U.S. Representative Bob Latta (R-OH-05) reintroduced a bill this week to end automatic pay raises for members of Congress.
The congressman has proposed this measure in past sessions to force federal legislators to go on record every time they wish to raise their salaries. All seven cosponsors of the legislation were Republicans. It did not receive a vote in committee.
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Arizona State Rep. David Cook (R-Globe) led the House Ad Hoc Committee on Forest and Wildlife Management, and following the committee’s conclusion, Cook shared the successful results and efforts made by the committee in a massive final report Tuesday.
“I want to thank all the members that served on this committee – the final report shows their hard work and commitment to addressing this issue,” said Cook. “As a result of the five hearings we held around the state, we are better informed of the critical issues that can be addressed before Arizona families and communities are impacted by new catastrophic wildfires and post-fire flooding. In Arizona, we unfortunately know all too well that it’s a matter of ‘when,’ not ‘if’.”
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State Representative Marilyn John (R-Shelby) voiced her outrage at the recent selection of the Ohio Speaker of the House of Representatives at a meeting of the Richland County Ohio Republican Party on Monday.
Earlier this month, lawmakers elected moderate Republican Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) as the new Speaker of the Ohio House to succeed state Representative Bob Cupp (R-Lima). The choice came despite the Republican Caucus‘ previous selection in November of state Representative Derek Merrin (R-Moncolva) as the new Speaker.
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Later this month, ThisWeek Community News, a network of publications covering more than a dozen Columbus suburbs, will cease publication.
Gannett which also owns the Columbus Dispatch announced last week that ThisWeek’s final publication date for both print and online will be January 26th.
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Average interest rates for bank-issued credit cards this past November surpassed a record set in 1985, Axios reported Wednesday, citing data from the Federal Reserve.
The previous record rate was 18.9%, set in the first quarter of 1985, with November’s rate of 19.1% comfortably eclipsing it, according to Axios. Credit card interest rates climbed alongside the Federal Reserve’s federal funds rate, which the Fed hiked a historically aggressive pace in 2022 to blunt economic demand and reduce the impact of inflation, NPR reported.
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In its landmark Janus v. AFSCME ruling four years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a decades-old precedent that 22 left-leaning states used to justify forcing millions of public employees to join or fund a labor union against their wishes. Despite this decision, several unions have used legal action—and illegal actions—to try to prevent employees and their dues from leaving.
Since the Janus decision, several hundred thousand government workers have parted company with their unions—and kept hundreds of millions of dues dollars in their own pockets—after deciding the association no longer made sense for themselves and their families.
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A new study out of the Netherlands claimed “internalized transphobia” caused transgender patients’ mental health issues and argued that their dissatisfaction with medical procedures was the result of outside pressure to conform to gender stereotypes.
The Dec. 28 study investigated an apparent contradiction in the transgender medical field: that despite the common assertion that cross-sex medical procedures improve patients’ mental health, many patients report continued mental struggles after these procedures. Researchers said stress, stigma and “internalized transphobia” caused the issues and examined patients’ different ways of coping.
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The U.S. and Japan are set to agree on restructuring the U.S. Marine force stationed in Okinawa, Japan, to give them more firepower and the ability to quickly respond if China attacks Taiwan, according to media reports.
A new strategy will arm the roughly 18,000 Marines deployed to Okinawa with missiles that can reach the Chinese mainland and increase their maneuverability if they are called upon to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion, The Washington Post reported, citing two officials familiar with the matter. Japan and the U.S. agreed to the restructuring as China readies for a potential offensive, officials said.
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Aides to President Joe Biden have reportedly discovered a second batch of classified documents stored at a separate location, according to NBC News, which cited a “person familiar with the matter.”
Reports emerged earlier this week that a lawyer clearing out Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington had discovered a set of classified documents which reportedly included intelligence on Ukraine, Iran and the UK. The documents were discovered in November and handed over to the government. The National Archives has asked the Department of Justice to investigate the matter.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed (R-TN-06) Congressman John Rose to the newsmaker line to discuss the new House rules in Congress and bills he’ll be proposing.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed One American News Network’s national correspondent Neil W. McCabe to the newsmaker line to discuss the discovery of 10 top secret government documents in the Penn Biden Center.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton to the newsmaker line to discuss immediate bills that will purge Metro City Council, ban transgender sexual assignments for children, and the new deadline for filing.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
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Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin was discharged from the Buffalo Medical Center/Gates Vascular Institute in New York on Wednesday after undergoing “a comprehensive medical evaluation,” according to the team.
The NFL player went into cardiac arrest the night of Jan. 2 in an away game against the Cincinnati Bengals after making a tackle.
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On Monday evening, Tennessee Congressman John Rose (R-TN-06) voted in favor of House Resolution 5, which adopts the rules governing the U.S. House of Representatives. The rules package passed the House by a 220-213 vote.
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The United States Department of Education (DOE) proposed a regulation Tuesday morning to revise student loan repayment plans to reflect borrowers’ income.
The plan intends to reduce student loan repayments for the middle and lower class by amending the Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE) plan, which “is a repayment plan with monthly payments that are generally equal to 10% of your discretionary income, divided by 12,” according to its website. The proposal would permit individual borrowers who earn less than $30,600 per year and any borrower in a family of four who makes less than $62,400 to choose a $0 monthly plan, Tuesday’s announcement read.
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When Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Nov. 18 that he had named a special prosecutor to investigate former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents found at the Mar-a-Lago compound, the government harbored a fresh secret: The current president, Joe Biden, had a similar problem.
Just two weeks earlier, Biden’s lawyers disclosed to government lawyers on Nov. 2 — just six days before the midterm elections — that they had found sensitive government documents with classified markings inside an office that Biden used at the Penn Biden Center think tank in Washington after he left office as Barack Obama’s vice president.
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Student enrollment in Christian colleges and universities has increased at the same time many are leaving public sector schools of higher education.
Public sector schools lost 1.1 percent of undergraduates last fall, resulting in a total two-year drop of 4.2 percent since 2020, reported the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) confirmed on Monday that he would strip several high-profile Democrats of their highly coveted committee assignments as Republicans take control of the House.
McCarthy told the Associated Press that Representatives Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) will be booted off their assignments: Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Schiff and Swalwell from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).
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Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) visited the border this week with her colleagues, Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) and Katie Britt (R-AK), to examine the “disastrous effects of Biden’s border crisis firsthand” by meeting with law enforcement and human trafficking victims.
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A recent study surveying teenagers found that 54% of children under the age of 14 had seen online pornography, with 15% reporting that they had been introduced to online porn before 11 years old.
The study, released Tuesday by nonprofit Common Sense Media, found that 73% of respondents had viewed online porn before age 18, a 31-point increase over data collected in 2014. The average age of first exposure fell around 12 years old, according to the report.
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In-N-Out Burger, the popular west coast fast food chain, has announced expansion plans to build restaurants and a corporate office in Tennessee by 2026.
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The “Abortion Pill,” also known as RU-486, could previously only be prescribed by medical professionals in the United States. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has officially authorized pharmacy distribution of RU-486, but an Ohio law passed in 2004 forbids pharmacies from distributing these harmful pills.
The drug, commonly known as Mifepristone, has recently received FDA approval, and retailers like Walgreens and CVS across the U.S. have already declared they will stock it. In Ohio however, only doctors with specific training and certification can offer, sell, dispense, or administer the drugs.
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Reading scores are down in Michigan among fourth graders from low-income households.
Overall, the scores are 11th-worst in the country. For Black fourth graders in low-income households, it’s even worse: bottom five in the nation.
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The Biden administration’s open border policies and its refusal to fully enforce federal immigration laws have imposed huge costs on local communities across the country. Border states are groaning under the enormous cost of sheltering, feeding, educating, policing and providing medical care for tens of thousands of illegal aliens.
There are humanitarian costs, as well, paid by those who are assaulted and killed by the human traffickers, those who die from the fentanyl flooding across the border and those victimized by vicious criminals who have entered illegally.
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Governor Brian Kemp allowed Georgia’s moratorium on state gas and diesel taxes to expire on Tuesday night, after first introducing the moratorium in May and renewing it six times since then.
In 2022, Georgia’s gas tax was 29.1 cents and the diesel tax at 32.6 cents, but that’s going up on Wednesday to 31.2 cents and 35 cents, respectively. As of January 10, before the taxes took effect, Georgia’s average gas price was $2.808, below the national average of $3.270, according to AAA Gas Prices.
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Four Republican state senators are encouraging their colleagues to join them in legislating to keep a new requirement from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) from going into effect in Pennsylvania.
Two decades ago, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) began requiring that heavy-duty diesel-vehicle engines receive CARB certification as part of the agency’s Heavy-Duty Diesel Emissions Control Program.
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Jennifer Wright, the Election Integrity Unit (EIU) civil attorney for Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich until his second term ended earlier this month, resigned before newly elected Democrat Kris Mayes took office, but there are reports in the media spreading that she was fired. Wright gave The Arizona Republic “notice and demand for a correction prior to filing legal action pursuant to A.R.S. 12-653.2.”
Wright believes the false statements were made in order to discredit the work she did investigating voter fraud.
Wright tangled with the Maricopa County Supervisors and Maricopa County Stephen Richer many times, pointing out problems with the elections and demanding evidence and documentation. She asked the county four times to turn over information related to the Arizona Senate’s independent ballot audit of the 2020 election, but all four letters were ignored.
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The Florida Retirement System has shrunk over the last year and some analysts are saying that it will not survive on its current course, with new legislation likely not to have much of an impact.
According to the Department of Management Service’s annual comprehensive financial report, the Florida Retirement System has had a net income loss of $21,773,027 in the 2022 fiscal year, after beginning the year at $202,082,182,546 and ending the year at $180,226,404,807.
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Connecticut saved taxpayers millions of dollars through a pandemic-related program that provided legal representation to low-income tenants facing eviction, according to a new report.
The report on the state’s right-to-counsel program, prepared by the independent consulting firm Stout, found that by preventing evictions or helping tenants find new housing before they’re evicted likely saved Connecticut taxpayers between $5.8 and $6.3 million from the end of January to the end of November 2022.
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Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota is one of three congressmen who intend to spearhead a bill enacting the observance of “Democracy Day” every Jan. 6.
According to a news release last Friday, Phillips will join Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado and Dan Goldman of New York in introducing a resolution to “permanently designate January 6th as ‘Democracy Day.’”
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U.S. Representatives Mike Gallagher (R-WI-8) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL-8) sent a letter this week to the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) opposing its decision to let TikTok run commercials during recent college football halftime shows.
The two congressmen are sponsors of a measure to ban the video-sharing application from all Americans’ computing devices. Gallagher and other Republican members of Wisconsin’s U.S. House delegation this month successfully encouraged Democratic Governor Tony Evers to prohibit the app’s download or use on any state-owned computers or phones. Numerous other state governments as well as the federal government no longer permit the program’s download or use by public entities.
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Atlanta once had a robust transportation network, with streetcars rumbling along the city’s streets and interurban lines connecting suburbs like Marietta and Stone Mountain.
But 75 years ago, the lines shuttered, replaced by new forms of transportation: Automobiles.
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Democrat Aaron Rouse declared victory in Tuesday’s special election to fill a state senate seat left vacant after now Congresswoman Jen Kiggans’ (R-VA-02) election to Congress; however, Republicans may consider requesting a recount due to Kevin Adams’ loss by less than one percent in preliminary results.
“THANK YOU! With your support, and the support of voters from across Virginia Beach and Norfolk, we have won this Special Election. No rest for the weary – tomorrow, we head to Richmond to get to work for Virginia families,” Rouse tweeted.
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I met Wendy Starland at a party in Nashville celebrating an upcoming original music competition TV show that will air on MTV later this year. When we arrived, everyone was clamoring to get a picture with her. She was so beautiful that I was taken aback. However, I wondered why she was there.
It turns out that Starland is a musical maven. One of the show’s producers told me that she was a brilliant songwriter and that I needed to meet her. After we met, I asked if she wanted to be featured in my Music Spotlight column, and she gave me her phone number.
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The Republican State Central and Executive Committee of Ohio passed a resolution during their January meeting to reject proposed changes to broaden the definition of sex-based harassment and discrimination to include gender identity and sexual orientation for LGBTQ students.
The committee resoundingly passed the resolution to “support parents, schools, and districts in rejecting harmful, coercive, and burdensome gender identity policies and to protect federal funding subject to Title IX.”
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On Monday, Jason Miyares, the Attorney General of Virginia, announced that his office would conduct an investigation into all public schools in Fairfax County, over allegations that schools throughout the area have withheld merit awards from winners in the name of “equity.”
As Fox News reports, Miyares had already begun a civil rights investigation on Wednesday into Thomas Jefferson High School after parents complained that the school’s withholding of such awards negatively impacted their students’ college applications, with the awards not being announced until after most application deadlines had passed.
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Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced Monday that all 88 county sheriffs in the state received new cameras to improve the routine registration procedure for convicted sexual offenders.
“Ohio’s sex offender registration system plays a critical role in holding convicted offenders accountable, and in the hands of our county sheriffs, these tools ensure that photographs are clear and uniform across the state. Our job is to support local law enforcement, and that’s exactly what we’re doing with this grant,” Yost said.
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In announcing the appointment Monday of James Bond as his new secretary-designee of the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, Gov. Tony Evers made sure to note that Bond would be the first “openly LGBTQ (gay) individual” to serve as a state cabinet secretary.
While Evers checked off an important liberal virtue signaling box, he failed to mention that Bond has been the No. 2 ranking official at a troubled state agency that has veterans deaths on its hands.
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Arizona State Rep. David Cook (R-Globe) announced Monday that he is seeking to work with the City of Scottsdale to alleviate the water struggle members of the Rio Verde Foothills (RVF) Community are facing.
“It is beyond me how a group of Arizona citizens could be put in such a position. Arizonans’ livelihoods depend on having a reliable and long-term water supply,” wrote Cook in a letter to Mayor David Ortega.
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Following the State of the State address from Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, Majority Leaders State Rep. Leo Biasiucci (R-Lake Havasu) and Sen. Sonny Borrelli (R-Lake Havasu) released a video responding to the speech.
“You heard from Governor Hobbs; she does not want a policy discussion but a hasty action for political points. Our founding fathers set up the legislative process that works,” said Borrelli. “We will not be sidetracked or bullied for political games. It [the legislative process] is divinely inspired by our founding fathers. We will stick to the mission.”
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For many college students, one of the most exciting events in a new semester is not listed on their school’s calendar: Refund Day.
Although the day differs on various campuses, the windfall result is the same: That’s when the millions of students currently taking out federal college loans find out how much of their approved amount is left over after the school has taken its share for tuition and other charges. Students can reject the refund and reduce their debt, or accept the money. Although they are technically required to spend it on education-related expenses, administrators acknowledged there’s no mechanism in place to monitor their expenditures.
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The Biden administration is considering a ban on gas stoves, citing concerns about the kitchen appliances emitting harmful indoor air pollutants.
The change is being proposed through the administration’s Consumer Product Safety Commission, according to Bloomberg News.
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The second anniversary of the events of January 6, 2021 came and went last week, fortunately, without a copycat attempt by behorned furries and selfie-taking Indiana meemaws to “overthrow democracy” and whatnot.
While most people somehow have managed to move on with their lives, official Washington remains fixated on the four-hour disturbance that took place two years ago. What can only be described as “insurrection psychosis” continues to grip the Biden regime, congressional Democrats, and the national news media in yet another example of the vast differences between the priorities of the ruling class and the American public.
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President Joe Biden indicated that he had been unaware of the classified documents found at his former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.
After repeatedly maligning former President Donald Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents, Biden appeared to have ink on his face when reports emerged that the National Archives had asked the Department of Justice to investigate his own handling of classified materials found at his private office.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Congressman Andy Ogles to the newsmaker line to discuss his vote for Speaker Kevin McCarthy, their viral exchange, and making nice with Dan Crenshaw.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Tennessee State Representative Chris Todd of Jackson to the newsmaker line to discuss his proposed resolution to call an Article Five convention to set Congressional term limits.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed the director of Tennessee’s Faith and Freedom Coalition Aaron Gulbransen in studio to discuss the coalition’s top priorities for 2023.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is recommending more aggressive treatment of childhood obesity, including the use of pharmaceutical and surgical interventions for those as young as 12 or 13.
In its new guidance released Monday in the organization’s journal Pediatrics, AAP dismisses the sole approach of monitoring still-growing children to see if independent changes families and children can make on their own leads to success. Such a wait-and-see method is largely useless, the authors of the guidance say, given that “14.4 million children and adolescents” are now affected by obesity and its long-term health consequences.
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A former top Drug Enforcement Administration official is warning that China is using the Mexican drug cartels to traffic fentanyl as part of a larger “unrestricted warfare” strategy to kill off America’s next generation and supplant the U.S. as the world’s preeminent power.
Derek Maltz, the agency’s former chief of special operations, told Just the News the Biden administration has strong evidence of how China markets the precursor ingredients for fentanyl to the cartels and where in Mexico the production labs are based. But, he said, the administration is allowing cartels to operate freely across the U.S. southern border to move drugs and earn billions of dollars trafficking humans to create new cash flow for their fentanyl supply networks, a scourge claiming more than 100,000 American lives a year.
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