National and state teachers’ unions condemned the Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday that held a Maine tuition assistance program that bars families from using the taxpayer funds for religious schools is in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
Union officials denounced the ruling as one that “attacks public schools,” “erodes democracy,” “harms students,” and undermines “the separation of church and state.”
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In a major decision for religious freedom and school choice, the Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a Maine law that barred taxpayer tuition assistance funds from families choosing religious schools.
The Court ruled, 6-3, in Carson v. Makin, the Maine law that governs its tuition program’s exclusion of religious schools, while accepting other private schools, is a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and is, therefore, unconstitutional.
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The Tennessee Firearms Association released their Red Flag Candidate Pledge form on Tuesday.
The pledge, which is for candidates running for office in 2022 to fill out and pledge that they will never support red flag laws, can be found here.
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AFSCME Local 1733 endorsed Democratic candidate JB Smiley, Jr. on Monday to be the next Tennessee governor.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is the largest trade union of public employees in the United States. The group “believes that every person working to sustain their community deserves respect.”
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Slavery has been illegal in the United States for nearly 160 years. And yet, over the past two decades, American businesses and consumers have once again begun to benefit from the horrific practice.
It’s an extremely uncomfortable truth, and for most Americans, it likely comes as a surprise. Until recently, they probably had no idea that the clothes they wear, the phones they cannot put down, and the solar panels on their roofs were made, in part, by slaves. The same cannot be said of the companies that eagerly ship jobs overseas to China and source materials from concentration camps.
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J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate, blasted his Democratic opponent for attempting to flip-flop on key issues ahead of the November midterm elections.
Since securing the Democratic nomination, Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH-13) has positioned himself as a “moderate,” even proposing tax cuts to help combat inflation.
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John Toomey, flanked by other relatives of slain Philadelphians as well as state lawmakers at the Pennsylvania Capitol Building in Harrisburg on Tuesday, tearfully discussed the fate that befell his 15-year-old son Sean. Many who gathered near him showed similar anguish as they listened.
Toomey and dozens of his fellow bereaved Philadelphians convened at the legislative building’s front lobby to condemn the performance of District Attorney Larry Krasner (D) since he became the city’s top prosecutor in 2018.
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Governor Tony Evers (D-WI) announced a new round of funding from the federal government that is aimed to address violent crime in Wisconsin.
Roughly $800,000 will be directed to the city of Racine and will focus on a “public health approach to violence prevention,” according to a release from the governor’s office.
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The U.S. Supreme Court’s Carson v. Makin ruling, announced Tuesday, may crack the door open more widely for Michigan families seeking tuition assistance for their children who attend private schools.
SCOTUS voted 6-3 in favor of allowing state-provided tuition assistance for Maine parents who send their children to private religious schools. Michigan is another state with a so-called Blaine Amendment, which prohibits the use of public funds for all private schools, whether they’re religious or secular.
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HENRICO, Virginia — Governor Glenn Youngkin held a campaign-style rally to ceremonially sign Virginia’s Fiscal Year 2023-2024 budget. On Tuesday, Youngkin spoke from the aisles of the Tom Leonard’s grocery store where he filmed a grocery tax-related campaign ad and where he held one of his final rallies during the campaign.
“Nine months ago we were right here with many of you, and we in fact were talking about the impact that rising cost of groceries were have on families,” Youngkin said to a crowd of supporters, reporters, former GOP candidates, and current GOP politicians standing next to bins of produce.
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Figures from the Republican Party’s voter database indicate many voters who traditionally have aligned with the Democrats voted in Ohio’s Republican primary on May 3 in which Gov. Mike DeWine handily won nomination for another term.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) database rates voters on a scale of one to five in terms of their allegiance to either the Republican or the Democratic Party. Mainly, the GOP takes into account which party’s primaries Ohioans have voted in historically, though other data are weighed as well.
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Residents are being advised to research solar companies before entering into contracts, Attorney General William Tong said.
The state’s top law enforcement official and Michelle Seagull, commissioner of the Department of Consumer Protection, are warning Connecticut homeowners who are interested in installing solar panels on their property to perform research and be cognizant of misleading marketing and high-pressure sales tactics.
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The Minnesota Supreme Court has sided with the plaintiffs in a lawsuit claiming the city of Minneapolis violated the law by understaffing its police department.
In an order issued Monday, the state high court concurred with the Hennepin County District Court’s ruling from last year that the Mayor has an obligation to employ a police force of 731 sworn officers — a ratio spelled out in the City Charter.
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a lawsuit on Monday against the entire Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) and current school board member, former board president Jann-Michael Greenburg.
“SUSD manipulated public input and silenced the voices of parents in order to advance its own agenda,” Brnovich said. “This type of bad school behavior demands expulsion.”
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Cathi Herrod, policy president of the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), released a statement Tuesday following the Supreme Court’s opinion that said not including religious schools in taxpayer tuition assistance funds was unconstitutional.
“In a victory upholding for parents and private religious schools, the U.S. Supreme Court has, again, stymied attempts to chip away at American’s right to freely practice their religion. The Court affirms that a state cannot offer financial programs to students attending secular schools, while refusing to offer those same programs to students attending religious schools,” Herrod said in a statement.
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Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) released a new ad that will air in Phoenix and Tucson, claiming to be “taking on his own party” to combat inflation.
Kelly, a self-proclaimed individual focused on “independent leadership,” acknowledged the spike in consumer prices under President Joe Biden.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed official guest host and Lead Reporter for The Tennessee Star, Aaron Gulbransen in studio to discuss the upcoming TN5 debate roster.
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A Georgia congressmen has introduced a bill that would prohibit the President Joe Biden’s administration from cancelling student debt, a caused championed by the progressive left.
“Hardworking Americans are not responsible for paying off the student loan debt of others,” said Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA-03) in a press release. “The Biden Administration’s radical big government proposal would come at the expense of taxpayers – many of whom have fully paid off their student loans, worked hard to pay for their education, or chose not to enroll in college at all.”
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Georgia Department of Labor Commissioner Mark Butler announced on Thursday that the unemployment rate for the Peach State in May dipped to an all-time low of three percent as the number of jobs peaked at 4,782,400.
“As the state continues to experience a very tight labor market, as evidenced by our low unemployment rate, our focus has been on encouraging more individuals to re-enter the workforce,” Butler said. “Unless those who have chosen not work decide they want to re-enter the workforce or more people move into the state, additional workers will be scarce.”
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed producer Patrick Ahern to the microphones to share his experience last weekend at Bonnaroo Music and Art Festival in Manchester, Tennessee.
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Prince William County Supervisor Yesli Vega is the GOP nominee to challenge Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07), and State Senator Jen Kiggans (R-Virginia Beach) is the GOP nominee to face Representative Elaine Luria (D-VA-02).
“I am honored the voters of Virginia’s seventh Congressional District have chosen me to be the Republican nominee in the general election this fall. As the first conservative Hispanic to win a Republican congressional primary in Virginia, this is a historic moment for Hispanics across Virginia and our nation. I want to thank my family, friends, volunteers, and all the voters who believe in our message of liberty, safety, and economic prosperity,” Vega said in a Tuesday night press release.
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There is growing worry among Wisconsin dairy farmers about a new climate change plan for investors.
The Venture Dairy Cooperative is sounding the alarm about the Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking to require companies to report information about their “greenhouse gas pollution and be transparent with investors about climate-related risks.”
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The U.S. depends on Russia to supply key minerals used in technology and defense industries, but the Russia-Ukraine war and Western economic punishment of Russia have suppressed supply lines, according to a report from Defense News.
Russia and Ukraine supply a large percentage of minerals like neon and aluminum that the U.S. uses in civilian and military applications, Deborah Rosenblum, a Pentagon acting spokesperson who works on industrial base policy, told Defense News. Sanctions levied on Russian companies and a war-related drop in mineral production have put these supply chains in jeopardy, she said.
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An already overworked grand jury in Washington, D.C., presumably will be very busy in the days to come.
For nearly 18 months, at the behest of Joe Biden’s Justice Department, grand juries in the nation’s capital have issued a nonstop flood of criminal indictments against Americans who protested Joe Biden’s election on January 6, 2021; hundreds of people who peacefully entered the building as police stood by face serious felony charges punishable by decades in prison. Even those accused of low-level misdemeanors such as “parading” in the Capitol have been sentenced to months in jail.
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A peer-reviewed paper released on Friday shows large decreases in sperm counts among men after the second dose of Pfizer’s mRNA COVID vaccine, with the decline continuing for over five months in many cases.
The study, published in the medical journal Andrology, confirms that the mRNA shots have significant fertility risks for men, independent journalist Alex Berenson reported on his Unreported Truths Substack.
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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, in a letter to school superintendents around the state, called arming teachers in classrooms a serious local decision that remains optional after he signed a new law that reduces training needed for guns in schools.
DeWine, who recently signed House Bill 99, also told school leaders he would rather districts use school resource officers than armed teachers.
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“I wandered the streets aimlessly, never knowing where my next meal would come from.”
That’s how a man named Riley summarized being homeless, addicted, and unemployed before he came to Watered Gardens, a mission in southwest Missouri.
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Kayleigh McEnany, former White House Press Secretary under President Trump and current co-host of ‘Outnumbered’ on the Fox News Channel, is scheduled to speak in Athens this Saturday, June 25th, at the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce 15th Annual Benefit.
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The Biden administration asked a federal court this week to uphold its ban on new federal oil and gas leasing, according to Department of Justice (DOJ) court filings.
The administration argued the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana should toss an April 29 motion from more than a dozen states asking the presiding judge to permanently nix the leasing ban, according to the Monday filings. The Louisiana court placed an injunction on the ban in June 2021, forcing the federal government to hold oil and gas lease sales until a final ruling was issued in the case.
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Unemployment for Arizona has remained at 3.2% for the month of May, following April’s trends. In contrast to the country as a whole, which is at 3.6% unemployment, Arizona is doing slightly better than average.
The county with the lowest unemployment rate is Yavapai, at 2.8%. The highest rate is 14.4% in Yuma County.
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Philadelphia has one of the worst city tax burdens in America, and voters aren’t pleased. It will also be a struggle for city leaders to find a politically popular solution.
A poll from the Pew Charitable Trusts found that Philadelphians have become more opposed to taxes, but an anti-tax revolt isn’t brewing in the city either.
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Close to one in four American expatriates living abroad have considered renouncing their U.S. citizenship, with a large plurality of those citing the burdensome U.S. tax system as their primary justification.
The survey, conducted by Greenback Expat Tax Services, found that, of Americans living in other countries, 20 percent were “seriously considering” renouncing their citizenship, while six percent were “planning” to do so.
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Texas’ top law enforcement officer on Tuesday called the police response to the Uvalde school shooting last month an “abject failure.”
Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, made the comment when testifying at a state Senate hearing on the police handling of the May 24 mass shooting in which 19 elementary school students and two teachers were killed.
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MADISON, Tennessee – Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles won another straw poll with over 81 percent of the vote at a Davidson County Republican Party debate for the candidates.
In addition to Ogles, Stewart Parks and Timothy Lee participated in the debate.
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