Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed JC Bowman of Professional Educators of Tennessee in studio to discuss why Bill Dunn would have been a good choice for Tennessee’s new commissioner of education.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed JC Bowman of Professional Educators of Tennessee in studio to comment on Tennessee’s new commissioner of education.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the CEO and founder of openthebooks.com, Adam Andrzejewski to the newsmaker line to discuss the growing weaponry in IRS and other federal agencies.
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Aaron Gulbransen in studio for another edition of Aaron’s Analysis.
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A Montgomery County elementary school went on immediate lockdown Tuesday morning after a student reported seeing a gun on the school’s campus.
According to reporting in ClarksvilleNow.com, Rossview Elementary School in Clarksville locked down after the early morning report, Rossview High School and Rossville Middle School were placed on “lockout,” which bars entry to the school.
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A judge has rejected a suit from Montana Democratic state Rep. Zooey Zephyr seeking to return to the state House floor following a censure vote from lawmakers over remarks made during debate on a bill barring transgender care for minors. Zephyr, a trans individual, filed suit on Monday seeking to override the decision that bars the Democrat from speaking on the House floor. Several constituents alleged that the decision had infringed on their constitutional rights.
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With 60 percent of likely voters in a recent Rasmussen Reports poll saying that “cheating” likely affected the 2022 midterm elections, House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.) is seeking to reform Washington, D.C.’s elections to make the nation’s capital the “gold standard” for election integrity in the U.S.
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Just the News founder and award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon unveiled a children’s book on Monday to empower parents and grandparents to teach new generations about the dangers of censorship and the essential role of free speech in the American experience.
The book, “Hidden Headlines,” done in partnership with Brave Books, showcases the Solomon family hamster, Chunk, as a newspaper editor who cannot distribute his Hamster Headlines news product because an evil koala named Karl has blocked the tubular social media system in the hamster village of Starlotte City.
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Nationwide, electronic benefits transfer fraud is estimated to cost taxpayers up to $4.7 billion annually, according to the Government Accountability Office.
In 2022, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program distributed over $113.7 billion to nearly 22 million households.
The federal government entrusts states to reduce fraud in safety net programs. In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture told all 50 states to plan to fight EBT skimmer fraud, which happens when bad actors install a card reader on top of a legitimate point of sale at a retail store.
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The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) last week released its annual report on criminal activity on college campuses, which shows, in part, that violent crimes are on the rise at Tennessee’s institutions of higher learning.
According to the report, crime as a whole jumped a whopping 26.28 percent from 2021 to 2022.
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The City of Tempe is set to consider an ordinance that would require contractors to pay their employees a prevailing wage. In response, the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute (GI) sent the City a letter asking it to reconsider.
“It’s important that Tempe taxpayers be aware of burdensome mandates that will hurt not only businesses and employees, but all taxpayers. Concerned taxpayers can reach out to their councilmember to urge them not to adopt this mandate,” said GI Staff Attorney John Thorpe in a statement emailed to The Arizona Sun Times.
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The Knoxville Police Department (KPD) at the end of last week that a teenage suspect was in custody after accidentally discharging a firearm inside a high school.
“An investigation is underway after a gun possessed by a student at West High School discharged in a classroom. Preliminarily appears that the gun was in the student’s backpack,” KPD said on Twitter. “A teacher was grazed either by the bullet or bullet fragment. No serious injuries were reported. The student is in custody and the gun is accounted for.”
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On Saturday, a student-led drag show was held at Tucson High School titled the “School is a Drag, Show,” as planned by the school’s Q Space, a club for LGBTQ+ students. In response, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne (R) said these shows should not be held in the schools.
“In my view, adults have first amendment rights to attend drag shows if they choose to, but they don’t belong in school,” Horne said via the phone to The Arizona Sun Times.
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by John Harris Governor Bill Lee called on the Tennessee Legislature to pass a “Red Flag” law on April 11, 2023 just shortly after three Tennessee Democrat House members made a similar call on the House floor and led a disruptive gun control rally with a bullhorn directly from the front podium on the House floor. The Democrat House members’ gun control rally brought national attention, unfavorable attention, to Tennessee and the Tennessee House of Representatives. Governor Lee has willfully joined the Democrats in an open call for gun control. He has intentionally called for a “Red Flag” law although he referred to it as a “temporary mental health order of protection” because perhaps, as Senator Jack Johnson is recently recorded as stating, “Red Flag” laws have to be “rebranded” in order to pass (or did Sen. Johnson mean to say ‘in order to mislead the voters’?). Following Governor Lee’s call for a Red Flag law, Democrat House Member Justin Jones (who is one of those who was expelled from the House for his disruption of House proceedings and then almost immediately reinstated) has been making national news by continuing to call for gun control at the same time that Governor Lee is doing…
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A bill to enshrine union coercion in the Pennsylvania Constitution passed the state House Labor and Industry Committee 12-9 on Monday.
The measure, identical to an Illinois constitutional amendment that Prairie State voters narrowly ratified last autumn, would prevent adoption of a “right-to-work” law saying nonunion workers can’t be forced to pay union dues. More broadly, the amendment would counteract statutes that check the power of labor organizations and, opponents fear, give public-sector union contracts primacy over state law.
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A new report finds Badger State homeowners pay nearly a half-billion dollars annually in property taxes to fund Wisconsin’s technical colleges, a figure expected to grow in the next biennial budget.
But in Wisconsin there are no directly elected members to authorize these taxes, creating a system of “taxation without representation,” according to the study from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL).
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DFLers in the Minnesota House and Senate voted this month to transform American presidential elections by abandoning the Electoral College.
The Senate voted along party lines, 34-33, on Wednesday to pass an elections omnibus policy bill that includes a provision that would have Minnesota award its presidential electors to the candidate with the most votes nationwide. Republicans unsuccessfully tried to remove that language from the bill.
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The Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) Governing Board held a meeting Thursday night on whether or not to look into a policy limiting the use of restrooms and locker rooms based on biological sex. The board rejected the proposal, agenda item 8.5, in a 3-2 vote. It had become an issue for the district due to a male student, who does not identify as transgender, entering the girls’ restrooms, watching them, and uploading videos he took to TikTok.
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GOP heavyweights, former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, are slated to appear at events in Iowa on May 13.
Trump, who declared his run for the White House late last year, is scheduled to be in Des Moines, an unnamed campaign official told the Associated Press.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law three anticrime bills on Monday that the Republican says will strengthen pre-trial detention and push back against “soft on crime” policies that have made other states less safe.
“One of the main things people say when they come, is that they just want to be in a place that takes public safety seriously.” DeSantis said, noting that Florida’s 50-year-low crime rate is a main driver for people who relocate to the Sunshine State.
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While members of the conservative think tank elite, outfitted in black tie and ball gowns, sat celebrating themselves in a Washington, D.C., ballroom listening to Dierks Bentley and popping off fireworks over the Potomac, their opponents in Minnesota were pre-registering 16- and 17-year-olds to vote, enacting “motor voter” laws, and establishing pop-up polling locations wherever they expected a balloting hotspot might be (think drop boxes on steroids).
While the Left is actually working to achieve generational political power, elites on the Right seem satisfied to simply celebrate . . . what? The latest white paper? The sold-out conference on how the Left is beating them in the political arena? Another record fundraising year where 60 percent of the funds go to promote the institution rather than on-the-ground efforts to implement the ideas? It’s usually all of the above.
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The Ohio Senate has unanimously passed legislation that aims to require local boards of education to draft “non-exhaustive” lists of religious holidays and excuse students for up to three days each academic year.
Senate Bill (SB) 49 known as the “Religious Expression Days” (R.E.D.) Act sponsored by State Senator Michele Reynolds (R-Canal Winchester) would require schools to accommodate “any missed assignments including tests” and teachers would have to accept these absences “without question” while maintaining “alternative accommodation requests confidential.”
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A Wall Street executive is considering a run for United States Senate in Michigan for retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s seat in 2024 as Republicans have yet to court a serious contender for the vacancy, according to Politico.
Vice Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange and Michigan native John Tuttle served under former President George W. Bush’s Political Affairs Office and has been working on Wall Street since 2007, according to Politico. The Wall Street executive could potentially face Democratic opposition from Rep. Elissa Slotkin, and has already been corresponding with Republicans in Michigan and Washington, D.C.
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Ohio Republican U.S. House Representatives are calling on President Joe Biden to negotiate with Republicans on common sense reforms that address the nation’s growing debt problem.
This follows House Republicans passing the Limit, Save, Grow Act last week, which aims to address the debt ceiling and implement commonsense spending reforms to limit wasteful spending, save taxpayer dollars, and grow the economy.
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The Tennessee Firearms Association is asking a state court to order the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department to turn over the Covenant School killer’s manifesto — documents law enforcement have kept from the public more than a month after Audrey Elizabeth Hale stormed into the private Covenant Presbyterian School and killed three 9-year-olds and three adults.
In a lawsuit filed Monday, the TFA and former Hamilton County Sheriff James Hammond request the 20th Judicial District, Chancery Court, in Davidson County to grant the organization access to the manifesto. The complaint also seeks an order from the court finding the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County’s denial of TFA’s records requests is unlawful.
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Georgia officials have dispatched the first “surplus tax refund checks” to Georgia taxpayers who properly paid and filed their taxes over the past two years.
State lawmakers approved the roughly $1 billion in “refunds” as part of House Bill 162, which Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law. Citing “the state’s revenue surplus,” Georgia leaders agreed to refund the money to taxpayers.
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Arizona State Senator John Kavanaugh (R-Fountain Hills) released his weekly update video Monday, sharing that several of the bills he sponsored have been signed by Governor Katie Hobbs (D). Among these is a bill ensuring Arizonans can fly the Betsy Ross flag.
“I have been in a perpetual with rogue, draconian Homeowners Associations [HOA] throughout my 17 years in the Legislature. I’ve had to pass laws to protect constituents from unreasonable actions by them,” Kavanaugh said. “This session’s unreasonable HOA action was one HOA banned people from flying the Betsy Ross flag. Now that’s the first flag of the United States.”
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New data on the manufacturing sector in Arizona shows rapid growth in recent years for the industry.
A report from the Common Sense Institute, a Phoenix-based conservative think tank, determined that Arizona topped all other states in March for adding 2,000 manufacturing jobs and $77.6 billion in “direct sales and output” from the sector in 2022, which the group said in a roughly 40 percent uptick since 2017.
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A flurry of legislative action before Tennessee closed its session April 21 has left a stack of passed bills either on Gov. Bill Lee’s desk or headed there.
Once a bill is passed, it needs to be signed by both House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Senate Speaker Randy McNally before it heads to Lee’s desk. Then Lee has 10 days, not counting Sundays, to either sign or veto a bill or it will become law without his signature. Since the Legislature is not in session, bills are then sent to the Tennessee’s Secretary of State.
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One thing that I have learned by writing this column is that the country music that young people like (who are the biggest consumers of digital music) is not always the same as the music that I like.
But sometimes artists can bridge that gap. Twenty-two-year-old Conner Smith is such an artist. I know exactly why he is so popular with the younger set. But it was his writing ability that impressed me most. He is a gifted songwriter. He has been writing songs since age six. He scored his first publishing deal at age 16. Not only that, I also learned that he was born in the same town in East Tennessee where my children were born, Cleveland.
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The University of Pennsylvania’s School of Nursing has received $406,250 in federal funds to study how to ensure equal health outcomes among ethnic groups using data from the outbreak of COVID-19.
The project, “Achieving Health Equity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons Learned From Nurses and High Performing Hospitals,” will rely on surveys of over 22,000 nurses to develop “innovative models of care delivery…that are associated with equitable outcomes,” according to an abstract.
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As his polling numbers climb nationally, Ohio businessman and anti-woke crusader Vivek Ramaswamy’s political stock appears to be rising in South Carolina, as well.
The youngest GOP candidate in the field “enjoyed another well-received visit to the Palmetto State,” one of the first presidential nominating states, according to the latest FitsNews Palmetto Political Stock Index.
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Former two-time candidate for U.S. Congress Brandon Lape announced on Monday that he is exploring a run for Ohio House District 98 in 2024. State Representative Darrell Kick (R-Loudonville), who is currently in that seat, will not be able to run again because of term limits which, in theory, would create an open seat, but new districts will have to be drawn again.
Lape, from Loudonville, ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Ohio’s 7th Congressional District against Incumbent Bob Gibbs (R-OH-07) and Democrat Quentin Potter in the November 2020 General Election. He lost to Gibbs and gained 3.3 percent of the vote.
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The quote from Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a useful way to begin addressing the Washington Post editorial board’s confident assertion that “’A collective national incompetence in government’” was at the root of the U.S.’s alleged failure vis-à-vis the coronavirus in 2020. According to the Post quoting from a recently released report (“Lessons from the Covid War”), “The United States started out ‘with more capabilities than any other country in the world,’ but “it ended up with 1 million dead.” Were he still around, one guesses Tolstoy would mock the conceit of the Post’s editorialists.
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by Alexa Schwerha Nikole Hannah-Jones, 1619 Project creator, will receive an honorary degree from Spelman College during its commencement ceremony later this month, the college announced. Hannah-Jones will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, during the 136th commencement ceremony on May 21 and deliver the keynote speech, the announcement reads. The 1619 Project is a “reframing of American history that placed slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative,” according to its website. The book, which was a project of the New York Times Magazine, was recently adapted into a TV series on Hulu and criticized by historians for containing historical inaccuracies. Critics slammed the project for alleging the American Revolution was fought to protect slavery, which the magazine amended in 2020. “We recognize that our original language could be read to suggest that protecting slavery was a primary motivation for all of the colonists,” the update read. “The passage has been changed to make clear that this was a primary motivation for some of the colonists. A note has been appended to the story as well.” The 1619 Project was launched in 2019 and “offered a revealing new origin story for the United States” that “helped explain not only persistence of anti-Black…
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Even as Democratic governors such as California’s Gavin Newsom and Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker slam red state policies, their residents are fleeing in droves for Republican-controlled states.
IRS migration data released late last week shows that California lost more residents than any other state, with a net loss of nearly 332,000 people and more than $29 billion in adjusted gross income in 2021. The state with the second largest population loss is New York, which saw a net loss of over 262,000 residents and $24.5 billion in income. Illinois, meanwhile, suffered a net loss of 105,000 people in 2021 and $10.8 billion in income.
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Democratic Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has raised concern about the employment of Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, though has introduced around two dozen bills touching on issues his wife works on as a consultant for Ocean Conservancy.
Whitehouse has criticized Justice Clarence Thomas for his wife’s consulting work for conservatives and communication with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, sending a letter last year requesting Chief Justice Roberts ensure Thomas recuse himself from cases relating to Jan. 6. Yet his wife Sandra Whitehouse has worked since 2008 as a consultant and senior policy advisor for Ocean Conservancy, while Whitehouse has introduced at least 24 ocean-related bills and co-founded the Senate Oceans Caucus in 2011.
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An English seminar class at Villanova University reportedly required students to read a play depicting a graphic sex scene between minors, one of whom identifies as transgender.
Jennifer Joyce teaches the Core Literature and Writing Seminar Class at Villanova, ENG 1975-020, titled Narratives of Belonging in Contemporary Irish Literature. The specific class is one of several options for students who are required to take the core seminar, though students may be forced to take the class if the other class options have been filled.
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