Commentary: What is the Diversity Visa Lottery Program?

By Printus LeBlanc November 2, 2017 On Tuesday, a radical Islamist launched a terrorist attack against pedestrians and cyclists, blocks from the World Trade Center in New York. The terrorist adopted the tactics of other attackers in Europe by using a vehicle as a weapon, in this case, a rented Home Depot truck. Shortly after the suspect was subdued by police, his identity and how he came to be in the U.S. became known. The man that killed eight and injured more than a dozen was an invited guest. Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov entered the U.S. legally through what is known as the Diversity Visa Lottery Program in 2010. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was amended in 1990 with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1990, S. 358. The 1990 bill increased the number of family-based immigration visas, created five occupational categories, and created the diversity visa lottery program. The program was designed to encourage legal immigration from countries that were “underrepresented” in the current immigration flows. The program makes 50,000 permanent resident visas available every year. The visas are divided among nations from which immigrant admissions were lower than a 50,000 over the preceding five years. To…

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Papa John’s Founder: NFL Protests Hurting Sales

Papa John’s founder John Schnatter criticized NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Wednesday for the lingering controversy of player protests during the national anthem and blamed the league for declining sales of his pizza. Schnatter expressed his disappointment on a conference call along with other executives from Papa John’s, the official pizza company of the NFL which…

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Brad Paisley, Kix Brooks, and Country Music Industry Leaders Urge Lee Thomas Miller to Run for Congress in 7th District

Donald J. Trump was able to parlay his celebrity status into a successful run for the White House, can a Tennessee congressional candidate do the same thing? Some of the biggest names in the country music industry, both artists and songwriters, are publicly encouraging award winning songwriter Lee Thomas Miller to run for Congress in the 7th Congressional District seat that is being vacated by Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn who is running for the U.S. Senate. Nearly 80 artists and songwriters have signed and released a letter supporting and urging Miller to run. Some of the names on the letter are sure to draw attention, including Brad Paisley, Jamey Johnson, Kix Brooks, Brandon Heath, John Schneider, Craig Wiseman, Chris Destefano, Larry Stewart, and famed drummer Paul Leim. Miller is an award winning conservative songwriter who lives in Williamson County with his wife Jana and their four kids. He has penned hit songs for some of the top country artists, including Trace Adkins, Brad Paisley, George Strait, Jamey Johnson, Tim McGraw, Joe Nichols and Brandon Heath. Among his best known hit songs are “In Color,” “The Impossible,” “You’re Gonna Miss This,” and “I’m Still a Guy.” Despite seven No. 1 songs and…

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State Senator Mark Green Announces Campaign Team in Race for GOP Nomination in 7th Congressional District

State Senator Mark Green (R-Clarksville) announced his complete campaign team for his run to receive the Republican nomination in the 7th Congressional District in a press release issued by his campaign on Thursday: FRANKLIN, Tenn. – Today, Dr. Mark Green announced the team he has assembled to lead his campaign to victory. Leading the campaign are Darren Morris as General Consultant and Stephen Siao as Campaign Manager. A veteran of many campaigns and longtime public affairs consultant, Morris previously served as the Tennessee State Director and Florida Chief of Staff for President Donald Trump. The Vice Chairman of the Williamson County Republican Party, Siao was the Georgia and Tennessee State Director for Senator Ted Cruz and a manager at Heritage Action. “I’m thrilled to have assembled the top talent both here in Tennessee and nationally for my campaign for Congress—and to have this team standing in the trenches with me fighting for conservative values,” stated Green. Robin Smith, owner of Rivers Edge Alliance and a former state chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party, serves as policy advisor to the campaign. The former President of Yes on 1 and former Director of Development for Tennessee Right to Life, Myra Simons, will…

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Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen Accuses Conservative Pro-Life Black Woman of ‘Ignorance’ in Abortion Debate Over Heartbeat Bill

Steve Cohen

  U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-9) on Wednesday accused an African-American conservative activist who testified about abortion’s harmful effects on the black community of “ignorance” with respect to the sincerity of his positions on social problems and an “inability” to appropriately address Congress. The tense exchange came during a hearing in Washington, D.C., before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice on the “Heartbeat Protection Act of 2017,” which would ban abortions of babies with detectable heartbeats. Star Parker, founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) and a longtime conservative columnist and speaker, said it was “disingenuous” of Cohen to distract from the abortion issue by bringing Medicaid into the debate, reports LifeSiteNews. Cohen, whose district covers most of Memphis, is against the heartbeat bill, arguing that it violates Roe v. Wade. “The culture of death is taking 23 million people’s health care aware from them,” Cohen had said, according to a video of the hearing posted by The Daily Caller. “That seems to be the main focus of this Congress. It’s also taking a billion dollars from Medicaid, which is the main focus of the budget.” Cohen said that “if you believe…

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Commentary: Hillary Clinton, Alger Hiss and the Schism in the American Soul

by George Rasley, ConservativeHQ.com Editor   In 1948, conflicting testimony offered to the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) by former Democratic State Department official Alger Hiss and Time magazine editor Whittaker Chambers began a dramatic two-year long investigation into which one of the two was lying about his Communist associations and espionage for the Soviet Union. In the end, after two trials and an extensive investigation by HUAC, Alger Hiss, the Phi Beta Kappa Johns Hopkins and Harvard Law graduate, clerk to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, temporary secretary-general of the United Nations Charter Conference, Director of the State Department’s Office of Special Political Affairs, and president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was convicted of perjury and sentenced to prison. However, Hiss, even in the face of damning physical evidence produced by Whittaker Chambers – the famous “Pumpkin Papers” – never admitted that he perjured himself or that he had been a Communist infiltrator and spy. In maintaining his innocence Alger Hiss was supported by generations of prominent liberals who adamantly refused to accept that Hiss was guilty. Indeed, despite the overwhelming evidence produced by Whittaker Chambers and others in the HUAC hearings, in FBI investigations, in…

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Franklin Theatre to Show ‘The Battle of Franklin’ Sunday

The Franklin Theatre on Sunday will screen the 2007 Emmy-award winning documentary The Battle of Franklin. After the rare showing of the Civil War film, there will be a brief panel discussion on the historic battle, the making of the movie and preservation efforts. Produced and directed by Robert Lee Hodge, the documentary portrays Confederate General John Bell Hood’s struggle to gain control of Tennessee from Union forces. The 1864 Battle of Franklin is related through the actual thoughts and words of the soldiers who experienced the bloody and decisive conflict. The movie was partially filmed on the original battlefield. Ed Bearss, chief historian emeritus of the National Park Service, has said the film is “one of the best, if not the best, documentaries I have seen on a Civil War battle.” “Not since Ken Burns’ monumental PBS production, The Civil War, have I seen better,” Bearss said. Hodge gained famed as one of the Civil War reenactors profiled in Tony Horwitz’s book Confederates in the Attic. A photo of Hodge appeared on the cover. Horwitz first wrote about Hodge for a Wall Street Journal article. At age 9, Hodge already had an idea of what he wanted to accomplish, according to his…

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Merle Haggard Museum and Restaurant to Open in Nashville Next Year

A Merle Haggard museum and meat and three is set to open in Nashville next summer, reports Nash Country Daily. The museum and restaurant will open next door to the Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline museums downtown on Third Avenue South. As with the other two museums, Icon Entertainment is behind the new venture. The Cash and Cline museums are among Nashville’s top tourist destinations, according to Forbes. The Cash museum opened in 2013 and the Cline museum opened earlier this year on the second floor of the Cash museum. Merle’s Meat + 3 Saloon, a bar and restaurant offering Southern dishes, will be located under the museum devoted to Haggard’s career. The museum will showcase instruments, awards, outfits and other things that belonged to the late musician. His widow, Theresa Haggard, has been involved in getting displays ready for the museum. “Merle would be very happy knowing that his museum will be next door to his dear friend, Johnny Cash,” she said, according to Nash Country Daily. “I’m sure he is up there smiling about that.” Born in 1937, Haggard was raised in Depression-era California, where he lived with his family in a box car they made into a home. His father,…

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Just 1,200 New Arrivals in First Month of FY 2018 Refugee Resettlement Program

The U.S. refugee program is off to a sluggish start in the new fiscal year, following newly announced screening procedures and a significant reduction in expected arrivals in the coming 12 months. About 1,200 refugees arrived in October, according to data made public through the U.S. State Department. The program, already cut down to the lowest…

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Roger Stone: McCain Has Become a ‘Cheerleader for the Obamas and the Clintons’

Roger Stone, a long-time associate of President Donald Trump, blasted frequent Trump critic Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during an interview Tuesday on “The Laura Ingraham Show” saying McCain has become a “cheerleader for the Obamas and the Clintons” and has rejected the populist movement in the Republican Party. Stone, who advised Trump during his presidential campaign,…

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