Category: Tennessee Star Report

Listen to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy weekdays from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm on WENO AM760 The Flame.

 

Immigration Expert Says the Mainstream Media Refuses to Cover How the Biden Administration Caused Haiti’s Current Chaos

Kaitlin Housler
Haitian Refugees

Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the mainstream media’s refusal to acknowledge how the Biden administration’s compliance in scuttling Haiti’s elections back in 2021 contributes to the chaos currently unfolding in the Caribbean country stems from the fact that the backstory is a “terrible” look for President Joe Biden.

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Activists Sheila Matthews and Amy Miller Detail Legislative Win on Tennessee Bill to Help Determine Link Between Mental Health Drugs and Mass Shooters

Kaitlin Housler
pills

Sheila Matthews, co-founder of the national non-profit parent organization AbleChild, and activist Amy Miller with the Reform Pharma initiative of Children’s Health Defense, detailed the progress a bill that would help determine the link between Big Pharma drugs and mass shooters has made in the Tennessee General Assembly since its introduction.

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Reporter Tom Pappert Says Tennessee Congressional Delegation ‘Fear’ Defending J6 Prisoner Ronald Colton McAbee

Kaitlin Housler
Ronald McAbee

Tom Pappert, lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, said members of the Tennessee congressional delegation have not shown an interest in taking up J6 prisoner Ronald Colton McAbee’s case due to the level of “fear” surrounding the overall defense of J6 defendants.

Last month, McAbee was sentenced to almost six years in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $32,165 in restitution after being convicted and pleading guilty to six felony charges and one misdemeanor charge for being present at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

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Mike Benz Warns: The Supreme Court Needs to Exercise ‘Bravery’ in Murthy v. Missouri Case to ‘Dismantle the Government Censorship Complex’

Kaitlin Housler

Mike Benz, former Trump State Department official and current executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, said the Supreme Court is going to have to exercise “bravery” as opposed to “wisdom” in its ruling of Murthy v. Missouri for the government censorship complex to be dismantled.

Murthy v. Missouri seeks to determine whether the government’s “challenged conduct transformed private social media companies’ content-moderation decisions into state action and violated respondents’ First Amendment rights” related to COVID-19 and the 2020 presidential election.

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Immigration Expert Todd Bensman Says Current Chaos in Haiti Is a Direct Result of the White House’s Decision to Repatriate Del Rio Camp Migrants in Return for Scuttled Elections

Kaitlin Housler
Haitians

Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Biden administration’s compliance in scuttling Haiti’s elections back in 2021 has resulted in the chaos currently unfolding in the Caribbean country as armed gangs have taken over.

In 2021, thousands of Haitians were deported back to Haiti from a Del Rio, Texas migrant camp allegedly in exchange for the country’s elections to be postponed at the request of unelected leader Ariel Henry, who has served as the acting Haiti Prime Minister and the acting president of Haiti since July 2021 after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

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Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s ‘Greendoggle’ Transit Plan Will Lead to Increased Property Taxes, Watchdog Predicts

Kaitlin Housler
Freddie O'Connell

Ben Cunningham, founder of the Nashville Tea Party, said Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s transit plan, which will be on the November ballot, will inevitably lead to property tax increases.

Last month, O’Connell officially announced that his long-awaited transit plan will be on the November 5 ballot, however, he did not release any information regarding what the plan entails.

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The Future of AI Will Be ‘Utterly Miserable,’ Says AI Expert

Kaitlin Housler
AI

Joe Allen, author of Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity, said he believes the future of artificial intelligence (AI) will be “utterly miserable.”

Allen, on Tuesday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, explained how AI will most likely not evolve into a full-out “total doom human extinction” model nor into an “elaborate and spectacular” model that provides cures for diseases and invincible security, but instead evolve into something in between.

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Vinnie Vernuccio Says New Attempt to Unionize the Chattanooga Volkswagen Plant Seems to be ‘Failing’

Kaitlin Housler

Vinnie Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker, said workers’ latest attempts to unionize the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga appear to be “failing.”

On Monday, the United Auto Workers (UAW) announced that a group of Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board for a vote to join the labor union.

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Nashville Metro Councilman Jeff Eslick Says There’s ‘Room for Improvement’ for Keeping Nashville ‘Safe’ and ‘Clean’ amid Missing College Student Case

Kaitlin Housler
Jeff Eslick Nashville

Metro Nashville Council Member Jeff Eslick said the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) has “room for improvement” in regards to keeping the streets of Music City “safe” and “clean.”

Eslick made the comments during a recent episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show as he and host Michael Patrick Leahy were discussing the disappearance of college student Riley Strain, who has been missing since March 8 after being asked to leave Luke Bryan’s bar in downtown Nashville.

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Bryan Quigley: Ohio U.S. Senate GOP Primary Is a ‘Flip the Coin Election’ Where ‘Every Vote is Going to Count’

Kaitlin Housler

Political pundit Bryan Quigley said Tuesday’s GOP U.S. Senate primary in Ohio will be a toss-up race where “every vote is going to count.”

Three Republican candidates – businessman Bernie Moreno, Ohio State Senator Matt Dolan (R-Chagrin Falls), and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose – are competing for the GOP nomination on Tuesday to face off with incumbent Democrat U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown in the November general election.

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Former U.S. Special Envoy for Haiti Dan Foote: Victoria Nuland and the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Cut the 2021 Deal with Now Deposed Haiti Strongman Ariel Henry to Repatriate Del Rio Camp Migrants in Return for Scuttled Elections

Kaitlin Housler
Former Ambassador to Haiti Dan Foote

Former U.S. Special Envoy for Haiti Dan Foote said Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland and former U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Michele Sison “teed up” the deal with unelected leader of Haiti Ariel Henry to delay elections in the country.

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Claiborne Thornton Says Governor Lee Did Not Consult with Homeschoolers While Crafting School Choice Bill

Kaitlin Housler

Claiborne Thornton, president of the Tennessee Home Education Association, said Governor Bill Lee did not consult with homeschool families before crafting his universal school choice bill, which is currently undergoing debate in the Tennessee General Assembly.

“The bill, the way it was written, the way it was crafted, was without any consultation from any homeschoolers,” Thornton explained on Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

Thornton said particular objections to the bill surround the Tennessee Department of Education’s role in facilitating the program.

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Tennessee Star Reporter Tom Pappert ‘Very Skeptical’ of Federal Bureau of Prisons Refusal to Move Unjustly Imprisoned J6 Defendant Stewart Parks to Minimum Security Camp Based on Original Security Classification

Kaitlin Housler

Tom Pappert, lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, said he is “very skeptical of the federal officials at the Bureau of Prisons” after an official with the bureau formally refused a written request by Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) to move unjustly imprisoned January 6 defendant Stewart Parks to the minimum security satellite camp located at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Memphis.

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Immigration Expert Warns: There Will Be a ‘Marine Mass Migration’ if First Boat of Haitian Migrants are Welcomed with Open Arms

Kaitlin Housler
Haiti refugees rescued by US Coast Guard, 1999

Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the way the Biden administration handles the first boat of Haitian migrants en route to the Florida Keys amid the Caribbean country’s current state of emergency will determine whether or not another mass migration crisis will rock the U.S. in addition to the one unfolding at the U.S.-Mexico border.

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State Senator Mark Pody Explains Why He Believes Not Many Illegal Alien Families Will Take Advantage of the School Vouchers Program

Kaitlin Housler
Class Work

Tennessee State Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) confirmed that Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice voucher program would be forced by a Supreme Court ruling to distribute scholarships to illegal alien students. However, he said he believes that not many will take advantage of the program because its application requires parents to provide their children’s social security numbers.

“Everybody has to fill out the form, including a social security number and so forth. If you don’t have a social security number, then anybody that doesn’t have one, we want to make sure that those authorities are aware that these students don’t have a social security number,” Pody said on Monday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

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State Senator Mark Pody Discusses ‘Real,’ ‘Genuine’ Concerns Homeschool Families Have with School Choice Voucher Program

Kaitlin Housler
Home School

Tennessee State Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) addressed two concerns he has heard from families that choose to homeschool their children regarding Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice program, which would give $7,000 education savings account scholarships to 20,000 qualifying students in the first year of its inception.

“[Homeschoolers] have real concerns and they’re genuine,” Pody said on Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show. “These objections are real because there’s something that is an underlying statement: If government funds it, government runs it. So if you take government money, no matter where you are or what you are, if you don’t think there’s a string attached somewhere, you’re not looking close enough.”

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Brent Hamachek Hopes His New Book, Dissidently Speaking, Will Change the Way Americans Think

Kaitlin Housler
Brent Hamachek

Brent Hamachek, author of Dissidently Speaking: Change the Words. Change the War. and vice president and associate publisher for Human Events Media Group, said he hopes his new book will challenge the way Americans think and motivate individuals to stop saying “it is” and instead start asking, “is it?”

Hamachek said his book challenges the “things that people have generally accepted about structures in the world around them.”

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Mark Pulliam Says Nullification Movement ‘Not Constitutional,’ Argues Best Way to Challenge Federal Law Is Through the Courts

Kaitlin Housler
Mark Pulliam

Mark Pulliam, a retired attorney and Misrule of Law blogger, said a series of nullification bills introduced in the Tennessee General Assembly are not constitutional despite seemingly being an “easy fix” to federal overreach.

“A lot of people these days come up with these theories and solutions of problems that sound good, that seem like it’s an easy fix, but they’re just not, at the end of the day, serious, and in some cases not workable, and in some cases not constitutional, and this whole nullification movement…is an example of one of those, I think, shamiracle solutions,” Pulliam explained on Monday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

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Rachel Alexander: ‘Zero Percent Chance’ Any Legal Challenge Would Change Law Permitting Noncitizens to Vote in Federal Elections by November

Kaitlin Housler
Vote Here

Rachel Alexander, lead reporter at The Arizona Sun Times, said there is a “zero percent chance” anything could happen legally between now and November to change federal law allowing no proof of citizenship to be submitted in order for an individual to be eligible to vote in a federal election.

“These 10 million invaders that have come here into the United States under the Biden administration, they’re going to try to get them to vote,” host Michael Leahy said to Alexander on Tuesday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show. “Are there other things that we can do to prevent illegal aliens from voting in the federal election in November 2024?”

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‘Censorship Industry Heavyweights’ Carrying Out ‘Very Nasty Tricks’ to Interfere in 2024 Election, Mike Benz Says

Kaitlin Housler
Mike Benz

Mike Benz, former Trump State Department official and current executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, said all of the “major censorship industry heavyweights” are currently carrying out “very nasty tricks” to interfere in the 2024 presidential election.

“The main two tools that they’re using for 2024 censorship are the states because the federal censorship mechanism has been weakened after the Missouri v. Biden trial court ruling, which is now before oral arguments in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is likely to deal them a very heavy blow. So they’re moving into the states to help coordinate that rather than the federal government,” Benz explained on Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

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Tennessee State Senator Joey Hensley Explains ‘Present’ Vote on School Choice Bill

Kaitlin Housler
Joey Hensley

Tennessee State Senator Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald) said he voted present on the State Senate’s version of Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice bill this week in the education committee because he said he believed there needed to be “more discussion” on the bill before it advanced out of committee.

“I was present, not voting, because I felt like we needed more discussion in the education committee,” Hensley said on Thursday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

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Todd Bensman with the Center for Immigration Studies: ‘The Biden Administration has Industrialized Parole Authority’

Kaitlin Housler
Illegal Immigrants

Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Biden administration has “industrialized parole authority” through its program that has flown 320,000 inadmissible aliens into 43 American airports over the past year.

“[The migrants] are coming in on an authority called parole. That’s supposed to be for two or three immigrants a year on a case by case basis, like an emergency medical treatment or, they need somebody to testify in an important case, and then they turn them right back,” Bensman explained on Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show. “The Biden administration has industrialized parole authority. Now they’re just letting hundreds of thousands in all at once instead of two or three as the law says on a case by case basis.”

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Michael Patrick Leahy: Phil Williams’ ‘Nothing Burger’ School Choice Story is Built on Secretly Recorded 2016 Strategy Session of Choice Advocates

Kaitlin Housler

JC Bowman, founder and president of Professional Educators of Tennessee, and Michael Patrick Leahy, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Tennessee Star, debated an audio recording slated to be released by News Channel 5’s Phil Williams supposedly addressing the “origin of school vouchers” in Tennessee.

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Former Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark Explains How SCOTUS Colorado Ruling Will Protect Potential Trump Administration

Kaitlin Housler
Trump President

Jeff Clark, former acting assistant attorney general during the Trump administration, said the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. Anderson, which restores former President Donald Trump’s name on the Colorado ballot, will also protect a future Trump administration from a “whole bunch of Section 3 litigation in 2025.”

Clark said in addition to the unanimous 9-0 decision in the case, five of the Supreme Court justices went on to “decide another set of issues” in regards to states’ enforcement of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to regulate federal candidates.

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Williamson County Sheriff Candidate Jeff Hughes Addresses Opposition to Permitless Carry Bill in 2022

Kaitlin Housler
Williamson County Sheriff candidate Jeff Hughes

Former chief of Brentwood Police Jeff Hughes, who is running for Williamson County Sheriff, addressed controversy surrounding his stance in 2022 against a bill in the Tennessee General Assembly allowing for the permitless carry of firearms.

Hughes said his stance against the bill was coming from a matter of “public safety and officer safety,” specifically regarding the bill’s lack of training requirement for gun owners.

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Aaron Gulbransen, Michael Patrick Leahy Slam State Rep. Todd Warner’s Vote Against School Choice Bill

Kaitlin Housler
Todd Warner

Aaron Gulbransen, executive director of the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Michael Patrick Leahy, editor-in-chief and CEO of The Tennessee Star, condemned Tennessee State Representative Todd Warner’s (R-Chapel Hill) vote against Governor Bill Lee’s proposed school voucher program.

On Tuesday, state lawmakers on the K-12 Subcommittee voted 6-2 to pass the House version of the governor’s school voucher program, which would make Education Freedom Scholarships worth $7,000 available to students in every county of the state.

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Corey DeAngelis Explains How School Choice Vouchers May Motivate Schools to Respect Parents’ Input as Competition Arises

Kaitlin Housler
Learning

Corey DeAngelis, a school choice activist and senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, detailed how implementing a universal school choice program in Tennessee could motivate public schools to respect and strive to meet parents’ expectations in order to compete with schools attracting families with vouchers.

On Tuesday, state lawmakers on the K-12 Subcommittee voted 6-2 to pass the House version of Governor Bill Lee’s proposed school voucher program, which would make Education Freedom Scholarships worth $7,000 available to students in every county of the state.

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Joe Allen Details ‘Nightmarish Visions’ in the Making with AI, Transhumanism

Kaitlin Housler
AI

Joe Allen, author of Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity, said transhumanism in artificial intelligence, commonly known as AI, is a war against the “very concept of the human.”

Allen, on Friday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report, described transhumanism as a “quest to go beyond our current human state by way of science and technology – to transform the some portion of the human species and some versions of it or to transform the entire human species using everything from genetic engineering to artificial intelligence, a kind of symbiosis with artificial intelligence, a partnership, and, of course, using whatever means are available to connect the brain to artificial intelligence.”

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Pollster John McLaughlin: ‘If the Election Was Held Today, Trump Would Win in a Landslide’

Kaitlin Housler
Donald Trump

Long-time pollster John McLaughlin said if the 2024 presidential general election was held today, former President Donald Trump would win over incumbent President Joe Biden “in a landslide.”

McLaughlin, citing Trump’s lead in national polling, said the former president would win both an electoral and popular vote landslide if the election were held now, however, noted how the Left is actively “trying to put him in jail.”

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Tom Pappert: ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ Must Have Played a Role in Fani Willis, Nathan Wade, and Terrance Bradley’s Careers

Kaitlin Housler
Fani Willis

Tom Pappert, reporter for The Georgia Star News and lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, said he believes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies were part of the explanation as to how Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, special prosecutor Nathan Wade, and attorney Terrance Bradley were hired into positions of influence.

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Former Trump Campaign Spokesman Steve Cortes Says Murder of Georgia Nursing Student Was ‘100 Percent Preventable’

Kaitlin Housler
Laken Riley

Steve Cortes, former senior spokesman and strategist for the 2016 and 2020 Trump campaigns and current head of the League of American Workers, said the murder of 22-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley was “100 percent preventable” if it weren’t for the “radical open borders agenda” of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal alien from Venezuela, was arrested and charged last week for his alleged murder of Riley, who died from blunt-force trauma to her head.

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Williamson County Will Comply with Mass Deportation Order Under Potential Trump Presidency, Interim Sheriff Mark Elrod Says

Kaitlin Housler
Illegal Immigrants

Mark Elrod, who is currently serving as interim sheriff of Williamson County amid former Sheriff Dusty Rhoades’ retirement, said his department would assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in carrying out deportations of illegal immigrants under a potential Trump presidency beginning in 2025.

If elected, former President Donald Trump has said he would immediately mobilize ICE to deport illegal immigrants as part of his goal to carry out the “largest deportation operation” in the nation’s history.

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Immigration Experts Say Both Legal and Illegal Immigration Must Be Reduced to Balance U.S. ‘Social Experiment’ Migration Crisis

Kaitlin Housler
CBP Illegal Immigrants

Executive Director Mark Krikorian, Senior National Security Fellow Todd Bensman, and Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughan with the Center for Immigration Studies explained how immigration – both legal and illegal – into the U.S. must be reduced in order to balance out the nation’s rapidly rising foreign-born population.

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Williamson County Interim Sheriff Mark Elrod Says Narcotics, Fentanyl ‘Biggest Issue’ in County

Kaitlin Housler

Mark Elrod, who is currently serving as interim sheriff of Williamson County amid former Sheriff Dusty Rhoades’ retirement, said the biggest issues affecting the county in regards to crime are drugs and fentanyl.

“I would say that probably one of our biggest issues is drugs, narcotics, fentanyl. We’ve had an uptick in that as well as heroin over the last several years. With Williamson County, we’re a transient community where a lot of the drugs and other crimes come in from other areas into Williamson County. It’s not so much your next door neighbor or the people down the street, although there is some of that, but most of it is coming from other places…Davidson County, out of Nashville, out of the city of Columbia. We have four interstates that come through the county, so it could be, you know, really coming from anywhere, everywhere,” Elrod said on Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy.

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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti Details Consumer Protection Lawsuit Against BlackRock’s ESG Investing

Kaitlin Housler
TN AG Courtroom

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said his consumer protection lawsuit against BlackRock’s Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) investing will force the company to disclose if it is mixing ESG factors when making investment decisions instead of focusing on financial factors relative to the rate of return.

Skrmetti filed his lawsuit against BlackRock in December 2023, alleging that the hedge fund has misled consumers in Tennessee about the scale and impacts of its ESG initiatives for several years.

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Immigration Experts Outline Steps Congress Could Immediately Take to Ease Border Crisis

Kaitlin Housler
Illegal Immigrants

Executive Director Mark Krikorian, Senior National Security Fellow Todd Bensman, and Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughan with the Center for Immigration Studies said Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives could immediately use their slim-margin majority to help correct the nation’s border crisis by cutting funding for programs and entities that fuel illegal immigration.

One idea the trio discussed during Thursday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – other than impeaching and convicting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas – was lawmakers’ ability to cut funding for the United Nations (UN), which has been providing illegal immigrants with cash cards as they make their journey to North America.

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