Citing the city’s high crime rate, members of the Metro Nashville Office of Alternative Policing Strategies this week announced a new gun retrieval program. The Tennessee Star on Thursday contacted Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) spokesman Steven Bowers. We asked what measures Metro officials enacted to ensure criminals don’t use this program to get rid of guns that could link them to various crimes?
Read the full story
Former Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen admitted in 1997 that direct economic impact benefits couldn’t justify taxpayer funding for a football stadium.
The then-Mayor Bredesen said in June of 1997, “I can’t justify building a football stadium on direct economic impact. The professors who make a living pooh-poohing that are right. But there are a lot of intangible benefits that make it more than easy to do.”
Read the full story
A new report by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) shows that 67 police officers in the United States have been shot while on duty in the first two months of 2022. The number is a 40 percent increase from 2021 year-to-date and a 76 percent increase from 2020 year-to-date.
Read the full story
Businessman Jake McCalmon is running for the Republican nomination for an open seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives to represent parts of Williamson County.
The seat was vacated by Representative Glen Casada, who opted to not run for another term amid an ongoing federal probe into allegations of possible public corruption. Instead, Casada is set to run for Williamson County clerk.
Read the full story
Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Roger Simon in studio to weigh in on ACLU open records request and the abomination of education.
Read the full story
Retired Brig. General Kurt Winstead announced key personnel additions to his campaign for the Republican primary for Tennessee’s 5th congressional district.
The Winstead campaign announced that Chris Devaney, campaign manager for Governor Bill Lee’s 2018 campaign, will serve as senior advisor to the campaign. Kim Kaegi, a veteran of numerous successful campaigns across Tennessee, will serve as the campaign finance consultant. Jimmy Granbery will serve as the campaign finance chairman. Granbery is currently the chairman of the H.G. Hill Company and CEO of H.G. Hill Realty Company.
Read the full story
Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Clint Brewer in-studio to discuss the unwelcome national Republican leadership push for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District seat.
Read the full story
Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Director of Media Relations for GETTR social media, Sonny Joy Nelson to the newsmakers line to describe the new platform and its mission.
Read the full story
Self-described “Catholic” President Joe Biden balked at a question from a reporter from the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) on Ash Wednesday about why, as a Catholic, he supports abortion rights.
EWTN Washington, DC, correspondent Owen Jensen asked Biden, who had apparently received ashes on the first day of Lent, why he again expressed his support for abortion during his State of the Union address Tuesday evening.
Read the full story
Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Clint Brewer in-studio to comment upon Morgan Ortagus’ D.C. fundraiser and open records request by the national ACLU in regard to the Hillsdale College Barney Charter Schools.
Read the full story
The Democrats will suffer historic losses in the November midterms.
This disaster for their party will come about not just because of the Afghanistan debacle, an appeased Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the destruction of the southern border, the supply chain mess, or their support for critical race theory demagoguery.
The culprit for the political wipeout will be out-of-control inflation—and for several reasons.
Read the full story
A Big Tech watchdog group is speaking out about the way Silicon Valley’s titans of industry have handled the war between Russia and Ukraine.
“Apparently these Big Tech monopolists find everyday conservative Americans more objectionable than murderous foreign dictators,” Mike Davis, Founder and President of the Internet Accountability Project (IAP) told The Tennessee Star Thursday. “They’re willing to silence and censor political voices with which they disagree while welcoming war criminals like Putin with open arms. That alone should be enough to recognize these Big Tech monopolists are not our friends.”
Read the full story
Michigan’s Secretary of State Thursday announced that the state will join a bipartisan investigation into popular Chinese-owned social media company TikTok.
“Recent reports on social media’s impact on the mental and physical health of young people raise serious questions among attorneys general across the nation. Ultimately, we are concerned about protecting our youth,” Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) said in a press release. “I am proud to join my colleagues in this investigation. Given this is an ongoing investigation, I will not be discussing any details beyond this announcement.”
Read the full story
From time to time, we will run pieces from past issues that seem relevant to what is going in our country or in the world today.
This selection, chosen from 1968, was written as the Soviet Union, along with other Warsaw Pact nations, marched into Czechoslovakia to ruthlessly suppress the people’s uprising which had begun in the now famous “Prague Spring.” This piece is timely given today’s current warfare between Russia and Ukraine.
Read the full story
Private and charter schools are the beneficiaries of a continued decline in Minnesota public school enrollment.
Data from the Minnesota Department of Education’s annual report shows that compared to the 2020-21 school year, roughly 2,000 fewer students were enrolled in public schools for the 2021-22 school year.
Read the full story
Members of one Athens church fear for their safety after they said homeless people — many of whom they suspect aren’t even from that city — have harassed and threatened them on church grounds. Luis Ortiz, senior pastor of the Athens’ Young Harris Memorial United Methodist Church, said his complaints to Athens-Clarke County officials go mostly ignored. He and other city residents told The Georgia Star News they believe Athens’ officials are using a $60 million federal grant to bestow upon homeless people. Consequently, homeless people from other areas of the state are relocating to Athens.
Read the full story
Democrat Maryam Khan became the first Muslim woman elected to the Connecticut State House Tuesday after winning a special election to the 5th House District of Windsor and Hartford.
Khan won nearly 75 percent of the votes of 851 voters, with 8.7 percent turnout in the district. She defeated Charles W. Jackson (R) and Lawrence O. Jaggon, a petitioning candidate.
Read the full story
A TV ad from an organization attacking Trump-endorsed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has been running on TV and radio. The spot criticizes her for a $350 donation she made to Barack Obama in 2008, well before she entered politics in 2021.
One of the men listed as leadership behind the little-known group, Freedom’s Future Fund (FFF), is Jason Roe (pictured above), who was forced to resign as executive director of the Michigan Republican Party last year for declaring that there was no election fraud in the 2020 election and that Trump’s loss was his own fault.
Read the full story
While President Joe Biden proposed $22.5 billion in coronavirus-related spending this week, Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey (R) urged clarification of how the government has spent almost $6 trillion in earlier COVID relief.
Toomey joined 35 Senate colleagues in writing to Biden asking for a detailed explication of the disbursements made over the last two years which, the authors noted, amounted to the largest allotment of taxpayer money for one concern in American history.
Read the full story
RICHMOND, Virginia – Senate Republicans won a minor showdown on Thursday by forcing several House bills to a full committee hearing although the Democrat-controlled Senate Education and Health Committee had removed the bills from its docket. Among the bills was Delegate Nick Freitas’ (R-Culpeper) bill requiring health providers to work to preserve the life of an infant born alive after an abortion attempt.
Senate Minority Leader Thomas Norment (R-James City) protested with a series of questions aimed at Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw (D-Fairfax). After Norment’s questions to Saslaw, the Senate went into recess while the legislators worked out a deal. Norment, Education Committee Chair Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), and Saslaw were seen speaking to each other and gesticulating during the recess.
Read the full story
Florida lawmakers continue to be in budget conference reconciling differences between House and Senate budget proposals. So far, numerous agreements and billions of dollars have been agreed upon.
The Florida House approved a $105 billion budget and the Florida Senate approved a $108 billion budget.
Read the full story
Wisconsin voters are increasingly concerned about inflation and believe the state is trending in the wrong direction, according to a new Marquette Law School poll.
The survey, which contacted 802 registered voters in the state and had a 3.8 percent margin of error, raises new concerns for Democrats, as the midterm elections draw closer and President Joe Biden maintains low approval numbers.
Read the full story
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is facing an ethics complaint related to stock trading and filed by a nonpartisan watchdog group.
The organization, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), urged the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to investigate the Connecticut lawmaker for failing to disclose multiple stock transactions.
Read the full story
Connecticut U.S. Representative Joe Courtney (D-CT-02) has taken in less than $500,000 for the 2022 election cycle.
As of the December 31, 2021 deadline, FEC records show that Courtney raised $482,821.54 and has $959,616.55 cash on hand in the bank. Another Democratic candidate for the Second District, U.S. Army Veteran Anthony DiLizia has raised less than $5,000 for the Democrat primary and currently has under $1,000 on hand.
Read the full story
On Thursday, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that his wife, Casey DeSantis, after going through both “treatment and surgery” for breast cancer, is now considered cancer-free.
Read the full story
Governor Ron DeSantis hosted a news conference on the USF Tampa campus Wednesday to announce a $20 million grant from the Florida Department of Education to Cyber Florida at USF to “strengthen the state’s ability to fill high-demand careers in cybersecurity and information technology (IT).”
Read the full story
Jenny Tolman releases her sophomore album Married in a Honky Tonk, where she not only expands on her tales about the fictional town of Jennyville, she offers a new depth and range that signals her growing maturity as an artist.
Read the full story
Rising inflation threatens the value of Americans’ retirement savings. Now the Biden administration is finalizing a rule to loosen safeguards under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) that protect private retirement savings. The new rule, “Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights,” stems from President Biden’s May 20, 2021, Executive Order on Climate-Related Financial Risk, which directed senior White House advisers to develop a strategy for financing the administration’s net-zero climate goals, including the use of private savings.
Predictably, Wall Street is cheering the prospect of undoing ERISA safeguards. According to one analysis, 97% of comment letters support the proposal. But as I show in my RealClear Foundation report The Biden Administration’s ERISA Work-Around, it’s the remaining three percent that should give the Department of Labor (DOL) cause to rethink its deeply flawed approach.
Under ERISA, retirement savings must be invested for the exclusive purpose of providing retirement benefits. The May 2021 executive order illustrates the very danger that ERISA’s exclusive-purpose rule is designed to guard against. To achieve the goals set out in the order, DOL is instructed to “suspend, revise or rescind” two Trump-era rules designed to uphold ERISA’s exclusive-purpose rule.
Read the full story
At a Connecticut General Assembly hearing Thursday, state lawmakers clashed on visions of tax policy, with Republicans pressing for sales-tax reduction and Democrats advocating a mix of tax increases and targeted relief.
According to the nonprofit Tax Foundation, 12.8 percent of Connecticut residents’ income goes to government coffers, making the combined state and local tax take the second-highest in the U.S., just behind New York’s 14.1 percent overall burden.
Read the full story
On Thursday, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed Executive Order 22-02D which “prohibits the State of Ohio investment or purchasing activity from aiding Russia in violating the rights of the Ukrainian people,” according to a press release by DeWine’s office.
Read the full story
The Florida House passed HB 7071, which would codify four new sales-tax holidays for Floridians. The bill was passed unanimously and was championed by Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls (R-Palm Harbor) as the “coolest tax package.”
Read the full story
In an attempt to justify universal mail-in voting, Arizona Democrats Thursday downplayed the ongoing issue with mail theft and crimes against mail carriers that are soaring nationwide.
“Note, these ‘drop boxes’ do not have 24-hour video surveillance and the world continues to turn,” Arizona’s House Democrats said on Twitter.
Read the full story
The Ohio Senate “concurred with changes” Wednesday made to Senate Bill 215 which will allow law abiding adults to carry a concealed handgun without obtaining a permit in areas where concealed carry is currently exercised, according to a press release by the Ohio Senate.
Read the full story
Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy sent a formal request for information Thursday to major tech companies demanding data on “misinformation” related to the COVID-19 vaccine and the virus itself, The New York Times reported.
The request demanded the companies provide data on “exactly how many users saw or may have been exposed to instances of Covid-19 misinformation,” as well as the particular demographics most affected by misleading information, according to the NYT. Murthy also reportedly demanded data on the sources of COVID-19 misinformation, particularly related to discredited treatments for the virus.
Read the full story
The United Nations’ refugee agency said Thursday that 1 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded a week ago.
Read the full story
A corn and soybean farmer from Iowa said on Wednesday that Americans can expect to see grocery bills increase $1,000 a month due to a massive increase in the price of fertilizer .
Ben Riensche, who runs the Blue Diamond Farming Company, predicted on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that the Russian sanctions, the Green New Deal, and other factors will cause a massive spike in food prices later this year, spurring more economic hardship for Americans.
Read the full story
Hundreds of people have been arrested around the world as part of a two-year investigation of international child pornography networks, according to European authorities.
Law enforcement discovered files including “imagery depicting sadistic acts of sexual abuse of infants and children” after an online service provider reported in 2019 that their services were being use to share images of child sexual abuse, according to a press release from Europol, a European law enforcement organization.
Read the full story
Anthony Fauci, longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), was apparently well aware that the Chinese government was withholding crucial information about the coronavirus as far back as January 2020.
The Epoch Times reports that new documents uncovered by Judicial Watch reveal communications between NIAID and their Chinese counterparts which signal that the American agency actively coordinated with the Chinese leading up to the pandemic, and subsequently covered up the fact that China was withholding information.
Read the full story
A northeast Ohio state senator believes moving the state more rapidly into the electric vehicle industry is the way to restore the state’s once booming auto industry.
Sen. Michael Rulli, R-Salem, wants the state to take advantage of billions of dollars in investments planned by the auto industry in the electric vehicle market over the next three years by offering incentives to convert traditional plants and create a high-tech workforce.
Read the full story
On the 10th anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s death this week, the media is still rewriting history. He is being depicted as an innocent young victim minding his own business who wasn’t a threat to anyone in Sanford, Florida, when George Zimmerman shot him.
Read the full story
Prosecutors indicted former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan on 22 counts of corruption Tuesday.
U.S. Attorney John R. Lausch Jr. announced the charges Tuesday afternoon, connecting Madigan to the nearly decade-long bribery scheme utility Commonwealth Edison admitted to in the summer of 2020.
Read the full story
Democrat State Representative Mike Stewart (D-Nashville) voted against a resolution honoring an organization that fights human and child trafficking.
The Tennessee State House of Representatives passed HJR0856, “A RESOLUTION to recognize Mission America Foundation” on Thursday. The vote was 83-1. Stewart was the sole no vote.
Read the full story