Lawsuit Filed Challenging August 2 Date for Mayoral Special Election in Nashville

Nashville attorney Jamie Hollin filed a lawsuit Monday morning in Davidson County Chancery Court on behalf of mayoral candidate and former Metro Councilman Ludye Wallace challenging the legality of the Davidson County Election Commission’s decision to set the date for the mayoral election as August 2. Wallace was listed as the plaintiff in the case, and the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County and the Davidson County Election Commission were named as defendants. “Three of the five members of the Davidson County Election Commission ignored the plain meaning of Tennessee law and voted to set August 2, 2018 as the date for the special election to select a new mayor of Nashville late Friday afternoon, thereby plunging the city into a likely firestorm of lawsuits and threatening the legitimacy of an election held on that date,” The Tennessee Star reported last week: Commission Chairman Jim DeLanis, Commissioner Jesse Neil, and Commissioner Emily Reynolds, all Republicans, formed the three member majority who voted in favor of the motion to set the election date at August 2. Commissioner Tricia Herzfeld and Commissioner A.J. Starling, both Democrats, formed the two member minority who voted against the motion. Wallace, who served on the Metro…

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Commentary: My Life Behind the Iron Curtain Was Not a Socialist Utopia

by Carmen Alexe   Individual freedom can only exist in the context of free-market capitalism. Personal freedom thrives in capitalism, declines in government-regulated economies, and vanishes in communism. Aside from better economic and legislative policies, what America needs is a more intense appreciation for individual freedom and capitalism. I was born and raised in communist Romania during the Cold War, a country in which the government owned all the resources and means of production. The state controlled almost every aspect of our lives: our education, our job placement, the time of day we could have hot water, and what we were allowed to say. Like the rest of the Eastern European countries, Romania was often referred to as a communist country. In school, we were taught it was a socialist country. Its name prior to the 1989 Revolution to overthrow the Ceausescu regime was the Socialist Republic of Romania. From an economic standpoint, a petty fraction of property was still privately owned. In a communist system, all property is owned by the state. So if it wasn’t a true communist economy, its heavy central planning and the application of a totalitarian control over the Romanian citizenry made this nation rightfully gain…

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‘Free-Trade’ Theory Failures in the Face of Real World Trade Warfare Against the U.S.

Donald Trump, Xi Jinping

By Printus LeBlanc   Last week the Trump administration announced it would impose a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum. Many in the media and were quick to lose their mind as usual. Before judging President Donald Trump’s actions, those criticizing should look at the real world instead of the utopian society they want to live in. In the real-world trade is used as a weapon and it is time the U.S. wake up to that reality. A 2014 white paper from U.S. Army Special Operations Command on Unconventional Warfare discusses different methods of warfare being used by various adversaries. With regards to China, it states, “China will use a host of methods, many of which lie out of the realm of conventional warfare. These methods include trade warfare, financial warfare, ecological warfare, psychological warfare, smuggling warfare, media warfare, drug warfare, network warfare, technological warfare, fabrication warfare, resources warfare, economic aid warfare, cultural warfare, and international law warfare.” This is more than abstract theory. There is actual recent historical evidence to prove nations use trade and economic warfare to accomplish a goal. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia used the oil trade as a weapon…

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Trump to EU: We’ll Drop Our Tariffs If You Drop Yours First

President Donald Trump said Saturday he would spare the European Union his steel and aluminum tariffs if the bloc halts its own trade barriers to US products, in his latest round of economic hardball. The duties of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum have stung the EU, along with other major partners including Japan, and European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said earlier Washington had failed to clarify how its allies could be spared.

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Republicans in Congress Continue to Dismantle Oppressive Regulations

By Natalia Castro   Republicans in the House of Representatives have spent this week breaking down the oppressive regulatory regime the previous administration put into place. Former President Barack Obama dramatically expanded the influence of the executive branch through agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA). House Republicans are now working to pass legislation that mitigates the impact of overreaching federal policies, but barriers in the Senate could make this a difficult task. The House has taken up two pieces of legislation this week to combat EPA overreach. First, the Satisfying Energy Needs and Saving the Environment Act or SENSE. The legislation exempts certain coal power plants from 2012 environmental regulations in order to foster growth within the industry. Pennsylvania Representative Keith Rothfus explained in a press release, “Huge piles of low-quality… ‘waste coal’… have become fixtures of our natural landscape. With the invention of circulating fluidized bed (CFB) technology, however, the private sector has been able to process this coal and use it to generate cheap, domestic energy…. Unfortunately, facilities that utilize CFB technology will soon be forced to shut down as a result of the compliance costs associated with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule… the…

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Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Justice, Warns of ‘Cynical’ Society

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called on hundreds of law school students Saturday to set their own paths towards positivity in order to have a more civil society. Speaking at a dinner for the Federalist Society’s 2018 National Student Symposium, Justice Thomas said people can get each other worked up, but it’s important to work for an ideal and not just against something.

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Elizabeth Warren Punts on DNA Test for Native American Ancestry

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, punted Sunday when asked point-blank if she would take a DNA test to prove her disputed Cherokee ancestry, saying, “I know who I am.” The Berkshire [Mass.] Eagle called last week on Ms. Warren to “take the spit test” to put to rest questions over her claims of Native American heritage, an issue that has dogged her 2018 reelection bid, but she didn’t appear willing Sunday to do so.

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Elizabeth Warren ‘Not Running for President’ in 2020

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, said repeatedly Sunday that she is not running for president in 2020, but demurred when asked if she would serve the full six years if reelected in November. “So look: I am not running for President of the United States. “So look: I am not running for President of the United States. I am running for the United States Senate in 2018 Masachusetts, whoo-hoo,” Ms. Warren said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

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State Rep. Mark White Breaks Promise to Committee Chairman on In-State Tuition Bill

Last year, State Rep. Mark White (R-Memphis) gave his word to House Education chairman Harry Brooks that he would not try to change state law that currently says taxpayer subsidized in-state tuition is a state benefit. White made that promise with regard to his bill HB660 which removed in-state tuition from the current state law definition of “state or local public benefit” so that it could be provided to illegal immigrants. This year, White has broken that promise by filing a new bill, HB2429 which combines parts of the two in-state tuition bills he sponsored last year, including the section that would redefine “state or local public benefit.” The first in-state tuition bill that White tried to pass last year, HB863, failed to pass the Education Committee in a close 7-6 vote. White deferred his second bill HB660, to the current session. When White first introduced this bill in the Education Subcommittee, Chairman Harry Brooks questioned the section removing in-state tuition from being a state benefit as currently contained in state law. White gave his word that he would amend that section out if the bill was allowed to go before the full Education Committee. The bill failed to pass the Education committee…

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