Maury County Mayor Sheila Butt Supports Bill That Would Bring Fiscal Fairness to County Governments

Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Maury County Mayor Sheila Butt in studio to talk about how she and her fellow mayors are coming together to work with the General Assembly to bring fiscal fairness to county governments in Tennessee. Leahy: We are having too much fun here in the studio with the mayor of Maury County, Sheila Butt. You know, Sheila, it is just such a delight to have you in here, because we’ve known each other a long time. Butt: I remember the first time I ever sat next to you at some dinner. I don’t know. We were at another convention somewhere is the first time we ever met. Probably 15, 16 years ago. Leahy: About 15, 16 years ago. Yes. This was during the Tea Party days. Butt: Absolutely. Leahy: When we were out focusing on free markets and fiscal responsibility and constitutionally limited government. Butt: Yes. Remember that? Leahy: Remember those days? Butt: Let’s go back to that. Leahy: Let’s actually preserve the Constitutional Republic of America. Butt:…

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Nashville Public School Teacher Signals Intent to Ignore State Law

Last week, despite being a legal requirement since late summer, a Nashville elementary school teacher posted on the social media outlet TikTok her intent to ignore Tennessee state law. She tells viewers, “We were finally told that we must log all of our books into a system, so that, I guess, parents, or the public, or whoever can view it, um, to make complaints.”

In her eyes, the request is stupid, and asking teachers to do it is degrading. She tells her viewers she’s not going to comply, “I don’t need someone from the state or the district, or whoever to micromanage me in my classroom. And if it’s coming to that point, I’m almost like, maybe this isn’t for me now, and maybe I should get out.”

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South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem Signs Bill Banning Transgender Hormones, Surgeries for Minors

Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) signed legislation Monday that protects minor children and teens from experimental puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and mutilating irreversible surgeries for the treatment of gender confusion.

In signing HB 1080, the “Help Not Harm” bill, into law, Noem said in a statement, “South Dakota’s kids are our future. With this legislation, we are protecting kids from harmful, permanent medical procedures.”

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Nashville Stadium Committee Chair Details His Opposition to $2.1 Billion Titans Stadium Deal

The chair of Nashville’s East Bank Stadium committee detailed in a post how the Mayor’s Office, lobbyists and communications staff have pushed false narratives about a $2.1 billion new Tennessee Titans stadium over the past year and why he will be voting against the project when it’s expected to reach the Metro Nashville council in March.

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Michael Patrick Leahy on Bannon’s WarRoom: EPA Confirms They Had an On-Site Coordinator at East Palestine, Ohio Train Derailment, Can Not Yet Confirm Who Ordered the Controlled Burn

Wednesday morning on WarRoom: Battleground, Stephen K. Bannon welcomed The Star News Network’s CEO and Editor and Chief, Michael Patrick Leahy to the show to explain the non-response they received from the EPA regarding the authorization of the controlled burn in East Palestine, Ohio.

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Michael Patrick Leahy on Bannon’s WarRoom: ‘A Former Naval Officer Might Come Up With’ a Better Set of Options Than Governor DeWine’s Controlled Burn of Vinyl Chloride at the East Palestine, Ohio Train Derailment

Tuesday afternoon on WarRoom: Battleground, Stephen K. Bannon welcomed The Star News Network’s CEO and Editor and Chief, Michael Patrick Leahy to the show to discuss Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s contradictory statements after a train derailment released contaminated air into the East Palestine region.

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Research Highlights Lack of Benefit from Public Funding of Sports Stadiums

A recent academic paper on the economics of sports stadiums again has highlighted how publicly funding professional sports stadiums does not provide the benefits promised by politicians.

The paper highlights how building entertainment districts surrounding stadiums has not changed that formula and alternative tax funding mechanisms – like those planned to be used in Nashville to fund a new $2.1 billion Titans stadium – only serve to obscure the fact so much is public funding is being used.

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Josh Hawley Proposes Social Media Ban for Kids Under 16

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley introduced legislation Tuesday barring social media companies from offering accounts to children under 16.

The “MATURE Act” would require social media platforms to verify that users are 16 or older by scanning government-issued ID and prohibit social media companies from opening accounts for children under 16. The legislation would allow parents of children under 16 to sue social media platforms for damages if the platform allows their child to open an account.

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Commentary: The Sudden Dominance of the Diversity Industrial Complex

Little more than a decade ago, DEI was just another arcane acronym, a clustering of three ideas, each to be weighed and evaluated against other societal values. The terms diversity, equity, and inclusion weren’t yet being used in the singular, as one all-inclusive, non-negotiable moral imperative. Nor had they coalesced into a bureaucratic juggernaut running roughshod over every aspect of national life. 

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Wisconsin Senate Demands Green Bay Remove Audio Surveillance Devices in City Hall

An Attorney representing the Wisconsin State Senate sent a letter this week to Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich demanding he immediately disable the audio recording devices planted in city hall. The letter also demands the city destroy all illegally obtained audio recordings. 

“This surveillance activity is not only disturbing. It is unlawful,” writes Ryan J. Walsh, the attorney representing the lawmakers. 

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Psychiatrists Speak Out Against Minnesota’s Recreational Marijuana Bill

Psychiatrists are expressing their concerns over a proposed bill in the Minnesota House of Representatives that would legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and up.

Letters submitted to members of the House Human Services Policy Committee, two from licensed psychiatrists and one from a licensed alcohol and drug counselor, argued that HF 100 fails to take into account the effects of cannabis on younger people’s brains.

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Pennsylvania House Republicans Prepare to Fight for Fiscal Reforms

Republicans lost their majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives last year, but on Tuesday GOP members voiced their hope that the state might still curb state spending and lighten the tax burden with which the commonwealth saddles residents and businesses. 

With that goal in mind, House Appropriations Committee Minority Chairman Seth Grove (R-York) led a roundtable discussion with several state fiscal-policy experts. 

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Florida’s DeSantis Wants to Restrict Politically Motivated Investment Policies

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants the Legislature to restrict politically motivated banking and investment policies with taxpayer funds and protect Floridians from discrimination from the banking industry in the upcoming session.

DeSantis held a news conference in Naples Monday to discuss legislative proposals to address environmental, social and governance investment policies. While ESG was prohibited in investment decisions for the state’s pension program through the State Board of Administration last year, DeSantis wants more restrictions.

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Arizona State Representative Introduces Legislation to Prohibit TikTok from Devices Used by the State

State Representative Matt Gress (R-Phoenix) is introducing an amendment at the Wednesday House Governance Committee meeting dubbed the “No TikTok on Arizona Government Devices Act.”

“When I was sworn into office, I took an oath to defend my constituents and all Arizonans from enemies both foreign and domestic,” said Gress. “This legislation fulfills this promise as the security risks associated with the use of TikTok – an application owned and operated by the Chinese Communist Party with the capabilities of gathering crucial details about personal, private internet activity – can’t be ignored.”

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Virginia May Form Work Group to Examine Teacher Pay

The Virginia Department of Education could soon form a work group to consider competitive teacher pay in the commonwealth under a bill receiving bipartisan support in the General Assembly. 

A substitute version of Senate Bill 1215 directs the Department of Education to convene a work group of school board representatives, division superintendents, school teachers, school staff and parents to make recommendations related to “competitive” teacher compensation in the commonwealth. 

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Pennsylvania EMS System Teeters on Brink of Collapse, Official Says

Pennsylvania’s hyperlocal emergency medical services system teeters on the brink of collapse and, officials say, it’s up to legislators to intervene before it’s too late.

“If they do nothing, this will collapse — there’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it —this system will collapse if nothing changes,” said Eric Henry, a Crawford County Commissioner and owner of the Meadville Area Ambulance Service.

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Michigan State Shooter Found with Note Threatening Two New Jersey Public Schools, Authorities Say

The Michigan State University (MSU) gunman was found with a note threatening two New Jersey public schools, the district superintendent confirmed Tuesday.

Anthony Dwayne McRae, 43, was found dead off MSU’s campus late Monday night from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he killed three students and injured five who remain in critical condition, MSU Police and Public Safety reported. McRae was reportedly found with a note threatening two Ewing New Jersey public schools, the police and Ewing Township Public Schools Superintendent David Gentile confirmed.

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Arizona Senate Majority Caucus Warns of Government Shutdown If Gov. Katie Hobbs Vetoes the Newley Passed Budget

The Arizona State House and Senate have officially passed a “skinny budget” to continue funding state agencies. The ball now falls in Gov. Katie Hobbs’s (D) court to sign or veto the budget, and the Senate Majority Caucus said it expects Hobbs to “do the right thing.”

“We [the caucus] believe it would be quite foolish for Governor Hobbs to veto this budget. We are proceeding under the assumption that she will do the right thing. If she does veto this budget, then she will be responsible for a government shutdown,” Caucus spokeswoman Kim Quintero told The Arizona Sun Times via email.

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Ohio Attorney General to Lead Investigation into Reporters Arrest at East Palestine Press Conference

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office will handle the case involving a TV journalist who the East Palestine Police Department arrested while he was documenting a railway wreck in East Palestine.

Columbiana County Prosecutor Vito Abruzzino confirmed on February 10th that Yost will be in charge of the investigation surrounding Evan Lambert’s arrest.

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Bill Brings Whistleblower Protections to City Clerks Who Report Election Fraud

Former Green Bay City Clerk Kris Teske watched as her election office was effectively taken over by liberal voting activists. 

Emails show the clerk growing ever more concerned as the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civil Life (CTCL) and its network of liberal groups insinuated themselves into Green Bay’s election administration in the days leading up to the hotly contested 2020 presidential election. 

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Former Ohio City Official Charged with Stealing $1.5 Million from Housing Authority

A former Athens city official is accused of stealing more than $1.5 million from the city and using it for personal expenditures.

Ohio Auditor Keith Faber said in a press release that law enforcement arrested Jodi Rickard, who was the executive director of the Athens Metropolitan Housing Authority (AMHA) at the time of the alleged embezzlement, on Monday.

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Ohio Republicans Introduce Bill Codifying Election Integrity Office

Republicans in the Ohio Legislature are working to pass a law codifying the election-integrity office whose creation Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) announced last year. 

LaRose declared last October he would set up the Public Integrity Division in his office to improve the security, accuracy and accessibility of elections in the Buckeye State. The new department consolidates heretofore separate divisions dealing with campaign-finance administration, voter registration, election investigations and cybersecurity.

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State Representative David Livingston Seeks Further Transparency from Gov. Katie Hobbs on Inauguration Funds

Arizona State Representative David Livingston (R-Peoria) sent letters Monday to Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) and her campaign manager Nicole DeMont seeking further transparency regarding the funds Hobbs received for her inauguration events.

“To that end, I have serious concerns relating to the procurement of funds that appear to have been solicited and donated for the purpose of sponsoring Inauguration events hosted at the Capitol in early January,” Livingston wrote. “It is my understanding that you or your campaign manager publically disclosed some of the donors and the amounts of their donations several weeks ago, but this disclosure is incomplete.”

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Computer Programmer Testifies to Arizona Senate Election Committee About Voting Machine Manipulation

The Arizona Senate Election Committee heard testimony Monday from computer programmer Clinton Eugene Curtis about how susceptible voting machines are to manipulation. Curtis, a Democrat who previously worked as a programmer for NASA, DOD and other defense agencies, famously testified in 2007 to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee about how he programmed voting machines so he could manipulate them without being detected. 

His presentation began with a clip of his 2007 testimony to Congress, where he said it only took 100 lines of code to change the results of an election. He said county election officials would not be able to detect it, unless they had access to the source code or could compare the count to the paper ballot count. He showed a second video clip, which compiled statements by prominent Democrats expressing their concerns on how voting machines are hackable. 

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Dozens of Hospitals Have Closed in States That Expanded Medicaid, Research Shows

Medicaid expansion has failed to prevent hospital closure, with almost 50 shutting down in expansion states since 2014, according to research given exclusively to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The research from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) indicates that while Medicaid expansion was intended to solve hospitals’ finances and job shortage, its “empty promises” have done the opposite, report author Hayden Dublois wrote. Hospitals instead have had to shut their doors, lost thousands of jobs and racked up substantial losses, amounting to a loss of almost 5,400 beds.

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Idaho School Board Cancels Gender Identity Policy Following Community Uproar

An Idaho school board canceled any further action on a proposed policy that would allow the use of bathrooms and locker rooms on the basis of gender identity rather than biological sex, following community uproar.

Caldwell School Board put its gender identity policy on hold on Monday after community backlash caused a previous meeting to abruptly end. The pause comes as Idaho’s Senate Education Committee introduced legislation that would require Idaho students to use bathrooms and locker rooms on the basis of biological sex, according to KTVB 7.

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Commentary: Affirmative Action Is a Thought Experiment

Imagine for a moment that beneficiaries of affirmative action were randomly selected. Suppose instead of applying affirmative action by race, we randomly assigned every person a number between one and five. Colleges would reserve portions of enrollments so that people with a “one” would only compete against other ones for a reserved number of slots. Likewise, those with a “two” would compete against each other for slots reserved for twos. And so on. 

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