Day: April 10, 2017

Justice Neil Gorsuch Sworn In

Tina LaFleur
Tennessee Star

  A little more than a year after the sudden death of beloved Justice Anotin Scalia, President Donald Trump introduced Judge Neil Gorsuch to take the Oath of office to be the next Associate Justice on the Supreme Court Monday. Following a private swearing to the Oath of Office all federal officials must take by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Anthony Kennedy officiated a public swearing to the Oath of Office of Supreme Court Justices, making Gorsuch the 113th Justice to sit on the court. Right Side Broadcasting covered the event, held outdoors in the White House Rose Garden: The Oath of the Supreme Court Justice is: I, Neil M. Gorsuch, do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God. Justice Gorsuch’s elevation to the Supreme Court restores the full bench of nine jurists. Reuters reported: Donald Trump reveled in the biggest political victory of his presidency at a…

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Steve Gill Commentary: Crony Capitalism Drives the Haslam Gas Tax Plan

Steve Gill
Tennessee Star

  The Haslam Administration is doling out over $113 million in tax CUTS to some of Tennessee’s largest corporations to justify over $350 million in tax INCREASES on working Tennesseans. According to the Times Free Press, just 24 large manufacturing companies will each receive tax breaks of over a million dollars a year under the Haslam plan. Those two dozen companies will reduce their tax burden by over $57 million and receive OVER HALF of the proposed $113 million in Franchise and Excise tax reduction. Tennessee law doesn’t allow the state to release the specific identities of the 24 companies that will benefit most from the Franchise and Excise tax cut. However, according to the Times Free Press certain companies that fit the profile of those who are most likely among the 24 sharing in the $57 million tax break include Nissan, Volkswagen, and General Motors. “This whole tax scheme appears to be built upon a foundation of special treatment for the Governor’s friends while sticking it to ordinary working Tennesseans,” according to State Rep. Judd Matheny. “Before the plan moves one step forward there needs to be full and complete disclosure of who exactly stands to benefit, and how…

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Florida Middle School Teacher Fired For Inappropriate Student Survey

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

  A Florida middle school teacher has been fired for giving students a survey school officials said was inappropriate, WFTS-TV in Tampa reports. Students at Fox Chapel Middle School in Spring Hill were asked to circle responses to questions asking about their comfort level in certain hypothetical situations. Those situations included being approached by a group of young black men on the street, being in a gay bar, and finding out your new suite mates are Mexican. Other scenarios involved sitting next to a young Arab man on an airplane, dealing with a panhandling homeless man and finding out the new pastor at your church is a woman. The survey was a supplemental assignment. The New York Post also picked up on the story and provided a statement from the Hernando County School District. “The teacher did leave a supplemental assignment for students to complete in her absence,” the statement said. “In no way, does this assignment meet the standards of appropriate instructional material. After being made aware of the survey, school administration began an investigation and took immediate disciplinary action.” The district did not identify the teacher. Jennifer Block, mother of a 12-year-old who was given the survey, was interviewed by…

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Blount County Veteran Honored With Quilt of Valor

Wendy Wilson

  A 93-year-old Blount County veteran was given a quilt last month to honor his military service, an award bestowed by a national nonprofit organization. The quilt was the handiwork of Quilts of Valor, which started in 2003. “Boy that means a lot, it means a lot,” said Ray Garner after receiving his quilt at the Blount County Courthouse, according to WBIR Channel 10 in Knoxville. A Purple Heart recipient, Garner served in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. His name is on the World War II Battle of the Bulge monument outside the Blount County Courthouse. Quilts of Valor was founded by Catherine Roberts, whose son was deployed to Iraq, according to the group’s website. The group originally focused on honoring those wounded in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first quilt was awarded in November 2003 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to a young soldier from Minnesota who had lost his leg in Iraq. A Walter Reed chaplain welcomed the group because his wife happened to be a quilter. In 2009 in Bellingham, Washington, a group of Quilts of Valor volunteers who got together for a quilting retreat looked for veterans of Iraq and…

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80 Percent of Speaker Beth Harwell’s Constituents Contacted by AFP Door Knocking Oppose Gas Tax Increase

Laura Baigert

  Americans for Prosperity (AFP) Tennessee organized a Day of Action Saturday during which volunteers knocked on doors in Speaker Beth Harwell’s (R-Nashville) district asking constituents whether they were in favor of a gas tax increase, or wanted revenues from the $2 billion surplus to be used for funding of road projects. Shawn Hatmaker, AFP Tennessee’s Field Director told The Tennessee Star that the overwhelming majority, 80 percent in fact, of respondents said they were opposed to a gas tax increase and wanted existing revenues to be used. As her constituents, respondents were encouraged by AFP volunteers to contact Speaker Harwell to urge her to push forward with the plan she announced last week.  The plan, which Speaker Harwell addressed briefly Thursday, that does not raise any taxes, but simply transfers sales tax revenues already collected on new and used vehicles from the General Fund to the Highway Fund. Respondents as well as those not at home were left with a door hanger that provided an overview of Governor Haslam’s gas tax increase plan versus Speaker Harwell’s proposal that also included contact information for her office. Ed Smith is a Heritage Action Sentinel as well as an AFP volunteer who…

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Grassroots Activists Petition Republican Majority to Oppose Gas Tax Increase

Laura Baigert

The Tennessee Alliance of Liberty Groups, a group of grassroots activists from around the state, were motivated by two events this week that prompted the issuance of an urgent action alert to sign a petition that will go to all state legislators about the gas tax. The first event this week prompting action by the group was the renaming of the IMPROVE Act to the “Tax Cut Act of 2017” is what the Alliance calls out as “an obvious attempt to deceive Tennesseans.” As reported by The Tennessee Star, the renaming took place in the House Finance, Ways and Means Subcommittee meeting through an amendment presented by Rep. Barry Doss (R-Leoma) and authored by Rep. and House Finance Subcommittee Chairman Gerald McCormick (R-Chattanooga). The Alliance very directly points out in their letter that “the purpose of the IMPROVE Act was never to reduce taxes but was to allocate funds for roads.” The letter continues, “So, this sleight of hand by Republican legislators in renaming a road repair & construction bill to a tax cut bill is not only offensive, it is the lowest form of deception by men and women to whom we have entrusted and lent the keys to…

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Teacher Shortage Worries Tennessee Department of Education

Wendy Wilson

Tennessee is scrambling to come up with ways to find and keep quality teachers in the classroom. The state Department of Education released a report last week that details the problem and outlines proposed solutions that focus especially on strengthening ties with teacher education programs in the state’s postsecondary schools. “More than 65,000 teachers show up each day to work in Tennessee’s public schools. At the current rate, half of these teachers will leave or retire in the next decade,” the report says. Bethany Bowman, director of professional learning for Professional Educators of Tennessee (ProEd), calls the situation “a complete mess.” “The Department of Education is too optimistic,” she told The Tennessee Star. “They’re always talking about highly effective teachers and I’m thinking, you’re lucky to get teachers period.” Bowman noted that just days before the start of the new school year last summer, Metro Nashville Public Schools was still short 400 teachers. The district employs around 6,000 teachers. As if simply finding good teachers weren’t enough, the state also wants to focus on making teaching staffs more diverse. The report said that only 14 percent of new teacher candidates graduating from Tennessee’s teacher education programs self-identified as not white in…

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Constitution Series: Three Things That Make the United States Constitution Unique in World History

Tennessee Star Staff
Tennessee Star - Constitution Series

    This is the second of twenty-five weekly articles in The Tennessee Star’s Constitution Series. Students in grades 8 through 12 can sign up here to participate in The Tennessee Star’s Constitution Bee, which will be held on September 23.   Today’s high school students may yawn when they hear teachers describe what a world-changing document the United States Constitution was when it was ratified in 1788 and a new government was formed a year later in 1789. But a deeper look behind the scenes reveals the three dramatic innovations the Founding Fathers introduced in just 4,400 words that changed the course of history for the better over the next 228 years, not just in the United States of America, but around the word: A Single Written Agreement Was Now the Highest Authority for “The Rule of Law” in America Federalism The Separation of Powers 1. A Single Written Agreement Was Now the Highest Authority for “The Rule of Law” in America. Two-thirds of the four million residents of the United States in 1789 (67 percent) were of British ancestry. Another 14 percent were from other parts of Europe. Nineteen percent (750,000) were from Africa, the vast majority of whom…

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