Category: News

Pulliam Endorses New Book Arguing Derek Chauvin Was ‘Sacrificed to the Mob’

Kaitlin Housler
Derek Chauvin

Legal analyst and retired attorney Mark Pulliam, who endorsed former federal prosecutor TJ Harker’s forthcoming book American Scapegoat: How a Corrupt Justice System Sacrificed Derek Chauvin to the Mob after reading its galley proofs, previewed the book and its central arguments during Monday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

Harker’s book, scheduled for publication December 1 by Passage Press, argues that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was wrongfully convicted in the 2020 death of George Floyd and that political pressure, public outrage, and failures within the criminal justice system influenced the case.

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DHS Tracking Migrant Caravan Traveling from Honduras to U.S.

Just the News
migrant caravan

The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly tracking a 600-person migrant caravan that is traveling from Honduras to the United States and is expected to arrive at the U.S. border ahead of the November midterms.

The caravan, which began with just 200–400 people, departed San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on Sept. 20 and traveled north toward Guatemala. As of Monday, the caravan known as “Fe y Esperanza,” or “Faith and Hope,” is in southern Mexico, in the city of Tapachula, and heading north toward the U.S., according to Newsweek.

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Commentary: Varieties of Trump Derangement Syndrome

American Greatness
Trump speaking

One of the philosopher William James’s most popular books is Varieties of Religious Experience. Published in 1902 and subtitled “A Study in Human Nature,” the book is based on James’s Gifford Lectures in natural theology at the University of Edinburgh. It is impressive how many states of mind James is willing to group under the category “religious.” I suspect some people might cavil at the proposition that the book was really an exercise in theology, natural, supernatural, or otherwise. That said, James’s catalogue of heightened, or at least altered, states of mind does have the virtue of reminding us of how wide the spectrum of human experience, not to say eccentricity, is. And it occurs to me that James’s distinction between “healthy-mindedness” and “morbid-mindedness,” set forth in a chapter on “The Sick Soul,” is of particular pertinence at a time, like ours, when the effort to normalize various pathologies seems to be, as we have been taught to say, trending.

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ICE Deports Previously Removed Child Rapist After Release from Tennessee Prison

Tom Pappert
Alberto Ramirez-Diaz

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported Alberto Ramirez-Diaz, a criminal illegal alien from Guatemala who records show was sentenced to eight years in a Tennessee prison. According to ICE, Ramirez-Diaz was convicted of second-degree child rape following his 2019 arrest.

Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) records show Ramirez-Diaz began an eight-year sentence on November 12, 2019, aligning with the date ICE said the Guatemalan national was arrested in Florida.

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Real America’s Voice Launches Free Presidential Pool Platform, Opening White House Feed to Public

Kaitlin Housler
Trump speaking

Real America’s Voice (RAV) launched RAVPool.org on Monday, a free platform that gives the public and news organizations access to the presidential pool camera feed, real-time pool notes, the President’s daily schedule, and White House guidance.

Parker Sigg, vice president of RAV, announced the launch, describing it as the latest expansion of the network’s White House coverage.

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Newsom Signs Law Easing Rules Requiring Students to Learn English; Change Will Impact 1 Million

Just the News
students learning

Nearly 1 million California students designated as English learners will no longer have to pass a set of tests and benchmarks to exit the program, under a new law signed Sunday by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In a story posted Sunday by The Los Angeles Times, the newspaper states that when a child enrolls in a California public school, families are asked what language is spoken at home and that as early as kindergarten, children who mainly speak a foreign language at home could be designated as an English learner and placed in language classes. 

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Fauci Diary Reveals Alarm That U.S. Had Aerosolized Ebola Virus: ‘Never Should Have Been Done’

Just the News

Dr. Anthony Fauci privately sounded the alarm when he learned the U.S. Army had conducted an experiment a decade ago that aerosolized the lethal Ebola virus, which is not normally transmitted by air, and then shared the results publicly amid an ongoing outbreak in Africa, according to diary entries obtained by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul.

The then-top scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was particularly concerned in 2016 that the Army medical research arm’s experiment seemed to show that exposure to aerosolized Ebola caused more damaging effects in subjects that had been vaccinated. This was almost four years before he championed shutting down the U.S. economy and social life over the COVID-19 virus outbreak.

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Americans Turn to Riskier Mortgages as Borrowing Costs Explode

Daily Caller News Foundation
mortgage broker

Americans are increasingly turning to adjustable-rate mortgages to escape borrowing costs above 7%, reviving a type of home loan that played a prominent role in the housing collapse preceding the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

Adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, accounted for 9.8% of mortgage applications during the week ending Sept. 18 as the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate surged to 7.12%, its highest level since May 2024, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The shift was notable because borrowers were accepting the risk of future rate increases for relatively modest savings compared with a traditional fixed-rate mortgage.

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CEO Warns of Pentagon’s Push to Expand AI Use

Daily Caller News Foundation
Tyler Saltsman

Relying too heavily on internet-connected commercial AI could introduce dangerous new vulnerabilities into warfare, a top executive told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an exclusive interview.

Artificial intelligence will inevitably become deeply embedded in military decision-making, but allowing general-purpose systems to replace human judgment rather than support warfighters could create serious risks, according to Tyler Saltsman, co-founder and CEO of EdgeRunner AI. Those risks have already surfaced as the Pentagon races to become an “AI-first” force, with an AI-assisted intelligence report this spring falsely flagging a Chinese vessel as carrying nuclear-weapons-related components and nearly triggering a U.S. operation to board the ship, according to the Department of War.

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Federal Panel of Judges Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging Tennessee’s Congressional Redistricting Ahead of 2026 Midterms

Tom Pappert
Pamela Moses

A federal panel of district judges on Friday dismissed a lawsuit by independent congressional candidate Pamela Moses, challenging Tennessee’s congressional map, which was redrawn earlier this year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana v. Callais that race cannot be used as a predominant factor when during redistricting. 

In granting the defendants’ motions to dismiss the lawsuit, the judges notably cited the Supreme Court’s decision when dismissing Moses’ claim that Tennessee’s new congressional map disenfranchised minority voters, ruling she failed to establish racial bias under the new ruling. 

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Trump Education Department Finalizes Revised Title IX Rules

Just the News
Linda McMahon

The Department of Education on Monday finalized its repeal of a Biden-era Title IX rule reforming sexual misconduct investigations on campus.

The move restores Trump’s first-term rule and expands the protections a student accused of misconduct has in disciplinary proceedings, notably guaranteeing the right to call witnesses, have representation, and appear in a hearing, Politico reported.

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Brian Gaffney’s ‘School of Hard Knucks’ Book Chronicles Three Sons’ Quest to Master Baseball’s Wildest Pitch

Kaitlin Housler
pitcher

Brian Gaffney, author of School of Hard Knucks: My Three Sons and Baseball’s Wildest Pitch, joined The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy for an exclusive interview to discuss his family’s years-long journey to master one of baseball’s rarest pitches.

Gaffney said the idea for the book began in 2012 after he returned home during R.A. Dickey’s “spectacular” season with the New York Mets and discovered his young sons throwing knuckleballs in the backyard.

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Arbitrus Unveils AI ‘Judge’ Designed to Resolve Legal Disputes

Kaitlin Housler
Jack Kieffaber

Artificial intelligence (AI) could eventually serve as a decision-maker in legal disputes under a contract-based arbitration system being developed by Arbitrus, a company founded by recent Harvard Law School graduates

Jack Kieffaber, Harvard Law School Class of 2023, who serves as general counsel for the company, discussed the technology during a Friday appearance on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, where he described a product from Arbitrus Corporation designed to use AI to interpret contracts and potentially resolve disputes.

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Up to $304B Lost to Tax Fraud, No IRS Anti-Fraud Strategy

The Center Square
Doing taxes

The federal government loses as much as $304 billion a year to tax fraud, and the IRS has no agency-wide strategy for stopping it, congressional auditors said in a report Friday.

The Government Accountability Office estimated annual losses at $116 billion to $304 billion, the first comprehensive federal estimate of tax fraud losses. Auditors used a Monte Carlo simulation drawing on IRS data from 2018 through 2024, potential fraud inside the tax gap and tax evasion in the shadow economy.

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Commentary: It’s Time to Tackle America’s $40 Trillion National Debt

Daily Caller News Foundation
congress spending

There is a reality we must acknowledge to begin moving toward national fiscal solvency and sanity — resources are finite. Accepting this fundamental fact is our Vince Lombardi moment to zero-in on the basics, just as his Green Bay Packers team did after he delivered his famous line, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” They then went on to win the NFL Championship that year.

Getting back-to-basics with our country’s finances means we first must deal with our unsustainable practice of borrowing $2 trillion each year to fill in the gap between spending $7 trillion while only bringing in $5 trillion. Adding $2 trillion to our debt annually over the last decade has quickly doubled our liability from $20 trillion in 2017 to $40 trillion now.

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Outgoing U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen Files Impeachment Articles Against President Trump

Kaitlin Housler
steve cohen

Retiring U.S. Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) introduced 26 articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump this week.

Cohen announced the resolution on Thursday, citing alleged abuses involving elections, military actions, immigration enforcement, federal spending, executive power, the pardon authority, free speech, and the emoluments clause.

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New Opioid 10 Times Stronger than Fentanyl Detected in 18 States, Linked to 63 East Tennessee Deaths

Tom Pappert

A leading forensic toxicology company based in Nashville said on Monday that it has now identified samples of a new synthetic opioid, cychlorphine, in 18 states, only weeks after the Knox County Regional Medical Center said it is associated with around deaths in East Tennessee. 

Since July 7, 2025, the Aegis Sciences Corporation said on Monday it has detected cychlorphine in Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.

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Two-Tiered Justice: Local DAs Shield Noncitizens from Immigration Consequences

Just the News

District attorneys across the country are accused of providing illegal immigrants preferential treatment when they commit crimes, allowing them to remain free in the country and put U.S. citizens’ lives at risk. The related reports seem to indicate that when the arrested person is a U.S. citizen, they are denied much of the leniency shown to illegal immigrants accused of the same crime. 

The House Judiciary Committee and its Immigration Subcommittee released a report this week detailing how Arlington County, Virginia’s Commonwealth’s Attorney, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, “obstructs the enforcement of federal immigration law and shields foreign national criminals from accountability.” Dehghani-Tafti’s campaign received $515,000 from George Soros-affiliated political entities, Fox News reported last October.

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Mayor Freddie O’Connell to Join Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear for Nashville Book Event

Kaitlin Housler
Andy Beshear

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell is set to join Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear for a discussion of Beshear’s new book, Go And Do Likewise: How We Heal A Broken Country, at Vanderbilt University next weekend.

Parnassus Books, Vanderbilt University Libraries, and Dialogue Vanderbilt will host the event Saturday, October 3, at 1:00 p.m. at Benton Chapel on Vanderbilt’s campus. Doors are scheduled to open at noon. The event is sold out, according to Eventbrite.

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Jack Smith to Testify in Front of Senate Judiciary Committee Next Week

Just the News
Special Counsel Jack Smith

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced Friday that former Special Counsel Jack Smith will testify in front of the panel next week about his Arctic Frost investigation.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has led the Senate’s investigation into Smith and his alleged efforts to prosecute President Donald Trump and his allies, which included the revelation that Smith subpoenaed phone records of multiple GOP lawmakers during the Arctic Frost investigation.

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GOP Chairman Behind House Permitting Bill Warns ‘We’re Running Out of Time’ as Senate Vote Likely Slips to November

Daily Caller News Foundation
Bruce Westerman

The House Republican behind Congress’ permitting overhaul warned lawmakers are running out of time as Senate negotiators signaled a vote will likely wait until November.

Republican Arkansas Rep. Bruce Westerman, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said “we’re running out of time” to pass permitting reform on the Republican Study Committee’s “Right to the Point” podcast, according to a transcript provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday. Democratic Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse — a lead upper chamber negotiator — said that day that a vote on the Senate’s package will likely wait until the lame-duck session after the November midterm elections.

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Tennessee AG Skrmetti Joins 20-State Warning over Chinese Weight-Loss Drug Suppliers Linked to Fentanyl Precursors

Tom Pappert
needle in stomach

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced this week that his office joined 19 other state attorneys general in a letter expressing concern over potential national security risks posed by Chinese suppliers of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) weight loss drugs, warning of reported ties to fentanyl precursor manufacturers, as well as injections being imported to the United States under false labels. 

“Only legitimate medicines from accountable sources should be allowed into our country,” stated Skrmetti. “Foreign suppliers who exploit weaknesses in our supply chain to import relabeled or adulterated products pose risks to both our public health and our national security.”

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China’s Xi Opens Door to More American Students, Lawmakers and Experts Warn of Influence Operation

Just the News
China and Trump

Chinese President Xi Jinping extended a formal invitation to American students, proposing that as many as 100,000 “young Americans” come to China to study in the coming years. But lawmakers have long warned that the country’s student program serves as a vector of Chinese influence. 

“I am glad to announce an invitation for 100,000 young Americans to visit China for exchanges and study in the coming five years,” the Chinese president said in remarks at the White House on Thursday.  

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GOP Megadonor Scales Back Donations over SAVE America Act Failure: Report

Just the News
voter

A major Republican donor has scaled back his donations to the party this cycle, reportedly due to frustration with the GOP’s inability to pass a landmark voter ID bill.

Tim Mellon, who gave $200 million in 2024, is reportedly frustrated with the Senate for not passing the SAVE America Act, a national voter ID and election integrity bill that has the support of President Donald Trump, according to the New York Times.

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Tom Cotton Is Concealing Classified Gain-Of-Function Docs, Rand Paul Says

Daily Caller News Foundation
Rand Paul and Tom Cotton

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton is pushing the intelligence community to conceal classified documents on gain-of-function research, Sen. Rand Paul said in a television interview.

Paul has investigated ties between the coronavirus lab in Wuhan and his longtime foe Anthony Fauci’s institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Recent evidence has revealed that some virology research at the NIH was undertaken on behalf of the intelligence community, bringing some relevant documents under the purview of Cotton’s Intelligence Committee.

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Supreme Court Clears Way for Trump Admin to Boot Illegal Aliens from Voter Rolls

Daily Caller News Foundation
Supreme Court

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) could use an expanded database to remove illegal aliens and non-citizens from voter rolls.

The ruling allows DHS to use its expanded voter citizenship verification system, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE), which allowed the administration to use Social Security records to verify voters’ citizenship. The ruling will likely not have a major impact on the midterm elections since most states are prohibited from removing voters from their rolls within 90 days of an election, according to The Associated Press.

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Exclusive: DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin Blames ‘Sanctuary Politicians,’ ‘Mainstream Media’ After Knoxville Man Accused of Anti-ICE Death Threat on Bluesky

Tom Pappert
David Kerr arrested by HSI

In a statement provided to The Tennessee Star, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin on Friday said “sanctuary politicians” and their allies in the media were responsible for inspiring the threats targeting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that recently led to criminal charges against a 68-year-old Knoxville, who is accused of threatening to harm and kill ICE agents in statements posted to the far left social media platform Bluesky.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the two-count indictment against David Kerr on Monday, stemming from posts he allegedly made to Bluesky in June 2025 and October 2025.

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Filmmaker Michael Pack Discusses Biden’s Afghanistan Withdrawal in New Documentary ‘The Path to Zero’

Kaitlin Housler
The Path to Zero

Michael Pack, documentary filmmaker and former CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), joined The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy for an exclusive interview Thursday to discuss his new documentary, The Path to Zero, and the decisions surrounding the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan under the Biden administration.

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Commentary: Individualism Versus Collectivism is on the Ballot in November

American Greatness
Vote Here

Six years ago, the rise of the “Bernie bros” supporting avowed socialist candidate Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) raised the question of whether decades of soft indoctrination about the “horrors” of capitalism by the Democrat-media complex and the oft-promised but never delivered benefits of socialism had finally produced enough voters willing to elect their way out of free enterprise.

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Jeff Roe Discussed Geofencing Judge’s Home After Illegal Alien Ponzi Schemer Hired His Firm, Federal Filing Shows

Tom Pappert
Jeff Roe, Siddharth Jawahar

Prosecutors earlier this month submitted court filings that appear to show Republican political consultant Jeff Roe, through his company Axiom Strategies, agreed to provide illegal alien Ponzi schemer Siddharth Jawahar with public-relations and advocacy services related to his sentencing, including efforts to secure favorable media coverage and support letters, under a $10,000 agreement.

The filings also include a transcript of a jailhouse phone call in which Roe proposed spending money to geofence the home address of the judge overseeing Jawahar’s sentencing in a bid to ensure he would see a favorable news article about Jawahar.

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Commentary: International Study Shows America’s Education Crisis Is Getting Worse

American Greatness
classroom question

This year’s PISA results show that the United States ranked 13th in reading and science and 27th in math. Reading scores fell by 14 points since the last test in 2022. It’s not just the U.S. that’s moving in the wrong direction. The decline is part of a broader global trend, with the OECD average across 23 countries down 16 points.

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Brent Taylor Calls on TN-9 Opponent Justin Pearson to Renounce Hasan Piker over Calls for ‘Cultural Revolution,’ ‘Chinese Style Communism’

Tom Pappert
Hasan Piker and Justin Pearson

State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) on Thursday called for his opponent in the Tennessee 9th Congressional District race, State Representative Justin Pearson (D-Memphis), to “renounce” Hasan Piker, the influential outside campaigner for Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates who has called for a “cultural revolution” in the United States, followed by “Chinese style communism,” in order to imprison his political opponents within the Democratic Party.

“I am asking my opponent, Democratic Socialist Justin Pearson, to renounce his association with Hasan Piker,” said Taylor in a Thursday post to X, noting that Pearson appeared with Piker for a 90-minute podcast in June. 

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Commentary: Proposed mRNA Ban Would Destroy Decades of Scientific Discovery, Patient Choice, and Years of Economic Development

Star News Contributor
medical science laboratory

As a physician, my top priority has been and will always be achieving the best outcomes for my patients. Many existing medicines and treatments are tried and true. Likewise, scientific research and development as well as innovative new technologies should not be overlooked or even rejected outright. After all, we know many advancements in medicine today were at one time revolutionary ideas.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson Urges the U.S. to Bring an End to Iran War

Just the News
Mike Johnson

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday joined a growing chorus of Republican voices who are calling for an end to the conflict between the United States and Iran, claiming the U.S. has done its part in keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Republicans, including Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson, have largely cited the cost of the war, including its impact on the United States economy by causing fuel prices to rise, which Americans are feeling in their wallets.

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President Trump to Attend Tennessee-Texas Football Game at Neyland Stadium

Kaitlin Housler
Trump and football

President Donald Trump will be in Knoxville this Saturday to attend the Tennessee Volunteers’ SEC opener against the top-ranked Texas Longhorns at Neyland Stadium, according to multiple reports confirmed by the White House Press Office.

The Vols will face Texas at noon ET on Saturday, and the game will air on ABC. Trump’s attendance will coincide with ESPN’s College GameDay broadcast from the University of Tennessee campus.

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CEOs Skip Senate Hearing About Automated Surveillance

Daily Caller News Foundation
camera

Technology CEOs did not show up to testify before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing Wednesday about mass surveillance concerns related to Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs).

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who chairs the Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, invited CEOs Garrett Langley of Flock Safety, Rick Smith of Axon Enterprise, Greg Brown of Motorola Solutions and Filip Kaliszan of Verkada to testify about their products’ access to Americans’ data. Five witnesses, including alleged victims of automated surveillance and a cybersecurity engineer, testified before the committee.

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Federal Judge Denies Nonprofit’s Bid to Block Tennessee Highway Patrol from Cooperating with ICE

Tom Pappert

U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger on Wednesday denied the request by the pro-illegal alien nonprofit, the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), to issue an injunction blocking the Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a request filed the same day as its May lawsuit, which alleges a series of ongoing constitutional violations during traffic stops involving THP and ICE, and the risk that TIRRC would be subjected to similar stops in the future,  the nonprofit asked Trauger to file an injunction forbidding troopers from working with federal immigration agents to detain motorists for immigration investigations, using traffic stops to enforce immigration law, or using race or ethnicity when determining which motorists to stop.

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