American Federation for Children Senior Fellow Shaka Mitchell joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Wednesday to dive into the details of Gov. Bill Lee’s newly unveiled Education Freedom Scholarship Act, set to revolutionize school choice in Tennessee.
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On Wednesday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) tells listeners what he really thinks about Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy and what appears to be his cooperation with restorative justice groups working in Memphis and across Tennessee to reimagine justice and reinterpret current law through their efforts, among other things, to eliminate cash bail.
Taylor explores different ways to hold district attorneys accountable, including potential methods for termination under consideration; as well as addresses the controversial release of a murder suspect without bail and his proposed legislation to remove Judge Bill Anderson from his role in managing judicial commissioners.
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The GOP-led House passed an impeachment inquiry resolution against President Biden Wednesday on the House floor.
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The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to hear a case with major implications for hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants, as well as former President Donald Trump’s indictment on charges stemming from alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
In a brief order, the justices agreed to hear a case stemming from Jan. 6 defendant Joseph Fischer’s request to dismiss a charge against him for obstructing an official proceeding. His case provides the Supreme Court an opportunity to rule on the scope of a statute, Section 1512(c)(2), which he argues has been used to charge hundreds of other defendants in an “unprecedented extension of the statute’s reach.”
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The Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee published its annual Pork Report on Wednesday, highlighting the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars this past year across the Volunteer State.
Examples of “offensive” and “wasteful” uses of Tennessee taxpayer money highlighted in the 2023 Pork Report include the nearly $5 million taxpayer subsidy given to benefit the California burger chain In-N-Out’s move to Tennessee, large property tax increases in multiple counties, and the City of Memphis giving out over $1 million to a TV show on the verge of cancellation.
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Hunter Biden appeared on Capitol Hill when he was scheduled to testify before Congress on Wednesday, saying that he is there to publicly show how his “father was not financially involved in my business,” but he ultimately skipped the closed-door deposition, opting for a public hearing.
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The Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) charged three members of a Muslim family with the alleged beating of their juvenile son and brother on Monday, and police records reportedly reveal the violence was sparked by the victim’s recent conversion to Christianity.
Police arrested Rawaaa Khawaji, Nick Kadum, and John Kadum, who are reportedly the mother, father, and older son of the juvenile victim discovered by law enforcement, according to police documents reviewed by Fox 17.
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State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) issued a formal request on Tuesday to obtain agreements between Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy’s Office and three “restorative justice organizations” with the Tennessee District Attorneys Conference (TDAC). Taylor highlighted Mulroy’s agreements with three groups seeking to eliminate bail or decrease the number of his office’s prosecutions.
Taylor charged that “Memphians have a right to know if the agreements between the DA’s office and these outside groups are inconsistent with state laws and policies” in a press release and stressed that Mulroy’s “job is to further his prosecutorial duties, not embark on a restorative justice campaign.”
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Abortion advocacy groups received close to $2 billion in federal taxpayer funding from 2019 to 2021, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released on Tuesday.
The GAO report was first requested in early 2022 by 142 congressional members led by Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn and New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, who underscored their concerns that taxpayer dollars are being used to fund abortion services. The report revealed that Planned Parenthood received approximately $1.78 billion in taxpayer funding from 2019 to 2021 and is receiving increased federal support under the current Biden administration.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) joined a 27-state coalition of state attorneys general on Monday to oppose the new rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) which will require gun owners to conduct background checks and register transactions with the agency any time they sell, gift, or trade a gun.
Skrmetti announced his office will join 26 other state attorneys general and the Arizona State Legislature in a letter “demanding” the ATF drop the rule, arguing it “violates the Second Amendment” and “risks making any individual who sells a firearm for profit liable to civil, administrative, and even criminal penalties for failing to register with a federal agency.”
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The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released a report Tuesday proposing the U.S. revoke China’s permanent normal trade status.
The new report supports three overarching policy objectives: resetting the terms of U.S.-China economic engagement, stemming the flow of U.S. capital and technology to China’s military and building U.S. economic might with allies. Toward that end, the report outlines approximately 150 policy recommendations including new tariffs, disclosure requirements for American companies with ties to China, and strengthening U.S. research security.
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Google lost an antitrust case against popular video game maker Epic Games on Monday, with a jury ruling that the tech giant has an illegal monopoly in its app store.
Epic, which makes Fortnite, alleged that Google stifles competition and imposes excessively costly charges on app makers using its Google Play Store. Epic also alleged that Google illegally connected its app store to its billing service, compelling developers to use both.
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Tennessee’s celebrities and professional sports teams are coming together to support the middle Tennessee communities that were devastated by several tornadoes over the weekend.
Popstar Taylor Swift reportedly donated one million dollars to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, which that group confirmed on its Facebook page.
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President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign faces headwinds ahead of 2024 among a crucial voting bloc that typically backs Democrats by huge margins, a new poll found.
Biden garnered only 63% support from black voters in a GenForward survey from the University of Chicago, while former President Donald Trump received 17% of the share and 20% said they wouldn’t back either candidate, Politico reported Tuesday. Several other recent surveys have also found Biden struggling among the black electorate, with support for the former president surging.
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Chimneyrock Elementary School in Memphis issued a statement after an “After School Satan Club” organized by the Satanic Temple and Reason Alliance is scheduled to take place on school grounds next month.
On its website, the Satanic Temple – the primary religious Satanic organization in the world – says its mission is to “encourage benevolence and empathy, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense, oppose injustice, and undertake noble pursuits.”
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A Michigan-based energy group says recent layoffs and leadership changes don’t change plans to build a $1.6B battery factory in Van Buren Township called ONE Circle.
Michigan taxpayers bet $200 million on Our Next Energy Inc., a technology company that laid off 25% of its staff amid leadership changes.
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Wisconsin’s secretary of state wants one of the state’s Republican elections commissioners to be fired after he settled a lawsuit over Wisconsin’s 2020 Trump electors.
Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski asked the Wisconsin Senate to remove Republican Commissioner Bob Spindell.
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Former Department of Homeland Security advisor Charles Marino said on Tuesday that Governor Katie Hobbs (D) should have done more to address the migrant crisis prior to the federal government’s closure of the Lukeville Point of Entry.
Marino, a security expert who advised the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from 2009 until 2011, made the remarks to John Fredericks on the “Outside the Beltway” program on Real America’s Voice. Fredericks, who is the publisher of The Virginia Star and The Georgia Star News, asked Marino about Arizona’s response to the 17,000 illegal immigrants officials apprehended in Tucson over just one week.
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Although a bill that creates an electric vehicle fee in Pennsylvania cleared a House committee on Monday, it’s unlikely to pass in its current form.
Senate Bill 656, sponsored by Sen. Greg Rothman, R-New Bloomfield, would replace the alternative fuel tax with a $290 EV fee paid at the time of vehicle registration. Owners would also have the option of enrolling in a monthly payment plan.
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Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) revealed on Monday he will seek $90 million in his December 20 budget to fund new research at three Virginia universities that have all suffered from antisemitic protests and demonstrations on their campuses, accusations of antisemitic posts from faculty, or claims of failing to accurately reflect Israel’s position in its defensive war against Hamas at university events.
Youngkin announced in a press release Monday that he is seeking “a total of $90 million in one-time funds to the University of Virginia’s Manning Institute for Biotechnology, Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, and the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Medicines for All Institute” that will require them to work with the Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority to increase “commercialization and startup support” for the institutions.
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A Florida high school has been fined and placed on administrative probation for violating the state’s bylaws by allowing a biologically male student to participate on a female sports team, The Daily Signal has learned.
The move appears to be the first time that a public school has been punished for violating state laws protecting fairness in women’s sports.
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Dozens of protesters shut down an Edina School Board meeting Monday night in a show of support for two Edina High School students who were suspended for using an antisemitic chant during a walkout for Palestine Oct. 26.
The students were suspended for three days for chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” during a student-led walkout in October. Protesters say the students’ First Amendment rights were violated and want the suspensions expunged from the students’ records.
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U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) sent a letter to Irish Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason on Tuesday expressing his concern over a bill in the Irish parliament.
The bill, introduced last year, would combat “hate speech” by amending Irish law “relating to the prohibition of incitement to violence or hatred against a person or a group of persons on account of certain characteristics (referred to as protected characteristics) of the person or the group of persons.”
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Even as Democrats such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse warn of “right-wing dark-money network seeking to undermine the future of democratic elections in the United States,” progressives have far-outstripped Republicans in harnessing the power of putatively non-partisan, nonprofit organizations that push the boundaries to win elections.
More than 150 progressive nonprofits spent $1.35 billion on political activities in 2021 and 2022, according to data compiled by Restoration of America, a conservative political action committee. Although there are no readily available estimates of comparable conservative efforts, observers say they are overmatched.
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The Roswell City Council issued a temporary moratorium on Monday to prohibit the city from granting new licenses for massage parlors in the Fulton County suburb located north of Atlanta. The moratorium follows a number of September human trafficking arrests and law enforcement actions at six massage parlors.
The city approved a resolution “instituting a temporary moratorium on new massage establishment licenses and occupational tax certificates” for 90 days “or until the City has properly amended its ordinances regarding massage establishments.”
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A new CNN poll conducted by SSRS shows former President Donald Trump leading incumbent President Joe Biden in a hypothetical head-to-head 2024 matchup in Georgia.
The poll, published Monday, shows Trump leading Biden by five points, with the former president receiving 49 percent compared to the current president’s 44 percent.
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Progressive organizations are aggressively registering new voters online using special online access implemented under Democratic election officials. In Arizona, the program was launched during COVID-19 in 2020 and is open to groups that intend to register more than 1,000 voters. There was very little news coverage of the program launch other than a press release, and the names of the progressive organizations are no longer listed on the Arizona Secretary of State’s website.
Last year, the list of the progressive groups granted access under then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs was prominently displayed on the site including Chicanos por La Causa, Mi Familia Vota, Equality Arizona, Inspire 2 Vote, One Arizona, Rock the Vote, and The Civics Center. Additionally, three other organizations that nominally sound nonpartisan but lean to the left were the Arizona Student’s Association, the Phoenix Indian Center, and the Arizona Center for Disability Law.
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The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is set to provide House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) with access to over 1,700 emails from Joe Biden’s vice presidency, in the midst of an ongoing impeachment inquiry against him.
According to the Daily Caller, NARA will provide Comer and the committee with 62,610 total pages of records, which includes 1,799 emails and attachments. The emails are all from Biden’s tenure as Vice President, and are all relevant to Hunter Biden and his business relationship with Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy firm at the heart of the corruption accusations against the Bidens. The agency announced its intentions to hand over the documents in a letter to Comer on Monday.
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A former Army medical officer has filed a criminal complaint against his commanding officer, alleging that the major general unlawfully retaliated against him after he made protected whistleblower disclosures about the COVID-19 shots.
After the COVID-19 vaccine mandate was imposed on the military, First Lieutenant Mark Charles Bashaw sent communications up the chain of command alleging violations of military regulations and federal law, and warned of the health risks associated with the shots, the Epoch Times reported.
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Big pharmacies are distributing Americans’ private medical information to law enforcement agencies without a warrant, lawmakers said in a Tuesday letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Law enforcement agencies discreetly get a hold of thousands of Americans’ prescription records per year with no warrant, and often with no legal review, according to Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, Democratic Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Democratic California Rep. Sara Jacobs. The lawmakers are pushing HHS to increase its regulations to protect Americans’ data and require a warrant to obtain it.
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Today’s challenge, game show Jeopardy-style: “They have a particular status in common: Anwar al-Awlaki, Yaser Esam Hamdi, the twin daughters of El Chapo, Chinese children born to US surrogates, and children born in the US to illegal immigrants.”
After seeing the first two names, a contestant would probably be preparing to hit the button to answer something like “What is Islamic terrorism?” – until they finished reading the entire list. The last item would clinch it, and then the fastest button-pusher would confidently offer the politically-correct answer: “What is birthright citizenship?”
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