As the midterms approach, the Left has gone nearly berserk in its hatred of trillionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. Yet its escalating venom would have been almost inconceivable before 2022, when Musk publicly declared that he would be voting Republican.
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A Memphis Police Department (MPD) report obtained by The Tennessee Star reveals that the mother of State Representative Justin Pearson (D-Memphis), the Democratic nominee for Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, was accused of slapping an election worker during a dispute at a Memphis polling location on Wednesday.
The Daily Memphian first reported that Owens Pearson was accused of causing a “disturbance,” while The Mighty 990 shared the news in a post to social media, including redacted information from the MPD report obtained by The Star.
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The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday announced 24 indictments as the result of a Homeland Security Task Force investigation, which prosecutors say determined a Sinaloa Cartel-affiliated drug trafficking operation was being directed by two men serving time inside Tennessee prisons. Their conspiracy allegedly included about 500 kilograms of methamphetamine, 60 kilograms of cocaine, and $375,000 in cash.
According to the DOJ press release, all 24 defendants are charged with the same 33-count indictment, which also accuses them of distributing or possessing fentanyl, heroin, and marijuana, while nine of the defendants face additional firearm and drug trafficking defendants.
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The Tennessee Star has obtained audio of a 911 call placed on February 16, 2020, in which a woman identifying herself as the wife of Tennessee independent gubernatorial candidate David Hatley reported that he told her he had taken pills in an attempt to end his life. Hatley did not deny being the subject of the 911 call when reached by The Star.
The woman, whose name matches public records about Hatley’s second wife, claimed that she left their child at Hatley’s home that morning, but after leaving church, was contacted by Hatley, who she said informed her that he decided to commit suicide.
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An investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) – Memphis led to a guilty plea by a Guatemalan national who admitted to conspiring to smuggle 450 kilograms of cocaine, or about 992 pounds, the DEA and Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Tuesday.
According to court documents cited by the DOJ, Donelfert Monterroso Vasquez coordinated “multi-hundred-kilogram” shipments of cocaine through Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico, in order to “generate the highest profit” by selling the illicit substance in the United States.
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The campaign of Alaska Democrat Senate candidate Mary Peltola helped recruit Dan J. Sullivan to enter the race to draw votes away from her Republican opponent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
According to the Times, Elisa Rios, Peltola’s former campaign manager and longtime aide who was fired in August, said Peltola was “definitely aware” of the plot to recruit Dan J. Sullivan, who is running as an independent in the closely watched race that could help decide control of the Senate.
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A House investigative subcommittee is demanding a wide swath of records from the Smithsonian Institution after uncovering a controversial American history museum display that suggested the U.S. military had engaged in “domicide,” the intentional destruction of civilian homes to cause human suffering.
The request came Thursday in a letter from House Oversight Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee Chairman Tim Burchett, R- Tenn., and Rep. Brian Jack, R-Ga., and is the latest effort by the GOP-led Congress to stamp out what it sees as woke and inaccurate presentations of American history at the nation’s premier network of museums.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced Wednesday that the state will pursue hosting the proposed United States Space Academy, identifying a site in Coffee County as its preferred location for the federal institution intended to train the next generation of American space professionals.
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After crossing with his army into Asia, Alexander the Great stopped at Gordium (in modern-day Turkey). He approached the famous Gordian knot—a tangled mass of bark tying an ox cart to a pole, so intricate and tight that no one could unravel it. When told that anyone who could untie the mess would rule all of Asia, Alexander simply pulled out his sword and cut through it—solving the problem and fulfilling the prophecy.
The Ukraine war may be our Gordian knot, but—in our current nuclear age—it is dangerous to cut rather than unravel it.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday confirmed the arrest of Salin Dahel Ramos Alvarez to The Tennessee Star, describing Ramos Alvarez as a known or suspected member of Tren de Aragua.
A spokesman for ICE told The Star that Ramos Alvarez was arrested last Thursday as part of a “targeted enforcement operation” in Nashville, when the spokesman said Ramoz Alvarez told officers “he was not a Lyft driver but had been paid by an acquaintance to drive them to the airport.”
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One of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s top advisers, who helped advise him on Venezuelan and Cuban policies, announced Tuesday that he is leaving the State Department after a year and a half there.
State Department Director of Policy Planning Jeremy Lewin said he is leaving the administration for the private sector and described working for President Trump as “the privilege of a lifetime.”
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With just days remaining until the midterms, several Democrat candidates are closing their campaigns under legal clouds or intense scrutiny, ranging from a criminal immigration probe to questions about past associations.
President Donald Trump has particularly focused his political attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
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House Judiciary Republicans, led by Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio, released an interim staff report on Monday that highlighted the “dangers” of New York City’s sanctuary policies and the significant threat it poses to public safety.
The report claimed that the New York City Police Department received nearly 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers in the past year and honored zero. It also received 20,255 detainers from July 1, 2018, through June 30, 2026, and also reportedly honored none of them.
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After previous reporting indicated she would block his confirmation, U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has reportedly confirmed her support for Sam Adkisson, whom President Donald Trump announced he would nominate to serve as a district court judge in the Eastern District of Tennessee in August.
Bloomberg Law first reported last week that Blackburn would support Adkisson, a Vanderbilt University graduate and White House attorney, citing a White House official who confirmed the senator returned a favorable blue slip.
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Metro Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell has proposed directing surplus tourism-related tax revenues controlled by the Joint Capital Tourism Board (JCTB) toward public safety projects, even as downtown businesses facing skyrocketing property tax bills seek financial assistance from the same funds.
The mayor’s comments were first reported by WPLN, which said the mayor “hopes to steer funding in other directions.”
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A Pentagon spokesperson on Monday denied reporting that claims U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) may appoint Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to the Senate if she is elected Tennessee’s next governor, dismissing the report as “Beltway gossip by anonymous sources.”
Responding to a Sunday news roundup by Puck, which reported “chatter on the Hill that Hegseth has been angling for” Blackburn’s seat, The Independent reported on Monday that Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Cortes denied Hegseth was participating in such an effort.
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State Senator Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) called on Tennessee officials to address complaints from Davidson County voters who claim electronic voting machines are incorrectly selecting U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and only reflecting their choice for the Democratic Party candidate after multiple attempts.
“Obviously, this keeps coming up and it needs to be addressed after this election, because it’s not acceptable that people are having these problems,” said Campbell on Friday, according to The Tennessee Lookout.
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Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed recently tried to shut down questions about his family’s documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and his own reluctance to draw clear lines on radical Islamist networks by invoking John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign. Kennedy faced suspicion that, as a Catholic, he might answer to the Vatican rather than the Constitution. El-Sayed’s comparison does not hold.
He is not being targeted simply for being Muslim. He is facing legitimate questions about national security, ideology, and fitness for the Senate that any candidate with this record would face. His refusal to answer them directly is the problem.
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The U.S. Marshals Service announced on Thursday that the Memphis Safe Task Force (MSTF) apprehended Anthony Green, who was convicted of first-degree murder in September 2025, but nonetheless released by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO).
Green was first indicted in March 2021 for the murder of Octavious Atkins, who was struck multiple times after Green shot into his vehicle in June 2020. According to the Marshals, he was convicted on September 24, 2025, but “erroneously released” the same day. Action News 5 reported last year that that the SCSO acknowledged Green was released as a the result of a “miscommunication,” and pledged to “reinforce training, improve oversight, and ensure strict compliance with all courtroom and bail-related procedures.”
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Federal special agents at a sensitive site in the Western United States recently spotted an unidentified anomalous phenomenon in the shape of a black triangle, according to the Department of War’s Friday release of UAP files.
At 7:23 p.m. local time on a recent date, agents familiar with aviation spotted a triangular aircraft 3 miles away. It was 9 to 15 feet across, 6 feet deep, 2 feet thick, emitting heat, and black in color. The object shot up 200 feet, then moved horizontally before diving down, according to the files. The object had no normal aviation lights and made no sound.
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Metro Nashville selectively cited portions of a February ruling by the Tennessee Court of Appeals in a response filed Monday in the Covenant School killer public records lawsuit brought by The Tennessee Star, through its parent company Star News Digital Media, Inc. (SNDM), and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy, to justify its continued refusal to provide copies of the killer’s writings.
The lawsuit by Leahy and SNDM was originally filed against Metro Nashville in May 2023 in order to compel the release of the writings left by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who killed six at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023. Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea L. Myles ruled against Leahy, SNDM, and other plaintiffs suing Metro on July 4, 2024.
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Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, warned Thursday that the United States could face a constitutional crisis following the November midterm elections, citing claims from researcher DataRepublican that former government officials and activist organizations are preparing to challenge the legitimacy of the Trump administration.
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Since Jimmy Carter, the Democrat Party’s foreign and domestic brief has converged on one operating premise: American decline is inevitable, and the Party’s claim to power is that it will manage that decline more gracefully than its rivals.
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A lawsuit was filed against Tennessee on Monday in Davidson County Chancery Court by Nashville CARES, a nonprofit AIDS clinic challenging new guidance issued by the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) in response to a new law expanding citizenship and immigration-status verification requirements for public benefits.
Nashville CARES argues in its lawsuit that TDH guidance is preempted by the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, a welfare reform law that generally prohibits illegal aliens from receiving certain taxpayer-funded benefits, but makes exceptions for the testing and treatment of communicable diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee announced that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had reached a settlement over alleged Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) fraud, marking the third settlement related to the pandemic-era loan program to be announced by prosecutors in East Tennessee since September 30.
With Tennessee offices located in Maryville, Spralding International, Inc. is the latest company named by the DOJ, which reported on Wednesday that the company agreed to pay more than $1.8 million in order to resolve claims it violated the False Claims Act, specifically by “applying for, receiving, and obtaining forgiveness,” for a PPP loan despite not being eligible.
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As we approach the 2026 midterm elections, Americans concerned about public safety must confront a growing and dangerous trend: the increasing influence of the Democratic Socialists of America within the Democratic Party.
While the DSA markets itself as a movement for “economic justice,” its platform includes abolishing police, closing prisons, and opening national borders—policies that would dismantle the institutions that keep our communities safe.
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U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) on Wednesday said that Jerri Green, her opponent in the Tennessee gubernatorial race, “would put illegal aliens over your family” after the Democrat and member of the Memphis City Council voted in favor of a resolution calling for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the National Guard to be removed from the Memphis Safe Task Force (MSTF).
“This is a contrast election: I fought for the Memphis Safe Task Force, and just last night my radical liberal socialist opponent voted for a resolution to remove ICE and the National Guard from taking part in the Memphis Safe Task Force,” said Blackburn in a statement obtained by The Tennessee Star.
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President Donald Trump signed a bipartisan bill led by U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) into law Tuesday to protect Americans, particularly senior citizens, from online romance scams.
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The Memphis City Council on Tuesday approved an ordinance establishing new regulations for data centers used for artificial intelligence (AI), now renamed super intelligence (SI) by the Trump administration, in a development characterized as a loss by State Representative Justin Pearson (D-Memphis).
Passed in a 7-5 vote, the ordinance establishes a 135-day pause on accepting, processing, hearing, or approving applications and permits for new data center construction, though the pause can end early if permanent regulations are adopted.
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U.S. Representative Matt Van Epps (R-TN-07) condemned his Democratic challenger Darden Copeland’s position on abortion after Copeland said he would not support politicians imposing restrictions on abortion during an interview Tuesday on The Matt Murphy Show.
The exchange came during the final minutes of Copeland’s roughly half-hour interview with Murphy, when the host pressed the Democratic nominee on whether he believed there should be a point during pregnancy when abortion should no longer be permitted.
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U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, joined Tennessee Republican congressional nominee Charlie Hatcher for an exclusive sit-down interview Tuesday on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, where Jordan warned that a Democratic takeover of the House could lead to renewed efforts to impeach President Donald Trump and weaponize congressional oversight against his administration.
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There are two ways of looking at the midterms, now less than three weeks away.
One is as a simple referendum on the issues and politicians of the day. The other involves a far deeper conflict of visions (as Thomas Sowell puts it): socialism versus capitalism, intrusive versus limited government, and the destruction of time-honored institutions and traditions versus their preservation and renewal.
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Shelby County Chancellor Joe Day L. Jenkins reportedly blocked the Tennessee takeover of Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) on Monday with a bench order issued just days after U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw dissolved his order that had blocked the state-appointed Education Oversight Board from meeting until earlier this month.
Jenkins reportedly made the decision minutes before the board’s second October meeting was scheduled, Chalkbeat reported, noting that the Shelby County plaintiffs argued the MSCS school district did not meet the law’s qualifications for a takeover and that the district would be irreparably harmed by allowing it to proceed.
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President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that he would spend up to $400 million in funds on the midterms by the end of the cycle, citing his belief in the strength of the GOP agenda.
“Because of my belief in the Republican Party, and all of our Policies and Principles, and especially after witnessing what is taking place in France, and other locations throughout Europe, I am pleased to announce that, having to do with the Most Important Midterm Elections in our Country’s History, I have spent, or will be spending, over 400 Million Dollars by Election Day,” he posted on Truth Social.
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Polling released for Tennessee’s gubernatorial race on Monday found U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) holding an 11.5-point lead over the Democratic nominee, Jerri Green, while independent candidate David Hatley reached double digits.
The Spry Research survey showed that Blackburn has the support of 43.5 percent of the electorate, followed by Green at 32 percent. Hatley trails both major party candidates at 11.9 percent, while an additional 1.4 percent of respondents told pollsters they support former Lipscomb University professor Lauren Pinkston in her independent bid.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed Vice President JD Vance’s pledge to combat fraud in taxpayer-funded government programs, joining 25 other governors in supporting the Trump administration’s nationwide effort to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse.
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The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday granted a request by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to vacate a lower court decision that threatened construction of a $2.5 billion natural gas power plant in August, determining the publicly owned utility was likely to prevail in its appeal.
Proposed in 2024 to replace the TVA’s coal plant in Kingston, U.S. District Judge Curtis Collier, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, ruled in August that TVA failed to consider a legally sufficient number of alternatives, and determined TVA improperly committed to natural gas by agreeing to build a pipeline for the new facility.
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With more than 13,500 arrests reported since it deployed last year, U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche said the Memphis Safe Task Force (MSTF) would remain in the city, calling it an investment by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other federal agencies that compose the task force.
Blanche made the comments at a Friday roundtable event held by the DOJ to mark the one-year anniversary of the task force, which President Donald Trump authorized in September 2025 and which was fully deployed by October 2025.
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The coalition that once convinced Silicon Valley to police your speech now wants to use the midterm elections as a launchpad to reimpose a Trust and Safety regime on Americans.
This time, however, leftist organizers are not pressuring social media companies like Meta and X. They’ve pivoted to “AI-safety.”
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State Representative Justin Pearson (D-Memphis), the Democrats’ nominee for Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, on Thursday announced that he filed a lawsuit against the City of Memphis after he was prohibited from attending two Memphis City Council meetings following the protest that caused its October 6 meeting to be ended prematurely amid protests.
Justin Pearson announced the lawsuit in a post to social media, revealing his co-plaintiffs include his mother, Dr. Kimberly Owens-Pearson, as well as his brother KeShaun Pearson. Justin Pearson previously launched the Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP) activist group, which is now led by KeShaun Pearson.
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Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett on Thursday confirmed a “suspicious package” addressed to the Division of Elections Office was “intercepted,” adding Tennessee to the list of at least seven states where officials have reported similar incidents.
“We can confirm that a suspicious package addressed to the State Division of Elections Office was intercepted,” Hargett said in a social media post he said he published in response to inquiries from both Tennessee and national media outlets.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has moved $1 million to the campaign of Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, the New York Times reported Friday.
“I’m not waking up on November 4th wishing I did more to combat the smears aimed at Abdul. I’m leaving everything I can on the field,” she told the outlet.
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A memoir released earlier this year by Tennessee independent gubernatorial candidate David Hatley reveals his federal fraud conviction, which stemmed from a scheme in which he wrote checks to himself using an old checkbook he said he found in a condominium.
While revealing the federal crime, Hatley’s book does not disclose a second conviction he received that same year after pleading guilty to misdemeanor petit larceny in a Virginia case that began with felony indictments, according to court records obtained by The Tennessee Star.
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Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is no longer holding the position of Special Envoy to the Shield of Americas coalition.
Though the specific reasoning appears to be unclear, Noem will no longer fill the role of Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas. However, she will still conduct regional diplomatic business without the Special Envoy title, CBS reports.
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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee on Wednesday reported that three tax fraudsters had entered guilty pleas in cases involving a total of $37 million. The three cases reported in West Tennessee are part of over $490 million in tax fraud discovered across the country through the crackdown launched in April by President Donald Trump and led by Vice President JD Vance.
All three of the West Tennessee cases profiled by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) occurred in Memphis. The latest guilty plea came in the case against Lynette Hogue, a 45-year-old Memphis woman, who the DOJ said admitted her guilt on Tuesday to preparing false and fraudulent income tax returns ad failing to file her own tax returns.
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White House press secretary Katie Zacharia was fired after one tumultuous week on the job, the New York Times reported, citing “three people familiar with the matter.”
Earlier in the day, President Donald Trump defended her, saying that the media had treated her unfairly, but said he would leave the decision about her professional future to her.
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Tea Party Nation founder and former prosecutor Judson Phillips said the White House failed to properly vet press secretary Katie Zacharia after she acknowledged she never passed a state bar exam, arguing that the controversy has undermined her credibility and could become a lasting problem for President Donald Trump’s administration.
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The Educational Oversight Board appointed to take control over Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) told U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw on Wednesday that its chairman will testify that the board is “ready, willing, and able” to begin its duties under the Public School Accountability Act, Tennessee’s new law that allows the state to appoint an oversight board to take over school districts under specific conditions.
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, previously issued an order on July 1 that instructed Tennessee to maintain the status quo from prior to the passage of the law, but during a hearing earlier this month reportedly said he never intended his order to prevent the board from meeting, and signaled that he would dissolve the order as soon as the board confirmed it was ready to meet.
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The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), an independent bureau within the U.S. Treasury Department, on Wednesday released a 47-page report on “debanking activities” by nine of the country’s largest banks, revealing each of them established policies between 2020 and 2025 that resulted in Americans losing or being denied access to financial services “because of their political or religious beliefs or lawful business activities.”
The report states that banks began reconsidering their political debanking policies after states, including Tennessee, Florida, and Idaho, enacted “fair access” laws that prohibit financial institutions from debanking customers based on their political or religious beliefs.
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The Trump administration ended the Biden-era Welcome Corps refugee program months before one of its proponents, the Niskanen Center, published a report identifying seven Tennessee counties as potential destinations for new immigrants.
Niskanen, a pro-immigration think tank that has received funding from the Open Society Foundations, in March 2022 joined the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), Amnesty International USA, and the Community Sponsorship Hub in policy recommendations submitted to the U.S. State Department in response to a February 2021 executive order produced by President Joe Biden, which directed federal agencies to expand refugee resettlement.
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