President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated billionaire Jared Isaacman to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during his second administration.
Trump has been filling out critical roles in his next administration since he won reelection last month, including nominating his presidential Cabinet.
Read the full story
The state of California won’t cooperate with President-elect Trump’s mass deportation plans, according to Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif.
“There’s an important distinction here. No state’s government, not Texas, not California, not any state in the nation has a constitutional authority to impose federal immigration law. That is the responsibility of the federal government,” Padilla said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Read the full story
Citing discrimination against nonminorities in farming assistance programs, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has filed an amicus brief in support of plaintiff Robert Holman’s litigation against the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
He’s a corn and soybean farmer.
Read the full story
The U.S. Department of Defense’s annual audit once again resulted in a disclaimer.
That means the federal government’s largest agency – with a budget of more than $840 billion – can’t fully explain its spending. The disclaimer this year was expected. And it’s expected again next year. The Pentagon previously said it will be able to accurately account for its spending by 2027.
Read the full story
The Tennessee General Assembly has been “unequivocally clear ” that illegal immigration is a high priority for them, but there’s only so much a state can do, the state’s attorney general said.
Jonathan Skrmetti told The Center Square in a telephone interview when he goes out and talks to people across Tennessee, he can’t think of a time when he hasn’t gotten questions about the subject.
Read the full story
In 2021, near the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, investigators tailed a Jeep Cherokee stolen from an airport Avis to a New York City apartment they called a “fraud factory” – no furniture, just an air mattress, a computer, stacks of loan and tax forms, and a shredder.
Two men who had first met in prison – Adedayo Ilori, 43, and Chris Recamier, 59 – were using stolen identities and fake paperwork to falsely claim they employed 200 people, bilking the federal government’s pandemic-relief programs of more than $1 million, according to federal prosecutors. They used the stolen money to splurge on big-ticket purchases, such as cryptocurrency, leasing luxury apartments and a Mercedes, the evidence showed.
Read the full story
The federal government this week began fortifying Washington, D.C., for Inauguration Day, which is roughly three months away.
The effort has begun with crews erecting fencing around the White House, including nearby Lafayette Park, the National Park Service, which is leading the effort, said Tuesday.
Read the full story
Twenty-five Republican governors want to know how many illegal foreign nationals have been flown into their states by a Biden-Harris administration plan they argue is burdening their residents and creating an unsafe environment.
Those being flown in have arrived through more than a dozen parole programs created by U.S. Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The governors only inquired about one: the CHNV parole program, created to fast track previously inadmissible citizens of Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela moving into the country.
Read the full story
Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech last week to accompany the release of her 82-page economic planning document. While her words were intended to evoke optimism, the implications of the plan are troubling for America’s future.
To begin with, the plan must be placed in context.
Read the full story
by Tommy Vallejos Most of you are probably reading this very article using the power of broadband internet, which attests to the importance of high-speed internet in connecting us, sharing ideas and gathering as communities. Access to reliable internet is powering every aspect of our lives, now starting from the earliest years of childhood – better connecting students to their education in urban and rural communities alike. Broadband gives rural entrepreneurs and small business owners the chance to connect with new customers, suppliers and business opportunities. Millions of Tennesseans are reaping the benefits of the internet on a daily basis, including many who don’t stop to give it a second thought. However, 200,000 of our neighbors in Tennessee still don’t have reliable access to high-speed internet. And many of those impacted tend to be Latinos in sparsely populated towns across our state. The good news is that additional federal resources have been allocated to states to help meet these broadband gaps, most of which are occurring in rural communities. We have Governor Bill Lee to thank for deploying these important funds. But we have to be careful because the federal government is prone to solutions that spend a lot…
Read the full story
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday the state has the jurisdiction to prosecute Ryan Wesley Routh for attempted murder and will be more transparent in its investigation than the federal government.
Routh raised an assault-style rifle as former President Donald Trump golfed on Sunday. Routh is the subject of three assassination investigations and could face life in prison if convicted for attempted murder.
Read the full story
Tonight, the presidential candidates will have their first debate. But there is one critical election issue the American people are not debating at all. They agree that non-U.S. citizens should not vote in U.S. elections.
This is a convenient opinion for Americans to hold as it is also the law.
Read the full story
The state of Utah wants the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its lawsuit against the federal government.
At issue is the federal government’s control of unappropriated lands, lands that Utah says the federal government is holding indefinitely.
Read the full story
The national debt surpassed $35 trillion on Monday for the first time in U.S. history as exorbitant federal spending continues under President Joe Biden.
Since Biden was inaugurated, the national debt has increased by over $7 trillion, from $27.7 trillion on January 20, 2021 to now over $35 trillion as of July 29, 2024. If the debt were to be divided among the roughly 258.3 million adults in the U.S., each adult would have roughly $135,500.
Read the full story
Based on data from a U.S. Treasury report, the federal government has amassed $142 trillion in debts, liabilities, and unfunded obligations. This staggering figure equals 93% of all the wealth Americans have accumulated since the nation’s founding, estimated by the Federal Reserve to be $152 trillion.
Unlike other measures of federal red ink that cover an arbitrary period, extend into the infinite future, or ignore government resources, the figure of $142 trillion applies strictly to Americans who are alive right now and includes the government’s commercial assets. Thus, it quantifies the financial burden that today’s Americans are leaving to their children and future generations.
Read the full story
A medical internship program is under fire for allegedly racially discriminating against otherwise qualified applicants, requiring that applicants must “identify” as black or African American.
Do No Harm filed a complaint on behalf of a member on Thursday requesting the federal government investigate an internship offered by the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM). The anonymous member was qualified academically and met all other requirements but was rejected because of his race.
Read the full story
Last week, in Murthy v. Missouri, the Supreme Court hammered home the distressing conclusion that, under the court’s doctrines, the First Amendment is, for all practical purposes, unenforceable against large-scale government censorship. The decision is a strong contender to be the worst speech decision in the court’s history.
(I must confess a personal interest in all of this: My civil rights organization, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, represented individual plaintiffs in Murthy.)
Read the full story
U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) joined many elected officials and conservative leaders who expressed disappointment with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Murthy v. Missouri on Wednesday.
The Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana and five individual plaintiffs brought this court case.
Read the full story
Some of you may remember that four years ago this week I debated Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Bartholet who called for a “presumptive ban” on homeschooling. The online event was hosted by the Cato Institute and drew thousands of participants, including many homeschooling families who were incensed by Bartholet’s proposal.
Now, Scientific American is joining the crowd of busybodies eager to constrain a family’s right to raise and educate their children how they choose. “The federal government must develop basic standards for safety and quality of education in homeschooling across the country,” read a recent editorial in the magazine.
Read the full story
The federal government loses up to $521 billion a year to fraud, according to a first-of-its-kind estimate from a Congressional watchdog.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which serves as the research arm of Congress, estimated annual fraud losses cost taxpayers between $233 billion and $521 billion annually, according to a new report published Tuesday. The fraud estimate’s range represents 3% to 7% of average federal obligations.
Read the full story
The federal government reported hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in improper payments last fiscal year and trillions over the last two decades.
According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office, the federal government reported $236 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2023. The true number, though, is actually much higher, but federal reporting is often lacking.
Read the full story
Not since Prohibition has the federal government sought to ban a product as popular as the internal combustion engine.
This week, the Environmental Protection Agency released its final emissions standards rule, requiring that 70% of new vehicle sales be pure battery-powered electric or hybrids by 2032.
Read the full story
For the first time in my 94 years on earth, I fear for the future of our democracy. I see the federal government using its enormous powers with contempt for the governed instead of with the consent of the governed as our founders envisioned.
Fundamental change in America is occurring by executive order or the force of the government’s police powers instead of through the legislative process required by the Constitution. From this, I fear that free market capitalism may be replaced by big government socialism. I also fear the erosion of our rights and freedoms, including parental rights, freedom of speech and religion, and due process.
Read the full story
The federal government is sending more than $210 million for projects across the state, from building a park over downtown Atlanta’s Connector to removing a flyover ramp in Savannah.
The largest project is a $157.6 million Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Grant award to jumpstart the first phase of construction of the Stitch, a four-acre park over Interstates 75 and 85.
Read the full story
Just when it seemed impossible for things to get tougher for small businesses, the federal government decided to make things worse.
Small businesses have had a tough run for the last few years. Record inflation, high interest rates, and workforce shortages have led to widespread pessimism among small businesses. The last thing they need is more government interference, but that is exactly what is happening.
Read the full story
The college horror stories are endless. A mandatory Title IX training session at Harvard instructs students that “fatphobia” and “cis-heterosexism” perpetuate violence and that using the wrong pronouns constitutes abuse. Yet, hatred against Jews is tolerated at the school.
In California, community colleges teach that if someone claims they are not a racist, they are in denial and that colorblindness “perpetuates existing racial inequities and denies systematic racism.” A Michigan college held a “queer” abortion stories event earlier this year. The once-venerable University of Chicago is planning to host a “kink and consent” workshop for students, in which the practice of sex play with ropes will be taught.
Read the full story
Michigan is very much in play for November.
Our new poll shows a dead heat, with Trump and Biden tied at 43% each and 14% undecided for this key swing state. With Trump leading comfortably right now in Georgia and North Carolina, a win in Michigan could well tip the entire election to the 45th president.
Read the full story
A coalition of Republican state attorneys general led by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is fighting a federal agency’s proposal to massively reduce the amount of single-use plastics consumed by the government.
The General Services Administration (GSA) — which provides centralized procurement for the federal government and offers office products and other services to federal agencies — proposed a rule in late December 2023 that would put the federal government on track to significantly reduce its use of single-use plastic packaging in an effort to be environmentally friendly. Skrmetti and 13 other state attorneys general argued in comments filed Monday that the policy exceeds the agency’s authority, and that it would decrease the efficiency of federal procurement and increase costs while failing to do much for the environment.
Read the full story
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday expressed support for Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott’s efforts to secure the southern border amid perceived federal apathy toward the unprecedented surge in illegal border crossings.
Read the full story
The invasion of illegal aliens on our southern border is getting worse by the day. Texas is at the forefront of this problem, comprising almost half of the nation’s border with Mexico. After years of failure by the Obama and Biden administrations, our state has finally decided to act to protect our citizens.
A new law was signed by the governor, making illegal immigration a state crime and empowering local and state law enforcement to carry out this new law. This should have happened years ago. The border crisis is not new. Inaction by the governor has continued to allow illegal aliens, including documented terrorists, into our state.
Read the full story
Government employees in the United States topped 23 million for the first time in December, according to the employment numbers released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In November, according to BLS, there were 22,951,000 people employed by the local, state and federal governments in the United States. In December, there were 23,003,000.
Read the full story
The federal government spent $1,058,839,000,000 in the first two months of fiscal year 2024 — October and November — according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.
At the same time, according to the MTS, it collected $678,264,000,000 in taxes — thus running a two-month deficit of approximately $380,576,000,000.
Read the full story
The national debt continues to rise sharply to record levels during the ongoing debate in Congress over the next federal spending bill.
The federal government has already piled another $383 billion onto the debt so far into the 2024 fiscal year, which began on October 1.
Read the full story
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is pushing the federal government to reassign National Guard troops and reimburse the state government for border-related expenses.
In a letter to President Joe Biden, Hobbs is requesting that the 243 National Guard troops already on federal orders in the Tucson Sector be redirected to helping with the Lukeville Port of Entry’s reopening.
Read the full story
Idaho is asking the Supreme Court to intervene and allow the state to enforce its pro-life law despite the Biden Administration’s efforts to block it by allowing abortions in emergency rooms, according to court documents.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act is meant to ensure that all patients who request emergency room treatment are examined, but Idaho argued in its court filing Monday that the law turns “protection for the uninsured into a federal super-statute on the issue of abortion, one that strips Idaho of its sovereign interest in protecting innocent human life and turns emergency rooms into a federal enclave where state standards of care do not apply.”
Read the full story
In May 2021, L. Gordon Crovitz, a media executive turned start-up investor, pitched Twitter executives on a powerful censorship tool.
In an exchange that came to light in the “Twitter Files” revelations about media censorship, Crovitz, former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, touted his product, NewsGuard, as a “Vaccine Against Misinformation.” His written pitch highlighted a “separate product” – beyond an extension already on the Microsoft Edge browser – “for internal use by content-moderation teams.” Crovitz promised an out-of-the-box tool that would use artificial intelligence powered by NewsGuard algorithms to rapidly screen content based on hashtags and search terms the company associated with dangerous content.
Read the full story
The federal government has finally selected Greenbelt, Maryland, as the location for its new FBI headquarters, concluding a search process that began more than 10 years ago.
Congress authorized the General Services Administration to start looking for a new site for the FBI headquarters in 2012 after a decade of complaints about the security, technological capabilities, “deteriorating infrastructure,” and other issues with the current facility in Washington, D.C. The GSA narrowed its search to Greenbelt and Landover, Maryland, and Springfield, Virginia, in 2014, and state lawmakers and officials from both states have actively pursued the selection of their state throughout.
Read the full story
Another game of shutdown chicken ended last weekend with the status quo and the ousting of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) says its time to end the senseless — and costly — practice of shutdown politics.
Read the full story
The House passed a 45-day stopgap measure Saturday afternoon, according to multiple reports. The House has adjourned until Monday.
Read the full story
As the shipping containers along the southern border in Yuma, Arizona, came down months ago, the two federal cases against the state have been dismissed.
The Ducey administration placed the containers at the gaps last year and agreed with the federal government to take them down under the condition that a replacement barrier was created, The Center Square reported in December. However, the federal government took months to make progress on its own barrier, KYMA reported.
Read the full story
The federal government handed over nearly $76 billion to colleges and universities from COVID-19 federal funding packages, despite the colleges and universities having billions of dollars in their endowment funds, according to data compiled by OpenTheBooks.
The Cares Act, The Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSSA) and The American Rescue Plan Act contained over $5 trillion in federal COVID-19 relief funds, of which nearly $76 billion was handed over to colleges and universities, according to data compiled by OpenTheBooks, a government transparency watchdog organization. Sixteen of the universities with the largest endowments received nearly $4 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds.
Read the full story
A lawsuit launched by the Department of Justice against Arizona over a makeshift border wall made of shipping containers is set to be dismissed following a final payment of $2.1 million from the state to the U.S. Forest Service, even after Governor Katie Hobbs (D) dismantled the barrier and put the containers up for sale.
The shipping container wall was constructed under former Governor Doug Ducey (R), whose administration argued the hastily constructed barrier was necessary until the Biden administration resumed construction on the southern border wall started by former President Donald Trump. A lawsuit was launched by the federal government just weeks before Hobbs took office.
Read the full story
The federal government is borrowing an average of $5.3 billion per day this fiscal year, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday. The new estimate come just days after a top international creditor downgraded the U.S. credit rating.
“The federal budget deficit was $1.6 trillion in the first 10 months of fiscal year 2023, the Congressional Budget Office estimates – more than twice the shortfall recorded during the same period last year,” CBO said. “Revenues were 10 percent lower and outlays were 10 percent higher from October through July than they were during the same period in fiscal year 2022.”
Read the full story
Allegations that the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been politicized and weaponized against Republicans are in the news. It is commonly acknowledged that most federal employees lean left and vote Democratic, but this is usually said to make little difference. Prior to the 2022 election, a survey by Government Executive magazine said federal workers preferred Democrats 47 percent to 35 percent in House races, and 37 percent to 33 percent for the Senate.
Read the full story
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…
Read the full story
The state of Florida filed a lawsuit this week to challenge federal collaboration with accreditation organizations to usurp recent reforms to the Sunshine State’s higher education system.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Florida on Thursday with Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.
Read the full story
The federal government wasted over a half a trillion dollars in improper payments during the first two years of the Biden administration, a new analysis from a spending watchdog group found.
The analysis comes from Open The Books, which reports that 82 programs across 17 agencies made improper payments in fiscal year 2022 alone, averaging $20.5 billion per month, or $683 million per day.
Read the full story
According to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), an incident recently occurred at the Douglas Port of Entry where a suspect attempting to enter Arizona was found trying to smuggle in an improvised explosive device (IED).
A statement CBP emailed to The Arizona Sun Times revealed that the incident occurred on May 6th. Officials from the Arizona Department of Public Safety (AZDPS) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arrived to confiscate the device after it was found in the suspect’s vehicle. There were no other items of interest found.
Read the full story
In a rare move acknowledging a death caused by the COVID jab, a Minnesota family has received $9,000 from the federal government to reimburse them for funeral costs.
Darlene Carlson, 82, died at a Twin Cities hospital on June 2, 2022, days after receiving the Pfizer booster.
Read the full story
Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
Read the full story