Americans for Prosperity – Tennessee (AFP-TN) celebrated the Tennessee Senate on Thursday for its passage of House Joint Resolution 81 by a 26-6 vote.
House Joint Resolution 81 would prohibit the Tennessee General Assembly from levying, authorizing, or otherwise permitting a state tax on property if enacted.
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Following the 2020 presidential election, which faced allegations of mass voter fraud from former President Donald Trump and his supporters, many states moved to restricting mail-in or absentee voting practices.
The Montana Supreme Court struck down multiple voting reform laws on Wednesday, declaring them unconstitutional.
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The Georgia Senate passed a bill protecting women’s sports by 33 to 21 on Tuesday that would prevent biological males from unfairly competing in women’s and K-12 girls’ sports. The bill awaits transfer to the House for continued discussion.
HB 1104 seeks to safeguard “students from harm” and maintain “competitive fairness” in school sports by requiring athletes to compete in activities based on the gender listed on their birth certificate. The bill states that local schools may have “separate teams for members of each sex where selection for such teams is based upon competitive skill, competitive fairness, student safety or the activity involved is a contact sport.”
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The Tennesse General Assembly passed a bill prohibiting banks from de-banking and closing consumer accounts based on “social credit score” systems.
SB 2148 “prohibits financial institutions and insurers from denying or canceling services to a person, or otherwise discriminating against a person, based upon the use of a social credit score or other factors,” according to the bill’s summary.
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More than 124,000 people enrolled in Ohio’s Medicaid program were also enrolled in Medicaid programs in other states, a new report from state Auditor Keith Faber said.
The audit that examined four years’ worth of data also showed the state paid more than $1 billion to medical providers for services to people enrolled in multiple states.
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Wildlife conservationists say that a recent uptick in deaths of these endangered whales corresponds with the development of offshore wind projects that are part of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda.
A coalition of conservative groups has filed a lawsuit against federal agencies and their top officials and the company planning to build what is expected to be the world’s largest offshore wind project.
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Some Arizona leaders are breathing a sigh of relief as the federal government passed funding that will presumably go toward transporting migrants out of border communities or caring for them while there.
There was widespread concern about daily mass migrant street releases starting in April, as federal funding for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Shelter and Services Program was set to expire on April 1, The Center Square previously reported.
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A brand new investigation has found that Google interfered in American elections at least 41 times over the last 16 years.
Published on March 18, the Media Research Center Special Report traced election interference efforts by the world’s most popular search engine all the way back to the 2008 election of former President Barack Obama.
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Republican Gov. Brad Little of Idaho signed a bill Wednesday banning the state from using public funding to cover sex-change procedures.
House Bill 668 was introduced in February by Republican Reps. Julianne Young and Bruce Skaug and bars the state from using Medicaid funds to pay for sex-change surgeries or cross-sex hormones, according to the text. The legislation passed the state House of Representatives 58 to 11 and the state Senate 26 to 8, with one abstaining, in March before Little signed the legislation into law, the state legislature website shows.
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State and local officials are working to prevent property owners from having their residences taken over by squatters as a social media influencer from Venezuela encouraged illegal immigrants to “invade” homes in the U.S.
The issue of squatting has arisen in both Florida and Georgia, states fighting against squatting, while a New York City resident was arrested for trying to prevent a squatter from reentering her home. Squatting has become a concern with the influx of illegal immigrants as a Venezuelan national encouraged others to squat in Americans’ homes.
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I’ve discussed the “hero’s journey of Donald Trump” here in this column multiple times — and it turns out I couldn’t get away from it even if I wanted to. Every day we hear a drumbeat of evidence that the Left — the media-governmental-intelligence Deep State complex that has declared war on the entire world, with the free American people its primary enemy — has gone absolutely off the deep end.
Villains gonna villain, y’all. And these villains are villaining like the clock is running out on them.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a bill prohibiting local governments from limiting the ability of law enforcement agencies to conduct routine traffic stops on Thursday.
The bill, SB 2572/HB 1931, was sponsored by State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) and State Representative John Gillespie (R-Memphis).
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State Senator Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield) said a bill that would prohibit individuals from transporting illegal aliens into the Volunteer State failed in committee because its language was not “exact.”
The bill, SB 2802, would increase the penalty fine for transporting an illegal alien from $1,000 to $5,000.
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Three people have filed a lawsuit against the National Park Service for refusing to take cash for park entrance fees alleging its NPS Cashless program violates federal law.
The complaint, filed in federal court earlier this month, seeks to have a judge declare NPS Cashless unlawful. The suit alleges that three visitors were denied entrance to national parks in Arizona, New York and Georgia. The complaint further alleges that the “National Park Service no longer accepts American money at approximately twenty-nine national parks, national historic sites, national monuments, and national historic parks around the country.”
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An illegal immigrant, who once lived in the country as a DACA recipient before he was deported in 2020, was arrested over the weekend as a suspect in the slaying of a 25-year old Michigan woman. The incident is the second shocking murder of a young woman by an illegal immigrant this year, following the killing of Laken Riley in Georgia.
Michigan State Police began investigating the murder of Ruby Garcia, from Grand Rapids, after her body was found on a major highway that cuts through the city’s downtown. The body was discovered at 11:38 pm on Friday evening with apparent gunshot wounds, according to The Midwesterner.
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Judges who handle child abuse and neglect cases in California are required to take a training on LGBT issues that pushes them to consider whether parents who object to their child’s preferred pronouns should have custody.
The Judicial Council of California’s “LGBTQ+ Considerations” training, offered twice annually for judges working on juvenile dependency cases, instructs judges on how to handle youth gender identities, advising them to “be aware that LGBTQ youth may be at risk of harm at home, school and in other settings due to biased or uninformed attitudes or conduct by peers/adults,” according to a presentation from June 2023 obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation via a public records request. After citing statistics on mental health problems among LGBT youth and warning judges to stay alert about “physical or emotional abuse” by parents that does not have a “clear reason,” the presentation puts forward three hypothetical scenarios for the judges to sort through.
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A “non-partisan” political activism group that calls for gun control held a rally in Nashville Wednesday night on the year anniversary of the mass shooting at The Covenant School.
“Together, we will wear red and link arms as we mark the anniversary of one of our community’s darkest days and honor the memory of the hundreds of Tennessee lives lost to preventable firearm tragedies over the last year,” Voices for a Safer Tennessee said on its website. “Our goal is to form a chain of 13,000 people from Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt through Centennial Park and up Charlotte Avenue to our state capitol.”
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The year, now a quarter old, reveals that the country’s rapid slide into educational purgatory is moving apace. Leading off the grossness parade is a school in Oklahoma where students lick and suck the armpits and toes of their fellow students in the name of charity. (This may garner a shrug in San Francisco, but Oklahoma?!)
While no district personnel were directly involved, video footage from Deer Creek High School in Edmond, OK, showed mid-teens participating in and watching the disgusting events unfold.
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Governor Glenn Youngkin on took action regarding 67 pieces of legislation Tuesday, with a number of gun control bills vetoed, amended or signed by the governor.
Youngkin said in a statement his actions represent a balance between advancing public safety and “protecting the right of law-abiding Virginians to keep and bear arms.”
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Georgia Lt. Governor Burt Jones on Tuesday celebrated the passage of legislation he championed to restrict property tax increases and offer property owners a chance to appeal decisions about how much they pay.
Jones said in a statement that HB 581, the Save Our Homes Act, “limits increases in property taxes years to year, reforms the appeals process, and allows for more transparency in our taxation procedures.”
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A bill to strengthen immigration enforcement and accountability passed the Georgia Senate by a vote of 33-18 last Thursday. HB 301 would remove funding from sanctuary cities refusing to follow immigration laws within the state. The bill awaits transfer to the House for further consideration.
The measure aims to hold officials accountable and allow local “governing bodies” to lose eligibility for “certain state and federal funds” when “the prohibition on immigration sanctuary policies” is violated.
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The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) renewal deadline is fast approaching as conservative lawmakers and some Democrats continue their push for ending warrantless surveillance.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including conservative and progressive legislators, have called for reforming section 702 of FISA ahead of the April 19 deadline.
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While we have been extensively reporting on former President Donald Trump’s significant increase in support compared to 2020 among working class voters, minorities, and young people, one group of Americans appears to be shifting away from Trump at the margins – seniors. Voters over age 65 have shown a shift away from Trump in recent polls that amounts to as much as ten percentage points compared to 2020.
Trump’s highest level of success in 2020 was among voters over 65, with the former President winning seniors by five points, 52 percent to 47 percent. However, several recent polls show Trump losing seniors to Biden by around ten points. The March New York Times/Siena College poll shows President Joe Biden leading with seniors 51 percent to 42 percent.
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The Kansas House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday preventing foreign adversaries from buying up land near sensitive military sites following a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.
In an 84-39 vote, the Kansas House passed SB172, which prevents firms and entities linked to China and other countries identified as foreign adversaries from purchasing agricultural land within 150 miles of a military installation. The bill’s passage follows on the heels of a DCNF investigation that discovered the parent company of a firm that planned to buy land in Kansas is extensively tied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The DCNF’s investigation was based on research conducted by The Heritage Foundation Oversight Project and Heritage Action.
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The Tennessee Department of Agriculture’s Forestry Division is reminding Tennesseans that burn permits are required through the middle of May.
“Fire prevention starts with each of us practicing safe burning and only burning when it’s safe. The burn permit process communicates to residents the safe locations and times for open burning,” State Forester Heather Slayton said in press release. “During hazardous fire conditions like high winds or extreme drought, permit issuance pauses temporarily until safe conditions return. Our aim is to safeguard Tennessee’s people, communities, and natural resources. Together, we can conserve our state’s beauty and prevent wildland fires.”
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Top executives behind a Chinese chemical manufacturer planning to build two U.S. factories belong to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and affiliated influence outfits, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.
Capchem Technology USA, the wholly-owned subsidiary of China-based Shenzhen Capchem Technology (Capchem), is slated to build a $120 million factory in Ohio and a $350 million plant in Louisiana. At the same time, Capchem records and social media posts that the DCNF translated show the company employs dozens of CCP members. Executives at Capchem and Capchem USA have also held positions at organizations affiliated with CCP influence operations, a DCNF review of Capchem’s website, Chinese social media account and executives’ social groups found.
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As Alabama has banned ballot harvesting and Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania are fighting ballot drop boxes, GOP campaign efforts are using those same tools where legal.
Democrats have long focused on mail-in and early voting while Republicans have warned of potential insecurities of those methods. Now the GOP is starting to embrace it this election cycle. However, the acceptance of mail-in voting as a tool isn’t preventing Republicans from looking to secure or ban certain aspects of it, such as ballot harvesting and ballot drop boxes.
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The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) completed an unprecedented 10 million immigration cases in fiscal 2023, reducing its backlog for the first time in over a decade, according to a newly released end of fiscal year 2023 report.
“We’ve completed a record number of cases, responded to emerging crises around the globe with essential humanitarian relief, and applied innovative solutions to improve customer experience and reduce backlogs,” USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou said of the milestone.
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Discussions on a nearly $1.6 billion franchise tax refund and $400 million annual franchise tax cut are set to begin in Tennessee’s House of Representatives on Wednesday.
Bill sponsors have termed the $1.55 billion franchise tax refund fund as necessary for the state to avoid litigation. But the Lee administration proposal has not included which businesses will get those refunds nor if threats of litigation have been received.
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More than 100 sheriffs in Texas expressed support for Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security effort, Operation Lone Star. They also are calling for the border crisis to be declared a “United States constitutional crisis and crimes against humanity.”
In a letter to the governor, the sheriffs “respectfully request that our Texas border be immediately secured by any lawful means.”
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The Tennessee House of Representatives Tuesday passed a bill that would significantly increase the penalty for making violent threats against schools.
HB 2198 “increases the penalty for the offense of threatening to commit an act of mass violence on school property or at a school-related activity from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class E felony.”
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Wisconsin tax collections were down more than $51 million year over year in February after being roughly even in January.
The numbers come despite one more day this February than the year before.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a controversial new bill into law on Monday that will prohibit the use of social media platforms by children.
House Bill 3 requires that social media platforms be regulated to prohibit minors under age 14 from having a social media account if the platform allows users to upload content and view content from other users, uses algorithms and has certain addictive features to keep young children scrolling.
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Maricopa County executive director Zach Schira claimed on Tuesday that recent changes to the state’s elections as a result of a “landmark” election integrity bill that enjoyed overwhelming support in the Arizona Legislature.
Schira told The Arizona Republic that complying with a provision in HB 2785 which requires election workers to count the number of early ballots at each polling location required an average of 30 to 45 minutes at polling locations across the state for the March 19 presidential preference election.
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A new plan set in motion on Monday could shake loose a constitutional amendment to enact universal photograph identification to vote.
House Republican leadership said letting the bill languish in committee ignores the popularity of the policy among voters, especially those anxious about election security.
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Democratic leaders from the Virginia General Assembly held a press conference on Monday to discuss the state of negotiations to pass a budget for the commonwealth, raising claims about the governor’s behavior and aptitude during the negotiations.
Various Democratic leaders declared themselves the “adults in the room” during budget negotiations, claimed Governor Glenn Youngkin lacks political aptitude and accused his administration of acting like “spoiled brats” while refusing to respect the separation of powers.
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When President Biden’s supporters attacked him for describing the man who allegedly murdered Georgia co-ed Laken Reilly as an “illegal,” they shined a light on one of the most contested words in American politics.
The progressive push to describe border crossers as undocumented or unauthorized can also serve to downplay and obscure the massive issue of crime perpetrated and spawned by the influx of millions of migrants since Biden was elected – often in ways that leave the migrants themselves as victims.
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Ohio State Representative Beth Lear (R-Galena) said her bill that would modify the timeframe for voters and candidates to declare a political party is a “simple” piece of legislation that would work to make elections fairer in the Buckeye State.
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Following the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is offering assistance to the state of Maryland.
The bridge spans over the Patapsco River and supports part of I-695, one of the major arteries around Baltimore.
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Members of the “Squad” of progressive lawmakers in the House of Representatives, including Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., wrangled more than $220 million worth of earmarks included in spending bills since the start of fiscal year 2023, according to a watchdog group.
“These eight members, up from 6 last year, have put almost $220 million worth of earmarks into the last two years of congressional spending packages, for causes like environmental justice, diversity, and immigration assistance,” read a new report from OpenTheBooks.com.
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The U.S. on Monday announced actions aimed at exposing a sweeping Chinese hacking campaign that has targeted U.S. government institutions, critical infrastructure, media and political dissidents for more than a decade.
Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company, Limited (Wuhan XRZ), served as a front company for China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), which deals with overseas policing and espionage, allowing Chinese hackers to hide a multitude of malicious cyber operations, the Treasury Department said after sanctioning the organization on Monday in a statement alongside other U.S. agencies and the United Kingdom. In an indictment unsealed separately, the Department of Justice accused Chinese nationals Zhao Guangzong, Ni Gaobin and five others for their role “in furtherance of [China’s] economic espionage and foreign intelligence objectives” over the past 14 years.
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The Pacific Northwest has a message for foster and adoptive parents: Agree to affirm a child’s self-determined “sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression,” including using their preferred pronouns and taking them to Pride parades, or leave the program.
Washington state adopted new Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity/Expression (SOGIE) regulations after accepting a permanent injunction against the “nearly identical” Policy 6900 to settle a First Amendment lawsuit by would-be foster parents in July 2021, non-renewed foster parents claim in a new lawsuit.
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A bill that would allow Tennessee’s Department of Tourism to hide negotiated contracts for a potential Super Bowl and other events for up to 10 years was amended and passed the Tennessee Senate.
This means the legislation will go back to the House for approval before it can be sent to Gov. Bill Lee for approval.
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An Ohio congressman took a strong swing at the president Monday afternoon, saying the “Biden administration wants Trump to die in jail and they want to bankrupt his family.”
J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, made the social media reply midday. In four hours, it drew more than 3,600 replies, 3,300 retweets and 10,000 loves. Other congressman were among them.
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A U.S. District Court judge ruled on Monday that the Mexican government can proceed with a lawsuit alleging that five Arizona gun dealers were involved in trafficking weapons and ammunition to drug cartels across the U.S.-Mexico border.
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Milwaukee has accepted more than $1 million in “Zuckerbucks” — the injection of private money into public election administration — just weeks before Wisconsin residents will vote on whether to ban such funds.
The city of Milwaukee, which previously accepted “Zuckerbucks” in 2020, has received a new form of the private funding over two separate grants just weeks prior to Wisconsin voters deciding whether to approve a state constitutional amendment banning “Zuckerbucks.”
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The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) will halt interstate construction beginning Thursday as travelers head to their Easter destinations.
“TDOT crews and contractors will stop all road construction work that requires lane closures beginning Thursday, March 28, at 6:00 p.m. through Monday, April 1 at 6:00 a.m.,” a release from the department says. “This will provide maximum roadway capacity to motorists expected to travel across the state this upcoming holiday weekend.”
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The Georgia Senate approved a measure Wednesday to lower the state’s income tax to 5.39% from 5.49%.
The state Senate voted 40-12 in favor of House Bill 1015, sending the measure to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is expected to sign it.
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Likely voters are focused on inflation and price increases, illegal immigration and the economy as incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump prepared for a rematch of 2020 in November.
The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll, conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights, found that given a range of options to identify their top concerns, likely voters said inflation/price increases (45 percent), illegal immigration (44 percent) and the economy/jobs (24 percent) were the issues that matter most to them.
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The U.S. and Japan will announce a historic upgrade to security ties, including a collaborative military command, next month as the two former adversaries move closer together in determination to counter China, according to media reports published Monday.
Chief among the changes under consideration involves sending a four-star general, the highest peacetime rank, to head U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ) and jointly oversee a military command with Japan for planning and exercises, Reuters reported, citing two sources familiar with the discussions. Tokyo also hopes to establish a new Japanese Self Defense Forces (SDF) headquarters, whose head will serve as the Japanese counterpart to the American four-star, by March of 2025, the sources said.
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