Bitcoin fever has hit the US real estate market, especially that of Florida, offering foreign investors a way to dodge currency controls at home and US economic sanctions. As of the end of last year, the digital currency was listed as a way to pay for some 75 properties for sale, especially in south Florida and California, according to the real estate firm Redfin.
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Car makers appealed to Americans’ deep love of SUVs and trucks on Monday at the Detroit Auto Show, unveiling a host of choices from luxurious to utilitarian, while also beefing up the humble sedan. From European car makers to American icons, there were dozens of new offerings for the North American market.
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Ford will increase its investment in electrification, planning to spend $11 billion by 2022 to create hybrid and all-electric versions of its vehicles, the company announced Sunday at the Detroit Auto Show. Ford executive James Farley said the increased expenditure essentially doubles and extends Ford’s previous $4.5 billion investment in electrification until 2020.
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A diamond thought to be the fifth largest of gem quality ever found has been discovered in Lesotho, miner Gem Diamonds said Monday, and could be worth as much as $40 million. The company unearthed the D-colour stone at the Letseng mine in the landlocked southern African country and described the 910-carat find as of “exceptional quality”.
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Religious groups are planning more than the annual holiday celebrations that note the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. this year. The holiday honoring the Baptist civil rights leader falls on his actual birthday — Jan. 15, 1929. But King also will be remembered in the spring, five decades after his April 4 assassination in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky, a Republican, announced in a news conference on Friday that Kentucky Medicaid recipients will have to either work or be in a jobs training program to continue receiving benefits. Bevin’s announcement comes just days after the Trump administration said it will allow states to impose work requirements for Medicaid recipients, as Fox News reported: “Our policy guidance was in response to states that asked us for the flexibility they need to improve their programs and to help people in achieving greater well-being and self-sufficiency,” Verma said, noting the agency has received demonstration project proposals from 10 states: Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin. The test programs, according to CMS, could make work, “skills training, education, job search, volunteering or caregiving” a requirement for Medicaid for “able-bodied, working-age adults.” It would not apply to those getting benefits due to a “disability, elderly beneficiaries, children, and pregnant women.” Kentucky’s new work requirements mandate that able-bodied adult recipients participate in at least 80 hours of “employment activities,” (jobs training, education and community service) each month. “Kentucky’s waiver, submitted for federal approval in 2016, requires able-bodied adult recipients to participate in at least 80 hours a month of “employment activities,”…
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After Utah Senator Orrin announced his retirement in early January, rumors swirled about former Governor of Massachusetts and former 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney making a bid for the seat. On Sunday, Romney reportedly texted a top Utah businessman a very blunt response. “I’m running,” Romney wrote in a text to Utah top businessman Kem Gardner.
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Chelsea Manning, the transgender Maryland woman convicted of sharing thousands of military documents with WikiLeaks, has filed to run for Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin seat in this year’s election. Manning declared her intentions Jan. 5 with the Federal Election Commission, which posted the document on its website Thursday. She is running as a Democrat.
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By Printus LeBlanc A slew of recent reports painted an unflattering picture of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). These are the latest in a long line of suspect actions by the unconstitutional agency. It is time to do something about Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) pet agency. In December, the New York Times reported on a group of CFPB employees using encrypted messaging applications, such as WhatsApp and Signal, to communicate amongst one another on their government-issued phones. The group calls themselves “Dumbledore’s Army.” The group is using the apps to avoid creating official records of what they are doing, and according to the article, they have the goal of undermining the orders of the newly appointed Director Mick Mulvaney. This is problematic for two reasons: Actively disobeying orders to undermine your boss’s lawful order is a violation of the federal employee oath of office. Disobeying lawful orders fails to faithfully discharge the duties of the office. If the group is conducting work business with the apps, it is a violation of the Federal Records Act. The act requires all federal agencies to preserve the records of anything that relates to a government employee’s duties. Those using the apps…
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WGNS radio in Murfreesboro hosted a listener-run debate between former State Rep. Joe Carr (R-Lascassas) and Murfreesboro businessman Shane Reeves on Friday. The two men are competing for the Republican nomination in the special election primary for the 14th State Senate District scheduled for next Thursday, January 25. The seat opened up in November when former State Senator Jim Tracy (R-Shelbyville) resigned in November to take a job with the Trump administration’s Department of Agriculture. Radio host Bart Walker laid out the ground rules for the debate, stating that all of the questions would be provided by the listeners, either via text or phone call, and that the candidates were not required to speak on every issue. “If you think to yourself, ‘Man, I just don’t want to answer that question,’ just be quiet. You don’t have to say a thing,” he said. One of the first questions, submitted by a listener via text, dealt with the gubernatorial race: “Who are you supporting for Governor?” Joe Carr answered first, and said he is supporting Mae Beavers for Tennessee’s next top executive. After Reeves did not offer an answer, moderator Walker began to ask the next question, but Carr interrupted, saying “Well…
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Jake Tapper of CNN allowed Ohio Gov. John Kasich to claim without challenge on Friday that agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency are deporting “thousands” of so-called dreamers under President Donald Trump. Tapper had the “NeverTrump” Republican on his Friday afternoon show, CNN’s “The Lead,” when Kasich made the claim.
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Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) insisted Sunday that President Donald Trump did not refer to Haiti and some African nations as “s***hole countries” — and they blasted Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) for his “history of misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings.”
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DACA is back up and running, Homeland Security announced this weekend, saying President Trump’s attempt to phase out the Obama-era deportation amnesty is on hold while they fight a court case that ordered them to begin accepting applications again.
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President Donald Trump suggested last week that lawmakers bring back “earmarks,” a practice that for centuries helped transform Washington into a “swamp” riddled special interests, out-of-control spending and unaccountability. “Maybe all of you should start thinking about going back to a form of earmarks,” Trump said Tuesday to a group of Republican and Democratic congressman gathered…
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The war of words is heating up between former State Rep. Joe Carr (R-Lascassas) and Murfreesboro businessman Shane Reeves in their battle for the GOP nomination for the 14th District State Senate seat vacated by former State Senator Jim Tracy(R-Shelbyville) late last year. Thus far however, there is no sign that the fiery rhetoric is translating to turnout in early voting. Early voting began on January 5 and runs through January 20, 2018. Primary Election day is January 25th with the primary winner advancing to the March 13, 2018 Special General Election. The first week of early voting (with the January 12 snow and ice storm closing polling locations early) have only produced 1,432 total votes in the Republican primary election in the five counties involved: Bedford, Lincoln, Marshall, Moore and Rutherford. Only 190 votes have been cast in the Democratic Primary, where Gayle Jordan is the sole candidate. The icy conditions on January 12 have raised increased concerns among both political camps that similar conditions on Election Day mean locking in votes during the early voting period is even more crucial. In 2011, State Senator Kerry Roberts won a Special Election to fill the vacancy created after then-State Senator Diane…
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