An online petition urging the organizers of the Tennessee State Fair to move the event to later in the year has garnered more than 2,500 signatures.
Read the full storyNew Petition to Move Tennessee State Fair to Fall Gains Steam
Day: September 4, 2023
Sources: State Rep. Gloria Johnson Could Announce U.S. Senate Run Tuesday
State Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) will make stops in three major cities across the state Tuesday, and could announce her anticipated long shot U.S. Senate bid against Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), according to sources who spoke with The Tennessee Star.
Johnson is expected to make announcements at 9 a.m. ET in Knoxville, noon CT in Nashville and 6:30 p.m. CT in Memphis.
Read the full storyRamaswamy Blasts DeSantis ‘Monster PAC’ Following Report of Fake News Dirty Politics
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is blasting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and “Monster PAC” following a report exposing the political action committee’s campaign in “spreading dirt” and “misstatements” about the poll-rising Ramaswamy.
“It came out yesterday that the DeSantis $100m+ Monster PAC is taking credit with their donors for ‘spreading dirt’ and manufacturing fake attacks on me,” the Ohio biotech entrepreneur said in a statement.
Read the full storyDeSantis’ Super PAC Head Honcho Privately Admits He’s Spreading Dirt on Ramaswamy
Politico The top strategist for Ron DeSantis’ super PAC privately told donors that Vivek Ramaswamy posed a threat to the Florida governor — and bragged that the super PAC was behind an avalanche of opposition research targeting the rival candidate. “Everything you read about him is from us,” Jeff Roe, the leader of the DeSantis-aligned Never Back Down told the gathering of donors. “Every misstatement, every 360 he’s conducting or 180 that he is going through in life, is from our scrutiny and pressure. And so, he’s not going to go through that very well, and that will get worse for him.” Roe was speaking just hours before the first GOP primary debate, in remarks captured in an audio recording obtained by POLITICO. During his question-and-answer session, he conceded that if Ramaswamy had “a big night” at the debate, it could prove problematic for DeSantis. “That’s not great for us, short term,” he added. READ THE FULL STORY
Read the full storyStates with Weaker Marijuana Laws See More Impaired Driving, Report Finds
A new report found that states with less restrictive marijuana policies have higher incidents of residents driving while high.
The Drug Free America Foundation released a new report showing that states that have legalized or weakened restrictions around high-THC marijuana, either for medical or recreational use, saw 32% more marijuana-impaired driving than states that have not adopted the same policies.
Read the full storyTrump Expands Primary Lead as Former President Becomes Top Choice for Nearly 60 Percent of GOP Voters: Poll
Former President Donald Trump is expanding his lead in Republican presidential primary polls as nearly 60 percent of GOP voters say they would vote for the former president even after his four criminal indictments, according to a new poll.
Trump is now at least 46 points ahead of all other GOP primary candidates, according to a Wall Street Journal poll released Saturday. While 59 percent of GOP voters say they would support Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis comes in second with 13 percent.
Read the full storyNIH-Funded Research Collaborative Redacts Emails on Why It Disavowed ‘Gold Standard’ Mask Study
As public and private institutions resume or consider mask mandates in the wake of a small uptick in COVID-19 hospitalizations and new viral variants, an international research collaborative funded by the National Institutes of Health is facing new scrutiny for how it came to publicly downplay its 17 years of research finding that masks make “little to no difference.”
U.K-based nonprofit Cochrane, often described as the “gold standard” of evidence-based medicine, heavily redacted its internal discussions on how to respond to questions about alleged conflicts of interest that may have shaped its March statement deeming the systematic review’s results “inconclusive” without changing its content.
Read the full storyUpcoming Supreme Court Elections in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan Could Tip Majorities on the Bench Just in Time for the 2024 Elections
Three swing states will hold elections to their supreme courts over the next 18 months, potentially altering court compositions amid key cultural and political flashpoints such as abortion, guns and redistricting.
Between 2023 and 2024, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan will hold elections for several seats on their supreme courts, which have the final word on matters of state law regarding abortion and gerrymandering, among others. These seats are likely to be highly contested as partisan groups seek to bring litigation to change the law on these issues, political strategists and academics told the DCNF.
Read the full storyNon-Plastic Straws the Latest Example of Climate Activism’s Unintended and Deadly Consequences
Last week, a widely read study was published revealing that the “plant-based” drinking straws pushed onto diners by eco-activists may actually be more harmful to both the environment and public health than their plastic counterparts.
According to research published in the journal Food Additives & Contaminants, the “plant-based straws” in question contain “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS),” which the scientists say are “not necessarily biodegradable and that the use of such straws potentially contributes to human and environmental exposure of PFAS.”
Read the full storyTennessee Supreme Court Elects Justice Holly Kirby to Serve as Next Chief Justice
The Tennessee Supreme Court recently unanimously elected Justice Holly Kirby to serve as the Court’s next Chief Justice.
Kirby is succeeding Justice Roger Page, who was appointed as Chief Justice in 2021.
Read the full storyOhio Governor Mike DeWine Creates Task Force to Evaluate School Bus Safety
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced that he has formed a new task force to thoroughly evaluate the safety of the state’s school buses.
This announcement follows a Northwestern Local School District bus crash last week that killed one student and injured more than two dozen in Clark County.
Read the full storyGroup Wants Gov. Kemp to Reject THC Changes for Georgia Independent Pharmacies
A former White House drug policy advisor wants Georgia’s governor to reject a rule change to allow some independent pharmacies to sell low THC oils.
In June, the Georgia Board of Pharmacy voted in favor of the rule change to allow more than 100 independent pharmacies to sell THC oils.
Read the full storyMost Arizona Voters Now Registered Independent, Unable to Vote in Presidential Preference Election
More Arizona voters have continued to change their party affiliation to independent, making it the state’s largest voting bloc. This means more than 1.4 million voters will be unable to cast a ballot in the state’s 2024 presidential primary contests.
The Arizona Secretary of State released new data this month dating from July 2023, revealing that 1,450,697 Arizonans, or 34.55 percent of the state’s voters, are now registered independent.
Read the full storyDFL State Rep. Ruth Richardson Resigns amid Battle with Labor Union
Three-term state Rep. Ruth Richardson, DFL-Mendota Heights, abruptly resigned via Twitter / X Friday night, as the long Labor Day weekend began.
Little additional explanation was given for her sudden departure. As a House member, she served on the Economic Development Committee.
Read the full storyCommentary: What Unions Don’t Want You to Know This Labor Day
This Labor Day, the Biden administration and Big Labor will no doubt tout the alleged successes of President Joe Biden’s “whole of government” push to increase unionization in the workplace and unions’ modest successes in breaking into a few big corporations. But those stories will also leave a lot out. They’ll leave out the side of the story that unions don’t want workers to know.
That side of the story includes the fact that unionization reached an all-time low of 10.1 percent in 2022 (and only 6.0 percent among private sector workers) as worker satisfaction reached an all-time high of 62.3 percent (according to The Conference Board’s measure, which began in 1987). It also includes the fact that while non-union wages increased by 24 percent over the past five years, union wages rose by less than 17 percent.
Read the full storyElections Expert Gina Swoboda Discusses Maricopa County Officials’ Missteps in the 2022 Election
Gina Swoboda, executive director of Phoenix-based Voter Reference Foundation (VRF) discussed election problems and what to do about them recently on the Jenny Beth Show. Jenny Beth Martin was an early leader in the Tea Party movement as co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. In this third part of a three-part series from the interview, Swoboda delved deeper into the problems that occurred during the 2022 election, many which were caused or exacerbated by election officials, and the hurdles to fixing them.
She observed that switching from precinct voting to vote centers did not increase turnout as election officials claimed it would, which they did in order to convince voters the switch would be beneficial. Republican legislators ran bills that would have made precinct voting easier, she said, like holding voting on a school holiday so the schools could be used as voting locations, but the bills were unsuccessful.
Read the full storyDeSantis’ Never Back Down PAC Suspends Door-Knocking in Four States to Focus on Early Primary States
The pro-DeSantis Never Back Down super PAC is reportedly suspending its voter canvassing in four states to focus resources in early-voting states.
The PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign is pausing its door-knocking activities in Nevada, California, Texas and North Carolina, according to The Epoch Times on Saturday.
Read the full storyMost EPA Employees Really Don’t Want to Show Back Up to the Office, Survey Finds
More than 80% of surveyed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees said that they would experience “personal hardships” if the agency changes its remote work policies to align more with the White House’s push to get government employees back into their offices, E&E News reported.
The survey results indicate that there is a significant disconnect between rank-and-file EPA employees and senior Biden administration officials over the White House’s return-to-office push for federal employees who have enjoyed expanded remote work policies since the pandemic. About 66% of the survey’s respondents said that they would consider leaving the agency if remote work flexibility diminished, and more than 65% of polled EPA employees said that reductions to remote work would negatively impact “diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility,” according to a summary of the survey’s results.
Read the full storyFederal Judge Blocks Law Requiring Age Verification for Social Media
A federal judge blocked an Arkansas law Thursday that requires age verification for social media users.
Arkansas’ Social Media Safety Act, which restricts minors from creating social media accounts without parental consent, was scheduled to take effect Friday. U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of Arkansas Timothy Brooks, an Obama appointee, sided with NetChoice, a group that includes companies like Google and TikTok, and temporarily blocked the law from being enforced.
Read the full storyMeta’s Epidemic of Chinese ‘Spamouflage’ Propaganda
Meta recently took “what appears to be the largest known cross-platform covert influence operation in the world,” off its platforms, according to the company’s quarterly Adversarial Threat Report released this week.’
The social media accounts that made up the covert influence operation — collectively dubbed “Spamouflage” — were active all over the world, including in America, major U.S. allies, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora.
Read the full storyCommentary: AI Is Coming for Art’s Soul
While AI-based technology has recently been used to summon deepfakes and create a disturbing outline for running a death camp, the ever-pervasive digital juggernaut has also been used to write books under the byline of well-known authors.
The Guardian recently reported five books appeared for sale on Amazon that were apparently written by author Jane Friedman. Only, they weren’t written by Friedman at all: They were written by AI. When Friedman submitted a claim to Amazon, Amazon said they would not remove the books because she had not trademarked her name.
Read the full storyTeachers Union Tells Teachers to Destroy Evidence of Student Gender Identity Surveys: Report
A Colorado affiliate of the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, told its teachers to destroy any evidence of having given students a gender identity survey, according to a recent report.
CBS Colorado notes that while the JeffCo Public Schools district says it is “unclear” whether surveys about “preferred pronouns” are in violation of state law, it advised teachers against using them as lawsuits are ongoing.
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