Monday 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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Ohio U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH-04) said Sunday he is determined to obtain transparency on the origins of the COVID-19 virus, specifically why Dr. Anthony Fauci insisted on a dismissal of the narrative that the virus originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, China.
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The Tennessee Department of Military announced that the state’s Army and Air National Guard will be conducting an international joint readiness exercise, named Thracian Sentry 2023, throughout the nation of Bulgaria in June.
From June 12th-30th, “more than 170 military personnel from the Bulgarian Armed Forces, the Hellenic Air Force in Greece, and the Tennessee Army and Air National Guard will focus on developing and improving skills which include combat medical care, aircraft fire rescue, joint operations, logistics and sustainment, aeromedical evacuation, and weapons training,” the Tennessee Department of Military said in a Thursday statement.
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Lawmakers are demanding that President Joe Biden declassify documents related to the origins of COVID-19, in particular federal investigations into the matter.
The Senate passed a bill by unanimous consent that would require Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to declassify documents related to COVID’s origins. Republicans have a majority in the House, giving the legislation a chance, but whether Biden would sign it is in doubt.
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Recognizing that some of the most innovative classroom ideas come from teachers, Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) created the Teacherpreneur program as a means to annually award seed money to implement, or scale, the best ideas from teachers. This year’s winner is Dr. Jennifer Love from East Nashville Magnet High School. Her concept beat out 11 other finalists to take home the top prize.
Love’s idea is to incorporate a social-emotional learning curriculum for student athletics in an effort to provide increased access to mental health support for high school students. As a first prize winner, she earns a $10,000 cash prize and some additional funding to help her implement her concept as a pilot program.
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In search for a climate and weather most therapeutic for his poor health, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) discovered his favorite place for working in the Swiss region of Upper Engadin in Graubünden, the village of Sils Maria in the midst of a beautiful valley.
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The Satanic Temple (TST) made headlines in 2022 for fighting for the right to create after-school clubs for students and has recently been launching new groups across the country, raising concerns for religious advocates about the potential impact Satanism may have on students’ perception of faith.
A TST “After-School Satan Club” was approved in December 2022 at a Virginia elementary school, provoking many parents, who were disturbed by the push to indoctrinate children into Satanism, to protest the club, according to RealClearEducation. TST has announced the formation of multiple new clubs in New York, Pennsylvania and Colorado in just the past month and religious advocates have taken note of the trend, telling the Daily Caller News Foundation that the normalization of Satanism could be detrimental to students later in life.
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Local governments or lienholders have taken more than 8,950 homes with more than $860 million in equity from 2014 to 2021 under laws that allow them to seize properties for unpaid property taxes, according to a new report.
Pacific Legal Foundation, which is working to ban the practice, found that taking property to pay property tax debts can be ruinous for people with small tax debts.
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Democrat California Governor Gavin Newsom caught the attention of Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Twitter over the weekend after criticizing legislation recently signed into law in the Volunteer State.
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On Friday, a Columbus, Ohio-based think tank submitted a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court asking justices to allow states to enforce against water pollution, pursuant to the federal Clean Water Act (CWA).
The 1972 law set up a permitting system for corporate or infrastructural projects that result in the discharge of pollutant materials into rivers, streams or other bodies of water. Under the act, states may undertake their own permitting programs. But last July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a ruling that South Carolina’s program is not strong enough to supersede the federal permit process and therefore citizen lawsuits can effectively nullify the state program.
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Among the stack of bills the Virginia General Assembly sent to Gov. Glenn Youngkin this session is a measure that would align the commonwealth with a small batch of states moving to phase out subminimum wage employment for people with disabilities – a bill supporters say would eventually eliminate an “archaic” model dating back to the 1930’s.
The measure, which passed by the General Assembly last month, aims to phase-out the practice of paying people with disabilities less than the state’s minimum wage. House Bill 1924 by Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington, sets increased wage rates starting this summer that employers who currently pay a subminimum wage to workers with disabilities would be required to pay.
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The Georgia Senate has passed a bill to prohibit local election offices from using private funding to conduct elections, after election officials reportedly used a loophole to accept the money.
The bill stipulates “costs and expenses related to conducting primaries, elections, runoffs, or other undertakings authorized or required by [state law] shall be paid from lawfully appropriated public funds.”
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Despite the fact that few people attended a ranked choice voting press conference at the Minnesota Capitol on Thursday, DFL legislators and paid RCV advocates expressed enthusiasm about the prospect of passing a bill that would implement their favored system of determining representation in the legislature and for statewide office.
State Sen. Kelly Morrison, DFL-Deephaven, and State Rep. Cedrick Frazier, DFL-New Hope, have introduced a bill they’re calling the “Protect and Advance Democracy Act” that would make Minnesota a ranked choice voting state by 2026.
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A “guinea pig.” That is what Sandy, Utah Mayor Monica Zoltanski said that “ranked-choice voting” (RCV) made of her hometown. The town opted into Utah’s controversial RCV pilot program, but the experiment has not gone well. The cost-saving promised by proponents never materialized, but the real alarm bells should have sounded when the experiment produced voter confusion and voter disengagement.
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Two bills have been filed in the Florida Legislature in advance of the upcoming session that would extend protections for human trafficking victims in court proceedings, including for minors or victims of certain crimes.
The bills filed by state Sen. Danny Burgess, R-Tampa, and state Rep. Taylor Yarkosky, R-Clermont, Senate Bill 1208 and House Bill 1037, respectively, have the support of Attorney General Ashley Moody.
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A Pennsylvania state representative announced this weekend she plans to sponsor a bill to end state subsidization of pregnancy-resource centers, accusing these organizations of improperly trying to dissuade women and “birthing people” from getting abortions.
“Crisis pregnancy centers are organizations that purport to provide medical services to pregnant women and birthing people but instead engage in deceptive practices to prevent them from having abortions,” Representative Melissa Shusterman (D-Paoli) wrote in a memorandum encouraging colleagues to cosponsor her measure. “The damage these organizations inflict upon people cannot be understated [and] amounts to a public health emergency.”
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Two Republican state Representatives have introduced a bill that aims to reduce firearms regulations and expand Second Amendment rights in Ohio.
House Bill (HB) 51 known as the “Second Amendment Preservation Act” sponsored by state Representatives Mike Loychik (R-Bazetta) and Jean Schmidt (R-Loveland) takes several steps to protect the Second Amendment by adding further protections to the right to bear arms, and removing federal firearms law references from the state firearms control law.
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Arizona families could soon be saving money on their groceries.
An amended form of SB 1063, a bill eliminating municipal food taxes, passed in the Arizona Senate on Feb. 27 and has moved onto the House for discussion. The bill is sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borelli, R-Lake Havasu.
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A DePaul University (DePaul) alumna and Nevada State College professor, Erika Abad, gave a presentation to other DePaul alumni on “colorism,” the notion that minority groups discriminate against each other based on how dark their skin is.
Abad said in her early February presentation that even tastes and smells are racialized, including “[h]ow we eat our chicken.”
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Bank of America (BOA) worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate customers who made purchases with BOA credit and debit cards on and around Jan. 6, and pushed those who had made gun purchases to the top of the list, according to whistleblower testimony obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The whistleblower, George Hill, a retired FBI supervisory intelligence analyst, testified to the House Judiciary Committee In February that BOA gave the FBI’s Washington Field Office (WFO) a list of individuals who made transactions in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area between Jan. 5 and Jan. 7, saying the company did so of its own volition and without any known legal process, according to testimony made to the House Judiciary Committee in February. The list of individuals, later distributed to FBI field offices across the country, included BOA customers that purchased any product between those dates, while customers who had bought firearms were prioritized.
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Daniel de Visé, a writer for The Hill, recently discussed the United States’ crisis of masculinity. “More than 60 percent of young men are single,” he noted, “nearly twice the rate of unattached young women.” This gap, he warned, signals “a larger breakdown in the social, romantic and sexual life of the American male.” He’s right. It does.
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At least 13 mayors have been arrested for sexual crimes against children since 2021, according to a review of news articles and police reports.
College Park, Maryland, Mayor Patrick Wojahn is the most recent mayor to be charged with child sex crimes and has been arrested for 56 counts of possession and distribution of child pornography, according to NBC Washington; Wojahn submitted his letter of resignation Thursday.
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While former President Donald Trump continues to lead national polls for the 2024 GOP primaries, state polling is more of a determining factor, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is topping several important states.
In states with the most recent primary polling, DeSantis leads in five– Alabama, California, Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. There are several other states in which he leads, but with several caveats.
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Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake of Arizona alleged Saturday that she was offered a bribe to stay out of politics for two years.
“Something happened to me this week before I left for CPAC and it shows how desperate these people are to stop me,” Lake said during the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
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OTICS USA, Inc. officials recently announced that the company will invest $147 million to expand its manufacturing operations in Morristown.
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Retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn on Friday filed a suit against the federal government seeking damages over what he called Washington’s “wrongful and malicious” prosecution of him.
“As a direct and proximate result of Defendant’s actions, General Flynn suffered harm,” his attorneys wrote in a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. “He was falsely branded as a traitor to his country, lost at least tens of millions of dollars of business opportunities and future lifetime earning potential, was maliciously prosecuted and spent substantial monies in his own defense.”
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Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy and Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz sent a letter Wednesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking for answers about the FBI’s alleged spying on a pro-life group.
Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) alleges that an FBI informant infiltrated and recorded their meeting on Jan. 19 at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. The individual believed to be an informant, who goes by the name Eric Mike Santos, wasn’t personally known to other attendees, the group said in its Feb. 22 press release.
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Former President Trump on Saturday won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll as the preferred 2024 GOP presidential nominee, and former Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake won as the vice presidential choice of CPAC attendees.
Over 2,000 votes were cast.
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A Christian homeless shelter filed a lawsuit against Washington state officials Thursday alleging that the state’s anti-discrimination law prevents the shelter from only hiring employees that agree with their faith-based worldview.
Yakima Union Gospel Mission (YUGM) in Yakima, Washington, describes its mission as “helping people move from homelessness to wholeness” on its website and has been working in the community for 35 years, according to a press release by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the world’s largest law firm representing faith and free speech issues. The shelter explains in the lawsuit that the defendants, Attorney General Robert Ferguson and Executive Director of the Washington State Human Rights Commission Andreta Armstrong, have been using Washington’s anti-discrimination law to prevent the organization from hiring in line with their faith, according to the lawsuit.
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The Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) 2023 Annual Meeting took place in Nashville this weekend at Vanderbilt University.
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The Sequatchie County Sheriff’s Office recently announced that two women and one man – all in their sixties – have been arrested and face charges in what the sheriff’s office is calling the “largest fentanyl bust in the county’s history.”
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In 1968, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, a book extrapolating global population growth data to predict a catastrophe as humanity’s demand for resources outstripped supply. The book became a bestseller and catapulted Ehrlich to worldwide fame. But today, just over a half-century later, humanity faces a different challenge. We are in the early stages of a population crash.
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More than two dozen cities and counties across Virginia are slated to receive a portion of nearly $100 million in federal funding for affordable housing and homelessness, U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, D-VA, announced this week.
Localities across the Commonwealth are expected to receive a portion of more than $98.3 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
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Political candidates may soon be allowed to conceal their home address from the public on their election filing statements without having to file a police report or order for protection, according to a bill that’s receiving bipartisan support and set to hit the House floor.
Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn, DFL-Roseville, said she has colleagues in the legislature this session who receive threats to their personal safety regularly. She also said that in the recent past there have been incidents where “armed crowds of people (were) showing up unannounced at personal homes of some people we serve with.”
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Iowa’s Republican Party is taking “aggressive” steps to keep “mean-spirited” Democrats from crashing next year’s GOP presidential caucuses, state Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann told The Iowa Star.
Kaufmann, joining Iowa Star Bureau Chief M.D. Kittle last week on NewsTalk 1040 WHO, said the uncertainty surrounding the Democratic Party’s caucus future could open the door for mischief.
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Two Republican Ohio State Representatives have re-introduced legislation to revise child custody laws to support equal shared parenting in Ohio.
House Bill (HB) 14, known as the “Children Need Both Parents” bill sponsored by State Representatives Rodney Creech (R-West Alexandria) and Marilyn John (R-Richland County), looks to strengthen Ohio families and ensure the best outcome for the children involved with parents who are separated.
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A new report finds staffing shortages force nursing homes to turn away patients, leaving beds empty and transferring the costs of medical care onto a strapped EMS system.
The numbers from the Pennsylvania Health Care Association’s analysis are stark. Of 69 nursing facilities surveyed, 52% said “they are limiting admissions in some way because they do not have enough staff to care for more residents.” Over a three-month period, facilities averaged 17 admission denials because of staff limitations.
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Florida’s Legislature will be serving up a smorgasbord of issues during the upcoming 60-day regular session that begins on Tuesday.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has said many times that Florida is the place where “woke goes to die” and passage of laws to stop it tops the agenda for the Republican supermajority in 2023.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s proposed 2024 budget cuts for online public charter schools are receiving some pushback from school choice advocates and legislators.
On Friday, a group of eight lawmakers led by Rep. Luke Meerman, R-Coopersville, sent the governor a letter seeking to convince her to change course from her proposed 20% per-pupil cut for online charter schools, whereas online public school students did not receive a per-pupil funding cut.
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The Arizona Legislature is considering two bills to dismantle the State Bar of Arizona.
Senate Bill (SB) 1435, sponsored by State Representative Justine Wadsack (R-Tucson) and passed the Senate 16-13 on February 27, would make the Bar voluntary and move the licensing and regulation of attorneys back under the Arizona Supreme Court. Currently, lawyers cannot practice law in Arizona unless they are a member of the Bar. While Arizona is a right-to-work state, lawsuits attempting to stop it from acting like a mandatory union have failed due to judges ruling against them. More than half of the states have mandatory bars; the rest are voluntary.
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Republican Georgia representatives proposed a bill Thursday banning child sex change procedures including surgeries, hormones and puberty blockers, while state senators’ similar February proposal excluded puberty blockers from the ban.
Georgia House Bill 653 bars cross-sex medical interventions for minors and prohibits school employees such as nurses and counselors from withholding information about a child’s gender identity from parents. Senate Bill 140 would ban cross-sex hormones and surgeries for minors, but not puberty blockers.
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The University of Wisconsin is moving toward its first tuition increase in a decade.
UW President Jay Rothman told lawmakers on Thursday that he will ask regents to raise tuition by 5%, starting next fall.
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The Arizona Supreme Court released an opinion in the Legacy Foundation (Legacy) v. Clean Elections Commission (CEC) Thursday, which the Goldwater Institute (GI) celebrated as a victory for checks and balances.
“State bureaucrats cannot simply decide the reach of their own authority,” said GI Vice President of Legal Affairs Timothy Sandefur. “When bureaucrats—who are often not answerable to voters at all—have the power to make the rules, investigate infractions, and punish people for violating those rules, that authority can undermine our most important constitutional values and threaten individual rights.”
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An Arizona Elementary School District cut ties with a Christian University after a “witchy AF,” “queer AF,” and allegedly “disabled” school board member wearing cat ears said the university’s “biblically-informed” values made her feel unsafe.
For the past five years, the Washington Elementary School District, which serves pre-k through eighth grade students in Phoenix and Glendale, had a contract with Arizona Christian University, which allowed their student teachers to be placed in its schools for field experience, Fox News reported. The contract provided valuable opportunities for recruitment as the nation grappled with the ongoing teacher shortage.
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Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., will take up a post as a professor at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
“I am delighted to be joining the UVA Center for Politics as a Professor of Practice,” Cheney stated in university press release. “Preserving our constitutional republic is the most important work of our time, and our nation’s young people will play a crucial role in this effort. I look forward to working with students and colleagues at the Center to advance the important work they and others at the University of Virginia are doing to improve the health of democracy here and around the world.”
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In the state of Oregon, a newly-proposed bill would see the state government hand out $1,000 to the state’s homeless residents, with no limits on how the money could be spent.
As the New York Post reports, the bill was introduced by State Senator Winsvey Campos (D-Ore.) and State Representative Khanh Pham (D-Ore.), and would establish a “People’s Housing Assistance Fund Demonstration Program.” The program would give 12 monthly payments of $1,000 to Oregon residents who are either homeless or about to become homeless. The handouts are also available to those who either spend half or more than half of their monthly income on rent, as well as those who earn 60 percent or less of their area’s median income.
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When I moved to Norway from the U.S. in 1999, one of the new pieces of information that most surprised me had to do with its national holidays.
In the U.S., all but one of our 11 federal holidays could be described as secular or civic commemorations: New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans’ Day, and Thanksgiving. Even though America is probably the most churchgoing country in the developed world, only one of our federal holidays, Christmas, is a religious festival.
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It never stops getting worse, does it? Just when you think the progressive Left has torpedoed our culture and country to rock bottom, a new hitherto-inconceivable outrage explodes.
Until the Trump years, the law-abiding universally loved the FBI. They protected our country and us, we thought. They investigated domestic threats to America, we thought. They were politically nonpartisan, like the military, we thought. Respect for them was so universal that ABC had a show titled The F.B.I., starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., which depicted FBI heroism week after week.
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President Joe Biden departed the White House Friday en route to Delaware for the 66th time since taking office this weekend, which drew criticism from the Republican National Committee (RNC).
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A bill to prevent local governments from spending taxpayer funds on abortions or travel out of state to get abortions passed a Tennessee Senate committee this week and will soon head to the full Senate.
The bill comes after Tennessee’s law banning abortions went into effect following the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Last year, the Metro Nashville council proposed a $500,000 grant to assist women getting an abortion outside of Tennessee but then amended the bill to make it a grant to Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi.
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