Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed JC Bowman, CEO of Professional Educators of Tennessee in studio to dicuss who they are and the the failed concept of Achievement School Districts.
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Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS), an independent watchdog within the Internal Revenue Service, released a 2021 report to Congress stating that tens of millions of taxpayers had a “horrendous” experience with customer service, including the worst phone service “ever” and long delays for refunds.
“Calendar year 2021 was surely the most challenging year taxpayers and tax professionals have ever experienced – long processing and refund delays, difficulty reaching the IRS by phone, correspondence that went unprocessed for many months, collection notices issued while taxpayer correspondence was awaiting processing, limited or no information on the Where’s My Refund? tool for delayed returns, and – for full disclosure – difficulty obtaining timely assistance from TAS,” the report stated.
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The Biden administration advanced a federal review of the impact of leasing public waters for offshore wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday.
The review is part of President Joe Biden’s goal to permit at least 30 gigawatts of offshore wind production by 2030, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced. BOEM will study the environmental impacts of wind farm leases across a 30-million-acre swath of ocean that stretches from the Mississippi River to the U.S.-Mexico border off the coast of Texas.
“The Gulf of Mexico is well-positioned to support a transition to a renewable energy future, as much of the infrastructure already exists to support offshore wind development in the region,” said BOEM Director Amanda Lefton.
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Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna criticized Twitter and Facebook for censoring the New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden, saying the story should not have been blocked.
“I thought it was a mistake for Twitter to take down some of this stuff about Hunter Biden, or Facebook to do that,” Khanna said during an interview with Joe Lonsdale on the American Optimist podcast while promoting his book “Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us.”
The New York Post published a story in October 2020 detailing a meeting between Hunter Biden, then-Vice President Joe Biden and a top executive at Ukrainian gas company Burisma in 2015, relying on data recovered from a laptop reportedly belonging to Hunter. Shortly after the story was published, Twitter blocked users from sharing the link and suspended accounts that attempted to tweet it out.
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As the Omicron variant surged across the U.S., retail sales dipped 1.9% during the final month of 2021, according to information released by the Commerce Department on Friday.
Data shows that holiday shoppers took warnings about shipping delays seriously and shifted their holiday shopping schedule up last year. On the whole, consumer demand led sales to grow by 16.9% in 2021.
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A teacher training at a Texas middle school reportedly instructed teachers to not tell parents if a student tells them they identify as transgender or non-binary, according to documents reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“DO NOT contact their parents and out them to their families,” a teacher professional development training at Walsh Middle School (WMS) in Round Rock Independent School District (RRISD), told teachers, according to documents.
The training also provided teachers with advice if they “misgender someone,” advising them to “correct students” if they use the wrong pronouns, the documents show.
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A group of environmentalists voiced opposition to potential Massachusetts solar projects that could generate at least 250 kilowatts of electricity.
The majority of those who attended a public hearing hosted by the Amherst, Massachusetts, Community Resources Committee said they supported a moratorium on such projects that would expire in May 2023, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported. The proposed moratorium would prohibit surrounding municipalities from green lighting any solar project that exceeds the 250-kilowatt-capacity threshold.
The moratorium was proposed by three town councilors after an 11-megawatt solar farm was proposed in the area, the Gazette reported. A solar field that produces 250 kilowatts of electricity would power 71 households while one that produces 11 megawatts would power more than 3,000 homes, according to a federal estimate.
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The U.K.’s domestic spy service, MI5, informed the House of Commons speaker that a woman is suspected to have been used by China to exert influence over British lawmakers, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported.
The suspect, Christine Lee, is a London-based solicitor who “knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party,” authorities said Thursday, AFP reported.
House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle confirmed to AFP he had informed lawmakers of the incident through an email, AFP reported. “The Speaker takes the security of members and the democratic process very seriously, which is why he issued this notice in consultation with the security services,” a spokesperson for Hoyle told the outlet.
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Jim Gaffigan said on Joe Rogan’s program, “I’d still take Biden’s corpse over Donald Trump.” Congratulations, elites! You’re now being governed by a political corpse. Elites will be fine with a dead president governing a zombified American economy and society. Working and middle-class Americans? Not so much.
How dead is Joe Biden’s political life? Joe Biden is so toxic politically that Stacey Abrams, governor of the Georgia of her mind, refused to stand with him in the state she ostensibly governs about the legislation that is her signature issue: codifying the ability to commit election fraud at the federal level. Abrams was absent while a bunch of masked black people stood stoically behind the bellicose president. The optics were bad in every aspect. The content was worse.
Did Biden address the distress of the 1982-ish 7 percent inflation numbers crushing the lower and middle class? No. Did the president encourage people in the face of year three enduring the out-of-control omicron variant? No. Did the president discuss job innovation? No.
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COVID-19 vaccines allow breakthrough infections. Their duration “appears to be limited.”
On top of that, wealthy countries caused harm by bidding up vaccine prices to hoard the “limited supply” available last year.
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Hennepin County Jail is reportedly refusing to book suspects with warrants from other counties. In audio from the local police scanner, obtained by Crime Watch Minneapolis, the dispatcher can be heard announcing that “for the next two weeks, Hennepin Jail is not taking anyone with just warrants from outside Hennepin County.”
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Two bills (HB 7001 and HB 7003) that further restrict public officials from lobbying after leaving office were unanimously voted yes upon by the Florida House State Affairs Committee on Thursday.
Both bills, backed by Representative Traci Koster of Tampa, were filed to implement Amendment 12 from 2018 that prohibits lobbying by certain public officers during public service and for a six-year period following vacation of public office – instead of a two-year period as the law previously stated.
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Earlier this week, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued two decisions impacting vaccine mandates in the United States. SCOTUS issued a stay on the Biden Administration’s OSHA-based vaccine mandate for businesses with over 100 employees, striking a blow to Biden. However, the high court upheld the vaccine mandate put into place by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for healthcare providers.
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There are no real explanations as to how race and “equity” will come into play in deciding who gets the new coronavirus antiviral pills.
Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services earlier this month said “equity” would be at the heart of the state’s strategy to distribute the new pills from Pfizer and Merck.
“We are committed to distributing these pills equitably across the state, and access will increase as Wisconsin receives more allocations from the federal government,” DHS said in a statement.
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The attorney for Sarah Chambers, the whistleblower, and former co-campaign manager for Joseph K. Blystone’s gubernatorial campaign, told The Ohio Star Blystone’s lawsuit filed Tuesday asking the court to order the Ohio Elections Commission to dismiss Chambers’ Oct. 28 51-page complaint against him is a futile and desperate exercise.
“The old saying is, if the facts are on your side, you pound the facts. If the law’s on your side, you pound the law. If neither the facts nor the law is on your side, you pound the table,” said Scott A. Pullins, the Mount Vernon lawyer, who has for many years represented candidates, campaigns and political action committees.
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Dominion Energy, which is the largest energy company in Virginia, is asking the state to halt the next scheduled rate increase because Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s energy plan would make the hike unnecessary.
On Jan. 1, Dominion began implementing the state-approved rate increase to recover costs associated with purchasing allowances through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which is a carbon-trading initiative designed to gradually reduce carbon emissions. The initial increase for 2022 cost a residential customer nearly $30 over the year, but those costs would continue to go up if Virginia stays in the compact. According to the State Corporations Commission (SCC), RGGI would cost about $5.9 billion between 2019 and 2043 and would lead to a rate increase between $84 and $144 annually.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
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Delegate John McGuire (R-Henrico) has introduced several bills that would repeal Democratic criminal justice reforms. McGuire’s proposals include bills to lower thresholds for felony larceny, make it easier to execute search warrants, and end local governmental authority to establish law enforcement civilian oversight bodies. Chief on the list is HB 59, which requires school principals to report misdemeanors to law enforcement and to the victim’s parents.
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A U.S. Senator from Ohio released a statement Friday regarding Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling against President Joe Biden and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s attempt to mandate vaccines in the workplace.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) began his statement by saying that he is a strong advocate for COVID-19 vaccines.
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Ohio Democrats believe an Ohio Supreme Court decision that tossed out the state’s new Senate and House legislative district maps is an opportunity to create fairer districts, while Gov. Mike DeWine said court challenges were not unexpected.
The court gave the Ohio Redistricting Commission 10 days to redraw maps it said did not comply with a 2015 constitutional amendment that requires an attempt to avoid party favoritism. The League of Women Voters, along with other groups, sued and claimed the maps heavily favored state Republicans.
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Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she referred a group of people who attempted to falsely certify Michigan’s 2020 Presidential electoral votes for Donald Trump to federal prosecutors.
On a Thursday’s MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Nessel said she referred the case to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Michigan.
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State Senator Ryan Aument (R-Lititz) on Thursday introduced legislation that will expand parents’ access to school choice during the coronavirus pandemic.
The measure, Senate Bill 1015, will create an Education Savings Account, allowing parents to potentially receive funding to send their children to schools that are better equipped to address their child’s needs.
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Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers will dispatch the National Guard to battle the surge of coronavirus cases in the state, according to a release from his office.
In their capacity, the National Guard members will work to address staffing shortages across the healthcare industry, expanding capacity at hospitals and nursing homes.
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The Biden administration on Friday threatened to cut Arizona’s coronavirus relief funding because of Governor Doug Ducey’s policies to continue in-person learning in the state.
According to the letter from the U.S. Treasury Department, Ducey’s programs, which award funds to parents who are seeking to remove their children from schools that shut down or implement a mask mandate, are not a permitted use of the money.
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Declared Georgia lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Burt Jones on Friday said his campaign has raised $3.75 million for this fundraising period. Senator Jones (R-Jackson) received former U.S. President Donald Trump’s endorsement last September.
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Parents are suing the North Allegheny School District over its decision to lift the district’s mandatory mask mandate beginning next week, a move they claim could be “a death sentence” for severely immunocompromised students.
Attorney and district parent Kenneth Behrend filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on behalf of about 1,500 students covered by protections in the American Disabilities Act in an effort to halt the Sunday expiration of the district’s mask mandate.
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FRANKLIN, Tennessee — Three days before the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, Ben Carson traveled to Williamson County to tell a packed audience that Critical Race Theory (CRT) defies the teachings of the late civil rights activist. Carson, the former U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development, spoke at The Factory in Franklin, only a few miles away from the Williamson County School System’s (WCS’s) main office. Several frustrated parents have long said that the WCS continues to teach CRT, against those parents’ wishes.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Republican Congressman David Kustoff (R-TN-08) to the newsmakers line to shed light on the attempt by Democrats to circumvent the filibuster and nationalize elections.
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A Wisconsin judge has ruled that the absentee ballot drop boxes widely deployed during the 2020 election are not allowed under state law, a decision that could dramatically impact voting ahead of the swing state’s midterm elections.
Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Bohren ordered on Thursday the Wisconsin Elections Commission to retract its instructions to election officials on how to use drop boxes. Bohren declared that the WEC had overstepped its authority in issuing the guidance in the first place.
Bohren called the WEC’s guidance a “major policy decision that alter[s] how our absentee ballot process operates,” that was significant enough that it should have required approval by the Legislature.
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A Tennessee member of the U.S. House of Representatives appeared on Fox News’ “Varney & Co.” with host Stuart Varney to discuss the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
An incredulous Varney opened the segment asking Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07), a physician, about Americans who are vaccinated against COVID-19, but still contracting the virus.
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Between July 2020 and June of last year, more than 650 people tipped of Tennessee Comptrollers to various and alleged instances of waste, fraud, and abuse in local, state, and federal government agencies. And Comptrollers said they acted on those tips and learned several contained substantive allegations.
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On Thursday in a press release, the Tennessee Department of Revenue reminded Tennessee residents impacted by December’s severe weather that they are potentially eligible for sales tax refunds on home appliances, home furniture, and home building supplies, as they rebuild after storms.
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The Tennessee House Republican Leader has filed a bill lowering the handgun carry age from 21 to 18.
Tennessee House Republican Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland-HD44) filed HB1735 on Thursday, January 13th.
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According to nearly every poll, Americans believe race relations are deteriorating. Clearly, it’s never been more important to ask the question: how can we better live up to Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream that we and our children “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”?
This weekend, Dr. Carol Swain, president of Be the People Project and Moms for Liberty will be hosting the American Dream Conference here in Franklin, Tennessee. The goal of the conference is to engage in a fearless, wide-ranging discussion about race in America, as the nation celebrates and commemorates MLK.
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The Tennessee Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on Redistricting released their plans and maps for congressional and state senate redistricting.
The Senate version of congressional redistricting is substantially similar to the House plan, which was released on Wednesday. These plans split Nashville amongst three congressional districts. Under the current district lines, Nashville is in the 5th Congressional District and is represented by Congressman Jim Cooper. The current 5th District consists of all of Davidson and Dickson counties, and part of Cheatham County.
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Tennessee Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) both released statements this week after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation in the U.S. had soared to its highest level since 1982 in December of 2021.
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Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) secured the passage of his first piece of legislation in the U.S. Senate, since he was sworn in approximately one year ago.
The bipartisan bill, which was passed unanimously by the Senate, was cosponsored by Senators Angus King (I-ME) and Rob Portman (R-OH).
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The United States Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District announced this week they would study Trace Creek in Humphreys County, Tennessee. This is the same creek that flooded in Waverly, Tennessee in August of 2021.
The team will “look at site-specific data on obstructions to flood flows, flood formation, and timing; flood depths, stages, or floodwater velocities; the extent, duration, and frequency of flooding; information on natural and cultural flood plain resources; and flood loss potentials before and after the use of flood plain management measures.”
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The year 2021 saw the highest number of police officers killed in the line of duty in modern history, with 458 officers dying over the course of the year.
As reported by Fox News, the number is the highest since record-keeping first began, surpassing the previous high of 1930, which saw 312 officers killed on the job. The report was released on Tuesday by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF), pointing out that the numbers reflected an increase of 55 percent over the 2020 total of 295 deaths. The comprehensive report includes officers at every level, including municipal, county, state, and federal, as well as military, territorial, campus, and tribal law enforcement.
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The Biden administration is returning migrants in small numbers to Mexico as it rolls out the resumption of the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), it fought for months to end.
The policy requires border officials to return asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while waiting for immigration court hearings.
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Three suspects wanted for the murder of rap star Young Dolph have been captured as of Tuesday, according to the U.S. Marshals.
Rapper Young Dolph, whose real name was Adolph Thornton Jr., was gunned down in a daylight ambush at Makeda’s Homemade Butter Cookies in Memphis on November 17. Young Dolph was admired for charitable works in Memphis. He organized Thanksgiving food giveaways, donated thousands of dollars to high schools, and paid rent and covered funeral costs for people in the Castalia Heights neighborhood where he was raised. When he was killed, the 36-year-old rapper was in Memphis to hand out Thanksgiving turkeys and visit a cancer center, NPR reports.
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Two Tennessee lawmakers are targeting organized street racing.
State Representative John Gillespie (R-Memphis-HD97) and State Senator John Stevens (R-Huntingdon-SD24) have teamed up to introduce identical bills, HB1661 and SB1673. These bills create a new offense in the state code, aggravated reckless driving.
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More than 50,000 illegal immigrants released into the U.S. by Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to report to their deportation proceedings during a five-month period analyzed last year, according to a report provided by the Department of Homeland Security to U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin. The report also states that ICE doesn’t have court information on more than 40,000 individuals it’s supposed to prosecute.
“Between March and August 2021, as a result of the Biden Administration’s failed border policies, over 270,000 illegal aliens have been dispersed into the United States with little chance for removal,” Johnson said in an announcement accompanying the report, which didn’t include data from the other seven months of the year.
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President Joe Biden’s approval rating continues to drop as voters grow increasingly dissatisfied with his handling of key issues, according to the results of a new poll.
Biden’s approval rating dropped to a new low of 33%, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday, with 53% of Americans saying they disapprove of the president’s performance. The rating is down 3% since November 2021, when Biden held a 36% approval rating.
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The Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures inflation at the wholesale level, surged to 9.7% on a year-over-year basis as of December 2021, marking the highest rate in history, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced Thursday.
The BLS reported that the PPI grew 0.2% in December as prices continued to soar amid growing supply chain disruptions and COVID-19 concerns. As of November, the measure grew 9.6% on a year-over basis and 0.8% in that month alone.
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Thousands of federal employees will peacefully march in protest of President Biden’s vaccine mandate, Defeat The Mandates DC organizers announced in a press release Thursday.
Over 6,000 members of Feds For Medical Freedom, a national grassroots coalition consisting of federal workers, announced that they would join firefighters, first responders, medical professionals and more in the March to Defeat the Mandates in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 23, the press release said.
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From the moment COVID-19 appeared, the pandemic became inseparable from politics.
Political frenzy was inevitable since the SARS-CoV-2 virus likely escaped from a level-4 security virology lab in Wuhan, China.
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It is back to work for state legislators. The first week of the legislature has been very busy. While criticizing politicians is a national activity and a form of amusement for many, the truth is that most of these folks are good people, working hard, and trying to do the right thing for our state. It is always the good, bad, and ugly in any political system.
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In a Wednesday tweet, Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert blasted Governor Ralph Northam’s final State of the Commonwealth address, leading House Minority Leader Eileen Filler-Corn to respond in a floor statement on Thursday.
“Ralph Northam is leaving office as his own lost cause, condescendingly lecturing us all from some assumed moral high ground because he read the book ‘Roots’ and then went on a non-stop reconciliation tour. Saturday can’t come fast enough,” Gilbert wrote.
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State Representative Brad Thomas (R-Holly Springs) on Thursday filed a bill that he said would, if enacted into law, prohibit Georgia public school officials from teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the 1619 Project. Thomas did not return The Georgia Star News’ request for an interview Thursday. He said in an emailed press release that his bill, HB 888, “would prohibit curriculum that could be considered discriminatory on the basis of race from being taught in public schools.” HB 888 also includes a transparency requirement that would allow all parents to view the educational materials given to Georgia students.
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