Americans for Prosperity – Tennessee (AFP-TN) State Director Tori Venable sat down with the Editor-in-chief and CEO of The Tennessee Star Michael Patrick Leahy in the latest episode of the Tennessee Star Extra to discuss Governor Bill Lee’s legislative push for universal school choice.
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The Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled in Nashville on Thursday that a group of parents can intervene in the lawsuit seeking to compel the release of the manifesto written by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the Covenant School killer, affirming a lower court’s ruling. The parents wish to prevent the manifesto’s release.
In a 17-page order released Thursday afternoon, the appeals court ruled to “affirm the trial court’s judgement allowing intervention,” and sent the case back to the Davidson County Chancery Court for further proceedings. That court’s previous decision to allow the parents to intervene prompted the appeal.
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Videotapes of witness interviews that the Democrat-led Jan. 6 congressional committee conducted have vanished, raising concerns for the chairman of the successor House panel that is now examining security failures related to the Capitol riot as well as possible implications for upcoming criminal trials.
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In episode 43 of his newest production, “Tucker on X,” host Tucker Carlson interviewed U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14) about her outsider approach to handling her job in Congress.
Carlson said the first time he heard of Greene was through a string of news stories calling her a “crazed Nazi, anti-Semite” and attaching her to the phrase “Jewish Space Lasers,” which he noted was a “very obvious smear job” against the Georgia congresswoman.
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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan issued subpoenas Thursday to two former Biden White House officials demanding information on any role they played in censoring American’s opinions on social media.
The subpoenas went to White House Senior Advisor for the COVID Response Team, Andrew Slavitt and Robert Flaherty, the former Director of Digital Strategy for the Biden administration.
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Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes, who narrowly won her election by only 280 votes, the closest statewide race in Arizona’s history, has convinced a grand jury to indict two Cochise County Supervisors for briefly delaying certification of the 2022 election in order to investigate the laws that were broken. Cochise County Supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, both Republicans, also unsuccessfully attempted to conduct a hand count of the election. Mayes sued them over the delay last November.
“The repeated attempts to undermine our democracy are unacceptable,” Mayes said in a press release. She said the indictment alleged that “on or between October 11, 2022, and December 1, 2022, Judd and Crosby conspired to delay the canvass of votes cast in Cochise County in the November 2022 General Election.” She said this also interfered with the Secretary of State’s statewide canvassing.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07) introduced a bill Wednesday that would ensure the Department of Commerce follows the typical rulemaking procedure prior to any decision-making under Section 553 of the U.S. Code.
On October 27, the Department of Commerce announced an immediate pause on commercial firearm exports without prior notice.
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U.S. Representative Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN-03) reportedly told the Hamilton County Pachyderm Club in Chattanooga on Monday that he is “all in” for former President Donald Trump in 2024, and pledged to support his 2024 campaign for re-election.
Fleischmann told Republicans on Monday that he is “all in for Donald Trump,” according to The Chattanoogan, which reported that the congressman told attendees he recently visited Mar-a-Lago and told the former president he will do “everything possible” to aid his re-election.
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Knoxville City Council did not pass a resolution condemning Israel and calling for a ceasefire between Israeli and Hamas forces during its Tuesday council meeting.
The resolution, according to its broad text, “calls on the U.S. Federal Government to urge an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine and to express the Council of the City of Knoxville’s support and solidarity with the people of Palestine facing genocidal levels of violence at the hands of the state of Israel.”
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A traditional Catholic family was allegedly “dragged out of their home at gunpoint, handcuffed and locked in a van” earlier this year after the FBI “goaded” their 15-year-old son to post “offensive memes” online. The teen, a volunteer firefighter and altar boy, was then hospitalized on mental health pretenses, according to his father, Jeremiah Rufini.
The FBI’s aggressive “investigation” only resulted in a misdemeanor conviction against the boy for breach of peace, but financially devastated the family with substantial legal expenses.
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Just to maintain the same standard of living that Americans had at the beginning of President Joe Biden’s term, households have to spend an additional $11,434 per year, according to CBS News.
Since January 2021, when Biden first took office, inflation has risen 17%, far outpacing the 2% per year that the Federal Reserve aims for, while average hourly wages have only increased 13.6%, according to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee’s (JEC) state inflation tracker. As a result, more Americans reported that they are struggling financially than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic as persistent inflation continues to take its toll, according to CBS News.
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it will provide more resources for Memphis, which is battling a wave of violent crime and has already broken its annual homicide record.
“Violent crime deprives communities of a fundamental sense of security in their own homes and neighborhoods,” said Acting Assistant Attorney Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division in a DOJ press release. “This violent crime initiative will bring additional tools and resources used to investigate and prosecute violent crime and apply those tools to gangs and groups who are harming and disrupting communities here in Memphis.”
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The Biden administration has outpaced other recent presidents in issuing significant regulations that place a financial burden on taxpayers, according to a report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Under President Joe Biden, the federal government completed 89 economically significant rules in 2022, defined as those with at least a $100 million economic impact, which is higher than any point in the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations when deregulation is accounted for, according to CEI’s “Ten Thousand Commandments Report.” Regulations as a whole resulted in $1.939 trillion in added costs for the average American in 2022, exceeding every form of tax except income tax, which it rivals at $2.263 trillion.
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U.S. Representative David Kustoff (R-TN-08) joined Representative Max Miller (R-OH-07) this week in introducing a resolution condemning and denouncing antisemitism in the United States and around the world.
Kustoff and Miller, the only Republican Jewish members of the House, said it’s time to stand up to surging antisemitism infecting communities and institutions, including Congress.
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Attorneys for former President Donald Trump submitted a legal filing in Fulton County Superior Court on Monday arguing the First Amendment protects Trump from prosecution for the statements he made during his contest of the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Trump’s lead attorney, Steve Sadow, wrote in the filing that Trump genuinely believes he won the 2020 election in Georgia, despite Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ repeated claims he “falsely” made statements to that effect.
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Virginia State Senator Jeremy McPike (D-Prince William) confirmed on Wednesday he will not run for the U.S. House seat being vacated by Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07), who earlier this month announced she would not seek re-election and would instead run for governor. McPike noted Virginia Democrats’ “slim majorities” in the Virginia General Assembly amid Democrats’ promises to be a “brick wall” preventing the agenda of Governor Glenn Youngkin (R).
In a post to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, the senator said he looks “forward to continuing to serve and fight for Virginians in the Senate.” Revealing he was urged to enter the House race, McPike (pictured above) stated “for now, with our slim majorities in the General Assembly, I will continue to fight to improve the lives of everyday Virginians.”
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Joe Biden and the Democrats hemorrhage Latino support into 2024. In fact, the trend grows into perhaps the biggest single liability for the Left into next year’s election. The liberal site Axios sent up a warning flare, declaring the breakdown in Biden’s Hispanic support as “an alarming, re-election-threatening, full-blown crisis for the White House.”
The latest battleground state polling from my organization, the League of American Workers, validates that assessment, and points to potential seismic gains for the cause of patriotic populism among Hispanics this election cycle. Specifically, the latest survey highlights massive Hispanic dissatisfaction with Biden and leftist policies in the key battleground of Arizona, one of the most Hispanic states in America.
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Five Ohio public employees appealed a ruling that allowed union dues to be taken from their paychecks for months.
A lower court ruling said the issue is an unfair labor practice, giving jurisdiction to the State Employment Relations Board rather than a court.
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The state of Arizona ended its contract with a company that operated a correctional facility in Marana.
Gov. Katie Hobbs praised the move of the Arizona Department of Corrections Rehabilitation and Reentry, arguing that it will save roughly $15 million — $5 million in fiscal year 2024 and $10 million in fiscal year 2025, according to the news release.
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Money doesn’t guarantee victory in political campaigns. For proof, look no further than Meg Whitman, the California billionaire who in 2010 squandered $179 million in her futile campaign to beat Jerry Brown and become that state’s next governor.
When money is married to institutional power, however, it makes all the difference. This is why, 10 years after the Whitman debacle, Mark Zuckerberg was able to purchase the presidential election outcome in 2020 for $419 million. Whitman’s money paid consultants and bought ads on television. Zuckerberg’s money went to supplement the activities of election offices in swing states – election offices that employed workers represented by unions that overwhelmingly favor Democrats over Republicans.
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U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman on Tuesday announced that he would recuse himself from a lawsuit against Media Matters for America (MMFA) filed by social media company X.
Pittman did not state a reason for his recusal, The Hill reported. Elon Musk’s X sued the watchdog group over an article in published that featured images of ads for the platform’s major advertisers next to antisemitic and pro-Nazi content.
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A wealthy suburb of Washington, D.C., doesn’t inherently object to shielding even older students from sexually mature material. It just doesn’t want to give the choice to parents.
Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools pulled a novel that celebrates a promiscuous gay teen sex columnist from high school libraries even as the district was arguing in court that parents cannot opt out their pre-kindergarten children from LGBTQ “storybooks” that portray sex workers, kink, drag, elementary-age romance and gender-identity transitions.
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Music Spotlight artist Grace Leer made her acting debut in a Blake Shelton-produced new Hallmark Movie, Time For Her To Come Home For Christmas. Leer costars alongside Shenae Grimes-Beech and Chris Carmack in a holiday romance mystery that is airing during Hallmark’s annual “Miracles of Christmas” programming event.
To many, the words “Hallmark Movie” and “Blake Shelton” don’t appear to belong together, but this movie is the sixth installment of the popular movie franchise based upon the book Time for Me to Come Home by Dorothy Shackleford and Travis Thrasher and Shelton’s song of the same name. Leer performs Shelton’s hit “Time for Me to Come Home” in the movie as well.
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American diplomat and statesman Henry Kissinger died Thursday at the age of 100 at his Connecticut home of unspecified causes, the Washington Post reported, citing a statement from his consulting firm.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) unveiled the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, which will offer education savings accounts (ESAs) for students in all 95 counties in the state, in a Tuesday event that featured Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) and included state lawmakers and school choice advocates.
Lee said the legislative proposal will establish statewide universal school choice, stressing at his Tuesday press conference that “a high quality education has the power to change a trajectory of a child’s life forever.”
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Shelby County General Sessions Court Judge Bill Anderson released alleged Thanksgiving Day murderer Edio White with zero bond, even after police said White admitted to driving the getaway car after the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old. In a newly resurfaced video, Anderson is seen railing against the “bond system” in Shelby County and Tennessee.
Anderson critiqued cash bail in Tennessee during a September 18 meeting of the Shelby County Commission, extending his condemnation to bail bonding companies, claiming “they don’t do anything but collect money from poor people.”
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In episode 42 of his newest production, “Tucker on X,” host Tucker Carlson interviewed Tennessee U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) about the decades-long government coverup of UFOs, also known as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).
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Despite a concerted effort by many institutions, government entities, and other left-wing forces to push “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) initiatives on private businesses, 2023 saw a greater decrease in such measures than previous years.
As reported by the Daily Caller, the total number of businesses with a designated DEI budget dropped to 54% in 2023, down four points from 58% in 2022. In the same period of time, the number of organizations with a DEI strategy declined by 9%. Both of these statistics were compiled by the consulting firm Paradigm.
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The Tennessee Board of Parole announced Tuesday that it will honor homicide victims with a “Season to Remember” event that is scheduled for December 7.
“For more than two decades, state and local public safety officials, along with families of homicide victims, have gathered to honor and remember victims and survivors of homicide during the holiday season,” said a press release. “This year will mark the state’s 21st annual ‘Tennessee Season to Remember’, which will be held at 5:30 p.m. (CST) on Thursday, December 7 at First Baptist Church in downtown Nashville.”
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Idaho is asking the Supreme Court to intervene and allow the state to enforce its pro-life law despite the Biden Administration’s efforts to block it by allowing abortions in emergency rooms, according to court documents.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act is meant to ensure that all patients who request emergency room treatment are examined, but Idaho argued in its court filing Monday that the law turns “protection for the uninsured into a federal super-statute on the issue of abortion, one that strips Idaho of its sovereign interest in protecting innocent human life and turns emergency rooms into a federal enclave where state standards of care do not apply.”
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In the first half of 2023, roughly 32,000 babies were born in states that implemented abortion restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, a 2.3% increase, according to a new analysis.
In the first six months of 2023, “births rose by an average of 2.3 percent in states enforcing total abortion bans,” leading to an estimated 32,000 births that might have otherwise been aborted, according to a new analysis published by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics initiated by the Deutsche Post Foundation.
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Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee (AFP-TN) and the Beacon Center of Tennessee released statements applauding Governor Bill Lee’s announcement of his administration’s legislative proposal to establish universal school choice in the Volunteer State.
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Data from the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office shows that new business filings in Tennessee for the third quarter of 2023 were the highest in the state’s history.
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A Koch-backed group endorsed former Republican South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for president, according to a memorandum released by Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP).
Charles Koch and his late brother, David Koch, are the billionaire sons of Fred Koch, who founded Koch Industries, a multibillion-dollar holding company that is the second-largest private corporation in the United States. Known for their heavy funding of Republican candidates, the Koch network’s AFP Action signaled on Tuesday that it would endorseHaley’s campaign, calling her “a candidate who can turn the page and win.”
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Attorneys for Star News Digital Media Inc., the parent company of The Tennessee Star, asked a federal judge to order the Federal Bureau of Investigation to respond to a motion for limited discovery as part of a nationally watched public records lawsuit.
Star News Digital Media Inc. filed the lawsuit in May, demanding the FBI release the manifesto and related writings of Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the Covenant School killer.
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A logistics company will located in Knoxville plans to expand and add 650 employment opportunities, a news release from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNEDC) says.
According to the release, Axle Logistics will invest $37.9 million to expand logistics operations at its Knoxville headquarters. It will reportedly construct an 85,000-square-foot facility adjacent to its existing facility in order to “better meet the ongoing growth it has experienced since its founding in 2012.”
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The Tennessee Advisory Commission on Rules of Practice and Procedure will hold a Dec. 5 meeting in Nashville that the group plans to live stream after The Center Square received an injunction earlier this year to open the meetings to the public.
The Center Square Vice President of News and Content Dan McCaleb received a May injunction from a U.S. District Court judge against the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts to open the meetings.
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Nine Michiganders face chargers of unemployment insurance fraud and operating as unlicensed builders in a sweep that involved the attorney general’s office, along with several local agencies.
The Michigan Department of the Attorney General, alongside the Detroit Police Department and other law enforcement agencies arrested nine on charges of operating as unlicensed builders and unemployment insurance fraud.
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The University of St. Thomas in St. Paul is holding a workshop on “white accountability,” according to screenshots shared by the popular X (formerly Twitter) account Libs of TikTok.
“With privilege comes responsibility. What will you do with yours for the common good?” an event description says.
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Connecticut businesses will pay less for workers’ compensation insurance next year, with the state again reducing premiums paid by private employers, which regulators say reflects an ongoing decline in claims.
The Connecticut Insurance Department has approved an annual workers’ compensation rate filing for 2024 with a decrease of 9.8% in voluntary market loss costs and a decrease of 10.5% in assigned risk plan rates.
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Last year, Pennsylvania divested its government holdings of certain firms in Russia and Belarus, as well as the two countries’ governments.
This year, some legislators want to follow a similar divestment path for China.
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The former general registrar of Prince William County, Va., allegedly “altered election results” during the 2020 election, according to court documents recently obtained by Just the News. However, the current general registrar says that his predecessor’s alleged conduct didn’t impact any election outcomes.
In a county where President Joe Biden received 54% of the vote in the 2020 presidential election to former President Donald Trump’s 44%, an election official at the time allegedly “altered election results” in the state’s reporting system, leading to three grand jury indictments last year.
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Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee agreed on Tuesday to hear motions from two co-defendants in the Georgia racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and those who helped him contest the 2020 election. If granted, the motions would see a significant delay in court deadlines that could impact the proposed August 5 trial date.
McAfee agreed to hear motions last week filed by attorneys for former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Jeff Clark, who was the acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Division of the Apartment Justice during the 2020 election. Both men have filed for the charges against them to be removed from Fulton County to a federal court, and seek to delay Georgia court dates until those decisions are made.
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The Ohio Republican Party released a statement denouncing the Ohio Democratic Party’s announcement of its full slate of candidates for the 2024 state Supreme Court race.
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The office of Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) provided The Virginia Star with a copy of a letter written in response to a bipartisan group of Virginia lawmakers who requested the governor seek a delay on enforcement of the state’s ban on skill games.
After the Virginia Supreme Court reversed a stay on skill games in October, which are similar to slot machines but purportedly require skill to operate, 11 legislators sent a joint letter to Youngkin on November 7. The lawmakers informed Youngkin of their intention to regulate the machines in the upcoming legislative session, and according to Richmond Times-Dispatch, asked Youngkin to direct authorities to delay enforcement of the ban until the assembly could act.
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At least one Republican lawmaker wants to know if Wisconsin’s governor has any other secret email.
Lawmakers and reform groups in the state are asking questions after a report unveiled Gov. Tony Evers has a secret email account.
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There’s a strange disjunction in the discourse about the 2024 elections. On the one hand, when presented with the proposition “Trump can win,” people will nod their heads sagely and say something along the lines of: “Of course he can; only a fool would believe to the contrary.”
At the same time, whenever polling emerges showing that Donald Trump is performing well in 2024 matchups, a deluge of panicked articles, tweets (or is it “X”s?), social media posts, and the like emerge, reassuring readers that polls aren’t predictive and providing a variety of reasons that things will improve for President Biden.
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Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs (D) signed a petition on Tuesday that calls for a public referendum to allow Arizonans to vote on whether to enshrine abortion access into the state’s constitution.
In remarks made before the media ahead of signing the petition, Hobbs claimed the abortion referendum is “about women’s ability to wholly participate and thrive in our society and our economy.”
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In another push to reduce reliance on China and other foreign entities, Florida is expanding its semiconductor manufacturing capability.
More than $28 million was recently awarded through the Florida Job Growth Grant Fund to expand semiconductor manufacturing and chip manufacturing through five workforce development projects. The awards are part of a $50 million initiative Gov. Ron DeSantis launched in September dedicated to supporting Florida’s semiconductor industry. It expands on grants awarded last year to entities in Osceola County.
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Constitutional legal scholar John Eastman, who served as an attorney to former President Donald Trump during the 2020 election lawsuits, is being prosecuted in both Georgia and Washington, D.C., and has undergone a disciplinary trial by the State Bar of California due to his role. Eastman’s criminal attorney filed a pleading in the Georgia RICO prosecution on Monday asking to move up the date to accept a plea agreement in that case so his trial can proceed sooner, explaining that his situation was different than Trump’s which needs a later date. The mainstream media claimed Eastman was attacking the former president, with NBC reporting that Eastman “takes digs” at Trump.
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