Day: January 29, 2018

George Soros Money Funneled to Tennessee Organizations

Chris Alto

The TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and the American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) each received grants from the Proteus Fund, itself a recipient of millions of dollars from the George Soros Open Society Foundations. The grants to the two Tennessee organizations were made through the Proteus “Security & Collaborative Rights” (SCR) initiative. TIRRC received a $40,000 grant: To support TIRRC’s leadership development and civic engagement work with MASA [Muslim, Arab and South Asian] communities. This will include public education on immigrant and refugee policies at the local, state, and federal level and building MASA immigrant civic engagement through naturalization, voter engagement, and policy advocacy. AMAC received a $7,000 grant: Given the recent uptick in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement targeting and detaining Kurdish community members in Tennessee, SRC support will allow AMAC to implement plans to continue to provide a hotline, media outreach, and Know Your Rights seminars for the community. Shireen Zaman is Proteus SCR’s Program Director. Named by the Obama White House as a “Champion of Change, Zaman is also the former Executive Director of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU). With offices in Dearborn, Michigan and Washington, D.C., the ISPU works to promote the interests of…

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Senator Lindsey Graham: We’re Not Going to Build a 1,900-Mile Border Wall

Tennessee Star Staff

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that the $25 billion for a U.S.-Mexico border wall and other infrastructure in President Trump’s immigration proposal can be spent wisely, and that he doesn’t envision constructing a bona fide 1,900-mile wall. Mr. Graham said lawmakers included some $42 billion for border security in a 2013 immigration bill the U.S. Senate passed, so the $25 billion for a border wall and infrastructure in Mr. Trump’s proposal isn’t an “outrageous” number.

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Rail Line Could Make Nashville Budget Sick, Unable To Fund Retiree Insurance

Jason M. Reynolds

Retired Metro Nashville employees’ benefits are in jeopardy, one PAC says, even as Mayor Megan Barry’s supporters have no trouble raising funds from the business community to try to persuade voters to pay $9 billion for a transit system. NoTax4Tracks says in a press release that Metro Nashville has a health insurance funding shortfall for retirees to the tune of nearly $3 billion. “The good news is you are probably going to get whatever is in your pension. That part of the retirement plan is fairly well funded. The bad news is that health insurance coverage you were promised …. maybe not so much.” Health insurance, a part of “other post employment benefits (OPEB), are funded at 0 percent, the press release says, citing an October 2017 letter from Metro’s director of finance, Talia Lomax-O’dneal. The shortfall is nothing new. A Jan. 26, 2015 story from the Tennessean says the issue dates to 2002. Many of the retirement benefits are paid from the city’s budget and costs grew from 13 percent of the total property tax revenue to 25 percent in 2015. The story cites a report from The Pew Charitable Trusts that says the health care plan faces a long-term shortfall…

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Despite Strong National Pro-Life Sentiment, Heartbeat Bill May Be Killed in Tennessee General Assembly Committees

Laura Baigert
Fetus on Health

A recent poll reveals that the majority of Americans consider abortion to be morally wrong and even those who identify as pro-choice want stricter limits on abortion. However, the Heartbeat Bill under consideration in the current session of the Tennessee General Assembly may never make it to the floor for a full vote if it is killed in the committee process. The same bill never made it out of the House Health Subcommittee in 2017, and was rolled to the 2018 calendar. As The Tennessee Star reported, Marist Poll findings released prior to the world’s largest annual pro-life event, March for Life 2018, revealed that 76 percent of Americans, and even 60 percent of those who identify as pro-choice, would “limit abortion to – at most – the first three months of pregnancy.” Tennessee’s most recent pro-life legislation, which passed in 2017 was the “Tennessee Infants Protection Act,” (HB1189 / SB 1180) sponsored by State Rep. Matthew Hill (R-Jonesborough) and Sen. Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald), had 35 House co-sponsors. The bill, signed by the Governor on May 11, 2017, “prohibits abortion of a viable fetus except in a medical emergency and requires testing to determine viability if a woman is at…

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Commentary: We Need a Constitutional Supreme Court, Not a ‘Fair’ Supreme Court

Admin
U.S. Supreme Court

 By Natalia Castro   The Supreme Court was never intended to be fair; it was designed to interpret the constitution. Political parties have no place in the branch of government created only to determine the constitutionality of existing laws. The judicial branch does not write laws nor does it express political opinions, it is a system for interpreting current laws and policies policy and how they would be viewed by the Framers and maintain the legacy they created for this country. It seems some need to be reminded of that. National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty’s claims, “The Supreme Court’s role…with Kennedy as the swing justice, has been to moderate and restrain the ambitions of each party. Kennedy deals out victories and defeats to each side — giving slightly more defeats to social conservatives. In effect, he constrains what each side can do to the other. His mercurial jurisprudence replicates and even gives the savor of legitimacy to a closely divided country.” Dougherty argues that this is the role the Supreme Court should maintain into the future, equally dealing out wins and losses to each political party, ensuring each side’s constitutional legitimacy, essentially making the Court a purposefully bipartisan enterprise because…

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New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio Admits He Wants To Kill the Oil Industry With Global Warming Lawsuit

Tennessee Star Staff

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said his administration’s recent divestment action and lawsuit were meant to “help bring the death knell” to the the oil industry. But de Blasio’s remarks on killing off the oil industry directly contradict New York City’s statements to the court, filed in their lawsuit against five major oil companies.

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Poll: Blackburn Leads Bredesen by 11 in Tennessee U.S. Senate General Election Matchup, 50 to 39

Tennessee Star Staff

A new Tennessee Star Poll released on Monday shows that Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07) leads former Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, in a head-to-head general election matchup for the Tennessee U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) by 11 points, 50 percent to 39 percent. The same poll shows that Bredesen leads former Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN-08) by 3 points, 41 percent to 38 percent in a head-to-head matchup, within the poll’s margin of error. The automated (IVR) telephone survey of 1,003 likely Tennessee voters in the November 2018 general election was conducted for The Tennessee Star by Triton Research between January 21 and January 24 and has a 3.1 percent margin of error. Forty-six percent of poll respondents were Republicans, 25 percent were Democrats, and 27 percent were Independents. “With Bredesen having served as a two term governor, he has a strong residual of name recognition across the state that currently gives him a slight advantage over Blackburn who is less well known outside of Middle Tennessee,” conservative political commentator and media consultant Steve Gill says. “In East Tennessee, for example, a strong base of Republican voters will almost certainly help her move more of the…

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