Marn’i Washington, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) supervisor fired for not helping supporters of President-elect Donald Trump, said Tuesday that this occurrence was not an “isolated” incident.
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 Voters nationwide approved seven of 10 ballot initiatives preserving abortion rights.
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Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, said Vice President Kamala Harris’ blunders on the presidential campaign trail are so significant that “nobody would believe it” if she was elected president in the November 5 general election.
During Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Leahy dedicated a segment to Harris’ questionable move to attack Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ preparation for Hurricane Milton, specifically the governor’s lack of communication with Harris ahead of the storm.
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The state of Florida is suing the Biden-Harris administration to obtain information on how many illegal foreign nationals convicted of violent crimes who served time in prison were released into the U.S. instead of being deported.
“Historically, when illegal aliens were brought to the U.S. to be prosecuted for their crimes, it was well understood that the aliens would be deported once they have served their sentence,” Florida’s lawsuit, filed by Attorney General Ashley Moody, states. “That was until the Biden-Harris Administration implemented their shockingly irresponsible immigration policy, pushing unknown numbers of dangerous criminals straight from federal prison into our communities and causing chaos, anarchy, and crime.”
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When Florida was hit with severe storms and Hurricane Ian in 2022, Vice President Kamala Harris demanded that “communities of color” must be first in line for aid and that assistance should be prioritized “in a way that is about giving resources based on equity.”
She has repeatedly made similar claims, differentiating “equity” from equality, stating that “not everyone starts in the same place.”
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Three Florida professors have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a 2023 state law subjecting public university faculty to mandatory post-tenure review every five years.
The scholars argue the law “imperils academic freedom” and enables the Florida legislature to “usurp the exclusive powers and duties” of the state university system’s Board of Governors granted to it by Florida’s constitution.
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Federal immigration authorities in Florida last week apprehended more than a dozen illegal migrants who were convicted or charged of crimes while in a program that allowed them to live freely in the U.S. despite crossing the border illegally.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 18 illegal migrants in a week-long raid referred to as “Operation Drumbeat,” according to a press release from the agency. The operation, which was done in conjunction with Border Patrol agents, apprehended noncitizens charged or convicted of a slate of heinous crimes, such as child abuse, extortion, assault, burglary and other offenses.
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China’s surveillance efforts off the coast of America’s shores are expanding, according to a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Monday.
China has been closely collaborating with Cuba — located just about 200 miles off the coast of Florida — to expand its military and intelligence presence on the island since at least 2019. Satellite imagery reviewed by CSIS appears to show that Cuba is building on its existing infrastructure in the region and now has multiple signal intelligence (SIGINT) facilities on the island, furthering concerns that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is attempting surveillance efforts inside the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal.
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) plans to spend more than $25 million on the November elections and will particularly focus on pro-abortion state constitutional amendments.
This year, the ACLU is spending the largest amount of money it ever has on elections, Deirdre Schifeling, ACLU’s chief political and advocacy officer, told NBC News.
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It’s no secret that the government’s monopoly on education is in trouble. Across the country, public schools are emptying while parental choice is flourishing. Florida, perhaps the national leader in this movement, has four different private school choice programs: one education savings account (ESA), one voucher program, and two tax-credit scholarships.
One of the results of Florida’s success is that many of the state’s public schools are shutting down. Florida’s Broward County, the sixth largest school district in the country, housing some 320 K-12 schools, could see 42 of them shut down, including 32 elementary schools, eight middle schools, and two high schools.
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Venezuelan Tren de Aragua prison gang members are being arrested thousands of miles from the border after having illegally entered the U.S. in Texas.
The Venezuelan prison gang is well-known for orchestrating murders, bribery schemes and money laundering, drug and arms trafficking, and kidnappings for ransom money. In March, U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Maria Elvira Salazar, both Florida Republicans, called on the president to officially designate Tren de Aragua as a Transnational Criminal Organization.
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There are 124 cities with a population over 200,000 in the U.S. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates for last year, over 90 percent of the U.S. population growth last year took place outside of its 124 largest cities. About a third of those cities lost population last year.  The total growth in the population of cities with over 200,000 residents grew by .23 percent, less than half of what the U.S. grew last year.
Roughly a third of those that lost population were located in New York and California. The three largest cities in the U.S., New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, all lost population again in 2023. Between the three cities, over 700,000 people have left since the 2020 census. New York is by far the biggest loser at 546,000. That is about 6.2 percent of its 2020 population.
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Amid an ongoing criminal trial that has largely limited his ability to campaign in-person, former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee managed to out-fundraise President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee by a hefty margin in April.
Collectively, Trump and the RNCÂ raised $76 million last month, including $50.5 million raised at a single event in Florida. By contrast, President Joe Biden and the DNC managed to raise a combined $51 million over the same period.
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A referee judge for the Florida State Bar recommended suspending decorated Gulf War veteran Chris Crowley’s law license for 60 days over his criticism of an opponent he ran against for the Office of the State Attorney in Florida’s 20th Judicial Circuit.
During the 2018 race, Crowley referred to Amira D. Fox, who eventually won, as “corrupt” and “swampy” and observed that she had “close family ties to the PLO terrorist organization.” The Florida Bar had requested a 91-day suspension for allegedly violating the bar’s ethics rule prohibiting criticism of judges, election officials, and candidates running for office.
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The attorneys general of Florida, New York, and the District of Columbia have joined Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares’ lawsuit challenging the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) name, image, and likeness (NIL) recruitment ban.
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Just weeks after learning Joe Biden had improperly retained government documents, his administration began working with federal bureaucrats in spring and fall 2021 to increase pressure on Donald Trump for similar issues and eventually prompt a criminal prosecution of the 45th president, according to government memos newly unsealed by a federal judge.
The correspondence, released this week by U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon in Florida, provide the the most extensive accounting so far of how the Biden White House worked with federal bureaucrats to escalate pressure on Trump to return documents to the National Archives even as it slow-walked similar issues involving its own boss.
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A coalition of states has filed a legal challenge to President Joe Biden’s latest executive effort to forgive a portion of Americans’ student loan debt.
The lawsuit comes after Biden on Monday announced the plan, which the states in question say is an overreach of executive authority. The White House claims that Biden has so far canceled at least some of the debt for 4 million Americans, totalling $146 billion so far.
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In 2021, Joe Biden was elected after a bitterly fought campaign that deposed the incumbent Donald Trump. Democrats eventually captured, for a time, both the House and Senate, ensuring the most left-wing government in modern American history.
Americans were then set to witness a great experiment. For the first time in their lives, a truly radical socialist program would supposedly fundamentally transform the way America dealt with the border, immigration, the economy, race relations, foreign policy, energy, law enforcement, crime, education, and social questions such as religion, gender, abortion, and schooling.
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Vanderbilt University confirmed to The Tennessee Star on Wednesday that it is considering building a new campus in Florida.
“We are assessing an opportunity to expand Vanderbilt graduate programs in business and computing in South Florida,” Vanderbilt’s Senior Media Relations Specialist Julia Jordan told The Star. “We will share details as they become available.”
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The residents of Fort Pierce, Florida, are not accustomed to seeing dark SUVs and flashing motorcycles speed down the town’s main thoroughfare bordering the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. Part beach getaway, part working class community, the city is located about 60 miles north of the luxurious Palm Beach estate of the most famous – and frequent –criminal defendant in recent history: Donald J. Trump.
The former president has become a regular visitor to the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, more specifically, the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon who is presiding over the so-called classified documents trial.
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Agents arrested 23 people in relation to a cartel-linked drug operation in Texas that dealt in cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and meth.Â
The arrests came after a five-year investigation that started in 2019. Prosecutors said the drug ring operated in the Houston and Galveston areas and was under the control of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
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The measure will need 60 percent support to take effect.
The Florida Supreme Court on Monday approved a ballot measure that would expand abortion access in the Sunshine State, though it also upheld an existing ban on the procedure after 15 weeks.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations (CBP-AMO) agents and U.S. Coast Guard crews are seizing large quantities of cocaine attempting to be smuggled to the U.S. by boat.
In five recent operations, they seized nearly $290 million worth of cocaine totaling over 15,700 pounds. or nearly 8 tons – enough lethal doses to potentially kill more than 82 million people.
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Legislatures in 23 states and the District of Columbia have passed some form of a carbon-free electricity goal, but many of these measures do not address the ancillary costs of making it happen.
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State bars are coming under criticism for aggressively going after conservative attorneys and disciplining them, while looking the other way when it comes to legal abuses by left-wing attorneys. The Florida State Bar is pursuing disciplinary charges against decorated veteran Chris Crowley over remarks he made about his opponent Amira D. Fox in 2018 when he was campaigning against her for Office of the State Attorney in Florida’s 20th Judicial Circuit. Most state bars have an ethics rule, adopted from the American Bar Association’s model rules, that restricts attorneys from criticizing public officials, candidates for office, and judges.
A Florida attorney familiar with the case, who preferred not to be identified due to fear of retaliation, told The Arizona Sun Times, “The Florida Bar is now a political organization dominated by the progressive left. The Florida Bar picks and chooses which political speech to go after, depending on who is politically connected. This is a disgrace to the legal profession.” The source said Fox is part of the establishment.
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With just over 100 days to go before the Iowa caucuses, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is pumping even more resources and staff into the Hawkeye State.
The DeSantis campaign plans to move about a third of its staff from Tallahassee to Des Moines, underscoring the primary position the top tier candidate has placed on the first-in-the-nation caucus state.
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At least 20 states have either restricted or banned transgender procedures for minors, with many of them facing lawsuits and temporary blocks by courts as a result, while future litigation is possible in states considering adopting such laws.Â
The states that have enacted legislation against such procedures are: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia – essentially all conservative-leaning.
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A lot of presidential politics watchers will tell you that it’s not a presidential campaign until a candidate comes to Iowa.Â
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis came to Iowa Tuesday evening, officially kicking off his run for the White House in the kick-off caucus state.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis may still be mulling over a run for president, but the Republican looked and sounded every bit a contender for the GOP presidential nomination Friday evening in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.
DeSantis joined fellow Republican, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. at a packed, standing-room only stop at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, ostensibly to promote his new book, The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.
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Jimmy Patronis, the state of Florida’s chief financial officer, is warning the top executives of a so-called “disinformation” tracking group it’s playing with fire in targeting conservative organizations in what has been described as a defunding campaign. In a letter to NewsGuard CEOs and Editors-in-Chiefs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, Patronis warns that he will not hesitate to “use the full force” of his office to shed light on an organization that has financially hurt conservative outlets with its rating system. “In short, your enterprise may affect the finances of your clients through triggering Florida’s divestment laws, and it may be subject to legislative scrutiny in the upcoming legislative session,” Florida’s CFO wrote. As the Washington Examiner reported last month in its series, “Disinformation Inc.,” NewsGuard is part of a growing army of self-styled “disinformation tracking organizations that are cracking down on conservative media and part of a lucrative operation that aims to defund disfavored speech.” As the Examiner reported: Major ad companies are increasingly seeking guidance from purportedly “nonpartisan” groups claiming to be detecting and fighting online “disinformation.” These same “disinformation” monitors are compiling secret website blacklists and feeding them to ad companies, with the aim of defunding and…
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants $2 billion in tax relief to lower the burden of inflation on state residents.
The second-term Republican held a news conference in Ocala Wednesday to discuss his tax relief plan.
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Florida Senate and House committees are having interim meetings this week to kick off the new legislative session for 2023, and several new committees will be meeting for the first time – and chaired by freshman Republicans.
Originally, the interim meetings were set to take place from Dec. 12-16, but were postponed and instead replaced with a special session. Lawmakers took the opportunity during that special session to address the growing issue of property insurance costs in Florida, as well as recovery after Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole ripped through the Sunshine State in September 2022.
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Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s invitation to Floridians to move to California ahead of the November election, California businesses continue to leave, and increasingly to Florida.
While their top relocation destination is overwhelmingly Texas, several major companies have relocated to Florida since Newsom’s been in office.
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Changes could be coming to Florida’s abortion laws after the incoming senate president, Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, said she would like to see Florida’s abortion ban go from 15 weeks’ gestation to 12 weeks’ gestation.
The state of Florida banned abortion in 1900, but that ban was overturned in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Roe v. Wade case. That ruling itself was overturned by the Supreme Court in June. Anticipating that decision, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis moved to ban abortions from 15 weeks’ gestation, with the law making no exceptions for cases pertaining to rape and incest.
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On Tuesday, Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) announced that it would launch an investigation into a performing arts center that hosted a drag show targeted towards little children.
As reported by the Daily Caller, the investigation is focusing on the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, which hosted the “Drag Queen Christmas” event the day after Christmas; advertisements for the event have since been removed from the center’s website, but archived versions remain available on the Internet.
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The state of Florida is reporting a $21.8 billion surplus in 2022, the highest in state history. The state also decreased its debt by $1.3 billion this year, according to a newly published State Debt Report from the State of Florida Division of Bond Finance.
According to the report, Florida decreased its debt by $1.3 billion, increased its revenues by 17% ($8.5 billion), and maintained its AAA bond rating primarily because of its strong growing economy.
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Florida’s unemployment rate dropped to 2.6% in November, the lowest of the 10 largest states in the U.S. and 1.1 percentage points lower than the national rate. It was also the 24th consecutive month that Florida’s unemployment rate remained below the national rate.
In November, Florida continued to exceed the national job growth rate for the 20th consecutive month; its employers have added jobs for 31 consecutive months.
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Republicans will soon take control of the House of Representatives, but with a margin so narrow it may prove difficult to achieve their legislative and oversight objectives. That margin might have been larger, were it not for egregious errors made by the U.S. Census Bureau in the 2020 census.
Come January, House membership will consist of 213 Democrats and 222 Republicans. A party must hold 218 of those seats to control the House. Thus, Republicans will have only a four-seat majority. That extremely narrow majority means that GOP leadership can lose any vote on any issue if only four Republicans defect and the Democrats stay united in opposition.
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A bill has been refiled that could permanently nix Florida’s sales tax from diapers and adult incontinence products.
Florida state Rep. Anna V. Eskamani filed House Bill 29, a continuation of an already existing sales tax exemption for children’s diapers, that are tax-free until June 30, 2023. If passed, the exemption would be expanded to also help reduce the cost for the elderly, their families, and those who use adult diapers and other incontinence products.
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Florida ranked first in the United States for parental involvement in education, according to the Center for Education Reform’s Parent Power Index.
The index is released annually and measures the policies that exist in each state. Those policies are ranked by whether they allowed parental choice in what their child’s education would be, and if the needs of the student and their families were considered first.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed One America News national political correspondent, Neil W. McCabe to the newsmaker line to weigh in on Governor DeSantis’s investigation into COVID vaccine side effects and Floridian opinion on a 2024 presidential run.
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Florida lawmakers are reportedly working to reverse a law that stripped Disney of its special tax status in the state after its then-CEO criticized a state law on gender classes in public schools.
The possible change, first reported by the Financial Times, follows Disney replacing CEO Bob Chapek who was in a feud with GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis.
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Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis announced Thursday that the state will begin pulling over $2 billion in assets from large investment manager BlackRock because of the firm’s environmentally and socially motivated investing standards.
Patronis said that BlackRock is choosing to use its money to pursue its ideology rather than secure profits for its clients, according to a press release. Florida’s State Treasury will begin to remove roughly $1.43 billion worth of long-term securities from BlackRock’s control as well as approximately $600 million worth of short-term investments managed by the firm.
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When Florida lawmakers return to Tallahassee in March to begin their 2023 legislative session, one topic that could be up for consideration is the state’s unemployment benefits.
Florida’s current maximum unemployment benefit is $275 per week, the second-lowest in the U.S. Florida has kept it at this mark for 23 years.
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Job gains have continued in Florida for 30 consecutive months, new labor data shows.
Florida’s seasonally adjusted total nonagricultural employment was 9,542,500 in October 2022, an increase of 36,400 jobs over the month. The Sunshine State gained 457,400 jobs over the year, an increase of 5%, higher than the national rate of 3.6% over the year.
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Google agreed to a $391.5 million settlement with 40 states after an investigation found that the tech giant participated in questionable location-tracking practices, state attorneys general announced Monday.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong called it a “historic win for consumers.”
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Florida ranks first in the U.S. for attracting and developing a skilled workforce, according to Lightcast’s seventh-annual Talent Attraction Scorecard.
Florida ranked first overall in education attainment, jobs, skilled jobs, migration in 2020, competitive effect, and skilled job openings.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed national political correspondent for One America News, Neil W. McCabe, to the newsmaker line to weigh in on the big win for DeSantis over Crist in Florida and whether or not Trump will announce his candidacy Tuesday for the 2024 presidency.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, won reelection by almost 20 points, and all six of the school board candidates he endorsed have prevailed Tuesday. DeSantis had previously endorsed 24 candidates in school board races, all of whom won.
While school board races are historically nonpartisan, parents’ outrage over critical race theory, transgender activism, and COVID-19 lockdowns in schools have galvanized a parental rights movement that Republicans largely support and Democrats largely oppose. The parents rights group Moms for Liberty also endorsed many of the candidates DeSantis backed.
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