We’ve only just begun the fourth month of 2018, but already there have been more than a handful of worthy and right-leaning pictures that have made their way to the theaters. This is despite the fact that Hollywood’s become more and more aggressively leftist.
Read the full story
Former Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain announced late Monday afternoon she is a candidate for Mayor of Nashville in the upcoming special election to name a new mayor to serve the balance of former Mayor Megan Barry’s term, which ends in August 2019. In a statement, Swain said she “secured the necessary petition to become a candidate this morning, obtained more than the 25 signatures required to become an official candidate, and filed the petition this afternoon, which will qualify her to appear on the special election ballot.” That date is currently set for August 2, but the Tennessee Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a legal challenge next Monday that could set the election date earlier, either on May 1 or May 26. “The reason I’m running is that Nashville needs a choice between two different visions for the city. I believe the city is headed in the wrong direction, like many large cities headed by Democratic mayors,” Swain said in the statement, adding: “Nashville is currently following the ‘tax-and-spend’ prescription that has resulted in so many of our cities becoming wastelands of poverty, crime, failing schools, and high taxes,” Swain noted in announcing her plans to run…
Read the full story
In a flurry of tweets Sunday, President Trump said he was pulling a DACA deal off the table and demanded Mexico help in deterring illegal border crossers or else he’d nix NAFTA. The president fumed over Senate Democrats blocking his immigration agenda and funds for a border wall, calling for Republicans to end the filibuster rule…
Read the full story
Former Vanderbilt professor Carol Swain tells The Tennessee Star she is considering a run for Mayor of Nashville in the upcoming special election and will secure the necessary paperwork to start the process today. “On Monday, I will be downtown at Ladies Day on the Hill from 9::30-12: 30 pm. I will pick up the paperwork at 1:00 pm,” Swain says. Swain has until the filing deadline of Thursday at noon to obtain 25 signatures on the filing petition and submit it to Metro Nashville Davidson County government officials qualify for the ballot. The outspoken conservative tells The Star that she will make a final decision on her candidacy between now and Thursday morning as she gathers signatures. “Carol Swain has the consistent conservative credentials and the intellect to be a legitimate candidate for mayor, particularly since she does not fit the mold of a typical Republican candidate,” conservative political commentator and media consultant Steve Gill tells The Star. “She also has the credibility to oppose the transit tax increase since she opposed the gas tax increase that contains a provision which allowed Nashville to hold a vote on this transit issue,” Gill adds. On Saturday, Swain wrote in an…
Read the full story
by Richard J Grant The proposed Nashville mass transit plan is not exactly what we would call a “lean startup.” With an optimistically estimated cost of $9 billion to be spent over the next 15 years, the new transit plan makes the Metro Nashville 2018 budget of only $2.2 billion look lean by comparison. If the transit money were spent evenly over 15 years, that would be $600 million per year of additional spending, a 27% increase over the existing budget. The trouble with the transit plan is that the benefits are leaner than the costs. But it is worse than that. Those who pay for it, the majority, are not the same people who would really benefit, a tiny minority. And of that minority, the biggest beneficiaries would not even be passengers but rather those who would be paid to build, maintain, and rebuild the infrastructure and trains. The $9 billion is just the beginning: every few decades the whole system will have to be refurbished or replaced. We (and our children) will get to pay for it all over again, probably before we have paid off the debt for the first round of expenditures. The cost estimate…
Read the full story
by Carol Swain When it comes to Leftist politics, “The ends justify the means.” You knew it was going to eventually happen in the wake of the Feb. 14 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., which left 17 people dead. Especially when there are emotional, outspoken (and now exploited) teens involved, pretty much on cue, speaking out against the NRA, the Second Amendment, and conservative causes and politicians. By now, you know who and what I’m talking about. The who is David Hogg, 17, a senior at Stoneman Douglas and, apparently, the leader of a handful of activist students there that might be this generation’s Mod Squad. Mod Squad III? With any luck they will soon get their own TV show on CNN or MSNBC. This 2018 Mod Squad, comprised of Hogg et al, serves as leaders of the pack in the newfangled March for Our Lives movement. In the early going at least, March for Our Lives showed itself to be an admirable effort to campaign against school shootings/violence. Quickly, though, it has been remade into just another gadget to be tossed into the Liberal toolbox. The Florida school tragedy is catnip to the…
Read the full story
By Robert Romano The past month has seen President Donald Trump significantly toughening up the U.S. stance on trade, enacting a 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminum and then $60 billion worth of tariffs against China for intellectual property theft and steel dumping. The month was capped off by an announcement that South Korea had agreed to concessions reducing exports of steel to the U.S. and an increase in U.S.-made automobile imports. Just this past week, Congress tucked a renewal of the $21 billion a year General System of Preferences. The program “provide[s] opportunities for many of the world’s poorest countries to use trade to grow their economies…” according to the U.S. Trade Representative website. It does so by giving participating, poor countries a certain amount of duty-free imports to the U.S. Here’s the problem. In 2017, the top recipient was the seventh largest economy in the world, India, at $5.6 billion. The third top recipient was eighth largest economy, Brazil, at $2.5 billion. If these are two of the larger economies in the world, why do they still qualify for the General System of Preferences as being exclusive for the “world’s poorest countries”? The answer is they really shouldn’t.…
Read the full story
by Joseph Sunde As protestors continue to boldly decry “corporate greed” with little definition or discernment, progressive policymakers are just as quick to push a range of wage controls and market manipulations to mitigate the supposed vices of free and open exchange. The painful irony, of course, is that the victims of such policies are not the fat-cat cronyists at the top, but the scrappy challengers at the bottom. We’ve seen it with the recent embrace of the $15 minimum wage, which continues to cripple and dismantle small businesses wherever it’s found, from Seattle to Minneapolis to California to New York. But while the wars over wages tend to be the loudest and most prominent, we mustn’t forget the pains and misfortunes due to plain-old regulatory excess, subtle and unexciting though it may be. In the restaurant industry, for example, food trucks have posed a healthy challenge to the status quo, rattling entrenched corporate interests, diminishing barriers to entry, and expanding opportunities for aspiring restaurateurs of all backgrounds. But alas, such opportunities are beginning to disappear in many cities across the country, leaving many struggling beneath the weight of a growing pile of rules and regulations. In Food Truck Nation, a new study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation,…
Read the full story
by Walter Olson A judge in Los Angeles ruled Wednesday that Starbuck’s, Peet’s, and many other retailers face potentially massive liability under California law for not warning consumers that naturally occurring substances in roasted coffee beans can cause cancer, at least in lab animals. Absurd? Outrageous? Yes. But the scorn and outrage should be directed not at the judge but at the law whose terms he was required to enforce – Proposition 65, adopted by state voters through the initiative process in 1986 – as well as the lawyer-swayed California political system that still, more than 30 years later, is unwilling to address the measure’s gross flaws. Almost everyone agrees that the over-proliferation of warnings makes it less likely that consumers will pay attention to real concerns. Acrylamide is a naturally occurring substance formed when many foods are browned or otherwise subjected to high heat, including in many cases grilled burgers, fried chicken, bread, almonds, and potato chips. Like many other constituents of everyday life, it appears to cause cancer in some animals at high dosages. And that brings it under the terms of Prop 65, which has already led to a proliferation of warnings on and around thousands of common…
Read the full story
US retail behemoth Walmart is in preliminary talks to acquire health insurer Humana, the Wall Street Journal reported, the latest in the recent wave of health care mergers. The terms of the possible deal were not clear and there is no guarantee an agreement would be reached, the newspaper reported late Thursday.
Read the full story
President Trump blasted California Gov. Jerry Brown Saturday for pardoning five illegal immigrants who are facing possible deportation. “Governor Jerry ‘Moonbeam’ Brown pardoned 5 criminal illegal aliens whose crimes include (1) Kidnapping and Robbery (2) Badly beating wife and threatening a crime with intent to terrorize (3) Dealing drugs. Is this really what the great people of California want? @FoxNews,” Mr. Trump tweeted.
Read the full story
George Washington University is offering a free training session to students and faculty who want to learn about their “Christian privilege.” The session will teach students and faculty that Christians “receive unmerited perks from institutions and systems all across our country” and “experience life in an easier way than non-Christians,” according to the university website.
Read the full story
It has been 20 years since Viagra was introduced, and Pfizer is still searching for another drug with as much earning power as the revolutionary blue erection pill. If anything, the chances for another miracle drug may be waning as the pharmaceutical giant constrains its research and development budget amid broader cost-cutting efforts.
Read the full story
Amid an 18-month-long court fight, a federal judge recently ruled that a lawsuit accusing Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey of improperly tightening the state’s strict assault-style weapons ban on her own can move forward.
Read the full story
by Rachel del Guidice Fast-food icon McDonald’s will supersize its 3-year-old education benefits program for hundreds of thousands of employees. McDonald’s Corp. will allocate $150 million over five years to its global Archways to Opportunity education program, tripling its reach, the restaurant giant announced Thursday. “This investment will provide almost 400,000 U.S. restaurant employees with accessibility to the program as the company will also lower eligibility requirements from nine months to 90 days of employment and drop weekly shift minimums from 20 hours to 15 hours.” McDonald’s is one of 472 companies, and counting, that have announced benefits such as pay raises, bonuses, utility rate cuts, or 401(k) hikes since Congress passed the tax cuts supported by President Donald Trump, according to Americans for Tax Reform. The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more >> Among other changes, the Republican tax overhaul, which went into effect Jan. 1, reduced the federal corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The Archways to Opportunity program gives eligible McDonald’s employees in the U.S. a path to obtain a high school diploma, acquire assistance for college tuition, learn English as a second language, and access education…
Read the full story
Nashville Metro Council Member At-Large Erica Gilmore’s announcement on Wednesday that she is a candidate for Mayor of Nashville in the special mayoral election was greeted with a polite but terse acknowledgement from the campaign of the only other credible candidate currently in the race, Acting Mayor David Briley. “We welcome Councilwoman Gilmore to the race,” was all Hannah Paramore, Briley’s campaign treasurer, had to say about Gilmore in a statement issued after her announcement. Paramore went on to tout Briley’s qualifications for the job he temporarily holds, but wants to make more permanent: In just a few short weeks, David Briley has brought focus to the job of managing the city, tackling challenges and making progress on opportunities that will benefit all of Nashville. He has delivered a steady, guiding hand when it was needed to regain public confidence. David Briley is the right person to lead our city, and I am confident that the widespread support that is rapidly forming behind David will result in his winning the special election.” Briley is considered the front runner in the race, thanks in part to the backing of much of the Nashville business community, and his greater ability to raise money. Few political observers…
Read the full story