The Democrats tell me they tend to want to read what I’ve written because it gives them the best idea of where Republicans, particularly conservatives, want to go and what their strategy is. I came to The Times when Anne Crutcher, the first editorial page editor, invited me to be her deputy when the newspaper started.…
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by CHQ Staff Just when we thought that Washington’s establishment elite couldn’t get any crazier along comes former George W. Bush aide and Washington Post token Republican Michael Gerson to snap us back to reality. Gerson’s column, “Republicans, it’s time to panic” asks “Is Trump psychologically and morally equipped to be president? And could his unfitness cause permanent damage to the country?” And then Gerson answers the question in the affirmative on the basis of anonymous leaks from a White House infested with Obama holdovers and President Trump’s recent very public and personal disagreements with retiring Republican Senator Bob Corker. The gist of Gerson’s attack is that President Trump is crazy, because he hurt poor little Bob Corker’s feelings. At the very end of Gerson’s column, our friends at Breitbart pointed out that the Post has embedded a video made by one of their staffers titled “How does the 25th amendment work?” The video’s caption reads: “The 25th Amendment sets forth a procedure for removing a president from office. Here’s how it’s enacted.” As the video explains, “Section IV of the amendment states that the Vice President and at least 13 of 24 cabinet members must agree to transfer…
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The Randy Boyd for Governor campaign confirmed on Wednesday that failed presidential candidate Jeb Bush will be the headliner at a November 30 fundraiser for Boyd in Nashville, The Tennesseean reported: Exact location and cost of attending the event were not immediately available. Bush is scheduled to be at this year’s National Summit on Education Reform, which is being held in Nashville beginning Nov. 29. Although Tennesseans favored former President George W. Bush in his two presidential elections, his brother Jeb Bush performed poorly in the 2016 presidential election. Jeb Bush received about 1 percent of all votes in last year’s Republican primary election, behind then-candidate Donald Trump, U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Ohio governor John Kasich. In March, The Tennessee Star broke the news that “gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd and his wife Jenny donated a quarter of a million dollars to Conexion Americas, a non-profit Latino advocacy organization headquartered in Nashville founded by Renata Soto.” In 2015, Soto was elected as chairman of the board of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), an organization generously funded by George Soros. She had previously served as vice-president for three years. NCLR lobbies for Hispanic…
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Randy Boyd’s campaign for governor announced Wednesday it will host a fundraiser November 30 featuring former Florida governor and 2016 presidential hopeful, Jeb Bush. Representative Diane Black’s gubernatorial campaign was quick to respond, with a sharp email blast to media with the cheeky subject line: ‘Please Clap.’ “Today, it was announced that Jeb! would be coming to Tennessee to fundraise for ‘moderate Republican’ Randy!” the statement begins. It continues: It’s no surprise that Randy Boyd would bring in Jeb Bush to shake down Nashville donors…besides, they agree on pretty much everything. Jeb Bush said Donald Trump was the “chaos President” and refused to vote for him. Randy Boyd said supporting Trump would be “anathema to me.” Jeb Bush said illegal immigrants come out of an “act of love.” Randy Boyd gave $250,000 to a group that helps illegal immigrants integrate into Tennessee society. Jeb Bush helped create Common Core education standards. Randy Boyd is a “staunch supporter” of Common Core. Campaign spokesman Chris Hartline said, “Jeb Bush and Randy Boyd are a match made in establishment heaven. Their pro-illegal immigration, pro-big government, anti-Trump positions are more suited to the Democratic primary than the Republican primary.” Representative Diane Black (TN-06) is running to…
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Most Protestant pastors say the IRS shouldn’t punish churches for the content of sermons, a new LifeWay Research survey shows. The Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom sponsored the phone survey of 1,000 senior pastors. President Trump and Congress are currently debating the future of a 1954 law known as the Johnson Amendment, which bans 501(c)(3) nonprofits from involvement in political campaigns. Then-U.S. Sen. Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, promoted the law because he was upset with Texas nonprofits that were against his bid for re-election. The law means churches risk losing their tax-exempt status if a pastor endorses a candidate in a sermon. According to the LifeWay Research poll, more than 7 in 10 pastors say Congress should prevent the IRS from punishing a church for sermon content, and 9 in 10 say sermons should be free from government oversight, according to a LifeWay Research news release. But that doesn’t mean churches want their pastors to start endorsing candidates, says Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research. Other surveys over the past couple of years have shown that pastors rarely endorse candidates from the pulpit and most church-goers want it that way. “Pastors—and Americans in general—don’t want church services to turn…
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Williamson County businessman Bill Lee announced this week that he has formed a coalition of Tennessee military veterans who will advise his campaign as he seeks the Republican nomination for governor. The veterans come from every branch of service and will advise Lee on issues related to veterans and the Tennessee Military Department, which oversees the National Guard, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) and the State Guard. “There is no group that we owe more to than our veterans, and I will make our state the number one state for veterans to live and work,” Lee said in a news release. Lee, who also has a background in agriculture, has never held elected office. He has been traveling the state to boost his name recognition and hear from people about the issues most important to them. He first toured the state in a campaign RV and this week is wrapping up a statewide tractor tour. The honorary chairman of his veterans group will be Major General (Ret.) Gary Harrell of Washington County. “Bill Lee is a man who has a strong commitment to our state and to our veterans,” Harrell said. Lee is chairman of Lee Company, a family-owned…
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A crusading lawyer filed a bar grievance this week accusing former FBI Director James Comey of lying to Congress and destroying potential evidence in the Clinton email scandal, in a process that could end up costing him his law license. Ty Clevenger filed the grievance in New York, where Mr. Comey was a former U.S. attorney…
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by George Rasley, ConservativeHQ.com Editor On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal’s Juliet Chung and Anupreeta Das detailed how Nazi collaborator and Far-Left billionaire George Soros has transferred some $18 billion – the bulk of his fortune – to his Open Society Foundations. Chung and Das report that with this move Open Society has vaulted to the top ranks of philanthropic organizations, appearing to become the second largest in the U.S. by assets after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, based on 2014 figures from the National Philanthropic Trust. Conservatives should take particular note of the new structure reported by Chung and Das: Soros now shares influence over the firm’s strategy with an investment committee of Open Society. Mr. Soros set up the committee and is its chairman, but it is meant to survive him, people familiar with it said. A new chief investment officer at the Soros firm is less a trader than an allocator of capital to various internal and external asset managers reported Chung and Das. Unlike past investment chiefs, the official, Dawn Fitzpatrick, doesn’t report to Mr. Soros or others at his firm but to the philanthropy’s investment committee. “It’s an ongoing process of migration from…
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Hankook Tire in Clarksville held a grand opening celebration Tuesday attended by Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-7). The first Hankook plant to open in the U.S. and the eighth worldwide, it is expected to bring 1,800 jobs to the area. The South Korean tire maker broke ground on the facility in 2014, investing $800 million, reports WKRN News 2. The company’s North American headquarters recently moved to downtown Nashville. Haslam has been working to attract more business from Asia. Hankook tire executives and dealers were at the grand opening, as well as Korean Consul General Seong-jin Kim and local government officials. The event included a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The 1.5 million-square-foot facility sits on 469 acres. “This plant is a major boon for the Clarksville area,” Blackburn said on Facebook. Blackburn, whose 7th Congressional District includes the Clarksville area, recently announced that she is running for the U.S. Senate. “I was honored to take part in the ceremony and thank the company’s leadership for bringing their first U.S. plant to Montgomery County,” Blackburn said.
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House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) is calling for state legislative hearings on problems with TNReady scoring. “We have made great strides over the last several years in education, and we must be diligent in ensuring we continue these gains,” Harwell said on Facebook Tuesday. “We know that accountability has been a large part of this improvement. However, the news that nearly 10,000 TNReady tests were scored incorrectly has resulted in educators, parents, and legislators seeking answers. In addition, the amount of testing has also raised questions.” Hawell, who is running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, has asked the House Government Operations Committee to hold the hearings. The scoring issue is the latest in a string of glitches over the past several years with standardized testing in Tennessee public schools. Testing has also come under scrutiny for the amount of time it takes away from instruction, the way student scores are linked to teacher evaluations and for what is viewed as acquiescence to a national large-scale testing apparatus involving for-profit companies selling testing products and services. At the end of this past school year, testing vendor Questar was slow in returning test scores for report cards. Problems with its scanning program are now…
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee – After sitting in the front row throughout Metro Nashville Mayor Megan Barry’s Transit Launch Event Tuesday for the “Let’s Move Nashville Metro’s Transportation Solution,” State Rep. Barry “Boss” Doss (R-Leoma) ran away from The Tennessee Star, avoiding follow-up questions on his sponsorship of the IMPROVE Act, a major portion of which was dedicated to enabling public transit systems like the $5.2 billion “Solution” Barry unveiled. Going off his prepared script to ensure Doss was given special recognition for his role in the passage of the IMPROVE Act, Democratic State Senator from Nashville, Jeff Yarbro, one of the event’s speakers explained, “This legislature’s biggest priority this year was addressing the growing traffic problems in middle Tennessee and across this whole state.” Then, gesturing to acknowledge Doss sitting in the front row, “In order to do that, we really relied on a bipartisan coalition that included people like Barry Doss,” said Yarbro as seen at 11:16 in this video. The IMPROVE Act enabled “local governments” designated as counties, including those with a metropolitan or consolidated form of government, with a population of more than 112,000 or cities with a population of more than 165,000 to implement tax surcharges to fund…
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VERSE OF THE DAY Be blessed and be a blessing October 19, Thursday Psalm 86:9-10 All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord; they will bring glory to your name. 10 For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God. Hebrews 12:28-29 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our “God is a consuming fire.”
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