Most illegal immigrants who pay taxes have stolen someone else’s legal identity, and the IRS doesn’t do a very good job of letting those American citizens and illegal immigrants know they’re being impersonated, the tax agency’s inspector general said in a new report released Thursday. The theft creates major problems for the American citizens and legal…
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Organizers of the Nashville Pride Festival are cheering a resolution passed by the Metro Council recognizing June as “Nashville Pride Month.” The annual gay pride event will be held Saturday and Sunday at Public Square Park. The Metro Council resolution, as well as the event’s corporate sponsors, reflect the degree to which what once was a fringe movement has become mainstream, even here in the South where there are still many churches, a number of which continue to uphold traditional beliefs about marriage and sexuality. The resolution says that “the city of Nashville is honored to welcome members of the LGBT community and their allies to celebrate a very special and important event honoring the diversity, inclusion, and history of the pride and gay rights movement.” The resolution also says that the “celebration and movement continues to grow and celebrates inclusion as a necessary ingredient to making Nashville and the United States truly diverse. Nashville Pride has grown immensely and is now one of the largest public weekend festivals in Middle Tennessee, reminding us to embrace what makes each individual unique and to use those qualities to change the world for the better.” More than 20,000 people attended the festival year. This year,…
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Defiant House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she’s maintained marked unity among Democrats, fending off carping from rank-and-file members after yet more election defeats this week. Mrs. Pelosi said flatly she’s not giving up her leader’s post, and said the losses in four special congressional elections this year, which cost the party millions of…
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Following the shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and several others in Alexandria, Virginia last week, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced legislation that would establish reciprocity for nationwide concealed carry permits in Washington, D.C., H.R. 2909, the D.C Personal Protection Reciprocity Act. According to Massie the legislation, which will help law-abiding gun owners circumvent the…
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State Senator Jim Tracy (R-Shelbyville) said the “sanctuary city” ordinance that passed on second reading at the Metro Nashville Council on Tuesday “clearly defies the the letter and spirit of our state law,” in a statement released on Wednesday by the Senate Republican Caucus: Senate Speaker Pro Tempore Jim Tracy (R-Shelbyville), who passed a law in 2009 preventing any city in Tennessee from becoming a “sanctuary city” for illegal aliens, said any action taken by Metro Government of Nashville to try to skirt it will draw a strong legislative response. The Metropolitan Council approved the ordinance on Tuesday evening, setting the measure up for a final vote next month. The law sponsored by Tracy prohibits local governments in Tennessee, or the head of such localities, from passing any ordinances or policies that allows for a sanctuary city to be located in the state. It was designed to be a preemptive strike to guard against adoption of any policies to protect those who are in the United States illegally, like the one adopted by the Metro Council yesterday. It also urged the State Attorney General and local governments to pursue any federal funds allocated to combat illegal immigration. “There is a…
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A new study of immigration in the U.S. found that up to 5.7 million non-citizens may have voted in the 2008 presidential election and up to 3.6 million in the 2012 election. The was published last week by a nonprofit institute called Just Facts, based in New Jersey. Researcher James Agresti examined a number of polls,…
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Rep. Kathleen Rice said Thursday that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s time in leadership is over. “Nancy Pelosi was a great speaker, she was a great leader, but her time has come and gone. And yes, she is a great fundraiser, but if the money we’re raising through her leadership is not helping us win elections,…
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LifeZette Editor-in-Chief Laura Ingraham said the “phenomenal speech” delivered by President Donald Trump in Iowa Wednesday “reminds us we we want him on the road,” during an appearance Wednesday night on Fox News’ “Hannity.” Ingraham noted the president has always been best able to communicate his agenda and message directly to the American people. “[Trump] rallied…
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The Senate released its bill to repeal and replace Obamacare Thursday morning, which makes significant changes to the number of people who will recieve coverage, Obamacare subsidy payments and Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion program. 1) Who Will Be Covered Under The Senate Bill The Senate bill allows states to end the individual and employer mandates imposed under…
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Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich is deeply concerned about Robert Mueller’s ability to lead a nonpartisan, unbiased investigation, he said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation. “The fix is in,” Gingrich said. “This is the establishment counterattacking legally when they lost politically.” Gingrich is specifically concerned about the fact that employees…
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FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE (Wednesday, June 21) — In another stunning announcement, The Tennessee Star released updated web traffic reports in a tweet Wednesday that shows the online news, information, and opinion website surpassed 500,000 visits in the last thirty days. WOW! Thank you, Tennessee!!30days (5/20-6/20): 526,841 visits 290,288 visitorsAll time (2/06-6/20): 1,536,671 visits 712,233 visitors pic.twitter.com/HBxgV2CKnf — Tennessee Star (@TheTNStar) June 22, 2017 “In three months and two weeks we went from zero at our launch to over one million visits. Now, in just the last thirty days – a quarter of that time – we have been visited more than five hundred and twenty-five thousand times,” said managing editor Christina Botteri. “If there was a Moore’s Law for journalism and readership, we’d be doubling it right now!” Botteri said, referencing Intel founder Gordan Moore’s observation that computer processing speed doubles every 18 months. The explosion in traffic can be traced directly to The Star’s coverage of the top three areas of most concern for Middle Tennesseans, as reported in the Tennessee Star-Triton Poll released ten days ago, together with a fundamental understanding of the algorithms that drive social media traffic. “The poll results reflect what we observe personally, which is that there…
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Rebecca Ann Burke goes where she’s needed to help get Republicans elected. After looking at polls showing Republican Karen Handel might lose to Democrat Jon Ossoff in the race for the 6th district congressional seat in Georgia, Burke packed her bags and headed for the Peach State to volunteer. Having worked on the Trump campaign, Burke knew polls can’t always be trusted. But she didn’t want to take any chances. For nearly two weeks, the Franklin woman worked the phones, went door to door, put out signs and attended rallies. She was still in Georgia Tuesday night when Handel, a businesswoman and lifelong conservative, was declared the winner of the hard-fought race. “We just had a ball,” Burke told The Tennessee Star Wednesday morning. “My throat is sore from screaming last night.” Handel’s victory in the special election was a huge setback for Democrats, who spent more than $30 million to back Ossoff, a documentary filmmaker and former Capitol Hill aide. It was their fourth consecutive loss in special elections, the other three being in Kansas, Montana and South Carolina. The defeats spell trouble for Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections. “They learned they cannot buy an election,” Burke said of…
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Commentary by Joe Carr A plan to make Davidson County a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants passed earlier this week on second reading and is headed to a final vote in the Metro Council next month. Citizens in Nashville, and in the surrounding area who will be affected if the city becomes an even bigger magnet for illegal aliens, have valid concerns about the plan. Any public policy that embraces and endorses illegal activity of any kind is clearly wrong. The plan promoted by Mayor Megan Berry is not just bad policy, it is ILLEGAL policy under Tennessee law AND Federal law. In 2009 as a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives, I wrote, sponsored and passed one of the nation’s first, if not THE first, “No Sanctuary City Law.” The law was in response to various California municipalities passing ordinances requiring their law enforcement officials not to comply with the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act (the IIRIR). That federal law included section 8 U.S.C. 1373, which provided that no state or local entity can in any way restrict its law-enforcement officials from communicating with federal immigration authorities regarding an individual’s citizenship or immigration status.…
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The Davidson County Republican Party is urging people to call their city council representative to voice opposition to proposed legislation limiting Nashville’s cooperation with federal immigration officials. On its Facebook page Wednesday, the party chapter posted the roll call from Tuesday’s vote advancing the legislation. The Metro Council voted 25-8 to move the ordinance forward to a third and final reading July 6. There were four abstentions and two council members did not vote. The bill passed a first reading June 6. Many believe the ordinance will lead to Nashville effectively operating as a sanctuary city, though drafters of the legislation say it won’t violate the law. Nashville Mayor Megan Barry routinely rails against immigration enforcement and last week wrote a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) criticizing the way agents were carrying out final orders of removal issued by an immigration court. Most were for individuals with criminal convictions. The proposed city ordinance “ties the hands of our law enforcement” and will lead to “losing millions in federal funding,” said the Davidson County Republican Party’s Facebook post. President Trump has vowed to crack down down on sanctuary cities harboring illegal immigrants. The city ordinance would also set the stage for conflicts…
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This is the tenth 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 Bill of Rights–the first ten amendments to the Constitution–were included in the original “covenant” that created the United States because many Americans feared that unless their individual rights were specifically articulated in our country’s founding documents they would be eventually be violated by those in power. The Fourth Amendment, in particular, offers protections to individuals against the police powers of the state: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Anyone who has watched one of the many police procedural dramas on television, like Law & Order, are very familiar with the two key elements of the amendment: (1) “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and…
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Common sense reminds us there is no “one size fits all” approach to public education, but we will hear ideas from politicians that will want to empower state and federal education agencies, rather than permitting those doing the work at the local level in districts to have more flexibility. It is time to for policymakers to deliver for communities the promise of locally-controlled public education for all children.
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Department of Finance and Administration Commissioner Larry Martin reported this week that May revenues exceeded the month’s budget of $1 billion by $53.1 million. That makes nine out of ten months in the 2016-17 accrual year where collections exceeded the budget and the prior year’s collections. Year-to-date over collection of taxes is now up to $677.6 million. The most controversial and predominant legislation this past session was the gas-tax-increasing IMPROVE Act, with a large part of the arguments by proponents focusing on the “user fee” that they claim is diminishing due to increased vehicle fuel efficiency. Before the gas and diesel tax increases go into effect on July 1, fuel tax collections for the year are $44.3 million above the budget and $18 million ahead of last year’s collections. The Highway Fund in total, which, in addition to the fuel tax, is funded by some but not all potential “user fees,” is 4.83 percent over budget and 1.88 percent ahead of this time last year. So far this year, that’s an additional $28 million for road projects, a month before Tennesseans start paying the four-cent per gallon gas and six-cent per gallon diesel tax increases. The data tables are available on…
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee – A group of grassroots activists of Heritage Action, known as Sentinels, have been active and growing for some time in Rutherford County and have reached the point of spawning a new group in Nashville/Davidson County. Heritage Action is the grassroots activist sister organization to Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank founded in 1973. Heritage’s more than 100 researchers perform timely and accurate research on critical policy issues and shares the findings with key stakeholders including elected and appointed policy makers, the media and the public, including Heritage Action and the Sentinel community. Heritage Action came into being in 2010 when Heritage Foundation’s research on The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, needed to be taken to a level beyond information into activism. In 2014, Heritage Foundation launched The Daily Signal, a conservative electronic publication that combines news and research that can be republished, as done by The Tennessee Star. Heritage Action, with the mission of holding Congress accountable to conservative principles, may be best known for its Scorecard which measures votes, bill sponsorships and legislative activities to gauge a member’s conservatism. Long-time grassroots activists Katherine Hudgins and Jackie Archer founded the Rutherford County Heritage Sentinels and…
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Three announced or anticipated Republican candidates for governor are weighing in with strongly worded opposition to the Metro Davidson County Sanctuary City plan that passed earlier this week on second reading and which is headed to a final vote in July. Proponents claim the ordinances are “in line with state and federal law” but one of the Mendes/Sledge bills if passed will, by prohibiting Metro Nashville employees from inquiring into immigration status, effectively enable illegal aliens to access public benefits they would otherwise be barred by law from obtaining. Announced candidates Bill Lee and State Senator Mae Beavers (R-Mt. Juliet) along with Congressman Diane Black (R-TN-06) delivered strong messages of opposition to the Metro Nashville Council’s plan. Announced candidate Randy Boyd has not commented on the plan. Congressman Black, who is a member of the House Border Security Caucus and author of the Stop Dangerous Sanctuary Cities Act, is expected to run for Governor though she has not yet confirmed her plans. She has condemned the Metro Council decision to obstruct immigration law, putting illegal aliens first and the safety and security of Tennessee families last. “First and foremost, as a mother and a grandmother, I implore the Council…
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Commentary by Steve Gill With $2 billion in surplus and recurring revenue at their disposal this past fiscal year the Tennessee legislature jammed through a $300 million tax increase on fuel that provides a windfall to their road contractor and lobbyist buddies. This is the same Republican super-majority that has increased spending a BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR the past 7 years while patting themselves on the back for being “fiscally conservative.” They are the same politicians currently running around the state claiming they passed the “largest tax cut in history” without mentioning that the overwhelming majority of the “cuts” go to about 25 of the largest corporations in Tennessee. Is it really any big surprise that the bulk of the “cuts” went to some of the largest spenders on lobbyists and providers of donations to legislators? Perhaps it was just an amazing coincidence. All the talk of “tax cuts” is just to distract voters from the truth: they raised fuel taxes by over $300 MILLION per year on families. Oh, they will say, but we cut the food tax. The food tax cuts amount to about $55 million per year, meaning the net loss to taxpayers, when balanced against…
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The Mendes/Sledge Ordinance BL2017-739 that passed on second reading by twenty-five Metro Nashville Council members on Tuesday will, if passed on a final vote, force Davidson County and Nashville law enforcement personnel to violate federal and state laws. The sponsors’ other bill, BL2017-743 seeking to terminate a 1996 contract that reimburses the Davidson County jail when it detains criminal aliens for ICE pick-up, has been deferred to the Council’s August 1, 2017 meeting. Both bills are in line with Nashville Mayor Megan Barry’s left-wing open borders, pro-illegal immigrant political philosophy. BL2017-739 expressly prohibits the “use of any funds, resources or facilities” to assist ICE and also prohibits Davidson County and Nashville employees, including law enforcement, from providing pertinent information to ICE regarding criminal aliens. Federal law, however, specifically addresses these information exchanges: a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, [federal immigration authorities] information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual. The Mendes/Sledge bill attempts to circumvent this law by prohibiting the collection of immigration status information, possibly inviting the Tennessee General Assembly to pass a law…
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VERSE OF THE DAY Be blessed and be a blessing June 22, Thursday Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
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President Trump made a campaign-style appearance to an enthusiastic, capacity crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Wednesday. https://youtu.be/YJ8klgo4uaM
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