Lamar Alexander Touts New Whit Ayers Poll Showing Strong Favorability Ratings Heading Towards 2020

A pollster who boldly declared that candidate Donald Trump had “no chance” of becoming President now says Senator Lamar Alexander is polling as a virtual lock for reelection in 2020. Alexander’s longtime pollster, North Star Opinion Research President Whit Ayers, wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece in April, 2016: “A Trump nomination has as much chance of success in the general election as Trump University, or Trump Mortgage, or Trump Shuttle, or Trump Vodka, or Trump Casinos. Trump is an electoral disaster waiting to happen.” That was, of course, before Trump won the White House over Hillary Clinton by a somewhat comfortable electoral margin. That same pollster is now claiming that an internal poll conducted in advance of an expected announcement by Senator Lamar Alexander that he will seek reelection in 2020 shows Alexander with strong approval ratings among Tennessee voters. The Monday internal polling memo from Ayers to the Senator’s campaign team claimed that Alexander’s favorability rating among likely Republican primary voters is 65 percent, just shy of two-thirds support. The 600-person survey was conducted Nov. 26-29. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent. The 78-year-old Alexander told The Tennessee Star last month…

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Tennessee Star Report: How Will Gov-Elect Lee Follow Up on School Choice Campaign Pledge?

In a specific discussion on Tuesday morning’s Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – the duo contemplated Bill Lee’s current cabinets picks and the absence of any conservatives.  The conversation continued about whether or not Lee would hold true to his “school choice” (or more specifically “parent choice”) campaign pledge and why it needs to become a bill and why it hasn’t in the past. At the end of the segment, Leahy urged Lee to provide leadership on this matter. Gill: We’ve been talking a little bit about the Bill Lee transition process and who’s been put into place in his senior positions and cabinet positions who are being added as we speak.  Who are “whispering in his ear” to direct his assembling of his senior leadership team and cabinet.  And you’re welcome to join us, 615-737-9522.  Bill Lee and his team have not been able to find any conservatives any consistent dependable conservatives to serve in the senior positions of his administration at this point.  They’ve appointed roughly twelve cabinet level positions including commissioner of financing and administration, agriculture, commerce and insurance, tourism,…

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Enviros File Lawsuits to Stop Trump’s Approval of Surveys for Oil Deposits

by Chris White   Environmental groups are suing to prevent the Trump administration from approving seismic survey testing for oil and gas reserves off the South Carolina coast. Oceana and the Sierra Club argued in legal filings Tuesday that the Commerce Department’s approval of seismic testing violates the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, among other regulations. “Allowing seismic blasting at this scale in these waters is not consistent with the laws that protect our oceans,” Natural Resources Defense Council Director Michael Jasny noted in a press statement shortly after the lawsuits were announced. Such leases could lead to exploratory drilling for the first time in several years. Acoustic tests involve boats tugging rods pressurized for sound and emitting jet engine-like booms seconds apart for days. The exercise effectively uses reflected seismic waves to measure the Earth’s subsurface, but the technique also poses risks to marine life sensitive to sound waves. Oil producers are supportive of the approval process. The American Petroleum Institute released a Nov. 15 report that shows tapping oil and natural gas reserves in federal waters could be worth $1.5 billion in tax revenue to South Carolina over two decades. Tax revenue from the…

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Rose Taps Former Congressman Hilleary for Chief of Staff

Former U.S. Rep. Van Hilleary (R-TN-04) will head back to Capitol Hill next year – as chief of staff to Rep.-elect John W. Rose (R-TN-06) of Cookeville. A member of the GOP class that swept to power in the mid-1990s, Hilleary represented the Volunteer State until 2003, Roll Call said. (That district is now represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais.) Hilleary left office to run for Tennessee governor, but lost to Democrat Gov. Phil Bredesen. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2006. “He will bring the Washington know-how to our team, but is not a Washington insider,” Rose said. “He is my friend and I could not be more proud to have him on board. Together, we will work to bring the highest level of service to this office so the people I serve are represented in the fullest manner possible.” Hilleary is originally from Spring City in Rhea County, the Chattanooga Times Free Press said. Rose, a farmer and small businessman, operates his family’s DeKalb County farm. Rose ran this year to replace Republican U.S. Rep. Diane Black of Gallatin who ran a campaign for governor. She lost in the GOP primary election. Rose said he intends…

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Illegal Alien in Lebanon to Serve 50 Years for Raping Child

This week an illegal immigrant in Lebanon pleaded guilty in state court to two counts of rape of a child, according to the Lebanon Police Department. That man, Edwin Alfredo Velasquez- Curuchiche, 42, will serve 50 years for that crime. He will serve that concurrently with a 50-year federal sentence he received earlier this year for producing child pornography, Lebanon Police said on their Facebook page Tuesday. The child porn charge, police went on to say, is related to the rape charge he pled guilty to in state court. Lebanon Police said this case resulted from a joint investigation with the federal Department of Homeland Security. The case goes back to October 2015 when Lebanon Police said they responded to a call of a possible attempted kidnapping in the Weatherly Estates area. “Curuchiche had befriended a local family and used fraud to obtain a key to the victim’s home. The victims did not know he had made this key at that time,” Lebanon Police said. “The investigation further revealed the offender had snuck in to the home after everyone was asleep on two occasions, and his actions led to the charge of rape of a child (six-year-old female), who lived…

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Commentary: Fighting Democrats’ Dirty Politics

by Karin McQuillan   The midterms are in the rearview mirror and the chattering classes are back to debating fake collusion with Russia and a looming indictment of the president. Before the midterms, Republican voters were told this election was consequential. After the midterms, we’re told it is just one more split-government election, move along. I’m not moving along so easily, and neither is my circle of patriotic MAGA friends. Losing the House of Representatives was a crippling blow on immigration, the cornerstone of the Democrats’ drive to permanent domination. Any hopes of Democrats accepting Trump’s 2016 victory as normal politics is dead, and now they have Congress from which to harry and hobble the president. Democrats have dehumanized Trump and all his supporters as white supremacists, in order to justify violence against our republican foundations. Since inauguration day they have undermined respect for the presidential election, the Supreme Court, the electoral college, freedom of speech and religion and the right to bear arms. Democrats claim these hallowed institutions are bringing on fascism. Danger lights should be going off in every decent person’s mind. We are not in a terrain of politics as usual, but in a new and terrifying…

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Commentary: The Democrats Delusions Drive the Trump Impeachment Narrative

by George Rasley   If the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation battle taught MAGA team members anything it should have been that radical Leftist Democrats and their fellow travelers in the liberal establishment will do anything and stop at nothing to get Donald Trump, or anyone associated with him. That is why the Nation and the President have been put through the Russian collusion hoax, and why Democrats stick with that narrative, even as the evidence for it has proven to be a complete fabrication. However, as the evidence for Russian collusion has evaporated, or proven to be a fabrication bought and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrats, the narrative has begun to shift. The last few days have seen a big pivot in the campaign against Donald Trump observed Byron York, chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner. For two-plus years, it was Russia, Russia, Russia. But despite various revelations in the Russia probe, the case for collusion remains as sketchy as ever. Now, however, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have given Democrats a new weapon against the president: Attorney Michael Cohen pleading guilty to two campaign finance felonies related to paying hush money…

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Broward County School Pulls Assignment Asking if Parkland Shooter Deserves to Die

by Neetu Chandak   A Broward County high school pulled an assignment that asked students whether the suspected Parkland shooter deserves to die. The assignment, “Does Nikolas Cruz Deserve to Die?,” was given to freshmen at Coral Glades High School, ABC News reported Sunday. The school is about five miles away from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where Cruz allegedly killed 17 students on Feb. 14. The worksheets included questions involving the shooting and the death penalty. It was offered as part of a subscription service from Scholastic Corporation, according to ABC. One multiple choice question referenced March for Our Lives co-founder Cameron Kasky, who The New York Times’ quoted in an October Upfront magazine article about death penalty, ABC reported. “In the article, Cameron Kasky says, ‘Let him rot forever.’ His tone can best be described as ___,” the question reads. Answers include “angry,” “fearful,” “gloomy” and “truthful.” This worksheet was given to students in @BrowardSchools. I cannot begin to express how pathetic I find this. Our schoolboard should add this to the list of 1000+ reasons to be ashamed. pic.twitter.com/tEl3BzTLg0 — Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) December 7, 2018 Upfront is a current events magazine that provides high school students…

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China Faces U.S. Pressure to Contain Deadly Fentanyl Exports

by Joyce Huang   After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G-20 meeting earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump praised China for considering imposing the death penalty on illicit producers of fentanyl – an opioid up to 100 times more potent than morphine with a lethal dose of just two milligrams in most people. When fentanyl, which is used as a pain medication but has a high potential for abuse, was highlighted during a meeting between the leaders of the United States and China in Buenos Aires earlier this month, some analysts in China saw it as another one of Washington’s tactics to embarrass China. Others, however, note that reaching out to China to contain its deadliest export to the United States may not be enough if the country doesn’t ease its dependence on painkillers. Game changer Xi has promised to criminalize the sale of deadly fentanyl to the United States, according to Trump, who said it has the possibility of being “a game changer” in easing the fentanyl overdose epidemic in the United States. “Last year over 77,000 people died from Fentanyl in the US. If China cracks down on this ‘horror drug,’ using the Death…

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Google Employees Sought to Block Breitbart From Ads, Emails Show

by Peter Hasson   Google employees sought to block Breitbart from Google AdSense less than one month after President Donald Trump took office, leaked emails from the company reveal. Google employees sought to use alleged “hate speech” as a pretense for banning Breitbart from taking part in the advertising program, the emails show. Barring Breitbart from the advertising program would have a devastating effect on the site’s ad revenue, as Google accounts for roughly 37 percent of all digital advertising revenue. Breitbart obtained the emails and published them on Monday night, one day before Google CEO Sundar Pichai is set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. A Google spokeswoman confirmed the emails’s authenticity to The Daily Caller News Foundation. “My team has been reviewing the site on a frequent (at least weekly) from the original fake news kick-off discussion,” Google’s director of monetization at the time, Jim Gray, assured employees concerned about Breitbart. Gray now is now Google’s director of trust and safety. Richard Zippel, a Google publisher quality manager at the time, similarly noted that Breitbart was being watched closely. “When sufficient violations have been found we’ll take action at the site level,” Zippel wrote. It’s unclear whether…

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Bill Lee Discusses School Choice But Will Not Commit to Placing it on His Agenda During First Year as Governor

Governor-elect Bill Lee sat down for a twenty minute interview with Tennessean reporters Joel Ebert and Natalie Allison in that publication’s Grand Divisions podcast, which was also included in a story published at the Tennessean on Tuesday. Ebert pressed Lee on his commitment to supporting school choice in Tennessee, a central theme of the campaign. Lee said he was committed to school choice, but refused to promise that vouchers or school choice would be part of his first year agenda as governor. Sources tell The Tennessee Star that, at the moment, the Lee administration remains committed to school choice, but does not plan to make school choice an agenda item in his first year. This interview appears to confirm those sources. Here is the transcript of that portion of the interview: Ebert: Let’s go to the next subject.  While you’ve been campaigning you’ve talked about giving parents choices you know and you’ve mentioned that includes charters schools, school vouchers, um, and saying how those things will improve the state’s education system.  Of the handful of people you’ve added to your administration or announced that will join your administration, two are pro-voucher advocates, do you see in your first year vouchers…

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Senate to Take Up Trump-Backed Criminal Justice Reform Bill

by Henry Rodgers   Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the U.S. Senate will take up a criminal justice reform bill backed by President Donald Trump, on the House floor Tuesday morning. McConnell said in his speech it is likely the Senate will work between Christmas and New Year’s, “if necessary,” in order to pass criminal justice reform legislation before 2019. The Senate will now take on the bipartisan bill called the “First Step Act,” after pressure from the White House and other members of the Senate who have been pushing for the legislation to be passed. “At the request of the president and following improvements to the legislation that has been secured by several members, the Senate will take up the recently revised criminal justice bill this month. I intend to turn to the new text as early as the end of this week. So as a result of this additional legislative business, members should now be prepared to work between Christmas and New Year’s, if necessary, in order to complete our work,” McConnell said in his floor speech Tuesday. ‘Let me say that again. Unless we approach all this work in a highly collaborative, productive way and take…

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Steve Cohen asks Google CEO to Probe ‘Overuse of Conservative News Organizations in Search Results’

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) apparently does not like it when Google shows conservative websites’ coverage of his television appearances. He remarked upon that trend during a House Judiciary Committee grilling of Google CEO Sundar Pichai Tuesday. Cohen accused Google of “overly using conservative news organizations on your news,” PJ Media reported. “This weekend I was on MSNBC four times, and yet the first thing that comes up is The Daily Caller, not exactly a liberal, but I guess well-known group, then Roll Call, then Breitbart News, then the Memphis Business Journal, then Breitbart News, then Breitbart,” Cohen said. “…I’d like you to look into overuse of conservative news organizations to put on liberal people’s news on Google.” Pichai said, “I can assure you we do this in a neutral way. And we do this based on that specific keyword, what we are able to access the most relevant information.” “I’m sure you try to, but it’s hard for me to fathom being on MSNBC for like eight minutes each show, four times, and there’s more content on Breitbart News than MSNBC,” Cohen replied. “That might say something about – well I’m not going to say that. Scary.” Perhaps even…

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