Republican negotiators on Wednesday said they’ve managed to strike a deal on a $1.4 trillion tax-cut package and that they’ll be prepared to send it to President Trump’s desk next week. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch told reporters that House and Senate lawmakers working to reconcile the two chambers’ versions have reached an agreement.
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No role better served Chuck Norris’ legendary status in pop culture than that of Texas Ranger Cordell Walker on “Walker, Texas Ranger.” With 196 episodes aired over the course of nine seasons from 1993 to 2001, “Walker” was essentially a modern-day western, a traditional piece of television programming with positive messaging and conservative values peppered throughout.
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Republican gubernatorial candidate Rep. Diane Black (R-TN-06) received an early Christmas present in the form of a donation from Vice President Mike Pence’s leadership PAC, Great American Committee, the campaign announced in a statement on Tuesday. Black tweeted her appreciation for the support later that afternoon: Thanks to my friend @VP Mike Pence for donating to my campaign! Proud to work with you and @realDonaldTrump to make America great again! https://t.co/YzGqbq4N9b — Diane Black (@DianeBlackTN) December 13, 2017 Along with the donation was a letter of encouragement from Mr. Pence. “President Donald Trump and I are grateful for your steadfast support, your principled leadership, and your strong stand with our administration. It’s remarkable to think about everything we’ve accomplished in partnership with leaders like you,” it begins. The letter continues on Great America Committee letterhead: We’re keeping our promise to Make America Prosperous Again. We’ve slashed regulations at a record pace, unleashed American energy, and laid the groundwork for historic tax cuts, infrastructure reform, and more. Noe the American economy is roaring once again. And to Make America Safe Again, our administration is rebuilding our military, supporting out veterans, standing with the men and women of law enforcement, and restoring the credibility…
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Pilot Flying J owner Jimmy Haslam broke his silence Friday to separate himself and the company from former president Mark Hazelwood, when the presiding judge in the ongoing, $92 million fuel rebate scam case described a previously sealed recording of Hazelwood as “vile, despicable, inflammatory” and “beyond the pale.” “I’m actually glad you brought that up,” Haslam told FOX News 8 during a news conference regarding the hiring of a new general manager for the winless Cleveland Browns. After establishing it was inappropriate to discuss the ongoing legal matter, he made an exception in this case saying Thursday’s revelations in court justify comment. Haslam said: “First, none of those individuals work for us anymore. No one who works for our company now was at that event [where Hazelwood was recorded]. That’s not how we act or do things. And those kind of remarks are intolerable.” The FOX News 8 reporter followed up asking Haslam about the company footing the hefty legal expenses for the former executives now on trial. Haslam replied, “without getting into too much detail, it’s traditional when employees of a company are sued or have a legal problem, until those employees plead guilty or are found guilty, the company pays…
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The role of state tests should always be to supplement other feedback loops that teachers, parents, and districts use to get a more complete picture of a student’s development, including classroom performance, report cards, portfolios, performances, and other ways students show their development. State tests are not meant to be the sole driver of instructional decisions. The information from an assessment should provide educators, parents, and students with a better perspective on how the students are succeeding academically compared to their peers across Tennessee.
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A coffee shop owner gave college Republicans five minutes to get out of the shop because of their MAGA hats, according to a Friday video. The unnamed owner of Rodrigue’s Coffee at Fordham University in New York kicked the college Republicans out because the MAGA hats allegedly violated the shop’s “safe space policy,” reported Campus Reform.
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Last week, Tennessee’s former Governor Phil Bredesen announced that he would run for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by retiring Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) in the 2018 election. Even though Bredesen is a Democrat and Corker is a Republican, both disfavor President Trump, both have no aversion to raising taxes, and both are okay with diverting transportation money for non-roadway projects. By the time Bredesen left the governor’s office in 2009 after eight years in the job, several tax increases had been put on cigarettes and certain managed care companies. Other revenues were raised in the form of fee increases. Corker proposed raising the federal fuel tax in 2014. Congress hasn’t raised the federal gas tax since 1993, and in 1998, over $8 billion was diverted from the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) to the general fund. This was before Corker’s time, but he still pushed his gas tax increase without tackling the diversion of HTF money for non-highway projects: A Government Accountability Office report found that 32% of the HTF didn’t go toward highway or bridge construction and upkeep from fiscal 2004-08. That rose to 38% in 2009, according to an analysis by Ron Utt, senior research fellow at the…
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Tennessee politicians are facing harsh criticism after The Beacon Center released Tennessee’s 2017 “Pork Report.” The report lists multiple examples of government officials using taxpayer dollars to give handouts to politically-connected industries and businesses. The pork added up to a staggering $400 million in taxpayer dollars in a single year. With many options for the 2017 “Pork of the Year,” the Beacon Center allowed a popular vote to decide the winner, as The Tennessee Star reported. Coming in first place with 34 percent of the vote was the Tennessee Department of Economic & Community Development for their Industrial Machinery Tax Credit. This credit costs $67 million per year, but accomplishes almost nothing for Tennessee taxpayers. Pitched as a way to help create jobs, the Industrial Machinery Tax Credit has only managed to create 55 jobs, which means that taxpayers are spending $1.2 Million for each job created by the credit. The Beacon Center described the credit in this way: While we believe corporate welfare is antithetical to capitalism, this example is insulting to every single taxpayer in the state. This handout to big business shows how little the government actually knows about the effectiveness of the “incentive packages” it doles out and should…
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee – As the historic Cordell Hull Building renovations are nearing completion and legislators and staff are moving their offices from the War Memorial Building/Legislative Plaza, so, too, is the public starting to make their way to visit and tour the new home to the Tennessee General Assembly, where they may be surprised to discover new additions that lock the public out of the legislative process. The more than 300,000 square foot 11-story building constructed between 1952 and 1954 in the art deco architectural style, after nearly being demolished, underwent a top to bottom renovation approved in 2015 at a cost of $136 million, as a less expensive alternative to renovating the General Assembly’s four decades long home of the War Memorial Building/Legislative Plaza. Three floors of the Cordell Hull Building are occupied by legislators, with Senators taking up one and Representatives taking up two floors. The speaker of each house has a suite on their respective floor. State administrative offices, including Department of Treasury occupies some of the space. Legislators are now all treated to individual offices, none of them being shared as in their previous location, and all being positioned on an outside wall, allowing for…
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by Mark West “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” I Corinthians 13:11 If you have a child you can clearly identify childish behavior. It’s not pretty. But you understand and tolerate such behavior because you know that as that child matures, and he learns from instruction, his tantrums, pettiness, selfishness, and other childish behavior will become less and less prominent. And as he grows into adulthood, he will likely become well adjusted. He will respect others. He will learn that to achieve his goals, he must often help others achieve theirs. And ultimately, he puts away childish behavior. I was present at the inception of the Tea Party movement, having founded the Chattanooga Tea Party in April 2009. It wasn’t my first rodeo, but the challenge of organizing and leading a grassroots movement was new. So I came of age, so to speak, with this movement. And I met a lot of wonderful people. Many of those people are dear friends today. Those who joined the movement were ordinary Americans who simply loved their communities and nation, and were worried that…
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The memorandum of understanding signed by former Tennessee athletic director John Currie and would-be head coach Greg Schiano on Nov. 26 lacked the signatures of Chief Financial Officer David Miller and Chancellor Beverly Davenport, therefore, making it a non-binding document, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel. The University of Tennessee released the MOU to the newspaper…
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Liberal Democrat Doug Jones narrowly defeated conservative Republican Roy Moore in the U.S. Senate special election in Alabama on Tuesday by 1.5 percent, 49.9 percent to 48.4 percent, with 100 percent of the state’s precincts reporting. The 1.5 percent margin of victory for Jones was well above the five tenths of one percent margin which kicks in an automatic recount under Alabama law. In terms of raw vote total, Jones received 671,151 votes, about 20,000 votes greater than the 650,436 votes cast for Moore. Write-in candidate Lee Busby received 22,819 votes, or 1.7 percent of the vote. Jones will now serve the remaining two years of former Sen. Jeff Sessions’ (R-AL) six year term. Sessions resigned his Senate seat when he was appointed Attorney General by President Trump. Jones’ victory lessens the already tight Republican majority in the Senate to 51 to 49 from its previous 52 to 48. “From the White House, Trump graciously tweeted his congratulations to Jones “on a hard-fought victory” — but added pointedly that ‘the Republicans will have another shot at this seat in a very short period of time. It never ends!’,” the Associated Press reported late Tuesday night. Politico attributed the Jones victory…
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