How the Bureau of Prisons Incorrectly Classified Unjustly Imprisoned J6 Defendant Stewart Parks

Stewart Parks

An investigation into the federal prison designation process for convicted inmates offered few answers as to how the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) determined unjustly imprisoned January 6 defendant Stewart Parks should spend his eight-month sentence in FCI Memphis, a medium security facility with a minimum security satellite camp.

The BOP on Wednesday refused to comply with a request by Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) for FCI Memphis Warden F.J. Bowers to move Parks to the minimum security camp, with BOP Legislative Affairs Chief David Mapp asserting Parks is “housed at an appropriate facility for his security, programming, and care needs” which also complies with the 2018 First Step Act.

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Federal Judge Orders FBI to Turn over Covenant Killer Documents for In-Camera Review

Audrey Hale

A federal judge on Friday ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to turn over all documents related to Covenant School shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale, including the killer’s manifesto, for a private review of materials.

The FBI was ordered to turn over the materials as part of the nationally watched lawsuit brought by plaintiffs Star News Digital Media Inc., the parent company of The Tennessee Star, and Michael Patrick Leahy, a resident of Tennessee and CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Star News Digital Media and journalist Matt Kittle. The plaintiffs are seeking the release of Hale’s manifesto.

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Report: 89 Incarcerated Prisoners in Tennessee Dept of Corrections’ Care Receiving Gender Hormone Therapy

Sources tell The Tennessee Star that 89 prisoners currently incarcerated in the Tennessee Dept of Corrections are receiving gender hormone therapy.

The program apparently began as an unpublicized policy under the Haslam administration. The policy was not available on any public website nor did it follow the normal course of action to become a regulation, which would have required public hearings.

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Haitian Migrant Charged with Rape of 15-year-old Girl Entered via Controversial Parole Program: Sources

Fox News A Haitian migrant now charged with rape of a 15-year-old girl at a Massachusetts hotel housing migrants was allowed into the U.S. by a controversial parole program that allows up to 30,000 migrants a month to fly into the country, sources tell Fox News. Local authorities in Rockland, Mass., arrested 26-year-old Cory Alvarez, a Haitian national. The Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office said he went before a Hingham District Court judge on Thursday and pleaded not guilty to a single count of aggravated rape of a child. The DA’s office said Rockland police responded to the Comfort Inn on Wednesday night, for reports of a sexual assault. The hotel participates in a state and federal program to house migrant families, and Alvarez lived at the hotel. When officers arrived, they spoke with the 15-year-old female victim, who was taken to an area hospital to be treated. READ THE FULL STORY    

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‘Make Voting Great Again’: GOP Warns Against Government Election Meddling

Joe Biden Merrick Garland

The Biden administration appears poised to put the government’s thumb on the scale in the 2024 election, House Republicans say.

The administration’s lack of transparency about implementing President Joe Biden’s executive order for federal agencies to help get out the vote—combined with a warning from Attorney General Merrick Garland—has sparked some concern among lawmakers.

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Semiconductor Giant Faces U.S. Delays While Racing Ahead in Japan amid Biden Chips Funding Uncertainty

A major Taiwanese chip manufacturer’s plan to build a key factory in the U.S. has been plagued with significant delays. Meanwhile, the chipmaker is on schedule to open a separate facility in Japan.

One of the plants Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is building in Arizona has delayed manufacturing until 2027 or 2028 instead of 2026 because of uncertainty regarding funding it will receive from President Joe Biden’s administration, according to The New York Times. TSMC’s factory in Japan is on track to operate on schedule as the country’s government has helped the factory by committing billions in funding and assisting with assembling thousands of employees to build it, the WSJ reported.

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Lawmakers Aim to Ban Colleagues from Market Trading While They Still Buy and Sell

Pete Sessions and Bill Keating

Four members of Congress recently reported buying and selling financial assets, despite co-sponsoring a bill that would ban such trades, disclosures show.

Democratic Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania, Jeff Jackson of North Carolina, Bill Keating of Massachusetts and Republican Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas all reported selling or purchasing assets after they signed on as co-sponsors of the TRUST In Congress Act, financial disclosures show. The TRUST In Congress Act would ban members of Congress from directly trading covered investments, which includes securities, commodities futures and similar assets by requiring them to place such assets in a blind trust.

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Feds Seize Massive Amounts of Cocaine in Marine Operations

U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area Command

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations (CBP-AMO) agents and U.S. Coast Guard crews are seizing large quantities of cocaine attempting to be smuggled to the U.S. by boat.

In five recent operations, they seized nearly $290 million worth of cocaine totaling over 15,700 pounds. or nearly 8 tons – enough lethal doses to potentially kill more than 82 million people.

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Biden to Oppose Foreign Acquisition of U.S. Steel in Bid to Sway Blue Collar Voters

Biden U.S. Steel

President Joe Biden is expected to announce his opposition to the foreign acquisition of the iconic American company U.S. Steel on Thursday as he looks to win over blue collar voters, according to The Associated Press.

The Japanese Nippon Steel Corporation first announced that it would be acquiring U.S. Steel, the world’s fourth-largest steel producer, in December for around $14.9 billion after entertaining multiple offers, including from American steel company Cleveland Cliffs. The announcement is part of the president’s bid to sway blue-collar voters and union members by positioning himself as supporting American manufacturing, with the remarks to be delivered in the battleground state of Michigan, according to the AP.

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DNC Forms First-Ever Team to Combat Third-Party Candidates in 2024

RFK White House

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is forming a team to help combat third-party and independent candidates in 2024, which it views as a threat to President Joe Biden’s candidacy, NBC News reported on Thursday.

Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “Justice for All Party” candidate Cornel West, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and a No Labels “Unity Ticket” could all share a ballot with Biden and former President Donald Trump in November. The DNC’s coalition will focus on an aggressive communications strategy, as well as opposition research and legal challenges to counter candidates it views as potential spoilers, sources involved in the effort told NBC News.

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Proposed Virginia Budget Would Eliminate Audit of 2024 Presidential Election Results

People Voting

The biennial budget proposed by Virginia lawmakers contains a provision that would forbid the commonwealth from conducting an audit of the 2024 presidential results in November.

While Virginia law mandates a “risk-limiting audit” be administered after every presidential election, an amendment proposed by the General Assembly seeks to declare, “a risk-limiting audit of a presidential election or an election for the nomination of candidates for the office of President shall not be conducted.”

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Jim Jordan to Hold Fani Willis in Contempt of Congress Unless She Complies with Subpoena by March 28

Jim Jordan Fani Willis

Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH-04) revealed on Thursday he sent a letter expressing his intention to hold Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in contempt of Congress if she does not comply with a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee by the end of March.

A press release detailed Thursday the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has threatened to hold Willis in contempt over her alleged refusal to comply with a subpoena issued more than a month ago.

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Commentary: America’s Priorities Need to Change in Order to Protect Its Citizens

Illegal Immigrants

The horrific murder of Laken Riley by a repeated felony offender and illegal alien Jose Ibarra, 26, a Venezuelan citizen, was preventable—had federal immigration laws simply been enforced by the Biden administration.

When called out in his recent State of the Union address, President Biden referenced the deceased Ms. Riley. But Biden misidentified her as “Lincoln Riley”—the USC football coach!

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Florida Prepares for Surge in Illegal Aliens from Haiti

Haitians in Boat

As the government of Haiti appears poised to collapse in the face of a violent revolution by criminal gangs, the nearby U.S. state of Florida is preparing for a tidal wave of illegal aliens from the devastated island nation.

According to Politico, lawmakers in Florida have already issued warnings about the potential national security risk of so many third-world illegals coming to the U.S. as a result of the humanitarian crisis, especially as Congress has not yet determined a definitive policy towards Haiti.

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Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs Asks Congress for over $750 Million for Illegal Immigration After Vetoing Border Invasion Act

Gov. Katie Hobbs

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs asked Congress on Wednesday to support a request by Senators Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) to provide more than $750 million in funding to support the southern border.

While Hobbs urged the U.S. Congress to take action on the border, her letter came after she vetoed a Republican-backed bill that would have made it a state crime to enter Arizona outside official ports of entry.

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Congo, Syria, Burma, and Afghanistan Top List of Countries Represented Among Georgia Refugee Intake

Congo Refugees

According to a report on refugee resettlement, more refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo have been resettled in Georgia than from any other country since October of last year, following a trend among other states. 

According to the report, of the 1,469 refugees resettled in Georgia over the past five months, 267 have come from the Central African country that is both war-torn and one of the poorest in the world. 

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Movie Review: The Neon Highway

More than 30 years in the making, the movie The Neon Highway debuted on the silver screen this last week in Nashville. Originally written by Phillip Bellury and directed by William Wages for the likes of Johnny Cash, the deal never worked out. They say everything happens for a reason: Beau Bridges was meant to play Claude Allen, and Rob Mayes was meant to play Wayne Collins.

Here is a synopsis of the plot: 20 years ago, Collins, played by Mayes, an aspiring singer/songwriter, was a heartbeat away from making it in Nashville when a car accident derailed his ambitions. Now working a 9-5 job and struggling to support his family, Collins has a fateful encounter with waning country music great Allen, played by Bridges, who reignites Allen’s musical dreams. Together, they go to Nashville with one of Collins’ songs, believing they can make it big with Allen’s fame and contacts. The problem is the industry has changed and no one is interested in the song – or Allen. Devastated and out of options, Collins creates a way to get the song out to the public; not for himself, but for Allen.

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Commentary: Biden, Lenin, and Immigration Language

Migrant Caravan

As an historian, it has been fascinating to watch the left try to impose new language to describe people in the country illegally.

The left has gradually pushed accepted language away from “illegal aliens” (the term in law), to “illegal immigrants” (the most common term), to “undocumented immigrants” (the left’s current favorite term), and now to “newcomers” (the Joe Biden White House’s latest experiment in gaining language dominance).

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Music Spotlight: RaeLynn

RaeLynn

An artist I have been wanting to interview for years is RaeLynn. Born Racheal Lynn Woodward, the artist has a singular spunk and sass that is a huge asset in the sea of female country singers/songwriters. But her gift for storytelling through her honest lyrics endears her so fiercely to her fans.

RaeLynn grew up in a musical family and began singing in church at a young age.

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Commentary: Eliminating Standardized Testing Had Shockingly Bad Results

Test Taking

For years, liberals have scoffed at the idea that standardized testing is the best predictor of academic success. The National Education Association, for instance, claims standardized tests are “both inequitable and ineffective at gauging what students know.” Activists’ campaign against standardized testing — and their assertions that such tests discriminate against “underrepresented minority students” — culminated in the decisions by more than 1,000 colleges to drop their standardized testing requirements.

This week, cold, hard data showed just how foolish those decisions were. The University of Texas at Austin released the academic performance data for students who submitted standardized scores versus those who did not submit such scores. The result is unambiguous: Students who did not submit standardized tests performed drastically worse than students who did submit their scores. The students who did not submit ACT or SAT scores finished the fall 2023 semester with a grade point average 0.86 grade points lower than students who did. This demonstrates an average difference of almost an entire letter grade. Had the University of Texas utilized all applicants’ standardized scores, it very well might have decided against admitting many of those who did not provide their scores. Students who did not provide scores had a median SAT of 1160, markedly lower than that of the students who did provide their scores: 1420. The University of Texas would have been correct in deciding against admitting those students with lower scores given how much better students with a higher average SAT performed academically.

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