Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Monday signed redistricting maps that will change the boundaries for the state’s House and Senate seats, in addition to the lines of the districts for the U.S. House of Representatives.
The congressional map, approved by the Tennessee General Assembly earlier this month, will divide Davidson County into three separate districts, potentially allowing Republicans to flip the seat from Democratic control.
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Former Trump Administration State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus officially announced her candidacy for the Republican nomination to represent Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District early Monday morning.
Ortagus’ campaign sent out a press release announcing the candidacy, along with a campaign video. Ortagus then joined Nashville’s Morning News with Dan Mandis to discuss her candidacy. Mandis immediately asked her about her previous comments disparaging President Trump.
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Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams is facing criticism for posing for photos with school children while not wearing a COVID-19 mask.
In now-deleted Twitter posts, Abrams is seen seated on the floor without a mask while several children on each side are each wearing one.
Abrams, a Georgia gubernatorial candidate and nationally known Democrat politician, like other fellow, high-profile party members is being accused of being hypocritical about the mask mandates that many elected Democrats across the country have required people to wear during the pandemic.
Abrams has championed more stringent masking policies in schools, according to CNN.
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Former President Donald Trump released a blistering attack Friday afternoon on former Vice President Mike Pence’s claims earlier in the day about the January 6, 2021 Joint Session of Congress over which Pence presided at which Electoral College votes submitted by the states were counted.
In a speech before the Florida Chapter of the Federalist Society in Orlando on Friday, Pence asserted, “There are those in our party who believe that as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress, I possessed unilateral authority to reject Electoral College votes. And I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election.’ President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election.” (emphasis added)
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On Monday The Tennessee Star celebrates its fifth anniversary.
Shortly after midnight, after The Star’s first full day in 2017, Managing Editor Christina Botteri, noted the news outlet had more than 3,000 unique visitors.
“The remarkable thing about our traffic on launch day,” she said at the time, “is that each visitor came back and visited different stories on the site several times during the day.” The total number of pageviews was well over 9,000 that inaugural day, she said.
Across Middle Tennessee, conservatives who had not had a reliable media outlet cheered the arrival of The Star. The outlet provided a marked contrast to the editorial voice of the dominant left-leaning newspapers in the Middle Tennessee area.
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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s proposed fiscal year 2023 budget includes $626.5 million in road projects for the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
The proposal includes 22 new projects that are categorized under the State Highway Partnership Program ($226 million), Rural Interchange Improvement Program ($176 million), IMPROVE Act Acceleration ($100 million) and economic development projects ($77 million).
The economic development projects, in what are characterized as some of the state’s fastest-growing counties, include a Cleveland Street extension and Interstate-24 underpass in Davidson County ($40 million), a Sullivan County alignment project ($22 million) and widening State Road 334 in Blount County ($15 million).
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A bill is pending before the Tennessee General Assembly that proposes the relocation of illegal aliens located in Tennessee to towns that are connected to President Joe Biden and other prominent Democrat leaders. That legislation has received a Senate sponsor.
The original legislation, HB1994, was filed by Rep. Bruce Griffey (R-Paris-HD75) on January 26, 2022. Senator Frank S. Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains-SD8) filed the Senate version, SB2636, on February 2, 2022.
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CNN is dying. Its president, Jeff Zucker, was just fired. (Or, rather, he “resigned.”) The network’s viewership is plummeting, and fewer than 500,000 people on average tuned in last month. Advertisers don’t send their dollars there much anymore, and the “stars” the network once had either have been removed for cause or caught up in sex or other scandals.
Chris “Fredo” Cuomo threatened to burn the place down after getting fired last year. Why does the parent company—AT&T, a telephone megacompany—put up with it? CNN is a drag on the parent company’s earnings, a thorn in its side, and a hit on its reputation. Wouldn’t a rational actor cancel the network altogether or sell it off and be done with it? With $150 billion in debt, no wonder AT&T decided to sell the ailing network to the Discovery Network. AT&T will no doubt benefit from getting out of politics.
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New federal regulations aimed to ”improve highway safety” by “ensuring that entry-level commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers complete training required by the new entry-level driver training (ELDT) regulations” are now in effect, according to a press release by the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security.
On Monday, entry-level CMV drivers will not be eligible to take their commercial driver license (CDL) test until successfully completing a specific program of theory and behind-the-wheel instruction provided by a school or other entity listed on Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) new Training Provider Registry (TPR), according to the press release.
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The upstart crowdfunding website GiveSendGo on Saturday restarted a funding drive in support of the Canadian trucker protests, quickly raising a massive $1 million just hours after the fund was dropped by the larger platform GoFundMe.
GoFundMe had cancelled the funding drive after it had raised a whopping $10 million, claiming that the protest itself had turned into a violent “occupation” and that it violated the company’s terms of service.
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The Small Business Administration-administered Paycheck Protection Program paid out millions of dollars to ineligible unions, according to a new report released by the Freedom Foundation.
The Freedom Foundation investigated the SBA’s database of PPP loans, and concluded approximately 226 loans totaling $36.7 million were distributed to labor unions and affiliated organizations. The first round of PPP loans explicitly states such entities were ineligible for the government funds prior to March 11, 2021.
“The Small Business Administration knew as early as July 2020 that Paycheck Protection Program loans were being approved for unions that weren’t eligible to receive the funds,” Maxford Nelsen, Freedom Fund director of Labor Policy, told The Center Square.
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Melinda Gates announced Wednesday that she is no longer giving the majority of her wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and will instead focus on spreading her money to other philanthropic projects, The Wall Street Journal first reported.
Gates made the decision after her divorce from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in May 2021, the WSJ reported. The couple first pledged to donate most of their wealth to the joint Foundation in 2010.
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Last March, President Joe Biden announced a goal of building 30,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind generation by 2030. Doing so will “strengthen the domestic supply chain and create good-paying union jobs,” according to the White House. It’s all part of the president’s executive order to “build a new energy economy that will create millions of new jobs.”
Except the executive order won’t accomplish this, not least because it rests on an assumption that endless green energy subsidies will produce boundless economic growth.
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A majority of Americans say they are not better off financially than they were a year ago, according to a new poll.
Gallup released the polling data Thursday showing that only 41% of Americans say they are financially better off than they were a year ago, when President Joe Biden took office.
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A coalition of three dozen Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives has vowed to investigate the Biden Administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), after it has been reported that the agency has been building up a database of as many legal firearms purchases as possible.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the investigation will be led by Congressman Michael Cloud (R-Texas), and will be backed by 35 other Republicans. The probe will focus on the ATF’s efforts to “sweep up records of every gun sale in America,” the group declared in a letter announcing their investigation. The ATF’s database currently contains over 920 million transaction records involving the sale of firearms within the United States; such a database not only violates Americans’ privacy rights, but would also be in violation of federal law forbidding the federal government from maintaining any semblance of a national firearms registry.
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Conservatives took critics to heart when they said, “build your own platforms,” in the wake of digital censorship claims.
Twitter competitors like Gab, Parler and now GETTR offer a “safe space” for those frustrated by the former’s inconsistent rules. The video platform Rumble, active since 2013 but experiencing a massive boost over the past year, is a haven for voices like conservative talker Dan Bongino recently silenced by Google-owned YouTube. And GiveSendGo.com lets clients denied access to GoFundMe crowdfund without compromising their values.
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Multiple news reports suggesting that a Travis County judge ruled that Texas’ Operation Lone Star is unconstitutional is “fake news,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Office says.
To suggest the state’s border security measures are unconstitutional “is absolutely ludicrous and wrong,” Paxton told The Center Square.
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On Jan. 26, the group “White Coats 4 Black Lives,” an organization with a mission to “dismantle racism in medicine and fight for the health of Black people,” gave the University of Rochester’s School of Medicine & Dentistry its “Racial Justice Report Card.”
The result was nine “F” grades based on campus activity and administration policies during the 2020-2021 academic year.
Founded in 2014, White Coats 4 Black Lives has 75 chapters at universities across the nation and pushes the Black Lives Matter agenda within medical schools.
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Natural immunity from COVID-19 is broad and durable. The lowest risk group for COVID complications should get vaccines — and boosters, for those authorized — regardless of their health.
These statements came out of the CDC two days apart, illustrating the agency’s mixed messaging as ongoing research fails to show a meaningful effect on viral transmission from COVID interventions, especially in children.
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Do you trust the U.S. government? I don’t recommend it.
Consider what John Kirby, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said a couple of days ago at a press briefing. “We believe,” Kirby said, that Russia is planning to stage a fake attack by Ukrainian military or intelligence forces against Russian sovereign territory, or against Russian speaking people,” in order to justify an invasion of Ukraine. Kirby had lots of details: “We believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners, and images of destroyed locations, as well as military equipment, at the hands of Ukraine or the West.”
Gosh. Should we be worried? Yes. But not necessarily for the reasons that Kirby and his puppet masters want you to be worried. The United States is sending troops and arms to aid Ukraine, so of course there needs to be an emergency to justify that action. John Kirby just outlined a scary scenario. But inquiring minds want to know: What’s his evidence for this dramatic claim?
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The COVID-19 vaccine exemption process in the Marine Corps gives no consideration to the faiths of individual soldiers and could hamper military readiness, according to Marines fighting the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate on religious grounds who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation anonymously out of fear of retribution.
As of Friday, 95% of active duty members of the Marine Corps were fully vaccinated, and another 2% were partially vaccinated, Department of Defense (DOD) spokesperson Maj. Charlie Dietz told the DCNF. A total of 334 Marines have been separated with a vaccine refusal discharge code. The Marine Corps has received 3,538 religious exemption requests, and only three were approved, out of 3,414 requests that were processed.
The Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum on Aug. 24, requiring that all service members be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a matter of readiness.
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Chief Financial Officer of San Diego State University’s (SDSU) Campanile Foundation, David Fuhriman, spoke to Campus Reform about the school’s decision to accept Bitcoin and cryptocurrency donations.
Fuhriman noted the push to expand SDSU’s donor base, explained how the donated funds will be used, and expressed optimism for the asset class.
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A Canadian movement of truckers protesting the country’s vaccine mandate has inspired a similar protest in the U.S., with a convoy expected to arrive at the nation’s capital next month. That movement, though, sparked controversy beyond its protest this weekend after a run-in with the popular online fundraiser, GoFundMe.
GoFundMe announced it would refund more than $10 million in donations to donors of the “Freedom Convoy” online fundraiser after threats of a fraud investigation from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis threatened the investigation after GoFundMe reportedly froze the fundraising account Friday and said they would give the funds to another charity of Freedom Convoy’s choice.
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A new poll of 626 likely Republican primary voters conducted by Public Policy Polling, and commissioned by the Democratic Governors Association, has brutal implications for Ohio Gov. R. Michael “Mike” DeWine, showing his Favorable/Unfavorable rating six points underwater.
The poll shows Republican primary voters are divided over DeWine’s job performance, with 40 percent approving of the job he is doing and 41 percent disapproving,” wrote Minami Yoshizawa, a PPP polling associate, in her analysis memorandum for the DGA.
“His approval rating when it comes to handling the Covid-19 pandemic is also underwater by four points, 40-44,” she said of the poll that was conducted Jan. 25 and Jan. 26. The poll carries a 3.9 percent margin of error.
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State University of New York at Fredonia Professor Stephen Kershnar has been relieved of his on-campus duties and “will not have contact with students” pending an investigation by the school, according to the popular Twitter page LibsofTikTok.
On Feb. 1, LibsofTikTok posted video footage of the Kershnar claiming that there is a moral justification for having sex with children as young as one-year-old, comparing it to “willing” participation in kickball.
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The Biden administration is experiencing an uptick of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spokesmen channeling left-wing talking points aimed at discrediting American institutions.
Seeking to denounce a key Department of Justice (DOJ) counterintelligence program billed to “identify priority Chinese trade theft cases,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, invoked its domestic critics during a recent Jan. 18 presser.
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The top House Republican on a key oversight subcommittee has pushed a series of conflict-of-interest probes into the Biden administration over its ties to the renewable energy industry.
Republican South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, the ranking member on the Oversight Subcommittee on Environment, has probed leadership in the White House, Department of Energy (DOE) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), demanding accountability for potential conflicts of interests since President Joe Biden took office more than a year ago. While committee Democrats haven’t cooperated with the investigations, Norman and Oversight Ranking Member James Comer have forged ahead.
“The people in the administrations have no regard for the office that they hold,” Norman told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.
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Pennsylvania’s Legislative Redistricting Commission (LRC) on Friday finalized a new district map for state representatives that aids Democrats’ electability.
All three Democrats on the five-member LRC voted for the map, which is a modified version of a preliminary plan the same Democrats approved last month. Both Republicans voted against the plan.
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Minnesota Senate Republicans pitched a 2022 “top priority” $65 million law enforcement recruiting package Wednesday.
The proposals – dubbed the “Creating Opportunities in Public Safety” (C.O.P.S) program – would incentivize law enforcement recruitment statewide to address a police officer shortage, Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller, R-Winona, said in a news conference.
“Across the state, we’ve been hearing from law enforcement agencies that are struggling with staff,” Miller said. “Law Enforcement officers are leaving the force in far higher numbers than they are applying to join the force and it’s hitting a critical stage for their ability to provide for safe communities,” “This isn’t an accident. These losses are a direct result of the ‘Defund the Police’ and anti-police rhetoric, that has demonized police officers and left them personally demoralized and their agencies diminished in size and standing.”
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and the State Bar of Arizona on Friday reached an agreement to settle multiple ethics complaints.
The Arizona Board of Regents and Secretary of State’s office claimed Brnovich acted unethically when representing the two agencies.
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An Ohio woman pleaded guilty to charges related to her role in a fraudulent adoption scheme, according to a release from the Department of Justice.
According to the original indictment, Margaret Cole, a 74-year-old woman, ran an international adoption agency based in Strongsville, Ohio.
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Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee responded to the concerns of the chair of the Democratic party over alleged voter registration irregularities in Miami-Dade County by endorsing Governor Ron DeSantis’ proposal to create an Office of Election Crimes and Security.
Manual Diaz, the Chair of the Democratic Party, sent a letter to Lee on February 3 seeking an investigation into allegations that voters were unknowingly having their voter registrations changed from Democrat to Republican. Diaz added, ” I trust that you are as alarmed as I am by these reports and will uphold you duty as Chief Elections Officer of the State of Florida by ensuring that Florida seniors are not duped or taken advantage of by third party voter registration organizations.
Secretary of State responded to Diaz’s request on Twitter by stating, “Reports like this are why the Ofc of Election Crimes & Security proposed by @GovRonDeSantis is a big step forward for protecting voters in Florida. We want to review ALL claims and ensure that those engaged in elections activity in Florida follow the law.”
The allegations were first noted by a local media outlet which reported that “more victims of third-party registrations are coming forward to report that their voter registration was altered without their permission. All of the victims were older than 65 years old, live in Miami-Dade County, and all of them were outraged when they learned they were registered as Republicans.”
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Two Democratic senators voted with Republicans in committee to advance Senator Siobhan Dunnavant’s (R-Henrico) SB 656 requiring Virginia public schools to notify parents about sexually explicit instructional material, allow parental review, and provide non-explicit alternatives. The bill instructs the Department of Education to create model policies; if passed, school boards would be required to pass similar policies.
“This is the opportunity for parents to have a conversation with their child,” Dunnavant said in the Senate Committee on Education and Health on Thursday.
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Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-GA-11) this week said his chamber’s recently passed America COMPETES Act does not hold China accountable for trade abuses and human rights violations, per the bill’s original intent. Loudermilk, in a podcast, said Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) and other members of the far Left hijacked the bill. Loudermilk said the Left then added what the congressman called a wish list of socialist items.
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Gov. Tom Wolf has vetoed legislation designed to protect Pennsylvania residents’ Second Amendment rights against municipalities that enact restrictive gun ordinances.
“Once again, this governor has failed to live up to his oath to ‘support, obey and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth,’” said Rep. Matthew Dowling, R-Fayette, sponsor of House Bill 979. “By vetoing this bill, the governor has put the Second Amendment rights of every citizen in jeopardy, effectively encouraging communities to continue enacting illegal gun control measures.”
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Wisconsin’s coronavirus school closures over the past two years hurt all students across the state, but, according to a study released Friday, the closures hurt low income and minority students the most.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty released the results of its latest research.
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Democratic leadership in the Minnesota House decided to close the chamber gallery Thursday after a group of maskless protesters gathered inside the building to support medical freedom.
The protest took place at the Capitol rotunda, but House Democrats closed the gallery overlooking the chamber, presumably on the orders of House Speaker Melissa Hortman, after it was scheduled to be open to the public Thursday.
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The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (MCAO) announced that it would receive about $3 million in grants from the Department of Justice to help victims of crime.
One grant the office will receive will help the office in investigations where DNA is used to find perpetrators in cold cases where it cannot find the offender. Another grant will pertain to the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (often referred to as SAKI). It allows law enforcement to process rape kits quicker.
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Georgia has awarded more than $5.6 million in grants to law enforcement agencies, state officials announced Friday.
The grants will fund law enforcement training programs. It is part of Gov. Brian Kemp’s larger effort to bolster public safety and reduce crime.
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Legislation that would make parole release for inmates more difficult passed the Virginia House of Delegates on Friday.
House Bill 435, sponsored by Del. Thomas Wright, R-Victoria, passed the chamber on strict partisan lines 52-48. The legislation was supported by the chamber’s Republicans and opposed by its Democrats.
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Republican lawmakers in the state legislature proposed a plan to stiffen penalties for violence or threats of violence against healthcare workers.
According to the release, the legislation would elevate criminal penalties for battery and threats of violence against healthcare workers to that of the penalties associated with the same acts against law enforcement officers.
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A Detroit lawmaker is pitching up to a 20-year, additional 0.4 mill tax hike to Wayne and Oakland County residents to fund museums – similar to the Detroit Institute of Art tax.
Sen. Marshall Bullock, D-Detroit, sponsored Senate Bill 653 that would apply only to counties with a population over one million – narrowing to the above two counties to fund the Detroit Historical Society and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.
Bullock’s office hasn’t responded to multiple requests by The Center Square for comment.
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Two ballot measures in Florida concerning sports betting (sponsored by Florida Education Champions) and additional casinos (sponsored by Florida Voters in Charge) failed to qualify for the 2022 ballot. Each initiative needed 891,589 signatures to be validated by county elections officials by Feb. 1. Florida also has a signature distribution requirement, which requires that signatures equaling at least 8% of the district-wide vote in the last presidential election be collected from at least half (14) of the state’s 27 congressional districts.
Florida Education Champions’ measure was designed to authorize sports betting at sports venues, pari-mutuel facilities, and online in Florida. The Florida State Legislature would have needed to pass legislation to implement the constitutional amendment to provide for licensing, regulation, consumer protection, and taxation. Under the amendment, all online sports betting tax revenue would have been required to be dedicated to the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund of the Department of Education.
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Pamela Moses, the founder of the Memphis Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapter, was sentenced to spend six years and one day in prison after illegally registering to vote in Tennessee.
According to the Shelby County District Attorney’s office, Moses had previously been convicted on 16 prior criminal charges.
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