Day: January 17, 2024

Julie Kelly: ‘J6 Defendants Are Subjected to Highly Biased Judges and Juries’ in Washington, D.C.

Tennessee Star Staff
Julie Kelly

Investigative journalist Julie Kelly joined the newsmaker line on Wednesday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss the very latest on the thousand-plus cases of January 6 defendants being prosecuted by the Biden Department of Justice.  TRANSCRIPT Michael Patrick Leahy: Good afternoon, Nashville. It’s 12:05 PM. We are, indeed, broadcasting live from our studios in downtown Nashville. In-studio, the original all-star panelist, Crom Carmichael. Welcome back, Crom. Crom Carmichael: Thank you. Michael Patrick Leahy: On our newsmaker line right now, it is my privilege to welcome perhaps the very best journalist in the country covering the January 6th defendant cases. In fact, the best journalist – let me take any qualifier away from that. I am so delighted to call her my friend, Julie Kelly. Welcome to The Tennessee Star Report. Julie Kelly: Oh, thank you, Michael. Quite an introduction. Thank you so much for having me on, and thanks for covering all my work. I really appreciate it. Michael Patrick Leahy: Well, certainly well-deserved. I mean, you have just been tenacious in reporting the facts about the travesties of justice going on. A two-tiered justice system where these January 6th defendants are not being given fair…

Read the full story

DOJ Supreme Court Filing Reveals Details Inconsistent with DHS Narrative Blaming Texas for Migrant Drownings

ADN America
CBP Help

A new Supreme Court filing by the Department of Justice (DOJ) raises new questions that could help exonerate the Texas Military Department after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) English) accuse the state agency of allowing the deaths of three migrants who drowned in Shelby Park last week.

Both the White House and Biden’s Department of Homeland Security blamed state officials after three migrants, including two children, drowned in the Shelby Park area.

Read the full story

China Finishes Off Year with Sluggish Growth as Economy Fails to Recover

Admin
China flag

China’s economy grew at a rate of 5.2% in 2023, failing to return to the same growth of around 6% year-over-year that was common before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The year’s growth was an improvement on the even worse growth in 2022, which totaled just 3% for that year, and economists expect similar sluggish growth in 2024 unless a big policy change occurs, according to the WSJ. A number of different indicators added to the dismal report, including real growth in urban disposable income, which grew at just 4.8% in 2023 and was the lowest year since 2002, barring 2020 and 2022.

Read the full story

State Senator Mark Pody Shares Insights on Franchise Excise Tax Issue and Legislative Timelines

Tennessee Star Staff
Mark Pody

State Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) told listeners on Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy that legislative timelines could be impacted after lawmakers were sent home for the week due to severe winter weather. Pody added that the new bill filing deadline could be extended, but it currently stands on February 1.

The Wilson County-area state senator also offered an update on his newly introduced school safety measure and noted that its funding would be included in the current budget.

Pody also confirmed that the possible constitutional issue concerning out-of-state companies threatening legal action over the franchise excise tax is being studied and added that the fiscal fallout may cause some programs to be delayed by a year.

Read the full story

Congress Reaches Deal to Increase Child Tax Credit, Negotiate Tax Treaty with Taiwan

Admin
Family Learning

Congressional negotiators from the Senate and House of Representatives announced a deal on Tuesday to increase the child tax credit and negotiate a new bilateral tax treaty with Taiwan, among other matters.

The child tax credit was first enacted in 1997 to provide parents with greater funds to care for children under the age of 17 and was expanded in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan Act, though that expansion expired in 2022 and has not been reauthorized. The new deal — known as the “The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024” — reached between Democrats and Republicans in Congress will change the way the tax credit is calculated, increase the credit every year until 2025 and index it to inflation, according to a technical summary of the plan published by the House Ways and Means Committee.

Read the full story

FAA Pushes to Hire People with ‘Severe Intellectual, Psychiatric’ Disabilities in the Name of Diversity

Admin
FAA

In a new statement, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced that it intends to expand its push for diversity hires by hiring people who suffer from “severe intellectual” disabilities.

As reported by Fox News, the FAA’s website clearly states its intentions on the page for a hiring initiative focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. The site says that “targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring.”

Read the full story

Art Dealer Told Congress That Joe Biden Called and Met Him While He Sold Hunter Biden’s Paintings

Just the News
Georges Berges

The art dealer who sold Hunter Biden’s paintings told Congress that President Joe Biden both called and met him at the White House as he was pitching Hunter’s artwork and that the first son also made an unusual request to be informed about who bought his pieces, according to testimony that directly undercuts the White House narrative on the sales.

The Biden White House repeatedly told the public that Hunter Biden’s art sales were covered by an ethics agreement to ensure they were arms-length and that the first family — Hunter included — was blinded to the identity of buyers.

Read the full story

Tennessee Valley Authority Requests ‘Voluntary Curtailment’ to ‘Reduce Electric Consumption’ but Predicts No Blackouts

Tom Pappert

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on Tuesday began asking utility companies to request their customers voluntarily curtail their power usage in an effort to “reduce electric consumption” as frigid weather slows much of the country, but the federally owned power company recently told Tennessee media outlets it does not expect rolling blackouts to occur because of winter weather in 2024.

Energy companies in Alabama and Kentucky have confirmed the TVA is requesting their customers decrease their energy use, with Huntsville Utilities in Alabama explained in a news release that “dangerously low temperatures” and “the expected high electric demand” prompted TVA to request “voluntary curtailment across their entire system.”

Read the full story

Commentary: Only Trump Can Save America

RealClearWire

I believed that Republican voters were ready for a new post-Trump chapter of the America First movement. I now believe I was wrong. Those of us who backed Ron DeSantis – or the other Republican candidates – should read the room. Former President Trump winnowed the field effortlessly and then crushed the remaining three candidates in Iowa. He leads in the polls everywhere else. It is time to coalesce and unite behind the clear preference of the GOP grassroots, Donald John Trump.

Read the full story

YoungkinWatch: Governor Says 2023 Revenues Met Expectations After Forecasting Recession in New Budget

Tom Pappert
Glenn Youngkin

Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a Monday statement that Virginia revenues met his office’s expectation during the first half of the 2023 fiscal year. The governor’s confirmation comes as he seeks to pass his new budget, which forecasts a “mild recession” in the next two years.

Youngkin’s office confirmed in its press release that “general fund revenues for December 2023 remain in line with updated revisions to the official revenue forecast,” and state revenues grew by 0.2 percent and 7.1 percent over the course of the year.

Read the full story

Trump Leads Biden by 8 Points in First Georgia Poll Released Since Fani Willis Allegations

Tom Pappert
Trump Biden

Former President Donald Trump has a commanding lead over President Joe Biden in Georgia, according to the results of the first poll of Peach State voters since it was alleged that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is romantically entangled with Nathan Wade, who she appointed to prosecute her case against Trump.

The Tuesday Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll was conducted between January 3 and January 11, while the legal filing containing allegations Trump and Wade are in a romantic relationship became public on January 8. Pollsters contacted 1,007 registered voters in Georgia to gather their data, which they reported had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.

Read the full story

Forward Party in Pennsylvania Targets More Local Victories

The Center Square
Andrew Yang

A growing dissatisfaction with America’s two-party system might make voters more open to supporting an alternative candidate this year – something the Forward Party is banking on. 

Forward’s current goals are to get candidates on the ballot in swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and achieve official party status – both statewide and nationally.

Read the full story

Florida AG Calls on Congress Again to Impeach Mayorkas as House Proceedings Continue

The Center Square
Secretary Mayorkas

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is once again calling on Congress to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for failing to secure U.S. borders as the U.S. House continues its proceedings this week in an effort to do so.

The U.S. House Homeland Security Committee is scheduled to hold its second hearing on Thursday targeting Mayorkas.

Read the full story

DFL Will Soon Have Monopoly of Appointees on Minnesota Supreme Court

Admin
Tim Walz

Justice G. Barry Anderson, the lone remaining Republican appointee on the Minnesota Supreme Court, announced his retirement last week after serving nearly 20 years as one of the state’s top judges.

Anderson notified Gov. Tim Walz on Thursday of his decision to step down from the court on May 10. Anderson turns 70 in October, the age of mandatory retirement that’s required by Minnesota statute.

Read the full story

Anti-Sinema PAC Releases Ad Bashing Senator One Day After Kari Lake Ad Calls Gallego, Sinema Biden’s ‘Enablers’

Tom Pappert
Replace Sinema PAC

A political action committee that endorses Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ-03) released a new advertisement targeting Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) on Tuesday, with its release timed one day after Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake released her own commercial labeling Gallego and Sinema as “enablers” of President Joe Biden.

“When Republicans take back the U.S. Senate, we will fix the problems caused by [Biden] and his enablers [Sinema] and [Gallego],” wrote Lake in a Monday post to X, formerly Twitter, containing her campaign’s new ad.

Read the full story

Commentary: A Pointless Republican Primary

Admin
Trump AF1

President Trump will almost certainly be the Republican nominee. He is far ahead in every primary poll. His supporters originally worried that he would be too polarizing and would go down in flames in the general election, but it appears he will also win the general election against incompetent, unpopular, and increasingly demented Joe Biden.

Indictments, lawfare, media propaganda, and phalanx-style opposition from the organs of conservatism have all been arrayed against Trump. He has also earned the contempt of the managerial class’s elite: the judges, the academics, and the think tankers, as well as the GS and SES class around Washington, D.C.

Read the full story

Commentary: Moderna Came Up with a Vaccine Against Vaccine Dissent

RealClearWire
Moderna Vaccine

Finances at the vaccine manufacturer Moderna began to fall almost as quickly as they had risen, as most Americans resisted getting yet another COVID booster shot. The pharmaceutical company, whose pioneering mRNA vaccine had turned it from small startup to biotech giant worth more than $100 billion in just a few years, reported a third-quarter loss last year of $3.6 billion, as most Americans refused to get another COVID booster shot.

In a September call aimed at shoring up investors, Moderna’s then-chief commercial officer, Arpa Garay, attributed some of the hesitancy pummeling Moderna’s numbers to uninformed vaccine skeptics. “Despite some misinformation,” Garay said, COVID-19 still drove significant hospitalizations. “It really is a vaccine that’s relevant across all age groups,” she insisted.

Read the full story

Billionaire Bill Ackman Boosts Democrat Dean Phillips’ Presidential Campaign with $1 Million

Just the News
Dean Phillips

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is giving Rep. Dean Phillips a $1 million donation to boost the Minnesota Democratic congressman’s 2024 presidential primary bid against President Joe Biden. 

Ackman, who has already made the maximum individual campaign donation of $3,300 to Phillips, said he plans on donating $1 million to We Deserve Better, a political action committee supporting Phillips, on Tuesday, according to a post the financier made over the weekend on X, formerly Twitter.

Read the full story

Commentary: The SITE Act Could Save Tennesseans Millions in Healthcare Spending

Admin

The escalating cost of health care in America has reached an unsustainable level, leaving millions of Americans saddled with medical debt. In Tennessee alone, 61 percent of residents have grappled with the burden of health care affordability, with 78 percent expressing concerns about affording health care in the future. As many of my fellow college students would agree, working within the confines of a tight budget means that the impact of high medical bills is that much more acute. And as a concerned and engaged citizen, I feel compelled to shine a spotlight on these critical affordability issues that impact everyone in my community.

 High health care costs have rightfully become the focus of intense scrutiny. Many Americans are wrestling with all-too-high medical bills, and government health care programs consistently rank among the largest annual federal expenditures. With an aging population and an ever-changing public health environment, it is incumbent upon our elected officials to examine more solutions to bring down health care costs.

Read the full story

Senator James Lankford Commentary: The Abortion Industry’s ‘Very Safe’ Lie Is Putting Women at Very Big Risk

Admin
James Lankford

It sounds so simple. Take these pills, and your problem will be over—except, it isn’t. People do not forget an event so significant. A few months ago, social media went into a frenzy when Britney Spears shared that she was pressured by her boyfriend 20 years ago to take abortion pills. After two decades she still described the chemical abortion as “one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.” She is not alone.

The abortion industry has worked overtime to convince women that chemical abortions are “very safe”—even making the claim that they are safer than Tylenol. They attempt to conflate chemical abortions with contraceptive pills to push them on moms as a “safe” way to end a pregnancy. But the drugs used in a chemical abortion are far more dangerous.

Read the full story

New York Manufacturing Sees Biggest Plunge Since Pandemic Lockdowns

Admin
Blue Collar

The index for New York state’s general business conditions fell by 29 points to -43.7 for January, with a negative number indicating a contraction, declining to the lowest point since May 2020 when the state was struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey from the Federal Reserve of New York.

Accompanying the decline and contraction in general business conditions, shipments fell 25 index points, the number of unfilled orders remained high at -24.2 index points and the amount of inventory held shrank to -7.4 index points, according to the Empire State Manufacturing Survey conducted between Jan. 3 and 10. Despite poor current conditions, optimism about future activity levels by businesses increased, with the index rising 7 points but still remaining relatively low at 18.8 points, indicating that businesses expect an economic expansion in the coming months.

Read the full story

DOJ Attorney Playing Key Role in Jack Smith’s Prosecution of Trump Worked on Case That Put Pro-Life Activist in Jail

Admin
Molly Gaston

One of the prosecutors helping special counsel Jack Smith prosecute former President Donald Trump for alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election also worked on a high-profile case against a pro-life activist.

Molly Gaston, a prosecutor who spent years in the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s Office and is now playing a key role on Smith’s team, worked on the early stages of the prosecution of pro-life activist Lauren Handy. Handy had been in jail since August when she, along with four co-defendants, were found guilty of violating the Freedom of Access To Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for blocking access to a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic in 2020.

Read the full story

Gates Foundation Announces Intentions for Record-Breaking Donations in 2024

Admin
Gates Foundation

On Monday, the left-wing Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced from the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland that it intends to spend billions of dollars on left-wing causes in the year 2024.

According to the Daily Caller, the foundation’s board of trustees voted in favor of a record-high budget of $8.6 billion in 2024, up from the previous year’s $8.3 billion and $7 billion in 2022. The foundation has a history of spending millions on such causes as abortion, pro-Democrat nonprofits, and Chinese government entities.

Read the full story