Day: April 18, 2017

Gannett Shuts Down Memphis Commercial Appeal Press, Continues to Cut Back in Tennessee

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

  Gannett has shut down the press in Memphis for the Commercial Appeal and is now printing the paper up the road in Jackson at the Gannett-owned Jackson Sun. The move is the latest in a series of steps the corporate media giant has made to trim and consolidate operations in Tennessee. Gannett also owns The Tennessean in Nashville, the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro and the Knoxville News-Sentinel in East Tennessee. Gannett acquired the papers in Memphis and Knoxville just last year. Last month, 17 staff members lost their newsroom jobs in Memphis, according to an article in the Nashville Scene. Three lost newsroom jobs in Middle Tennessee and 11 positions were eliminated in Knoxville. According to the blog Smart City Memphis, 19 additional people are losing jobs in Memphis because of the press machine shutting down. A story in the Commercial Appeal on the shuttering of its press said that the press in Jackson is newer, cleaner and more digitally advanced. Monday’s edition was the last paper printed in Memphis. The Commercial Appeal piece chronicled the storied history of its historic press: Over the past 176 years, Memphis printers have gotten the paper out come hell, high water or any other calamity, natural or man-made.…

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Haslam Reduced Highway Fund Budget By 13 Percent, Grew State Budget By 20 Percent Before Proposing Gas Tax Increases

Laura Baigert
Tennessee Star

Governor Haslam reduced the Highway Fund budget by 13 percent, while he grew the State budget by 20 percent during his first six years in office. Only after he made these reductions in the Highway Fund budget did he propose the gas tax and diesel tax increases included in the IMPROVE Act when he introduced it in January 2017. From Governor Haslam’s first budget year of 2011-12 to the most recent 2016-17, Highway Fund allocations went from $867 million to $757 million, a reduction of 13 percent. HIGHWAY FUND ALLOCATIONS Link 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17  Actual Actual Actual Actual Actual Estimated DOWN  Budget $ $866,886,300 $823,104,600 $683,800,400 $792,219,800 $740,645,600 $756,856,000 -13%  Sheet 54 of 656 54 of 545 54 of 542 54 of 550 54 of 558 54 of 558 Page A-22 A-22 A-22 A-22 A-22 A-22 During that same period, the state portion of the budget, excluding the unpredictable and heavily mandated federal funding, grew from $13.7 billion in 2011-12 to $16.5 billion in 2016-17, representing a 20 percent increase. STATE BUDGET IN BILLIONS OF DOLLARS Link 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 Actual Actual Actual Actual Actual Estimated INCREASE  Billion $ $13.7 $14 $14.6 $14.8 $15.3…

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School Bus Seat Belt Legislation Passes House Committee

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

  A bill that would require seat belts on Tennessee public school buses passed a House panel Tuesday morning. The Education Administration and Planning Committee passed the proposed legislation on a voice vote. Supporters attending the meeting clapped after the vote was taken. The measure is in response to a school bus crash in Chattanooga in November in which six children were killed and dozens injured. Bus driver Johnthony Walker was charged with vehicular homicide. Police say Walker was speeding when the bus crashed into a tree and flipped over. The seat belt bill is sponsored by two Chattanooga legislators, JoAnne Favors, a Democrat in the House, and Todd Gardenhire, a Republican in the Senate. The amended bill would require buses purchased starting July 2019 to have seat belts. During a discussion before the vote Tuesday, Rep. Craig Fitzhugh (D-Ripley) said the bill is “a long time coming.” “We are buckled up everywhere,” he said, adding that school buses should be no different. Downplaying concerns that young children might not be able to unfasten their seat belts in an emergency, Fitzhugh said his three-year-old grandson can work himself out of his car seat restraints in “a New York second.” But opponents…

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Haslam’s IMPROVE Act Includes Same ‘Economic Development’ That Lost Millions in TNInvestco

Laura Baigert
Tennessee Star

  “A performance audit from the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office has revealed the State of Tennessee has only recovered $5.3 million of its initial $200 million investment in the TNInvestco program,”  according to a statement dated November 10, 2016, under the name of Justin P. Wilson, Comptroller, referring to a performance audit report. The statement from the Comptroller focused primarily on the TNInvestco program from the 60-page October 2016 “Performance Audit Report” produced by the state’s Comptroller’s office on Governor Haslam’s Department of Economic Development and Tennessee Technology Development Corporation. The Report was conducted by the Comptroller’s Department of Audit, Division of State Audit, with the report dated October 25, 2016, signed by Director, Deborah V. Loveless, CPA and addressed to The Honorable Ron Ramsey, Speaker of the Senate; The Honorable Beth Harwell, Speaker of the House of Representatives; The Honorable Mike Bell, Chair, Senate Committee on Government Operations; The Honorable Jeremy Faison, Chair, House Committee on Government Operations; and, Members of the General Assembly; and The Honorable Randy  Boyd, Commissioner, Department of Economic and Community Development. At the time of the audit, the program was in in its sixth year, having been approved by the Tennessee legislature in 2009.  With…

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TDOT Reduces Backlog From $6 Billion to $4.7 Billion, But Total ‘Project Needs’ Grow to $10.5 Billion

Laura Baigert
Tennessee Star

  The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) list of projects issued at the end of 2015 totaled $6.1 billion.  The updated project list included with the 2017 IMPROVE Act, on its surface, has a bottom line figure of $10.5 billion with the backlog potion being $4.7 billion. A spreadsheet document dated 11/9/15 was issued on TDOT letterhead titled “Current Backlog,” defined in the secondary heading as “Projects Approved by the TN General Assembly and Currently Under Development.”  The last line of the 13-page document states “Total Estimated Cost of Remaining Phases of Work” with a reported total of $6,095,023,692. The 2015 backlog list included a total of 252 projects in 62 counties with Shelby and Blount counties having the highest number of projects at 25 and 10, respectively. Contrasted to the projects in the IMPROVE Act listed in a report generated by TDOT dated 1/12/17, there are now 962 projects in all 95 counties at a cost of $10.5 billion. TDOT’s slick and interactive SPOT – Statewide Project Overview Tracker – displays the IMPROVE Act projects in map and grid form.   Utilizing the “grid” feature of the “project needs” page, as it is named, facilitates sorting by “yes” or “no”…

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American Patriots to NBC Sports: Fire Craig Calcaterra

Tennessee Star Staff

by George Rasley, Conservative HQ Editor Those Americans who spent Easter morning at church, and then were off to a traditional family Easter dinner, may have missed the latest establishment media outrage, this time perpetrated by Craig Calcaterra, lead baseball writer for NBC Sports. Calcaterra started up a Twitter storm at 4:53 a.m. Sunday morning with this critique of the unfurling of a huge flag and an Air Force flyover during the National Anthem at the Atlanta Braves vs San Diego Padres baseball American flaggame. “Will you keep politics out of sports, please. We like sports to be politics-free” Calcaterra followed-up with this outrageous attack on patriotism: “Maybe a flag, in and of itself isn’t always political. A two-acre flag with a military flyover is saying something very specific, however.” And these two even more disgusting Leftist anti-American attacks: “People often wrap themselves in the flag in order to achieve political ends.” “I never said the flag itself was [political]. It’s just a piece of fabric. People use it in a lot of different ways. Sports teams and leagues included.” But Calcaterra wasn’t done. Additionally, as our friend Jay Maxon of NewsBusters observed, Calcaterra said by not standing for the…

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Council on American Islamic Relations, Unindicted Co-Conspirator in Terror Financing, Opposes Mark Green Nomination

Chris Alto
Tennessee Star

  The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) a named unindicted co-conspirator in the federal 2008 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, the largest terrorism financing prosecution in the U.S., is opposing President Trump’s nomination of Tennessee state Senator Mark Green for Secretary of the Army. CAIR has joined LGBT advocacy groups like the Human Rights Campaign to work against Green’s confirmation. Both groups are leveling “phobic” claims against Green. Green, is a West Point graduate and Iraq war veteran who was deployed three times during his term of service. After completing his training in emergency room medicine, he served as a special operations flight surgeon during the 2003 Red Dawn raid that resulted in the capture of Saddam Hussein.  Green monitored Hussein during the 24 hours prior to his extraction. Green received a variety of awards during his years of service. After leaving the military, he founded Align MD, an emergency room staffing company and the Align MD Foundation which provides health care to underserved populations. The Foundation operates free medical clinics in several cities and organizes medical missions trips to places like Ethiopia and Cambodia. CAIR was founded by the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) which was established to advance the political…

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