Country music singer Reba McEntire announced in a recent livestream on TikTok that she has been diagnosed with COVID-19, despite being fully vaccinated against the virus.
In the video, McEntire detailed that she and her boyfriend Rex Linn both received positive test results.
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Tennessee Attorney General Herb Slatery has failed to join several other attorneys general in a lawsuit against Critical Race Theory (CRT).
JustTheNews.com reported this week that attorneys general in more than half of the 50 states disagree on how to address alleged racial disparities in school discipline. Both sides filed competing briefs through a U.S. Department of Education proceeding that reportedly attracted 2,700 comments.
The website reported that Arizona “led a coalition of 15 states to oppose the reinstatement of the Obama administration’s “disparate impact” guidance, which said statistical differences between the races in school discipline could serve as the basis for a federal civil rights investigation.”
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Tourism spending in Tennessee dropped in 2020 for the first time in 10 years, according to data from the U.S. Travel Association and Tourism Economics.
Tennessee tourism spending fell 31.6%, less than the 42% decline nationally.
Within that decline was a 78.7% drop in spending from international visitors during a year that was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions, according to a report compiled by the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development.
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Watching television coverage of people crossing the border illegally at our southern border I began to wonder: where are they going?
I was shocked to learn that the Biden administration refuses to tell the states and cities how many people they are sending – and who they are sending. Apparently, immigrants just get put on airplanes, buses, and trains, and go off into America.
We are learning that a substantial number of the people who have crossed the border illegally have COVID-19. McAllen, Texas had to declare a state of emergency when 7,000 infected immigrants arrived there. So, the Biden government could send people with COVID-19 to your neighborhood and then refuses to tell you that it has put you at risk.
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Only one player on the U.S. Women’s National Team, Carli Lloyd, stood for the country’s national anthem before the team’s match against Australia.
After being the only player to stand for the patriotic song, Lloyd went on to score her 10th Olympic goal, breaking a record previously held by Abby Wambach.
The team, which had a disappointing showing during the Olympics, knelt throughout the course of the games and received a bronze medal after an unexpected loss to Canada.
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United Airlines announced Friday that it will require all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 starting this fall, making it the first major airline to do so.
“We know some of you will disagree with this decision to require the vaccine for all United employees,” United CEO Scott Kirby and President Brett Hart announced in a memo. “But, we have no greater responsibility to you and your colleagues than to ensure your safety when you’re at work, and the facts are crystal clear: everyone is safer when everyone is vaccinated.”
The order requiring proof of vaccination will go into effect five weeks after the Federal Drug Administration officially gives full approval of the COVID-19 vaccines, or by Oct. 25, whichever comes first, The Hill newspaper reports. The FDA is expects to start giving full approval as early as next month.
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Ex-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo aide Lindsey Boylan plans to sue the Democratic governor for allegedly retaliating against her for publicly accusing him of sexual harassment.
Boylan said last year in a series of tweets that she had been sexual harassed by the governor for years, allegations that led to other woman coming forward with similar stories and a state probe into the matter.
“Our plan is to sue the governor and his and his coconspirators,” Boylan’s attorney, Jill Basinger, said Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” show.
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With the election of Joe Biden, there is increasing pressure for the United States to accommodate the global ambitions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Such a policy will weaken the strategic position of the United States and embolden the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which seeks to transform the rules of international politics, and has demonstrated its willingness to employ coercive measures, including threats and open conflict, to achieve its aims.
As it has done for decades, and does so now with the Biden Administration, the CCP makes appeals for accommodation while emphasizing the need to turn away from more confrontational policies, like those most recently advanced by the Trump Administration. And as always, China’s words must be seen as tactical measures it deploys in pursuit of its objectives. Thus, it is only a matter of time before attempts to cooperate with China fail. However tempting, accommodation will not succeed for the stark reason that China does not want it.
Party Chairman Xi Jinping has made clear that what China seeks is world hegemony. And it is upon the pursuit of this hegemony that his power in the regime depends.
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An attorney for the family of Ashli Babbett, a protester killed in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, says the police officer who fatally shot Babbitt failed to warn her before firing and in fact ambushed her.
The attorney, Terry Roberts, made the allegation in an interview with RealClearInvestigations, and in opposition to the attorney of the alleged officer who shot Babbitt, saying his client issued a clear and loud command.
“It’s not debatable,” Roberts said. “There was no warning. … I would call what he did an ambush.”
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The top U.S. financial regulatory agency approved a rule that forces publicly-traded companies to reveal the diversity of their executive boardroom to investors.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted in favor of the rule, which will apply to all companies traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange, according to the text of the approval released Friday. The rule, first proposed by Nasdaq in December, will also require companies to hire at least one female director and one either minority or LGBTQ+ director to their boards.
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The Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU) declared its belief that schools should be shut down again if the India Variant of the coronavirus, also known as the “Delta variant,” continues to spread, as reported by the Daily Caller.
In a letter published on Thursday addressed to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D-Ill.), the union demanded that the mayor “acknowledge the changing dynamics of the COVID-19 virus” and make further bargains with the CTU regarding conditions for possibly returning to school.
“Parents are concerned,” the letter states in part, “and they deserve assurances that our union and the [Chicago Public Schools] team are working…to ensure safety in hundreds of school buildings across the city.” In fact, many parents have been critical of CTU and other teachers’ unions across the country, which have sought to extend school shutdowns for as long as possible for the teachers’ pleasure, often including absurd and unreasonable conditions in their requirements for returning to in-person instruction.
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Akey SARS-Cov-2 expert acknowledged this week that a mainstay of the global coronavirus response — the use of cloth masks — does little to stop the spread of the virus.
Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and an adviser on President Joe Biden’s transitional COVID-19 advisory board, made the stunning claim on CNN this week amid escalating worldwide fears and concerns over the “Delta variant” of COVID-19.
“We know today that many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out,” Osterholm said during the interview.
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It has been revealed that the Fairfax County Public School district (FCPS) is encouraging second-graders to be anti-police, with a “Summer Learning Guide” that includes the phrase “I feel safe when there are no police,” according to an exclusive report by Breitbart.
The stunningly radical content was revealed by a document leaked to the nonprofit group Parents Defending Education (PDE). Fairfax is the most populous school district in the state of Virginia, and has widely been viewed as the epicenter of the battle over “Critical Race Theory” – the notion that all White people are automatically racist, and that America is a fundamentally racist nation – and other far-left ideas with which children are being indoctrinated.
The summer curriculum requires students to watch a far-left YouTube channel called “Woke Kindergarten,” and one video in particular called “Safe by Ki.” The video says, in part: “I feel safe when there are no police. And it’s no one’s job to tell me how I feel. But it’s everyone’s job to make sure that people who are being treated unfairly…feel safe too.” The “lesson” ends with several loaded questions, including “Why do some people feel safe with police and others don’t,” as well as “What can you do to make sure other people feel safe?”
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Attorneys general in more than half the states are starkly divided on how to view alleged racial disparities in school discipline, filing competing briefs in a Department of Education proceeding that drew nearly 2,700 comments.
Arizona led a coalition of 15 states to oppose the reinstatement of the Obama administration’s “disparate impact” guidance, which said statistical differences between the races in school discipline could serve as the basis for a federal civil rights investigation.
Michigan led an opposing coalition of 15 states to argue that the 2014 guidance should not only be reinstated, but expanded to include disparities in discipline by sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.
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The Republican nominee for Ohio’s 15th Congressional District told the Star News Network about his August 3 primary win with 37 percent of the vote, how he decided to run for Congress, and his relationship with President Donald J. Trump.
“The numbers in my race show you that you can have all kinds of endorsements, but when you are supported by President Trump, you win,” said Mike Carey, a native of Sabine, Ohio, and a former president and chairman of the Ohio Coal Association.
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U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA-11) said this weekend that forces within the Biden administration and other Democrats in Washington, D.C. want to force a COVID-19 vaccine upon all Americans. “There are few things that remain very consistent, and one of those — and it is of grave concern to most of the people in our district, and I believe most of the people in America — is the attacks on our individual liberties. The one that is most prominent right now is the government trying to force a medical procedure, a vaccine, on every citizen,” Loudermilk said during a podcast Saturday.
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Amid the debate over mask mandates in schools, the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) and the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) took steps to provide options to parents.
In a Friday press release, the Office of Governor Ron DeSantis stated that “the Florida Department of Health and State Board of Education issued Emergency Rules to protect parents’ freedom to choose what is best for their children. These rules are pursuant to Executive Order 21-175 and encourage a practical and effective in-person learning environment for Florida’s schoolchildren during the upcoming school year, while preventing the unnecessary removal of healthy students from school and safeguarding the rights of parents and their children.”
“When the wellbeing of our students and our constitutional freedoms are at stake, we will stand up for Florida families,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “Giving parents options to make these decisions is not controversial. I’m proud that today we took action to make sure school administrators respect parents’ rights to make educational and healthcare decisions for their families. I will continue to fight to protect Florida’s families from government overreach and to preserve their God-given rights.”
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An Arizona congressman said that he will file articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “in the coming weeks.”
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) said the following in a statement on his website:
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Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty (R) on Thursday night halted a move by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to expedite advancement of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
The spending package is not dead yet, but it will not have the accelerated path to passage it would have enjoyed had all 100 senators consented to quickly moving through over a dozen amendment votes Thursday evening and sending the bill to the House of Representatives.
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Well, isn’t this interesting.
Recall Roe v. Wade? The famous abortion decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that was issued in January of 1973? It said this:
This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment‘s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or … in the Ninth Amendment‘s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” — Roe, 410 U.S. at 153
In the vernacular, this quickly was reduced to a pro-Roe movement that self-identified as “pro-choice.” Or, as the saying goes, “abortion rights” boosters supported the idea of “my body, my choice.”
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Metro Nashville officials this week released a plan that they said will tackle homelessness within the city. According to Nashville.gov, the city will serve up to 40 people at once at two new Mobile Housing Navigation sites.
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On Wednesday, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced that it had intercepted 834 unaccompanied illegal alien minors at the southern border, the single largest such number of children apprehended under the Biden Administration thus far, the New York Post reports.
Officials with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had previously estimated that over 19,000 illegal minors were caught at the border over the month of July, surpassing the previous record of 18,877 in the month of March. The months seen then have seen numbers ranging from 14,000 to 17,000, marking a total of over 84,000 from March to July.
In addition, the number of illegal minors being held in CBP custody has more than quadrupled since May, when only around 635 children were being held; by Wednesday, that number has risen to over 2,784. The 30-day average of child apprehensions has increased to 512 per day.
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Over the last few months, the U.S. has engaged in intense discussion over “critical race theory.” As Americans have debated the impact of CRT, several states have banned CRT from the public school curriculum, while other states are using it as part of that curriculum. The debate over CRT’s merits or dangers has prompted ideological battles in school board elections. This article looks at the increased activism around school board elections and its broader ramifications.
Past politicization of school board elections
Though school board elections may not seem as exciting as a presidential or even congressional race, they have taken on greater importance in recent years. In 2005, the city of Dover, Pennsylvania faced a contentious court case known as Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, which ruled that the school district’s teaching of intelligent design violated the separation of church and state. Shortly after the trial concluded, the district held its school board elections, and all the school board members who favored the teaching of intelligent design lost their reelection bids, at least in part due to their position on the issue. The election generated much discussion.
In the early 2010s, school board races saw partisan involvement through the Tea Party movement. Generally, candidates affiliated with the Tea Party ran on platforms of greater political accountability and lower property taxes. Carl Paladino, a former Republican nominee for governor in New York, won a race for the Buffalo school board on a Tea Party-type platform. The school board later ousted Paladino for making offensive comments about former First Lady Michelle Obama.
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Metro Nashville Public Schools announced on Thursday that the school district will require all students and staff to wear a mask during the upcoming school year.
After Director Dr. Adrienne Battle recommended the move, members of the Metro Nashville Public School Board voted 8 to 1 in favor of implementing the new requirement.
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The Metro Nashville Public School (MNPS) Board’s decision to impose a COVID-19 mask mandate upon their students has prompted Tennessee Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) to, as promised, call for a special legislative session. “We are starting discussions with House members,” Sexton told The Tennessee Star by text Friday.
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The U.S. economy reported an increase of 943,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate fell to 5.4%, according to Department of Labor data released Friday.
Total non-farm payroll employment increased by 850,000 in July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, and the number of unemployed persons decreased to 8.7 million. Economists projected 845,000 Americans would be added to payrolls prior to Friday’s report, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“The jobs recovery is continuing, but it’s different in character to any we’ve seen before,” payroll software firm ADP economist Nela Richardson told the WSJ. “I had been looking at September as a point when we could gain momentum—with schools back in session and vaccines widely available. But with the delta variant, we need to rethink that.”
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U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07) led other members of Congress and sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Llyod Austin to oppose a reported COVID-19 vaccine mandate for service members.
The group of lawmakers argued the move by the Biden administration is illegal, largely due to the fact that the coronavirus vaccine has not received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
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A Dickson County, Tennessee jury Thursday found Steven Wiggins guilty of premeditated first-degree murder and nine other charges related to the 2018 shooting death of Sergeant Daniel Baker.
“Some people obviously had some tears, but I had some sort of sense of relief,” Baker’s widow Lisa told reporters after the verdict was announced.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer set up a critical vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill Saturday after talks to expedite the process fell apart late Thursday.
Both Republicans and Democrats engaged in marathon talks Thursday in a bid to vote on a package of amendments and to advance the sweeping public works package. Doing so, however, required approval from all 100 senators, and Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill Haggerty refused to go along even as his Republican colleagues urged him to do so.
In a statement, Hagerty attributed his objection to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimation that the bill would add $256 billion to the national debt over 10 years.
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The $3.5 trillion spending bill set up to follow the $1.1 trillion infrastructure bill (which has little to do with infrastructure) should be called what it really is: The Higher Inflation and Bigger Debt Act.
The Democrats would like you to believe it is only a reconciliation bill. This is vital to them because a reconciliation bill only takes 50 senators and the vice president to pass the U.S. Senate.
However, this additional $3.5 trillion comes after trillions of emergency spending prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Consider what the Congressional Budget Office has written about the fiscal situation before the $1.1 trillion and $3.5 trillion bills are passed:
Here is what the Congressional Budget Office forecasts (not counting Biden’s enormous spending plan):
“By the end of 2021, federal debt held by the public is projected to equal 102 percent of GDP. Debt would reach 107 percent of GDP (surpassing its historical high) in 2031 and would almost double to 202 percent of GDP by 2051. Debt that is high and rising as a percentage of GDP boosts federal and private borrowing costs, slows the growth of economic output, and increases interest payments abroad. A growing debt burden could increase the risk of a fiscal crisis and higher inflation as well as undermine confidence in the U.S. dollar, making it more costly to finance public and private activity in international markets.”
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Wisconsin State Representative Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls) on Friday issued subpoenas for a host of election materials, including all ballots and voting machines in two Wisconsin counties.
Brandtjen called the efforts a “top-to-bottom investigation of the 2020 Presidential General Election,” after the probe was initiated by Assembly Resolution 15.
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A new executive order from the Biden administration has accelerated the timeline for electric vehicles and raised questions about the economic impacts of the transition away from gas-powered vehicles.
President Joe Biden signed the executive order Thursday aimed at making 50% of vehicles zero emission in the U.S. by 2030, an aggressive push toward electric vehicles. About 2% of new cars sold each year in the U.S. are currently electric, according to the Pew Research Center.
“The Executive Order also kicks off development of long-term fuel efficiency and emissions standards to save consumers money, cut pollution, boost public health, advance environmental justice, and tackle the climate crisis,” the White House said.
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Facebook has been courting partnerships with religious groups in hopes of becoming their virtual home, the New York Times reported in late July. Experts and religious leaders told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the social media platform’s interest in shaping the future of religious experience should be closely monitored to protect religious freedom.
Though it is unlikely that a virtual religious experience will replace in-person religious services, the Times acknowledged, Facebook’s partnerships with religious groups expose Facebook’s plans to shape the future of the religious experience — as it has done with both political and social life.
“I just want people to know that Facebook is a place where, when they do feel discouraged or depressed or isolated, that they could go to Facebook and they could immediately connect with a group of people that care about them,” Nona Jones, a nondenominational minister and Facebook’s director for global faith partnerships, told the Times.
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Lipscomb University announced on Friday that Dr. Candice McQueen, former commissioner of education for Tennessee, will serve as the school’s new president.
McQueen, who previously served as the school’s dean of the university’s College of Education, will be the first woman to lead the 130-year-old institution.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed MAGA rapper and Nashville Transplant Bryson Gray in studio to talk about the pushback he’s been given in his career for being a conservative hip hop artist.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed MAGA rapper Bryson Gray in studio to talk about his website’s apparel and live streaming conservative values on liberal Twitch.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Director of Partnerships for Upward Sports, Andrew Provence to the newsmakers line to talk about their mission and connecting children to the word of God through play.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the most infamous MAGA rapper in the United States, Bryson Gray in studio to talk about his move from North Carolina to Tennessee.
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced that he joined a coalition of 16 states in filing an amicus brief urging the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia to uphold the state’s recently-enacted “Election Integrity Act of 2021.”
The attorneys general expressed their support for Georgia’s motion to throw out the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit against the new voting law, which Georgia said was based on “political posturing rather than a serious legal challenge.”
The “Election Integrity Act of 2021,” or Senate Bill 202, passed the legislature along party lines. Gov. Brian Kemp, R-Ga, signed the 98-page omnibus bill on March 25.
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U.S. Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA-12) has sounded the alarm bell over what he calls wasteful and excessive spending at the federal level, but his pleas to trim the budget went unheeded. Allen, on the floor of the House, criticized Democrats for what he called “a bloated spending package.”
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Despite the fact that only 23 people under the age of 20 are currently hospitalized in the state of Tennessee with COVID-19, the state’s health director is scaremongering, telling reporters that all of the pediatric hospitals in the state will soon be full.
Dr. Lisa Piercey said Thursday that every children’s hospital in the state will be full as children contract the delta variant of the COVID-19 virus.
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The Rhode Island mother who turned to public records law to learn what the school district was teaching her daughter is now a defendant in a lawsuit by the state and local teachers union.
The Rhode Island and South Kingstown chapters of the National Education Association sued Nicole Solas and the school district this week to stop the latter from releasing records sought by Solas, including curriculum and policies related to critical race theory, antiracism, gender theory and children’s sexuality.
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The Congressional Budget Office estimated Thursday that the bipartisan Senate infrastructure bill will add $256 billion to the deficit over the next decade, undercutting its backers’ claims the spending had been offset.
In FY2020, the deficit hit a record $3.1 trillion. So far in FY2021, the deficit is $2.2 trillion. The national debt is climbing to $29 trillion for the first time in U.S. history.
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As the number of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border reaches a 20-year high and COVID-19 cases consequently spike, Republican lawmakers are blasting the Biden administration for the converging security and public health crises.
July saw the highest number of illegal immigrants crossing the border in over 20 years, with a total of 210,000. Simultaneously, fewer MS-13 gang members have been caught crossing the border this year than in each of the previous three years, and COVID-positive migrants are flooding the Texas border town of McAllen.
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FRANKLIN — Parents from throughout Williamson County who were interested in an alternative school for their children arrived Thursday evening for an open house at Thales Academy in Franklin. Thales Academy is an independent and private school.
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One of the residual effects of last year’s chaotic election is the palpable fear of former President Trump that still haunts the Democrats. Their congressional antics, from the absurd post-election impeachment to the parodic House investigation into the Jan. 6 “insurrection,” confirm that they are still very much afraid of the man they ostensibly defeated last November. This has nothing to do with any threat that Trump or his supporters pose to the republic, as media alarmists insist. The actual source of Democratic trepidation can be found in their lackluster performance in the 2020 presidential and congressional elections combined with Trump’s clear intention to become very much involved in boosting Republicans in next year’s midterms.
First, a reality check concerning the 2020 election: Biden didn’t win a popular vote landslide as the Democrats still claim. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) totals, he won 81,268,924 of 158,383,403 ballots cast. In other words, 77,114,479 people voted for Trump or one of the third-party candidates. That nearly 49 percent of the voters cast ballots against Biden, despite the unprecedented support he received from the media and Big Tech cannot fail to worry rational Democrats. Nor can they help being unnerved by a poll conducted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) that strongly suggests their anemic 2020 congressional showing portends worse results in 2022.
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A doctor and professor with Johns Hopkins University said in a recent television appearance that, contrary to the official government narrative, those who actually catch the coronavirus and recover are approximately seven times more immune from future infections than those who receive a vaccine, as reported by the Daily Caller.
Dr. Marty Makary, during his interview on the Vince Coglianese Show, said studies have proven that “natural immunity is better against the Delta variant” than vaccines. “When you get infected with COVID, your body’s immune system develops antibodies to the entire surface of the virus. Not just the slight protein that the vaccines give you, but the entire surface. And so, you get a more diverse antibody portfolio in your system.”
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It was always going to be Herculean to inoculate, with an untried vaccine, a multi-ethnic nation of 330 million, across a vast continent—in an era when the media routinely warps the daily news.
Some minorities understandably harbored distrust of prior government vaccination programs.
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An analysis of Nevada state voter data shows a 9,000-vote difference between those marked as having participated in the 2020 General Election and the number of ballots actually cast.
The non-partisan Voter Reference Foundation (VRF), which officially announced its launch this week, compared the states’ official certified vote totals to the state official voter files, which indicate how many individual Nevada voters were recorded as actually having cast ballots last November.
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Roger Simon in studio to discuss who’s really making the decisions in the White House and Cuomo’s impending impeachment.
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