During his presidency, Barack Obama, in his infinite wisdom, liked to tell us that wars are passé and publicly chided Russia’s Vladimir Putin for acting like a relic of the 20th century. Privately, Obama seems to have been aware of the extremely dangerous situations he helped create in Iran, Syria, Russia, and China, and told Trump during their 2016 transition talks that war was likely with North Korea.
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Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) officials announced Wednesday they have entered a partnership to install charging stations for Electric Vehicles (EVs) at all 56 state parks. But, when asked, TDEC officials would not discuss how or whether the demand for these charging stations exceeds any possible costs to the state or anyone else.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to discuss the silent but public partnership of the Biden administration and Facebook, and the Texas Democrats who spread COVID.
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Race relations have hit a new low, with the majority of black and whites calling it “somewhat” or “very” bad, according to a Wednesday Gallup poll.
The poll said 57% of blacks and whites felt race relations are “somewhat” or “very” bad, while 42% called them “very” or “somewhat” good. In comparison, 55% of respondents said relations were “somewhat” or “very” bad in 2020, and 44% said they were “very” or “somewhat” good.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Washington Correspondent Neil McCabe to the newsmakers line to discuss Chuck Schumer and the invisible infrastructure bill.
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On Monday, the Biden administration formally blamed China for a massive cyberattack against Microsoft’s email software that impacted tens of thousands of U.S. businesses, government offices, and schools.
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The Texas Farm Bureau and 50 other state and national farming organizations have asked the Biden administration to “enforce legal immigration” after an influx of illegal immigration resulted in a crime wave impacting ranchers and farmers.
“The current situation should not be acceptable to you or to any American,” they write to the secretaries of the U.S. departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture and Interior. “People are being treated as a disposable source of income, and landowners are living in fear while Coyotes [human smugglers] reap a windfall from leaving people destitute. You must not allow this to continue. On behalf of farm and ranch families and our communities, we urge you to recognize the crisis and take swift action.”
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Congressional Democrats and Republicans are raising concerns over China buying prime agricultural real estate across the U.S. – in an apparent, continuing effort to exert influence on the American economy.
Members recently advanced legislation that warns that such purchases also increases China’s involvement in the American food system, posing a national security risk.
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Congressman and former presidential candidate Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) has been discovered as having spent tens of thousands of dollars from campaign funds on luxury goods and services in the second quarter of the year, Breitbart reports.
According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) report, reviewed by Fox News, the Swalwell re-election campaign spent over $30,000 on luxuries such as limousines, high-class restaurants, hotels, and alcohol delivery services. The Democrat’s campaign funds paid for at least 26 different rides in limousines, amounting to well over $10,000.
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The lobbying firm of Jeff Ricchetti, brother to senior Biden counselor Steve Ricchetti, saw its revenue more than quadruple in the first half of this year, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Ricchetti, Inc. pulled in $1.67 million in revenue in the first half of 2021, more than quadrupling earnings from the same period last year, according to a report by the WSJ that cited lobbying disclosure records. Since President Joe Biden took office, Ricchetti, Inc. added clients such as Amazon, General Motors and Horizon Therapeutics, according to the WSJ.
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A now-retired English instructor at Oconee County High School in Watkinsville used her platform to proselytize to captive students last January in an attempt to turn them against former U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters. The teacher, Lynne Ely, did not return The Georgia Star News’ requests for comment Wednesday. But angry Oconee County residents uploaded a nearly-45 minute recording of Ely ranting against Trump and the events of January 6 on the Facebook group Oconee County 411 (GA).
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich joined 26 other states to submit an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a lawsuit seeking to expand 2nd Amendment rights.
The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc v. Kevin P. Bruen, is challenging current laws and regulations of New York State’s concealed carry requirements.
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Monday, former Virginia governor and current gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, accepted an endorsement from National Abortion and Reproduction Rights Action League Virginia (NARAL).
“I’m proud to be endorsed by [NARAL Virginia],” he said. “With a right-wing Supreme Court ready to hack away at the right to choose and Glenn Youngkin promising to ban abortion, reproductive freedom is at stake in this race. I’ll always fight to protect the right to choose.”
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Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati hosted a protest Wednesday night at Mount St. Joseph University, a Catholic college that hosted a CNN town hall with President Joe Biden.
The Ohio Star spoke with the pro-life group’s executive director Meg DeBlase Wednesday, who has been leading the group’s response to Biden’s visit. Despite being Catholic, Biden supports abortion. His visit to the university is being viewed by many as tacit support for abortion by Mount St. Joseph.
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Two organizations asked the Lynchburg Circuit Court to issue a preliminary injunction against the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) temporarily blocking implementation of legally-mandated transgender policies in school boards across Virginia. On Wednesday, they argued that while a lawsuit over the policy proceeds, school boards are implementing the policies which, they said, could be harmful to children.
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New guidance from the Virginia Department of Health and the Virginia Department of Education asks local divisions to implement their own mask guidelines based on the local COVID-19 environment.
The guidance doesn’t include mandatory policies for the whole Commonwealth, but does recommend requiring masks for everyone in elementary schools regardless of vaccination status until vaccines are available for children under 12. They also recommend that middle- and high-school staff and students should wear masks if not vaccinated.
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A Minneapolis restaurant burned to the ground during the riots in May 2020 and now the owner’s delivery van was stolen. Ruhel Islam, a Bangladeshi immigrant, was the owner of Gandhi Mahal, a restaurant that burned down in 2020. Islam got attention after he took to social media saying “let my building burn. Justice needs to be served.” A Go Fund Me was started and raised over $125,000 for Islam to rebuild. The fundraising site reads, “Thanks for your outpouring of support. And for continuing to demand justice for George Floyd.”
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Florida State senator and chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, Sen. Joe Gruters (R-23) has been cleared of sexual harassment allegations after reports circulated earlier this week.
Florida Politics initially reported the allegations, and POLITICO stated the allegations came from four Republican Party officials and one other source who claimed Gruters sexually harassed a male aide in January who drove Gruters home from a bar in Tallahassee during Spring’s legislative session. A complaint was immediately filed with the state.
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The Goldwater Institute is challenging an Arizona Court of Appeals ruling that shooting ranges qualify as “places of amusement,” subjecting them to higher tax rates.
The court ruled in April that shooting ranges are “comparable” to “amusement parks.” The Goldwater Institute filed a friend of the court brief last week, arguing that shooting ranges are not circuses but places where people can go to learn a new skill and practice self-defense.
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The Hillsborough County School Board announced its decision to renew charters for four charter schools after the State of Florida was threatening legal action. The school board initially opted to not renew the charters but reversed its decision this week.
Of the reasons the school board initially decided to not renew the charters was a claim that the schools were not meeting the needs of special needs students.
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President Joe Biden took to the stage at Mount St. Joseph University at 8 p.m. Wednesday before an intimate audience comprised of hand-selected, loyal Democrats and disgruntled Republicans to run the gamut of issues from the surge of the Delta strain of COVID-19 and the proposed federal infrastructure bill to economic issues such as inflation concerns and one restaurant owners’ inability to find workers. Biden singled out those in their 20s and 30s as well as skeptics in poor, minority communities to get immunized. “We have a pandemic (among) those who haven’t gotten the vaccine,” He noted his administration has stepped up efforts with ads featuring prominent athletes and entertainers urging reluctant Americans to get jabbed. The President downplayed the risk that massive federal spending has played in igniting inflation. “The good news is the economy is picking up significantly,” he said. “… Prices are up now but it will not be long term.” Mike Gibbons, a Cleveland businessman and GOP candidate to running to replace retiring U.S. Senator Rob Portman, said unchecked federal spending from Congress and Biden has fueled inflation, which he called a “hidden tax” on Ohioans. “Families and businesses alike are negatively impacted by rising…
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A Sartell-St. Stephens fourth-grade student shared at the board meeting on Monday that her teacher told her to never repeat the questions found on a mandatory equity survey to her parents. Haylee Yasgar explained that this took place while she was distance learning from home. The “Equity Survey” was distributed virtually to the fourth graders, where they were forced to take it and told to answer all the questions.
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The GOP-led Michigan Legislature failed to override Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s veto of $155 million to help struggling youngsters recover from COVID-19 learning loss.
The vote was 54-54. A two-thirds majority vote is required to override a Whitmer’s line-item veto of a designation in House Bill 4411 that would have disbursed $155 million to Grand Valley State University (GVSU) to start a grant program for students who have fallen behind.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocked the appointment of two GOP Representatives, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH-04) and Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN-03) to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
The committee was originally intended to be composed of 13 members — 5 of whom the minority leader would have consultation on. However, of those 5 members, Pelosi rejected the appointment of the top two members.
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The number of international travelers coming to Florida is expected to increase after Canada loosened its COVID-19 border restrictions allowing vaccinated travelers in and out of the country.
Policy coordinator for the governor’s Office of Policy and Budget, Holger Ciupalo, said that he expects the White House to “follow suit” with Canada and match their border policy in the next three weeks.
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According to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA), the now deconstructed Memphis and Nashville COVID-19 overflow emergency hospitals, created with a $51 million federal grant, never treated a single patient.
The facilities were intended to receive patients with “low to moderate acuity” cases of the novel coronavirus but with too high severity to warrant discharge home. They anticipated that patients would stay an average of four days.
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After completing a 10 minute flight to the edge of space, Jeff Bezos announced on Tuesday that he is gifting $100 million each to Van Jones and José Andrés.
According to Bezos, the new philanthropic endeavor, The Courage and Civility Award, awarded to the two “recognizes leaders who aim high, and who pursue solutions with courage, and who always do so with civility.”
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In a communications backdoor reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s infamous private server, President Biden used a personal email account during the Obama years to send information he was getting from the State Department as vice president to his globetrotting, foreign-deal-making son Hunter Biden.
Messages, sometimes signed “Dad,” from the email account [email protected] were found on a Hunter Biden laptop seized by the FBI in December 2019 from a Delaware computer shop owner.
Some of the messages from the vice president to his son obtained by Just the News were deeply personal, others were political in nature, and still others clearly addressed business matters, often forwarding information coming from senior officials in the White House, the State Department and other government agencies.
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This column is becoming a weekly checklist on the descent of American public policy and attitudes further into the depths of frivolity, chaos, and national self-dislike. I was honored to make a small contribution last week to the edition of this website celebrating its fifth anniversary. In the editors’ statement on that anniversary, they renewed their hostility to the ineptitude and moral decrepitude of the bipartisan ruling class, their “opposition to the unaccountable administrative state,” their dislike of an American oligarchy, particularly the “Big Tech monopoly to suppress disagreement,” and their contempt for “pernicious utopian ideologies.” It is a privilege to be associated with such opinions.
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The Office of Inspector General for the Department of Justice released the findings Tuesday of an investigation that found a former senior FBI official violated agency policy by having numerous unauthorized contacts with the media.
The investigation found that the official, who has not been named and has since retired from the agency, “had numerous contacts with members of the media between January and November 2016 in violation of FBI policy,” as well as accepted unauthorized gifts from media members, according to the report.
The senior official had unofficial contact with media officials during the opening months of the Trump-Russia investigation. That investigation by the FBI started in the months leading up to and after the Nov. 2016 presidential election. However, the report does not mention that this official was part of the investigation.
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The Pentagon is working with a contractor to reportedly look into web searches such as “George Floyd deserved to die,” “Jews will not replace us” and “the truth about black lives matter” as potential signals of white supremacism, Fox News reported.
Pentagon contractor Moonshot CVE (Countering Violent Extremism), which has ties to the Obama Foundation, is gathering data to determine which bases and branches of the military have the most troops searching for domestic extremist content, Defense One and Fox News reported.
The exact details of the project are not clear, but the data is expected to be available in three weeks, Defense One reported. Moonshot Founder and CEO Vidhya Ramalingam said the data suggested active duty troops are less prone than the general American public to searching for violent extremism information.
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A bipartisan Senate trio is seeking to reassert Congress’ control over war authorizations and military power.
Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee and Democratic Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Chris Murphy of Connecticut introduced the National Security Powers Act Tuesday, hoping to clamp down on presidential war powers that have expanded in recent years under presidents of both parties.
The bill requires the president to end foreign hostilities if they are not approved by Congress 20 days after they begin and cuts off funding if a president continues to act without congressional authorization. It gives Congress authority over weapons sales and allows it to prohibit the sale of weapons at its discretion, after former President Donald Trump irked lawmakers with his repeated sales to Middle Eastern allies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
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Members of the Tea Party Patriots organization published a guide for citizens to push back on Critical Race Theory (CRT) teachings in public education throughout the country.
The guide is meant to inform parents and concerned citizens on the fundamental beliefs of CRT and how the ideology is being spread through school systems.
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Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and three other passengers successfully launched into space Tuesday aboard the billionaire’s Blue Origin New Shepard spacecraft.
Liftoff!!
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket launches, carrying the company’s first crew and heading toward space.https://t.co/kYI3pmFsLB #BlueOrigin #JeffBezos pic.twitter.com/Xs0TnjpVbE
— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) July 20, 2021
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Members of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) this week released the agency’s 2020 Crime in Tennessee publication, which reported that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the state’s crime numbers. The publication details the volume and nature of crime, as reported by Tennessee’s law enforcement agencies, according to a TBI press release.
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Representative John Rose (R-TN-06) tweeted Monday in support of a bipartisan group of fellow congresspersons asking President Biden to more quickly reopen travel to the U.S.
“We should fully reopen international travel to the U.S.,” Rose wrote. “I joined with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to urge President Biden to reopen travel to the U.S. in order to accelerate our economic recovery.”
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Journalism professors at UNC Chapel Hill are protesting a “core values” statement that upholds objectivity as a key tenet of news reporting.
Faculty members of UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media converged last week to bemoan a statement of values that’s etched in granite and is found in the lobby of their school.
The core values statement, installed two years ago, touts objectivity, impartiality, integrity and truth-seeking, and after their kvetching session that statement was reportedly scrapped from the school’s website, the News & Observer reports.
In 2019, Walter Hussman, a UNC alumnus and owner of a media conglomerate of newspapers and other media outlets, donated $25 million to the UNC journalism school. Part of the donation contract installed those values into the school’s wall and mission, according to UNC’s website.
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After multiple complaints and health code violations, the Tennessee Department of Health (DOH) has temporarily revoked the license of Azalea Trace Assisted Living in Nashville.
That order said the nursing facility was closed to new patients as of February 1, 2021, while the DOH investigates and eventually hands down a punishment.
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The Tennessee Firearms Association joined the Second Amendment Foundation in an amicus brief for a 2nd Amendment Supreme Court case.
According to the court, the ruling from the issues presented in the case could have significance to potential future challenges to Tennessee’s permitting and permitless carry laws.
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Our men and women in uniform are prepared to lay their lives on the line every day to uphold the Constitution and protect the nation from enemies who would do us harm, but what many service members may not realize is that a personal threat to their families exists much closer to home.
As parental outrage with “progressive” curriculums—for example, comprehensive sex education, gender identity, and “anti-racist” programs—sweeps across the country, military parents have good reasons to be up in arms.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Mayor Andy Ogles to the studio to reexamine his successful stifling of the well-being initiative that was instigated by Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Grant Henry and Mayor Ogles in studio to discuss the reckless spending and anti-business sentiment of the Democrats.
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Citizens charged their government with repression. The rebuttal came via a truncheon. Some people miss their own irony.
The Cuban government killed one protester, roughed up cameramen for the Associated Press, abducted citizens from their homes, and shut down the internet in response to demonstrations that erupted last weekend. “The order to fight has been given,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced. “Into the street, revolutionaries!”
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed American’s for prosperity’s grassroots director Grant Henry in studio to discuss the Fiat currency of today’s intended infrastructure bill that has yet to be written.
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The ubiquitous term “paradigm” and the concept of “paradigm shifts,” were popularized by the historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn. He used them to characterize, roughly, a scientific theory’s fundamental elements and the changes in fundamental elements that occur with scientific revolutions and changes in theory.
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A group of 20 American professors signed a joint letter with a group of Chinese professors demanding that the United States work more closely with China on future research efforts, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
The letter, which appeared in the most recent edition of the American Chemical Society’s journal of Environmental Science and Technology, was signed by 21 Americans and 19 Chinese. Of the 40 signatories, nine of the Americans had received their educations in Chinese universities; 18 of the journal’s editors have worked for institutions backed in some capacity by the Chinese government.
The letter’s authors claim that while “increasing geopolitical competition has generated greater mistrust between the U.S. and China…a great deal of this mistrust results from misunderstanding.” The letter recommends that American and Chinese “funding agencies should also seek opportunities to fund joint global research projects in SDG [sustainable development goals] areas for the common good.”
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In response to sharp increases in violent crime, President Biden stressed again last week that his administration is focused on “stemming the flow of firearms used to commit violent crimes.” But critics warn that this “guns first” approach ignores a basic fact – about 92% of violent crimes in America do not involve firearms.
Although firearms were used in about 74% of homicides in 2019, they comprise less than 9% of violent crimes in America.
The vast majority of violent offenses – including robberies, rapes and other sex crimes – almost always involve other weapons or no weapons at all.
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Houston Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent in Charge Daniel Comeaux says that the cartels operating south of the U.S.-Mexico border will continue to do everything in their power to get drugs into American communities, he told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an exclusive interview.
“Look, everyone needs to understand drug cartels are vicious, they’re violent and it’s all about the dollar bill. It doesn’t matter if it’s 2021 or 2020 or 2016, drug cartels are going to get their drugs across our border,” Comeaux said.
“They’re going to do everything and anything they can do to get their drugs across our border and that’s what they’re doing no matter what,” he added.
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The Department of Health and Human Services delivered 311 pages of heavily redacted emails Dr. Anthony Fauci and the World Health Organization and other documents regarding COVID-19 to Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller News Foundation, according to a press release Tuesday.
The redacted documents included personal edits from Fauci on COVID-related funding measures, which were redacted under a trade secrets exemption, Judicial Watch said in the press release.
“The American people have every right to know key information on our government’s role in Covid,” DCNF President Neil Patel said in the statement Tuesday. “This sort of hiding, dodging and stonewalling is one reason why trust in national authorities is near all-time lows.”
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the host of Pensive Politics Christian Watson to the newsmakers line to talk about Color Us United, critical race theory, and the woke ideologies of Blackness
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