Tennessee Bill Would Move Foreclosure Notices from Newspapers to State Website

A bill that would move foreclosure notices from newspapers to a Tennessee Secretary of State website was pushed back two weeks in the Senate State and Local Government Committee.

Currently, homes in foreclosure in Tennessee are required to be advertised in a local newspaper. Those notices also appear on the statewide tnpublicnotice.com website.

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Tennessee’s Skrmetti Among 33 Attorneys General Urging Supreme Court to Uphold Whistleblower Law

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong is leading 33 states attorneys general in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a pair of lower court rulings that could have broad implications for whistleblowers, and the government’s ability to go after public fraud.

In a 15-page legal brief, Tong and the other AGs are calling on justices to uphold a pair of federal whistleblower lawsuits accusing pharmacy operators of over billing government health insurance programs for prescription drugs. 

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Group Names Chicago, New Orleans as U.S. Murder Capitals

Chicago recorded 697 total homicides in 2022, far more than any other city in the United States, but New Orleans had the highest murder rate per capita, according to a new report from a nonprofit research group. 

Chicago had more total homicides in 2022 than Philadelphia (516), New York City (438), Houston (435) and Los Angeles (382), which rounded out the top five, according to a report from Wirepoints, an Illinois-based research and news organization that surveyed 2022 crime data from 75 of the largest U.S. cities.

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East Palestine, Ohio Residents Urged to Document Health Concerns by Environmental Activist Erin Brockovich

There are growing reports of health concerns from residents following the chemical explosion and toxic train derailment that upended the community of East Palestine, Ohio over three weeks ago.

Some residents this month say they have been diagnosed with bronchitis, lung issues, and rashes that doctors and nurses suspect are linked to the chemical exposure.

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‘2023 Property Taxpayer Protection Act’ to be Taken up by General Assembly this Week

A bill that would protect property taxpayers from bearing the brunt of new residential development across the state is set to be taken up in the General Assembly this week.

The “2023 Property Taxpayer Protection Act” will remedy a disparity between the ways in which cities and counties are able to fund the expansion of services brought on by the accelerated growth Tennessee is experiencing which was created by the 2006 County Powers Relief Act.

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DEA Arizona Announces Massive Narcotics Seizure after Cartel Targeting Operation

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of Arizona announced Thursday a massive amount of seized narcotics and incarcerations following a three-year-long targeted investigation of the Sinaloa Drug Cartel (SDC).

“DEA Arizona is laser focused on the Sinaloa Drug Cartel. We will not stop,” said DEA Special Agent in Charge Cheri Oz. “This investigation is a testament to our strong partnerships which enable us to gain the necessary advantage over these evil criminal networks.”

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Online Posting of Pennsylvania Legislators’ Expenses Proposed

Pennsylvania Senator Lindsey Wiliams (D-Pittsburgh) is preparing to reintroduce a bill to instruct the state’s chief legislative clerks to post all lawmakers’ taxpayer-funded expenses online. 

In a memorandum asking fellow senators to cosponsor her measure, Williams mentioned that she and some other legislators provide online access to may of their public expenditures. Her own website contains a page linking to monthly expense reports. Spending listed includes such items as lodging and office event expenses. 

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City in Minnesota’s Police Staffing Levels ‘Dangerously Low,’ Union Leader Says

The Golden Valley Police Department is experiencing “unprecedented and dangerously low staffing levels,” according to a union leader, who said the city is down 61% from its budgeted force.

“The radical agenda of Golden Valley’s city leaders and their lack of support to the staff within the police department is having an effect on its residents and visitors to the community. It has caused unprecedented and dangerously low staffing levels as well as morale issues, as police officers are leaving in droves for employment with surrounding agencies,” said Jim Mortenson, executive director of Law Enforcement Labor Services.

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Florida County GOP Passes Resolution to ‘Ban the Jab’ and Confiscate the Doses

The Lee County Republican Party Executive Committee passed a  resolution Tuesday night, asking the Florida Legislature to outlaw the COVID injections and the Attorney General’s Office to confiscate all doses within the state.

The “Ban the Jab” resolution, which passed with the required two-thirds majority, will now head to Governor Ron DeSantis’ desk (where he can ignore it) and to the State Legislature.

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Deroy Murdock Commentary: A Snapshot of Insanity, Courtesy of the Democrats

Led by Quadrillion-Dollar Man Joe Biden — about whom more later — today’s Democrat Party has decayed into a collection of psychoses fortified by police power, perpetual-motion monetary printing presses and easy access to atomic weapons. What could go wrong? Damn near everything.

Democrats spent much of the last generation attempting to heal the Southern blacks whom they brutalized through Jim Crow segregation. They promoted legal equality for women, aimed to enrich the poor and eradicated tear-inducing air and blazing rivers.

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Virginia General Assembly Adjourns after Passing ‘Stopgap’ Budget, No Final Deal

The politically-divided Virginia General Assembly agreed on a “stopgap” budget bill before lawmakers adjourned the legislative session Saturday, with lawmakers indicating work remains to reach a final deal on amendments to the state’s two-year state spending plan. 

Without an agreement reached on key aspects of proposed amendments to the state’s budget – including $1 billion in tax cuts proposed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin – the legislature agreed to pass what House Appropriations Committee Chair Del. Barry Knight described as a “stopgap” budget with just a few items. 

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Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Calls for China to Pay Reparations for COVID Lab Leak

In the wake of revelations the U.S. Energy Department now believes the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from an accidental lab leak in China, Republicans are calling for investigations and accountably. One presidential candidate, health science entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, says China owes reparations  and should be expelled from the World Trade Organization. 

“Now we know what we should have known all along: COVID-19 began in a lab in China,” Ramaswamy, who launched his campaign last week, said in a statement. “As President I will extract reparations from the Communist Chinese Party, using every financial lever available to us.”

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Wisconsin Congressman Gallagher Reintroduces Bipartisan Bill Targeting Over-budget, Behind-Schedule Projects

U.S. Representatives Mike Gallagher (R-WI-8) and Katie Porter (D-CA-47) are pushing for passage of their reintroduced Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act, a bill to publicize which federal projects are dramatically over budget or behind schedule. 

The measure instructs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to generate an annual report on all projects that run at least $1 billion over initially authorized expenses or whose completion takes at least five years longer than originally scheduled. 

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Commentary: The Real Pandemic in America Today Is Obesity

According to the mainstream media, the most important health crisis in the world today is either COVID-19 or mental health. We all know why they say that; money. Money is the most important factor deciding what is and is not important in America today. Hundreds of billions of dollars are up for grabs yearly from these two “pandemics,” and companies like Pfizer are only too eager to profit from them. 

Pfizer boasts on its website that the company has “successfully manufactured more than 3 billion doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine in 2021 and expects to manufacture 4 billion doses in 2022.” Looking a little deeper, we can also see that hundreds of millions of prescriptions are written yearly for drugs that treat mental health issues, including depression and anxiety. Pfizer sells a lot of those as well. In 2020 alone, more than 20 percent of U.S. adults had been issued a prescription for such drugs. Those are frightening numbers. 

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Report: Universal Licensing Has Helped 6,500 Arizona Residents Get to Work

A new Goldwater Institute report highlights all the ways House Bill 2569, which created licensing reciprocity for many professional licenses from other states, has been life-altering for thousands.

With universal recognition having gone into effect in the summer of 2019, “Economic Effects of Arizona’s 2019 Universal Recognition” estimates that some 6,500 residents – including physicians, tradespeople and other professionals – have now been free to work at their craft by exercising their rights under the first-in-the-nation universal recognition reform. The law streamlined occupational licensing by opening the door for skilled workers to use their out-of-state experience to swiftly acquire a license to work upon relocating to the state.

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Commentary: Artificial Intelligence and the Passion of Mortality

If we knew our existence would span millennia, would we be able to cherish each day or try as hard as we do now to leave something behind? Would voices from history still offer urgent advice, telling us we are part of something bigger or to make the most of our short lives so they matter? Would we still reach out to God for inspiration and guidance? If we didn’t have to die would we truly be alive?

When Homer composed the Iliad, it would have been ridiculous to think that someday mortal human beings would invent machines that might wield the power of the gods. But that’s where we’re headed. As economists struggle to imagine economic models that preserve vitality and growth in societies with crashing birth rates, and as individual competence is no longer required by institutions desperate to fill vacancies, artificial intelligence (AI) promises to fill the quantitative and qualitative human void.

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Five Dirtiest Cities in the U.S. Are Governed by Democratic Mayors: Study

A new study released Thursday found that the top five dirtiest cities in the United States in 2023 are run by Democratic mayors, according to LawnStarter, a site that conducts and publishes geographic area studies. Two of the five cities were located in New Jersey.

LawnStarter compared more than 150 of the largest cities across the country in four categories: pollution, living conditions, infrastructure and consumer satisfaction.

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Watchdogs Press JPMorgan Chase Bank for Answers on Cancellation of Religious Freedom Group’s Account

JPMorgan Chase & Co. wants to exclude shareholder resolutions from two conservative watchdog groups that relate to the bank’s closing of the account of a religious-freedom nonprofit founded by former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback. 

Brownback, a former U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom during the Trump administration, is also a Republican former member of the House and Senate from Kansas. He founded the National Committee for Religious Freedom. 

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The World Bank’s New Focus on Climate Threatens World’s Poorest Nations, Researchers Say

The World Bank’s plan to focus future efforts on climate change will have a disproportionately negative impact on its poorest client nations, despite those same countries having repeatedly reported that they would prefer the bank focus on other issues, researchers at the Center for Global Development (CGD) reported Thursday.

The Biden administration named former MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga as its nominee to replace the outgoing Trump appointee David Malpass as president of the World Bank Thursday, a key step in the administration’s efforts to refocus the agency from poverty prevention and take more climate action. However, just 6% of public and private representatives from 43 client nations listed climate change as one of the top three issues facing their country, according to a review of surveys conducted by the World Bank in 2020 and 2021, the GCD researchers reported.

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