Senator Rand Paul Suffers Minor Injury After Home Invasion Attack in His Bowling Green Home

Senator Rand Paul was a victim of a home invasion assault in his Bowling Green home Saturday afternoon, sustaining what police describe as ‘minor injury.’ The Bowling Green Daily News reports reported Paul spokesman Kelsey Cooper said in a statement, “Senator Paul was blindsided and the victim of an assault. The assailant was arrested and it is now a matter for the police. Senator Paul is fine.” Local reporter Daniel Pike, with the The Bowling Green Daily News, tweeted the Kentucky State Police statement regarding the assault. Kentucky State Police say BG man is accused of assaulting U.S. Sen. Rand Paul. More soon at https://t.co/0e4oaL9gA7. pic.twitter.com/VODOihjrCa — Daniel Pike (@DPikeBGDN) November 4, 2017 Dr. Boucher is an anesthesiologist (retired), osteopath, and inventor who lives in a nearby neighborhood, according to publicly available records. He is currently being held in the Warren County Region Jail. The Bowling Green Daily News adds: Boucher is a Bowling Green anesthesiologist and pain specialist who developed a product called Therm-a-Vest, a cloth vest partially filled with rice and secured by Velcro straps that is designed to relieve back pain by delivering heat directly to the areas of the back where most pain is felt. Boucher applied for a…

Read the full story

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry’s Transit Plan Faces Criticism From Working Class

Many critics of Nashville Mayor Megan Barry’s mass transit proposal are conservatives and libertarians, but her plans have also prompted criticism from left-leaning advocates of the poor and working class. A group called People’s Alliance for Transit, Housing and Employment (PATHE) has formed to press the progressive Democratic mayor and other Metro leaders to make affordable housing, higher wages and immediate improvements to the bus system greater priorities. A key element of Barry’s proposal is light rail along five corridors, but PATHE maintains that “light rail is meaningless if most of us can no longer afford to live along the routes,” according to a statement on the group’s website describing its mission and purpose. The statement also says: While no one denies that our public transit system needs major expansion, we still have not been presented with a plan that addresses the most pressing crises facing our communities, mainly economically distressed neighborhoods and residents. The experience of other cities, including Denver and Atlanta, has shown that without explicit community benefits (or equivalent measures) legally written into or alongside major transit projects, there are unintended, devastating consequences for everyday people. These include dramatic cost of living hikes along new transit corridors, mass displacement…

Read the full story

Permit Holders Allowed to Carry Firearms in New Tennessee Legislative Building

Carry permit holders will be allowed to bring their firearms into the new home of the Tennessee state legislature, according to a joint statement issued this week by Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) and House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville). Lawmakers have started relocating to the renovated Cordell Hull Building from the War Memorial Building and Legislative Plaza. The Cordell Hull Building will open to the public Nov. 15. “Tennessee carry permit holders are among the most law-abiding demographics in our state,” the statement said. The new policy requires permit holders to present their permit at security and undergo a thorough screening that will determine the permit’s validity. Once that is verified, a permit holder will get the green light to carry on the premises. To receive a permit, people must be fingerprinted, submit to a background check and get firearms training.

Read the full story

The SCOTUS Case That Let Clinton Hijack Party Fundraising

Former Democratic party leader Donna Brazile called the Hillary Clinton campaign’s takeover of party fundraising a “cancer.” Writing in Politico Thursday, Brazile said it “broke my heart” to discover that her predecessor as party chair had given the Clinton campaign power over the Democratic National Committee’s “finances, strategy, and all the money raised” during her primary…

Read the full story

Commentary: Will Bad Apples Bob Corker and Jeff Flake Spoil the Whole GOP Bunch?

by Jeffrey A. Rendall   It’s now been over a week since Arizona Senator Jeff Flake delivered his melodramatic retirement announcement speech on the senate floor and the fateful words the establishment lawmaker uttered are still reverberating around Washington. Some even believe Flake and fellow retiring Senator Bob Corker are now “free” from the usual invisible restraints placed on politicians running to retain their offices, suggesting the two could make things pretty difficult for President Donald Trump and the GOP majorities going forward. Are they right? Sarah Westwood of the Washington Examiner reported, “Neither Corker nor Flake have the same incentives as their fellow GOP lawmakers, between now and Nov. 2018, to fall in line behind Trump as their party works to pass tax reform, repeal Obamacare, cobble together an immigration package that legislates DACA protections and keeps the government open past the holidays. “The margin of error for Republicans, with a slim 52-member majority in the Senate, was already too narrow for the GOP’s comfort. It took just one Trump critic, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to sink months of work on a healthcare plan that the president pushed aggressively through the House and Senate.” I hate to disagree with…

Read the full story