Republican Liberty Caucus Endorses Tennessee U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles for Reelection

Andy Ogles

The Republican Liberty Caucus endorsed U.S. Representative Andy Ogles’ (R-TN-05) reelection bid for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District.

“The Republican Liberty Caucus proudly endorses Andrew Ogles in TN-5,” the political organization wrote in an X post on Thursday. “[Ogles] has become one of the top defenders of liberty in the House. An unwavering voice for freedom and smaller government, he scored a 95 on our Liberty Index during his first year in Congress.”

Read the full story

Only Three Percent of Soldiers Who Refused COVID Vaccine Rejoin Army

Vaccine Military

More and more Army soldiers are reenlisting after being discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, according to information shared exclusively with The Daily Signal.

The increase comes after Congress repealed the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate and conservative lawmakers applied pressure to Defense Department leaders to be more welcoming of 8,400 service members who were “fired” for their refusal to get the COVID-19 shot.

Read the full story

Senate Rejects Bill Stripping Section 230 Protections for AI in Landmark Vote

The Senate shot down a bipartisan bill Wednesday aimed at stripping legal liability protections for artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal first introduced their No Section 230 Immunity for AI Act in June and Hawley put it up for an unanimous consent vote on Wednesday. The bill would have eliminated Section 230 protections that currently grant tech platforms immunity from liability for the text and visual content their AI produces, enabling Americans to file lawsuits against them.

Read the full story

GOP Presidential Candidates Support Ethanol Mandates, Oppose EV Regulations

All presidential candidates who have bothered to campaign in Iowa support increased ethanol mandates and oppose electric vehicle mandates, according to a biofuels advocacy organization.

Biofuels Vision 2024 said the Republican candidates actively campaigning for the GOP presidential nomination in the Hawkeye State support year-round E15 (gasoline with 15 percent ethanol added) and opposed EV mandates pushed by the Biden administration.

Read the full story

Carol Swain’s Morning Memorandum: New Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Brown Is Sacrificing a Strong Military for ‘Diversity’

All star panelist and author Carol Swain joined Michael Patrick Leahy in-studio on Wednesday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report to introduce listeners to her first-ever Morning Memorandum. In her first installment, Swain discussed the importance of a strong U.S. military, and her concerns surrounding the weakness of the current leadership heading the world’s premier fighting force that instead is being directed to focus on “diversity.”

Read the full story

GOP Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Says He’d Win a Legal Challenge to His Plan to Slash the Administrative State

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy knows there would be legal challenges to his sweeping plan to drastically reduce the size of the administrative state. The 38-year-old political outsider knows the big government left won’t give up the heart of the D.C swamp without a bruising fight.

Ramaswamy’s good with that.

Read the full story

Bipartisan Bill Bans JROTC Programs at Chinese Communist Party-Linked Schools

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced a measure that would prohibit the Department of Defense from establishing or maintaining a Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program at any private school operated by entities linked to the People’s Republic of China, Chinese Communist Party, or the People’s Liberation Army.

U.S. Reps. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., and Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., introduced the Deterring Egregious State Infiltration of Schools’ Training Act in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to a news release. 

Read the full story

AG Merrick Garland’s Reason Why DOJ Has Prosecuted Few Pro-Life Pregnancy Center Firebombers: They Are Bombing at Night

Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland told Republican senators Wednesday his Department of Justice (DOJ) has prosecuted more pro-life Americans for peaceful protests at abortion clinics than enraged anti-life terrorists firebombing pregnancy care centers and vandalizing churches because pro-life people conduct their activities during the day while the domestic terrorists are doing their bombing at night.

Read the full story

Democrats Celebrate 100 Federal Judicial Nominee Confirmations But Michael Delaney ‘Problematic’ for Biden and Schumer

The Democrat-controlled Senate is celebrating the confirmation of 100 of Joe Biden’s judicial nominees, approved by radical left-wing organizations, but Wednesday’s Judiciary Committee hearing saw Biden nominee Michael Delaney struggling against an onslaught of confrontation over his move in 2015 to publicly release the name of a minor female victim of sexual assault while he represented her school.

By nominating representatives of these radical positions, Biden is “paying back the left-wing dark money groups who spent over a billion dollars to help elect him and Senate Democrats,” Carrie Severino, president of JCN, formerly known as Judicial Crisis Network, told Fox News Digital.

Read the full story

Conservative Senators Demand Spending Cuts, Fiscal Reform in Debt Ceiling Deal

Fiscal hawks in the Senate reiterated their demands for fiscal reforms and spending cuts Tuesday as they voiced their support for House Republicans to lead the heavy-lifting on addressing the nation’s debt ceiling crisis. 

“We have an opportunity to stop the madness, and it’s incumbent on the Republican majority in the House and Republicans in the Senate to use every lever point we have,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at a press conference on the debt ceiling and runaway spending. 

Read the full story

Ted Cruz Bills Aim to Advance School Choice Across the Country Through Tax Credits, 529 Expansion

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, commemorated National School Choice Week by filing two bills to advance school choice, one of which his staff said would be the most significant educational reform since the GI bill.

“We need to provide students with a variety of educational options to fit their needs,” Cruz told The Daily Signal in an email statement Tuesday. “I have often said that school choice is the civil rights issue of the 21st century, and I believe no differently today than I did when I began serving in the Senate a decade ago.

Read the full story

Wisconsin Senator Johnson and Colleagues Urge White House to Reverse Major Climate Policies

Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson wrote jointly with several colleagues to President Joe Biden this week urging him to reverse major elements of his anti-fossil-fuel agenda. 

The letter from the senators takes issue with several actions the White House has taken to hinder investment in and use of oil, natural gas and coal in an effort the administration insists is important to lessening global warming. 

Read the full story

Analysis: Interrogated by Cruz, Diplomat Gives False Testimony About Biden’s Billion Dollar Bribe

During a November 30th hearing of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a senior State Department official gave false testimony about a billion dollar bribery scandal involving Joe Biden. The official, George Kent, is Joe Biden’s appointee to be the next U.S. ambassador to Estonia.

At Kent’s nomination hearing, Senator Ted Cruz (R–TX) questioned him about Biden’s actions in Ukraine that occurred while Kent was overseeing anti-corruption efforts in Europe and working in Ukraine. At the time, Biden was the vice president and serving as President Obama’s point man for Ukraine.

Read the full story

Commentary: Predictably, the Republicans Form Their Circular Firing Squad

With the disappointing midterms, Republicans have lost a major battle in the fight to restore American greatness. We are now rapidly approaching the final standoff between the flailing Republican Party and the reenergized Democratic Party. The Democrats survived what should have been a political bloodbath in 2022, and the Right seems to be in the most vulnerable position since the 1960s, when Republicans were essentially a permanent minority in Washington.

It could happen again. Whether the GOP returns to minority status in two years will depend on the party determines who will be its nominee in the next presidential election. While many on the Right assume it will be Donald J. Trump, there are other candidates in the offing.

Read the full story

Far-Left Pennsylvania Democrat Proposes Board to ‘Combat Election Disinformation’

Pennsylvania state Representative Christopher Rabb (D-Philadelphia) this week proposed a bill to establish an “Election Integrity Board” that would monitor politicians rhetoric regarding electoral matters and “combat” what the panel deems “disinformation.” 

In a memorandum seeking cosponsors for his legislation, the far-left lawmaker who represents Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy neighborhoods lamented the nomination in the 2022 primary of over 100 individuals he considers “election-denying candidates.” He blasted them for asserting what he insists are “unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud” and opined that “our elections are highly secure.” He suggested that politicians and hopefuls who raise concerns about such issues create unnecessary doubt in the minds of the electorate.

Read the full story

Mitch McConnell Backs Electoral Count Reform Bill Ted Cruz Warns All Republicans to Oppose

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced Tuesday he will back legislation that intends to make it more difficult in the future to object to the results of presidential elections.

The Electoral Count Act and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022, a bill sponsored by Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and supported by other liberal-moderate Republicans, was dismissed, nevertheless, by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who said it is based on Democrats’ belief voter fraud “helps elect more Democrats.”

Read the full story

Ted Cruz Endorses Andy Ogles, Another Jeff Roe/Axiom Strategies Client

Another Jeff Roe/Axiom Strategies client, TN-5 candidate Andy Ogles, announced the endorsement of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Thursday.

In a statement endorsing Ogles that was provided to The Tennessee Star, Cruz said, “I am proud to endorse Andy Ogles for Congress in Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District. He is a steadfast conservative who will join me in the fight to cut taxes, secure our Southern border, and protect the 2nd Amendment. Andy has spent his life working for the people of Tennessee, and I have no doubt he will continue to display that passion for service when elected to Congress.”

Read the full story

Senate Confirms Biden’s ‘Radical’ FTC Pick Criticized for Anti-ICE Stance

The Senate voted Wednesday to confirm President Joe Biden’s nominee Alvaro Bedoya to the empty fifth seat on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The 50-50 Senate vote was broken with a tie breaking vote by Vice President Kamala Harris, and gives Democrats a 3-2 advantage at the FTC. Bedoya, who is professor at Georgetown Law, was previously criticized by Senate Republicans for his past comments on social media and in other outlets opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after President Joe Biden announced his nomination.

Read the full story

Commentary: McConnell’s ‘Exhilarating’ Insurrection

A dirty little secret about January 6—one of many—is that Democrats and establishment Republicans, not Trump supporters, wanted to shut down the official proceedings of that day.

Just as the first wave of protesters breached the building shortly after 2 p.m., congressional Republicans were poised to present evidence of rampant voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Ten incumbent and four newly-elected Republican senators planned to work with their House colleagues to demand the formation of an audit commission to investigate election “irregularities” in the 2020 election. Absent an audit, the group of senators, including Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) pledged to reject the Electoral College results from the disputed states.

Read the full story

Oz Denies Report of Insiders Saying Pennsylvania Senate Candidate Eyeing Return to TV

Dr. Mehmet Oz

Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor who’s running for Senate from Pennsylvania, is denying reports that he is in discussions to return to television and suggested opponent David McCormick is behind the rumor.

The entertainment site Radar Online reported Tuesday that inside sources said that while Oz aims to win the May 17 Republican primary and the November 8 election for retiring Sen. Pat Toomey’s (R) seat, he’s working on reviving his broadcast career in case he doesn’t prevail. 

Read the full story

At Least Nine Republican Senators Demand Answers from DHS on Afghan Refugee Vetting

Ron Johnson, Josh Hawley and Rick Scott

At least nine Republican U.S. senators are continuing to pressure the Department of Homeland Security for answers over its vetting process of Afghan evacuees entering the U.S.

Three Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee members sent a letter last week to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and to Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting information about Afghan evacuees. This week, six additional senators sent a letter to DHS asking for an overdue report they were supposed to have received Nov. 30.

Their letters followed news reports that the State Department didn’t have reliable data on everyone who evacuated Afghanistan and what types of visas they qualified for, and after a convicted rapist on an evacuation flight reached Washington-Dulles Airport. The letters also were sent after assaults and arrests were reported at military bases in New Mexico and Wisconsin where evacuees were being housed, and after several of the senators expressed concerns at a senate committee hearing in September.

Read the full story

Commentary: The Madness of Anthony Fauci

It’s nearly impossible to select the most maniacal comment made by Dr. Anthony Fauci in his nearly 70-minute interview with “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan that aired over the weekend. Joe Biden’s chief coronavirus advisor and miniature global menace spent more than an hour denying responsibility for his documented mistakes, bragging about his self-appointed role as the world’s doctor, hogging credit for the vaccines, and attacking anyone who has challenged his unrivaled ego and track record of failure.

Portraying himself as a victim rather than the cruel, megalomaniacal tyrant he is, Fauci took aim at Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Congressional co-sponsors of the “Fire Fauci Act,” which would zero-out the salary of the federal government’s highest-paid bureaucrat and audit Fauci’s correspondence and financial transactions during the pandemic.

Read the full story

Texas Sen. Cruz Introduces Bill Prohibiting Vaccine Mandate for Minors

Ted Cruz

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced legislation that would prohibit the federal government and any entity at the federal, state and local level that receives federal funding, including school districts, from requiring COVID-19 vaccines for minors.

“Parents should have the right to decide what is best for their children in consultation with their family doctor,” he said. “My view on the COVID-19 vaccine has remained clear: no mandates of any kind.

“President [Joe] Biden and his administration have repeatedly ignored medical privacy rights and personal liberty by pushing unlawful and burdensome vaccine mandates on American businesses, and now they are preparing to push a mandate on kids by pressuring parents – all without taking into account relative risk or the benefits of natural immunity.”

Read the full story

Attorney General Garland Grilled by GOP Senators over Department of Justice Memo Targeting Parents at School Meetings

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday faced a litany of hard-edged Senate questions about agreeing to allow federal law enforcement to investigate alleged incidents of outspoken parents at school board meetings.

Garland, in a memo, agreed to responded to a Sept. 29 letter from the National School Board Association to President Biden asking that the FBI, Justice Department and other federal agencies to investigate potential acts of domestic terrorism at the meetings. Parents across the nation have been voicing their concerns about the curricula being taught to their children, in addition to instances like the one currently playing out in northern Virginia, in which there was an apparent coverup of the sexual assault of a female student in a bathroom.

Read the full story

House Lawmakers Set to Square off with White House, Treasury Department over ‘Stifling’ Crypto Tax Plan

House lawmakers are set to return from recess Monday and will likely take up the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill the Senate passed last week — and with it, a controversial and last-minute cryptocurrency tax provision.

The bill contains a tax reporting mandate forcing cryptocurrency “brokers” to disclose gains and transactions to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as part of a scheme designed to help cover part of the infrastructure bill’s cost. However, the bill’s definition of “broker” has been criticized by the cryptocurrency community and pro-crypto lawmakers as vague, expansive and potentially unworkable, with many fearing it could stifle the industry and force crypto companies to collect personal information on their customers.

The provision defines a broker as “any person who is responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person,” and forces brokers to report transactions to the IRS in a form similar to a 1099. This means brokers have to collect and report customer information such as names, addresses, and taxpayer identification numbers.

Read the full story

Hawley, Cruz, Lee Call for Supreme Court to Overturn Roe v. Wade

Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee

Leading Republican senators filed an amicus brief Monday urging the Supreme Court to overrule its decisions in two major abortion cases.

Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Mike Lee of Utah, and Ted Cruz of Texas filed the brief in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which the court is scheduled to hear beginning in October, calling on the court to revisit its rulings in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

The senators pushed the Court to return questions of abortion legislation to the states and challenged the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence as unconstitutional.

Read the full story

Federal Bill Would Ban Vaccine Database in Response to Biden’s ‘Door-to-Door’ Pledge

Ted Cruz

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced a bill that would prohibit the federal government from creating and maintaining a federal database of every American who has received COVID-19 vaccines.

Cruz introduced the bill after White House officials announced a plan to use taxpayer dollars to pay individuals to go door-to-door in regions of the country where there are relatively low vaccination rates.

In response to statements made by President Joe Biden and White House press secretary Jen Psaki about the door-to-door outreach initiative, Cruz tweeted, “When the Biden admin calls for ‘targeted’ ‘door-to-door outreach’ to get people vaccinated, it comes across as a g-man saying: ‘We know you’re unvaccinated, let’s talk, comrade.’ My bill to ban federal vaccine passports prohibits the feds from maintaining a vaccine database.”

Read the full story

Rep. Green to Reject ‘Corrupt’ Pelosi Earmarks

Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07) blasted Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) for reviving earmark spending in Congress, and said he plans to refuse to even participate in the earmarking process. 

“It’s rare for Congress to get anything right, but in 2011 after Americans rose up to usher in the Tea Party wave, Congressional Republicans got it right and banned earmarks,” Green said in statement. “Today, at a time when our national debt is at record highs, the last thing Congress should do is resurrect earmarks—one of the Swamp’s most corrupt practices.” 

Read the full story

Fauci Admits Biden Administration is Flouting CDC Guidance in Border Facilities

White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Thursday conceded in a tense exchange with Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise that the Biden administration is violating major Centers for Disease Control and Prevention coronavirus guidelines by packing countless illegal immigrants into relatively small facilities without enforcing social distancing or masking measures. 

The CDC has aggressively pushed those guidelines over the past year, directing that Americans should work to remain six feet apart from each other in public spaces and wear face coverings when away from the home. 

Images from U.S. border facilities over the past several weeks, however, have shown little enforcement of those guidelines among illegal immigrants detained amid the current surge of unlawful migration at the southern border.

Read the full story

Defund the Police Movement Contributed to Rise in Violence, Experts Say

Group of protestors

Calls to defund the police have once again been thrust into the national spotlight after a string of high profile police shootings, but data show the rallying cry for police reformers may not hold water.

After the death of Daunte Wright at the hands of police in Minnesota, U.S. Rep. Rashida Talib, D-Mich., made headlines this week for posting on Twitter: “No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can’t be reformed.”

Later in the week, Senate lawmakers blasted President Joe Biden’s Justice Department Civil Rights Division nominee Kristen Clarke after reports that she wrote an op-ed calling for defunding the police. Clarke pushed back, arguing that was not the point of her writing.

Read the full story

Top Republicans Seem Open to Some Kind of Gun Control

Congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden have vowed to act on gun control in the aftermath of two mass shootings that left 18 people dead, but despite their majorities in Congress, Democrats’ proposed bills would be extraordinarily unlikely to overcome a Republican Senate filibuster.

Partisan gridlock on guns is nothing new. No major gun control legislation has passed in over 25 years, when Congress passed a 10-year assault weapons ban under former President Bill Clinton. But despite the constant stalemates, some Republicans have offered alternative plans, meaning that the possibility of some form of bipartisan gun legislation may still exist.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey said Tuesday that while he did not think the two bills passed by the House would overcome a filibuster, there was still opportunity for compromise.

Read the full story

More Than $4 Billion to Go to Illegal Immigrants Through Biden Stimulus Checks

The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that 2.65 million illegal immigrants have Social Security numbers and, because of their income threshold and number of children they have, are eligible to receive federal stimulus checks.

In a new report, CIS estimates that illegal immigrants could receive an estimated $4.38 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 passed by Democrats along party lines.

Two weeks ago, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said that illegal immigrants would be receiving $1,400 checks through the legislation and introduced an amendment to stop it. Democrats rejected the amendment.

Read the full story

Democrats Unveil Bill That Would Limit Section 230 Protections

Democrats have unveiled a bill that would limit Section 230 liability shields for social media companies, Reuters reported.

The SAFE Tech Act, proposed by Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Mazie Hirono and Mark Warner, aims to hold social media companies accountable such as Alphabet Inc’s Google, Twitter and Facebook for “enabling cyber-stalking, targeted harassment, and discrimination on their platforms,” according to a statement, Reuters reported.

Read the full story

Richmond City Council Candidate Mike Dickinson Mobilizes Big Trump Train Turnout

About 350 people joined a Sunday afternoon Trump Train procession that departed from the Henrico County courthouse and meandered through Richmond’s West End and parts of neighboring Henrico County. Participants drove cars and trucks displaying American flags and Trump regalia, honking and waving at spectators. “God Bless America” blasted from the radio of several cars.

Read the full story

Rand Paul, Ted Cruz Stump for Virginia Republican Candidates

It was cold and rainy, but approximately 150 people attended the Chesterfield GOTV Rally in a covered arena at Keystone Acres on Sunday afternoon. Senators Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) headlined the event. Virginia candidates Nick Freitas, Daniel Gade, and Leon Benjamin appealed to supporters to not only vote, but to encourage friends and community members to vote.

Read the full story