Day: May 8, 2017

Commentary: Agency Accountablity Act Would Reclaim Constitutional Authority Congress Ceded to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Other Regulators

Tennessee Star Staff

Congress’ power of the purse is one of its bedrock responsibilities listed in Article 1 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has reaffirmed this power on several occasions, including in a 1976 case when the Court declared, “The established rule is that the expenditure of public funds is proper only when authorized by Congress, not that…

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Obama’s Non-Profit On Same Dubious Path First Blazed By Clinton Foundation

Tennessee Star Staff

Barack Obama’s presidential foundation is barely two years old, but he is taking it down the same controversial – and by some accounts illegal – post-presidency path of his predecessor Bill Clinton, according to documents reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation’s (TheDCNF) Investigative Group. Federal law requires tax-exempt entities like the Barack Obama Foundation and…

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Two Marines Killed In 2015 Chattanooga Terrorist Attack Honored Sunday For Bravery

Wendy Wilson

Two Marines killed in the Chattanooga terrorist attack in July 2015 were posthumously honored Sunday with Navy and Marine Corps Medals. The families of Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Sullivan and Staff Sergeant David Wyatt received the medals on their behalf. The Navy and Marine Corps Medal is the the highest non-combat decoration for heroism awarded to members of both branches of service. The public ceremony on Sunday took place at 2 p.m. at Ross’s Landing, reports WTVC NewsChannel 9. Sullivan, 37,  and Wyatt, 40, were among four Marines and one sailor killed when Islamic jihad terrorist Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez attacked the Naval Operational Support Center in Chattanooga after firing at a recruiting center seven miles away. Wyatt was first to call the police, and then both he and Sullivan took the lead in moving personnel to safety, a Marine Corps Forces Reserve spokesman told the Marine Corps Times. Wyatt also told his junior troops to guide children at a nearby neighborhood park to a building, where they stayed sheltered until the incident was over. After most of the Marines had been safely evacuated from the support center, it became clear that some were not accounted for, the spokesman said. “So Gunnery Sgt. Sullivan and…

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Conservatives Urge Trump To Keep His Promise, Ditch The Paris Climate Agreement

Tennessee Star Staff

Dozens of conservative and free market groups sent a letter Monday to President Donald Trump, urging him to keep his campaign promise to withdraw the U.S. from an international agreement to fight global warming signed by the Obama administration. Representatives from 40 right-leaning groups told Trump a withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement “is a…

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Jeff Hartline Commentary: Crafting A State Budget With Both Hands Tied Behind Your Back Is An Impossible Task

Tennessee Star Staff

by Jeff Hartline May 8, 2017 As is the habit of the Tennessee General Assembly, the last days of each year’s session are tortured with the approval of the State Budget, one Constitutional requirement that must be completed prior to adjournment. There probably aren’t a thousand regular citizens in the state (out of over 6,800,000) who understand the process, much less the details that lie therein. The vast percentage of those who do understand the current process reside inside the offices of the Executive Branch of the State, also known as the Governor’s office and the staffs that serve the House and Senate Finance Committees and the Fiscal Review Committee. On the surface, one would conclude that this distribution between the Executive and Legislative branches fulfills the intent of “Separation of Powers”. It doesn’t. As one can imagine, the people employed in the Governor’s office are “full-timers”, employees of the State of Tennessee, spending all their time executing the desires and demands of the Governor. Those specifically tasked to budget items give full attention to the nooks and crannies of the budget process and the budget itself. In the same way, the Legislative Committee staffs do the same thing. Because…

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Kushner Family Offers Wealthy Chinese Investors The Chance To Buy Their Way Into The US

Tennessee Star Staff

The Kushner family told a group of 100 wealthy Chinese investors Saturday that they could secure immigration visas to the U.S. with an investment of half a million dollars, several media outlets revealed. Speaking in Beijing, Nicole Kushner Meyer, sister of senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, encouraged wealthy Chinese investors to invest at least $500,000…

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Kellyanne Conway: Hillary Clinton Joining ‘Resistance’ Likely to Backfire on Democrats

Tennessee Star Staff

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Sunday she welcomes Hillary Clinton’s return to the national spotlight, predicting that the Democrat’s vow to join the “resistance” is likely to backfire on Democrats. “As for Hillary, look, people are rolling their eyes and bellyaching – most of them are Democrats, by the way – ‘Why won’t she just…

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Commentary: The House Obamacare Vote: First Step To Repeal Or Sham?

Tennessee Star Staff

by ConservativeHQ.com Staff Through the passage of the American Health Care Act, the House has now voted-out a bill that some of our friends are calling a first step in the complete repeal of Obamacare, and that other friends are calling a complete sham and a step backward for Republicans. According to a transcript posted by Breitbart’s Ian Hanchett, on Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Your World,” Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) argued the revised American Health Care Act is “the first time that Congress Republicans have affirmatively put their stamp of approval on a program where federal money, taxpayer money, is paid to insurance companies.” Senator Paul later in the interview said, “I just don’t want to replace [Obamacare] with Obamacare-lite, or another federal program. The programs they put in place will be there forever. So, the refundable tax credit, which is a subsidy by another name, will be there forever. And this — these buying — these high-risk pools they want to create, Republicans used to hate the idea. They hated the idea when they were called risk corridors, and they were giving money to insurance companies. They were bailouts, when it was a Democrat idea. Now that…

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House Finance Chair Charles Sargent Strips Amendment For Vets, Reverting to Pork Project

Laura Baigert
Tennessee Star

  House Finance Chairman Charles Sargent (R-Franklin) on Friday stripped an amendment to the budget bill, HB 511, that would have given $3.12 million to veterans, opting instead for a pork project in Williamson County. On Thursday during House debate on the budget, Rep. Jimmy Matlock (R-Lenoir City) introduced an amendment that redirected $3.12 million from the Historical Commission for the demolition and construction of a new Carter House Visitors Center in Franklin to four Tennessee chapters of Honor Flight and Honor Air programs across the state. These non-profit organizations fly aging veterans to Washington, D.C. in order for them to pay their final respects the memorials dedicated to their sacrifice and to their fellow soldiers who died in battle.  Top priority is given to the senior veterans, World War II veterans, survivors, people who have given their all.  Many of these veterans could be disabled, handicapped, or even terminally ill. Sargent initially tried to kill the amendment by making the motion to “lay on the table,” but the motion failed by a vote of 35 ayes, 52 nays. Despite the disagreement throughout much of the day, this amendment passed with bipartisan support on Thursday with a vote of 49 ayes and 36…

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Commentary: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Regulations Strangle Innovations Like Google Wallet, PayPal

Tennessee Star Staff

ANALYSIS/OPINION: Be wary whenever a federal agency issues a professedly benign regulation. Even the devil can quote scripture. Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 553(e), federal agencies are required to “give . . . interested person[s] the right to petition for the issuance, amendment, or repeal of a rule.” In other words, if persons…

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Constitution Series: The First Amendment

Claudia Henneberry
Tennessee Star - Constitution Series

    This is the sixth 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. The First Amendment was passed by Congress September 25, 1789, and ratified December 15, 1791 along with the nine other amendments that comprise The Bill of Rights. It reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;  or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. The First Amendment combines five specific rights into one fundamental law guaranteeing freedom of expression: (1) Freedom of Religion (2) Freedom of Speech (3) Freedom of the Press (4) Right to Peaceably Assemble (5) Right to Petition “The first amendment is the most important in the American Constitution because it protects the things that make us what we are, including talking, and writing, and worshiping,” Dr. Larry Arnn, professor of politics and history and president of Hillsdale College, wrote recently. The Founding Fathers knew that these unalienable rights already belonged to the…

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