JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens signed “right-to-work” legislation into law on Monday, fulfilling a campaign promise that has been cheered by Republicans and the state’s business community. It was a busy day for the governor, whose victory lap took him to an abandoned warehouse in Springfield — “a far too familiar sight for…
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“The Tennessee Star website had more than 3,000 unique visitors on Monday, the day we launched,” managing editor Christina Botteri said shortly after midnight after all the day’s results were counted. “The remarkable thing about our traffic on launch day is that each visitor came back and visited different stories on the site several times during the day. The total number of page views and visits for Monday was well over 9,000,” Botteri added. “That means people are very interested in the kinds of stories we are covering, and how we report on them,” she concluded. Across Middle Tennessee, conservatives who have not had a reliable media outlet cheered the arrival of The Tennessee Star on the scene. Every story on the website is free of charge to readers, a marked contrast to the policies of the dominant left-leaning newspaper in the Middle Tennessee area. Botteri added that when people sign up on the site and give their email address, they are subscribing to the free Tennessee Star Daily email summary of important news, which will arrive every morning to set the tone for what’s on the news agenda in Middle Tennessee that day. The Tennessee Star Facebook page also…
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State Rep. Barry Doss (R-Leoma), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, told his fellow panelists and studio audience at the WWTN Gas Tax Town Hall on Thursday that he favors Gov. Haslam’s 7 cents per gallon gas tax increase, but opposes the part of governor’s proposal that would index the tax for future annual increases tied to the consumer price index. “There are those of us up here who disagree with indexing. That’s putting a perpetual tax increase on the people,” Doss said. “If we get rid of indexing and we lower taxes above and beyond what the Governor has proposed, guys, we hope to be able to leave this session in the end of April this year saying we did not raise taxes.” Andy Ogles, executive director of Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee, which opposes both the proposed 7 cents per gallon gas tax increase and the Governor’s proposed indexing, explained the simple math of what he called a very bad idea. If the General Assembly had approved indexing in 1989, when the gas tax was increased to 20 cents per gallon, it would today be a whopping 41 cents per gallon, Ogles said. ( A 1.4 cent per gallon special…
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In January George Soros’s secretive Open Society Foundations (OSF) began passing out 10 million dollars in a brand-new grant intended for non-profits who will, according to its website, “document and aggregate incidents of hate as they happen, and categorize them by type of offense, targeted community, and geographic location.” In “resisting the spread of hate” the Soros group wants “to ensure that incidents are included, tracked and aggregated in local and national data-bases”. I attended the “We the People” immigration conference in Nashville, December 2016 brought to you by The National Partnership for New Americans and others – a showcase of the close cooperation between the professional left and U.S. corporate executive suites. As one Walmart executive noted there is a “mind-blowing” number of groups representing immigrant rights today “and on any given day they are asking us for money”. He then went on to recount how Walmart and these groups work together on common goals. A ‘break-out’ session was devoted to the soon-to-be launched OSF hate-fighting grant. The money, to be parceled out in amounts ranging from $15,000 to $150,000, was available to anyone who promised to report hate incidents according to OSF staff. There was assurance that the…
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State Sen. Mike Bell (R-Riceville) told the Cleveland/Bradley Economic Development Council he listened to the WWTN Gas Tax Town Hall moderated by Ralph Bristol on the Dan Mandis Show on Thursday, the Cleveland Daily Banner reported. “As I drove here, I was listening to a flame-throwing conservative talk show in Nashville, and I listen to it when I am up there and agree with most of what I hear,” Bell said. “What was interesting was out of the whole panel they had, and they had an audience of 100 people as well, there wasn’t a single person–even those who oppose the plan–who did not say we had a need,” Bell said. “So at least we’ve got opponents agreeing that we’ve got a need,” he added. The Tennessee Star, which attended the event, reported that the studio audience size was about 20. The panel at the Town Hall included three State Representatives, two State Senators, a representative of Gov. Haslam, Andy Ogles, executive director of Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee, and former Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey, representing the Transportation Coalition of Tennessee. While all members of the panel, including gas tax increase proposal opponent Andy Ogles of Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee, stated that there was a…
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by Chris Butler February 6, 2017 Reprinted with Permission from the Tennessee Watchdog (Bureau chief’s note: This is the second in a three-part series about home-sharing programs and Nashville’s attempts to regulate them) Nashville Metro Council members who push for new regulations on Airbnbs seem to do so at the behest of powerful hotel interests, which resent the competition and are now leaning on government for support. Many people have made the claim, and evidence exists to support it. Nashville Metro Council member Burkley Allen has put forward new licensing requirements for anyone in the city who runs an Airbnb or a similar home-sharing program. As reported, these home-sharing options operate much like an Uber app. Instead of people using their cars to compete with cab drivers, they share their homes. Burkley told Tennessee Watchdog in an email she got involved only after Airbnb’s competitors reached out to her. “This issue was first brought to my attention by properly zoned historic bed and breakfast operators who asked that the city level the playing field between them and properties that were operating short term rentals without any regulation,” Burkley wrote. According to the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a Nashville-based free-market think…
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A report authored by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and New American Economy (formerly named Partnership for a New American Economy) claims that, “[f]orty-three percent of unauthorized immigrants who earned their degrees abroad were either working in low-skilled jobs or unemployed,” a number almost twice as many as immigrants who naturalize and become U.S. citizens. They call this “brain waste.” The NAE was launched in 2010 by corporatists that includes former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, media magnate Rubert Murdoch, Bill Marriott and Disney’s Dan Eiger, to push the idea that comprehensive immigration reform would “help grow the economy and create new American jobs.” The MPI receives funding from many sources including George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. Both the MPI and NAE use economic arguments to blur the line between legal and illegal immigrants. Both organizations supported the DREAM Act which amnestied certain individuals who had entered the U.S. illegally before age sixteen. In 2012, the NAE partnered with another Soros funded organization, the Center for American Progress (CAP), to push for passage of the DREAM Act. The MPI and NAE also pushed the 2013 “Gang of Eight” bill which would have amnestied…
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You have read the statistics enough to know that there is an undeniable connection between literacy skills and incarceration rates. Children who do not read on grade level are more likely to dropout, use drugs or end up in prison. Research shows that reading abilities in third grade act as a tell-tale barometer for later school success.
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