Day: April 9, 2025

Federal Legislation to Increase Prison Time for Criminals Intimidating Supreme Court Justices Filed by Tennessee Lawmakers

Tom Pappert
Supreme Court justices

Legislation that would increase the penalty for those found guilty of intimidating or swaying the decisions of U.S. Supreme Court justices through protests and picketing was submitted on Wednesday in Congress, proposing to change the penalty from one year behind bars to five. 

The Protecting Our Supreme Court Justices Act was submitted on Wednesday with three sponsors in the U.S. House and five in the U.S. Senate. A  press release explains it would increase the sentence by modifying the maximum prison term for those convicted under 18 U.S. Code 1507, which prohibits picketing or parading near a court or the home of a judge or judicial official to influence a judicial ruling through intimidation, from one year to five.

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Congressional Witness Tells Rep. Tim Burchett Spouses of Congressmen Financially Benefit from Federal Government

Tom Pappert
John Hart

A witness testifying before a U.S. House committee on Tuesday told U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) it was his belief that spouses of sitting congressmen enrich themselves by renting real estate to the federal government, appearing to bolster the Tennessee Republican’s prior predictions that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would uncover corruption in Congress. 

The exchange happened during a hearing held by the House Committee on Oversight, aimed at reducing the federal government’s real estate holdings and leases, with witnesses including David Marroni from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and John Hart, the CEO of the government transparency group OpenTheBooks.

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Tennessee Valley Authority Reaffirms Support for Clean Coal After Trump Signs Executive Orders, Fires Two Board Members

Tom Pappert
coal mining

Just one day after President Donald Trump signed four executive orders aimed at increasing coal energy production, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on Wednesday issued a statement supporting the use of clean coal for energy production.

Calling the executive orders “historic action to help American workers, miners, families, and consumers,” Trump said they represented his administration “ending Joe Biden’s war on beautiful, clean coal once and for all.”

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Crossfire Hurricane Answers Remain Blacked out Years After Trump Declassification Order

Just the News
Donald Trump

Key documents from the FBI’s politicized Crossfire Hurricane investigation into false allegations of Trump-Russia collusion remain hidden from public view, but a new order from President Trump will reveal more answers — and documents already obtained by Just the News provide clues on what is to come.

Just the News obtained a portion of the Crossfire Hurricane documents slated for declassification in January 2021, although the majority of the FBI records remain out of the public’s reach due to the Justice Department thwarting Trump. The documents revealed by Just the News in 2021 were interesting both for the new details they revealed and for what remained. Large sections still remain blacked out and hidden from public view behind ongoing redactions.

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Trump Admin Relaunches Office for Victims of Immigrant Crime That Biden Shuttered

Daily Caller News Foundation
ICE arrest

The Trump administration is relaunching a key office that serves victims of immigrant crime, highlighting its commitment to combating border-related issues and its consequences.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is relaunching the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office, according to a press release shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation. VOICE, which was shuttered just months after President Joe Biden entered office in 2021, offers key support services to victims of immigrant crime and their family members.

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Public Policy Expert Clint Brewer Makes the Case for President Trump’s ‘Reboot’ of the Economy

Kaitlin Housler
Donald Trump

Clint Brewer, recovering journalist and Nashville-area public policy expert, said President Donald Trump’s “reboot” of the U.S. economy through his reciprocal tariffs trade plan is necessary in order to transform the economy into one that works for all American workers.

Last week, Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” agenda, which included the U.S. charging 10 percent baseline tariffs on nearly all goods imported from other countries, reciprocal tariffs on nearly 90 countries that have the highest trade deficits with the U.S., and a 25 percent tax on all imported vehicles.

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Tennessee’s Robby Starbuck Takes on New Role With the Heritage Foundation as a Visiting Fellow

Kaitlin Housler
Robby Starbuck

Robby Starbuck, Tennessee political commentator and documentary filmmaker, recently took on a role at the Heritage Foundation as a visiting fellow to lead the conservative think tank’s capital markets initiative.

The Heritage Foundation’s capital markets initiative “encourages businesses to prioritize merit and ethics over divisive agendas that are unethical, immoral, and illegal—like so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies,” according to the think tank.

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Commentary: Tennessee’s Crucial Need for Marsy’s Law Is on the Horizon

Admin
Marsy’s Law

As the Tennessee General Assembly winds down in the first session of the 114th General Assembly, I’m reminded of how we must recommit ourselves to raising awareness, supporting survivors, and calling for stronger protections of their rights. One of the most vital, yet sometimes overlooked, aspects of this support is ensuring survivors’ rights in the justice system. That’s why Marsy’s Law, which seeks to guarantee the rights of crime victims, is a crucial piece to ensuring victims of crime in Tennessee are protected. This proposed constitutional amendment mandates that victims are notified of their abuser’s release from custody or any crucial developments in their case.

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Commentary: Schools Should Educate for Citizenship

RealClearWire
Classroom

Within the past decade or so we have witnessed something remarkable in education – the rise and fall of a fad we were promised would revolutionize K-12 education. In the 2010s, tech moguls and others began pushing schools to teach students coding skills, often at the expense of other topics. In 2013, Code.org launched with the claim that every student should learn to code. States began promoting computer science as a core subject. By 2016, President Obama put his weight behind the movement with the Computer Science for All initiative.

Fast forward to today, and the experts now tell us students may no longer need those once-prized coding skills. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has said the rise of artificial intelligence is making programming skills less relevant. In a leaked memo, Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman reportedly stated that AI would likely replace most software engineers. Most recently, entrepreneur and former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya echoed these claims: “The engineer’s role will be supervisory, at best, within 18 months.”

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Annie Bosko Embraces Her Roots With New Single, ‘California Cowgirl’

Bethany Bowman
Annie Bosko

Music Spotlight artist Annie Bosko hails from California, not from San Francisco or Los Angeles, but from a farm near Thousand Oaks. While people often associate country music with Nashville and the South, real cowboys come from the western U.S., where they tend ranches and have cattle drives.

Bosko explained, “I know California has its issues. I almost used to hide that I was from California because it meant I couldn’t be country. But when I lived in Nashville, I lived on 8th Avenue South which was way less country than when I go home to California.”

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