Commentary: ‘See You at the Pole’ Is Protected by the First Amendment

Stefi Outlaw, the president of the local NEA affiliate in Clarksville, Tennessee, emailed the chairman of the Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools chairman Kent Griffy, and Mark Nolan an attorney regarding board member Aron Maberry.  The claim she made was he used his official capacity as a board member to promote a “See You at the Pole“ prayer rally.

This raises a few interesting points. As a public official, using your public account probably provides more transparency to taxpayers. How much public business gets conducted behind the scenes with private emails? The use of private email for public business can be controversial and legally problematic in some cases.

Read the full story

Pennsylvania Eyes Veterans Home Advisory Board

A push to reform the oversight of Pennsylvania’s half-dozen homes for veterans would create an advisory board to improve care and watch over the dwellings.

Senate Bill 933 would give a 15-member Veterans Home Advisory Board the responsibility to provide input on quality of care concerns for the more than 1,300 Pennsylvania veterans living in the six homes across the state.

Read the full story

Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger Among Witnesses Fani Willis Plans to Call in Trump Trial

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis revealed about a dozen witnesses she plans to call in her racketeering case against former President Donald Trump in a legal filing on Wednesday. Willis named the witnesses to illustrate potential conflicts of interests for defense attorneys.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), and his wife Patricia, will both be called as witnesses by the prosecution, according to Willis’s filing.

Read the full story

Minnesota Freedom Fund Bails Out Myon Burrell on New Gun and Drug Charges

The Minnesota Freedom Fund supplied $100,000 bail for the release of Myon Demarlo Burrell earlier this month after he was charged with illegally possessing a firearm and narcotics.

Hennepin County Jail records show Burrell was released from custody on Sept. 2 after supplying bail. However, a document posted by Crime Watch showing that the controversial bail fund supplied the bail wasn’t uploaded into the online court record until Monday of this week.

Read the full story

Commentary: Our Self-Induced Catastrophe at the Border

Since early 2021 we have witnessed somewhere between 7 and 8 million illegal entries across the now nonexistent U.S. southern border.

The more the border vanished, the more federal immigration law was rendered inert, and the more Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas spun fantasies that the “border is secure.” He is now written off as a veritable “Baghdad Bob” propagandist.

Read the full story

Most Voters Say Virginia Democrat Who Live Streamed Sex Acts for Tips Should Drop Out of Race: Poll

Most likely voters say that Susanna Gibson, the Virginia Democrat who live-streamed sex acts with her husband online while asking for tips, should drop out of the House of Delegates race in a highly competitive suburban Richmond district, according to a new survey. 

While 56% likely general election voters say Gibson, a nurse practitioner and mother of two young children, should drop out of the race, just 30% say she should continue and 14% say they are unsure, according to a survey released Wednesday by the political research groups Founders Insight and co/efficient.

Read the full story

Arizona Ports Fear Federal Border Policies Could Lead to ‘Another 9/11 Tragedy’

Arizona’s border port authorities issued a joint resolution Monday emphasizing the need for border security to sustain economic growth in the region. 

The resolution came from the Douglas International Port Authority, the Greater Nogales and Santa Cruz County Port Authority, and the Greater Yuma Port Authority, with specific ideas during their Board of Directors joint session in Tucson.

Read the full story

Family Announces Lawsuit Against Fulton County Jail After Inmate Stabbed to Death

The family of a deceased Fulton County Jail detainee who was stabbed to death announced its intention to sue the jail on Wednesday but will first offer the facility a 30-day window to “address the situation appropriately” before the lawsuit is filed. During a Thursday press conference, the family’s lawyers provided details surrounding the stabbing death.

Read the full story

Music Spotlight: Whey Jennings

Whey Jennings is as great a performer as you would expect him to be, but his path to stardom has not been an easy one.

When the singer was around six years old, he picked up a microphone that Jessi Colter left on a chair backstage at his grandpa’s show. Young Whey Jennings pranced out onto the stage and began singing “Mamma’s Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.” Jennings’s grandpa Waylon Jennings shouted out, “Hey hold up there Hoss…wait for me!” Waylon went to pickin’ and when the song was finished, the crowd went nuts.

Read the full story

Signatories of Hunter Biden Laptop Letter Get Plum Jobs After Pumping Disinformation into Election

While the American public was misinformed about Hunter Biden’s laptop in a 2020 letter signed by former intelligence officials – who used their job titles to add credibility to their claims – some of them have since landed plum jobs, including working with the federal government.

Just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, 51 ex-high ranking intelligence officials signed a letter insinuating the Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinformation” after The New York Post reported on the laptop days earlier. The Post report mentioned how Hunter had abandoned his laptop at a Delaware computer repair shop and had emails regarding his business dealings.

Read the full story

Commentary: The Left’s FISA Reform Trap

Republicans have had a crash course since 2016 in the ways the power of the intelligence community can be abused. To take a few examples, four consecutive judges operating under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act approved wiretaps of a Trump adviser, Carter Page, relying without question on the partisan fictions of the Steele dossier. Michael Flynn was ousted after he was the target of an unprecedented leak of another FISA intercept. And 51 former intelligence officers intervened in the 2020 election to dismiss without evidence the Hunter Biden laptop contents as likely Russian disinformation.

Read the full story

Senator Bill Hagerty: The Biden Administration Has Slipped Language into the Continuing Resolution to Transform ICE into a Resettlement Agency

Tennessee U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy Thursday, where in a stunning statement of clarity, exposed the Biden administration’s intention to repurpose ICE from an immigration enforcement agency to a resettlement bureau though a manipulation of the Continuing Resolution budget.

Read the full story

Vivek Ramaswamy Unveils Strategy on How to Declare Economic Independence from Communist China

NEW ALBANY, Ohio – Ohio native entrepreneur and Republican candidate for President of the United States Vivek Ramaswamy spoke to a passionate group of campaign supporters Thursday about how the nation can declare economic independence from communist China.

People packed into the one-hour event at the Axium Plastics facility to hear Ramaswamy’s strategy for “a clear and pragmatic vision for how Americans can actually and finally declare economic freedom from China while advancing American prosperity at home.”

Read the full story

Tennessee Lawmakers Propose Increasing Teacher Classroom Supply Deduction Limit to $1K

U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tennessee, is a co-sponsor of bipartisan legislation to increase the amount schoolteachers can deduct for classroom supplies to $1,000 per year.

The Educators Expense Deduction Modernization Act of 2023, is sponsored by U.S. Rep. Sean Casten, D-Illinois, and the companion bill is sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

Read the full story

Rep. Mark Green Reveals ‘Shocking’ Economic Impacts Border Crisis Is Having on America During House Hearing

Tennessee U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07), who is chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, delivered opening remarks Wednesday during the committee’s hearing to “examine the financial cost of the historic national security and humanitarian crisis at the Southwest border for communities across the country.”

Read the full story

Speaker Kevin McCarthy Appoints Tennessee Representative to NDAA Conference Committee

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-20) named Tennessee U.S. Representative Scott DesJarlais (R-TN-04) to serve as a conferee on the House-Senate Conference Committee to resolve “bicameral differences” in the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The NDAA is the primary authorization for funding the U.S. Armed Forces and Department of Defense (DoD).

Read the full story

Senator Bill Hagerty Leads Banking Committee Republicans in Opposing Government Agency’s Race-Based Housing Plans

Tennessee U.S. Senator and member of the Senate Banking Committee Bill Hagerty (R-TN) led the Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday in sending a letter to Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Sandra Thompson in opposition to the agency’s racial equity housing plans, which encourage discrimination based on race.

“Yesterday, I led my Senate Banking Committee GOP colleagues in sending a letter to FHFA Director Sandra Thompson calling out racial equity housing plans that encourage discrimination on the basis of race, rather than focusing on ensuring the safety and soundness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Hagerty said.

Read the full story

Rep. Andy Ogles Demands Answers from Department of Treasury Secretary Yellen on Racial Equity

 Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) sent a letter to Department of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, seeking information regarding the Department of the Treasury’s Committee on Racial Equity (TACRE), its mission, and its intentions.

According to the treasury, it formed the committee to address topics such as financial “inclusion,” capital access, and housing stability.

Read the full story

Study: Black Lives Matter Protests Resulted in Increase in Murder Rates

The rise of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and riots over the last ten years has led to a spike in murder rates in the years during and after they occurred.

As the Daily Caller reports, BLM riots that occurred between 2014 and 2021 caused over 3,000 additional murders, an increase of 11.5%. From 2014 to 2019, there were approximately 200 fewer deaths when police used lethal measures to deal with riots. The data was compiled by a study in the Journal of Urban Economics on September 14th.

Read the full story

Feds Thwarted Probe into Possible ‘Criminal Violations’ Involving 2020 Biden Campaign, Agents Say

The FBI and IRS probed allegations that Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign may have benefitted from “campaign finance criminal violations” by allowing a politically connected lawyer to help pay off Hunter Biden’s large tax debts but agents were blocked by federal prosecutors from further action, according to new information uncovered by congressional investigators.

The previously unreported campaign finance inquiry was first alluded to in transcribed interviews by House investigators with two IRS agents and a retired FBI supervisor, and the allegations since have been augmented in recent weeks by new evidence uncovered by the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee.

Read the full story

Blackburn Slams Biden over Changing Stories Related to Hunter’s Business Dealings

A Tennessee senator on Wednesday blasted the Biden administration for President Joe Biden’s changing accounts of his involvement in his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

“The White House is now claiming that Hunter did not share his profits with Joe,” Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) captioned a post on X, formerly Twitter. “Biden keeps on changing the narrative to hide his corruption.”

Read the full story

Pennsylvania Special Election Tips State House to the Democrats

A Democratic candidate has won a special election for a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, retaining the party’s one-seat majority in the chamber.

Lindsay Powell is a Democratic political aide who previously served as an aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. On Tuesday, she won a special election to Pennsylvania’s state House District 21, which covers the suburbs of Pittsburgh, by a margin of 29% over Republican candidate Erin Authenreith according to results published by the Pennsylvania Department of State, which gives Democrats 102 seats to the Republicans’ 101.

Read the full story

Georgia Republican Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Collins Receive ‘F’ Grades on Pro-Ukraine Scorecard

Georgia Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14) and Mike Collins (R-GA-10) received failing grades from Republicans for Ukraine, a group that lobbies for the Republican Party to continue its support for the Eastern European country.

Greene and Collins both received “F” grades from the Republicans for Ukraine, while Representative Andrew Clyde (R-GA-09) received a “C” grade for his allegedly lukewarm support.

Read the full story

Ohio Supreme Court Rules Term ‘Unborn Child’ Can Remain on Abortion Ballot Measure

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the term “unborn child” could remain in an abortion amendment set to go on the ballot in November after activists filed a lawsuit over the language.

The state’s ballot board, which includes Secretary of State Frank LaRose, voted 3-2 in August that the term “fetus” should be changed to “unborn child” in order to give voters a clearer understanding of the ramifications of the amendment, which would make abortion a constitutional right in the state. In response, Ohioans for Reproductive Rights (ORR) filed a lawsuit days later, arguing the board was ignoring rules that required the language to “not ‘mislead, deceive, or defraud’ voters, but the state Supreme Court determined that the use of the term “unborn child” could stay in, noting that even the plaintiffs did not argue it was “factually inaccurate.”

Read the full story

Wisconsin Lawmakers Introduce Second Go at Constitutional Amendment to Ban Zuckerbucks in Election Administration

Looking to get around Democrat Governor Tony Evers’ veto pen, Republican lawmakers have introduced the second consideration of a constitutional amendment to bar the use of private funds in election administration.

Passage would send the proposed amendment to referendum, letting voters — not the liberal governor — decide if controversial “Zuckerbucks”-like funding of elections is legal in Wisconsin.

Read the full story

Trump Plans to Skip Debate and Visit UAW Members in Detroit, Michigan Dems Freak Out

Say what you will about former President Donald Trump, but he has a knack for ruffling the feathers of the elite while hob-knobbing with the regular folk and making connections.

While the Democrat Party likes to tout itself as the sole savior of the blue-collar worker, it’s the former president who is planning to speak to the rank-and-file in Detroit at an event next week. In fact, Trump plans to skip the second GOP presidential debate on September 27 to do so.

Read the full story

Commentary: American Public Says Biden Is Not the Leader America Needs to Fix the Country

A giant new poll delving deep into the public’s views on President Biden, Former President Trump, the U.S. economy and their own economic situation reveals a people deeply unhappy with the direction of the country under President Biden. 

First, the latest CBS News/YouGov poll shows Trump beating Biden by one point 50% to 49%. While that’s well within the margin of error, other recent polls have shown Trump beating Biden by as many as six percentage points in the past three weeks. Whatever the metric, Trump is polling significantly better now than he was at any time in 2020, and that has Democrats worried.   

Read the full story

Virginia Tech DEI Director May Have Violated School Policy in Forwarding Email Slamming School Board Candidates over Youngkin Policies

A diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at a leading university in southeastern Virginia may have violated her school’s policy by using work email to forward a message slamming conservative school board candidates as “hateful” and urging readers to canvass for the candidates’ opponents shortly before early voting begins.

One school board member targeted in the forwarded email told The Daily Signal that she is considering a lawsuit.

Read the full story

Parents Protest ‘Pornographic’ Books at Arizona Public Library Meeting

Several parents and children attended a meeting of the Chandler Public Library Board Tuesday night to protest “pornographic” books geared to children located in the children’s section of the Basha branch library. The board, which met at that branch, let each attendee speak for two minutes, who used their time to read from the offending books and describe what was contained in them. 

A young woman named Audrey, who said she was the 2021 class president of the adjacent high school, read from a book for 10-year olds that discussed masturbation and abortion. A book about “genderqueer” discussed “strap-ons” and “blow jobs,” she said.

Read the full story

Minnesota Rep. Introduces Legislation to Prevent Fed from Issuing Central Bank Digital Currency

U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer has reintroduced legislation that would ban the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), which the majority whip described as a potential threat to the “American way of life.”

As the Biden administration explores the possibility of developing a digital dollar, Emmer said the idea could dismantle “Americans’ right to financial privacy.”

Read the full story

Arizona State Senator TJ Shope to Probe If Gov. Hobbs’ Dark Money Security Funding Violated Campaign Finance Laws

Arizona Senate President Pro Tempore T.J. Shope (R-Florence) intends to probe how Governor Katie Hobbs (D) had a private security guard during the 2022 elections without disclosing how he was paid. Hobbs, who was serving as Arizona’s secretary of state in 2022, did not disclose how the security guard was paid in her campaign finance reports.

Though it remains unclear exactly how former security guard J.M. “Jesse” Torrez was employed to protect Hobbs, The Arizona Republic notes the governor appointed Torrez to head the Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, where he will earn $115,000 per year, after taking office.

Read the full story

Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde Moves to Cut Federal Funding from Trump Prosecutions as Government Shutdown Looms

Georgia Representative Andrew Clyde (R-GA-09) is championing two budget amendments this week, with both aimed at preventing congressional funding for the Department of Justice, or any state or local government, from being used to prosecute a declared candidate for president, particularly former President Donald Trump. Clyde, who is reportedly willing to allow a government shutdown to force spending cuts from Democrats, is expected to submit the amendments as part of the annual budget process.

The two amendments championed by Clyde, which were originally written by The Article III Project, would specifically forbid federal funding for the Department of Justice’s prosecution of Trump, and would prevent federal dollars from funding local prosecutions in Georgia and New York.

Read the full story

House Select Committee on China Demands FBI and DOD Briefing on Communist China Spies Infiltrating U.S. Military Bases

U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI-o8), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, wants a briefing from top Biden administration officials on increasing incidents of CCP spies accessing sensitive military, economic, and technological secrets on U.S. soil.

Gallagher joined fellow committee member U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA-02) on Wednesday in calling on Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and FBI Director Christopher Wray to explain to the committee why there’s been a surge in CCP espionage, and what they plan to do about it.

Read the full story

Governor Mike DeWine Unveils New Crime Gun Intelligence Center in Columbus

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) joined state, local, and federal leaders in Columbus on Tuesday to unveil the new Central Ohio Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC).

According to the press release, the center is located within the Ohio Department of Public Safety and operates in partnership with the Columbus Division of Police, Ohio State Highway Patrol, Ohio Narcotics Intelligence Center, Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

This new centralized law enforcement

Read the full story

Nashville Attorneys Were Big Contributors to Democrat Who Formed TN U.S. Senate Exploratory Committee, Then Withdrew

Several high profile attorneys at a major law firm with an office in Nashville donated money to an exploratory committee for a Democrat who considered running against U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R). 

According to Federal Elections Commission (FEC) records, partners at Holland & Knight, a Tampa, Florida based law firm with a large presence in Nashville, donated thousands to fellow attorney Joanne Sowell’s exploratory committee. 

Read the full story

Biden Uses Executive Authority to Roll Out Green Jobs Training Program

President Joe Biden will use executive authority to establish a green jobs training problem for young people after Congress shot down an earlier attempt to do so, the White House announced Wednesday.

The American Climate Corps (ACC) is projected to help about 20,000 people find work in climate-related fields, including facilitating pathways to working in federal civil service, according to the White House. An earlier version of Biden’s green jobs training program did not make it into what eventually became the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), as congressional Republicans strongly opposed the program largely due to concerns about its potential costs, according to the Associated Press.

Read the full story

Chinese Chip Company Appears to Be Skirting U.S. Sanctions: Report

A top Chinese tech company has been able to push out fresh Chinese-made semiconductors despite years of U.S. restrictions, according to Reuters.

HiSilicon, Huawei Technologies’ chip design unit, has increased delivery of semiconductors to surveillance camera manufacturers over the last year after the company was able to produce new tools to create more advanced chips in March, according to Reuters. The U.S. has put a number of sanctions on the semiconductor industry, with Huawei in particular being placed on the entity list by the Department of Commerce in 2019, prohibiting it from working with American companies.

Read the full story

Mozilla Investigation Finds Cars Are Collecting Data on Driving Habits, Routes, and Even ‘Sexual Activity’

The Mozilla Foundation recently investigated the privacy practices of 25 major car brands through its ongoing series, *Privacy Not Included. The research uncovered the automotive industry as the worst category the group has looked into yet when it comes to protecting consumer privacy. Across all manufacturers reviewed, excessive collection and misuse of personal data was rampant, with car brands systematically ignoring driver consent. Vehicles now contain numerous sensors and constant connectivity, enabling persistent tracking of location, driving habits, in-car activities, and more. Data collected encompasses highly sensitive details like medical history, sexual activity, and music taste. Car manufacturers claim to use this trove of information internally for purposes like research and marketing. However, most also admit to sharing or selling data to third parties such as data brokers. Despite industry principles advocating “data minimization” and “choice,” the report claims car companies act in blatant disregard of users’ privacy. Compounding the risks, an alarming majority of brands had a history of security failures, with hacks and breaches exposing driver data. The researchers investigating the privacy practices of auto makers were unable to confirm even basic functions like full encryption of personal information on vehicles. The most disturbing findings the report lists…

Read the full story

Biden to Create White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention

The Hill The White House will announce this week that it is creating an office of gun violence prevention to focus on efforts to curb gun violence, two sources familiar confirmed to The Hill. Gun violence prevention advocates and Democratic lawmakers have been pushing the White House to establish a designated office solely focused on gun violence.   Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who is known for his focus on gun violence prevention, applauded the White House on Wednesday after reports of the first-of-its-kind office. READ THE FULL STORY               

Read the full story

Lawmakers Blast Chinese Communist Party’s Influence on American Classrooms

House lawmakers held a hearing to investigate the Chinese Communist Party’s alleged efforts to influence American classrooms.

The Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee held the hearing, led by Chair Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla. The lawmakers brought scrutiny against Confucius Classrooms, a program with ties to the CCP, which promote teaching things like the Chinese language and culture, among other things, in hundreds of classrooms around the country.

Read the full story

Media Fumed over Trump’s Detention of Illegal Immigrants, Now Issue Has Boomeranged on Biden

Border surge

Former President Donald Trump attracted intense media scrutiny and criticism over the detention of illegal immigrants. But now the issue has boomeranged on the Biden administration and his party, which is being cited by government watchdogs for poor conditions at  Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities during the surge at the southern border.

More than six million immigrants have illegally entered the United States during Joe Biden’s presidency. The influx appears to have placed considerable strain on facilities intended to accommodate fresh arrivals. Federal agencies are seemingly unable to provide adequate service in the face of the sheer volume.

Read the full story

Commentary: Thank God for the Principled Senator Tuberville

These days, Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is an endangered species in official Washington. That’s not because political hacks – in uniform and out – are taking every imaginable cheap shot at him, including that he is “endangering our national security” by holding up the promotions of some 300 officers.

The latest to do so is the American Legion, an organization that once faithfully championed our armed forces’ warriors, both serving and veteran. As its attack on Coach Tuberville demonstrates, however, the Legion has been reduced to just another special interest group pandering to those in power in exchange for favorable treatment.

Read the full story