On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced that the Biden-Harris Administration has awarded three Tennessee infrastructure projects a total of $64 million from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program.
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The Tennessee Supreme Court decision to appoint Jonathan Skrmetti as the attorney general was outstanding. In fact, it could have powerful, transformative impact on our freedom, constitutional rights and religious liberty.
Why?
Because Tennessee must take the lead in stopping federal overreach and abuse of power.
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Some states are making money from unclaimed property that people may not know the states have.
South Dakota is one of the few states that send profits from abandoned property to their general budget. About 3% of the state’s general fund revenues come from unclaimed property, according to state budget officials. Some states, including Wyoming and Wisconsin, hold on to the property indefinitely.
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Former Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken endorsed Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney for reelection ahead of the primary this week.
“I’ve decided to endorse @RepLizCheney for the Republican nomination for the House seat In Wyoming it’s my first time endorsing in a GOP primary. But I think Al Franken’s support will carry a lot of weight with WY Republicans,” the former senator wrote Saturday in a tweet that garnered more than 100,000 likes, 12,000 retweets and 14,000 comments.
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Nashville Metro Council is proceeding with legislation that prohibits the use of License Plate Scanner (LPR) technology to aid in the enforcement of “laws outlawing abortion or outlawing interstate travel to obtain an abortion as an allowed use of LPRs.”
On Tuesday, August 16, Metro Council will consider BL2022-1385, a bill on second reading that is an “ordinance amending Section 13.08.080 of the Metropolitan Code of Laws pertaining to the use of License Plate Scanner (“LPR”) technology to exclude assisting with enforcing laws outlawing abortion or outlawing interstate travel to obtain an abortion as an allowed use of LPRs.”
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While many are rightfully concerned about the growing influence of video-based social media platform TikTok and the Chinese government’s ability to harvest incredible amounts of user data from it, China’s largest social media and video game studio, Tencent, has quietly been acquiring a commanding stake in the most popular video game companies around the world, and no one has seemed to notice.
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PHOENIX, Arizona – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke to a theater full of onlookers in downtown Phoenix Sunday at a Turning Point Action rally to support local Trump-endorsed nominees like Kari Lake and Blake Masters. Mentioning Florida would be willing to help Lake secure the border if she gets elected.
“What I’ve told Kari Lake, I said ‘look, if you’re willing to put people on that border, and keep ’em [illegal immigrants] from coming in to begin with, I’ll send National Guard to help with that,” said DeSantis.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s campaign has raked in donations from billionaires and Hollywood celebrities despite fundraising off her Trump-endorsed opponent’s ties to “special interests,” according to state records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Michigan Democrat’s campaign has received over $1 million from billionaires and almost $48,000 from Hollywood celebrities since 2021, state campaign finance disclosures show. At the same time, the governor’s reelection campaign has criticized Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon for her ties to “special interests” and former Education Secretary and billionaire Betsy DeVos.
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A Minneapolis teachers union contract stipulates that white teachers will be laid off or reassigned before “educators of color” in the event Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) needs to reduce staff.
After the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) and MPS struck a deal on March 25 to end a 14-day teacher strike, the two sides drew up and ratified a new collective bargaining agreement complete with various proposals.
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A Michigan Court of Claims judge ruled that the state Unemployment Insurance Agency can’t collect on claimants appealing a determination they were overpaid.
Court of Claims Judge Brock Swartzle ruled that his prior preliminary injunction stops UIA collection on all individuals who “timely” appeal UIA claims until they are resolved.
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Virginia Democrats trumpeted the Inflation Reduction Act after the House of Representatives passed the legislation on Friday, putting President Joe Biden on the path to a key win on his goals ahead of the 2022 congressional midterms. At the same time, Republicans mocked the bill’s title and criticized its policies.
In a speech on the House Floor, Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA-08) compared the bill to landmark legislation from the U.S.’ past.
“This is our generation’s signature contribution to American history. Our Social Security Act. Our Civil Rights Act, even the Bill of Rights,” Beyer said.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is sending more than $300 million to help Georgia bolster health programs at the Grady and Augusta University health systems.
The money will support Georgia’s Advancing Innovation to Deliver Equity program. Under the initiative, the two health systems will see higher Medicaid payment rates on services provided through Georgia’s managed care program.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis is encouraging military veterans interested in teaching at Florida public schools to consider applying through a new program.
“Florida is leading the way by bringing some of the best, the brightest and the bravest among us into our classrooms through a new program that helps military veterans become teachers,” he said in a video announcement Thursday. “If you served in the military for at least four years, were honorably discharged, have taken 60 college credits, and pass a subject area exam, we want you to be able to teach Florida students.
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State Rep. Karen Boback (R-PA-Dallas) on Friday proposed legislation to equip Pennsylvania K-12 public schools with emergency response devices.
The representative modeled her bill on “Alyssa’s Law,” named after Alyssa Alhadeff, a 14-year-old Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student who was killed in the mass shooting that occurred on February 14, 2018. Alyssa’s Law, which Florida, New York, New Jersey and Nebraska have already enacted, requires all elementary and secondary schools to install panic alarms which are connected to area law-enforcement agencies.
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OH-13 Democrat Nominee Emilia Sykes has criticized Republicans for voting against capping costs for life saving drugs, and has promised to fight to lower drug costs but has taken over $12,000 from pharmaceutical companies that have raised the prices of lifesaving drugs, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On August 3, 2022, Emilia Sykes tweeted that as an elected official, she “will fight to lower the cost of prescription drugs.”
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Judge Voter Guide, an online site dedicated to ranking judicial candidates, recently published their ratings for the Florida Judicial Election.
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Freedomworks, one of the nation’s leading conservative grassroots organizations, recently launched a satellite office in Arizona and held a joint “Redfest Rally” with other Arizona conservative organizations Friday night to discuss getting conservative legislators into leadership positions in the Arizona Legislature. State Rep. Joseph Chaplik (R-Scottsdale) is vying for Speaker of the House, likely facing off against House Majority Leader Ben Toma (R-Peoria), and State Sen. Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) is going up against longtime State Sen. David Gowan (R-Sierra Vista).
Chaplik told the crowd that people don’t trust the “fractured caucus” that exists currently under the leadership of House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R-Mesa), who lost his primary election earlier this month due to defeating numerous conservative bills including many election integrity bills. Chaplik called the legislature a “cesspool” of “sham favoritism,” and said Arizonans can expect a “more conservative caucus” in 2023.
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Ashley Judd found her mother, Naomi Judd, alive after she shot herself, according to a court filing from the family as part of an effort to stop documents from being released about Naomi’s death.
Judd’s husband, Larry Strickland, and her daughters Ashley and Wynonna Judd filed a petition on Friday in Williamson County Chancery Court in Tennessee. The family argued that records from Judd’s death investigation would cause “significant trauma and irreparable harm” if they are released, according to The Tennessean.
The family asked for all video and audio evidence as well as personal medical information and police reports to be kept private.
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by Kerry McDonald While the past two years have been characterized in many ways by top-down policy approaches and greater centralization of power, there have also been positive signs of decentralization and bottom-up solutions. This has been particularly true in education, as parents seek new learning options for their kids and entrepreneurial educators create a variety of new models. A decentralized education ecosystem is characterized by diversity of options. Rather than parents being forced to send their child to an assigned district school with a standardized curriculum, they now have increasingly greater opportunities to access a charter school, low-cost private school or microschool, learning pod, homeschooling center or co-op, or virtual learning platform. The more robust the education marketplace, the more choices there will be for parents. The more choices that are available, the more likely it will be that parents will find a learning environment for their children that reflects their preferences and needs. I have attended several conferences recently in which I highlighted the benefits of vast education decentralization and the innovation and diversity it produces. Some conference participants pushed back, concerned that such a “wild west” of education choices would lead to overall chaos, including low-quality…
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich joined 22 other states this week in filing an amicus curiae brief at the appellate level opposing the Center for Disease Control’s attempt to continue a mask mandate on public transportation, which includes airplanes and buses. He sued the CDC over the requirement with 20 other attorneys general in March.
“Upholding the law is especially important during times of emergency,” he said in a statement. “Federal overreach is most often attempted under the guise of addressing a crisis.”
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Four alleged cartel members were charged in connection with an international money laundering operation that involved sending funds to China to produce fentanyl.
The four New Jersey men, William Panzera, 49, Thomas Padovano, 48, Bartholomew Padovano, 71, and Sean Tighe, 46, were indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of New Jersey Wednesday, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
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West Point Military Academy cadets were denied their Religious Accommodation Request appeals to the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate en masse on Wednesday but were not informed until Friday afternoon, when they were given 24 hours to respond, according to attorney R. Davis Younts.
A Developmental Counseling Form that was given to a cadet notes that the religious objector’s RAR appeal was denied on Wednesday and the date that cadet received counseling regarding the vaccine mandate was Friday. The form says that the objector has until 4 p.m. on Saturday to make a plan to receive the vaccine.
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Strive Asset Management’s anti-activist, energy exchange-traded fund (ETF) raked in over $60 million in funds in its first two days of trading, according to the company’s website.
Strive’s U.S. energy index fund ($DRLL), which invests heavily in fossil fuels in an effort to combat environmentally focused investing, launched Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and was one of the exchange’s largest launches of its kind, according to a company letter to investors. Strive hopes that the early success of the fund will help “unlock” value in the domestic energy sector by mandating firms to focus on “profits over politics,” according to the company’s website.
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Amid published reports that former President Trump is improperly holding classified papers, including nuclear documents, at his Florida compound, MSNBC contributor Michael Beschloss and former CIA Director Michael Hayden are intimating via social media that Trump should be executed.
The Washington Post has reported that the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound on Monday in order to retrieve “nuclear documents” they believed were improperly stored there.
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Most Americans have been conditioned to accept some level of incompetence and inefficiency from government – but not to the extent that federal employees paid by our tax dollars simply admit that they are fundamentally incapable of doing their jobs. Yet shockingly, this is what we are now witnessing with the Department of Education’s failed and convoluted attempt to process claims for student loan cancellation.
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Incumbent Mark Kelly (D), Blake Masters (R), and Marc Victor (L) are running in the general election for Arizona’s Class III U.S. Senate on Nov. 8. As of August 2022, three independent race forecasters rated the race toss-up.
Kelly took office in December 2020 following a special election in November 2020. Before joining Congress, he served as a U.S. Navy pilot and astronaut with NASA. He and his wife, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D), founded Americans for Responsible Solutions (now known as Giffords) in 2013. Kelly’s campaign has focused on bipartisan compromise and a willingness to work across the aisle.
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The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) plans to investigate the University of Utah for a doctoral program available only to black students, according to an OCR letter.
University of Michigan-Flint professor Mark Perry filed a complaint against the University of Utah regarding its African American Doctoral Scholars Initiative alleging the program, which only allows black students, violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national orientation, according to the July 26 OCR letter. The OCR confirmed they will investigate the university in a letter to Perry.
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Arizona Governor Doug Ducey issued an Executive Order on Friday directing the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs to fill the gaps in the Yuma border wall starting immediately.
“Arizona has had enough,” Ducey said in a press release. “We can’t wait any longer. The Biden administration’s lack of urgency on border security is a dereliction of duty. For the last two years, Arizona has made every attempt to work with Washington to address the crisis on our border. Time and time again we’ve stepped in to clean up their mess. Arizonans can’t wait any longer for the federal government to deliver on their delayed promises.”
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Mortgage rates increased last week, leading to an uptick in the refinance rate.
According to the latest weekly survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association, mortgage rates increased last week after dropping for two consecutive weeks.
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Governor Glenn Youngkin signed a certificate Friday recognizing August as Hidden Heroes Month in Virginia to honor caregivers for wounded, ill, or injured military and veterans.
“Virginia is proud to partner with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation and their Hidden Heroes program to support and acknowledge caregivers that receive little support or acknowledgment for their selfless sacrifices,” Youngkin said in a press release. “In fact, most of these Hidden Heroes simply consider the challenging work they do as unconditional love or carrying out their civic and patriotic duty, without realizing they should be categorized as caregivers. I call on all my fellow Virginians to join me in thanking and supporting them. They deserve nothing less.”
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Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Friday announced that she had filed articles of impeachment against Attorney General Merrick Garland following the FBI’s Monday raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
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Coal-fired power plants in several states are delaying planned shutdowns in order to avoid blackouts and energy shortages as the delayed development of renewable energy sources is leaving gaps in states’ power grids amid high energy demand.
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To know what our elected officials truly prioritize, it is important to ignore their teleprompter-fed rhetoric and focus on their actions. As Deep Throat once told Bob Woodward in a dark, underground parking garage, “Follow the money.”
At this point, it would take a certain kind of partisan dead-ender to deny our nation faces an immigration crisis. Too many years of our leaders refusing to enforce our immigration laws, combined with the current White House’s blatant contempt for those laws, have brought us to a point of critical mass where the country cannot withstand much more.
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The House Jan. 6 committee hearings have not affected public opinion about the U.S. Capitol riot or former President Donald Trump, and, in fact, fewer people now view Trump as responsible for the incident, according to a Monmouth University poll.
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Lindsey Horner, considered the “most wanted” person for TennCare fraud, was arrested Friday, according to a press release by the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration (F&A).
The Tennessee Office of Inspector General (OIG), in a joint effort with the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, announced that the 39-year-old Big Sandy, Tennessee, was charged with TennCare fraud and theft of services. The TennCare fraud charge is a class D felony, and the theft of services charge is a class C felony, the press release notes.
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The 2022 midterms have seen an unusually high number of incumbents lose their primaries, with several more primaries still left to go that could potentially raise the final number to a 30-year high.
Axios reports that thus far, 11 House incumbents – seven Republicans and four Democrats – have lost their primaries. The high number of primary losses is due to a number of factors, including the effects of redistricting after the 2020 census, as well as a major political realignment within both parties away from so-called moderates and in favor of more hardline, grassroots candidates.
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Salman Rushdie is likely to lose an eye after the attempt on his life on Friday, with the writer also serving significant nerve and organ damage, according to reports.
Rushdie was attacked on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in New York on Friday while giving a talk on free speech; he has been under intensive hospital care since the incident, while police have meanwhile apprehended his alleged attacker.
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We all know how the Biden administration, on Day One, reversed two of the most successful Trump initiatives — energy independence and border control — turning with executive orders both areas into the twin disasters that have become part of our daily lives.
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The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the largest teachers’ union in the country, demonstrated its support for teachers maintaining a level of secrecy around students’ sexual behavior, such as their so-called “gender identity,” even if it includes going so far as keeping such information from their parents.
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Text messages between FirstEnergy Corp. executives indicate Ohio Lieutenant Governor John Husted (R) had discussions with company officials related to the scandal-plagued House Bill 6, according to a motion filed with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
In July 2019, Governor Mike DeWine (R) signed that measure into law, bailing out the FirstEnergy-operated Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants to $1.3 billion. Federal attorneys have since accused numerous political bigwigs, including former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, of partaking in a $61 million bribery scheme to enact the bill. The company has itself been smacked with a $230 million fine for its part in the scandal.
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Delaware’s trio in Congress want answers about service delays within the U.S. Postal Service.
The letter asks what action plan and solutions have been enacted pertaining to continual service delays and disruptions with mail in the region. It asks for answers by Tuesday.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis is encouraging military veterans interested in teaching at Florida public schools to consider applying through a new program.
“Florida is leading the way by bringing some of the best, the brightest and the bravest among us into our classrooms through a new program that helps military veterans become teachers,” he said in a video announcement Thursday. “If you served in the military for at least four years, were honorably discharged, have taken 60 college credits, and pass a subject area exam, we want you to be able to teach Florida students.
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The political geography in Wisconsin politics is changing.
Tim Michels won the Republican nomination for governor on Tuesday by winning 62 of the state’s 72 counties, most of them outside of the traditional Republican base of southeast Wisconsin.
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FBI informants in the case of the alleged 2020 plot to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer purportedly shared a hotel room and smoking weed with a target, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. are undergoing retrial on charges of planning to kidnap Whitmer from her vacation home in 2020 in response to her COVID-19 restrictions. They and two others were originally acquitted in April, with their defense arguing the FBI entrapped them, The Associated Press reported.
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Arizona Republican Gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake recently held a press conference at a Phoenix homeless camp covering the homeless crisis the state is facing and her policies to do something about it if elected as Arizona’s next governor.
“I’ve covered our homeless crisis for many, many years, and nothing seems to get done,” Lake said at the opening of her conference. “We’ve got our hard-earned tax money going to create parks to keep our cities up, and we can’t even use our parks anymore. We can’t walk our streets anymore because we’re afraid. Not to mention it is cruel to allow this chronic homelessness to continue on.”
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A Florida school district has placed warning labels for parents on more than 100 books containing LGBTQ and raced-based content, according to Fox News.
Collier County public schools in Collier County, Florida, began adding warning labels to books in the district library after a February “Porn In Schools Report,” according to Fox News. The “advisory notice to parents” stickers are placed on books in both the school’s library and online catalog.
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Sen. Raphael Warnock has collected tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from political action committees (PAC) funded by corporations this election cycle, records show. At the same time, the senator has said he’s “never taken a dime of corporate PAC money” and pledged not to do so.
Warnock’s campaign took $29,600 during the first and second quarters of 2022 from Democratic leadership PACs that have in turn accepted $1.6 million from corporate-backed PACs since 2003, according to Federal Election Commission records (FEC) reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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Gov. Tim Walz’s administration waited until nearly 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon to release a report showing violent crime has soared in Minnesota in back-to-back years.
In its annual uniform crime report for 2021, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) said violent crime increased by 21.6 percent last year, a bigger jump than the 16.6 percent increase seen in 2020.
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Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said that Richmond authorities need to provide an explanation after questions arose about the alleged July 4 mass shooting Richmond police said they prevented.
“If there are facts suggesting that this really was a potential mass tragedy, those need to be put on the table,” Kaine said Friday according to WTVR. “City officials didn’t have to put it on the table at the outset. They could have just said, ‘we’ve arrested some people.’ But they put it on the table that we’ve arrested them, and this was going to be a mass shooting incident.”
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Arizona Representatives, including Debbie Lesko (R-AZ-08), Paul Gosar (R-AZ-04), and Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05), all recently released statements slamming the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as it passed the U.S. House Friday and will move on to President Joe Biden.
“President Biden and congressional Democrats are so out of touch with everyday Americans that they just pushed through a massive tax and spending bill that will increase taxes, gasoline prices, and utility rates all while making the lives of Americans worse,” Lesko said. “I won’t do that to the American people and that is why I voted no.”
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