U.S. Rep. David Kustoff the Only Tennessee Republican House Member to Vote Against Blocking Construction of $375 Million FBI Headquarters

Representative David Kustoff (R-TN-08) was the only member of Tennessee’s Republican House delegation to vote against an amendment that would have blocked the use of $375 million for a new Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters office in Maryland.

Kustoff was among 70 Republicans voting to kill Representative Mat Gaetz’s (R-FL-01) amendment to the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act of 2024. Gaetz had tried to stop the construction of the gilded FBI headquarters earlier this year.

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Grassroots Activist: Republicans Disproportionately Disenfranchised in ‘Absolute Chaos’ on Election Day in Maricopa County After Being Told Polls Would be Open Later Than They Were

Voters became angry on Election Day in Maricopa County after they showed up at the polls and found them closed already. Grassroots conservative activist Merissa Hamilton reported Tuesday evening that dozens of voters said they were told by the Maricopa County Recorder’s office that the polls closed at 7 p.m. However, eight polling locations closed at 4:30 p.m., which is “at least 17 percent” of the county’s locations, according to Hamilton who denounced it as “complete voter disenfranchisement!” Since Republicans are far more likely to vote in person on Election Day than Democrats, it disproportionately affected them.

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Republicans, Democrats Agree on New Protections for Wisconsin Election Workers

The plan that would add protections for election workers in Wisconsin, including a felony charge for anyone who assaults a poll worker, is bringing Republicans and Democrats together.

The Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections held a hearing on a series of election bills, including AB 577 that would expand protection for frontline election workers throughout the state.

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Commentary: Republicans Rein in Biden’s Local Zoning Scheme

In the 2024 transportation and housing appropriations bill, House Republicans are once again poised defund a bid by the federal government to take over state and local zoning laws via a Department of Housing and Urban Development regulation to condition $3.3 billion of community development block grants on changes to those zoning laws.

Appearing in section 233, the new bill, to be voted on this week by the U.S. House, updates the language to reflect the most recent regulation in whack-a-mole fashion: “None of the funds made available by this 24 Act may be used to implement, administer, or enforce the proposed rule entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing’ published by the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Federal Register on February 9, 2023 (88 Fed. Reg. 8516), or to direct a grantee to undertake specific changes to existing zoning laws as a part of carrying out the interim final rule entitled ‘Restoring Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Definitions and Certifications’ published by such Department in the Federal Register on June 10, 2021 (86 Fed. Reg. 30779).”

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Tennessee U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett on the Election of Speaker Mike Johnson and What’s Next for the House of Representatives

Tennessee U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) joined Nashville’s Morning News with Dan Mandis on Supertalk 99.7 WTN Monday morning to bring listeners in the room with the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, and discuss what’s next for Congress as President Joe Biden pushes for more funding for Ukraine amid growing conflict in the Middle East.

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Republicans Achieve Highest Marks on the Economy in over 30 Years: Poll

The GOP holds its largest advantage on the economy in over 30 years, with 53% of Americans trusting Republicans more than Democrats on the issue, according to a poll released Tuesday.

Republicans held a 14-point lead over the Democrats, of whom only 39% of Americans said handle the economy better, according to a Gallup poll. The GOP scored 10 points higher on the economy than last year, marking the largest margin between the two parties since 1991.

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Fiscal Conservatives from Arizona and Tennessee Helped Depose Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House

U.S. Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) laid it all on the line Tuesday afternoon in supporting a motion to vacate to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-23) from the post he has tenuously held for less than a year.

“Speaker McCarthy has failed to demonstrate himself as an effective leader who will change the status quo. He has gone against many of the promises he made in January and can no longer be trusted at the helm,” Biggs said.

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Purple Commonwealth: Virginia Poll Shows 42 Percent to 42 Percent Split Between Republicans, Democrats

Old Dominion residents go into the commonwealth’s Nov. 7 legislative elections equally split between Democrats and Republicans, with 42 percent of voters telling the University of Mary Washington’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies poll of 1,000 Virginia adults conducted Sept. 5 through Sept. 11.

“Virginia has rapidly returned to its purple state status,” said Stephen J. Farnsworth, professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington, and the center’s director. The poll included 833 registered voters, 771 likely voters, and carries a 3-percentage point margin of error.

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Commentary: The Left’s FISA Reform Trap

Republicans have had a crash course since 2016 in the ways the power of the intelligence community can be abused. To take a few examples, four consecutive judges operating under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act approved wiretaps of a Trump adviser, Carter Page, relying without question on the partisan fictions of the Steele dossier. Michael Flynn was ousted after he was the target of an unprecedented leak of another FISA intercept. And 51 former intelligence officers intervened in the 2020 election to dismiss without evidence the Hunter Biden laptop contents as likely Russian disinformation.

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Wisconsin State Senate Votes to Sack Controversial Elections Regulator, Overrides Evers’ Tax Cut Veto

Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled state Senate on Thursday rejected Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe’s nomination to serve another four-year term, a move that normally would end the controversial regulator’s tenure in office.

But liberals are already challenging the Senate’s overwhelming vote to fire Wolfe, and the bureaucrat has defiantly said she’s not going anywhere.

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Both Parties Take Credit for Pennsylvania’s Improved Financial Outlook

Pennsylvania’s finances have improved in recent years, with Moody’s Investor Services announcing it has revised the state’s financial outlook from “stable” to “positive.”

The financial services company noted the commonwealth’s “recently improved financial position and above-average long-term liabilities dominated by its unfunded pension burden.” 

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Republicans Blast National Archives’ Taxpayer-Funded Equity Policies, Trainings

The federal archive agency that helped spark former President Donald Trump’s first federal indictment has come under fire from Republicans after reporting showed the agency has embraced far-left diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

Republicans blasted the National Archives and Records Administration after The Center Square reported that the agency’s latest 2022 DEI plan pledges to double down on equity training for employees.

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Commentary: American Despotism and the Weaponization of the U.S. Constitution

Washington DC

America is now in the deepest, most dangerous constitutional crisis since the hostility in the 1850s that led to secession and civil war.

This constitutional crisis is so widespread and threatening that House Republicans must dramatically widen their investigations. Hunter Biden and President Joe Biden are only a tiny part of a spiderweb of corruption, dishonesty, criminal behavior, and state weaponization. The rule of law is steadily being replaced by a frightening new rule of power.

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RFK Jr. Praises New Hampshire’s Fight for Primary, Calls DNC’s Changes ‘Undemocratic Attempt to Rig the Primary Process’

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is praising New Hampshire Democrats for defying the Democratic National Committee and keeping the Granite State primary the first in the nation.

As Fox News reported, last Friday marked the deadline for New Hampshire to meet the DNC’s demand that it follow the national party’s new presidential nominating calendar.

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Wisconsin Assembly Republicans Roll Out Nearly $3 Billion Tax Cut Plan

In the wake of Governor Tony Evers’ gutting of a historic tax cut proposal earlier this summer, Republicans are pushing another plan they said would deliver nearly $3 billion in tax relief for retirees and the middle class.

Conservative lawmakers said the plan to tap into the state’s projected $4 billion budget surplus is a “second chance” for the liberal governor to “do the right thing” and return overpaid tax dollars back to Wisconsin’s taxpayers.

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Republican Candidates Need Not Apply: Media Tracker’s New Study Shows Just How Politically Biased Google’s Search Results Are

Google has long been accused of suppressing conservative speech, but a new study shows the internet search engine giant is playing favorites with Democrats in the 2024 presidential race.

By typing in just one query, “Presidential campaign websites,” Google returned only Democratic Party candidates — some of whom are not even running in 2024, according to Media Research Center, the media watchdog and parent of conservative news site NewsBusters, which is “committed to exposing and combating liberal media bias.”

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Commentary: Allowing Enhanced Permit Holders on School Grounds Dies with Republican ‘No’ Votes

Many people believe that one of the best defenses to an armed attack on any location, including a school, is an immediate armed response.   Certainly, the actions already taken this year to put “school resource officers” in public schools with taxpayer funding evidences at least some in government and many in the public see the life saving necessity of an immediate armed response to a potential mass killing or assault.

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New Des Moines Register/NBC News Poll Shows Trump Well Ahead In Iowa, but Trump Pollster Says Lead Is Likely Bigger

A new poll of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers shows former President Donald Trump with a significant lead over his closest competitor in the crowded field of GOP presidential nominee combatants.

But Trump’s pollster says the Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll appears to undercut wider support of the former president in the Hawkeye State by significant sampling of independents and former Democratic Party caucusgoers.

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Commentary: Uniparty’s Plan to ‘Save Our Democracy’ Unfolds

The fish are plentiful today. There’s Hunter Biden and his various lies: about the sources of his prodigious income, his payment (that is, non-payment) of taxes, drugs, guns, child support, laptops and prostitutes. There’s Joe Biden and his lies, the sources of his prodigious income, and—the latest—his use of pseudonymous email accounts when writing to Hunter and Hunter’s business partners to discuss the weather—or was it the whether and how to siphon 20 million of the crispest into virtually untraceable bank accounts?

There’s the seemingly endless series of indictments directed at Donald Trump. The latest new there, if I am up to date, is that he told people to watch election returns on One America News Network. Clearly part of a RICO conspiracy. Someone whose math is sharper than mine calculated that President Trump is potentially on the hook for 450 years in the slammer for . . . well, his torts are mostly in the eye of the beholder.

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Significant Majority of New Hampshire Republican Primary Voters Say They’d Vote for Trump If He Was Serving Time in Prison

Former President Donald Trump’s support among New Hampshire Republicans remains solid.

A significant majority — 62 percent — of Republican primary voters say they would vote for Trump even if he’s convicted of a felony by the time they cast their ballots for president, according to a new NHJournal/co-efficient poll.

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Commentary: Republicans Need a New Approach to Foreign Policy

A recent Fareed Zakaria Washington Post op-ed nicely summarized our new reality:

There is a debate within the Republican Party. Some senior figures, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and former vice president Mike Pence, are vigorously making the case for an active and engaged America. But the party’s base seems to be with the isolationists, as can be seen in the tilting stances of the weather-vane speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy (Calif.). From Donald Trump to his copycat, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and the party’s most powerful media ideologist, Tucker Carlson, conservatives are increasingly contemptuous of America’s support for Ukraine and its strong alliance with Europe. Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) told the New York Times that although some Republicans remain staunchly interventionist, “That’s not where the voters are.”

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New Republican Voter Registrations Continue to Outpace Democrats by over Three Times as Much in Maricopa County

Recent voter registration numbers from the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office show an increasing number of voters in Maricopa County registering as Republican rather than Democrat. Between last fall’s election and April, Republican voter registration in the county increased by 9,905 to 851,047. Democratic voter registration increased by only 2,791, less than a third as much. Republicans maintained their registration advantage at 34.39 percent, while Democrats dipped below 30 percent to 29.69 percent.

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Commentary: Mainstream Media Has Convinced Even Republicans to Believe Hunter’s Business Is No Big Deal

After reading my commentary about my self-inflicted ordeal of listening to NPR for a month, a friend noted this station’s “reports” bear no resemblance to “objective reality.” Can so many Americans, asked my correspondent, believe that the U.S. is full of oppressed transgendered who must take up arms to protect themselves against “anti-trans rhetoric?” Do NPR listeners really think American blacks are suffering from “systemic white racism,” and that only increased government control can protect them from being shot on the streets by white racists?

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Republican-Led Wisconsin Senate Turns Tables on Democrats in Resolution That Could Lead to Elections Commission Chief’s Ouster

In a move that turned the tables on Democrats who had played political games with the appointment of controversial Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe, the Republican-controlled state Senate late Wednesday evening dropped a surprise resolution that sets up a confirmation vote sources say Wolfe can’t win. 

Democrats stormed out of the Senate Chamber, refusing to vote on the resolution. 

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Harris Warns: Gov. Bill Lee Could ‘Easily Pass’ Red Flag Legislation During Special Session with Dems and ‘Squishy’ Republicans

Second Amendment expert and Tennessee Firearms Association Executive Director John Harris continued his Monday interview with The Tennessee Star Report’s Michael Patrick Leahy to outline the requirements and limitations of Governor Bill Lee regarding a proposed special session in August, along with a warning about scenario that could result in red flag legislation passing both chambers of the legislature.

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Montana Republican Lawmakers the Latest to Receive Threatening Letters with White Powder

Montana Republican legislators are the latest GOP state officials to be targeted, receiving threatening letters containing white powder after Tennessee and Kansas Republicans received similar suspicious mail in recent days, officials say. 

Meanwhile, four days after the Cordell Hull Building legislative offices in Nashville were locked down upon Republican leaders received threatening mail, an FBI official tells The Tennessee Star that the incident remains under investigation and that the agency has no comment at this time.

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Trump Says Liberals Are ‘Waging War on Faith and Freedom’ as 2024 Hopefuls Woo Evangelicals

The annual Faith and Freedom forum – considered the country’s largest public policy gathering of Christian conservative activists – concluded Saturday evening with a keynote speech from front-running GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump in which he spoke passionately to a key part of a coalition he must rebuild to win the GOP nomination.

But Trump, like the other top-tier 2024 GOP presidential candidates who spoke during the three-day event in Washington, D.C., faces a long road to Election Day in which the nominee will also have to win over independents, the undecideds and other voters for Republicans to retake the White House.

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Tennessee Legislative Offices Locked Down After ‘White Powder Substance’ Found in GOP Leader Mail, Liberal Activists Suspected

The Cordell Hull Building in Nashville was locked down Thursday following the discovery of a “white powder substance” in mail sent to Republican leaders, in “obvious threats made by a liberal activist,” the House GOP said in a statement. One news outlet is reporting the suspicious mail has the markings of a trans activist. 

Officials say everyone is safe and that there have been no injuries reported. 

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New Polls Show Trump with Significant Lead over DeSantis, Republican Presidential Field in Iowa, Nationally, Despite Latest Indictment

The federal indictment against former President Donald Trump doesn’t seem to be eroding his support among conservatives. New polling shows “Teflon Don” continues to hold a substantial lead over his closest Republican presidential nomination rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in Iowa — the first-in-the-nation caucus state — and the rest of the nation.

A poll by Victory Insights shows Trump leading DeSantis by 23 points in Iowa, 44.3 percent to 21.3 percent in a full-ballot contest. When the field is narrowed to just Trump and DeSantis, the spread between the two candidates decreases, but not by much.

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Commentary: Two Tiers of Justice Aren’t Democrats v. Republicans, But Bureaucratic Insiders v. the Rest of Us

The elite set of individuals that sit atop our federal agencies have completely weaponized our entire government apparatus. It is no longer a one-off “mistake,” but rather the intentional creation of a two-tier system of justice that has gone unchecked. The resulting impact is a death knell for American faith in all three branches of government.

Allow me to preface with one important factor: This is not an indictment of the men and women who are our “boots on the ground.” They remember every day why they signed up to serve. They investigate real crimes, protect the public from acts of terror, and root out rampant corruption. These men and women across the country serving in all agencies remain heroes and are equally as frustrated with the leadership at the top of our federal government.

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GOP Presidential Candidates, Sans Trump, Descend on Iowa for Senator Joni Ernst’s Annual Roast and Ride

In many ways, the start of the 2024 presidential election year began Saturday at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines — with Iowa U.S. Senator Joni Ernst’s annual Roast and Ride. 

Eight Republican presidential hopefuls assembled all under one roof, making their case to some 750 Iowans on why they’re best suited to lead the most powerful nation in the world. 

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GOP Takes on Biden Executive Election Takeover

Republicans in Congress are moving to rein in President Joe Biden’s executive order putting federal agencies in the business of getting out the vote. Their proposed legislation would defund any federally backed voter mobilization drives and prohibit the government from entering election-related agreements with private, nonprofit organizations to mobilize voters. 

Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., who co-chairs the House Election Integrity Caucus, plans to introduce a bill Tuesday called the Promoting Free and Fair Elections Act. 

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Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman: House Debt-Ceiling Bill a ‘Big Step in the Right Direction’

While President Joe Biden has preemptively declared the House debt-ceiling bill dead on arrival, U.S. Representative Glenn Grothman (R-WI-06) remains hopeful the budget-slashing proposal will bring big spender Biden to the negotiating table. 

“Some people question the will of Republicans to fight for a conservative bill. In my first eight-plus years in congress this was the most conservative bill that we have passed yet,” Grothman told The Wisconsin Daily Star on Thursday’s edition of the Vicki McKenna Show. 

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Republican Candidates Vie to Challenge Kentucky Gov. Beshear

Republicans have the opportunity to take back the Kentucky governor’s mansion from Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear – who narrowly won in 2019 – in November, and numerous GOP contenders are itching for the nomination.

Beshear is running for his second term in 2023 in a state with a Republican supermajority in the legislature. Though 12 Republicans are running in the May 16 GOP primary, there are three clear frontrunners whose campaigns will largely hinge on issues such as education and crime while also targeting Beshear’s record on COVID-19, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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After Abe Hamadeh Files New Pleading in Request for Retrial Alleging Hobbs Withheld Evidence, Judge Grants Oral Arguments

Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen scheduled oral arguments for May 16 on whether Abe Hamadeh should get a new trial.

Jantzen dismissed his complaint challenging his loss to Kris Mayes for Arizona Attorney General in December. Jantzen’s ruling came shortly after Hamadeh filed an additional pleading to bolster his request, which accused then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs of withholding evidence from him and cited new arguments due to the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling in Kari Lake’s election contest.

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