The family of Kayla Hamilton, a 20-year-old woman killed by an illegal immigrant, plans to sue the Biden administration for $100 million, partially blaming the administration’s immigration enforcement policies for her wrongful death.
The illegal immigrant raped Hamilton and subsequently strangled her with a phone cord. Prior to the murder, he entered the U.S. unlawfully in March 2022, but secured release into the interior under the Biden administration’s directives.
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The Tennessee Education Lottery is celebrating its 20th anniversary this weekend as the Lottery’s first ticket sale took place on January 20, 2004.
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Several House Democrats are weighing trading a border deal in exchange for helping Republican Speaker Mike Johnson keep his gavel as tensions rise over how to address the record surge in illegal immigration amid a contentious election year, Politico reported Friday.
The Senate is expected to unveil a bipartisan border deal soon tied with funding for Ukraine, while Johnson is receiving pressure from former President Donald Trump not to give Democrats a win on the topic ahead of November. As some House conservatives are threatening to oust the new speaker over the prolonged spending fight, several House Democrats have floated opposing such a motion to vacate in exchange for Johnson bringing the eventual Senate deal to the floor, according to Politico.
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On Wednesday, the Republican majority on the House Judiciary Committee revealed even more drastic examples of government surveillance and breaches of privacy in the aftermath of the protest on January 6th, including the searching of Americans’ private bank transactions.
According to Fox News, the Judiciary Committee and the subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government described their latest findings in a letter obtained by Fox. The letter states that investigators ordered banks to search through their customers’ private transactions for key terms such as “MAGA” and “Trump,” while also claiming that the purchasing of “religious texts” were a sign of “extremism.”
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) argued Thursday that Peter Navarro, previously a trade advisor to former President Donald Trump, should face six months in jail and pay $200,000 for failing to comply with a Jan. 6 select committee subpoena.
Prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo Thursday that Navarro “exacerbated” the “assault” on the rule of law that occurred on Jan. 6 by flouting the subpoena, stating that his “bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt deserves severe punishment.” Navarro was indicted on contempt of Congress charges in June 2022 after he declined to testify during his deposition and did not produce the documents requested by the select committee.
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A coalition of far-left groups and donors are already putting plans in place to actively block a second Trump Administration’s agenda in the event that former President Donald Trump wins again in November of 2024.
According to the Daily Caller, some of the organizations involved include Protect Democracy, Georgetown University’s Institution for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP), and Democracy Forward. These are among the many other groups that are financially backed by the far-left billionaire George Soros and his international network, as well as other left-wing mega-donors such as eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
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Ford is cutting back production of its F-150 Lightning electric vehicle (EV), a model that President Joe Biden took for a test drive to market his administration’s EV agenda.
Ford made the official announcement that it will be reducing its F-150 Lightning output in 2024 amid slower-than-projected growth in EV demand. Biden test drove a F-150 Lightning in Michigan in May 2021 to promote his administration’s EV agenda, which aims for EVs to make up 50% of all new auto sales by 2030.
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A member of the Tennessee Three indicated on Friday that he may back a primary challenger against State Representative Johnny Shaw (D-Bolivar) for a seat in the Tennessee General Assembly that Democrats have held for nearly 25 years. The remarks came after Shaw refused to join other Democrats in an ineffectual vote against rules in the Tennessee House designed to prevent chaotic speeches and insults.
Representative Justin Pearson (D-Memphis), one of the three members of the Tennessee House who faced expulsion last year, told The Tennessee Lookout on Friday that, while he respects Shaw as a “black American in this country” born in an “era in American history of legalized subjugation of black people,” he will nonetheless seek to find and support Democratic candidates who “align with the vision of a more just Tennessee” in 2024.
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The election process known as ranked choice voting isn’t compatible with one of the oldest state constitutions in America, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, says.
Tong released an 11-page legal opinion Tuesday stating that the system of voting, which allows voters to rank their choices of candidates, violates at least two standing provisions of the Connecticut Constitution. The state’s attorney general said it was a “close call,” however.
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In his recent State of the State address, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp strongly endorsed Georgia’s education freedom legislation, which offers disadvantaged Georgians the same quality education as everyone else. “Our job is not to decide for every family but to support them in making the best [education] choice for their child,” said Kemp. “That is what we were elected to do.”
Senate Bill 233, the Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, establishes education freedom accounts (EFAs) of $6,500 annually for families who choose better education alternatives. Eligibility is limited to families whose children attend the worst 25% of schools statewide. Parents can use the funds for any educational expense, including tuition, fees, books, tutoring, and transportation. This bill should be the legislature’s top priority in 2024.
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A new legal filing claims to contain proof that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she appointed to oversee her case against former President Donald Trump, are engaged in a romantic relationship. Containing financial statements showing he purchased plane tickets for Willis, the filing was made by the special prosecutor’s estranged wife, Jocelyn Wade, in response to Willis’ filing, which claimed she was attempting to “embarrass” and “harass” her by including Willis in the divorce proceedings.
The filing in the divorce case reveals he was previously held in contempt of court for refusing to comply with discovery obligations in the case, despite himself initiating the divorce. When Nathan Wade eventually supplied “a portion of his outstanding required discovery responses” on December 22, 2023, his estranged wife’s legal team received “credit card statements which demonstrated that [Wade] had paid for and taken trips unrelated to his work with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office.”
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The latest version of a Parental Bill of Rights has cleared its first major hurdle at the Wisconsin Capitol, but it’s not expected to get much further.
The State Assembly on Thursday approved AB 510, which spells out the rights that parents in the state have over their own children.
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Arizona continues to see job growth while unemployment remains slightly higher than the national average.
The state saw 8,100 nonfarm jobs increase from November to December, and year-over-year saw 64,800 nonfarm jobs added, according to a non-seasonally adjusted figure.
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Ohio businesses were more optimistic in December but still well below normal, citing inflation as their biggest concern, according to a new survey from the National Federation of Independent Business.
The most recent study showed the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rose 1.3 points in December to 91.9 but is still well below the 50-year average of 98. It’s the 24th consecutive month the index failed to meet the long-term benchmark.
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In Florida, the state Board of Education passed new regulations prohibiting public colleges from using public funds for programs and initiatives based on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
As ABC News reports, the Florida Board of Education categorizes such DEI efforts as “any program, campus activity, or policy that classifies individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation and promotes differential or preferential treatment of individuals on the basis of such classification.”
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Democratic members of Congress criticized presidential candidate Dean Phillips after he removed the word “diversity” from his campaign website.
Phillips’ website renamed a section titled “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” to “Equity & Restorative Justice” on Tuesday, according to Politico. The move drew criticism from fellow Democrats, with one arguing he had been influenced by a $1 million donation from billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.
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Uh oh.
I’m in trouble now.
Last December, I walked into a Cabela’s on my way to Christmas vacation. I needed, you see, a gift card for my cousins. A Christmas present. They love the outdoors. Hikers and nature lovers, they have grown fond of Cabela’s. So what else to give them but, of course, a Cabela’s gift card?
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The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) saw the amount of donations from China more than triple in its most recent reporting period, shortly after the university faced a scandal regarding Joe Biden’s storage of classified documents in his think tank’s offices at the university.
As reported by Fox News, the surge in foreign donations was revealed in documents obtained by Americans for Public Trust (APT). With donations from individuals and entities directly tied to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the university saw roughly $25 million in such donations during the 2022-2023 academic year. By contrast, the academic year of 2021-2022 saw just $8.6 million from China.
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Former Michigan GOP Rep. Justin Amash said Thursday that he is considering running for Senate in 2024.
“Today I’m launching the Justin Amash for Senate Exploratory Committee as I consider entering the race,” Amash wrote on the social media platform, X, on which he cites himself as a libertarian.
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Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order to implement artificial intelligence standards and guidelines he says will protect Virginians.
Executive Order 30 will implement AI educational guidelines for the classroom and policy and information technology standards. He says it will “safeguard the state’s databases while simultaneously protecting individual data” for Virginians.
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Hosted by legendary country singer Clint Black, America Salutes You Presents ‘A Concert For Gratitude’ that will air on five distribution platforms from January 20th – February 20th.
This televised event mobilizes support for our troops and first responders through music with its eighth event and telecast. The TV special features performances by Clint Black (with Lisa Hartman Black and Lily Pearl Black) Chrissy Metz, Dustin Lynch, Jo Dee Messina, Alana Springsteen, Megan Moroney, Walker Hayes, Charles Esten, Lecrae, War Hippies and Lee Greenwood (celebrating the 40th anniversary of “God Bless the USA.”) Craig Morgan, Jelly Roll and Trace Adkins will have special performances and Gary Sinise was honored with the America Salutes You Lifetime Achievement Award.
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Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has appealed to the state’s Superior Court decision to pause on a ruling to remove former President Donald Trump from the primary ballot.
Bellows is appealing the Superior Court’s ruling to not decide on the ballot case to the Maine Supreme Court. The court is awaiting the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Colorado.
Earlier this week, Kennebec County Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy issued the stay on the Maine secretary of state’s decision to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the primary ballot, citing the 14th Amendment.
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Some 99% of American companies are small businesses, and 100% of businesses started out small, but a recently finalized rule from the Biden administration’s Labor Department will make it harder for small businesses to start, grow and succeed.
As of last May 1, a White House news release pointed out, “Young firms, which often start small with few employees, are a driving force in job creation.” That’s been particularly true since the COVID-19 pandemic, as small businesses with fewer than 50 employees have accounted for a growing share of new jobs.
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Thousands of people attended the annual March for Life, joined by high-profile advocates and speakers, in Washington, D.C., on Friday to oppose abortion amid a massive snowstorm that blanketed the city.
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An elementary school Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) affiliated with Sylvan Park Paideia Elementary in Nashville is holding a “diversity night” featuring guest speakers who will offer information about “LGBTQ+ identities” and “how to support elementary kids through these identities” on February 8.
According to an event listing on the Sylvan Park school website, supporting elementary school children who do not identify as heterosexual “starts with educating and supporting the parents/caregivers and educators about these identities so children feel comfortable to talk about their own process as well as their peers’ process.”
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Attorney General Austin Knudsen of Montana stopped an abortion ballot proposal from going through on Tuesday, claiming it was “legally insufficient,” according to the Montana Free Press.
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana launched the ballot initiative in November 2023, which would prevent “the government from denying or burdening the right to abortion before fetal viability,” according to the Idaho Capital Sun. Knudsen dismissed the proposal, arguing in a memorandum that it was “legally insufficient” and “logrolls multiple distinct political choices into a single initiative,” the Montana Free Press reported.
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Four Tennessee U.S. Representatives voted against a continuing resolution on Thursday that would fund the government through March 1 and March 8.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) joined a group of bipartisan representatives on Thursday to announce his support for a resolution allowing new moms in Congress to vote by proxy up to six weeks postpartum.
Clause 2 of rule III of the Rules of the House of Representatives currently reads as follows:
A vote by a member of a committee or subcommittee with respect to any measure or matter may not be cast by proxy.
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Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security Mark Green (R-TN-07) led all Republican committee members in calling for the impeachment of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
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Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon asked the Biden administration to investigate a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member’s multimillion dollar purchase of Oregon land, according to a letter shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Chavez-DeRemer sent a letter to the Treasury Department on Wednesday expressing “deep concern” that the second-largest foreign owner of farmland in the U.S. is a “Chinese billionaire and Member of the Chinese Communist Party.” Chen Tianqiao, who is a CCP member, purchased nearly 200,000 acres of Oregon timberland for $85 million in 2015, Chavez-DeRemer’s letter states, citing a recent DCNF investigation.
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Sebastian Gorka called for the release of the manifesto written by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a transgender man who fatally shot three 9-year-old students and three faculty members at the Covenant School in Nashville last year after the FBI recently arrested an Oregon man for threatening to kill “trans phobic a*****s.”
Gorka, who served as the deputy assistant for former President Donald Trump, shared a post about the story of the Oregon man, adding, “Where’s the Nashville Transkiller’s manifesto[?] #TransTerrorism.”
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Top pharmaceutical companies raised the list price on 775 brand-name drugs in just the first half of January, even as President Joe Biden aims to keep prices low, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The median price hike of the drugs was around 4.5%, with some rising by 10% or more, despite an inflation rate of 3.4% year-over-year in December, according to data from 46brooklyn Research acquired by the WSJ. The price hikes are in contrast to the president’s efforts to tame rising drug prices, taking actions such as imposing automatic rebates to Medicare for drugmakers that raise their prices faster than the price of inflation, which first went into effect in December, affecting 48 drugs covered under Medicare Part B.
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Georgia Agricultural Commissioner Tyler Harper released on Tuesday a letter he wrote to Georgia’s congressional delegation last month which urged them to pause the proposed wage increase for foreign farm labor, warning the raise would add millions in new labor costs for family-owned Georgia farms.
A press release revealed Harper warned in his letter that “the Biden administration’s proposed H-2A Program Adverse Effects Wage Rate increase for 2024” will “add an estimated $50 million to Georgia producer’s on-farm labor costs” over the year, and the “arbitrary increase” would come as farmers already face “sky-high input costs and inflation.”
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Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced Thursday the Department of Justice (DOJ), three states, and the District of Columbia all joined his antitrust lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) Transfer Eligibility Rule this week.
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A bill in the Virginia General Assembly, submitted by Delegate Rae Cousins (D-Richmond), would allow convicted criminals in the commonwealth to petition for their sentence to be terminated after serving 15 years, regardless of the crime they committed.
Cousin’s HB 855, according to the bill’s summary, “Provides a process for a person serving a sentence for any conviction or a combination of any convictions who remains incarcerated in a state or local correctional facility or secure facility” and meets criteria established in the law.
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The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) announced another delay in Arizona on Thursday, this time revealing its second factory in the state will take another year to be completed, and may not create less advanced semiconductors than its first. The company’s chairman, Mark Liu, said in an earnings call that the schedule will depend on “incentives” secured from the Biden administration.
Asked about the initial Arizona delay and what effect it would have on TSMC’s second facility in the state, Liu confirmed “a gap,” with the company currently planning for it to begin production 2027 or 2028.
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The post-Joe McCarthy era and the candidacy of Barry Goldwater once prompted liberal political scientist Richard Hofstadter to chronicle a supposedly long-standing right-wing “paranoid style” of conspiracy-fed extremism.
But far more common, especially in the 21st century, has been a left-wing, hysterical style of inventing scandals and manipulating perceived tensions for political advantage.
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An attempt to close the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary election to allow only Republican voters has failed so far, even though opening it to all voters may have violated the law. Karen Testerman, who serves as chair of the Merrimack County Republican Committee, unsuccessfully ran for governor, and whose husband is New Hampshire State Representative David Testerman (R-Franklin), drafted a resolution that was adopted by the New Hampshire Republican Party a year ago demanding that New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan close the primaries. She also sued him last fall, but the lawsuit was dismissed on January 9, with the judge stating Testerman and the other plaintiffs did not have standing.
According to The New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism (NHCPIJ), Scanlan said he couldn’t close the primary until he received a letter from the New Hampshire Republican Party (NHGOP) chair instructing him to do so, citing RSA 659:14-2 in Special Provisions for State and Presidential Primary Elections.
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Occasionally, you meet an artist, and you know they were born with a gift. At age 17, Ashley Anne wrote/released her first single, “Dear Dolly,” a song that she penned entirely on her own.
And while Dolly Parton is arguably the most popular country star on the planet, most people of Anne’s peer group only know “Jolene” and probably don’t realize that Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You” and may not have ever heard Whitney Houston’s version of it.
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One-third of Americans say that President Joe Biden is guilty of corruption and should be impeached, including some Democrats, according to a new poll.
The Center Square Voter’s Voice Poll found that 34% of likely voters say “Joe Biden is guilty of corruption and should be impeached.” An additional 35% said it’s not clear if the president did anything wrong but that a Republican-led House investigation into the president should continue.
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The mass shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, could have been stopped sooner if it were not for significant law enforcement failures, according to a scathing Justice Department report released Thursday.
Police had “cascading failures” in their response to the shooting on May 24, 2022, according to a nearly 600-page federal report, which slams first responders for a lack of leadership and demonstrating “no urgency” in creating a command post, among other things, per The Associated Press.
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Applicants who self-identified as a member of a race the Academy wished to privilege—at the time I was on the Admissions Board it was African American, Hispanic, and Native American—were briefed separately to the committee not by a white member but by a minority Navy lieutenant. Briefings (a minute and forty seconds per applicant, no more) ran through a number of factors quite quickly and offered a recommendation that we had been told was appropriate: “qualified” for USNA if grades A/B for white applicants (but not minorities, who needed only C grades), 600 score in each part of the SAT for white applicants (but about 550 for minorities who come to USNA without remediation), and Whole Person Multiple (points given for grades/tests, school leadership positions, and sports) of at least 55,000 for whites, no bottom for minorities.
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The Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) confirmed 14 Tennesseans died due to the winter weather and extreme cold in the state.
“The Tennessee Department of Health has confirmed 14 weather-related fatalities. Five in Shelby County, one in Hickman County, one in Madison County, two in Washington County, one in Carroll County, one in Knox County, one in Van Buren County, one in Lauderdale County, and one in Henry County,” the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) wrote in its Wednesday evening Flash Report.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti told The Tennessee Star in a Thursday phone interview that his office’s unredacted lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, shows the company is using strategies to increase Instagram user engagement which are “catastrophic” to teenage girls, and warned that other social media companies may soon land within his crosshairs.
Speaking to The Star, Skrmetti explained that his office’s unredacted complaint against Meta, which it released last week, outlines “a very sophisticated effort by a very sophisticated company to design a product that kids would have a hard time not using.” Meta’s focus on children, Skrmetti said, was motivated by a desire to keep them using the platforms into adulthood, when the company will have collected years worth of data that can be used by advertisers.
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House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green sent a letter late Wednesday to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking that he fulfill 173 outstanding requests from the committee for documents, information and briefings, according to a copy of the request first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Green is handling the impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas over the crisis at the southern border and the committee is holding the second hearing in the process Thursday. Under Mayorkas’ leadership, illegal immigration has surged to record levels with Border Patrol recording more than 2.2 million migrant encounters at the southern border in fiscal year 2022 and more than 2 million in fiscal year 2023, according to federal data.
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Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York will attempt to censure Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the chair of the House Republican Conference, over comments regarding the events of January 6, 2021.
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Arizona and Tennessee tied with equal proportions of new residents moving in versus out of the states in 2023, with both states seeing about 61 percent of moves bringing new residents. Despite tying in percentages, Arizona was ranked second and Tennessee was ranked third by in the 2023 Allied US Moving Migration Report.
The data, which tracks migration patterns within the United States and is published by Allied Van Lines, showed that 60.8 of interstate moves in Tennessee and Arizona were new residents moving from elsewhere in the country, while just 39.2 percent of interstate moves saw residents leave the states. At 60.8 percent, Tennessee and Arizona are only edged out by South Carolina, where 64.7 percent of interstate moves brought new residents.
Data released in the 2023 Allied US Moving Migration Report, which tracks migration patterns within the United States and is published by Allied Van Lines, showed that 60.8 of interstate moves in Tennessee and Arizona were new residents moving from elsewhere in the country, while just 39.2 percent of interstate moves saw residents leave the states. At 60.8 percent, Tennessee and Arizona are only edged out by South Carolina, where 64.7 percent of interstate moves brought new residents.
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Ranked choice voting, in which voters rank candidates on a ballot rather than choose one, may harm black and Native American voters disproportionately, according to a new study by a Princeton University professor.
Minority candidates also may be undercut by ranked choice voting, said Nolan McCarty, a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs and vice dean for academic assessment.
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The Food and Drug Administration wants to continue its selective promotion of off-label drug use: good for COVID-19 vaccines, bad for alternatives to those vaccines. It just doesn’t want the public to see its full reasoning for the latter.
The FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services filed a renewed motion to dismiss a lawsuit by doctors claiming the agencies have a practice of demonizing ivermectin by conflating its human and animal doses and using “command” language, such as “stop it,” to discourage using the anti-parasite drug against COVID.
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On Tuesday, the Supreme Court refused to intervene in a case that could have potentially set a nationwide precedent on the question of transgender bathroom policies in school districts.
As ABC News reports, the case in question stems from an Indiana public school district, the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville, which is located about 30 miles southwest of Indianapolis. Most recently, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a previous order determining that biological females can use the male restroom, and vice-versa. A similar ruling was made by the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, while the appeals court in Atlanta ruled against such policies.
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