Day: February 2, 2024

Sen. Blackburn Slams Big Tech Companies in Fox Interview

Peter D'Abrosca
Sen. Marsha Blackburn Fox News

A U.S. Senator from Tennessee took to Fox News to slam Big Tech companies over the dangers their platforms pose to America’s youth. 

“You know, I wish that each one of those [tech executives] would have taken their turn at apologizing to those parents,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told Harris Faulkner on “The Faulkner Focus.” “You look at the amount of pornographic material on X, you look at what Snap has done, connecting kids to pedophiles and drug dealers, TikTok, with the kids that have done these TikTok challenges and lost their lives, Discord which is used for chats and gaming, and kids are meeting really bad actors. Every one of them owed those parents that were in that room an apology and those kids – friends of kids – who had lost their lives that showed up wearing those t-shirts. Some were worth more than $230 which is what [Meta CEO Mark] Zuckerberg said a teen was worth to them on social media.” 

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Neil W. McCabe Discusses James O’Keefe Going ‘Back to His Roots’ in Undercover Video of Top White House Cyber Official

Kaitlin Housler
James O'Keefe

National political reporter Neil W. McCabe joined Thursday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss James O’Keefe’s recent undercover investigation involving a top White House Cyber Official’s depiction of the Biden administration.

O’Keefe, founder of O’Keefe Media Group, wore a disguise while on a “date” with Charlie Kraiger, cybersecurity policy analyst and foreign affairs executive office of the President, where Kraiger revealed the extent of the alleged coverup of President Joe Biden’s health and the tension between Vice President Kamala Harris and her staff.

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Neil W. McCabe, Dr. Carol Swain Analyze How Former Harvard President Claudine Gay Was Able to ‘Get Away’ with Plagiarism

Kaitlin Housler
Claudine Gay

National political reporter Neil W. McCabe and Dr. Carol M. Swain joined Thursday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss the latest developments surrounding Swain’s battle with Harvard University regarding its former president’s alleged plagiarism of her and other scholars’ work.

In December 2023, writer and activist Christopher Rufo accused then-Harvard University President Claudine Gay of plagiarizing “multiple sections” of Swain’s Ph.D. thesis from 1997.

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Dr. Carol M. Swain: ‘You Can be Dumb as Rocks and Go to Harvard’

Kaitlin Housler
Carol Swain Harvard

Dr. Carol M. Swain joined Thursday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss the latest developments surrounding her battle with Harvard University regarding its former president’s alleged plagiarism of her and other scholars’ work as well as the overall decline of the university as it attempts to implement a new “standard.”

In December 2023, writer and activist Christopher Rufo accused then-Harvard University President Claudine Gay of plagiarizing “multiple sections” of Swain’s Ph.D. thesis from 1997.

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Tennessee U.S. Senator Hagerty Endorses Kari Lake for Senate

Peter D'Abrosca
Sen Hagerty Kari Lake

A U.S. senator from Tennessee on Friday endorsed Kari Lake, who is running for U.S. Senate in Arizona.

“I’m honored to endorse my friend Kari Lake to be Arizona’s next U.S. Senator. Kari is a strong, principled conservative, who knows and loves the people of Arizona and will make them proud as their elected representative,” Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) said in statement. “Kari is fearless, she doesn’t back down, and she will fight tirelessly to secure our border and make our country safe and prosperous. The stakes could not be higher and it is now more important than ever that we retake the Republican majority and get our country back on the right track for all working American families and citizens.”

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Dem Governor Closes Cherished Sports Center in Majority-Black Boston Suburb for Four Months So It Can Be Used to House Illegal Aliens

Admin

Daily Mail A deprived Boston community has been left ‘on fire’ after the governor of Massachusetts requisitioned a vital rec center to house the surge of migrants arriving in the city. Democrat Maura Healey was accused of treating the Roxbury neighborhood ‘like garbage’ after she locked residents out of the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex with less than 48 hours notice. She insisted it was needed to house the new arrivals, dozens of whom have been sleeping rough in the city’s airport for months. READ THE FULL STORY    

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Election Integrity Watchdog Recommends 14 Reforms for States to Improve Election Security

Just the News
People Voting

As the 2024 election cycle begins, the Honest Elections Project releases its report on 14 election reforms that states should make to protect the integrity of elections. 

With the 2024 presidential primary elections underway, a bipartisan election integrity watchdog has released its updated report on election reforms that they say will help secure their elections. Some of these reforms have been considered or implemented in various states since the 2020 presidential election, during which there were numerous irregularities and inequities. 

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Oregon GOP State Senators Who Staged Walkout over Abortion Can’t Run for Reelection, High Court Says

Just the News
Oregon Supreme Court

The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that 10 Republican state senators are ineligible to run for reelection after they participated in a quorum-denying walkout for six weeks last year to stall legislation on abortion, transgender treatments and firearms.

The high court decided in favor of Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, who had disqualified the senators from running for office again after voters approved a measure in 2022 to amend the state constitution to ban lawmakers with more than 10 unexcused absences from running again. 

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Job Cuts Soar as Employers Look for Ways to Lower Costs

Admin
Frustrated Worker

The number of job cuts by American employers surged in January as companies looked to lower operating costs to adjust to harsh economic conditions, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, Inc.

The number of positions cut by employers in January jumped 136%, with 82,307 positions cut compared to the 34,817 cut in December, according to a report from Challenger, Gray and Christmas. The job cuts come amid a wider U.S. layoff trend due to broader economic struggles, like inflation and adjustments from automation.

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Tennessee to Receive More than $9 Million from Settlement with Publicis Health

Kaitlin Housler
TN AG Skrmetti Settlement

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Thursday his office was apart of a $350 million multistate settlement with Publicis Health to resolve investigations into the marketing firm’s role in the prescription opioid crisis.

The Volunteer State will receive more than $9 million from the settlement, with a majority of the funds placed into the state’s Opioid Abatement Trust Fund to support local efforts addressing the opioid epidemic.

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Jacksonville Sheriff Released Racist Manifesto Just Six Months After Shooting, Suicide

Tom Pappert
TK Waters

Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters released in January the manifesto written by Ryan Palmeter, who fatally shot three people in a racially motivated attack that happened last August at a Dollar General in Florida last year before turning the gun on himself.

The manifesto was released following the completion of an investigation into the circumstances that led to the shooting by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department.

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Nearly 75 House Republicans Demand Mike Johnson Oppose Reauthorization of Gun Control Law

Admin
House Speaker Mike Johnson

A group of nearly 75 Republican members of the House of Representatives are demanding that Speaker Mike Johnson oppose the reauthorization of a decades-old gun control law, according to a letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Undetectable Firearms Act (UFA) was enacted by the 100th Congress in 1988 and bans the manufacture, sale or import of any firearm that isn’t detectable by a door-frame metal detector or other security technology, which are commonly termed “ghost guns.” The law’s provisions need to be reauthorized before their statutory expiry date of March 8, with House Republicans demanding that Johnson not bring the Senate’s reauthorization bill, which was passed in July of 2023, to the floor.

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Arizona Democrat Leezah Sun Resigns from State House After Threatening to Throw Government Official off Balcony

Tom Pappert
Leezah Sun

Arizona State Representative Leezah Sun (D-Avondale) resigned from her seat on Wednesday after the release of a report by the Arizona House Ethics Committee this week, which determined she repeatedly leveraged her position to intimidate other government officials, threatened to kill a government official, and interfered in a court-ordered child custody transfer using a badge with her legislative title printed on it.

Sun resigned just one day after Ethics Committee members, including Representatives Joseph Chaplik (R-Scottsdale), Travis Grantham (R-Gilbert), Gail Griffin (R-Hereford), Christopher Mathis (D-Tuscon) and Jennifer Longdon (D-Phoenix), made their report public.

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Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown Losing Ground Against Republican Challengers: Poll

Admin
Ohio Senate Candidates

Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown’s lead over his three Republican challengers has narrowed since November anywhere from 2 to 8 points, according to a Thursday poll.

Brown was leading businessman Bernie Moreno by 10 points, Secretary of State Frank LaRose by 5 points and state Sen. Matt Dolan by 3 points in Emerson College’s last poll on the Ohio Senate race. The senator is now ahead of Dolan by only 1 point and has a 2-point advantage over both Moreno and LaRose for potential head-to-head general election matchups, according to Emerson College’s January survey.

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Commentary: Ban TikTok or Let Beijing Control Our Broadcast Networks, Too

RealClearWire
Tiktok User

In the dynamic landscape of global entertainment, the influence of Beijing over Hollywood has long been a topic of heated discussion. While the box office power of the Chinese market has waned, giving a breath of creative freedom back to our filmmakers, there looms a new and more pervasive form of influence on Hollywood and well beyond: TikTok.

Beijing may have lost theatrical market leverage, but it has more than made up for that with an overpowering social media presence that has become an epidemic, not just in Hollywood but throughout the United States. In fact, the Chairman of Congress’s Select Committee on China, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), accurately labels TikTok as “digital fentanyl” and has been aggressively campaigning to ban the social media app.

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Fani Willis Allegedly ‘Stonewalling’ Defense Team, Refused Open Records Requests for Invoices, Contracts, Account of Vacation Time

Tom Pappert
Fani Willis

The Merchant Law Firm, which represents defendant Michael Roman, launched a lawsuit on Monday claiming Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, through her office, is “stonewalling” their defense team by refusing to comply with public records requests for invoices from special prosecutor Nathan Wade, contracts for other contracted prosecutors in her office, and an account of her vacation time.

Roman is a defendant in Willis’ case against former President Donald Trump, and the law firm behind the lawsuit claims Willis’ office continues to slow-walk the release of information that was originally requested by his attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, on September 1.

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Virginia Democrats Shut Down Social Media Regulations After Gov. Youngkin Promised Bills to Protect Commonwealth Kids

Tom Pappert
Kids on a Smartphone

Two bills put forward by Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates were defeated in the a subcommittee by Democrats on Monday, just months after Governor Glenn Youngkin said promised to file bills targeting social media companies, particularly TikTok, to protect children in the commonwealth.

Defeated by a margin of two votes, HB 1161 would have required social media platforms to obtain a verifiable form of parental consent for minors to use the platform and for parental consent to be obtained a second time before social media companies could collect personal data from minors.

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Commentary: When the Invaders Outnumber the Army

Admin

According to the website Statista, the United States has the third largest standing “Army” in the world. The website says that we have 1.3 million soldiers under arms. By “soldiers,” they’re referring to all of our armed forces—Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force. Third largest in the world. Not bad, if you’re into measuring things. China and India are the only countries with larger militaries. Russia has one about the same size as us, as does North Korea.

In addition to our active force, Statista says we have over 760,000 reservists attached to our armed forces. For those unfamiliar, a reservist is also a soldier (generic term) who can theoretically be called into duty to do things the active forces do. They’re called reservists because they are the first line of replenishment for the active force. Reservists serve in various capacities in all of the branches of the US military. They train once a month with their unit and have a two-week annual training event where they go to an installation and ensure their skills are ready for wartime. Some call them weekend warriors. I call them heroes—many or most have other jobs and serve our great country because they want to serve. Of key importance is that all of these service members are federally authorized and work at the direction of the president.

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California Legislature Introduces Slavery Reparations Bills

Admin
California Capitol with blowing cash

On Wednesday, lawmakers in the state of California introduced a series of bills aimed at providing reparations for historical slavery, which would include giving out property and financial compensation for alleged descendants of slaves.

As Politico reports, the bills represent the first of their kind in the country, after a rising left-wing movement in favor of reparations first emerged shortly after the 2020 race riots. The California bills had been in the works for the last several years after Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) set up a reparations “task force” to make suggestions, which led to a 111-page report issued last year.

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