Day: June 28, 2023

John Harris: State Lawmakers Are ‘Unimpressed’ with Gov Bill Lee’s Push for ‘Red Flag’ Gun Control Laws

Tennessee Star Staff

Attorney, founder of the Tennessee Firearms Association, and Second Amendment expert John Harris joined The Tennessee Star Report’s Michael Patrick Leahy in studio Wednesday to discuss the upcoming special session proposed – but not yet formally called by – Gov. Bill Lee. TRANSCRIPT Michael Patrick Leahy: In studio right now, our very good friend, John Harris – founder and executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association. The word of the day, John, is “clarity.” Clarity. Okay, so I made fun of Governor Lee for his clear-as-mud statement in regards to the release of the Covenant Killer’s Manifesto. There’s no way you can understand exactly what he was trying to say there. It’s incomprehensible. Now, let’s take that thought and put it aside for a moment. The governor has stated publicly that he’s gonna call a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly on August 21st to deal with the issue of quote, “public safety” – translation: “red flag law” – to limit the Second Amendment rights of Tennesseans. He, I think, has used the same concept of “clarity” in developing the details of his proposal, and it’s not going over very well at all with members of the Tennessee General…

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Google Backs Down from Pride’ Drag Show After Employees Claim Discrimination Against Christians

Susan Berry, PhD

Tech giant Google has reportedly distanced itself from a ‘pride month’ drag performance it had planned to sponsor in San Francisco after several hundred employees signed a petition expressing opposition to the event, arguing it discriminates against the Christian faith.

According to a report Tuesday at CNBC, a drag queen known as “Peaches Christ” was scheduled to perform at Beaux, an LGBTQ bar in San Francisco, at a “pride” event sponsored by Google.

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LGBT Activists Say ‘We’re Coming For Your Children’ Chant Is Just ‘Misunderstood’

Admin

Several LGBT activists dismissed concerns about NYC Drag March participants chanting “We’re coming for your children” after a viral video of such an incident drew blowback this week, according to NBC News.

A video of NYC Drag marchers chanting “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children” garnered 5 million views on Twitter this week and considerable criticism from conservatives. A Tuesday NBC article claimed the phrase had been used at Pride events for years and that it’s intended to destigmatize the LGBT community and take the sting out of accusations of “grooming” children into various sexual identities.

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Tennessee Reports Eight Economically ‘Distressed’ Counties

Peter D'Abrosca
Couple dealing with paperwork

According to Transparent Tennessee, eight counties in the state have been determined to be economically “distressed” by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). 

“Each year, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) prepares an index of county economic status for every county in the United States,” according to Transparent Tennessee. “Economic status designations are identified through a composite measure of each county’s three-year average unemployment rate, per capita market income, and poverty rate. Based on these indicators, each county is then categorized as distressed, at-risk, transitional, competitive or attainment.”

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Justice Department Watchdog Blames Jeffrey Epstein’s Death on Prison ‘Negligence, Misconduct’

Just the News

Financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 death in a Manhattan federal jail cell was the result of “negligence” and “misconduct” on the part of the Bureau of Prisons, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in a report Tuesday.

“Epstein’s injuries were more consistent with, and indicative of, a suicide by hanging rather than a homicide by strangulation,” the report also stated.

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Tennessee Comptroller’s Office Releases Updated Data on K-12 Education

TC Weber

The Tennessee Comptrollers Office released last week updated interactive online maps and dashboards related to the state and K-12 education. The dashboards and maps allow citizens to access information on both private and public schools for the 2021-2022 school year.

Included are data on teacher salaries, student enrollment, educational attainment, school building quality, and state and local funding available for Tennessee’s public schools and school districts.

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Homeland Agency Expanded Authority to Wage ‘Domestic Surveillance and Censorship,’ House Report Says

Just the News

Secret documents obtained by the House Judiciary Committee show that a Department of Homeland Security agency “expanded its mission to surveil Americans’ speech on social media, colluded with Big Tech and government-funded third parties to censor by proxy, and tried to hide its plainly unconstitutional activities from the public,” according to an interim staff report released Monday night.

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Tennessee Right to Life Celebrates 10,000 Babies Saved After Dobbs Ruling

Peter D'Abrosca

With a graphic emblazoned across a map of Tennessee saying “Good-bye Roe, hello Dobbs,”  Tennessee Right to Life and its county chapters have been celebrating one year since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court ruling that gave individual states the right to make their own abortion laws. 

“More than 10,000 children have been saved from abortion in our state this first year! Let us rejoice and be glad,” the organization said on its website. “Let us make a joyful noise to the Lord and let us re-commit ourselves to keeping Tennessee a safe place for unborn children and their mothers!”

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Ohio House Advances Legislation Protecting Citizen and Provider Access to Off-Label Medications

Hannah Poling

The Ohio House of Representatives advanced a piece of Republican-backed legislation that aims to protect a healthcare provider’s ability to fill off-label prescriptions.

House Bill (HB) 73, known as The Patient and Health Provider Protection Act, sponsored by State Representatives Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester) and Mike Loychik (R- Bazetta) passed 75-17 out of the Ohio House of Representatives advancing it to the Ohio Senate for further consideration.

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College Board Refuses to Revise Courses to Follow New Florida Law Restricting Sex, Gender Instruction

Admin

The College Board refused to revise its Advanced Placement courses in response to new Florida laws limiting school instruction on controversial sexual topics.

The board, a nonprofit that produces the SAT and Advanced Placement programs, “will not modify our courses to accommodate restrictions on teaching essential, college-level topics,” it stated in a recent news release.

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Commentary: To Unions, Organizing Time Is Fine When It’s on the Taxpayers’ Dime

RealClearWire

Randi Weingarten, the powerful president of the American Federation of Teachers, hasn’t been a working teacher in more than a quarter of a century. 

Of the six years she spent teaching social studies, half of them appear to have been as a substitute. Yet despite the long absence from her short tenure in the classroom, the union leader described herself during a recent congressional hearing as being on leave from Brooklyn’s Clara Barton High School. 

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Amazon to Make Second-Largest Private Sector Investment in Ohio History

Hannah Poling

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Lt. Governor Jon Husted announced that Amazon Web Services is expanding its data center operations in central Ohio making the second-largest single private sector investment in Ohio’s history.

DeWine said that Amazon Web Services will invest an estimated $7.8 billion by the end of 2029 expanding its data center operations in the state and creating hundreds of new jobs. The new data centers will be equipped with networking hardware, computer servers, data storage devices, and other types of technology infrastructure needed to support cloud computing.

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Ohio Governor Mike DeWine Urges General Assembly to Pass State Budget

Hannah Poling

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is urging the General Assembly to pass the full biennial budget before its June 30th deadline rather than to pass a temporary budget with negotiations continuing into July.

Under the Ohio Constitution, the state’s two-year budget must be passed and signed into law before the fiscal year’s end on June 30th. However, the budget legislation approved by the Ohio House and Ohio Senate differ significantly from one another.

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Stephen Richer, Who Sued Kari Lake for Defamation over Election Fraud Allegations, Brought up Similar Concerns Previously

Rachel Alexander

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer sued Kari Lake for defamation on June 22 over her statements alleging election fraud, but Merissa Hamilton, founder of EZAZ who is managing an effort to chase early ballots for Lake, pointed out that Richer has made similar allegations himself previously. The Maricopa County Recorder’s lawsuit is being paid for by the Protect Democracy Project, which is described by InfluenceWatch as “a left-of-center litigation organization created to oppose the policies of President Donald Trump.”

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Report: Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers Uses Third-Party Funding from the United Nations Foundation to Pay for Far-Left Climate Change Initiatives

M.D. Kittle

The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature wouldn’t go along with Governor Tony Evers’ far-left climate change and “environmental justice” initiatives, so the Democrat went around the legislature.

Evers took in hundreds of thousands of dollars in third-party funding from media tycoon Ted Turner’s United Nations Foundation, according to a new report from the Institute for Reforming Government’s Center for Investigative Oversight.

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Environmental Groups File Suit Against the Navy over Naval Surface Warfare Center in Virginia

The Center Square

Two environmental groups have filed a federal lawsuit alleging the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren, Virginia, violated the Clean Water Act through munitions testing in and over the Potomac.

The Potomac Riverkeeper Network and the Natural Resources Defense Council filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Baltimore, alleging NSWC Dahlgren has discharged over 33 million pounds of munitions into the Potomac containing toxic metals, solvents, explosives and other potentially harmful constituents.

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Michigan Governor Shifts Tone on Police Funding, School Resource Officers

The Center Square

There’s been a shift in tone from Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer on policing issues, most notably on the funding of the state’s police and adding school resource officers. 

After the George Floyd murder in May 2020, Whitmer said that she supported the “spirit” of efforts to defund the police as a way of reallocating resources, the Detroit Free Press reported. A few years later, the state is hiring more than 200 school resource officers with state police funding on the rise. 

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Gov. Whitmer: 200k Michiganders to Get High Speed Internet Access

The Center Square
Broadband

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration say Michigan will receive over $1.5 billion through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program to expand high-speed internet access and digital equity to over 200,000 Michiganders in underserved areas.

Funding for this program comes from the $65 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and aims to ensure Michigan residents have access to affordable, reliable, and high-speed internet.  

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Georgia Secretary of State: Tougher Penalties for Anyone Who Tampers

The Center Square

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wants state lawmakers to increase the penalties for anyone who tampers or tries to tamper with voting machines in the state.

According to Raffensperger’s office, anyone convicted of attempting to interfere with a voting machine — a felony in Georgia— faces between one and 10 years in prison and a maximum $10,000 penalty.

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New England Nets $1 Billion in Federal Broadband Funding

The Center Square
Broadband Installation

New England communities unserved and underserved in high-speed internet are sharing more than $1.097 billion in federal funding.

From $42.45 billion of high-speed internet grants in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, Maine will receive $271 million, Vermont $228 million, New Hampshire $196 million, Massachusetts $147 million, Connecticut $144 million and Rhode Island $108 million.

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‘Gender-Affirming’ Pediatricians Help Kill Maine Bill to Prohibit Children’s Social Transition at School Without Parental Consent

Susan Berry, PhD

With the help of pediatricians from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Democrats in the Maine House and Senate killed a bill Friday that would have prohibited public school staff from helping children to socially transition to another gender by allowing them to use new names and pronouns without written consent from parents.

LD 678 was defeated by house Democrats by a vote of 76-52, and by senate Democrats, 20-12.

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