Day: August 22, 2017

NASA Scientist Scott Bolton Describes the Science and the Mystery of Eclipses

Wendy Wilson

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — A total solar eclipse is often attributed to various things. Coincidence. Magic. Divine intervention. The rare event is so grand that even scientists are moved to use words beyond the realm of science. Scott Bolton of NASA used all the words above when talking to reporters Monday at First Tennessee Park. The city of Nashville hosted a sold-out eclipse viewing party at the ballpark, home to the Nashville Sounds minor league baseball team. Nashville was the largest U.S. city in the path of totality, along which the moon for a few minutes completely blocked the sun. Bolton is the principal investigator for NASA’s Juno Mission, a program designed to learn more about the planet Jupiter. He was at the ballpark to speak to those in the crowd about the dramatic, once-in-a-lifetime event that would unfold before their eyes. While a solar eclipse is in some ways mystifying, it’s also something that can be predicted with surprising accuracy. “We know the moon’s orbit and we know the earth’s orbit very well,” Bolton said. “We measure these things over many years.” In the past, people were limited by hand calculations. But computer technology enables us today to make accurate calculations far into…

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‘Drive to 55’ Likely Gives ‘Tennessee Promise Scholarship’ to Illegal Immigrants in a Boyd Administration

Chris Alto
Tennessee Star

Gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd takes full credit for the “Drive to 55” higher education umbrella initiative which includes programs like the Tennessee Promise scholarship, but has made no definitive statement to date about whether illegal immigrants should be permitted access to this benefit or in-state college tuition. Boyd, however, is a named member of an organization that pushes state and local policymakers to support giving in-state tuition to illegal immigrant students and he has used his philanthropy to help expand an entrepreneurship program whose services are available to illegal aliens. He is also a board member of the “College Promise Campaign” which wants a universal and free entitlement for the first two years of a higher education. The board is led by the president of the leftist Joyce Foundation and honorary chair Dr. Jill Biden, wife of former Vice-President Joe Biden. A briefing book for state leaders posted on the College Promise website, Making Public Colleges Tuition Free, includes a reference to the “alternative application for undocumented students” used by two states for their college promise scholarships. Boyd also has six state legislators working to get him elected as governor, four of whom voted to give illegal immigrant students access to in-state college tuition.…

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Nashville Was the Place to Be for Many Eclipse Watchers Monday

Wendy Wilson

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — In preparing for Monday’s total solar eclipse, Mark Holloran read that from where he lives in Franklin, he could see 99.8 percent totality. That wasn’t good enough, he and his wife decided. “We drove in to get the last .2 percent,” he said at First Tennessee Park, home of the Nashville Sounds minor league baseball team where an eclipse viewing party was held to watch as the moon completely covered the sun. Nashville was the largest U.S. city in the path of totality. Holloran was monitoring the progress of the eclipse using an app on his cell phone as he and his wife stood in line to buy eclipse t-shirts as the eclipse was just beginning. Jenny Holcomb stocked up on t-shirts for herself, her husband and her 14-year-old son, who were at the ballpark with her. The family lives in the Nashville area in Donelson. “It’s exciting,” she said of the chance to see the eclipse at an event so close to home. The 8,000 people at the ballpark came from 35 states and 10 countries. There also were more journalists than the Sounds stadium normally attracts, including a news crew from TRT World, a new…

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George Rasley Commentary: How And Why Virginia’s Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe Caused the Deaths of Three People In Charlottesville

Tennessee Star Staff

by George Rasley ConservativeHQ.com Editor   “The police actually allowed us to square off against each other,” a Black Lives Matter protester told CNN. “There were fights and the police were standing a block away the entire time. It’s almost as if they wanted us to fight each other.” “Where are the police?” One Antifa protester said in the crowd. “I don’t see any police here!” While the Far-Left dominated national media has concentrated on driving the narrative that President Trump somehow embraces “white nationalism” an astonishing set of facts about who is responsible for the chaos of the Charlottesville riot has emerged. That reporting by truth-seeking independent journalists has revealed that, more than any other single person, it is Virginia’s Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe who is responsible for the deaths of Heather Heyer, Trooper-Pilot Berke M. M. Bates. Pilot Lt. H. Jay Cullen, because he ordered his Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Brian Moran to disperse the lawful “Unite the Right” protesters directly into the unlawfully gathered thugs of the anarchist and Black Bloc movement. What’s more, McAuliffe held back the riot control-equipped police and allowed the unlawfully assembled Antifa shock troops to repeatedly charge the lawfully…

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Conservatives Launch Campaign to Bolster Trump’s Judges, Pressure Democrats

Tennessee Star Staff
Tennessee Star

Conservative groups announced a campaign Monday designed to pressure Senate Democrats to sign off on President Trump’s judicial nominees, saying this White House deserves a chance to fill the record number of vacancies remaining across the federal courts. The Judicial Crisis Network said it will spend $500,000 on digital ads, and they and at least four…

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Matt Schlapp: Left ‘Going Right After the Founders’ with War on History

Tennessee Star Staff

Stewards of the National Mall announced that an exhibit adjacent to the Jefferson Memorial will soon include a plaque noting the Founding Father’s status as a slaveholder. In the aftermath of the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12 that killed on woman and injured approximately 20 others, left-wing activists began calls for statues and…

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Trump Campaign Supporters During Election Snubbed for Pentagon, State Department, National Security

Tennessee Star Staff

Many of the Donald Trump supporters who toiled long payless days last year to get the Republican elected president remain on the sidelines as plum national security jobs go to outsiders. A review of campaign policy groups shows that a scant number landed senior posts at the Pentagon, the National Security Council and the State Department.…

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White House Petition Asking Trump to Label Antifa a ‘Terrorist Organization’ Nears 200K

Tennessee Star Staff

A petition urging President Trump to recognize Antifa – a left-wing, militant activist movement – as a terrorist organization has well surpassed the required 100,000 signatures for an official White House response. The “We the People” petition, created Thursday by someone of the name M.A., says Antifa’s violent actions in cities across the country should earn…

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The Polk Foundation Launches The Tennessee Star Constitution Project Featuring September 23 Constitution Bee for Students

Tennessee Star Staff

  FRANKLIN,Tennessee – The Polk Foundation today announced the launch of their initiative to teach secondary school students the cornerstones of American liberty: the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and all the amendments. Dubbed The Tennessee Star Constitution Project, the effort includes: The publication and free distribution of an original book, The Tennessee Star Guide to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students to teachers and secondary school students anywhere in the state who sign up to participate in the 2017-2018 academic year Pilot Project for use as supplementary material for eighth grade Social Studies, high school U.S. Government and Civics, American History, and political elective classes. The development and distribution of support materials based on the popular Constitution Series by The Tennessee Star for teachers, students, and adult volunteers. Training on its implementation in the classroom by teachers and in review sessions by adult volunteers. The first-of-its-kind Constitution Bee for Tennessee secondary school students, to be held in Pleasant View on September 23. Details about the unique project – including two full chapters of the book – are available for review at the Polk Foundation website: http://polkfdn.com. “For years, educators have struggled to fulfill…

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