President Joe Biden’s budget proposal seeks to set aside billions of dollars to push progressive gender, sexuality and race ideology at home and around the globe.
Released this week, the $7.3 trillion budget also proposes spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to train school teachers in diversity, equity, and inclusion dogma.
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Former President Trump continued his romp through the Republican primary, easily winning all but one Super Tuesday contest and demonstrating a dominance so absolute that his stacked victories now seem nearly routine.
“We want to have unity,” Trump told a crowd gathered at Mar-a-Lago, “and we’re going to have unity, and it’s going to happen very quickly.” On the eve of perhaps the greatest political comeback in modern American history, his remarks were relatively subdued by his standards. He never mentioned his former UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, almost as if the competition did not exist and a third nomination was guaranteed all along.
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The Anti-Defamation League claimed that right-wing extremists committed “all” the extremist-related murders in 2023, discounting the apparent extremism of Audrey Hale, the transgender shooter who killed three adults and three students in March at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.
Conservative commentator Steven Crowder released three pages of the shooter’s manifesto, which police confirmed were legitimate, in November.
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Political consultant Ward Baker joined Wednesday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy in-studio to discuss his insights to the state of the 2024 election cycle across the 50 states.
With the Iowa caucuses less than two weeks away and Super Tuesday a scant nine weeks after that on March 5, Baker takes listeners inside the campaigns as he shares the polling, players and places that matter most in 2024.
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The 2024 election cycle will be about many things, from the Biden regime’s overt authoritarianism to retribution against political and legal persecution. President Trump’s comeback candidacy will be a perfect representation of these broader existential issues at the core of the campaign.
But the down-ballot races should be about something just as important as defeating our enemies on the Left. Just as in 2022, the races for Congress should be about an ideological purging of the Republican Party. As the already razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives has proven, a “majority” doesn’t mean much if we are still at the mercy of establishment moderates, RINOs, and outright NeverTrumpers.
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U.S. Representative Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN-03) reportedly told the Hamilton County Pachyderm Club in Chattanooga on Monday that he is “all in” for former President Donald Trump in 2024, and pledged to support his 2024 campaign for re-election.
Fleischmann told Republicans on Monday that he is “all in for Donald Trump,” according to The Chattanoogan, which reported that the congressman told attendees he recently visited Mar-a-Lago and told the former president he will do “everything possible” to aid his re-election.
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The influential National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) released a new advertisement targeting Arizona voters on Monday that labels Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ-03) a “deadbeat dad” and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) a “liberal Democrat.” The ad is the latest indication the political action committee will support Lake, should she secure the Republican nomination.
In a 30-second ad, the narrator bemoaned “Rotten Ruben Gallego” for being “a spokesman for a crooked bank that targeting immigrants,” referencing a March report exposing a bank he founded that was meant to cater to illegal immigrants. Federal regulators eventually determined the bank’s founder illegally sold shares.
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All eight Tennessee Republican U.S. Representatives have signed onto a letter sent to the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), an agency of the Department of Commerce, demanding its recent 90-day pause on civilian firearm exports be lifted immediately.
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Edina High School students walked out of class Wednesday afternoon to protest their district’s “support for Israel,” which is at war with Hamas after the terrorist organization slaughtered Israeli civilians in an Oct. 7 attack.
“We all [saw] the email Edina Public Schools sent out showing their ‘support’ for Israel. History is repeating itself, an ethnic cleansing is happening to Palestine right now yet we close our eyes,” says a post on an Instagram page created for the walkout.
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Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., won the House speaker nomination on Tuesday night, becoming the fourth candidate to do so after the ousting of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy three weeks ago.
Johnson, vice chair of the House GOP conference, lost to House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., earlier on Tuesday but Emmer eventually dropped out due to opposition from enough Republicans to sink his ascension to the speakership on the House floor.
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Imagining a cascade of catastrophic escalations plunging humanity into the next world war is no longer a stretch, and it could happen fast. Israel invades Gaza to destroy Hamas, and Hezbollah goes to war. America targets Hezbollah to help defend Israel, and Iran and Syria, with Russian assistance, attack Israel. Hezbollah cells strike targets within America, and Israel and America strike targets inside Iran. Russia launches a major new offensive in Ukraine with support from Belarus. China openly supports Russia and Iran with weapons. All of this is more plausible than ever.
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There have been plenty of terrorist attacks on Israel. A dozen or so conventional wars of various magnitude have been waged against the Jewish state. And more often there have been mixtures of both.
Yet never have hundreds of gangs of black-clad murderers carefully planned to swarm Israel, with an agenda to pull random Jews out of their homes and off the street, murder them, and toss their bodies in the street.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had been vying for the Democratic nomination for president, announced in Philadelphia on Monday he will now run as an independent. Kennedy first launched his presidential bid in April, and has been critical of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC’s) rules for aiding President Joe Biden, and not hosting primary debates.
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Fox News has reportedly canceled a debate between Republican candidates for the speakership of the House of Representatives after multiple candidates withdrew from the planned program on Friday.
Fox had announced that it would host a forum between House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan — the two candidates who have announced campaigns for the job — as well as Republican Study Committee Chairman Kevin Hern, who is considering a campaign, to discuss their suitability for the job, from which Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California was removed on Tuesday. However, following criticism from House Republicans, all three candidates decided to withdraw from the conversation, which led Fox News to cancel the whole program, according to multiple reports.
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Republicans currently hold a 49-46 majority in the Virginia House, and the Nov. 7, 2023, election will determine control of the state legislature and Virginia’s trifecta status. Virginia’s trifecta status changed from Democratic to divided as a result of the 2021 elections. Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) was elected to succeed term-limited incumbent Ralph Northam (D). Democrats also lost control of the Virginia House. If Republicans maintain control of the House and win the Senate, Virginia would become a Republican trifecta. If Democrats win control of the House or maintain control of the Senate, Virginia would remain a divided government.
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There’s a crisis in American democracy, all right, and the Left created it.
Last week, Democrats fired the latest salvo in a long war to radically transform American elections by eroding state and local control, replacing ballot-counters with a centralized, D.C.-run bureaucracy.
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I’ve been saying, at The Spectacle podcast and elsewhere, that I refuse to make any assumptions about the 2024 presidential cycle. And let me offer the further caveat that Republican voters and conservative activists, not to mention current and prospective officeholders who wear that “R” next to their political names, had better pay a whole lot more attention to the structure of next year’s political cycle than to the personalities and candidates involved.
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Tennessee U.S. Senator and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bill Hagerty (R-TN) joined the effort to secure the southern border by introducing companion legislation in the Senate to the House-passed Secure the Border Act of 2023.
Hagerty, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), along with nine other Senate Republican colleagues, on Monday introduced the companion legislation into the U.S. Senate.
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U.S. Representative Ken Buck’s big wet sloppy kiss to Attorney General Merrick Garland last week could not have come at worse time for the Colorado Republican.
Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the federal court in Washington, D.C. was in the process of ordering prison time typically applied to murderers, drug traffickers, and serial child pornographers for five members of the Proud Boys convicted of no serious crime related to January 6. A well-known gun storage company faced backlash for assisting the FBI in yet another armed raid against a January 6 trespasser. And a young man from Utah took his own life just weeks after his arrest on four misdemeanors for his participation in January 6, at least the fourth known suicide of a Capitol protester.
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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday approved an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, even as GOP senators warn against the measure.
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The field of candidates is now set for the 28 school districts across Minnesota that will hold “off-year” elections this November, where there are no legislative seats or congressional or statewide offices on the ballot.
While most of the nearly 300 other school districts across the state hold their elections during more visible campaign cycles (such as 2024), the school district communities with races this fall represent about 1.7 million residents across the state. Combined, those districts with seats up for election steward well over $4 billion in tax dollars.
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Anyone suggesting there is no role for unions in America today might first consider a fact of history: more than a century ago, when oligarchs and the companies they owned had treated workers as if they were livestock, reduced to living in squalid pens with rationed food and water, it was unions that organized these workers to resist. It was unions who gave these workers back their humanity, and negotiated collective bargaining agreements and laws that eliminated child labor, enforced workplace safety, established an 8-hour work day, paid overtime, health benefits, and retirement pensions.
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United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain criticized President Joe Biden on Tuesday for pushing electric vehicle goals that UAW believes do not result in great enough compensation for workers, according to The Washington Post.
Fain is still withholding an endorsement for the president by UAW after criticizing Biden for low wages at the new Ultium Cells plant, General Motors’ electric vehicle battery project that is jointly owned with LG Energy Solutions, according to the Post. UAW is currently in negotiations with top automakers Ford, GM and Stellantis over a possible strike for the 150,000 U.S. hourly workers represented by the union.
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Hate and fear might as well be the GOP’s motto. And while there was a time when a liberal like me saying that would be accurately labeled hyperbolic, that time has passed. Show me what, aside from hate and fear, the modern Republican Party is all about.
Columnist Rex Huppke, writing for USA Today, July 16, 2023
Huppke’s comment is something we hear all the time. The campaign to dehumanize MAGA Republicans as hatemongers and fearmongers is a staple of the liberal media, is the playbook for Democrat politicians all the way up to President Biden, and is supported by almost the entire academic community. This dehumanization campaign isn’t restricted to Democrats. Establishment Republicans either equivocate, or explicitly join Democrats in demonizing MAGA Republicans.
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South Carolina GOP Rep. and House Freedom Caucus member Ralph Norman is weighing a 2026 Senate bid to challenge Sen. Lindsey Graham in the Republican primary, according to Politico.
Graham has served in the upper chamber since 2003 and has repeatedly beat out primary challengers, but was booed on July 1 by his own constituents at a rally for former President Donald Trump. Conservatives now see an opportunity for another Republican to emerge in 2026 and have been discussing a potential bid with Norman, a source familiar with the matter told Politico.
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The future of humanity is becoming ever less human. The astounding capabilities of ChatGPT and other forms of artificial intelligence have triggered fears about the coming age of machines leaving little place for human creativity or employment. Even the architects of this brave new world are sounding the alarm. Sam Altman, chairman and CEO of OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, recently warned that artificial intelligence poses an “existential risk” to humanity and warned Congress that artificial intelligence “can go quite wrong.”
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Ron DeSantis, Florida governor and presidential candidate, addressed approximately 1,850 attendees as the keynote speaker for the Tennessee Republican Party’s 46th annual Statesmen’s Dinner on Saturday at the Music City Center in Nashville.
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The California State Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is co-sponsoring a bill that seeks to establish a framework for parenting that enshrines in law the idea that failing to affirm a child’s self-identified gender will be considered detrimental to his or her well-being, a press release from Capitol Resource Institute (CRI) announced Monday.
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Despite the fact that nearly all elected Republicans who hold federal office in Tennessee have endorsed former President Donald Trump in his 2024 reelection bid, the Tennessee Republican Party (TNGOP) has invited Trump’s main primary opponent to speak at its annual Statesman’s Dinner.
The dinner, which will be held at the end of July, will feature Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) as the keynote speaker, according to a video posted by the TNGOP on its website.
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House Republicans are introducing a bill that would prohibit foreign nationals from contributing to political advocacy organizations, closing a loophole that allows their funds to support political campaigns, according to a report by Axios.
Republican Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, who chairs the House Administration Committee that certifies elections to the chamber, will introduce the American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act in the House on Tuesday, according to Axios. The bill will reportedly ban foreign nationals from donating to political advocacy organizations with tax-exempt status under Section 501 (c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code.
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by Theo Wold James Landis is widely credited with crafting the theoretical architecture supporting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s radical reconstruction — and expansion — of the federal government. Landis shrewdly both established and legitimized the regulatory state, including Roosevelt’s creation of new federal administrative agencies, by offering the regulatory state as the solution to the problem of modern governance: the administrative state “is, in essence, our generation’s answer to the inadequacy of the judicial and legislative process.” The Landis premise took concrete shape through Roosevelt’s expansion of the regulatory state, and in doing so, it brought to fruition Woodrow Wilson’s progressive intellectual project: rule by experts, insulated from the popular will Landis (pictured above) believed the “the administrative process” for which he advocated would “spring from the inadequacy of a simply tripartite form of government to deal with modern problems” because modern problems were simply too large and complex to be entrusted to the system based on the separation of powers instituted by our nation’s founders. Landis framed this innovation as consistent with separation of powers principles because he believed the separation of powers called both for separation but also coordination among the branches, and he saw the administrative state as essential to creating that…
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Meagan Wolfe, the controversial administrator of the controversial Wisconsin Elections Commission, sent out a defiant letter on Wednesday to local elections officials as she looks to save her job.
Wolfe’s current term is set to expire in a couple of weeks, and, as she notes, her future is uncertain.
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A lot of presidential politics watchers will tell you that it’s not a presidential campaign until a candidate comes to Iowa.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis came to Iowa Tuesday evening, officially kicking off his run for the White House in the kick-off caucus state.
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Contrary to widespread claims that the U.S. government will default on its debt if Congress doesn’t raise the debt limit, federal law and the Constitution require the Treasury to pay the debt, and it has ample tax revenues to do this.
Nor would Social Security benefits be affected by a debt limit stalemate unless President Biden illegally diverts Social Security revenues to other programs.
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The decade-long French Revolution that broke out in 1789 soon devolved into far more than removing the monarchy, as it became antithetical to the earlier American precedent. American notions of liberty and freedom were seen as far too narrow, given the state, if only all-powerful and all-wise, could mandate “equality” and force “fraternity” among its subjects.
Each cycle of French revolutionary fervor soon became more radicalized and cannibalistic — until it reached its logical ends of violent absurdity.
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First Amendment speech protections may be circumscribed for therapists and medical professionals in the American West, critics warn, unless the Supreme Court scrutinizes a Washington law prohibiting any “regime that seeks to change” a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Christian doctors, pro-life pregnancy centers, pediatricians, gender-critical feminists and a dozen states led by Idaho filed friend-of-the-court briefs last week urging the justices to review the so-called conversion law, warning it prevents providers from sharing research on the harms of hormonal and surgical procedures for gender-confused minors.
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Two Ohio Republican state senators have re-introduced legislation that aims to prohibit fees and insurance requirements from owning a gun.
Senate Bill (SB) 58, sponsored by State Senators Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) and Terry Johnson (R-McDermott), tries to protect Ohio’s Second Amendment rights by ensuring that no Ohioan will be required to possess or purchase firearm liability insurance or pay a fee for the possession of a firearm, parts, components, ammunition, or a knife.
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Tennessee U.S. Congressman Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) introduced the Teachers Empowered Against Classroom Harm (TEACH) Act on Friday.
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In an email obtained by Campus Reform in early March, a professor at the University of South Florida (USF) suggested ways for her students to show support for students arrested during a protest organized by the leftist organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
The protest was held in response to Governor DeSantis’ efforts to defund diversity, equity, and inclusion and critical race theory initiatives at public universities in Florida. The four individuals arrested during the protest were each charged with either “assault or battery of law enforcement,” student newspaper The Oracle reported.
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On Thursday, the Cuyahoga County Republican Party censured state Representative Tom Patton (R-Strongsville) for voting in favor of newly elected House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill).
The Cuyahoga County Republican Party Disciplinary Committee previously recommended that Patton be censured for disregarding his obligation to the party and public by voting for Stephens.
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Gov. Josh Shapiro’s first state budget proposal perpetuates unsustainable spending and fails to address the most promising ideas he put forward during his campaign. For starters, his budget calls for $45.9 billion in ongoing General Fund spending – but the state has only $43 billion in net revenues, so the governor is positioning us for a nearly $3 billion annual deficit.
Spending that exceeds revenue is unsustainable and fiscally irresponsible for individuals, businesses, and certainly for government.
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Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) is already claiming high-ranking Republicans “are praising” his first budget. Those Republicans’ actual remarks tell a different story.
A press release from the governor selectively quotes eight GOP state lawmakers’ reactions to the budget he unveiled last week. While the snippets accurately capture areas of agreement, they leave out decidedly negative sentiments the Republicans voiced about the $45.9 billion plan which would hike state spending by about four percent over the current level.
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Last month, all three Scottsdale legislators called for the termination of Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) Superintendent Scott Menzel after “racist” comments he made about white people in 2019 were reported in the media. Since no action has been taken, the Arizona Freedom Caucus (AFC) held a press conference last Thursday demanding the school board fire him.
State Sen. Joseph Chaplik (R-Scottsdale), said, “Superintendent Menzel has chosen to publicly conduct himself in such an unbecoming manner that a critical mass of parents in the district do not have confidence in his ability to be responsible and effectively lead our children.”
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The Lucas County Republican Party voted unanimously this week to censure the Republican representatives who voted in favor of newly elected House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill).
Last month, lawmakers elected moderate Republican Stephens as the new speaker to succeed State Representative Bob Cupp (R-Lima) despite the Republican Caucus‘ previous selection in November of State Representative Derek Merrin (R-Moncolva) as the new speaker. Although the GOP caucus voted for Merrin as Speaker of the House in December, Stephen fought in collaboration with the Democrats to collect votes and garner a win.
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Stephen Curry is quite the guy. Professional athlete, philanthropist, and social justice advocate—is there anything he can’t do? Apparently there is, seeing as how the NBA player has difficulty practicing what he preaches.
Curry came under fire this week after it was revealed that he and his wife oppose the construction of multifamily housing near their $31 million Atherton mansion. Yet this shouldn’t surprise us. Hypocrisy is a defining trait for many wealthy liberals.
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The BadgersVote initiative “strives to provide University of Wisconsin–Madison students with everything they need to know in order to participate in their elections,” according to organizers. But is the campus-wide “public service” campaign really just a Democratic Party Get-Out-the-Vote effort underwritten by a taxpayer-funded university, a nonprofit research center, and liberal activist groups?
For some, the university-nonprofit partnership feels a lot like the Zuckerbucks scandal of 2020.
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Amalgamated Bank, with just five branches across three cities, and a market value lower than the net worth of many an individual hedge fund honcho, would seem an unlikely mover and shaker in the world of Wall Street, let alone Washington, D.C.
Yet last fall, it successfully pressured colossal credit card companies Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to use the financial system to track and report gun purchases. Amalgamated is “more than a bank,” says Michael Watson of the Capital Research Center. “It’s a bank for an ideological movement.”
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During his second State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Joe Biden called out Tennessee U.S. Representative Andy Ogles’ (R-TN-05) recently-introduced bill that would repeal the inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
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Lt Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) and Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) have announced the list of member appointments to the education committees for the 113th General Assembly. It’s a list populated by both old stalwarts and new blood.
In the Senate, there is one education committee that will continue to be filled with familiar faces. McNally appointed only two new members – Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) and Senator Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) – for the upcoming session. Senator John Lundberg (R-Bristol) remains chair, with Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) as the 2nd Vice-Chair. Sen. Senator Bill Powers (R-Clarksville) assumes the role of 1st Vice-Chair.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio- The Ohio Republican Party has named Alex Triantafilou, longtime leader of the Hamilton County Republican Party, as its next chairman.
Following a vote Friday by the Ohio Republican Party’s Central Committee Triantafilou will replace Bob Paduchik who has led the state party since February 2021.
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