Tennessee Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have joined their Senate colleagues in urging the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to do “everything it can to support taxpayers during the current tax filing season.”
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Roger Simon in studio to comment upon the recent letter signed by 34 Republican Senators regarding the Iran nuclear deal.
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Tennessee Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) joined Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) in sending a letter to President Biden rebuking the administration’s negotiations for a new Iran nuclear deal.
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Google’s Chief Legal Officer and President of Global Affairs Kent Walker accused Microsoft on Friday of “carving out” an exception to a bill targeting app stores operated by Google and Apple.
The Open App Markets Act, introduced by Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in a near-unanimous vote Thursday. Microsoft president Brad Smith applauded the passage of the bill in tweet shortly after, writing that the legislation “would promote competition, and ensure fairness and innovation in the app economy.”
Walker responded to Smith’s tweet accusing the software company of “carving out” an exception in the legislation favoring Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console and service.
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Tennessee Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) joined eight colleagues in sending a letter to President Joe Biden demanding that he enforce mandatory sanctions against the growing fleet of oil tankers selling Iranian oil and against the entities purchasing this oil.
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Tennessee Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), joined 16 of their colleagues in sending a letter to Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) and Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the chairs of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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To commemorate National School Choice week in Tennessee, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) released a statement calling for government funding to follow and benefit students.
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On Thursday, President Joe Biden appeared to lash out at a reporter’s question about Russian President Vladimir Putin which led to Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) calling for an apology from the President.
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On Friday, Tennessee Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) joined 16 of their Senate colleagues in introducing legislation that would require states to report accurate and complete data about abortion—including cases where babies are born alive during abortions.
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On Tuesday, Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reacted to a viral video making its rounds on social media showing the owner of an NBA team saying “nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs” in China.
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The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate that would apply to large U.S. businesses. The mandate, which would have been enacted by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), could have forced businesses with 100 or more employees to mandate the vaccine or weekly testing.
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Tennessee Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) both released statements this week after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation in the U.S. had soared to its highest level since 1982 in December of 2021.
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Members of the University of Memphis’ Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter spoke out Friday against their school’s intentions to use classrooms as pulpits that promote the tenets of social justice. Three University of Memphis TPUSA students declared their intentions as they appeared on a TPUSA Live video.
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On Tuesday, Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE), and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, requesting that he return to the committee to provide additional testimony regarding his school board memo, according to a press release.
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Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) wants the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to disclose the impact of what she calls “President Joe Biden’s federal overreach on on state Medicaid programs through the Build Back Broke budget. Blackburn formally requested the information in a letter this month.
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On Monday, Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) penned a letter to YouTube after it was revealed the social media giant demonetized a news video discussing a story how former Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli allegedly sexually assaulted Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai.
An episode of Breaking Points, a popular YouTube show hosted by Saagar Enjeti and Krystal Ball, was demonetized after it ran a segment discussing the disappearance of the tennis star, the Federalist reports.
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Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) introduced a bill this week to engage public-private partnerships toward strengthening supply chains in Tennessee and the region.
Current bottlenecks in shipping have translated to fewer goods on store shelves and higher prices for American consumers. Their causes are multifaceted and include high labor costs, cumbersome union work rules and the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Tennessee Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have joined other Republicans to challenge President Biden’s COVID vaccine mandate. Both Hagerty and Blackburn are utilizing the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to block the order and protect Americans from losing their jobs because of it.
The CRA is a tool that congress is able to use to overturn rules issued by federal agencies.
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Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is spearheading a measure to ensure the Biden administration does not pay reparations to illegal-immigrant families.
On Thursday, Blackburn joined her Montana GOP colleague Steve Daines and a number of other Republican senators in cosponsoring the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for the next fiscal year.
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Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D-TN) introduced bipartisan legislation Friday that “ensures that survivors of child sex abuse are able to seek justice under the federal civil remedy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2255, without being barred by statutes of limitation,” according to a press release.
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A U.S. Senate committee investigating the promotion of material harmful to young people on social media expanded beyond Facebook and Instagram Tuesday to include the video-sharing sites YouTube and TikTok as well as the Snapchat messaging application.
Therein, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) deplored the health-threatening viral challenges (e.g. binge drinking, the infamous “cinnamon challenge”), enticements toward illegal drugs, encouragements to engage in drastic dieting and presentations of child-sex abuse that she said have been purveyed to children and teens via these websites. She raised particular alarm regarding minors she said have been led into illicit sexual relationships on Snapchat.
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According to a Rasmussen Reports poll, 65% of voters agree with Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s comment that Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg should either “get back to work or leave” after taking off work for two months of paternity leave.
The Tennessee Republican made the comment to Breitbart after Politico reported that the Transportation Secretary had been on paternity leave since August. “We’re in the middle of a transportation crisis, and Pete Buttigieg is sitting at home,” Blackburn said. “Meanwhile, cargo boats are unable to dock, and shelves are sitting empty. Pete needs to either get back to work or leave the Department of Transportation. It’s time to put American families first.”
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Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is sponsoring legislation with Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) to place a moratorium on gain-of-function (GOF) research, problems with which many believe played a role in the outbreak of COVID-19.
GOF experiments enhance the severity or transmissibility of a virus or other biological agent. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have condoned such research “to help us understand the fundamental nature of human-pathogen interactions, assess the pandemic potential of emerging infectious agents and inform public health and preparedness efforts.” The NIH have however acknowledged major “biosafety and biosecurity risks” that warrant meticulous oversight.
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U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have joined nine other U.S. senators and formally asked that U.S. President Joe Biden replace Vice President Kamala Harris with a new border czar. This, considering Harris’s failure to stem the flow of illegal migrants to the United States and her failure to work with our neighbors to secure the border, Hagerty said in an emailed press release Thursday.
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The National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) has credited Tennessee’s top prosecutor with a major role in leading NAAG’s support for the U.S. Senate’s inquiry into social media’s impacts on mental health and safety.
The association announced Tuesday it sent a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security backing that subcommittee’s efforts to probe Facebook and other companies regarding their effects on children and teens.
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U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said Friday that she and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have formally asked U.S. President Joe Biden to tell the massive migrant caravan approaching the U.S. southern border to turn around. Blackburn and Graham addressed Biden in a letter dated Thursday.
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Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R) and Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D) led a bipartisan grilling of Facebook’s Antigone Davis Thursday about apparent troubles the company’s photo-sharing platform causes for teenagers.
Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, testified before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security, of which Blumenthal and Blackburn are respectively chair and ranking member. The meeting focused largely on the psychological hazards that Facebook has quietly acknowledged its photo-album application Instagram has posed to children and teens.
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On Tuesday in a press release, Tennessee Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) announced that they have introduced legislation to codify the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative along with a few of their Republican colleagues.
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Top American military leaders are set for another round of intense congressional grilling on Wednesday, following a day-long Tuesday session that at times featured blistering criticism of their part in the U.S. exit from Afghanistan.
The Tuesday hearing placed on the griddle Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin; U.S. Central Command Chief Gen. Frank McKenzie; and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.
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On Thursday in a letter to President Joe Biden, Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) suggested there needs to be more incentive to get vaccinated instead of prioritizing unvaccinated people for monoclonal antibody treatment.
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Facebook has paused development of a version of its image-sharing platform Instagram specifically geared towards children, the company announced Monday.
The tech giant decided to suspend work on the project in order to “work with parents, experts, policymakers and regulators,” and “demonstrate the value and importance of this project for younger teens online today,” Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, wrote in a statement Monday.
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On Tuesday during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) questioned Big Tech’s invasive practices.
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Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters wants to break up Big Tech and ban their business practices he believes are harmful.
“I think Republicans need to reacquaint themselves with their history of antitrust enforcement, and realize huge concentrations of power in private hands can violate people’s liberties just as much as government,” Masters said in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Masters, who announced his candidacy in July, serves as chief operating officer at investment firm Thiel Capital and runs the Thiel Foundation, a philanthropic organization founded by billionaire investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. He competes in a crowded Republican primary with fellow candidate and current Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich for the chance to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in 2022.
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Tennessee Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) have signed on as cosponsors to bipartisan bill S.2756 which would award Congressional Gold Medals to the 13 American servicemembers who lost their lives during the terrorist attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 26th.
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According to a news release from Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) office, she along with Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) introduced legislation to expand funding opportunities for Hickman, Humphreys, and Perry counties by adding them to the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC).
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Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R) and her Connecticut colleague Richard Blumenthal (D) announced this week they’re launching an inquiry into revelations, reported that morning in The Wall Street Journal, about Facebook’s knowledge of harms its products may pose to their young users.
Blumenthal chairs the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, through which the investigation of the social network will proceed. Blackburn serves as the subcommittee’s ranking member.
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U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said on a recent podcast that the constantly-increasing federal debt imperils future generations and could rob them of their chance to pursue the American Dream. Blackburn said this on the talk show, Over-Caffeinated.
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Despite calls for increased regulation of the tech industry, Congress has yet to pass any major legislation, leaving it up to the states to take action curbing tech companies’ power and influence.
Meanwhile, state legislatures have introduced and enacted legislation on data privacy, antitrust, and content moderation, while state attorneys general have issued a number of legal challenges alleging anticompetitive business practices.
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Apple proposed a settlement with app developers Thursday, requiring the tech company to restructure its app store and change some of its more controversial practices.
The agreement, still pending court approval, would settle a class action antitrust lawsuit filed by app developers against Apple for alleged anticompetitive practices in its app store.
The company will now permit app developers to use information obtained in their apps to directly communicate with consumers about payment options outside the app store, Apple announced in court filings Thursday. This helps developers avoid paying Apple a commission on app purchases, and grants developers greater control over their apps.
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By a vote of 69 to 30, the U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed a $1.2 billion infrastructure bill that Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) warns is an endeavor to “fundamentally move America toward Western-Europe-style socialism.”
“Investing in infrastructure the right way is a wise investment in America’s future and in our long-term competitiveness, but that’s not what we’re being asked to vote on here,” Hagerty told fellow senators in the run-up to Tuesday’s vote.
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As U.S. Senate leaders expect to pass a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill Tuesday morning, both of Tennessee’s senators, Marsha Blackburn (R) and Bill Hagerty (R) are vehemently opposing the legislation, alarmed by its potential to worsen the national debt.
Senate Democrats have expressed their intention to use a process called reconciliation to avoid any possible filibuster, thus allowing themselves expand the measure to encompass $3.5 trillion in federal spending.
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Tennessee’s U.S. Senators, Marsha Blackburn (R) and Bill Hagerty (R), this week joined Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) in sponsoring legislation forbidding the executive branch from publishing guidelines on country-of-origin product labels that disfavor Israel.
Per a 1995 Clinton-era policy, U.S. labeling regulations used to require that products manufactured in Judea and Samaria be labeled as “Made in West Bank.”
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U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and U.S. Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX-10) introduced a bill Wednesday to counteract authoritarian regimes’ clout within the United Nations.
The legislation is designed to contravene “malign influence, require transparency, and promote accountability within the United Nations system.…”
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Speaking to iHeartRadio host Sara Carter on Thursday, Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn condemned the Biden administration’s professed “flagging” of what it terms “disinformation” regarding COVID-19 for social-media companies.
“What they’ve set up is basically a premise that if your message is not government-approved, then what you’re going to experience is state-sponsored censorship….” Blackburn said.
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Tennessee’s AFL-CIO chapter rallied Tuesday afternoon outside the Nashville offices of Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty in favor of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.
The legislation would forbid states from maintaining right-to-work policies which allow workers who chose not to join a union to decline to pay union dues. The bill would also redefine many independent contractors as employees for purposes of collective bargaining—thus placing what many consider a heavy burden on freelancers—and would impose numerous other pro-union provisions.
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U.S. Representative Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-01) introduced a bill on Tuesday that is aimed to increase the level of transparency associated with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The legislation, known as the DHS Contract Reporting Act of 2021, would instruct DHS to publish a public, daily report of all headquarters and component contracts related to the agency that exceeds $4 million.
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Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) joined a group of Republican senators in calling on the Biden administration to end the mask mandate for fully vaccinated individuals that is currently in place for airplanes and public transportation.
The group introduced a resolution that would recommend the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to stop the regulations.
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During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) expressed concerns over President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), David Chipman.
“Mr. Chipman is willing to lie to push his anti-gun agenda. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives deserves a better leader. Americans deserve a better leader,” Blackburn said of the concerning statements made by Chipman.
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Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) joined Representative Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN-03) and demanded a briefing from the Department of Health and Human Services, after reports of abuse of the unaccompanied minors in federal custody.
“This allegation of abuse and the missing child individually raise urgent questions that demand immediate answers regarding the steps HHS is taking to ensure the safety and well-being of UACs in this Chattanooga facility,” the letter states.
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This week, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) assisted in the introduction of a bill to prohibit federal funding for schools using the 1619 Project as curriculum. The Saving American History Act also notes that federal funds couldn’t be used by school boards and other local educational agencies to support the teaching of the 1619 Project.
The act explained that the respective secretaries of Education, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Defense, and Interior would determine the cost of teaching the 1619 Project – including planning and teaching time. This determination would come from pre-established formulas. No reductions would affect the free and reduced price school lunch program, or any low-income student programs, or students with disabilities.
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