Day: August 17, 2021

Federal Corruption Trial Reveals Details About Medical Marijuana Dispensary Trulieve’s Beginnings

Grant Holcomb

During the trial of Tallahassee businessman J.T. Burnette, who has been found guilty of five public corruption charges, a secret audio file was played for jurors where Burnette bragged about how a political relationship led to his then-girlfriend, Kim Rivers, acquired a vertically integrated license to operate Trulieve in Florida.

Trulieve was one of the first medical cannabis dispensaries in Florida growing to now 85 stores, and a total of 90 stores nationally. On their website, they claim to have 48 percent of Florida’s “seed-to-sale” operation.

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Commentary: Biden Is Out of Touch, Out of Town, and Soon He May Be Out of Time

Florida Capital Star Staff

In a hastily called news conference Monday afternoon President Joe Biden and his advisors tried to control the damage of this past weekend. But it may be too late. Biden not only lost Afghanistan, he lost credibility, and with that, the American people.

A defiant Biden said he did not regret his decision to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan, while acknowledging that the country’s collapse to the Taliban came much sooner than U.S. officials had anticipated.

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Democrat Firebrand Senator Sheldon Whitehouse Compares Fall of Kabul to Saigon as Biden Admin Denies Connection

Florida Capital Star Staff

A Democratic senator compared the scene in Kabul as the U.S. rushed to evacuate embassy personnel and Afghan allies to the fall of Saigon in 1975 on Monday.

“Sad. My father was our next-to-last ambassador in Saigon, and our ambassador when ‘peace deal’ was negotiated in Laos,” tweeted Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. “How that all ended deserved more attention.”

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Commentary: The Great Parent Revolt

RealClearWire

As overreach in classrooms by progressive school administrators, nonprofits and the federal government has reached new heights, parents are stepping up to fight back.

Moms for Liberty, Informed Parents of California, EdFirstNC, NJ Parental Rights, No Left Turn in Education and Parents Against Critical Theory are just a few of the hundreds of new parent groups that have emerged across the country in recent months. Many parents have become education activists because of schools’ failure to bring children back into the classroom or their continued imposition of mask mandates.

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College Students Giving Up on Their Degrees in Significant Numbers: Report

Florida Capital Star Staff
Tennessee Star

American colleges continue to face the consequences of COVID, as data show they experienced a significant decrease in returning students this past school year.

Many post-secondary education plans to take classes were canceled in 2020. In August of last year, the US Census Bureau conducted a survey which showed 29.4 percent of households with at least one prospective student had canceled their plans to take classes in the fall of 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic.

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Pelosi Floats Passing Infrastructure and Budget Simultaneously as Moderates and Progressives Feud

Florida Capital Star Staff

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday floated the idea of passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill and Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget simultaneously in an attempt to balance moderates and progressives’ mutually exclusive demands.

Pelosi asked the House Rules Committee to look into the possibility after nine centrist Democrats vowed to block the budget if it came up for consideration before the infrastructure bill passed.

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Debate Continues Over Need for COVID State of Emergency Order in Florida

Grant Holcomb

With the increase in cases and hospitalizations, many are calling on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to re-enact Florida’s COVID state of emergency.
DeSantis initially issued the state of emergency declaration on March 9, 2020 and extended it for over one year. DeSantis opted to not renew it in June, making June 26, 2021, the end of the declaration. The 476-day state of emergency was the longest in Florida’s history.

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