U.S. Representative Peter Meijer (R-MI-03) joined Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA-06) and traveled to Kabul, Afghanistan, the center of evacuation efforts carried out by the United States.
In a joint statement after the trip, the two military veterans criticized the ongoing efforts and detailed that there would be no way to complete evacuations by August 31, contradicting a direct claim by President Joe Biden.
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A motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act that bans transgender females from participating in high school athletics, was sent to a federal judge on Monday.
The Act, also known as SB 1028, was approved in April by the Florida Legislature, and signed into law by Governor DeSantis in June on the basis that it would ensure that biological males do not participate in female sports in order to keep spots open for biological females.
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A Leon County Circuit Judge is hearing arguments from parents seeking an end to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ mask mandate ban. Specifically, the parents are seeking to challenge DeSantis’ executive order from July 30, which numerous school districts have been defying.
Charles Dodson, a former judge and is representing the parents, said schools are not safe until everyone is masked.
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The former district manager for the Bristol-Bluff City Utility allegedly misappropriated more than $294,000 in district funds and spent it on herself. This, according to an audit that Tennessee Comptrollers released this month.
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The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) released statewide unemployment data on Friday, showing slight increase in the unemployment rate from June to July.
As stated in the DEO release, Florida’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.1 percent in July 2021, up 0.1% from the June 2021 rate, and down 6.4% from a year ago.
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A flaw in the ballot design for California’s recall election, which takes place in less than three weeks, is raising eyebrows among voters.
Photographs taken by several voters show that the envelopes in which ballots are placed have a circular hole, allowing envelope handlers to see whether the voter voted “Yes” or “No” to recall embattled Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).
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Fight for Schools PAC announced Wednesday that they have collected 158 percent of the signatures necessary to ask a court to recall Loudoun School Board Member Beth Barts.
“For five months, Loudoun County has been at the center of local, state, national, and even international media attention. Much of this is due to the actions of Beth Barts. She has shown a complete inability to comply with the law, her own code of conduct, and the basic decency that accompanies being an elected official in the United States of America,” Fight for Schools Executive Director Ian Prior said in a press release.
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Due to rising crime rates, the City of Atlanta is advertising for a director of violence reduction. Crime has increased so much that residents of nearby Buckhead formally want to secede from Atlanta. The man leading that secession movement told The Georgia Star News Wednesday that the new director of violence reduction, regardless of who takes the job, won’t influence Buckhead residents to have second thoughts about leaving.
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Anoka-Hennepin School District, the largest district in the state of Minnesota, updated its face mask guidance this week following 90 minutes of heated public comment.
At its August 23 meeting, the school board adopted a recommendation from the district superintendent to require masks on a case matrix model.
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President Joe Biden (D) on Tuesday declared that a major disaster exists in the State of Tennessee, a move requested by Governor Bill Lee (R-TN).
Due to the declaration, Biden now controls the ability to order federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by a severe storm and flooding.
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It might seem that there is little to be added to what the whole world has witnessed viewing the unutterable shambles of the U.S. departure from Afghanistan. But that would be an illusion. The story of the perilous departure from Afghanistan of NATO forces and civilians and their Afghan collaborators who are now in mortal danger is obviously a matter of great suspense. The United States could certainly tell the Taliban government of Afghanistan that if all those whom the Western powers wished to evacuate were not allowed to leave it would be an act of war. If there were the will to act on that ultimatum, it would be successful.
But under the circumstances, the credibility of such a threat would probably have to be proved by acting on it. As some commentators have mentioned, this would be morally justified and is morally required and the administration would simply have to accept that it has bungled the withdrawal, and must execute an immediate but brief return. The Biden Administration, after seven months, has shown no competence whatever in foreign or national security policy.
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President Joe Biden encouraged private sector companies Monday to “step up” vaccine requirements for employees following the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
“If you’re a business leader, a non-profit leader, a state or local leader, who has been waiting for full FDA approval to require vaccinations, I call on you now to do that. Require it,” Biden said. “Do what I did last month. Require your employees to get vaccinated or face strict requirements.”
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Airbnb, a vacation home rental site, is offering free temporary housing to around 20,000 Afghan refugees across the world, the company announced Tuesday.
“As tens of thousands of Afghan refugees resettle around the world, where they stay will be the first chapter in their new lives,” Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky said in a statement. “For these 20,000 refugees, my hope is that the Airbnb community will provide them with not only a safe place to rest and start over, but also a warm welcome home.”
Around 3.5 million people living in Afghanistan have been displaced, including around 270,000 due to Taliban advances since January, the U.N. reported on July 13. Around 10,400 people were evacuated by U.S. military flights from Afghanistan Sunday and another 6,660 were taken Monday, according to the Associated Press.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Mayor Ogles and AMF’s Henry to the studio to weigh in on federal government funding to local state schools and the motivation for school choice.
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The report of ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election in Arizona’s Maricopa County has been delayed because the chief executive and two other employees of the audit team reportedly have COVID-19 and are “quite sick.”
A draft report of the findings was expected to be delivered Monday to Republicans in the state Senate, who hired the Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas to conduct the audit.
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Despite the fact that the school has encouraged all students to take the COVID-19 vaccine, and decided to follow the Georgia University System’s guidance on mask recommendations in indoor spaces, two professors at the University of North Georgia have resigned in protest.
They say the school is not doing enough to protect their health during the recent uptick of cases of the virus.
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CIA Director William J. Burns secretly met with the leader of the Taliban in Kabul on Monday, The Washington Post reported.
Burns met with Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s de-facto leader, in the highest-level in-person meeting between the Biden administration and the Taliban since the group seized Kabul, several U.S. officials told The Washington Post. The meeting took place amid the Biden administration’s continued efforts to withdraw American citizens and Afghan allies as the Taliban consolidates its rule.
The U.S. currently plans to withdraw all personnel by Aug. 31, but President Joe Biden indicated he could extend that time frame if there are still people left in Afghanistan.
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The former minister of interior affairs for Afghanistan was reportedly seen fleeing the country with refugees, Richard Engel, a chief foreign correspondent for NBC News, said Monday.
“Some Afghan officials from fallen govt escaping with refugees. A senior Qatari official told me among those they’ve identified are former interior minister Gen. Abdul Satar Mirzakwal, one of his deputies and a sr army official,” Engel tweeted.
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In the “Nicomachean Ethics,” Aristotle has a lot to say about the activity of choice and its place in securing “eudaimonia,” that “good-spiritedness” that is synonymous with human fulfillment.
Choice is critical in the metabolism of virtue. But, Aristotle points out, it is possible for someone, through bad choices, to put himself in a situation from which choice cannot rescue him.
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An infamous anti-Trump Republican has endorsed a Democrat running for another high-profile office.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Bill Kristol, Editor-at-Large of The Bulwark said he will endorse Terry McAuliffe instead of Glenn Youngkin in Virginia’s gubernatorial race.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed (R-07) Congressman Mark Green to the newsmakers line
to discuss the flash flooding in his district and Joe Biden’s failures.
Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles in studio to revisit mask mandates imposed by the Biden administration and the lack of data to support it.
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The Biden administration has been an “impediment” to a private effort to get people out of Afghanistan, Robert Stryk, who is arranging privately chartered flights to get Americans and vulnerable Afghans out of the country, exclusively told the Daily Caller News Foundation Monday.
“The Brits and South Africans have been fucking awesome and heroic in getting people through the Mil Gate,” Stryk told the DCNF.
Stryk, whose Washington-based lobbying firm was in 2017 paid by the government of Afghanistan for “US Government affairs and commercial sector advice. Executive Branch and Legislative Branch Engagement; Defense consultation; strategic advice pertaining to extremism/terrorism; and promotion of democracy and foreign direct investment,” said he had reached out to the administration “dozens and dozens” of times and had yet to hear back.
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In 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the landmark AB 32, the “Global Warming Solutions Act.” Determined to leave a legacy that would ensure he remained welcome among the glitterati of Hollywood and Manhattan, Schwarzenegger may not have fully comprehended the forces he unleashed.
Under AB 32, California was required to “reduce its [greenhouse gas] emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.” Now, according to the “scoping plan” updated in 2017, California must “further reduce its GHG emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.”
The problem with such an ambitious plan is that achieving it will preclude ordinary Californians ever enjoying the lifestyle that people living in developed nations have earned and have come to expect. It will condemn Californians to chronic scarcity of energy, with repercussions that remain poorly understood by voters.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles in studio to talk about what it was like working beside icon Phil Valentine during talk radio’s heyday.
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According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, more than 680 U.S. public and private colleges require students to get a coronavirus vaccine. This is a non-negotiable mandate for students to maintain enrollment status.
The vaccination edicts come even as the coronavirus has an extremely low mortality rate among college-aged students — CDC data attributes only 2.8 percent of coronavirus deaths to those under age 45. Regardless of this reality, those favoring mandated vaccines argue that schools already require students to provide proof of other vaccinations.
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Former President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor Robert O’Brien endorsed J.D. Vance in the highly-contested GOP primary to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate.
In the endorsement released by Vance’s campaign, O’Brien called Vance “a strong leader who will fight for President Trump’s America First foreign policy.”
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Legalized recreational use of marijuana recently cleared a hurdle on its second attempt but several more have to be passed before it becomes law in Ohio.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost gave the go-ahead to the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol’s proposed law after rejecting its original plan in early August, saying the summary proposes to add an entire chapter to the Ohio Revised Code rather than enact a single law and the summary failed to include key elements in the summary.
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Commissioners for the City of Orlando unanimously approved an incentive agreement between the city and a tech company known as Checkr Inc. that will establish an office that will create 630 new high-wage jobs by the end of 2024.
Additionally, Checkr will receive just over $1.1 million from the city over the next six years, but will make a $2.7 million capital investment to the city in return that includes the lease to a 25,000 square foot office building in the Millenia Lakes area of Orlando.
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Virginia public schools are reopening under a new law, SB 1303, which requires all schools to make in-person instruction available for the minimum standard required instructional hours — virtual learning can be provided, but must be optional. However, that doesn’t mean that local districts can’t choose to go virtual-only for limited amounts of time, as Rappahanock County Public Schools is currently demonstrating. On Monday, the district announced that amid rising COVID-19 and flu cases, the school was moving to virtual-only until August 27 while the district implements new mitigation strategies.
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The Chesapeake Public Schools Board declined to even vote on passing a transgender policy in its Monday meeting. After hours of public comment advocating for and against both mask policy and the transgender policy, Member Patricia King’s motion to pass the policy died without being seconded by any other board member.
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Herschel Walker has reportedly filed the paperwork to run for one of Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats. FOX News reported Tuesday that Walker, a Republican, will challenge incumbent U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) in 2022. The network also reported that Walker, a Georgia native, will officially announce “in coming days.”
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Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed two bills into law allowing for the expungement of some first-time drunk driving convictions, which could give 200,000 Michiganders a second chance at an otherwise black mark on their records.
Lawmakers gave bipartisan support with a 92-16 vote for House Bills 4219 and 4220, which aim to allow the expungement of first-time operating while intoxicated (OWI) and driving under the influence (DUI) convictions in which no one was injured.
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The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 2017 Texas law outlawing a second trimester abortion procedure called D&E (dilation and evacuation), or dismemberment.
In 2017, the Texas legislature passed the Texas Dismemberment Abortion Ban with bipartisan support, making D&Es a felony and banning them from being performed except in the case of an emergency. After the law passed and before it went into effect, Whole Women’s Health, several Planned Parenthood groups, several doctors, and others, sued in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.
The district court ruled in their favor, blocking the law from going into effect. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office appealed, and a three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit upheld the lower court’s ruling last October.
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Congressman Byron Donalds (R-19) has called on President Joe Biden to resign in the wake of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban.
“It has become clear that President Biden has lost complete and total confidence of the American people through his haphazard decision to withdraw from Afghanistan,” Donalds said in an exclusive statement to the Daily Caller.
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The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) announced they have opened an investigation into the 2020 election related to Florida Senate District 9, which saw then-candidate Jason Brodeur (R) defeat Patricia Sigman (D) by approximately 2 percentage points.
The Orlando Sentinel reported the specific allegations have not been publicly disclosed, but noted the Seminole and Volusia County election, and the political scene at-large, has been mired in scrutiny and controversy for months.
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Democrats in the Pennsylvania General Assembly hope to increase monthly welfare benefits in Pennsylvania, reasoning that payments under the federally funded Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program have stayed flat since the 1990s, falling well behind inflation.
Legislation being drafted by state Sen. Katie Muth (D-PA-Royersford) and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-PA-Philadelphia) would increase Pennsylvania’s TANF benefits, which average $403 per month for a family of three in most counties.
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Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ-04) introduced the “Americans Not Aliens Act” on August 20, which would prevent the Department of Homeland Security from issuing work permits to migrants with deportation orders. These are generally illegal immigrants who have received hearings before an immigration judge who has declined to give them asylum, instead ordering their removal.
“Providing work permits to aliens who have been ordered removed from the United States is the very definition of insanity,” Gosar said in a statement. “At a time when American citizens are struggling to find jobs, my legislation removes the incentives for aliens to ignore the rule of law and not return to their country of origin.” Under the current system, they can easily find jobs in America which they may not be able to find in their home countries.
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While COVID hype and fear is pushed on the American population, Minnesota’s ICU bed capacity continues to decline. Government officials, news outlets, and influencers are encouraging Minnesotans to get vaccinated to stay out of the ICU, citing Minnesota’s “93% full ICUs.”
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COLUMBUS, Ohio – About 400 or more protesters lined the Third Street stretch of Capitol Square downtown Tuesday morning as a Ohio House of Representatives committee prepared to hear more testimony on the proposed Vaccine Choice and Anti-Discrimination Act that seeks to ban businesses from mandating workers to get vaccinated as a condition of employment. Tea Party Patriots Action and affiliates organized the protest as the first of several planned across the country as well as two more sets in Ohio communities during the next five days. Protesters held signs such as, “No Forced Vaccines,” “Yes to Medical Freedom,” “Medical Freedom is a Human Right.” and “No More DeWine,” the latter a reference to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. As protesters voiced support for House Bill 248, legislators on the House Health Committee began gathering around 11 a.m. for what became a four-hour marathon to hear opponents and proponents of the legislation present views on the legislation inspired by, but not specifically targeting, the COVID-19 vaccination that about 60 percent of eligible Ohio adults and teens have received. But fear of employer-mandated COVID vaccination spurred first-term State Representative Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester Township) to introduce the legislation in early April. By…
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Michigan State University recently published a 77-page diversity, equity and inclusion framework that lists dozens of goals to infuse the progressive ideology into every aspect of campus life, from curriculum to hiring practices to funding priorities.
Among the recommendations is to implement “a minimum of two DEI-related requirements in the formal curriculum for undergraduate students,” the document states.
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Members of the Georgia State Election Board (SEB) have referred their investigation of alleged shenanigans at the Spalding County Board of Elections to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr. Spalding County officials allegedly showed gross incompetence in how they managed last year’s presidential election.
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Metro Nashville Community Oversight Board (COB) Executive Director Jill Fitcheard makes more than $116,000 per year, according to public records, and that’s a generous pay increase over what she made as assistant executive director.
The Tennessee Star filed a public records request in July asking for information about what Fitcheard makes this fiscal year and what she made in Fiscal Year 2020. Those records show she made more than $42,000 as the COB’s assistant executive director.
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U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) joined Representatives Mark Green (R-TN-07) and Jim Cooper (D-TN-05) and urged President Joe Biden to approve Governor Bill Lee’s request for a Major Disaster Declaration due to flooding throughout in Middle Tennessee.
In the attempt to bridge the gap between the federal and state government, the group of lawmakers pledged to provide the Biden administration with any assistance needed to expeditiously approve the Governor’s request.
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Yogi Berra once said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
That is exactly how Americans must feel as they learn that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is trying to ram through another bill orchestrating a federal takeover of elections, despite the previous failed attempt in the Senate.
The bill, H.R. 4, is expected to come up in the House of Representatives this week, and it is stunning in its breadth. In short, Pelosi would give broad, sweeping powers to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to rewrite every state and local election law in the country.
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U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel caused a stir on social media over the weekend after he posted a photo Friday evening at a local brewery.
“PERRYSBURG, OH — [Inside the Five] is a cool brewery started by two NFL vets. Great food and spirited waitresses! Even though Brianne was sick today, she came to work because she knew they were short servers. These are the type of American workers that make our country strong,” he said in a tweet.
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At least one Memphis City Council member reportedly wants any business that accepts the city’s corporate welfare to raise their minimum wage from $13 to $21. None of the 13 Memphis City Council members returned The Tennessee Star’s requests for comment Monday.
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While the Taliban and Iranian mullahs still enjoy Twitter privileges, a growing number of Americans, mostly of conservative persuasion, face a range of restrictions imposed on their accounts by U.S. social media platforms.
The list of Americans who have seen their social media reach limited is topped by former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been banned indefinitely on Twitter and for two years on Facebook. More recently, Georgia GOP Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene was temporarily silenced by Twitter.
The firebrand freshman congresswoman was suspended earlier this month for seven days for what Twitter called “misinformation” for arguing COVID-19 masks and vaccines are “failing,” as more fully vaccinated Americans are contracting the virus’s highly contagious delta strain.
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At first blush, it may not seem that the Democrats’ $4.5 trillion infrastructure and spending plans and President Joe Biden’s bungled exit from Afghanistan have a nexus. But they do in China’s rare metals monopoly.
Beijing already dominates the rare metals market needed for electronics, electric car batteries and computers, a reality made more painfully obvious with the current computer chip shortage that is slowing production of new U.S. cars.
And now with the haphazard U.S. withdrawal from Kabul, one of the world’s largest untapped deposits of lithium — estimated by some at $1 trillion in Afghanistan — is poised to fall into China’s hands just as Biden has ordered that half all U.S. cars be electric by 2030 and congressional Democrats prepare to vote to invest tens of billions of dollars more to push that goal further.
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Jason Martin, a Nashville physician, officially launched his campaign on Monday for the Tennessee Democratic Gubernatorial nomination.
Martin has gained media attention and prominence among Democrats throughout the state, largely due to his criticism of Governor Bill Lee.
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