Category: News

Country Music Hall of Fame Celebrates New Luke Combs Exhibit

Bethany Bowman

The Country Music Hall of Fame® (CMHOF) and Museum on Wednesday celebrated the opening of its newest exhibition Luke Combs: The Man I Am. The exhibit traces Combs’ story from singing with his school choirs in North Carolina to headlining stadiums worldwide. The exhibit, which opened on Thursday, is included with museum admission. Combs’ exhibit will go til June 2025.

Besides the CMHOF staff and Sony executives, Luke Comb’s wife and parents, his high school choir teacher, and his pals from Town Tavern in Boone, North Carolina, where he first began performing, were in attendance for the unveiling.

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Commentary: Addressing the Root Cause of Our Veterans’ Suicide Epidemic

RealClearWire
Veterans

On June 27th, I hosted a Special Order speech on the House floor to raise awareness of veteran Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I chose this date for a reason: June was National PTSD awareness month, and June 27th was National PTSD Awareness Day.

According to the National Center for PTSD, ten percent of all Veterans suffer from PTSD. PTSD is the leading cause of the Veteran suicide epidemic, claiming between 17 and 44 Veteran lives each and every DAY – a cumulative loss of nearly 150,000 Veteran lives since 9/11. This figure is 21 times greater than the 7,000 servicemembers we lost in post-9/11 warzones, making PTSD exponentially more lethal than combat.

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Montana Supreme Court Hears Appeal of Landmark Anti Fossil Fuel Case Won by Youth Climate Activists

Just the News
Montana Supreme Court

The Montana Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in the state’s appeal of a case that is so far one of the only successful climate cases of dozens that activists, states, and local governments have filed against government agencies and oil companies.

The case, Held v. Montana, involves 16 young plaintiffs who were organized by the anti-fossil fuel nonprofit Our Children’s Trust to sue the state of Montana for allegedly violating the kids’ constitutional rights to a clean and healthy environment by permitting oil, gas and coal projects in the state without regard to their impacts on global warming.

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Corey DeAngelis: ‘Great News’ Universal School Choice Is Included in 2024 Republican Party Platform

Kaitlin Housler
Corey DeAngelis

Corey DeAngelis, a school choice activist and senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, applauded the 2024 Republican Party Platform for including universal school choice in its 20-point agenda released earlier this week.

On Monday, the Republican Party unveiled its 2024 platform, which consists of 20 promises Republicans intend to deliver on if Trump is elected back to the White House and Republicans obtain majorities in both the U.S. House and Senate.

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Steve Cortes Reveals Three Points GOP Should Focus on If Joe Biden Remains in Presidential Race

Kaitlin Housler
Steve Cortes

Steve Cortes, former senior spokesman and strategist for the 2016 and 2020 Trump campaigns and current head of the League of American Workers, said Republicans should focus on three specific key points leading up to the November 5 presidential election if President Joe Biden remains the Democratic Party’s nominee and refuses to be pushed from his post as commander in chief.

While some Democrats have called on Biden to step aside and not run for reelection, it appears the president is adamant about staying in the race to serve another four years.

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Reporter Tom Pappert: Vanderbilt University Medical Center May Have Made Financial Arrangements to Avoid Revelations About Its Connection to Audrey Hale

Kaitlin Housler
Tom Pappert

Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said he believes attorneys for Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) may have reached a financial arrangement with multiple entities involved in the Covenant School killer case in order to “protect” the medical institution’s reputation amid shocking revelations connecting VUMC to the killer, Audrey Elizabeth Hale.

On June 7, The Star was the first to report that Hale was a 22-year patient of VUMC from 2001 until the time of the horrific school shooting on March 27, 2023.

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Covenant Killer’s Father Confirmed Vanderbilt University Medical Center ‘Didn’t Tell Us’ About Daughter’s Interest in Columbine

Tom Pappert
Audrey Hale

Ronald Hale, the father of Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale, confirmed to investigators that Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) did not inform his daughter developed an interest in the April 20, 1999 shooting at the Columbine High School in Colorado, according to a transcript of a July 12, 2023 police interview obtained by The Tennessee Star. 

Police documents obtained by The Star previously established that Audrey Hale was a 22-year mental health patient at VUMC, and Ronald and Norma Hale confirmed their daughter was evaluated for commitment for mental health reasons during three separate incidents, including two at VUMC for suicidal ideation.

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Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Won’t Appeal Court Loss in ‘Open Fields’ Doctrine Case

Peter D'Abrosca
Hunter Hollingsworth

After losing an appeal in May, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) has decided it will not take its case on the “open fields” doctrine to the Tennessee Supreme Court. 

The case began when Terry Rainwaters and Hunter Hollingsworth found hidden cameras on their property, placed there by TWRA, according to the Institute of Justice, which took on the case. 

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Inflation Falls Below Expectations as Economy Cools

Admin
People in grocery checkout line

Inflation ticked down slightly year-over-year in June as rising prices continue to weigh on average Americans’ finances, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) release on Wednesday.

The consumer price index (CPI), a broad measure of the price of everyday goods, increased 3.0 percent on an annual basis in June and decreased 0.1 percent month-over-month, compared to 3.3 percent in May, according to the BLS. Core CPI, which excludes the volatile categories of energy and food, remained high, rising 3.3 percent year-over-year in June, compared to 3.4 percent in May.

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Biden Admin Cuts Another Huge Check for Automakers to Go Electric as Electric Vehicle Market Struggles

Admin
Tesla being assembled in factory

The Biden administration announced Thursday that it is spending billions of dollars more to help automakers mass-produce electric vehicles (EVs).

The Department of Energy (DOE) is spending $1.7 billion to help manufacturers convert closed or struggling manufacturing facilities to produce EVs or EV components in eight states, including swing states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, as the American EV market struggles. The funding complements $12 billion the DOE unveiled in August 2023 to help major manufacturers retrofit plants for EV production, and the agency projects that the cash announced Thursday will allow for the retention of 15,000 union workers while creating nearly 3,000 jobs.

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Liberal Nonprofit Spins Up Multi-Million Dollar Campaign to Scare Moms into Backing Biden

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Demand Justice

A liberal nonprofit will spend millions feeding information about the Supreme Court to swing state moms in an effort to turn them against former President Donald Trump, The Washington Post reported.

Demand Justice, an organization founded to oppose Trump’s judicial nominations, will spend $2 million on mobilization efforts and advertisements in Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Ohio, Montana, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin aimed at convincing mothers not to support the former president, the Post reported. The campaign will focus on how a Supreme Court made up of Trump appointees could impact issues related to abortion, firearms and healthcare in the coming years.

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Warning Signs Flash for Biden as Trump Gains Ground in Empire State

Just the News
Donald Trump and Joe Biden in front of New York skyline (composite image)

Amid the intense scrutiny over whether Democrat President Joe Biden is mentally and physically fit for a second term, he appears to be losing ground in the Democratic stronghold New York – which hasn’t voted in favor of a GOP presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Polls over the past four months show presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has cut Biden’s lead to just 8 points across New York, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1.

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Commentary: Republicans Must Stop Retreating on Abortion

Admin

While President Joe Biden’s halting performance in the first 2024 presidential debate generated the most significant commentary, it was some of former President Donald Trump’s remarks that raised concerns for pro-life voters. Those remarks ended up foreshadowing the recently proposed Republican platform’s surrender on the abortion issue.

Trump’s first misstep was his contention that “everybody” wanted abortion regulated at the state level. “Fifty-one years ago you had Roe v. Wade,” Trump argued, “and everybody wanted to get it back to the states, everybody, without exception, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives. Everybody wanted it back… Ronald Reagan wanted it brought back” (emphasis added).

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Biden Has ‘A Lot to Do’ to Beat Age Concerns in Reelection Bid, According to Hobbs

The Center Square
Governor Katie Hobbs

Gov. Katie Hobbs carefully measured her words of support for President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, as polls show the president could potentially dash her hopes of a Democratic trifecta in swing-state Arizona.

“That’s up to the president,” was her answer when asked Monday morning in Phoenix about whether Biden should drop out of the race.

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Georgia Realtor and Moms for Liberty Chair Smeared by LGBT Activists Targeted Again After Filing Lawsuit

Tom Pappert

Georgia realtor Julie Mauck was fired by her broker and accused by the Georgia Association of Realtors of engaging in discrimination after she claims a group of cancel culture activists made false claims about her remarks at a July 2023 open meeting at a public library, where she discussed the availability of sexually explicit reading materials for children.

Mauck eventually found a new broker and secured the backing of Coalition for Liberty, a nonprofit that partners with other organizations to help individuals respond to cancel culture, and successfully won an appeal to maintain her license.

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House Republicans Demand Michigan Secretary of State Explain Work with SBA on Elections

Just the News
Jocelyn Benson

Republican members of the House Small Business Committee demanded Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) provide an explanation over working with the U.S. Small Business Administration to allegedly aid President Biden’s reelection campaign.

The letter, sent Monday from committee chairman Roger Williams, R-Texas, and Michigan representatives on the committee, demanded documents from the secretary of state’s office regarding voter registration efforts the federal agency is implementing with the state, Fox News reported.

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Commentary: The Elites Abandon Biden

RealClearWire
George Clooney and Barack Obama

The New York Times op-ed dropped just minutes before President Biden headed for his motorcade, and as he was driving across town to meet with union workers, all of Washington devoured the words of George Clooney, the movie star publicly calling on the president to step aside.

“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020,” Clooney wrote, setting up a betrayal worthy of the big screen. “He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

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Senate Committee Votes Against Biden-Nominated Judge Who Allowed Male Rapist in Female Prison

Admin
Senate Committee

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday against a judicial nominee who had allowed a male serial rapist, who identifies as a woman, to be housed in a female prison.

President Joe Biden nominated Sarah Netburn to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, but the nomination was blocked by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 10-11 vote. In August 2022, Netburn recommended the transfer of male inmate William McClain, who goes by July Justine Shelby, into a female prison despite his record of sex crimes, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

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Ohio Representatives Vote to Save U.S. Attorney General Garland from Inherent Contempt of Congress

Christy Kelly
Dave Joyce and Mike Turner in front of US Capitol building (composite image)

Two House of Representatives from Ohio voted against a bill that would have imposed a $10,000 daily fine on Attorney General Merrick Garland for his refusal to provide audio recordings of President Joe Biden’s interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur.

Representatives Dave Joyce (R-OH-14) and Mike Turner (R-OH-10), along with Tom McClintock (R-CA-05 ) and John Duarte (R-CA-13), voted against this bill.

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Robby Starbuck Exposes John Deere’s Corporate DEI Policies: ‘You Need a Massive Overhaul There’

Kaitlin Housler
John Deere

Tennessee political commentator and documentary filmmaker Robby Starbuck shared an update into his work exposing John Deere, the American manufacturing company of agricultural machinery and other heavy equipment, for its woke policies, saying how “hundreds” of upset employees have come forward about the drastic changes under the company’s new leadership.

Starbuck said John Deere essentially turned into a “trojan horse for leftism” once its CEO, John May, was named head of the company in 2019 and implemented “drastic” changes to the company’s policies.

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Attorneys for Parents of Covenant Killer Silent on Possible Will with Potential Instructions for Release of Documents

Tom Pappert
Jeff Mobley and David Raybin

Attorneys who represent Ronald Hale and Norma Hale, the parents of Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale, did not respond to The Tennessee Star when asked about the killer’s suicide note and a probate court filing, which both appear to suggest the killer left a last will and testament prior to her devastating attack on March 27, 2023.

Neither attorney David Raybin, who represented Ronald Hale and Norma Hale in matters related to the Covenant investigation, nor attorney Jeff Mobley, who represents the killer’s parents in the intestate probate case for Audrey Hale’s estate, replied to a press inquiry from The Star which sought to establish whether the killer left behind a document called a will.

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Tennessee U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles Introduces the Preventing Forced Abortions Act of 2024

Kaitlin Housler
Andy Ogles

U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) introduced a bill this week to protect surrogate mothers from being forced to have abortions as part of terms set in surrogacy contracts.

Ogles’ Preventing Forced Abortions Act of 2024 would prohibit federal courts from enforcing any part of a surrogacy contract that requires a surrogate mother to get an abortion.

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Covenant Killer’s Childhood Friends Changed Phone Numbers to Cut Contact, Her Mother Told Police

Tom Pappert
Audrey Hale

The parents of Audrey Elizabeth Hale told Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) investigators during a July 12, 2023 interview that two of their daughter’s childhood friends changed their phone numbers to cut contact with the killer in the years prior to her attack on the Covenant School, where she claimed the lives of three 9-year-old students and three staff members, according to a transcript of the interview obtained by The Tennessee Star. 

Last month, The Star confirmed it obtained approximately 80 pages of writings left in a journal by Audrey Hale from a source familiar with the investigation, and reported the killer wrote extensively about the death of her middle school basketball teammate Sydney Sims.

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Conservative Organization Investigating Biden Admin’s ‘Partisan’ Voter Registration Push in Key Swing State

Admin
Voter Registration

The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) launched an investigation Wednesday into a Biden administration program aimed at registering voters in a key swing state, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

AFPI is demanding documents from the Biden administration regarding the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) voter registration efforts in Michigan, an operation it suspects could disproportionately benefit Democrats in November’s election, the organization exclusively told the DCNF. The SBA’s voter registration operations in Michigan are part of Executive Order 14019, which compels federal agencies to develop a plan to promote voter engagement and participation, sparking concerns from some conservatives that public funds may be used to help Democrats in the looming general election.

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Far-Left Nonprofit That Inspired Shooting at Family Research Council Claims ‘Hate Groups’ are Growing in Number in Tennessee

Peter D'Abrosca
Tennessee Welcome Sign

A far-left Alabama nonprofit best known for inspiring a shooting at the conservative Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., claims that “Hate Groups” are on the rise in Tennessee. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which inspires violence itself by labeling conservative nonprofits as “Hate Groups,” claimed in its 2023 annual report that the number of “Hate Groups” in Tennessee increased from 33 in 2022 to 37 in 2023. 

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Memphis Police Department Asks for Help Identifying Woman Who Allegedly Shot, Killed Fast Food Employee After Drive-Thru Argument

Peter D'Abrosca
Memphis Drive Thru Crime

The Memphis Police Department (MPD) is asking the public to help identifying a suspect in year another violent crime, this time carried after an argument at a drive-thru window at a fast food restaurant. 

According to MPD:

On July 8, 2024, at approximately 9:10 p.m., officers responded to a shooting at Church’s Chicken at 2963 Park Avenue. A female victim was located and transported to Regional One Hospital, where she was later pronounced deceased. The victim was working in the business when a female with purple hair driving a teal-colored compact SUV drove through the drive-thru and argued with the victim. The teal-colored SUV drove off the lot, and the victim walked outside of the business to get some air. A few moments later, a gunshot was heard, and the teal-colored SUV was seen on video speeding off the parking lot. The victim was located outside of the business.

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Democrats Say Whitmer Ready to Be Nominee and Win Presidency but State Energy Policy Will Be Tough Sell

Just the News
Gretchen Whitmer

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appeared, with good reason, on Democrats’ short-list of possible 2024 presidential nominees following President Biden’s halting June 27 debate performance.

Whitmer is the governor of a battleground state that is essentially a must-win for Biden and GOP challenger Donald Trump, an abortion-rights advocate in a race in which abortion is a key voter issue, and is known for having worked across the aisle during her roughly 14 years in the state legislature.

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Commentary: The Huge American Sex-Abuse Scandal That Educators Scandalously Suppress

RealClearWire

Every day millions of parents put their children under the care of public school teachers, administrators, and support staff. Their trust, however, is frequently broken by predators in authority in what appears to be the largest ongoing sexual abuse scandal in our nation’s history.

Given the roughly 50 million students in U.S. K-12 schools each year, the number of students who have been victims of sexual misconduct by school employees is probably in the millions each decade, according to multiple studies. Such numbers would far exceed the high-profile abuse scandals that rocked the Roman Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America.

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GOP Congressman Loudermilk Says January 6 Panel’s Final Report So ‘Tainted’ Should Be Invalidated

Just the News
Barry Loudermilk

GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk says the House panel of which is chairman has found the final report of the chamber’s Democrat-led Select Committee on the January 6 Capitol Attack is so flawed that it could be invalidated.

“We’re still investigating, but at the same time, we have uncovered enough to where it really invalidates the select committee’s report,” Loudermilk, chairman of the House Admission Subcommittee on Oversight, said Tuesday on the John Solomon Reports podcast.

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Robert F. Kennedy, Cornel West Submit Signatures to Qualify for Georgia Presidential Election Ballot

Tom Pappert
RFK Jr and Cornel West

The independent presidential campaigns of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West had both submitted thousands of signatures by Tuesday to secure a place on the 2024 presidential ballot in Georgia, meaning Peach State voters may see six choices on their ballot in November.

While the West campaign claimed on Monday it had already submitted the required number of ballots, Kennedy’s campaign was photographed submitting thousands of ballots on Tuesday, when Georgia Secretary of State official Gabriel Sterling confirmed the signatures have yet to be verified.

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Sen. Bob Casey Backs Biden, Dismisses Debate Performance Despite Calls to Replace President

Tom Pappert
Bob Casey and Joe Biden

Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) confirmed on Tuesday he continues to back President Joe Biden despite the continuing calls for him to step aside in the wake of the president’s first debate against former President Donald Trump since the 2020 election.

Casey was asked by CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju whether he harbors “any concerns” over whether Biden is capable of serving another four years, and declared his continued support for Biden, even as seven Democratic members of the U.S. House have called for Biden to step aside.

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Arizona’s Legislative District 2 Voted to Suspend Republican Precinct Committeeman Christian Lamar

Christy Kelly
committeeman Christian Lamar of Arizona

Christian Lamar was suspended from attending Arizona Legislative District 2 meetings, where he remains a precinct committeeman and member-at-large for the state’s 8th Congressional District. The body voted overwhelmingly for his suspension, with margins of 80-16 barring access to the legislative district and 76-23 to revoke his state committeeman status.

“I was just expelled as the only Black Republican from AZGOP executive committee by RINOs in AZGOP LD2 for: supporting President Trump, signing up 285 new Trump Precinct Committeemen & holding the Republican AZ state legislature accountable for allowing 2020/2022 stolen elections,” Lamar tweeted.

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