Attorneys General From Ten States–But Not Tennessee–Formally Endorsed Trump’s Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord

President Trump announced Thursday that his administration is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, a move backed by 10 state attorneys general who wrote a letter to Trump last week asking him to step away. The attorneys general represent the states of West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin. Jeff Landry, the attorney general for Louisiana, celebrated Thursday afternoon with the following tweet: The #ParisAccord is environmental welfare at an international level. Thank you @POTUS for getting us out of this America Last Agreement! — AG Jeff Landry (@AGJeffLandry) June 1, 2017 In their letter dated May 23, the attorneys general said even though the U.S. is not legally bound by the Paris agreement, it poses obstacles to Trump’s promises to reduce regulatory burdens. “Though we believe that the Paris agreement does not legally require the United States to take any action, we nevertheless believe there are many important reasons for withdrawing formally from the agreement,” the letter said. “Among those reasons are: the potential for legal actions seeking to enforce the agreement; the use of the agreement to challenge your administration’s efforts to revise or rescind unlawful or unnecessary regulations issued under President Obama;…

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Mark Green Tells WWTN’s Pamela Furr He ‘Will Be Making an Announcement in the Next Day or So’ About Possible Campaign

State Senator Mark Green (R-Clarksville) told WWTN 99.7 FM’s Pamela Furr, sitting in as host of the Dan Mandis Show on Thursday, that he will “be making an announcement in the next day or so” about his political future. Furr also asked Green about his plans after his announcement last month that he was withdrawing as a candidate for the Secretary of the Army. Green has been widely mentioned as a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor of Tennessee in 2018. Furr also noted that there were rumors that he might instead challenge Senator Bob Corker, who is also up for re-election in 2018. “Now what are you going to do?” Furr asked. “We have pretty much settled on a decision and are looking to probably make an announcement in the next day or so on what’s next for us. There are lots of options out there. We’ll be making an announcement in the next day or so,” Green said. Furr pressed Green to respond to some of his critics. “There are those that think you backed down pretty quickly. What would you say to those who would be critical of you?” Furr asked. “The issue of pulling my…

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Crawfish Boils Back In Business At Mobile, Alabama Bars After Crackdown By Public Health Officials

Folks in Mobile, Alabama, like their crawfish boils and thanks to a new law signed by their governor, they can continue to enjoy them at local bars. The Mobile County Health Department began cracking down on the informal sidewalk boils last year, saying they didn’t comply with food handling regulations and posed a danger to public health, according to WPMI Local 15. The bill sponsored by Rep. Margie Wilcox (R-Mobile) allows an exemption for establishments that occasionally serve food. Passed by both the House and the Senate, the bill was sent to Gov. Kay Ivey on May 19. But crawfish boil organizers will still have to jump through some hoops by registering their events with the health department and meeting certain requirements, including having a food handler’s card, handwashing facility and a plan for adequate disposal. The health department, which helped craft the legislation, approved of the final version of the bill. “As always, our aim is to promote, improve and protect the health of those who live, work and play in Mobile County, Alabama,” the department said in a May 19 statement, according to AL.com. “We believe this legislation does not disrupt our ability to achieve that mission. Our sincere thanks…

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Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks: Conservatives Aren’t Majority in GOP Congress

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) said the GOP-led Congress has been slow to deliver on President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda because “conservatives are not the majority” in the House or the Senate, during an interview Tuesday on “The Laura Ingraham Show.” Brooks, who is mounting a primary challenge against Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.), lamented the lack of…

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VA Chief Says Senate Must Act So He Can Fire ‘Terrible Managers’

Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said Wednesday the civil service appeals process prevents the agency from firing “terrible managers,” and that the Senate must act to reduce the impact of the Merit Systems Protection Board and excessive government employee union-backed due process requirements. “Just last week we were forced to take back an employee…

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Top Seven Reasons the Vanderbilt Poll Is Fatally Flawed

  There are at least seven reasons why the Vanderbilt Poll-Tennessee released on Tuesday by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, co-directed by Vanderbilt Professor John Geer, is fatally flawed. Those flaws come as no surprise to conservatives across the state. “The Vanderbilt Poll has notoriously leaned left for many years in the eyes of most Tennessee conservatives,” The Tennessee Star reported on an earlier Vanderbilt Poll released back in April, and the latest poll is no different, local conservatives say. Among its counter-intuitive findings was this cleverly worded claim: Support for a path to citizenship for undocumented employees is the highest it has been since the poll’s inception: up to 56 percent. And that figure is not just driven by Democrats—40 percent of Republicans favor it too. An additional 20 percent favor the establishment of a guest worker program. Even stronger is support for helping teens of undocumented parents raised in Tennessee and who attend a Tennessee public university. Two-thirds of Tennesseans say they deserve to be eligible for in-state tuition at public colleges. “It is very obvious that Vanderbilt had the result they wanted and polled until they got it,” Tennessee conservative activist Judson Phillips, Founder of…

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Tennessee State Library and Archives To Hold Birthday Bash for Tennessee on Saturday

Tennessee Star

  History buffs who want to know more about the history of Tennessee will have their chance Saturday, when the Tennessee State Library and Archives holds a “Tennessee Celebrates Statehood” birthday celebration. “Part of our mission is to make our state’s history accessible to a wider audience beyond scholars and researchers,” Secretary of State Tre Hargett said in a news release. “This event will be fun and educational for the whole family.” The Library and Archives building is located in downtown Nashville near the Capitol. Tennessee became a state on June 1, 1796, when only about 77,000 people lived here. The country’s 16th state, Tennessee was the first to be created from territory that had been under federal jurisdiction. Visitors at Saturday’s event will be able to view all three of the state’s original constitutions, hear presentations by historians in period clothing and listen to music from the 1700s. Activities for children will include early American games on the lawn and also stations where kids can get temporary tattoos of the state flag or make birthday cards for Tennessee. And since it’s a birthday celebration, cake will be served. The Library and Archives will be open for normal business from…

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Commentary: Democrats and GOP ‘Centrists’ Vie for Title of Lead Trump Obstructionists

  by Jeffrey A. Rendall With all the noise Democrats have made since Donald Trump first won the Republican presidential nomination and then pierced the “blue wall” to prevail in last November’s election, you would think the new president’s most dangerous adversaries reside far outside his own Republican Party circles. Not true. Though it certainly can be argued Democrats and their singular focus on “resistance” and hill-to-die-on opposition (using Russia as a prop) represent Trump’s largest obstacles to realizing his agenda – and therefore making America great again – there’s perhaps an even stronger case to be made that his most menacing foes are seated in the chairs next to him when he negotiates legislative details with GOP leaders in Congress. Whereas the media made a great deal of hay over the principled objections of the conservative House Freedom Caucus during the weeks preceding the vote on the revised American Health Care Act, the real antagonism – at least from a political standpoint – stemmed from the “moderate” gaggle known as the GOP Tuesday Group. These are the fifty or so Republican “centrists” who have become media darlings because of their eagerness to do the bidding of the Democrat leadership…

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Agency on Trump’s Chopping Block Under Investigation for Sketchy Solar Loans

Tennessee Star

A federal aid agency President Donald Trump proposed cutting is being investigated for giving out nearly $1 billion in loans to several nearly bankrupt solar companies, according to a Reuters report published Tuesday. The Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Agency for International Development is auditing $890 million of loans approved by the Overseas Private…

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Memphis Grassroots Conservative Champion Heidi Shafer Aspires To Seat In State Legislature

Tennessee Star

  When Heidi Shafer moved to Memphis in 1987, she couldn’t tell local politicians apart. Everyone, Republican and Democrat, was against crime and for the children and for education. Their campaign literature did little to distinguish one from the other. “Everybody sounded the same,” she recalled in an interview Wednesday with The Tennessee Star. Her frustration would one day motivate her to get involved to find out what was really going on. She began helping out with grassroots conservative campaigns, charting a path that eventually led to her bid to serve as a Shelby County commissioner. First elected to the county commission in 2010 and re-elected in 2014, Shafer is currently the only woman on the 13-member board and also is among a conservative minority. Her second four-year term ends next year and Shafer, bound by the commission’s term limits, is thinking about what she wants to do next. She is seriously considering running for the Tennessee General Assembly. Her fellow commissioner Terry Roland, also a fellow conservative, hopes that Shafer makes it to the Capitol. “If I were in a foxhole, I’d want her with me,” he said. Shafer, 51, has become known for fighting for lower taxes and…

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