Tennessee Lawmaker: Gov. Lee No Longer Pushing Red Flag Laws for Special Session

A member of the Tennessee General Assembly Tuesday told The Tennessee Star that Gov. Bill Lee (R) will not ask Republicans to submit a bill for red flag laws during the upcoming special session. 

“The Governor is not pushing any type of gun control legislation nor is he pushing red flag legislation,” State Rep. Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville) told The Star by email. “I was on the legislative task force the Governor pulled together to discuss options. He never once brought up or asked us to support a red flag law during the 3 meetings we discussed specific topics.”

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Americans Want McConnell to Resign amid Health Concerns: Poll

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell faces intense opposition to his remaining in elected office, a recent survey has revealed.

64% of eligible voters said that he should resign, according to a Redfield & Wilton poll, conducted for Newsweek. that figure includes members of both parties. The same percent of Biden voters said McConnell ought to resign while Trump voters expressed the same sentiment by an even wider, 71%, margin.

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Gulbransen Confronts the Rumor Mill About a ‘Backroom Deal’ to Pass Red Flag Gun Control Laws During Special Session

Sparks fly in Tuesday’s edition of Aaron’s Analysis on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, as official guest host Aaron Gulbransen directly confronts swirling around the politics of Gov. Lee’s proposed “red flag” gun control law. In a rare moment, Gulbransen shares shocking details about his past and how that informs his insights into what he thinks which measures will and won’t pass during the upcoming special session. TRANSCRIPT Aaron Gulbransen: So, I wanna set this up: I absolutely despise talking about myself other than telling funny stories, but I feel I must point out a few things so the audience can understand where I’m coming from in general, and how I view things politically in special session. The audience knows me, of course, as the official guest host of this program and the executive director of The Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition. I am, long ago, a Blue State refugee. I got my start in politics as a volunteer for the Long Island Coalition for Life, the oldest pro-life organization in the country, folding and distributing their newsletter. My first paid campaign was in the year 2000 against Hillary Clinton. Years later, I moved to Virginia and…

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U.S. Senate Candidate Bernie Moreno Announces County Captains in Over 50 Ohio Counties

On Monday, Republican businessman and candidate for U.S. Senate Bernie Moreno announced county captains in over 50 counties across Ohio in his campaign for the U.S. Senate against Ohio Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in 2024.

According to a press release e-mailed to reporters, these county captains will help implement Moreno’s campaign strategy in each of the 50 counties represented and will serve as a hub of operations.

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Suspected Terrorism Funder Arrested After Being Released into U.S. at Border

Another foreign national who entered the U.S. illegally and was released into the country by the Biden administration had an extensive criminal record and was wanted in Venezuela for financing terrorism.

In April 2021, Border Patrol agents arrested a Venezuelan national for illegal entry near San Luis, Arizona, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was charged with inadmissibility under U.S. immigration law and issued a notice to appear before an immigration judge with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).

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Memphis Mayor Strickland Grilled on Crime After Viral Assault on Police Officer

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland (D) joined FOx13 in Memphis Monday where he was forced to answer some poignant questions about the city’s crime in the wake of a viral video showing a Memphis Police Department (MPD) officer being assaulted by a group of men. 

“All of this is completely unacceptable, and somebody out there knows who did both those actions, and they need to call Crime Stoppers because we need quick justice to all those criminals,” Strickland said.

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Chattanooga Mayor’s ‘Hate’ Council Strategized with Far-Left Group Demonizing Moms for Liberty

Tennessee’s third-largest city launched a council to oppose “hate” and “extremism” in 2018, and that council has repeatedly collaborated with the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, which is notorious for branding mainstream conservative and Christian nonprofits “hate groups,” putting them on a “hate map” alongside the Ku Klux Klan.

Then-Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke, a Democrat, launched the Council Against Hate in 2018. In doing so, he referenced a July 2015 shooting in the Tennessee city.

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Analysis: New Data Shows High School Boys Twice as Likely to Identify as Conservative vs Liberal

According to a large survey of high school graduates, the share of young men identifying as conservative is rapidly increasing compared to previous decades. The left loves to trumpet their successes with “the youth vote”, but the reality is there is a growing gender gap that will have broad-reaching political implications for decades to come.

New research from the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future survey of 12th grade high school students shows just how vast the gender partisan gap has grown among young men and women.

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Tennessee Spent Nearly $600 Million to Bolster School CTE Programs

Nearly $600 million in grants have gone to Tennessee schools for career and technical education from a pair of grant programs since 2019 and a new legislative brief shows the impact of that spending.

Over three years, $22.5 million was granted from the Supporting Postsecondary Access in Rural Communities program while $30 million of federal funding when to the first Innovative School Models grants in 2021 and more than $560 million has been awarded by the ISM program since it was launched.

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Tennessee Gun Rights Leader Blasts GOP Gov. Bill Lee’s Push for ‘Red Flag Laws’

The Tennessee Firearms Association executive director told the Influence Watch podcast he is shocked that Volunteer State’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee called a special election, so he could exploit the Covenant School shooting to pass so-called red flag laws.

“In March of this year, there was a school shooting at a place called Covenant School in Nashville, where three adults and three children were killed by a 28-year-old female who reportedly had been a student at the school in her past,” said John Harris, a Nashville attorney, who founded the TFA in 1995.

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Arizona State Senator Calls Out Governor Hobbs for Joining the U.S. Climate Alliance

An Arizona Republican Senator is calling out Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs for her recent “publicity stunt aimed at appealing to her radical environmental base” in joining the radical U.S. Climate Alliance.

Last month Hobbs announced that Arizona joined the U.S. Climate Alliance a coalition of 25 governors all committed to “to securing America’s net-zero future by advancing state-led, high-impact climate action.”

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Minnesota Catholic Colleges Announce ‘Non-Binary Admissions Policy’

Two affiliated Catholic colleges in Minnesota adopted a policy for the new academic year allowing “non-binary, gender-fluid, and gender-nonconforming individuals” to enroll in a men’s or women’s college based on the sex with which they identify.

The colleges’ previous policy only explicitly referred to “transgender” students, except in a “frequently asked question” that noted non-binary students must “consistently live and identify” as either a man or a woman.

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Arizona House Launches Censorship Probe after Hobbs’ Big Tech Emails Go Public

The Arizona House has launched an investigation into the censorship requests by Governor Katie Hobbs, including those revealed by Arizona Capitol Oversight, and those made by other state government officials.

House Speaker Ben Toma (R-Peoria) created the panel late last week, enlisting Representative Alexander Kolodin (R-Scottsdale) to serve as its chair. In what Kolodin called “an interesting coincidence,” the panel was created the same day Arizona Capitol Oversight released an 8 page report revealing several of Hobbs’ censorship requests to Facebook and Twitter, including one against a member of the Arizona Legislature.

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Ohio Supreme Court Rejects Lawsuit to Block Abortion Amendment from November Ballot

The Ohio Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit filed by a group of pro-life advocates requesting that they block a proposal that aims to enshrine abortion into the state constitution from the November ballot.

All of the seven Supreme Court justices dismissed the lawsuit brought by former state Representative Tom Brinkman from Cincinnati and former legislative candidate Jennifer Giroux who say that that the Ohio Supreme Court should block the proposal as the submitted signature petitions to get on the ballot fails to specify which state laws would need to be abolished if voters approved the constitutional amendment.

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Connecticut Bans Harvest of Horseshoe Crabs

Connecticut has banned the harvesting of horseshoe crabs along its coastline amid concerns about the ecological health of the species, which is prized for its life-saving blue blood.

The ban, approved by the state Legislature, outlaws horseshoe crab hand harvesting beginning on October 1. Anyone caught violating the law faces a $25 fine for each crab harvested. There are exemptions for scientific and medical purposes if it is determined that doing so will not harm the overall horseshoe crab population.

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Tennessee Department of Education to Hold Town Halls as New School Letter Grade System Set to Launch this Fall

n November, the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE), in compliance with state law, will release school letter grades for individual Tennessee schools. To prepare families, teachers, community members, and decision-makers to review that data, the TDOE is holding a series of 10 Town Halls.

“Whether you are a student, parent, teacher, policymaker, or an interested community member, school letter grades will empower all Tennesseans with the information they need to support K-12 public education and our local schools,” said Lizzette Reynolds, Commissioner of Education. “I encourage all Tennesseans to join us at a town hall or submit a public comment to share what you want to know about schools in your community and how they are serving your kids.”

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Ohio Coalition Resubmits Petition to End Qualified Immunity for Government Employees

A group of Ohioans wants to try yet again to change the state’s Constitution to permit lawsuits against government employees.

The amendment, aiming for the November 2024 presidential election, looks to add a Section 22 to Article I of the Ohio Constitution in order to end qualified immunity being used to protect state employees, including but not limited to law enforcement officers, against civil lawsuits.

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Arizona Republican Party Names State Senator Justine Wadsack as Freshman Senator of the Year

The Arizona Republican Party named Senator Justine Wadsack (R-Tuscon) as their Freshman Senator of the Year for making history by seeing an unprecedented number of her proposed bills pass through the State Senate.

In a single year, Wadsack was successful in promoting a number of significant legislation that attracted national notice and addressed important issues for Arizonans, including water supply, education, and child protection.

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Cigar Industry Wins Court Round in Challenge to FDA Regulations

A federal judge in Washington D.C. has blocked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s attempt to regulate premium cigars.

U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington D.C. ruled that the FDA ignored scientific evidence when it included premium cigars in its Proposed Rule Deeming Tobacco Products to Be Subject to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FDCA).

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Alan Dershowitz Commentary: No; The 14th Amendment Can’t Disqualify Trump

Several academics — including members of the conservative Federalist Society — are now arguing that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits Donald Trump from becoming president. They focus on the language that prohibits anyone who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion…or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” from holding “any office.” The amendment provides no mechanism for determining whether a candidate falls within this disqualification, though it says that “Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.” Significantly, the text does not authorize Congress — or any other body or individual — to impose the disqualification in the first place.

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U.S. Aid to Ukraine Amounts to $900 Per American Household, Economist Says

Congressionally approved aid for Ukraine has cost each U.S. household hundreds of dollars, Heritage Foundation budget expert Richard Stern says.

“The formal aid packages alone amount to a staggering $113 billion—roughly $900 per American household and almost 12 times the spending cuts promised by House leadership in the annual spending bills,” Stern, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, said in an email to The Daily Signal, Heritage’s news outlet.

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State Supreme Court Says Religious Schools Can Require Teachers to Adhere to Faith-Based Principles

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Catholic school Monday, arguing that religious organizations have the right to require their staff to adhere to certain faith-based principles, according to court documents.

The case involved former teacher Victoria Crisitello whose contract was not renewed by St. Theresa School after she disclosed that she had become pregnant outside of wedlock, which was a violation of the school’s code of ethics, according to the ruling. After her contract was not renewed in 2014, Crisitello filed a lawsuit against the school claiming that she had been discriminated against, but the New Jersey justices did not agree, according to court documents.

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Police Chief Stands by Extensive Raid of Kansas Newspaper and Home Where 98-Year Old Owner Died

The Marion Police Department says its raid of a Kansas newspaper’s office and the home of the paper’s owners was justified without a subpoena because the law allows raids when a reporter is a suspect in an offense.

Marion’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies on Friday raided the Marion County Record’s office as well as the home of Joan Meyer and her son, Eric Meyer, on Friday. Joan Meyer, who was 98 but in “otherwise good health for her age,” according to the Record, died Saturday after being stressed from the raid.

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Tennessee Teachers Union Drops Lawsuit Challenging Legislation Blocking Auto-Withdrawal of Dues from Paychecks

The Tennessee Education Association dropped its lawsuit about the automatic withdrawal of dues out of teacher paychecks after a three-judge panel denied the group’s request to temporarily block the bill.

The TEA’s argument the law was unconstitutional based on the bill’s caption and it being a two-part bill with separate topics failed in front of the panel as the panel said that the TEA was unlikely to succeed.

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RFK Jr. Says He Supports Abortion Limits After Three Months of Pregnancy, But Spokesperson Walks Back Comment

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he would support a ban on abortion after three months of pregnancy if elected president, but his spokesperson later said Kennedy “misunderstood” the question.

“I believe a decision to abort a child should be up to the women during the first three months of life,” Kennedy told NBC News on Sunday morning at the Iowa State Fair. When questioned further as to whether that meant implementing a federal ban at 15 or 21 weeks, he said yes.

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HUD Program Spends Average of $232,000 to Create Single Affordable Housing Unit

Average per-unit costs were $232,000, most for one-bedroom apartments, in a review of a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program designed to build and preserve affordable housing.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Housing Trust Fund program needs better oversight, according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

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