In the midst of the last major budget crisis in Washington, Democrats diverted money and the legal authority to put the nation’s disaster relief agency into the business of caring for the millions of illegal immigrants who crossed the border on the Biden-Harris administration’s watch. And now both parties seem to be trying to obfuscate the truth.
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is supposed to be the government’s premier emergency relief organization in times of disaster, like the situation now faced by victims of Hurricane Helene’s aftermath in North Carolina and Tennessee.
But according to the FEMA website, the agency now places higher priority on instituting Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity guidelines than on easing the suffering of Americans displaced by disaster.
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Tennessee leaders from the state and federal level surveyed storm damage and met with local officials in areas of East Tennessee devastated by Tropical Storm Helene this weekend.
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Since April 2022, more than 100,000 foreign nationals who have illegally crossed the border have been bused or flown from Texas to six sanctuary cities. This equates to roughly 5 percent of those who illegally entered Texas in fiscal 2023 alone, the highest number on record, The Center Square exclusively reported.
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Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed an executive order Tuesday declaring a state of emergency in the Peach State due to high inflation, which included temporarily suspending the state’s excise tax on motor and locomotive fuel.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for 46 counties in Florida on Monday as Tropical Storm Idalia is predicted to make landfall as soon as Wednesday as a major hurricane.
The National Hurricane Center predicts Idalia to stroke the Big Bend of Florida as a Category 3 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
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A group of Republican lawmakers sent Governor Katie Hobbs a letter Thursday, asking her to use all available resources to enforce the southern border and protect Arizona.
“Arizona’s law enforcement agencies are overwhelmed with this endless flood of illegal activity, and those threats have been magnified with President Biden’s reckless decision to abandon Title 42,” the lawmakers wrote. “We call upon you to take immediate action and activate all available state resources to keep our communities safe from these dangerous and unprecedented threats.”
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Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a line-item veto Friday for $5 million in pandemic expenses included in the Department of Corrections budget.
“During my first days in office, I terminated several existing Executive Orders related to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Sanders said in her veto letter. “I believe in freedom and personal responsibility – not COVID mandates or shutdowns. The COVID-19 pandemic is over.”
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Blanketed babies in car seats on the sidewalk. People laying in blankets and sleeping bags on the ground. Hundreds pouring into downtown El Paso at a time. In November alone, more than 53,500 illegal foreign nationals were apprehended, and an additional 24,000 who evaded capture by law enforcement in the Customs and Border Patrol sector that includes El Paso.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued new warnings Monday ahead of Hurricane Ian, expected to make landfall this week. It was upgraded from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane Monday morning and is projected to strengthen to a major hurricane.
As of 11 am Monday, the storm was located roughly 375 miles south of Key West. It’s moving about 15 miles an hour north with maximum winds of 80 miles an hour. As it moves into the Gulf, it’s expected to strengthen into a major hurricane as early as Tuesday, DeSantis said.
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Georgia’s governor Thursday extended the state’s gas tax holiday amid record-high prices at the pump.
“While President Biden continues to enforce an out-of-touch agenda with damaging effects, we’re responding to record-high inflation and addressing supply chain issues by empowering Georgians to keep their money in their own pockets and keep goods flowing,” Gov. Brian Kemp said on Twitter.
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Arizona Governor Doug Ducey declared a State of Emergency on Thursday, as a wildfire spears throughout the northern portion of the state.
According to Ducey’s office, the flames have ignited more than 19,000 acres and forced 750 households in the area to evacuate. More than 260 firefighters and emergency response personnel have responded to the incident.
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With many of his executive orders enshrined into law, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has opted to end the state’s COVID-19 emergency declaration.
The governor terminated the declaration as thresholds set by state agencies show the threat of the disease is nowhere near what it once was.
“Thanks to the hard work of many – health care workers, businesses, public and private sector employees – COVID-19 is no longer an emergency in Arizona,” Ducey said. “This virus isn’t completely gone, but because of the vaccine and other life-saving measures, today, we are better positioned to manage and mitigate it.”
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On Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a state of emergency executive order for almost all of Central and South Florida after the extreme cold weather threatened Florida’s farmers and growers.
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Yuma’s mayor has declared a state of emergency in the city over the border crisis, which has overwhelmed much of the American southwest.
“Well, it’s not surprising because in 2019, if we go back for a little history, we were having a similar surge during the Trump administration and there were policies put in place that mitigated those numbers to nearly… below 10,000 a year,” Mayor Douglas Nicholls said on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”
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Florida progressives are calling on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to declare a state of emergency regarding housing affordability, and DeSantis is redirecting the angst toward President Joe Biden (D) and Democrats whose policies, he says, are raising rent costs.
More than approximately two dozen Florida Democrat lawmakers penned a letter saying Floridians can no longer afford to pay rent and called on Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) to “enact price gouging consumer protections for renters.”
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Yuma, Arizona, Mayor Douglas Nicholls declared a city state of emergency last week due to the numbers of migrants entering the city.
Yuma has been seeing “unprecedented numbers of migrants entering the city prior to being processed and released by Border Patrol,” according to a press release.
The city has less than 100,000 residents, but in five days last week, more than 6,000 illegal migrants traveled from Mexico through the Yuma area into the United States.
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Just one week after declaring that he would extend a statewide “state of emergency” order, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) left for a vacation to Mexico with his family, as reported by the Daily Caller.
Newsom, his wife Jennifer, and their children left the state on Monday, and will not return until November 28th. On November 15th, Newsom signed another executive order extending numerous restrictions and other “emergency” measures that he first implemented in March of 2020, as the Chinese coronavirus first began to spread in the United States. Under his latest order, the rules and restrictions now will not expire until March of next year, with the added possibility that they may be arbitrarily extended again.
Despite some of the heaviest restrictions in the nation, including mask and vaccine requirements, California continues to see some of the highest rates of COVID-19 cases out of all the other states. In early November, California saw twice as many new cases as Florida, a state with virtually no restrictions remaining.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles to the newsmakers line to explain his pushback on the federal government’s mandate requiring Tennessee healthcare workers to be vaccinated by Janauary sixth of 2022.
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Governor Bill Lee on Friday announced that he will not renew Tennessee’s state of emergency order that has remained in place over the last 20 months.
The order, which will expire on Friday night, awarded the governor a continuation of his emergency powers in an effort to fight the coronavirus.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced he will be extending the COVID-19 State of Emergency for two weeks, according to a tweet he sent out Friday afternoon.
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After hours of deliberation and the formation of a legislative conference committee, the Tennessee Legislature passed a 21-page omnibus COVID-19 bill early Saturday morning to close its special session.
The bill in its original form gained negative attention from several businesses in the state, including the Ford Motor Company, which was the subject of last week’s special session when the Legislature approved $884 million in spending related to Ford’s $5.6 billion electric truck factory outside of Memphis.
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A significant group of Arizona Republican legislators is calling upon Gov. Doug Ducey to declare a state of emergency over the crisis on the border between Arizona and Mexico. The 24 senators and representatives sent the letter to Ducey on Tuesday.
Rep. Leo Biasiucci (R-Lake Havasu), the Majority Whip, told The Arizona Sun Times, “I think all of America can agree that our southern border is a complete disaster. As this Biden-Harris administration continues to ignore our calls for help, thousands of illegal immigrants are pouring into our state daily. This administration is signaling to the world that we have an open border. Myself, along with my Republican colleagues at the Arizona Legislature, will not tolerate this lawlessness anymore. We are a land of law and order. But when the federal government fails at their duty to protect our border, it is up to us to uphold our oath to the constitution and do whatever it takes to help stop this invasion.”
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Friday extended the Limited State of Emergency, which has been in effect for more than a year, allowing a continuation of his emergency powers.
Further, the order from the governor allows National Guard troops to continue to assist in vaccination efforts and other “certain health care” functions throughout the state. The order also allows the state to maintain federal compliance.
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President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Florida on Friday in response to a multi-story building collapsing in Miami-Dade County.
The declaration will allow FEMA to “coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures.”
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Georgia’s public health state of emergency will end on July 1 under an executive order signed by Gov. Brian Kemp.
Kemp first declared a public health state of emergency on March 14, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The declaration helps the state easily access supplies and other resources needed to combat the spread of the coronavirus. It lifts certain medical and commercial transportation regulations.
Tuesday’s order extends the declaration by one day and one minute.
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A bill enabling the Tennessee legislature to end public health-related states of emergency was deferred to summer study in the Senate. However, the bill lives on in the House – the representatives are scheduled to vote on the bill Tuesday afternoon.
State Senator Ferrell Haile (R-Gallatin) and State Representative Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville) sponsored the bill. Haile was the one who requested to move the bill to summer study. He cited that there were some issues that needed to be worked over, which he didn’t explain in detail.
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Tennessee State Rep. (R) Rusty Grills to the newsmakers line to discuss his objectives before ending the Tennessee General Assembly’s current session and how he is committed to protecting the liberty of Tennesseans.
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Black Lives Matter. Believe All Women. Everybody wants to be on the right side of contentious civil rights issues — that’s why the debate over what that “right side” is becomes so intense. But the most quantifiable systemic injustice in our nation today is not black versus white, or male versus female. It’s old against young.
During the coronavirus pandemic, abandonment of adult responsibility in respected institutions — medical, educational, and parental — is indicative of sweeping moral collapse. Making sacrifices for future generations used to make sense in a grown-up world. But baby boomers, those children of the ’60s who have controlled the country for 30 years, have desensitized our culture with their apathy and entitlement. Why should healthy children be held to the same medical standard as a 70-year-old “boomer” with multiple comorbidities? Why have young people, who beat COVID-19 quicker than the annual flu, been forced to surrender a year of their lives to satisfy the anxieties of a paranoid gerontocracy? The calculated hysteria of our politicians has accelerated institutional fragility, a condition of paralysis in which medical and educational leaders refuse to acknowledge prejudicial restrictions on the young and the healthy.
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Governor Bill Lee has officially extended the state of emergency for the remainder of 2020.
The executive order followed Lee’s own quarantine due to exposure from the coronavirus. The extension of the order means that Tennessee will receive further federal funding, mayors can continue to implement their own guidelines, and government officials can continue to meet virtually.
As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases increased this month, more Tennessee counties are re-issuing mask mandates. Tennessee has nearly 250,000 confirmed cases, 88 percent of which have recovered.
Montgomery County issued the most recent mask mandate on Tuesday. Other counties with mandates include Williamson, Wilson, Rutherford, and Sumner. These mask mandates adhere to guidelines issued under Governor Bill Lee.
Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson to the studio.
At the end of the third hour, Leahy and Johnson answered calls from concerned parents about Governor Lee’s state of emergency extension that will last until August 29 and touched upon the potentiality of spreading COVID-19 through elementary and high school students.
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On Tuesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed his weekly regular guest and all-star panelist Tennessee state Senator Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield) to the newsmakers line.
During the second hour, Roberts weighed in on Governor Lee’s recent order which allowed law enforcement access to private citizens’ COVID-19 test results. He expressed his disagreement with the order and suggested Lee show leadership by undeclaring a state of emergency.
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Ohio’s first three confirmed cases of coronavirus are all in Cuyahoga County, said Gov. Mike DeWine, who announced a state of emergency on Monday.
The three patients in Cuyahoga County had contact with other people who had confirmed cases of COVID-19, DeWine said. The three patients are all in their 50s.
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Ohio Governor Mike DeWine formally called for a state of emergency Thursday in counties across Ohio. The decision was made in response to excessive rainfall that resulted in severe flooding in 20 separate counties. According to the Emergency Proclamation, from Feb. 5th to Feb. 13th “Severe storms and excessive rainfall resulting in localized flooding impacts created dangerous and damaging conditions affecting the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Ohio.” As a result, a state of emergency has been declared in the following counties: Adams, Athens, Brown, Gallia, Guernsey, Hocking, Jackson, Jefferson, Lawrence, Meigs, Monroe, Morgan, Muskingum, Noble, Perry, Pike, Ross, Scioto, Vinton, and Washington. This week “FEMA and the Emergency Management Agency will be meeting with county and township officials” will convene to organize an action plan to address the dangerous conditions. The situation is compounded by the fact that much of these areas were already heavily saturated with rainfall. For 17 of these counties, this is the second year in a row that a state of emergency was declared as a result of severe flooding dues to excessive rainfall. In February of 2018, then-Ohio Governor John Kasich declared a state of emergency after storms caused the Ohio river to crest at a…
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