International Relations Expert Dominick Sansone Suggests Chinese Spy Balloon’s Trek Illustrates Division Among U.S. Leadership

Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed international relations expert and contributor for The Epoch Times, Dominick Sansone, to the newsmaker line to speculate on the reasoning the Chinese spy balloon that recently entered the United States airspace was allowed to complete its trek and causing the sowing of division between US leadership.

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Chinese Companies with Links to CCP Buying American Private Schools with ROTC Programs, Florida U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz Warns

Companies with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are purchasing private schools with junior ROTC [Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] programs and military academies in the United States, warns Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL).

“It’s incredibly concerning that there are American private schools owned by companies with strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” said Waltz in a press statement. “From Florida to New York, there is clear evidence that the ownership of these schools are linked to our greatest adversary and it’s ridiculous that we are developing potential future military leaders through JROTC programs where the CCP could be shaping school curriculum and activities.”

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GOP to Investigate John Kerry’s Secret Negotiations with Chinese Communist Party

Congressman James Comer (R-Ky.), Chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, will be directly probing secret negotiations held between John Kerry and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

As reported by Fox News, Comer sent a letter to Kerry on Thursday informing the Biden official that Comer himself would be investigating the matter. Kerry, a failed presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Senator, was named Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Climate (SPEC) at the start of Biden’s term; the position of SPEC was created specifically for Kerry.

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Chinese Students Running Distribution for Drug Cartels: Former DEA Official

Former Drug Enforcement Agency Special Operations Director Derek Maltz Sr. on Friday outlined the involved of Chinese college students entering the U.S. on student visas in distributing drugs on behalf of various cartels.

Speaking on the “Just the News, No Noise” television show, Maltz highlighted the severity of the crisis, lamenting that “kids are dying left and right.”

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‘Disgraceful’: Associated Press Directs Journalists Not to Use ‘Crisis Pregnancy Center’ in New Abortion Guidance

The Associated Press added an entry to its style guide directing journalists to put the term “crisis pregnancy center” in scare-quotes, and to use “anti-abortion center” instead, to convey that “the centers’ general aim is to prevent abortions.” 

The AP added this entry between Nov. 20 and Nov. 27, 2022, according to The Daily Signal’s search of the Wayback Machine. The guide describes the centers as “set up to divert or discourage women from having abortions” and warns writers against “potentially misleading terms” like “pregnancy resource centers or pregnancy counseling centers.”  

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Virginia Senate Advances Bill to Increase Prescription Drug Price Oversight

Lawmakers in the Virginia Senate voted Friday to advance a bill that would create a state board to conduct affordability reviews of prescription drugs – a measure that faces an uncertain future in the House. 

Lawmakers voted 26-13 to advance Senate Bill 957 out of the Senate chamber and on to the House of Delegates. The bill could face an uphill battle in the House of Delegates, where Republican lawmakers voted to kill a companion measure last month. 

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Senator Vance Cosponsors Bipartisan Resolution Challenging Biden’s ESG Rule Politicizing Americans’ Retirement Plans

JD Vance

U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) is joining a bipartisan challenge alongside 49 other U.S. Senators in opposition to President Biden’s new Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) rule, which politicizes the retirement assets of millions of Americans in order to support Biden’s ideological viewpoints rather than obtaining the highest returns for Americans.

“Joe Biden’s ESG investing rule is a brazen attempt to funnel Americans’ retirement savings toward far-left special interest groups,” Vance told The Ohio Star.

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Commentary: The State of the Debt

When Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union Address on Tuesday night, at least three things seem pretty certain. He’ll suggest America is now in its Golden Age, no doubt begun sometime in late January 2021. He’ll offer a laundry list of new things on which he’d like to have the government spend Americans’ hard-earned money. And he won’t say a thing about how we’re now $31.4 trillion in debt—roughly triple the $10.6 trillion tally from when Biden became vice president just 14 years ago. 

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Sumner County Commissioners Pass Resolution Demanding School Board Follow State Law

At their January 23rd meeting, Sumner County Commissioners once again passed a resolution (Attachment Here) calling on the local school board to follow state law and ensure that the Sumner County School environment is free from obscene and provocative material. The resolution, similar to one passed in November, comes on the heels of the Sumner County School Board voting to keep the book “A Place Inside of Me” on its shelves.  

The book about a young Black boy who’s upset about a police shooting in his neighborhood includes a poem and illustrations showing a Black child navigating his emotions in the aftermath of a police shooting. Critics of the book felt that a book depicting police wielding billy clubs preparing to hit people is inappropriate for six-year-olds. The book’s defenders argued that for some, this is reality.

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Pennsylvania House Republican Leader Says Speaker Committed ‘Significant Breach’ of Security

Pennsylvania House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler (R-Quarryville) is seeking answers regarding what he terms a major security infraction on the part of House Speaker Mark Rozzi (D-Temple). 

Rozzi was elected speaker with the support of all Democrats and 16 Republicans in the state House of Representatives as part of a deal Cutler said would entail the Berks County representative re-registering as an independent and caucusing with neither party. The speaker has since declined to lose his party affiliation and chose to adjourn session until later this month. Rozzi’s decision disempowers Republicans who, had they been in session, would have enjoyed a few weeks with a narrow House majority, but three special elections scheduled for this Tuesday almost guarantee the Democrats will gain control of the chamber. 

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Study Finds Georgia Lawmakers Should Address the Labor Shortage, Workforce Development

A new National Federation of Independent Business report shows that Georgia lawmakers should address the labor shortage and workforce development, the group’s state director says.

The report found that more than half (57%) of business owners reported hiring or attempting to hire in January. Most (91%) reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they wanted to fill.

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Democrats Propose Expanding MinnesotaCare to Include Illegal Immigrants

by Anthony Gockowski   Democrats have introduced a bill that would make illegal immigrants eligible for MinnesotaCare, a state-subsidized health insurance program. The bill, sponsored by State Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, and State Sen. Alice Mann, DFL-Edina, would allow “undocumented noncitizens” to qualify for the program. Lawfully present noncitizens are already eligible. The Minnesota House People of Color and Indigenous Caucus identified the bill as one of its top priorities during a Jan. 25 press conference. “The time is now to reduce health disparities and increase individual, family, and community resilience,” said Rep. Mohamud Noor, DFL-Minneapolis. “Quite frankly, we spend more in terms of emergency medical assistance compared to paying through MinnesotaCare for all the undocumented immigrants.” According to the Department of Human Services, MinnesotaCare is designed for working Minnesotans who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but have incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty line. The program is financed by both state and federal dollars. Roughly 102,000 Minnesotans were enrolled in the program in 2021. Under the DFL’s bill, eligibility would be expanded to the estimated 81,000 illegal immigrants in the state. Democrats attempted to pass a similar bill last session, but it died in committee. “We should not use both state and…

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Ohio Think Tank Asks Supreme Court to Kill Biden Student-Debt-Forgiveness Plan

A center-right policy-research center based in Columbus, OH is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to nix President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive almost $500 billion in unpaid student loans. 

Nebraska and six other states sued the Biden administration to stop the program that Congress never authorized. Last November, petitioners succeeded in getting a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit to pause implementation of the plan. The following month, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and oral arguments have been scheduled for February 28. 

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Activist Groups Ask for Senate Ethics Probe into Sinema’s Alleged Misuse of Staff

Over a dozen activists groups have asked for an ethics probe into allegations Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is using her staff for personal errands other tasks outside of their official duties.

The request was filed Thursday with the Senate Ethics Committee, and some of the groups are from Sinema’s home state of Arizona, according to The Hill newspaper.

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Regimes in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua Among the Most Undemocratic in the World, According to The Economist

Cuban Flag on Pole

The British magazine The Economist released the  2022 Democracy Index on Thursday, in which Cuba appears in 139th place, among 165 independent states. Once again the government of the country was described as an “authoritarian regime” and in this edition it scored zero in the indicator of electoral processes and pluralism.

The Havana regime also appears among the worst in the categories civil liberties (2.94 out of 10), political participation (3.33), government functioning (3.21) and political culture (3.75).

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Massive Mask Meta-Study Undermines Remaining COVID Mandates

An international research collaboration that reviewed several dozen rigorous studies of “physical interventions” against influenza and COVID-19 through last year failed to find even a modest effect on infection or illness rates from masks of all qualities.

Published in the peer-reviewed Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, run by the British evidence-based medicine charity Cochrane, the study raises new doubts about ongoing mask mandates and public health recommendations worldwide.

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College Enrollment Decline Tied to Pandemic-Era Mandates, Population Decrease, Expert Says

College enrollment rates still have not recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to National Student Clearinghouse data published Thursday.

While fall undergraduate enrollment rates stabilized in 2022 after tallying about 0.6% fewer students than 2021 levels, there are still 1.1 million fewer students enrolled than was recorded in 2019, according to data released Thursday. Adam Kissel, visiting fellow on higher education reform at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that that there are multiple factors that could contribute to this downward trend including population decline, pandemic-era mandates and deemphasized importance on college degrees.

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Commentary: The American Medical System Is Broken

Anyone who’s recently visited a hospital in America knows the system is broken. Prices are outrageous, answers are slim, and insurance companies are insufferable. Each time I think about how the medical system in America is terrible, one of the only small comforts is that Canada’s healthcare situation is worse.

Still, we didn’t arrive here without a string of bad decisions leading to an overpriced, unhelpful, and increasingly woke medical system. So how did we get here?

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Defense Department Successfully Test-Fires Hypersonic Missile

The Defense Department has announced the successful launch of a hypersonic missile – as part of an effort to advance U.S. military capabilities amid threats from China and Russia.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said earlier this week that defense technology producer Lockheed Martin’s version of the U.S. Air Force Hypersonic Airbreathing Weapon Concept “capped a program that accomplished all of its initial objectives.”

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