Carol Swain Discusses Her Real Unity Training Solutions Concept and Helping School Board Members Understand the Law

Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist, Carol Swain in studio to discuss the mechanics of her Real Unity Training Solutions company and how they equip experienced and new school board members to understand the law and communicate with parents and teachers to perform their jobs more effectively.

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Trump in Arizona to Push for Lake, Masters

Former President Donald Trump plans to visit Arizona for the second time in three months. 

Trump, who lost Arizona’s electoral votes in his re-election bid, plans to headline a rally on Sunday, Oct. 9, at Legacy Sports Park in Mesa. In Trump’s announcement, he said the rally will be in support of “Kari Lake, Republican Nominee for Governor of Arizona and Blake Masters, Republican Nominee for U.S. Senate in Arizona, and the entire Arizona Trump Ticket.”

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Mark Houck Attorney: Garland Must Explain to Family Why Their Father Was Arrested by Men with Guns

When Republicans question Attorney General Merrick Garland on the shocking arrest of a Catholic father, Mark Houck’s lawyer wants the Houck family to be in the front row.

Peter Breen, an attorney with The Thomas More Society representing Houck, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview that the Justice Department sent “20-plus heavily armed federal agents with shields and long guns” to arrest Houck in late September “to intimidate pro-life people and people of faith.”

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Commentary: National Archives Scraps ‘Transparency’ Mission When It Comes to Trump Documents

The Biden administration has turned what should be the most transparent of government agencies, the National Archives and Records Administration, into one of the least transparent agencies—rivaling even the FBI.  

Established in 1934, the National Archives has a mission to identify, protect, preserve, and make publicly available all historically valuable records.  

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Gas Prices Rise for Two Straight Weeks, OPEC Expected to Drive Them Higher

Gas prices have continued to rise over the past two weeks, and now OPEC has announced a major decision that will likely drive those prices higher.

OPEC said Wednesday that it would reduce oil production beginning in November by 2 million barrels per day. OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries largely based in the Mideast, said in a statement it made the decision “in light of the uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks, and the need to enhance the long-term guidance for the oil market, and in line with the successful approach of being proactive, and preemptive…”

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‘Nearly Doubled’ Foreign Investment in U.S. Farmland Comes Under Scrutiny

A coalition of 130 lawmakers sent a letter to a top federal watchdog raising the alarm about a spike in foreign ownership of U.S. farmland.

The letter calls for the Government Accountability Office to conduct a full review of that foreign ownership, its potential impact on trade, national security, food security and what the federal government is doing about it, if anything.

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Hamilton County Conservatives Start Petition to Ban All-Ages Drag Shows

A conservative non-profit in Hamilton County has launched a petition to bar anyone under 18 years old from attending a drag show. 

“We the people of Tennessee sign below petitioning the legislature of our state to pass a law that requires all drag performances be for persons who have reached the age of 18 and above only,” says a petition page on the group’s website. “Children under the age of 18 shall not be permitted to attend, even if they are accompanied by a parent or guardian.”

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Commentary: Stop the Attacks Against Peaceful, Pro-Life Americans

In the five months since someone leaked a draft majority opinion by the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade—which the high court officially did June 24—pro-life Americans have faced a wave of violent attacks.

Pro-abortion politicians from President Joe Biden on down haven’t just been silent about the attacks on pro-life organizations. They’ve helped fan the flames.

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Kari Lake Participates in Town Hall, Discusses Issues of Concern for Arizona’s Hispanic Community; Katie Hobbs Dodges Event

Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake spoke to a passionate crowd on Wednesday at the Hispanic Townhall Election Event about issues that matter to the community.

“The Hispanic community is what makes Arizona great. They are the hardest working people. They love God. They love their family. They love their children. They want safe streets. They want to make sure that the drugs are not getting into the hands of our children,” Lake said to start the night.

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Tennessee National Guard Helicopter Battalion Working Rescue and Recovery Missions in Florida

As President Joe Biden visited Hurricane Ian devastated Ft. Myers, Florida Wednesday, Tennessee’s National Guard was in the area providing emergency assistance. 

“Aircrews from the Tennessee National Guard’s 1-230th Assault Helicopter Battalion continue to help Floridians in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian,” said a press release from the Tennessee Department of Military. “Three UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from Nashville and Jackson, Tenn., are currently in Fort Myers assisting with rescue and recovery efforts.”

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Five Memphis IRS Employees Charged with Defrauding over $1 Million in Federal COVID-19 Relief Funds

Five current or former IRS employees in the Memphis area have been charged with defrauding federal Covid-19 relief programs after spending relief money on Mercedes, Gucci, and trips to Las Vegas.

U.S. Attorney Kevin G. Ritz, for the Western District of Tennessee, said, “These individuals-acting out of pure greed- abused their positions by taking government funds meant for citizens and businesses who desperately needed it. I thank our law enforcement partners for rooting out this fraud. Our office will not hesitate to pursue and charge individuals who steal from our nation’s taxpayers.”

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Metro Council Approves Mayor John Cooper’s $50 Million ‘Housing First’ Plan Tackling Homelessness

The Nashville Metro Council voted on Tuesday night to approve Mayor John Cooper’s $50 million four-part “Housing First” plan to address homelessness.

Following the Metro Council’s approval, Mayor Cooper issued the following statement, “I am grateful to Council for overwhelmingly approving my $50 million plan to get our most vulnerable off the streets and into the stable housing. Homelessness is a decades-old challenge for Nashville, and I believe the size, scope, and sophistication of this plan meets the magnitude of the problem.”

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$2 Million in Awards Granted to Six Arizona Education Providers to Expand Parental Choice as ESAs Move Forward

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey (R) and Janine Yass, the founder of the Yass Prize, revealed Tuesday the winners of the STOP for Arizona Education Awards, which is granting a total of $2 million, to six of the state’s education providers with the best developed plan to meet the demands of the rising numbers of parents eager to make use of Arizona’s new Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs).

The awards are presented following an announcement, by the office of Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), of results of a campaign by an anti-parental choice group that attempted a referendum to repeal HB 2853, the ESA law.

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Charter School Group Says Williamson County Schools Misrepresented Facts of Application in Appeal Hearing

A group that runs charter schools told The Tennessee Star that plans for one of the schools it represents, Founders Classical Academy of Brentwood, were misrepresented by officials of Williamson County Schools during an appeal hearing held before the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission in Brentwood on Monday.

“Much of the Williamson County Schools presentation, especially the closing, dwelled on our purported ‘inability to effectively serve students,’ based on our lack of general bus transportation (Founders provides busing for special needs and in situations where necessary, and serves more diverse populations than most districts the schools reside in, with parents being willing to drive their children, as they are in Williamson), and lack of food services,” said Brian Haas of Del Rey Education., a company that helps launch Founders Classical Academy public charter schools around the country.

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Connecticut GOP U.S. Senate Candidate Leora Levy Challenges Woke Education Industry: ‘What Happened to the Fundamentals?’

The Republican candidate who hopes to unseat Connecticut U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D) asserts parents are outraged their children are failing to learn education basics while woke teachers and school boards attempt to indoctrinate them with radical Critical Race Theory and gender ideology.

In an op-ed at Fox News Monday, Leora Levy wrote that pandemic school closures, urged by the teachers’ unions and their political allies, and COVID mask mandates have been “catastrophic” for our children, particularly those from low-income families.

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Florida Faces Multiple Hurdles to Be Ready for Midterms as Result of Hurricane Ian Destruction

Florida officials are facing multiple hurdles with midterm election voting – now less than six weeks away – as a result of the damage inflicted last week by Hurricane Ian. 

Challenges include a lack of functional polling sites, a potential shortage of poll workers, and the deadline for the state to send vote-by-mail ballots being Thursday – while the Postal Service hasn’t resumed service in some of the hardest-hit areas, according to Politico.

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Over 10,000 More Virginia State Employees Teleworking than in 2019

Virginia has 15,338 state employees teleworking at least one day a week, according to a September 30 report from the Department of Human Resource Management (DHRM). That’s up from pre-pandemic 5,664 employees in 2019; Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration said the increase is good.

“As of September 7, 2022, 42 percent of classified executive branch employees were eligible for telework. Of those, 66 percent have approved telework agreements in place. This is significantly higher than employees eligible (26 percent) and approved for telework (37 percent) in 2019,” the report states.

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RNC and Arizona GOP Sue Maricopa County over Unfulfilled Public Records Request

Chairwoman Dr. Kelli Ward of the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced a lawsuit against Maricopa County Tuesday for failing to comply with public records requests (PRR) relating to poll worker staffing.

“After several weeks of negotiations, Maricopa County left us no choice but to sue because Arizonans who want to be poll workers shouldn’t be shut out of the process. With midterms just 35 days away, Arizonans deserve basic transparency about how their elections will be conducted,” said McDaniel and Ward. “This legal offensive is the latest step in Republicans’ ongoing efforts to promote free, fair, and transparent elections in Arizona.”

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Commentary: Back to School and New Radical Ideology on Campuses

In 2011, a “Dear Colleague Letter” (DCL) that required schools provide access to bathrooms, showers, and dorm rooms based on gender identity, rather than biological sex was introduced by the Obama Education Department. It defined sexual harassment as “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature”; required only that the alleged harassment potentially “interfere with or limit” access, rather than “deprive” the victim of access creating a “single-inquisitor” model where the investigator, prosecutor, and hearing officer could be the same person, and reduced the accused’s rights to a hearing to confront his accuser.

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Ohioans Gather from Across the State to March for Life

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio March for Life – together with the Center for Christian Virtue – held the first of what they hope to be a new tradition of annual gatherings to March for Life on the Capital Square in front of the state house on Wednesday.

“So many people in our lives said that Roe v Wade would never be overturned. Now we have the opportunity to say no more holding us back. The fight in Ohio is just beginning. All of us together using our voices to ensure abortion will no longer happen here in Ohio. We need pro-life, pro-family policies where families flourish and children are protected. We need to be able to say that not only is abortion illegal in Ohio it’s unthinkable. We want to make Ohio the most pro-life state in the nation,” State Representative Jena Powell (R-Arcanum) told the exuberant crowd.

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Ohio Secretary of State Creates Public Integrity Division to Maintain Voter Confidence in State Elections

Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced Wednesday the establishment of the Public Integrity Division. The newly-formed office, he said, will be dedicated to maintaining secure, accurate, and accessible elections in the state of Ohio.

“It’s time that we have it. We are consolidating several things that already exist. All of those are existing functions in our office but by putting them all under one roof with trained professionals we can do this work much better,” LaRose told The Ohio Star.

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Abortions Increased in Ohio from 2020 to 2021

Pro-lifers who marched on Ohio State Capitol Square in Columbus on Wednesday had some cause for celebration in light of the June Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. But marchers also had much to lament, including an increase in the number of abortions performed in the Buckeye State. 

According to the Ohio Department of Health’s recent report titled “Induced Abortions in Ohio, 2021,” deliberate killing of unborn children via surgery or medication rose seven percent from 2020 to the following year. In total, 21,813 pregnancies were so terminated in the state in 2021, 95 percent of those terminations obtained by women who reside in Ohio. 

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Arizona AG Brnovich Discusses Settlement with Google over Deceptively Obtaining Users’ Location Data for Profit

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has sued numerous big players throughout his two terms, including the Biden administration, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Arizona State University, and the City of Tucson. Perhaps the biggest entity he sued was Google in 2020, for “deceiving consumers” by tracking their location on smartphones without their knowledge and then selling the information. After over two years of litigation, the tech giant capitulated, settling for $85 million, more than the country of Australia snagged in a similar settlement with Google, $60 million. 

The first attorney general in the country to sue Google over the practice, Brnovich told The Arizona Sun Times that what prompted him in part to file the complaint was the shocking extent of how much personal information was obtained. “Google knew more about where you were going and who you hung out with, more than your travel agent or spouse,” he said. He found out about the practice after a news article revealed that Google was tracking users through its app preloaded on Android smartphones even after they’d disabled their “Location History” setting. Google was told to stop and did not.

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Youngkin Approves Grant to Study Meat Processing Facility at Fauquier Livestock Exchange

Governor Glenn Youngkin has approved a $20,000 grant to investigate a potential meat processing facility at the Fauquier Livestock Exchange.

“As I travel across the Commonwealth, I listen to our farmers about what they need to be successful and additional meat processing capacity is always at the top of the list,” Youngkin said in a Wednesday release. “I am pleased to partner with Fauquier County and its cattlemen with this AFID [Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development] grant to explore ways to increase the resiliency of Virginia’s agricultural economy and provide farmers new opportunities to be successful.”

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Kari Lake Campaign Blasts Katie Hobbs for Being Unable to Say How Hispanic Community Has Impacted Her

The Republican Governors Association (RGA) blasted Arizona’s Democrat gubernatorial nominee, Katie Hobbs, for appearing unable to share a specific way the Hispanic community has impacted her.

“Katie Hobbs and her team know her largest liability is her inability to connect with voters on issues that matter,” said RGA spokesman Will Reinert. “Yet, Hobbs still struck out when asked an important, yet softball question, that a third of the voters in Arizona deem incredibly important.”

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Trump Explains Why He Took DOJ to Supreme Court: Political Prosecution ‘Has to Stop’

Former President Donald Trump says his two most recent legal strikes — suing CNN for defamation and taking the Biden Justice Department to the Supreme Court — aim to restore fairness in America’s courts of law and public opinion. 

In an interview Tuesday evening hours after his legal team took its battle over presidential records to the nation’s nine justices, Trump told the “Just the News, Not Noise” television show that the case was about erasing politics from DOJ and the FBI.

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States Deploy About 2,500 National Guard Troops to U.S.-Mexico Border

Nearly two dozen states are sending National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to help federal immigration officials grapple with an unprecedented surge of undocumented migrants.

The deployments, which were requested by the U.S. Department of Defense, call for up to 2,500 National Guard members from Republican-led states like Kentucky, South Carolina and Arkansas, as well as Democratic-led states such as Rhode Island and Illinois.

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