Day: April 26, 2018

Tennessee General Assembly Passes Immigration Bills That Help Governor Fulfill Campaign Promises to Voters

Chris Alto
Gov. Bill Haslam in 2010 & 2018

Running right up to the last hours of the 110th Tennessee General Assembly, legislators passed two related immigration bills by wide margins that help the Governor fulfill campaign promises he made during his first run for office. In 2009, gubernatorial candidate Bill Haslam told voters that if elected, his top priority was to “mak[e] Tennessee the No.1 state in the Southeast for high quality jobs” and that he would work to protect the “values we all hold dear.” Deterring illegal immigration in Tennessee was a featured part of Haslam’s plan to deliver on these campaign promises: The Green-Reedy anti-sanctuary city bill passed yesterday in the Senate 23 – 5 and in the House 64 – 23, provides clear guidelines for cooperation by state and local law enforcement with federal immigration authorities in identifying and removing criminal aliens which Haslam said he supported during his campaign. Months before he was elected as governor in 2010, Haslam endorsed the action of a newly Republican majority legislature which passed a bill requiring jailers to contact federal immigration authorities once it was determined that an illegal alien had been arrested. The Green-Lamberth bill, also passed yesterday by a wide vote margin, prohibits local jurisdictions from creating…

Read the full story

State Sen. Todd Gardenhire Says ‘It’s Not the White Parents That Show Up to Be with the Kids, It’s Not the African American Parents That Show Up with the Kids’

Chris Alto

During Tuesday’s debate on SB2333 sponsored by State Sen. Mark Green (R-Clarksville) that would prohibit local jurisdictions from creating their own identity card programs, State Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) offered an amendment addressing parent access to schools. The local identity cards, also called municipal IDs, have been made available to illegal aliens in other states to help them access certain public services and appear as if they are lawfully present, While explaining his amendment, Gardenhire, who annually sponsors a bill to award in-state tuition to illegal alien students, disparaged “White and African American” parents who, he said, don’t “show up” to be involved with their children’s schools: In my district we have an enormous amount of Latino students. Let’s just get right down to the chase of it. We have an enormous amount of Latino students and these parents want to be involved. They’re involved more than any other segment of the population are. And if we exclude them because they can’t show some ID and get into the building and participate, we’re doing the students and the teachers and the principals a disservice. You can watch and hear Gardenhire make these comments at the 5:41:57 mark of this video of the debate…

Read the full story

Williamson County Election Commission Refers Two Cases of Alleged Democrat Vote Fraud to the District Attorney

Admin

The Williamson County Election Commission has referred materials related to an investigation into a report that seemed to show at least two Democrats – both of whom are currently running for elected office – voted in the Republican primary to the District Attorney for further investigation and possible prosecution. State law requires that in order to vote in a party primary, the voter must be a “bona fide member” of that party or “declare allegiance to the political party.” “It is unlikely that a current Democratic candidate for office would meet either of those requirements,” the Williamson Country Republican Party said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon. The Party’s Chair, Debbie Deaver added, “It appears likely two Democratic candidates for office have committed voter fraud, so I’m pleased to see the Election Commission refer this very serious matter to the District Attorney’s office.” The statement continues: Since the beginning of early voting through Tuesday, April 24, 2018, a total of 651 people who voted in the March 2016 Democratic presidential preference primary have cast early voting ballots in the current May 2018 Williamson County primary elections. Of those 651 people who voted in the 2016 Democratic primary, 344 of them…

Read the full story

How Colleges Are Ripping Off a Generation of Ill-Prepared Students

Admin
Siena College

by Walter E. Williams   Earlier this month, the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, aka the nation’s “report card,” was released. It’s not a pretty story. Only 37 percent of 12th-graders tested proficient or better in reading, and only 25 percent did so in math. Among black students, only 17 percent tested proficient or better in reading, and just 7 percent reached at least a proficient level in math. The atrocious National Assessment of Educational Progress performance is only a fraction of the bad news. Nationally, our high school graduation rate is over 80 percent. That means high school diplomas, which attest that these students can read and compute at a 12th-grade level, are conferred when 63 percent are not proficient in reading and 75 percent are not proficient in math. For blacks, the news is worse. Roughly 75 percent of black students received high school diplomas attesting that they could read and compute at the 12th-grade level. However, 83 percent could not read at that level, and 93 percent could not do math at that level. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out…

Read the full story

Fired FBI Chief James Comey’s New Lawyer Is in Hot Water Over the Nassar Rape Investigation

Admin
Tennessee Star

by Robert Donachie   Former FBI Director James Comey hired the lawyer who represented Michigan State University in its investigation into shamed sports doctor Larry Nassar to join his legal team. Comey hired Patrick Fitzgerald, former U.S. attorney, in May 2017, Talking Points Memo first reported Tuesday afternoon. Fitzgerald’s name was floated as a possible Comey attorney during the former FBI director’s testimony on Capitol Hill in the Summer of 2017, which Tuesday’s report now corroborates. Fitzgerald and Comey have been “close friends” for over three decades. The pair cut their teeth together in the 1980s in the Southern District of New York’s U.S. Attorney’s Office and knew each other before that. Comey’s child even has the honor of calling Fitzgerald “godfather.” While Fitzgerald is known for winning big, national cases — like prosecutions of now-pardoned “Scooter” Libby, Abdel Rahman, and other terrorists, including Osama bin Laden — he is best known in recent years for his representation of Michigan State while it investigated Nassar, a man who was convicted this year of molesting over 150 young women while he was a doctor at the university and for the national gymnastics team. The attorneys who represented Nassar’s victims in the case believe Fitzgerald used his…

Read the full story

Senators Introduce Bill Regulating Facebook, Google And Other Big Tech Companies That Collect Personal Data

Admin

by Eric Lieberman   Two senators from either side of the political aisle introduced legislation Tuesday that would force companies like Google and Facebook to further disclose what they are doing with people’s data. Known as the Social Media Privacy Protection and Consumer Right Act, the bill’s authors are Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana. It’s official proposal comes only weeks after many lawmakers threatened some kind of ambiguous oversight during hearings involving Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Specifically, the bill would require terms of service agreements to be in plain language — presumably referring to the lengthy legalese often but not always used — and for platforms to grant users greater access and control over the personal information collected within an app or other embedded features and offerings. “Every day, companies profit off of the data they’re collecting from Americans yet leave consumers completely in the dark about how their personal information, online behavior, and private messages are being used,” Klobuchar said in said in a statement on the same day of the legislation’s introduction. “I don’t want to hurt Facebook, and I don’t want to regulate them half to death, either,” Senator Kennedy said. “But I have a…

Read the full story

Commentary: #NeverTrumpers Cling to Hope President Trump Will Fall on His Face Ahead of 2020

Admin
President Trump rally

by Jeffery Rendall   Many Americans see Election Day this year as their first opportunity to officially weigh-in on the merits of President Donald Trump’s initial two years in office. Some can’t wait to (hopefully) send him reinforcements through backing good conservative Republican candidates; others are itching to vote for any available Democrat to “resist” and “send a message” of their displeasure with the chief executive. Then there are those who are looking past November even now, peering into a foggy uncertain future. Do #NeverTrumpers see an opportunity ahead after the midterms? In a piece titled “November 7, 2018”, #NeverTrumper Bill Kristol wrote at The Weekly Standard, “The focus on Trump’s base obscures this ambivalence among Republicans. Those reluctant or ambivalent Trump supporters are the key to the Republican future. They may stick with Trump going forward. Or they may not. Add to them the 15 or 20 percent of Republicans who don’t approve of Trump and you would have a majority of the party feeling queasy about a second term for the president. “Much will depend, obviously, on how the Trump presidency is faring, what the real-world results look like, what Robert Mueller finds, who steps forward to challenge Trump, and many…

Read the full story

GILL: The Supreme Court’s Liberal Justices’ Narrative-Driven Questions About President Trump’s ‘Travel Ban’ Shows a Split From American People

Admin
SCOTUS

On Wednesday’s Gill Report, broadcast live on WETR 92.3 FM in Knoxville, conservative political commentator and Tennessee Star contributor Steve Gill discussed the blatant politicizing of the questions by the liberal Supreme Court Justices during oral arguments Wednesday over President Trump’s ‘extreme vetting’ national security protocols, and why every voter should be paying close attention. “The Supreme Court today – the US Supreme Court – was dealing with the ‘Trump Travel Ban.’ Sometimes wrongly portrayed as a Muslim Travel Ban, even though you’ve got countries like Venezuela and others that are not Muslim countries, included in the countries that are recieving more vetting to make sure that dangerous people don’t come into our country. People we don’t know who they are or what they are here for.” Gill said. He continued: The Supreme Court today – the US Supreme Court – was dealing with the ‘Trump Travel Ban.’ Sometimes wrongly portrayed as a Muslim Travel Ban, even though you’ve got countries like Venezuela and others that are not Muslim countries, included in the countries that are recieving more vetting to make sure that dangerous people don’t come into our country. People we don’t know who they are or what they are here for. Well, the President got…

Read the full story

Diane Black Challenges Memphis Regional Megasite

Jason M. Reynolds

Diane Black is taking on a sprawling West Tennessee industrial site that includes a 35-mile-long wastewater pipeline. The Republican gubernatorial candidate blasted the Memphis Regional Megasite in an op-ed that appeared in the April 25 Commercial Appeal. The state government has left West Tennessee “behind” through neglect, she wrote. “Infrastructure is a big part of that,” Black wrote. “It is hugely important both to Memphis and to rural West Tennessee. I’ve spoken with representatives from the Trump Administration and my congressional colleagues about finishing I-69 and I-22. These projects are almost complete, they simply require a governor committed to getting it done. “I will continue to work with the President and Vice President to make sure West Tennessee gets the federal infrastructure dollars it needs to complete road projects and bring broadband to rural counties.” The megasite consists of 4,100 acres of industrial real estate, according to the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development website. Black calls the megasite a “boondoggle” 13 years in the making that has cost $140 million and needs an additional $100 million and still is a few years from having completed infrastructure. The wastewater pipeline will cost at least $75 million, she said, and some estimate the…

Read the full story

Exclusive: Conservative Lawmakers’ Blueprint Would Trim Nondefense Spending, Balance Budget in 8 Years

Admin

by Rachel del Guidice   House conservatives propose to cut nondefense spending and balance the federal budget within eight years in a blueprint released Wednesday. The document produced by the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of GOP lawmakers in the House, includes a long list of policy goals such as repealing Obamacare, restoring power to states, making tax cuts “permanent,” reforming welfare programs, and “saving” Social Security and Medicare. The 169-page blueprint, called “A Framework for Unified Conservatism,” proposes to cut government spending by more than $12.4 trillion over the next 10 years, compared with current law. “I am very hopeful, when it comes to the legitimacy of this, if we are ever going to talk about the expectation of the federal government to live within its means, here’s the framework, this is the blueprint,” Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., chairman of the 150-member caucus, said Tuesday during a press briefing. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] “I don’t believe for one second that everything can be immediately instituted,” Walker told reporters, but “our job … is to put together some kind of blueprint, the framework…

Read the full story

Chappaquiddick Film Goes Deeper Than Politics

Admin
Chappaquiddick movie

by Ray Nothstine   It was nearly 50 years ago that an infamous incident finished off the hopes of returning another Kennedy brother to the White House. A film about “Chappaquiddick,” released this month, offers more than a historical retrospective. It reminds us of important truths that lay beneath the tumultuous world of political intrigue. The movie revisits the details: The late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy drove his car off the Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, resulting in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28-year-old political consultant who had worked on Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Kopechne drowned – or, in the opinion of the diver who recovered her body, probably was trapped in an air pocket in the shallow water and later suffocated. In fact, there is a line in the film where the diver suggests he might have saved her if he had been notified in time. Kennedy, of course, escaped the car but did not report his involvement to authorities until after the scene was discovered by police 10 hours later. Over the decades since, plenty has been said particularly on the political right, about Kennedy’s direct involvement in the abandonment and death of Kopechne. Much of it…

Read the full story

Bezos-Owned Washington Post Omits Amazon’s Questionable Workplace Practices

Admin

By Natalia Castro   “Democracy dies in darkness.” This is the motto the Washington Post proudly proclaims as the guiding principle of their publication; unfortunately, if this is true, the Washington Post is an accomplice in the death of democracy. While pretending the defend journalistic integrity, the Post’s recent silence on issues regarding their parent company, Amazon, shed light on the real intentions behind their reporting. Amazon has been under fire for workforce abuse. James Bloodworth, an English writer, went undercover for six months working low wage jobs in the United Kingdom. One of this first jobs, as an Amon warehouse worker, a job he compared to a prison sentence. Bloodworth explained to Business Insider, “I’ve worked in warehouses before, but this was nothing like I had experienced. You don’t have proper breaks — by the time you get to the canteen, you only have 15 or 20 minutes for lunch, in a 10-1/2-hour working day. You don’t have time to eat properly to get a drink.” Alleging unfeasible productivity targets and strict oversight, Bloodworth explained that Amazon workers felt so much pressure to avoid bathroom breaks, they would routinely urinate in plastic bottles to avoid punishment. Bloodworth’s discoveries have only…

Read the full story

Report: The Endangered Species Act Doesn’t Work Because It Hammers Landowners With Draconian Regs

Admin

by Tim Pearce   The Endangered Species Act (ESA) may protect nearly every listed species from extinction, but the law’s recovery rate for threatened and endangered populations is dismal, so far. The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) released a report Wednesday pointing out a severe shortfall of the ESA: only two percent of species listed under the law have been officially removed from the list as “recovered.” An April 16 study by The Heritage Foundation concluded the real recovery rate is closer to one percent. Proponents of the ESA, however, credit the law for keeping 99 percent of listed species from dying out, though that stat is based on the flawed assumption every listed species would go extinct without federal protection. Still, the ESA is much better at preventing an ailing species from getting worse rather than encouraging its growth. “Few species protected by [the ESA] have gone extinct. That’s reason for celebration,” PERC fellow Jonathan Wood, who authored the Wednesday report, wrote. “But … we want endangered species to recover as well. Achieving that goal, without sacrificing the law’s success at preventing extinction, requires reform that aligns the incentives of private landowners with the interests of rare species while maintaining regulatory protections for endangered species.”…

Read the full story

Tennessee General Assembly Passes Aggressive Anti-Sanctuary City Bill

Chris Alto
State Sen Mark Green w State Rep Jay Reedy

Repeated efforts by House members to derail the anti-sanctuary city bill were unable to stop it from passing on a 64 – 23 vote. Bill sponsor Rep. Jay Reedy carefully explained that sanctuary policies are intended to obstruct cooperation with federal immigration authorities and that these policies protect people who have been arrested for committing a crime under Tennessee law and are then discovered to also be wanted by ICE. Reedy’s explanation did not stop Rep. Patsy Hazlewood from trying to persuade her colleagues not to support the bill. Hazlewood will have a Democrat challenger in the general election. Democrats in both the House and Senate spoke to wanting stronger laws to stop illegal aliens from working in Tennessee. Caucus Chairman Rep. Mike Stewart introduced an amendment that would criminalize employing illegal aliens and make it a Class E felony. In 2011, however, the U.S. Supreme Court held that states could only impose sanctions on employers through measures like revoking business licenses. Rep. Reedy invited Stewart to work with him next session on strengthening the state’s E-verify statute. Sen. Mark Green passed the Senate companion bill SB 2332, with a solid 23 -5 vote. “We’ve seen time and again that…

Read the full story