuba and some parts of the U.S. advocating for a change to the oppressive dictatorship that has been affecting Cuban citizens for decades.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would have given small businesses an option for a tax breaks.
The governor wrote a letter explaining she vetoed the bill because it was too costly and would “primarily benefit a small number of Michiganders.”
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Former President Donald Trump released a statement on Thursday, praising the efforts of the forensic audit in Maricopa County, Arizona.
The ongoing examination is utilizing a third party firm to focus on roughly 2.1 million ballots that were cast in the state’s population center.
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Contrary to current claims, the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) reportedly fired its previous Vaccine-Preventable and Infectious Diseases State Medical Director Dr. Michelle Fiscus due to months of unprofessional behavior and poor job performance. TDH Chief Medical Officer Tim Jones detailed issues with Fiscus at length in a recommendation for termination email to TDH Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey.
Although Fiscus claims that she was fired for informing the public about the mature minor doctrine, TDH offered a laundry list of the issues Fiscus has reportedly caused. According to their records, Fiscus consistently engaged in inappropriate behaviors such as mistreating her colleagues and ignoring superiors. Her behavior reportedly caused two senior leaders to resign. She’d also been pushing TDH over the last three months to award funds to her nonprofit organization – though it had no staff or other major funds.
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The Arizona Senate held a public briefing on Thursday to update and brief residents of the state on the ongoing forensic audit of roughly 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County.
Leaders of the legislative chamber heard testimony from the vendors hired to conduct the audit, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and CyFIR founder Ben Cotton.
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Fox News host Tucker Carlson went on the record Wednesday night to declare that it appears there was “meaningful voter fraud in Fulton County, Georgia” in the 2020 election, contradicting the prevailing Democrat-media narrative that portrays all such allegations as “a big lie.”
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Members of an organized campaign who oppose the Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act are reportedly well-stocked with cash and have more that 400 times as much money as the people who favor it. The people on the opposing side — residents who have pushed for the referendum — have a sum of cash that, by comparison, is paltry.
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Los Angeles school teacher Glenn Laird has been a union stalwart for almost four decades. He served as a co-chair of his school’s delegation to United Teachers Los Angeles and proudly wore union purple on the picket line.
But Laird is now suing to leave UTLA and demanding a refund of the dues the union has collected since his resignation request. His turning point came in July 2020 when the union, the second largest teachers union in the country, joined liberal activists to demand that Los Angeles defund the police in response to Black Lives Matter demonstrations.
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Shelby County Schools (SCS) adopted a new policy during its board meeting two weeks ago to limit employee speech on social media. The policy’s goal is to “eliminate disruption” to school or district operations by regulating their employees’ social media. The policy defines social media as all internet-based communication and online content; it lists blogs, podcasts, comments, messages, audio recordings, video recordings, and posts. SCS employees are expressly prohibited from posting anything that creates or may create a disruption.
“All social media use by SCS employees that causes, or has a potential to cause, a disruption to school [sic] school/district operations are prohibited[,]” read the policy. “SCS recognizes that social media is used by many District employees as a means of communication for both District and personal purposes. SCS has an interest in promoting workplace efficiency and avoiding actual and potential workplace and school/district disruption.”
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, announced a $3.5 trillion deal on their infrastructure reconciliation package late Tuesday.
The deal is the first step to beginning the reconciliation process, which Democrats hope will allow them to bypass a certain GOP filibuster and pass the plan on a party-line vote. The package includes an array of Democratic priorities that face near unanimous Republican opposition, including billions for child care, climate change and other forms of so-called human infrastructure, Schumer and Sanders said in a joint press conference Tuesday.
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Former President Donald Trump released a statement on Wednesday slamming the recount of the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia — after a lawsuit alleged there was a 60% error rate in the hand count audit.
“The news coming out of Georgia is beyond incredible. The hand recount in Fulton County was a total fraud! They stuffed the ballot box—and got caught. We will lose our Country if this is allowed to stand,” Trump said.
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