Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Monday poured cold water on the prospect of canceling the Senate’s August recess to pass the SAVE America Act, saying he saw no path to passage of the bill.
The marquis voter ID legislation has languished in the Senate due to the 60-vote filibuster threshold. Thune has declined to alter Senate rules or fire the parliamentarian to sneak voter ID in through the reconciliation process, which is limited to budget matters.
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President Donald Trump is asking the Senate to abolish the Senate filibuster and adopt the SAVE America Act to get illegal aliens off of the voter rolls and to require proof of citizenship to register to vote from now on, citing over 250,000 non-citizens are illegally registered to vote in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada alone. So far, the Senate is saying there aren’t the votes to abolish the filibuster.
What can be done in the interim, then?
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U.S. Representative John Rose (R-TN-06) and his gubernatorial campaign did not respond to a Monday inquiry from The Tennessee Star asking which Democratic presidential candidate received a vote from Rose during the 2004 Democratic primary in Tennessee, which was one of three nominating contests where Rose returned a Democratic ballot.
While the Rose campaign told The Star on Monday that its reporting about his donations to Democrats who supported a state income tax, and his participation in three Democratic Party primary contests during the early 2000s, was a political attack, Rose and his campaign did not respond to a follow-up inquiry seeking information about how he voted during his participation in the Tennessee Democrats’ presidential primary in 2004.
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State Representative Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville) on Monday said the Tennessee General Assembly will consider legislation to regulate license plate reader (LPR) cameras, including those produced by Flock Safety, after Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs urged county commissioners to temporarily ban the devices, citing the lack of state or federal regulations and guidelines.
Jacobs expressed his concerns about the Flock cameras, which critics say could allow mass surveillance assisted by artificial intelligence (AI), despite the Knox County Commission previously approving an agreement to add the company’s product to the LPR technologies already deployed in the county.
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Former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci is scheduled to testify Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, placing him in the crosshairs of what will undoubtedly be an aggressive line of questioning by the committee’s chairman, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
The grilling of the 85-year-old physician will likely center around gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, grants to EcoHealth Alliance and Fauci’s earlier public statements on the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Republican South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham said Monday she would object to a summer recess so the Senate could vote to pass the Safeguard America Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act.
Graham said the SAVE America Act was “top priority” and she would remain in Washington, D.C., to see it passed. President Donald Trump and other Republican senators also called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune to cancel the upcoming recess.
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Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is set to skip an annual political picnic in his home state while he recovers from a major medical episode at his Washington, D.C., home.
McConnell was hospitalized last month after a serious fall. The former Senate leader has attracted considerable scrutiny over his fitness to serve in recent years, with a number of on-air incidents contributing to his decision to step down as Senate GOP leader. He is not seeking reelection.
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Campaign finance records reviewed by The Tennessee Star reveal U.S. Representative John Rose (R-TN-06) donated to multiple Tennessee Democrats who were in favor of establishing a state income tax during the pivotal political fight that culminated in Tennessee passing a constitutional amendment banning the income tax in 2014.
Rose donated at least $19,000 to Democrats between 1998 and 2010, with several of those Democrats involved in the 2002 effort to pass a state income tax in Tennessee.
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Twenty-five states, with the help of a Department of Homeland Security database, have identified hundreds of thousands of dead people and noncitizens registered to vote, and they haven’t finished counting yet.
So far, just 10 states—including key battlegrounds Georgia and North Carolina—have fully processed the voter data through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, database.
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Court records show that Mitch Snow was successfully served by law enforcement with the defamation lawsuit filed against him and Candace Owens in April by Brian Harpole, the former head of security for Charlie Kirk.
Filed almost three months ago, the lawsuit claims Snow and Owens conspired to malign Harpole with false claims that he attended at a meeting on a military base with intelligence officials and politicians one day before Kirk was assassinated in Utah.
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security told The Tennessee Star on Friday that it filed an immigration detainer against Ulises Raigoza-Martinez after the illegal alien from Mexico pleaded guilty on Wednesday to his role in the killing of a Nashville restaurant owner in 2024.
Davidson County court records reveal Raigoza-Martinez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, two theft charges, and one evidence tampering count, after he and an associate were accused of killing Smokin Thighs owner Matthew Carney.
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EJ Haust, a self-described political refugee from Minnesota and official guest host of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, criticized MyPillow Founder Mike Lindell’s newly unveiled immigration proposal, arguing the Republican gubernatorial candidate is embracing a form of amnesty in an unsuccessful attempt to appeal to Democrats.
Haust, who lived in Minnesota for 12 years before relocating to Tennessee following the COVID-19 pandemic, suggested Lindell’s proposal reflects a broader problem within Minnesota Republican politics.
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Don’t look now but U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has jumped to a slight lead in the Democratic primary in New Hampshire, edging out Pete Buttigieg 22 percent to 21 percent, according to the latest University of New Hampshire poll taken between July 15 and July 20.
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In a decision released after early voting for primary elections already began, a panel of three federal judges on Thursday declined to block Tennessee’s newly redrawn congressional map from taking effect before the 2026 midterm elections, finding the plaintiffs unlikely to succeed in proving their claim the Tennessee General Assembly used race to set boundaries during its redistricting process.
The decision came in response to a request by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorneys representing Memphis residents and nonprofits who sued over the redistricting, claiming lawmakers illegally used race to divide the city into multiple congressional districts in a bid to dilute the impact of black voters.
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Arizona’s Republican primary voters sent a clear message Tuesday: The party still belongs to Donald Trump.
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U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) released a new television ad ahead of the August 6 gubernatorial primary election vowing to back a “bell to bell, no cell” policy for Tennessee schools if she were to become governor.
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The House of Representatives on Wednesday narrowly passed the sprawling annual National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2027, which includes raises for military members and expands access to education and childcare for military families.
The widespread defense funding bill passed in a 216-212 vote, which saw six Democrats vote in favor of the bill and seven Republicans vote against it.
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As we approach November, legislators are running out of time to enact meaningful reforms before midterms, and many of their commonsense proposals are being received by fiery partisan opposition.
One such proposal, the Voter ID Act (HR 9368), sponsored by Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., passed the Committee on House Administration June 24. It was attached to the Stop Insider Trading Act (HR 7008) as an amendment and will be heard in the House Rules Committee. This is a crucial step toward authorizing consideration of the Voter ID Act for final passage on the House floor.
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U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) amplified his attacks against the Dignity for Immigrants while Guarding our Nation to Ignite and Deliver the American Dream (DIGNIDAD) Act, bipartisan legislation that would create a large-scale legalization program for illegal aliens who have been in the United States since December 31, 2020.
After twice declaring his opposition to amnesty in posts to social media, Ogles on Tuesday released a video contrasting amnesty with the legislation he has introduced to restrict immigration and accelerate the efforts by President Donald Trump to deport illegal aliens.
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Jill Biden’s former press secretary Michael LaRosa said Tuesday that he does not believe former Vice President Kamala Harris has a chance at winning the Democratic nomination for president in 2028, stating voters will not give her a third chance “at-bat.”
The former press secretary, who worked for the former first lady from 2019 through July 2022, said Harris needs to step up and lead if she wants a chance at becoming president, because she already has decades of political experience.
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A homeless man was arrested in Knoxville after he allegedly made a series of threats to kill local and federal political figures, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Tennessee announced.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) press release states that Garry Lee Williams, 44, was arrested by FBI agents in Knoxville on July 16 in response to a criminal complaint accusing him of “interstate transmission of threats to kill public officials.”
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Amid The Tennessee Star’s AI-assisted investigation into U.S. Treasury records that uncovered Biden-era funding for legal services benefiting illegal aliens, lead reporter Tom Pappert said governments “should be worried” as artificial intelligence enables journalists to expose buried public records and government fraud.
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State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis), a Trump-endorsed Republican candidate in Tennessee’s newly redrawn 9th Congressional District, said his “Make Memphis Matter” campaign in the Tennessee General Assembly helped bring state and federal attention to Memphis’ crime crisis, including an FBI operation and the creation of the Memphis Safe Task Force.
Taylor discussed his efforts during an exclusive sit-down interview with The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy, explaining that his decision to run for the State Senate was driven by concerns over rising crime in Memphis and what he described as a lack of accountability for repeat offenders.
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The Metro Council took steps to regulate data centers in Davidson County.
At its meeting on Tuesday, the council passed several bills, 1391, 1392, and 1448, that will place limits on data centers in the county.
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An agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), who served a member of the Memphis Safe Task Force (MSTF), will not face state charges over the fatal shooting that occurred at a Burger King in Memphis in May, the Shelby County District Attorney announced on Monday.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) originally confirmed in May that the state law enforcement agency and Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy were investigating the circumstances which led to the fatal shooting of Darrin Pigram on May 13.
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State Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis), who recently secured President Donald Trump’s endorsement in Tennessee’s Republican primary for the newly redrawn 9th Congressional District, reflected on his journey from small-town businessman to state lawmaker during an exclusive interview with The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy, arguing his experience in both business and government has prepared him to serve in Congress.
During the interview, which aired during Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Taylor recounted growing up in a small town where his father owned a retail lumberyard and hardware store before discovering a career in the funeral industry as a teenager.
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Multiple cities appear to have used federal funding made available through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, signed into law by former President Joe Biden, in order to provide legal services or attorneys to illegal aliens facing removal.
A review of U.S. Treasury Department documents reveals multiple other cities told the U.S. Department of Treasury they intended to use ARPA money to support illegal aliens, joining Nashville, which awarded over $3 million in ARPA funding for two pro-illegal alien nonprofits in 2022, and recently appropriated an additional $1.5 million for the same groups in its Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 budget.
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Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said his investigation into Metro Nashville’s taxpayer funding for nonprofits that provide legal services to illegal aliens has expanded beyond Tennessee, with federal records indicating at least a dozen cities may have used Biden-era American Rescue Plan Act funds for similar programs.
Pappert discussed the findings during Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, a week after The Star reported that Metro Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s administration refused to release most records related to the nearly $1.5 million appropriated in the Fiscal Year 2027 budget for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors (TNJFON).
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Frank Bisignano, head of the IRS and Social Security Administration, denied there’s any truth behind a Wall Street Journal article claiming he spied on fellow executives while he was co-CEO of JPMorgan Chase a decade ago.
The piece alleges, among other things, that Bisignano used his authority over the security department and position to access sensitive information and internal communications without a business justification.
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A federal filing in the defamation lawsuit brought against Candace Owens claims her co-defendant and former podcast guest, Mitch Snow, has now avoided legal service from a process server, the U.S. Marshals, and the local sheriff’s office.
Brian Harpole, the former head of security to Charlie Kirk, filed the lawsuit on April 30, alleging that Owens and Snow conspired to defame him my falsely claiming he was present for a secret meeting with military, intelligence, and political figures one day before Kirk was assassinated in Utah last year.
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A major prediction market platform that became popular during the 2024 election shows U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) with a 95 percent probability of being the Republican nominee to become the next Governor of Tennessee. By contrast, the market implies U.S. Representative John Rose (R-TN-06) and State Representative Monty Fritts (R-Kingston) each have less than a 10 percent chance of securing the party’s nomination.
At press time, the prediction website Kalshi shows Blackburn with a market-indicated 95.2 percent chance of securing the Republican gubernatorial nomination, while the market-implied chance of Rose attaining the nomination was at just 5 percent. Fritts followed, with trading prices implying the state lawmaker has a 3 percent chance of success.
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Intelligence community files released by the White House claim that China paid American journalists, social media influencers, and leveraged relationships with American businesses in order to sabotage President Donald Trump during his first term in the White House, with a CIA document claiming the foreign government went as far as to pay journalists to print negative articles.
In a Thursday speech delivered to the nation, Trump cited a CIA document that showed the agency determined, beginning in 2019, China “sought to identify U.S. journalists who had reported negatively on the U.S. president and pay them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him,” adding that the adversarial government “wanted the U.S. president to lose the next election.
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Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is calling out Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly mistreating a whistleblower through lawfare.
Sarah Wynn-Williams, Meta’s former global head of public policy, testified before Congress that the company worked “hand in glove” with the Chinese Communist Party. Now, Congress is investigating and demanding answers.
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A new congressional bill proposal seeks to improve healthcare coverage for detransitioners.
Representative Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-01) introduced the Treatment and Restoration Uniformity and Transparency in Health Coverage (TRUTH in Coverage) Act, which would require health insurance companies that cover gender reassignment procedures to also cover sex-rejecting procedures for patients who experience complications from those procedures or who want to detransition.
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Thursday night at the White House, President Donald Trump addressed the nation and presented new evidence detailing multiple security breaches in elections he said were concealed by a self-proclaimed “shadow government” and the Biden administration.
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President Donald Trump is scheduled to address the nation Thursday evening at 8 p.m. CT from the White House, delivering what the administration has described as a major speech focused on “free and fair elections” and related national security matters.
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During remarks delivered in Franklin, Tennessee, on Tuesday, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin reportedly said communities should consider the merits of data center proposals on an individual basis, rather than push for blanket bans as seen in New York.
Zeldin visited Franklin as a featured speaker for the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce Infrastructure Summit, where the EPA states that he spoke to an audience of more than 300 about what infrastructure is necessary support Tennessee as its population and economy continue to grow.
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The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday announced that it secured guilty pleas from nine illegal aliens from Venezuela in a human trafficking, alien smuggling, and money laundering case that stemmed from a sex trafficking ring operating out of Nashville motels.
According to prosecutors, the defendants lured Venezuelan women to the United States “with promises of employment.” After illegally smuggling women into the country, then to Nashville, “the women were told they owed an inflated smuggling debt, which they could only repay through commercial sex work.”
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In a potentially misleading description of his record, Metro Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell claimed his administration achieved the “lowest property tax rate” in the city’s history, despite championing a rate set about 26 percent higher than the certified revenue-neutral rate calculated under Tennessee law following the 2025 property reappraisal.
O’Connell made the remarks to Fox 17 on Monday, when the outlet published a roundup of statements by mayoral candidates expressing their views on property taxes, which have become critical for business and home owners after some saw hikes higher than 350 percent.
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A nuclear fuel company will generate more than 1,100 new jobs in Tennessee through an expansion of its Oak Ridge campus, according to announcements from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD) and X-energy, which both credited an $11 million grant from the State of Tennessee for the development.
The company said in a press release that the grant will support the plans by the company’s subsidiary, TRISO-X, to create a facility to develop America’s first source of TRi-structural ISOtropic particle fuel (TRISO) for use in the small modular reactors (SMRs) manufactured by X-energy.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on Tuesday that three out of the five men arrested last month during an operation targeting human trafficking in Middle Tennessee are “criminal illegal aliens from Cuba,” who were each released by federal authorities during the Biden administration.
The update from ICE confirms the unlawful presence of Alinson Guerrero-Ramirez, Bryan Duany Rodriguez-Pena and Lazaro Rodriguez-Santos, three of the five men who were arrested last month during an operating targeting alleged human traffickers, which was led by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI).
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With a whimper rather than a bang, the world has become a different place than it was in January 2021, when Donald Trump left office. Almost everything we are now told about the global status quo is mistaken—largely because critics focus only on what Trump says rather than on what he does.
Rather, the Left—and some on the Right—are furious whenever Trump tweets, says, or does something that offends their delicate sense of taste, tradition, and decorum. Their outrage leads them to ignore whether this “Art of the Deal” theater ultimately leaves the United States stronger. More often than not, it does.
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An email obtained by The Tennessee Star following its public records request to Metro Nashville, seeking answers about the nearly $1.5 million appropriated to two pro-illegal immigrant nonprofits, reveals that the $718,000 grant for Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors (TNJFON) was included in Metro’s budget following a meeting between a city official and Emily Cupples, a Democratic political consultant who now manages the reelection campaign of Mayor Freddie O’Connell.
Though O’Connell’s office resisted providing an unknown number of documents, citing attorney-client privilege, one of the five sent to The Star is an email exchange between Cupples and a Metro Nashville employee from earlier this year.
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Last week a study conducted by CNBC claimed to identify Tennessee as the “worst place to live” in the United States, but a review of the researchers’ earlier data seems to reveal the claim about Tennessee depends overwhelmingly category previously titled “Life, Health, and Inclusion.”
Originally named “Quality of Life” in the version of the CNBC “Top States for Business” study conducted from 2007-2019, the category in 2021 was rebranded “Life, Health, and Inclusion,” when it was modified to incorporate “new metrics on the battle against Covid-19, health care in general, and the corporate push for inclusiveness.”
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Gov. Henry McMaster, R-S.C., on Monday announced his selection of Darline Graham Nordone to succeed the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Nordone is the sister of the late Graham. Prior to the announcement, President Donald Trump had recommended that McMaster appoint her. During a press conference, McMaster stated that he had spoken to Nordone about serving the remainder of Graham’s term beore discussing it with Trump.
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Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell released a new campaign advertisement parodying U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) recent anti-China gubernatorial campaign commercial, prompting a swift response from the senator, who accused the mayor of trying to distract voters from his record on illegal immigration.
O’Connell’s mayoral re-election ad recreates the setting of Blackburn’s original commercial at Nashville’s Elliston Place Soda Shop, where the senator filmed her anti-China campaign ad in a staged Chinese restaurant.
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Metro Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s office on Friday produced just five documents in response public records request from The Tennessee Star, which sought his justification for appropriating nearly $1.5 million in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 budget to the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors (TNJFON).
The office claimed the remaining responsive records were exempt from disclosure under the Tennessee Public Records Act because they contain privileged communications between Metro and its attorneys.
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U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) passed away from a “brief and sudden illness” Saturday evening, his office announced overnight.
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A federal district judge on Wednesday handed down a 20-year sentence to Sanjeev Kumar, who operated a women’s health clinic in Memphis, Tennessee, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
U.S. District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman sentenced Kumar (pictured above) to 20 years in prison, plus two years of supervised release, about six months after the Memphis jury found him guilty of 18 counts of adulteration of medical devices, 16 counts of misbranding medical devices, and six counts of healthcare fraud.
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Pushing back against the recent Supreme Court ruling that protected birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, House Republicans are renewing a legislative push to restrict birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants in order to force the issue back before the high court.
Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., a House subcommittee chairman long influential on immigration issues, told the Just the News, No Noise TV show on Thursday that he was co-sponsoring congressional bills aimed at clarifying the scope of birthright citizenship, ensuring that it only applied to children of citizens, permanent residents, or military members.
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