All-star panelist Ben Cunningham joined Friday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy where he discussed what may be included in Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s anticipated transit plan.
O’Connell, who was elected mayor in last year’s runoff election, vowed during his campaign to address Nashville’s “infrastructure and transit concerns.”
Read the full story
Tennessee State Senator Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) joined Friday’s edition of The Matt Murphy Show on SuperTalk 99.7 WTN to discuss Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice plan, known as the Education Freedom Scholarship Act.
Read the full story
Newly-elected chair of the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) Gina Swoboda joined Thursday’s edition of The Afternoon Addiction with Garret Lewis on KFYI to discuss why she was reluctant at first to run as the AZGOP chair, explaining how a call from former President Donald Trump ultimately changed her mind.
“It was impossible to say no,” Swoboda said. “It was surreal. I think any one of us when called upon to serve is going to serve.”
Read the full story
A group of states filed a friend of the court brief supporting a transgender veterans group that filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs seeking gender-confirmation surgery for 163,000 transgender veterans.
The Transgender American Veterans Association lawsuit, filed last month, seeks an order that the Department of Veterans Affairs act on the group’s 2016 rule-making petition for gender-confirmation surgery.
Read the full story
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) approved a research grant in November for over $200,000 to create an app that helps men who identify as transgender sound like women.
The grant, first reported by The College Fix, was approved in November 2023 by the NIH’s Deafness and Other Communication Disorders department and will be run by Vesna Dominika Novak, a transgender associate professor at the University of Cincinnati. The NIH approved $213,878 in funding from December 2023 to November 2024 so Novak’s team can create a smartphone app to train biological males who identify as transgender “women” to speak like women, according to the project details.
Read the full story
The U.S. Capitol Police announced on Thursday that they have declined to press charges against the former Democrat Senate staffer who filmed a gay sex video in a Capitol Hill hearing room last month.
In a news release, the USCP said there was no evidence that Aidan Maese-Czeropski, a former aide for Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), broke the law by filming himself copulating with another male inside the Hart Senate Office Building on the morning of Wednesday, December 13.
Read the full story
The U.S. added 353,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in January as the unemployment rate remained at 3.7%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released Friday.
Economists anticipated that the country would add 180,000 jobs in January compared to the 216,000 that were added in December and that the unemployment rate would tick up to 3.8% from 3.7%, according to Reuters. Despite the job gains, American employers cut 82,307 positions in January, a 136% jump from the previous month, amid a wider trend of layoffs as factors like high inflation continue to hurt business conditions.
Read the full story
All-star panelist Ben Cunningham joined Friday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s anticipated transit plan and how it may clash with the overall preference among Nashvillians when it comes to transportation.
Read the full story
A group of Tennessee lawmakers have spoken out denouncing a notice sent by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last year to the City of Franklin advising the possible influx of nearly 600 migrants to Middle Tennessee.
Read the full story
Michigan Senate Republicans on Thursday announced their plan to improve childhood learning and support teachers in the K-12 schools.
They proposed a MI Brighter Future plan they said would help students gain access to additional resources and learning opportunities, require proven training methods for educators, give parents more control over their child’s progress, reinstate accountability in teacher evaluations and provide for performance-based bonuses.
Read the full story
CT lawmakers ditch plans for special session on EV mandate.
Consideration of a proposed ban on sales of new gas-powered vehicles in Connecticut could happen in regular legislative session, but will not happen in a special called one.
Read the full story
A year after a toxic train derailment left East Palestine, Ohio, reeling, a lawsuit aimed at helping the city and state recover is still ongoing.
Attorney General Dave Yost continued to wait for answers.
Read the full story
Despite the key positions states like Ohio and Pennsylvania hold to solve future energy problems, shifting the power grid from coal and natural gas to wind and solar isn’t as easy as flipping a switch.
A cadre of Pennsylvania legislators trekked to Columbus for a joint meeting of three House and Senate committees from the two states to be advised by energy officials on PJM, the regional power grid to which both belong.
Read the full story
In two letters to government officials, Virginia Congressman and Chair of House Freedom Caucus Bob Good, R-Lynchburg, demanded “accountability and transparency” from the Naming Commission.
The commission was established in 2021 to recommend renaming military assets showing honor to the Confederacy for the Department of Defense.
Read the full story
On Thursday, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) announced that the state of Florida will be sending up to 1,000 of its National Guard troops to Texas to assist state authorities in securing the border.
According to the New York Post, a press release from the governor’s office explained that the troops will be deployed “based on Texas’ needs,” and will include such duties as helping to repel illegal aliens trying to come across the southern border. It is the first time ever that the Florida National Guard has been deployed to somewhere outside of the state.
Read the full story
Despite economic issues dominating voters’ minds this election year, the unprecedented chaos at the southern border is forcing immigration into the spotlight, and nearly two-thirds of voters blame Biden for the border crisis.
A blistering new Bloomberg News/Morning Consult survey shows the share of voters who say immigration will be the most important issue to them on election day has risen in six of the seven swing states polled.
Read the full story
Children’s Minnesota is displaying a “pronoun galaxy” at the entrance of its Minneapolis hospital, according to images provided to Alpha News.
“At Children’s Minnesota, you’re a star,” the display reads. Each star on the display includes different pronouns like “she/her,” “they/them,” and “he/his.”
Read the full story
Experts hired by Wisconsin’s supreme court to redraw the state’s political maps say there won’t be anymore Republican gerrymandering.
The court’s outside experts rejected maps drawn by Republican lawmakers and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. The experts said both maps continued to gerrymander the state for Republicans.
Read the full story
Democratic legislator Andy Smith was widely criticized for his reaction to the news that three conservative organizations may have been the victims of arson — so much so that he almost immediately deleted his Twitter account.
A Golden Valley building that houses the Center of the American Experiment, TakeCharge, and the Upper Midwest Law Center caught fire early Sunday morning. The ATF confirmed with Alpha News that federal and local agencies are conducting an “arson investigation” into the fire.
Read the full story
Newly-elected chair of the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP), Gina Swoboda, joined Thursday’s edition of The Afternoon Addiction with Garret Lewis on KFYI to discuss how her extensive knowledge of election laws will benefit her in her new position as the party’s chair, in particular her strategy of litigating to protect the party against lawfare this election cycle before it’s “too late.”
Swoboda was elected at the annual AZGOP Mandatory Meeting of the State Committee last week following the resignation of former chair Jeff DeWit.
Read the full story
A pre-hearing conference was held last month in the bar disciplinary proceedings against Jeffrey Clark, a former DOJ official under President Donald Trump.
He is being disciplined over a memo he drafted that was never sent to Georgia officials advising them of their options for addressing the illegalities in the 2020 election.
Read the full story
Newly-elected chair of the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) Gina Swoboda joined Thursday’s edition of The Afternoon Addiction with Garret Lewis on KFYI to discuss her experience as an election official and how her extensive knowledge of election laws will benefit her in her new position as chair.
“One of the issues I think we have had historically is that there has not been a process expert, a subject matter expert, that works with the attorneys to explain to them, ‘this is what should be happening, this is not what’s happening, flag on the court.’ The election attorneys are great, but they are election attorneys, not election administrators,” Swoboda explained. “I’m a certified election official and I’ve helped administer elections…so I know what’s supposed to be happening, I know when things are not supposed to be happening, or when we should be doing things that we are not doing.”
Read the full story
Artimus Pyle, a distinguished Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member and former drummer for Lynyrd Skynyrd, unveils his tribute album, Anthems – Honoring The Music of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Nearly 47 years after the horrific plane crash that killed Lynyrd Skynyrd leader Ronnie Van Zant, a new album honoring him and the original Lynyrd Skynyrd band is being released.
I first heard the Artimus Pyle Band in 2020 when he, Dolly Parton, and others raised money to benefit the W.O. Smith Music School and the Scott Hamilton CARES Foundation. I met Pyle in May of 2022 when the former Marine was at an event honoring my ancestor, Lt. Presley O’Bannon.
Read the full story
The most recent person to testify before the House Oversight Committee’s President Biden impeachment inquiry reportedly says he loan one of Biden’s brothers about $800,000 in 2016 and 2017, but got back only about half of the money.
The witness, Joey Langston, a friend of President Biden and former campaign fundraiser for him, says he loaned the money to James Biden in at least four installments, three in 2016 and one in 2017, according to a source familiar with Langston’s transcribed interview Thursday.
Read the full story
Was Special Counsel Jack Smith illegally appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland and is his prosecution of former Pres. Donald Trump unlawful? That is the intriguing issue raised in an amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court by Schaerr Jaffe, LLP, on behalf of former Attorney General Ed Meese and two law professors, Steven Calabresi and Gary Lawson, in the case of U.S. v. Trump.
We won’t get an immediate answer to this question because on the Friday before Christmas, the Supreme Court issued a one-line order refusing to take up Smith’s request that the court review Trump’s claim of presidential immunity, which was denied by the trial court, in the federal prosecution being pursued by Smith in the District of Columbia. The special counsel had petitioned the court to take the case on an expedited basis, urging the justices to bypass review by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Read the full story