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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Georgia Grand Jury Hands Up 10 Indictments, Subjects Still Unnamed

A Georgia grand jury approved 10 indictments in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ election probe, signing off on every indictment prosecutors brought to it. The indictments comes two and a half years after Willis started her investigation in former President Donald Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results in the Peach State. None of the targets of the indictments have been named as of press time.

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Poll: Vivek Ramaswamy Overtakes Ron DeSantis for Second Place in Republican Primary Field

Breitbart News Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has overtaken Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) nationally for second place in the GOP primary field, according to a Kaplan Strategies poll.  The poll, published on Monday, shows that 48 percent of GOP primary voters back Trump as he continues to dominate the field. Ramaswamy sits alone in second place with eleven percent, while DeSantis follows with ten percent: 2024 National Republican Primary: Trump 48% (+37)Ramaswamy 11%DeSantis 10%Pence 8%Christie 4%Haley 4%Scott 2%Burgum 1%Hutchinson 0% Kaplan Strategies, 800 LV, 8/9-10 pic.twitter.com/i4jGTl6tDk — Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) August 14, 2023 Trump’s support is unchanged since Kaplan Strategies’ poll published in July, whereas DeSantis is down two points from when he and Ramaswamy were tied at twelve percent. The pair have been trending in opposite directions over the past few months, with Ramaswamy climbing and DeSantis sliding.  READ THE FULL STORY    

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Michael Patrick Leahy: Gov. Bill Lee’s 18 Separate Bills Are a Smoke Screen to Jam Through Red Flag Gun Control Laws During Special Session

The Tennessee Star Report host Michael Patrick Leahy took to the airwaves Monday morning to break down Governor Bill Lee’s call for an “extraordinary” special session.

By looking into the recent past, Leahy shows listeners how Lee’s “laundry list” of eighteen line items are little more than a smoke screen to hide the central purpose of the August 21 session, which is to pass legislation that will fundamentally alter the nature of gun ownership in Tennessee.

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Metro Public Health Department Warns of ‘Widespread’ Mosquitoes Infected with West Nile Virus in Davidson Country

The Metro Nashville Public Health Department recently announced that multiple batches of mosquitoes infected with West Nile virus have been collected across Davidson County.

The widespread virus was detected through the Public Health Department’s Pest Management Division. The division routinely traps mosquitoes at 40 surveillance sites across Nashville and sends them for testing at the Tennessee Department of Health’s lab.

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Biden’s Border Crisis Is Helping Fuel a Surge in Mexico’s Economy, New Data Shows

The border crisis under President Joe Biden has fueled Mexico’s economy through an increase in Mexican migrants in the U.S. sending money back home, according to multiple reports.

Remittances, the money sent by Mexicans working abroad sent back home, increased from $33.5 billion in 2018 to $60 billion in 2023 after a record number of migrants crossed the southern border, according to The Associated Press. From 2018 to 2022, Mexico’s poverty rate declined from 49.9% of the population to 43.5%, declining by 5.7 million, according to a study conducted by Coneval, an autonomous organization coordinated by the Secretariat of Welfare in Mexico.

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Appeals Court Says FDA Denunciations of Ivermectin Look Like ‘Command,’ not Advice

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  is claiming in federal court that it never told doctors not to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Federal judges aren’t buying it, and state medical boards that rely heavily on FDA guidance continue to investigate doctors for such prescriptions.

Echoing a federal district judge nine months ago, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals pressed a Justice Department lawyer to reconcile the FDA’s repeated public denunciations of ivermectin as an off-label COVID treatment with its insistence that the agency is not liable for resulting investigations of doctors who prescribe or promote it.

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Property Tax Rates Vary Wildly Among States as Some Consider Limits

Property taxes vary significantly across the U.S. with northeastern states imposing effective property tax rates ten times higher than in southern states. 

That comes from a Washington D.C. group that noted some states are exploring property tax caps. The Committee to Unleash Prosperity, which advocates for free trade and limited government spending, found that the average single-family-home property tax in New Jersey hit $9,500 in 2022. That compares with the average of $928 in West Virginia and $1,022 in Alabama, according to a report from the group.

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Commentary: Seven Ways Schools Are Creating ‘Empty’ Children

In the early 1990s, New York Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto, threw in the towel on teaching with his famous I Quit, I Think  letter to the Wall Street Journal.

Gatto’s reason for quitting was simple. He could no longer justify teaching “a curriculum of confusion, class position, arbitrary justice, vulgarity, rudeness, disrespect for privacy, indifference to quality, and utter dependency.” Such a system, Gatto opined, was turning our children into mindless robots.

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Concerned Parent Blows Whistle on LGBT Material Displayed to Four-Year-Olds in Nashville Public School

A concerned parent shared a photo with The Tennessee Star this week depicting an LGBT pride flag at Dan Mills Elementary School in Nashville, which he said is on display for children as young as four years old.

The pride flag is emblazoned with the words “MNPS for All,” and hangs above a poster that breaks students into groups by race and sexual orientation, noting that each group is “loved.”

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Commentary: Forget ‘Contempt of Court,’ What About ‘Contempt of Public’?

We have all heard about contempt of court and contempt of Congress. They are offenses for which one may be fined or jailed. But what about contempt of public? What’s the penalty for that?

I don’t know that you will find contempt of public in the statute books. If not I offer up the phrase free and for nothing to the bureaucrats who look after such things. I think it should be added to our vocabulary if not to our code of laws. It names a grievous assault on the community. By making a travesty of the rules and institutions that undergird our social life, contempt of public threatens to undermine that essential if often hard-to-define societal lubricant: trust.

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Commentary: ‘Human Trafficking’ Is Modern-Day Slavery and It Must Be Eradicated

The Mission America Foundation, chaired by Aaron Spradlin, engages in search and rescue operations and many other efforts on the ground in the middle of hairy situations in order to save life and liberty from the modern-day slavery known as child and human trafficking.

This puts the individuals who work with them squarely in the physical crosshairs of murderous gangs, cartels, Chinese mafia, and corrupt politicians.

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Arizona Transgender Birth Certificate Lawsuit Given Class Action Status

A class action status has now been granted to a lawsuit alleging that Arizona’s laws concerning the alteration of birth certificates discriminate against transgender individuals, especially minors.

The lawsuit was originally filed against Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) on behalf of three Arizona families, and the court’s decision means its eventual ruling will now “apply to all transgender individuals born in Arizona” who wish to change their birth certificate to reflect their chosen gender identity.

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Ohio Republican Bill Aims for Schools to Excuse 4-H and FFA Absences

Two Republican Ohio state representatives introduced legislation to allow students to attend extracurricular activities during and after their time in school.

House Bill (HB) 135, sponsored by State Representatives Rodney Creech (pictured above, right) (R-West Alexandria) and Thomas Hall (R-Madison Township) (pictured above, left), looks to require excused absences from schools for 4-H and Future Farmers of America (FFA) activities.

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DeSantis Calls Out Biden For Ignoring His Own Granddaughter While Opposing Parental Rights

Presidential candidate and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called out President Joe Biden for opposing efforts to protect parental rights while ignoring his own granddaughter on Saturday at the Iowa State Fair.

DeSantis slammed Democrats for seeing parents as a roadblock to “indoctrination” in the school system during his Fair-Side Chat in Iowa, making a jab at Biden for taking “four and a half years to acknowledge” his granddaughter, Navy Joan Roberts. Biden opposed Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” bill, which bars discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade or “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards,” when DeSantis signed it into law in March 2022.

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2024 Presidential Hopefuls Address Questions About the Future of the EPA and Biden Administration’s Climate Legislation

Several 2024 Republican presidential candidates would defund the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and repeal President Joe Biden’s signature climate law if elected, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Gas prices are rising, power plants are closing and regulations are impacting internal combustion engine vehicles and appliances like water heaters. Along with slashing the EPA and repealing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), many GOP hopefuls also pledged to withdraw from the United Nations Paris Climate Agreement if they secure the White House in 2024, several candidates told the DCNF.

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Biden Admin to Spend $1.2 Billion on Carbon Removal Tech That Might Not Work

The Biden administration announced Friday that it will spend up to $1.2 billion to fund two direct air capture (DAC) carbon removal projects, according to the Department of Energy (DOE), a technology which some reports have suggested may be an ineffective tool to counter climate change.

These projects in Louisiana and Texas will essentially be large vacuums that suck up carbon dioxide from the air, separate it with chemical processing and then condense the carbon dioxide for burial underground or for use in industrial products like cement, according to a DOE press release. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has promoted this particular form of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology, but DAC emits more carbon dioxide than it captures while relying on toxic chemicals, according to a January report from Food and Water Watch, a climate-focused nonprofit group that advocates for green policies.

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Commentary: A Generation Alone

The following is a condensed version of “One Generation Passeth Away, and Another Cometh” by Sam Negus, published at Law & Liberty.

Three millennia ago, King Solomon wrote that “folly is bound up in the heart of a child.” It has ever been thus: the rueful old lament the apparent decadence of the young. In her new book Generations, social scientist Jean Twenge suggests an obvious explanation for this ageless trend: “It might be because they [are] always right. With technology making life progressively less physically taxing, each generation is softer…”

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Commentary: The FBI HQ Relocation Proposal Is a Fraud

As of now, House Republicans have removed funds from the FY 2024 budget for the controversial $3.5 billion proposed relocation of the FBI’s Washington, D.C. headquarters to a new complex at one of three locations in the D.C. suburbs of Virginia or Maryland.

Some House Republicans want to keep the FBI headquarters at its current location and view the relocation proposal as unwise and wasteful. Others want to downsize, defund or eliminate the Bureau – and not to reward it with a sprawling new headquarters complex – because they believe it has been weaponized against conservatives.

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Georgia Court Website Briefly Publishes, Removes Document About Potential Trump Charges

Reuters The Fulton County, Georgia, court’s website briefly posted a document on Monday listing several criminal charges against former U.S. President Donald Trump that appeared related to his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state, before taking the document down without explanation. The Fulton County District Attorney’s office said in a statement that no charges had been filed against Trump. The document was dated Aug. 14 and named Trump, citing the case as “open,” but is no longer available on the court’s website. Reuters was not immediately able to determine why the item was posted or removed. “The Reuters report that those charges were filed is inaccurate. Beyond that we cannot comment,” a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s office said. READ THE FULL STORY    

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Topanga, California Mayor Decries Mob Ransacking of Nordstrom Department Store

Breitbart News A mob of looters ransacked a Nordstrom location in the Westfield Topanga mall in the San Fernando Valley on Saturday afternoon, prompting Mayor Karen Bass to condemn the chaos. Local news station KTLA reported: Police said anywhere between 20-50 suspects are believed to be involved, although the exact number has not been confirmed. Mayor Bass issued a statement on Saturday evening: What happened today at the Nordstrom in the Topanga Mall is absolutely unacceptable. Those who committed these acts and acts like it in neighboring areas must be held accountable. The Los Angeles Police Department will continue to work to not only find those responsible for this incident but to prevent these attacks on retailers from happening in the future.  READ THE FULL STORY  

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Almost 30,000 People Lost TennCare Coverage in May But Near-Record Enrollment Has Remained

Tennessee saw 27,000 lose Medicaid coverage in May as the state continues its process of redetermining TennCare eligibility following the end of federal COVID-19 pandemic rules.

Those rules blocked states from the mandated process of determining eligibility between March 2020 to March 31. TennCare began the eligibility determination process in April.

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Massachusetts Couple Files Lawsuit Claiming Application to Become Foster Parents Denied Due to Religious Beliefs

A Catholic Massachusetts couple filed a federal lawsuit this week that makes the claim they were rejected as potential foster parents because of their faith beliefs about marriage and sexuality.

The couple, Mike and Kitty Burke of Southampton, said in their complaint they were told by a state employee of the Department of Children and Families (DCF) their religious beliefs conflict with the state’s policy requiring them to affirm same-sex relationships and gender ideology.

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Federal Judge Halts Idaho Law Banning Boys from Girls’ Bathrooms

A federal judge decided Thursday to temporarily block enforcement of an Idaho law meant to bar biological males from using female restrooms.

Senate Bill 1100, which was signed by Republican Idaho Gov. Brad Little, went into effect July 1 and required schools to have two separate bathrooms, one for each biological sex, and allowed students to sue the school for up to $5,000 for each transgender person who is found to be using a bathroom that does not match their biological sex, according to the law. Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ legal activist group, sued to block the law on July 7, arguing the law violates the premise of the Equal Protection Clause and will cause harm to transgender persons, according to the lawsuit.

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KUB Fiber Internet Expands in Knoxville

Knoxville’s utility company, Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB),  announced this week that its fiber internet has expanded to more than 4,100 South Knoxville homes and businesses.

KUB Fiber, a municipally-run broadband network, is the largest municipal fiber network in the nation, approved unanimously by the Knoxville City Council in 2021. The project, worth over $700 million, is expected to expand over the next seven years and install approximately 5,000 miles of fiber.

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American Credit Card Debt Hits $1 Trillion for the First Time Ever

The end of July saw American credit card debt collectively hit $1 trillion for the first time ever.

According to Axios, the Federal Reserve Bank confirmed on Tuesday that credit card balances in the United States increased in the second quarter of 2023 by $45 billion, or 4.6 percent, to a new total of $1.03 trillion. However, the collective credit card debt still has a lower share of American gross domestic product (GDP) than it did in 2010 or pre-COVID 2020.

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News Outlets Declare Teacher Shortage in Georgia Yet Data Shows Rising Numbers

Georgia’s news outlets from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to Atlanta News First have reported about a shortage of teachers plaguing the state’s education system. Data from the state’s Department of Education paints a different picture. 

Georgia had a total of 123,210 teachers in 2022-23, according to their data. This is an increase of 1,711 teachers from the previous school year when Georgia had 121,499 teachers.

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Miami Border Patrol Agents Apprehend Foreign Nationals with Criminal Records

Border Patrol agents in the Miami Sector continue to apprehend foreign nationals with criminal records who are already inland, living in Florida towns.

Miami Sector Chief Border Patrol Agent Walter Slosar said that agents working with law enforcement officers in Fort Pierce apprehended a Honduran national illegally in the U.S. The Honduran was in possession of firearms, miscellaneous drugs and U.S. currency. He was apprehended during a traffic stop.

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Rural Health Care Safety Net Faces Irreparable Tear in Pennsylvania

Health care access in rural Pennsylvania becomes less tenable day by day, and many fear what this means for the state’s efforts to revive its most remote communities.

“The people in rural PA are truly scared about access to health care,” said Rep. Marty Causer, R-Bradford, during a recent meeting of the Center for Rural Pennsylvania hosted in his district.

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Critics Question Wisconsin Redistricting Lawsuit’s Request for New Senate Elections

Critics of a recent lawsuit filed to force new representative maps believe forcing the 17 state senators elected by using those maps to run again is going too far.

The suit filed last week with the Wisconsin Supreme Court asks the court to not only draw new maps for the 2024 election, but also have those 17 state senators elected last year to run again next year.

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Ohio Lawmakers Introduce Legislation to Require Schools to Get Parental Permission to Administer Over-the-Counter Medications

Two Republican Ohio lawmakers have introduced a bill into the Ohio House of Representatives to require local school districts to include over-the-counter medications in their school medication policies.

House Bill (HB) 70, sponsored by State Representatives Sarah Fowler Arthur (R-Ashtabula) and Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester), looks to patch an oversight in existing policies by requiring every school to request parental permission before administering over-the-counter medications to children.

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