Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms Won’t Seek Reelection as City Uncertain About Public Safety

This week Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms announced she will not seek reelection. This, while Atlanta’s crime rate remains high and a new report explored why members of the Atlanta Police Department (APD) have difficulties hiring and retaining employees.

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Finance Expert and Fox News Contributor Liz Peek Weighs in on Reckless Federal Spending and Impending Inflation

Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed financial expert and Fox News contributor Liz Peek to the newsmakers line to weigh in on fiscally irresponsible federal spending, inflation, and those industries in which we will see the repercussions.

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Georgia AG Chris Carr Joins Lawsuit Over Social Cost of Joe Biden’s Executive Order on Carbon

Chris Carr

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced this week that he has joined nine other state attorneys general in suing to prevent the Joe Biden Administration, all to save several people’s financial livelihoods. Carr, in a press release, said Biden and members of his administration want to carry out an act of executive overreach that will kill thousands of jobs throughout the United States and threatens to impose more burdens and harms on the American people.

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Washington Correspondent Neil W. McCabe Weighs in on Democratic Spending and the 2022 Red Wave

Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Washington Correspondent for the Star News Network Neil W. McCabe to the newsmakers line to weigh in on democratic overspending in infrastructure and tax bills, the oncoming red wave of 2022, and Republican candidates for the House and Senate.

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Commentary: Biden’s $2 Trillion Infrastructure Plan is Loaded with Corporate Welfare

President Biden has just unveiled a new $2.3 trillion “infrastructure” plan, but a shockingly large portion of this bill is actually unrelated to infrastructure.

The plan includes massive subsidies for corporations as well as state and local governments, and comes right after the administration’s proposed increase in the corporate tax rate, which would raise the rate from 21 percent to 28 percent.

There’s $300 billion for manufacturing, $100 billion for electric utilities, $100 billion for broadband, $174 billion for electric vehicles, and a whole lot more. A significant portion of this spending is directed at subsidizing big corporations.

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EXCLUSIVE: Republican Attorneys General Plan to Create Legal Roadblocks for Biden Agenda

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

Republican attorneys general are determined to mount numerous legal challenges against President Joe Biden, creating a formidable roadblock to the president’s agenda.

In less than three months since President Joe Biden was sworn into office, Republican states have waged war on his agenda, suing the administration on climate change, energy, immigration and taxation policy. But the conservative attorneys general who started filing the lawsuits in March said they aren’t done yet and expect to continue challenging the administration in court.

“We are sharpening the pencils and filling up the inkwells,” Louisiana Attorney General and former Republican Attorneys General Association Chairman Jeff Landry, who is leading two of the ongoing lawsuits against the Biden administration, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Atlanta’s ‘Terrifying’ Events Prompt Buckhead Residents’ Desire to Secede from City

Buckhead residents who have organized and wish to secede from Atlanta said this week that they are diverse and their ties to that larger city bring crime and one horror story after. Members of this group, the Buckhead Exploratory Committee (BEOC), also said that they are serious about wanting to leave.

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Commentary: Conflict with China Could Mean Nuclear War

Radioactive Caution Signs on fence

China is not our friend. Since the Clinton Administration, and through the Bush and Obama years, American policy proceeded as if trade and cultural ties would work automatically to liberalize the Chinese. Instead, these ties have enriched and strengthened China, allowing it to build first-class infrastructure, a robust economy, and a substantially more capable military in a mere 30 years’ time. 

Simultaneously, these policies have hollowed out our own industrial base, rendering most of our industries, including the tech sector, dependent on Chinese inputs. In the name of efficiency, we have lost resilience, jobs, and independence. 

The prospect of a military confrontation with China is now closer than it was at the beginning of this process. Along with its rising confidence and capability, China has advanced a self-serving and novel view of its authority, asserting sovereignty and rights of exclusion deep into the South China Sea. 

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Gov. Whitmer Announces 21 Road Rebuilding Projects

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced 21 state highway projects for the 2021 construction season.

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) projects are funded through its budget and the $3.5 billion Rebuilding Michigan bonding program.

Whitmer announced the projects on Tuesday. 

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Revolving Door at Tennessee Education Lottery as Head of Sports Wagering Resigns Suddenly

Sources say that someone with one of the sports betting industry’s most polished resumes resigned from her high-level position with the Tennessee Education Lottery late last week. That woman, Danielle Boyd, was the TEL’s vice president of Sports Gaming Operations. Boyd assumed that position in July 2020, according to her LinkedIn page.

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Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan Praises Deal Involving Solar Company with Alleged Ethics Problems

Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R-Cumming) this week praised a deal involving a Georgia electric cooperative and a Tennessee-based solar power company, the latter of which has a history of alleged ethics violations. This, according to a press release that members of Duncan’s staff published on his website.

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State Revenues in February Exceeded the Budget by $191 Million, Puts Fiscal Year Surplus at $1.3 Billion

Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration Butch Eley announced Friday that tax revenues to the state for the month of February exceeded the budgeted estimates by $190.9 million, which puts the fiscal year surplus at $1.3 billion.

February revenues of $1.13 billion represent an 11.06 percent growth rate or $112.7 million more than February of last year.

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Commentary: How the Administrative State Kills Us

Maryland’s vile handling of the COVID-19 vaccine affords searing lessons in the failure of bureaucratic government or the administrative state. More specifically Montgomery County (MoCo), Maryland’s bedroom community for the federal bureaucracy, exemplifies how America will suffer under one-party Democratic rule. 

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California Refugee and Now Nashvillian Craig Huey Joins Leahy in Studio to Discuss His Transition to Tennessee and How to Help Make It Easier

Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Craig Huey of The Huey Report in studio to discuss moving from California and improving the transition to Tennessee.

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Commentary: Biden Wants Unity Moving into the Democratic Party

Mainstream voters in both parties feel that neither major party represents them, and that their opinions and wishes hold little sway over government policy.

Establishment Republicans failed the average American by becoming captive to extreme Libertarian ideology that is divorced from the reality of most people’s lives.

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Report: DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Plans to Gut ICE Immigration Enforcement

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has introduced a plan to “reorganize”  ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations to the point where it will no longer be about enforcing the nation’s immigration laws, the Washington Times reported.

The Cuba-born Mayorkas floated this plan to essentially “abolish ICE” last week during a telephone conference call with agency personnel in Texas, according to the Times’ sources, who claimed Mayorkas proposed “taking members of the country’s 4,000-strong deportation force off the streets and converting them into criminal investigators.”

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Analysis: The New York Times Regularly Publishes Falsehoods That Spur Violent Unrest and Civic Dysfunction

A New York Times essay by columnist Kevin Roose frets that the U.S. is suffering from a “reality crisis” and proposes this solution: President Biden should set up a “truth commission” to combat the “scourge” of “hoaxes, lies and collective delusions” that lead to “violent unrest and civic dysfunction.”

Yet, the Times’ idea of “truth” often consists of falsehoods that cause violent unrest and civic dysfunction.

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Commentary: When the Free Market Freezes over

Thucydides recalls a scene from the Peloponnesian War when the Athenians, fleeing before their enemies, come to the Assinarus River. They stop to drink from its flowing waters even as their foes bear down on them.

The Syracusans, Thucydides writes, “showered missiles down upon the Athenians, most of them drinking greedily and heaped together in disorder in the hollow of the river.” Then the Peloponnesians “came down and butchered them, especially those in the water which was thus immediately spoiled, but which they went on drinking just the same, mud and all, bloody as it was, most even fighting to have it.”

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Nation’s Top Small Business Group Doubles Down in Minimum Wage Fight

The leading advocacy organization for small businesses in the U.S. is focusing its legislative efforts on defeating a proposal to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.

The minimum wage is the biggest issue the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) has lobbied on recently, the group told the Daily Caller News Foundation. After a series of pandemic-related victories on Capitol Hill, capped off by the December stimulus package that included $284.5 billion for small businesses, NFIB decided to lobby Congress to “do no harm.”

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Commentary: The Libertarian Party Delivers Wins to Anti-Liberty Democrats and There Is No Principle in That

If you want to find a Libertarian Party organization that has achieved relevance, look no further than Georgia. That’s where Shane Hazel, running for the U.S. Senate as a Libertarian, garnered 2.3 percent of the vote in November. Hazel’s showing may have been insignificant, but the Republican candidate, David Perdue, only needed 0.3 percent more votes to have avoided a runoff, where he lost.

America’s political system today, with rare exceptions, is a two party system. All that Perdue needed was for one in seven of Hazel’s voters to choose him instead, and the GOP would still control the U.S. Senate. In a two party system, it doesn’t take much to be relevant. Hazel now intends to run as a Libertarian for governor in Georgia in 2022.

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Analysis: Biden’s New Dawn of Net-Zero Is Looking Like a Dark Day for Labor

Last Labor Day, candidate Joe Biden made an impassioned pitch to leaders and members of the AFL-CIO, America’s largest labor federation. Stressing that “the great American middle class was built by unions,” he jabbed his finger in the air for emphasis as he promised, “I’m going to be the strongest labor president you have ever had,” drawing a smile from his longtime ally and friend, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

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Michigan Internet Gaming Reaps $42.7 Million in Gross Receipts in First 10 Days

Sports Book Betting

Michigan internet gaming and sports betting operators reported $42.7 million in gross receipts for the 10 days after its initial launch.

Michigan’s online sportsbooks generated $115.2 million in wagers in the 10 days in January, according to the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB).

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Analysis: The New York Times’ Brazenly False ‘Fact Check’ About Trump’s Impeachment Trial

The New York Times has published a “fact check“ by Linda Qui declaring that Donald Trump’s lawyers “made a number of inaccurate or misleading claims” during the Senate impeachment trial. In reality, much of the article consists of flagrant falsehoods propagated by Qui and the Times.

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Minnesota Gov. Walz Pushes for Subsidized Biofuels but Economists Warn of Climate Damage, Higher Food Prices

Gov. Tim Walz asked for President Joe Biden’s continued support for the biofuels program last week, despite economists’ concerns over concerns about biofuels’ inefficiency and costs. 

Biofuels — bioethanol and biodiesel derived from plants — since 2005 have been pitched as a solution to climate change because they decrease dependency on fossil fuels.

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Commentary: Koch Proxies Threaten to Destroy Conservative Populism

A recent guest column in the Dallas Morning News offers new evidence that Conservatism, Inc. is bent on destroying conservative populism. The piece also underscores the primary streams of money in American politics: Trillions of dollars flow to progressives, billions flow to libertarians, and millions—on a good day—flow into the conservative populist movement.

The column is headlined “By supporting Trumpism, the GOP is in danger of losing libertarian support,” with the subtitle adding that “Many libertarians split from the party to vote for Biden.” The authors are Daniel Smith, an associate professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University and director of the Political Economy Research Institute, and Alexander Salter, an associate professor of economics at Texas Tech University and a research fellow at Texas Tech’s Free Market Institute. But these two professors are not some random intellectuals. They are part of a billion-dollar machine, built to produce paid-for ideas.

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Two Senators Flip-Flop on Keystone XL Pipeline, Thwarting GOP Bid to Save It

Two Democratic senators—Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana—who initially voted in favor of a Republican amendment reversing President Joe Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline later reversed themselves and voted with other Democrats to kill the amendment. 

Both Tester and Manchin voted late Thursday night for the amendment from Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., that would have reversed Biden’s Jan. 20 executive order ending further construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, but changed their votes before dawn on Friday morning. 

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Analysis: PolitiFact Warps Reality About Left-Wing Activist Inciting Capitol Riot

A PolitiFact article written by Bill McCarthy declares “there’s no proof that” a left-wing anti-Trump activist named John Sullivan incited rioting at the U.S. Capitol. As a result of this claim, Facebook flagged and reduced distribution of a post which accused Sullivan of doing so.

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Commentary: Biden, Teachers’ Unions, and the $630 Billion Shakedown

For all their devastating, long-term side effects, the various failed remedies to COVID-19 have been clarifying.

The “expert” class, in case it was still unclear to anyone, is overrun not with critical thinkers devoted to scientific inquiry but hyperpartisan hacks with a hive mind no better than that of a typical seventh-grade cheer squad. The scientific method is dead; in its place is a multitiered campaign to bully, silence, and cancel anyone who dares to challenge their unchallengeable expertise.

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Commentary: Who Killed the Anti-War Democrats?

After three generations the anti-war tendency within America’s oldest political party has been thoroughly alienated from its leadership and rendered impotent. The absence of this political failsafe means that America’s destructive overseas interventionism is less accountable than ever.

As the 1968 presidential election cycle kicked off there was little reason to suspect that Lyndon Johnson would not continue to serve as president. He had succeeded to the office following the much loved and mourned John F. Kennedy after his assassination in 1963 and won in such a landslide in 1964 that he was immediately able to undertake a raft of ambitious new programs known as the Great Society. 

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Biden Regime Embraces ‘Great Reset’ Plan to Destroy Capitalism

The Biden regime is fully embracing a radical globalist plan that seeks to destroy capitalism and replace it with a socialist system.

“The Great Reset” was unveiled at the World Economic Forum (WEC) in Davos, Switzerland last June, using the coronavirus pandemic and “global warming” as pretexts to impose on the world far-left social programs like government-provided basic income, the Green New Deal, universal healthcare, and of course, massive tax increases.

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Biden Reportedly Prepared to Issue Moratorium on Fossil Fuel Leases for Federal Lands

President Joe Biden is reportedly set to temporarily halt new federal oil and gas leasing, people familiar with his plans told The Washington Post.

The move would pause pending fossil fuel auctions on federal land and water, but will not affect existing leases in the Gulf Coast and the western part of the country, according to the Post. While the moratorium will help Biden deliver on one of his signature campaign promises, it will likely be met with sharp resistance from fossil fuel industries and lawmakers who have voiced concern that Biden’s climate policies will cost thousands of jobs.

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Commentary: Will Biden Kill the Trump Economic Recovery?

The U.S. economy is poised to continue a massive recovery that began after labor markets bottomed in April with 25 million jobs lost during Covid, with 16 million of the having been recovered since then — provided that President-elect Joe Biden does not kill the rest of the recovery that began on President Donald Trump’s watch.

Really, all Biden needs to do right now is almost nothing, and allow the U.S. economy to fully reopen once the Covid vaccine has been fully administered and the number of daily new cases approaches zero.

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Tennessee’s December Revenues Yield a $156.4 Million Surplus

The state’s revenue collections for the month of December were higher than budgeted yielding a $156.4 million surplus, Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration Commissioner Butch Eley announced Monday.

On an accrual basis, December marks the fifth month of the 2021-2022 fiscal year. 

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Minnesota Gov. Walz to Loosen COVID-19 Restrictions; Gazelka Previews 2021 Session Priorities

Lawmakers kicked off the 2021 legislative session at noon on Tuesday, one day before Gov. Tim Walz is expected to announce loosening restrictions on indoor dining and other settings after an improvement in the state’s number of COVID-19 cases.

Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-East Gull Lake, told The Center Square in a phone interview one priority is to craft a new two-year state budget without raising taxes on gas, sales, or income. 

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Virginia State Senator Amanda Chase on D.C. Rally: ‘It Was Very Heartwarming’

State Senator Amanda Chase (R-Chesterfield) was present at the Washington, D.C. rally on Wednesday morning, and she told The Virginia Star that it was a historic day after historic voter fraud.

“It was very heartwarming,” Chase said. “The people that were there, they were good people. They were patriots, they love their country, they were there to peacefully show support. They weren’t there for destructive purposes at all.”

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Joe Biden’s About to Floor It to a Green Future – Straight into State Speed Traps

Joe Biden needs to put the pedal to the metal as he races toward his goal of ridding America’s energy sources of carbon emissions by 2035. But the president-elect’s headlong rush toward a green future may be slowed by a snarl of political speed limits in the states.

One of Biden’s most ambitious aims is to completely clean up the electrical grid, today powered mostly by fossil fuels, in only 15 years. Many energy executives consider that goal quixotic because it would require a breathtakingly fast transformation of the massive power industry — from replacing hundreds of dirty power plants to upgrading thousands of miles transmission lines.

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Here’s Everything We Know About the Hunter Biden Investigation

Hunter Biden, the son of President-elect Joe Biden, is the subject of a probe into possible connections to a prominent Chinese energy firm as well as an investigation into his tax affairs.

The President-elect’s son announced on Dec. 9 that federal authorities in his home state of Delaware were conducting an inquiry into his finances. Hunter Biden’s business dealings with China remains the primary focus of the investigation, which began in 2018, CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz reported.

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Ohio Group: End, Not Delay, Consumer Fees, Government Subsidies for Power Companies

While the Ohio General Assembly works on a bill to delay new consumer fees on electric bills, one state representative is getting support for his plan to end the charges completely.

State Rep. Mark Romanchuk (R-Ontario) introduced House Bill 772 that he says focuses on the “harmful policy to Ohioans” created by House Bill 6, a controversial nuclear bailout law that led to the indictments and arrests of five people, including former Speaker of the House Larry Householder, in a $60 million bribery and racketeering scheme.

“The $150 million annual nuclear subsidy from Ohioans was never needed to sustain the operation of the two Ohio nuclear plants. Evidence was provided by witnesses during the House Bill 6 debate that financial instability was likely untrue,” Romanchuk said.

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Trump-Train Organizer Mike Dickinson Announces Campaign for Virginia’s 68th House of Delegates District

Mike Dickinson mobilized big turnout to Trump Trains that traveled through the heart of Richmond in October. Dickinson’s grassroots events energized local Trump supporters even as mainstream GOP events in the area struggled. At the time, Dickinson was running for Richmond’s 1st City Council District; he came in third with 1,842 votes. Now, he has again set his sights on the 68th House of Delegates district, currently held by Dawn Adams (D).

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Commentary: Michigan Governor’s War on Energy is Bad Policy and Bad Politics 

Michigan’s Governor wants to make life more difficult for Ohioans and Toledo is directly in her crosshairs. 

On November 13th Governor Gretchen Whitmer, along with her Attorney General Dana Nessel, issued a cease-and-desist order against construction of a $500 million dollar infrastructure upgrade known as the Great Lakes Tunnel. The tunnel will replace the Mackinac Straits section of the Line 5 pipeline, a 647-mile pipeline that carries 540,000 barrels a day of light crude oil, light synthetic crude, and natural gas liquids (NGLs) to the refineries of Toledo, and the Midwest. The order would not only stop this next generation infrastructure improvement, it would also force the permanent closure of the Line 5 pipeline by May of 2021, devastating the 1,200 Ohioans that work in these petrochemical facilities.

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Famed Attorney Sidney Powell Discusses Her Recently Filed Lawsuit and the Malevolence of Evil That She Is Uncovering Everyday

Thursday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host John Fredricks welcomed lawyer and author Sidney Powell to the show to discuss her recently filed lawsuit in Arizona and to explain the types of evidence she has gathered in the process.

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Lin Wood Wins Restraining Order to Stop Georgia Elections Officials From Wiping Dominion Voting Machines

Shortly after initially ruling Sunday that state officials must seize and preserve voting machines and data, a federal judge reportedly changed his mind to clear the way for machines to be reset or wiped.

The second order was issued by Senior Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr. of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Atlanta Division. It came in a civil suit asking Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and others to decertify the election results, protect machines and verify ballot signatures.

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Host Leahy and Carmichael Reflect on JFK’s Presidency 57 Years After His Death

Monday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss past presidential moral dilemmas and their impact on foreign policy.

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Tennessee’s Year-to-Date Budget Surplus is Up to $447 Million

Three months into the 2020-2021 fiscal year, Tennessee’s actual revenues have exceeded the budget to create a $447 million surplus.

The surplus represents revenues that are 13 percent over and above the budgeted revenues through October and the fourth month in a row of budget surpluses.

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Mountain Valley Pipeline Gets Huge Court Win: Proceed

The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to stay a Biological Opinion, a type of permit, from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), according to Reuters. The Wednesday decision allows construction of the 303 mile natural gas pipeline to go forward while the courts consider the merits of other legal challenges to the pipeline.

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Commentary: The Trump ‘CT Scanner’ Exposes the Malignancies of the Elites for All to See

These past four years, Donald Trump, intentionally or not, became a CT scanner that produced three-dimensional images of the innards of elite institutions and people, showing us what is beneath their veneers. He had an eerie manner of replying to critics in such an upstart fashion that those who objected to his supposed crudity proved cruder in repartee than he. And he showcased his successes for America in such a way as to make his enemies wish that successes for their country were failures instead.

If one suspected before 2017 that White House CNN correspondent Jim Acosta was a lightweight blowhard, be now confirmed you had been naïve in such a balanced assessment. 

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Commentary: Trump Is Still Fighting, Don’t You Give Up

We knew we would win and that the Democrats would attempt to steal the election by large-scale voter fraud. President Trump foresaw this danger and began fundraising and hiring a team of litigators months ago, preparing for a legal battle royale. I spent almost an hour on the phone with the head of the GOP litigation team this fall—the Trump team had already raised a huge war chest, and were positioning themselves legally for victory by pre-emptive strikes in the courts. 

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