Category: Culture

Wife of Tennessee January 6 Prisoner Shares Holiday Struggles, ‘Survivor’s Guilt’ as Many Face Third Christmas Behind Bars

Tom Pappert
Ronald McAbee

The wife of a former Tennessee sheriff’s deputy who was convicted for on charges related to January 6 told The Tennessee Star that families and friends of those defendants often experience survivor’s guilt, especially as many of those accused of crimes spend their third Christmas in jails or prisons.

Sarah McAbee, the executive director of Stand in the Gap and wife of January 6 prisoner Ronald McAbee, explained, “Wives are waking up without their husbands, children are waking up without their fathers. Even in the federal prison system, they only get a 15 minute phone call per day.” She told The Star that January 6 have “have to decide, am I going to call my spouse? Am I going to call my parents? Am I going to call my child?”

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Commentary: The Gift of Christmas Is Hope Through Sacrifice

Admin
Jesus Christ Birth

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 (KJV)

We thought about and were well on the way to drafting a much different column for this Christmas – Biden Outdoes The Grinch seemed apropos to this season of economic distress and discontent. But in looking through past Christmas columns we ran across one of our columns from 2019, entitled “The Gift of Christmas is Fulfilled at Easter” and we were brought back to the recognition that no Christian should be bitter on Christmas, because if there is one day of the year that is to be dedicated to hope it is Christmas and the anniversary of the birth of Our Savior.

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Census: Tennessee Saw 207K Increase in Net Domestic Migration over Three Years

The Center Square
Family moving

Tennessee saw an increase of 207,000 people in domestic migration over a three-year span, ranking it sixth in the country over that time according to new numbers from the U.S. Census.

Only Florida (818,762), Texas (656,220), North Carolina (310,189), South Carolina (248,055) and Arizona (218,247) saw a larger net domestic migration between April 1, 2020, and July 1, 2023.

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Commentary: Giving Before Getting

Admin
Gift Giving

When I was a little girl, my mother would take me and my five siblings to Grants, a long-gone discount store. We did this the first week in December every year, shopping for each other using money we had earned and saved. Running down the aisles, touching everything, brimming with excitement, and bursting with secrets, we pondered, prattled, and preened our way to the checkout register.

We shouldered big secrets in our little souls, guarding our arms with shouts of “Don’t look!” Arriving home, we immediately began wrapping in various places throughout our tiny house, knowing our treasures would soon be given away. The anticipation, giggles, scrambles, and copious quantities of tape make me now wonder how my mother could stand it. But stand it she did, and in so doing, she taught us necessary lessons in gift-giving.

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Commentary: Neuroscientist Explains How to Listen to Your Hunger During the Holidays

Admin
Family Dinner Christmas

The holiday season is upon us, and with it, opportunities to indulge in festive treats. The proverbial saying “you eat with your eyes first” seems particularly relevant at this time of year.

The science behind eating behavior, however, reveals that the process of deciding what, when and how much to eat is far more complex than just consuming calories when your body needs fuel. Hunger cues are only part of why people choose to eat. As a scientist interested in the psychology and biology that drives eating behavior, I’m fascinated with how the brain’s experiences with food shape eating decisions.

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Commentary: Don’t Let the Grinches Steal Your Christmas

Admin
Grinch costume

This Christmas season, the grinches are staying busy as usual.

There’s the usual crew who annually devote themselves to debunking the season, flailing away at everything from a babe born in a manger to the season’s extravagant buying and selling to taking offense when someone says, “Merry Christmas!” In Iowa, Satanists have honed in on the holiday, setting up a now-torn-down display in the state capitol in the name of “religious pluralism.” Pro-Palestinian protests occurred at the annual lighting of Christmas trees in places around the country, including New York’s Rockefeller Center and Ypsilanti, Michigan.

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Commentary: Seven Timeless Picture Books for the Christmas Season

Admin
Girl Reading

“Aletheia!” A 7-year-old girl grabs my hands and pulls me through the playing kids toward my church’s stash of books. “Will you read us a story?”

The kids at my church enjoy picture books year-round, but—during the holiday season—the stories begin to revolve distinctly around Christmas. Several of these stories are ones I enjoyed when I was young; others contain lessons and art that I’ve grown to appreciate over the years.

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Commentary: With ‘White Christmas,’ Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby Helped Make Christmas a Holiday That All Americans Could Celebrate

Admin
Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin was a Jewish immigrant who loved America. As his 1938 song “God Bless America” suggests, he believed deeply in the nation’s potential for goodness, unity and global leadership.

In 1940, he wrote another quintessential American song, “White Christmas,” which the popular entertainer Bing Crosby eventually made famous.

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Satanic Temple Unveils New Display at Michigan State Capitol

Admin

The Satanic Temple (TST) unveiled a new display at the Michigan State Capitol Monday, just days after its statue in Iowa was torn down, according to a post on X.

TST’s display of Baphomet in the Iowa State Capitol building was destroyed after a Christian veteran beheaded the statue, claiming that he would not stand by as Christians continue to “submissively accept the legitimization of Satan.” TST unveiled a new display that can be found outside Michigan’s capitol building on the lawn, according to a post on X.

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Commentary: ‘Tis the Season for Streaming Christmas Movies

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Love in the Wild

“It’s Christmas Eve and we are going to go celebrate being young and being alive,” Miles (Jack Black) declares to Iris (Kate Winslet) in the delightful Christmas romantic comedy The Holiday (2006), which concerns two “unlucky in love” women, Iris and Amanda (Cameron Diaz). The two decide to nurse their broken hearts and bruised egos by respectively swapping their Cotswold cottage and LA mansion for the holidays. As the fates would have it, Kate and Amanda each find love and a new outlook on life during their Christmas swap. I love this sugar plum saga, which I have previously written about in these pages, because it reminds us that friendship, love, and new adventures are always available. We only need to open our eyes to the world around us and celebrate our blessings. 

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Behind the Conviction: Stewart Parks’ Legal Ordeal and the Fight for Truth in J6 Capitol Trespassing Case

Tennessee Star Staff

Stewart Parks, a former congressional candidate from Tennessee’s 5th District, finds himself in the crosshairs of a harrowing legal battle following his participation in the January 6 events at the Capitol. Convicted in a bench trial by Judge Amit Mehta, Parks disputes charges of misdemeanor trespassing, disorderly conduct, and theft and is in the early stages of pursuing an appeal.

Parks updated listeners on Thursday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on the latest developments in his plight and he details his concerns about potential prejudice against those with conservative ideologies and the need for a fair legal defense.

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Lawmakers Sue Oregon to Block ‘Misinformation’ Contract to Counter Election-Related Claims

Just the News

Oregon is trying to silence “criticism of its election system” through a contract to “identify and mitigate” purported mis-, dis- and malinformation (MDM) related to its elections, surveilling those whom the state deems “misleading,” according to a First Amendment lawsuit against Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek, Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade and Elections Director Molly Woon.

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Commentary: Some Observations on My Nine-Week Christmas

Admin

This year, the Christmas spirit knocked at my door two weeks before Thanksgiving, smiled coyly, and settled in like some stray feline who’s struck gold with a warm hearth and a bowl of Friskies Seafood Sensations. Never before had this spirit arrived so early and so unexpectedly.

It started with a review copy of Faith Moore’s Christmas Karol, a novel that copycats the plot of the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol. Here we meet Karol Charles, an attorney obsessed with success and money to the detriment of her husband, her two young children, her sister, and her employees. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, Karol is visited on Christmas Eve first by her deceased partner and then by three spirits of the season. Most of the action takes place in a hospital, a stroke of inspiration on Moore’s part as hospitals serve both the dying and the recovering. When we meet her, Karol’s soul is most decidedly on the critical list.

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Breitbart Editor-at-Large Joel Pollak: ‘Harvard is Lost’

Tennessee Star Staff
Joel Pollak

Breitbart News Editor-at-Large Joel Pollak joined the newsmaker line on Wednesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to share insights into the troubling state of his alma mater, Harvard University.

The veteran journalist and Harvard Law School graduate highlighted the rise of antisemitism on campus and traced the university’s decline, noting that it was former President Drew Faust who emphasized a thin record of slavery over Harvard’s significant contributions to the abolitionist cause and civil rights movement.

The 387-year-old institution’s rapid shift to prioritize social justice and the erosion of free speech, Pollak suggested, has indelibly marred Harvard’s reputation as a symbol of excellence.

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Nashville Electric Service Releases Update on Progress Made in Restoring Power Due to Last Weekend’s Severe Storms

Kaitlin Housler
NES Work

Nashville Electric Service (NES) released a statement on Monday updating the public about its work in restoring power for approximately 48,000 customers affected by severe storms.

Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes ripped through Middle Tennessee on December 9, causing six fatalities – three in Montgomery County and three in Davidson County – and dozens of injuries. The storms produced significant damage to nearly 1,900 homes and destroyed over 500 homes, according to initial reports.

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Biden Approval Hits New All-Time Low

Admin
Biden Speaking

Another mainstream pollster shows that Joe Biden’s job approval rating has plunged yet again, as voters increasingly turn against him due to numerous crises on his watch.

As reported by Fox News, the Monmouth University poll saw a mere 34% of respondents say that they approve of his performance as president thus far, with a staggering 61% disapproving. The issues on which Biden scored the lowest were inflation, with just 28% approving of his handling of it, and immigration, with 26%.

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Commentary: The Vatican Offering Blessings to Same-Sex Couples Is Not What You Think

Admin
Pope Francis Waving

When Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann asked priests, deacons, and lay pastoral workers in the German Diocese of Speyer to offer blessings for same-sex unions and remarried couples early last month, his letter made international news — and it should have. That’s because the Catholic Church believes same-sex unions are sinful and contrary to both the law of God and the laws of nature.

That teaching — that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is, in fact, a sin — has repeatedly put a Church hierarchy dedicated to “inclusion” and “solidarity” in a tight spot. Progressives both inside (men like Wiesemann and Fr. James Martin) and outside of the Church have repeatedly pressured Catholic leadership to offer some kind of legitimization to homosexual unions.

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Commentary: COVID Redux

Admin
Masks People

Life is hard if you do not learn from your mistakes. With Covid, political leaders and public health authorities engaged in a series of missteps, miscalculations, and manias that amounted to an extreme overreaction to the disease.

First, statistical models overstated the risk of the disease by an order of magnitude. Then, even after these miscalculations became apparent, other extreme measures like lockdowns, mandatory masking, coercive vaccine mandates, and a million other indignities ensued. In the end, almost everyone got Covid, almost everyone survived, and, while the economic countermeasures increased our national debt by 30%, the economy soon recovered too.

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Unmasking Academic Injustice: Dr. Carol Swain Reveals Deeper Impact on Scholarly Integrity amid Plagiarism Scandal at Harvard

Tennessee Star Staff
Carol Swain Harvard

Esteemed former Vanderbilt professor, renowned scholar, and all-star panelist Dr. Carol Swain joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Tuesday to discuss the growing scandal involving Harvard’s Claudine Gay and increasingly difficult-to-defend allegations of plagiarism by the Ivy League school’s president.

Swain contends that Gay failed to credit her for sections of the book Black Faces, Black Interests, accusing her of derivative work since her dissertation, which Swain claims builds upon her own groundbreaking research.

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Embattled Harvard University Scrubs Multiple Web Pages About ‘Identity Recognitions,’ Pronouns

Admin
Outside of Harvard Law School

Harvard University scrubbed several web pages from the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) department’s website, according to the web archive.

Two web pages, titled “Heritage Months and Identity Recognitions” and “Gender Identity and Pronouns at Harvard,” appear to have been deleted, according to the archives. Both links now route directly to the Diversity and Inclusion homepage.

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Federal Figures Show Surge in Homelessness

The Center Square

The number of homeless people in the U.S. jumped 12 percent to more than 653,000 people as pandemic spending expired, the highest level on record since the counts started in 2007.

Figures released Friday provide a snapshot of the number of people in shelters, temporary housing and in unsheltered settings. The report found 653,100 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2023, a 12 percent increase from 2022. That figure of 653,100 people is equivalent to about 20 of every 10,000 people in the U.S.

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Former New York Times Editorial Page Editor Writes Scathing Essay About Newspaper’s Culture and His Exit

Just the News
James Bennet

James Bennet, the former editorial page editor of The New York Times, has written a scathing column about his departure from the paper and criticizing the Times for what he sees as a shift away from its previous journalistic principles.

Bennet gave his version of the story of his departure in a 16,000-word article in The Economist, where he is currently a columnist. In the article, titled “When the New York Times lost its way,” he describes what he sees as the Times’ shift from traditional journalistic principles, according to The Daily Wire, and “courage,” to an “illiberal” philosophy of the news.

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Commentary: Once a Vaunted Dream, Now ‘Liberty and Justice For All’ Is a Tattered Cliche

Admin

Throughout history, the tyrannical abuse of governmental power has been a fearsome thing to behold. Wise men instituted laws in an effort to tame that abuse. The Constitution of the United States, for example, was framed in large part as a prophylactic against the coercive power of the state. The Framers witnessed the “long train of abuses and usurpations” perpetrated by the British crown and resolved to respond. The Constitution dealt with many other things, to be sure, but concern about tyrannical abuse of power by the government and its minions is patent from the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence straight through the Constitution and its Amendments. The idea was that we Americans would live in a polity governed by “laws, not men.” That is to say, laws would be legitimately formulated, clearly defined, and administered impartially, so far as was humanly possible. How are we doing on that score?

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Commentary: Seven Forgotten Christmas Traditions to Bring Back

Admin

Tradition is the cumulative experience of thousands of human lives. It is the conclusions reached by countless ancestors who tested what it meant to live well. Unfortunately, we are losing many of our traditions and their accompanying wisdom, abandoning the practices by which we speak to the past, and the past speaks to us.

One way our ancestors lived well was by engaging in certain yearly celebrations surrounding Christmas and the holiday season. They bequeathed many of these delightful and meaningful celebrations to us—if we care to receive them.

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Analysis: Trump Has Led Biden in 20 Out of the Last 26 National Polls Taken, Biden Led Just Four of Them

Admin

Don’t look now, but former President Donald Trump appears to be opening up a consistent lead in national polls against incumbent President Joe Biden, with Trump beating Biden 47.2 percent to 43.7 percent, according to the latest average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com.

In fact, for more than a month, Trump has led Biden in 20 out of the last 26 national polls taken. Biden led four of them, and two were tied. The leads vary in the polls, anywhere from 10 points to 1 point, but begin to tell a very important story with little more than a week to go until the 2024 New Year begins: a larger plurality or maybe even a majority of Americans would rather see Donald Trump be president than Joe Biden beginning in 2025.

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Pro-Life Experts Warn Leftists Are Using Texas Woman’s Abortion Battle as ‘Highly Public Flashpoint’

Admin

Kate Cox asked the Texas Supreme Court to give her permission to abort her unborn baby, a baby that has a condition known as trisomy 18. On Monday, her lawyers said that she will go to another state to end the baby’s life. That same day, the court said Texas law didn’t require her to ask its permission.

Trisomy 18 is a condition where a baby has an extra copy of chromosome 18, making it highly likely that the baby will die in the womb or shortly after birth—though some babies with trisomy 18 do survive, such as former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s daughter. Cox’s lawyers have argued that by not aborting her baby, Cox is jeopardizing her health and future fertility.

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10 Revelations That Changed Americans’ Understanding of Events on January 6

Just the News

Videotape of a Capitol door being mistakenly unlocked. Photos of gallows being set up outside without any police interference. Officers exhorting protesters to storm the Capitol. Intelligence warnings of potential violence that went unheeded. Major changes to testimony.

A year after the Democrat-led House Select Committee on Jan. 6 ended it works, major new revelations have emerged from House Republicans led by Rep, Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga, about how the Capitol riot unfolded that fateful day and the security failures that occurred in the days and hours ahead of the violence.

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Poll: One in Five Mail-In Voters Admit to Committing Voter Fraud in 2020 Election

Just the News

One in five voters who cast mail-in ballots during the November 2020 election admit to committing voter fraud, according to a new poll by The Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports.

The poll of 1,085 likely voters released on Tuesday, which was conducted from November 30 to December 6, asked, “During the 2020 election, did you fill out a ballot, in part or in full, on behalf of a friend or family member, such as a spouse or child?” A total of 21% of respondents who said they had cast mail-in ballots answered ‘yes.’

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Arizona Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments on Dispute over the State’s Two Restrictive Abortion Laws

Rachel Alexander

The Arizona Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in a case involving challenges to Arizona’s 1864 law that mostly banned abortion. The Arizona Legislature passed a law in 2022 banning abortions after 15 weeks, anticipating the U.S. Supreme Court reversing Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson. The reversal also revived the older law, which was initially passed when Arizona was still a territory. In October 2022, the Arizona Court of Appeals found that the two laws were in conflict, and placed an injunction on the older law from going into effect as to physicians, effectively allowing abortions to take place up to 15 weeks under the new law.

Since Attorney General Kris Mayes declined to pursue the case after the appeals court ruling, Dr. Eric Hazelrigg, an obstetrician and medical director of Choices Pregnancy Center in Arizona, filed a petition in March asking the state’s high court to review the ruling and the injunction, which it agreed to do. Former Attorney General Mark Brnovich had initially asked a court to reinstate the original pro-life law, which was blocked in 1973 due to Roe, but the trial court’s revival of the law was quickly reversed by the appeals court. 

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Former United Methodist Members Form New Churches as Disaffiliation Rule Nears Expiration

Admin

An official rule permitting congregations to part ways with the United Methodist Church (UMC) while retaining church property is about to expire, but the effects of the split are far from over.

Churches in Alabama continue to face divisions even after failing to leave the denomination under the rule. Some congregants who were members of UMC churches left to form their own independent churches or joined other Methodist denominations like the Global Methodist Church (GMC).

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Commentary: American Globalists’ Motivation

Admin

It is too easy, and dangerously misleading, to examine the most controversial globalist policies combined with America’s most obvious weaknesses and conclude that American power, and the future of globalism is in jeopardy. In both there is nuance and hidden strength. Understanding this ambiguity offers both hope for the future and a clearer sense of what choices face Americans today.

It is important to recognize that while other Western Nations from New Zealand to Sweden are participants in globalist policies, and that globalist theories may have originated from Europe, the influencers and institutions turning them into policy and pushing them onto the rest of the world are almost all American.

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Nashville Police Charge Muslim Family with Beating Son After He Converted to Christianity

Tom Pappert

The Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) charged three members of a Muslim family with the alleged beating of their juvenile son and brother on Monday, and police records reportedly reveal the violence was sparked by the victim’s recent conversion to Christianity.

Police arrested Rawaaa Khawaji, Nick Kadum, and John Kadum, who are reportedly the mother, father, and older son of the juvenile victim discovered by law enforcement, according to police documents reviewed by Fox 17.

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Commentary: Birthright Citizenship Puts America in Jeopardy

Admin

Today’s challenge, game show Jeopardy-style: “They have a particular status in common: Anwar al-Awlaki, Yaser Esam Hamdi, the twin daughters of El Chapo, Chinese children born to US surrogates, and children born in the US to illegal immigrants.”

After seeing the first two names, a contestant would probably be preparing to hit the button to answer something like “What is Islamic terrorism?” – until they finished reading the entire list. The last item would clinch it, and then the fastest button-pusher would confidently offer the politically-correct answer: “What is birthright citizenship?”

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Harvard Board Says President Claudine Gay Will Remain Despite Calls for Her Ouster

Just the News

The Harvard board on Tuesday said Claudine Gay would remain as president of the university despite calls for her ousting following her answers about antisemitism before Congress last week as well as allegations she plagiarized parts of her Ph.D. thesis. “As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University,” the board, known as the Harvard Corporation, said in a statement signed by all members except for Gay. “Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing.”

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YoungkinWatch: Governor Denies Campaigning on Abortion Was Mistake, Acknowledges Americans ‘Living Paycheck to Paycheck’

Tom Pappert
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) denied that Virginia Republicans suffered from his political action committee’s heavy campaigning to restrict abortion during the November elections during a Monday interview. However, the governor also acknowledged the majority of Americans are “living paycheck to paycheck” in remarks that follow a leadership challenge against his allies in the House of Delegates, which was reportedly orchestrated due to frustrations over Republicans’ failure to campaign on the economy.

Responding to criticisms that Virginia Republicans may have suffered due to Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC spending heavily in favor of restricting abortion during the 2023 elections, the governor told Bloomberg that campaigning on abortion “was not a mistake.” He seemed to argue the issue gave Republicans something to run on, telling the outlet, “I firmly believe that one of the challenges that we have had as Republicans is we haven’t been clear on what we’re going to do.”

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