Day: May 29, 2018

Missouri’s Governor Eric Greitens Resigns Amid Impeachment Firestorm

Admin

Facing impeachment my his legislature for legally questionable behavior involving an extra-marital affair, Missouri Governor Eric Greitens resigned Tuesday afternoon in a live press conference. Local NewsChannel5 KSDK broadcast the Governors remarks via Facebook Live: The announcement was brief. Greitens entered the room through a door at the front of the room in suit coat and open collar, stepped up to the podium and said: Good afternoon. Today, I am announcing I will resign as Governor of Missouri effective Friday, June 1st, at 5pm. I came to office to fight for the people of Missouri. To fight for the forgotten. I love Missouri, and I love our people. That love remains. I am thankful to all those who have worked beside me, sweated beside me, those who gave their time, their energy, and their precious resources so that we could pursue our mission of taking Missouri in a new and better direction. We have accomplished a lot together. I am proud of you, and I am proud of all of our work. The last few months have been incredibly difficult for me, for my family, for my team, for my friends, and for many, many people that I love. This ordeal has…

Read the full story

State Rep. Courtney Rogers Speaks About Her Father, Killed in Vietnam, At Sumner County Memorial Day Service

Laura Baigert
Courtney Rogers

GALLATIN, Tennessee – The Memorial Day ceremony held at Sumner County Veterans Park featured Rep. Courtney Rogers (R-Goodlettsville), a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel and Tennessee Air National Guard member, as the keynote speaker during its midday event sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) Chapter 240 and Associates of Vietnam Veterans. A few days prior, Rep. Rogers sent a personal email message about the Memorial Day event, to which she was invited to tell the story about her father. It was the first time she was able to tell as much of his story, her email stated, only recently learning more, as she reminded her supporters that her father flew HMX-1, also known as Marine I, for three U.S. Presidents and was later killed in Vietnam. Among the several hundred attendees, many of whom were military veterans, a number mentioned that it was Rogers’ email that inspired them to come out to the event despite the heat, humidity and threat of rain. The welcome was delivered by VVA Chapter 240 President Dave Peterson, followed by an opening prayer from the Chaplin.  The National Anthem, sung by Gold Star mother Cathy Mullin, followed the Presentation of Colors.  Recognition of…

Read the full story

Corker Says He Will Attend Trump Rally and Blackburn Fundraiser in Nashville Today

John Bryant
President Trump. Marsha Blackburn, Bob Corker

A tweet  from CNN’s Elizabeth Landers indicates that Bob Corker will accompany President Trump tonight as he visits Nashville to stump for GOP Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn, including attending a rally for her. A spokeswoman for @BobCorker confirms that he will greet @potus at the airport in Nashville tonight- and will attend the rally and fundraiser as well. — Elizabeth Landers (@ElizLanders) May 29, 2018 President Trump’s plane is scheduled to land in Nashville at 4:30 p.m. today. A rally will be held at the Municipal Auditorium at 7:00 pm tonight, with doors opening at 2:00 pm. President Trump held an earlier rally in Nashville attended by an estimated crowd of 10,000 back in March of 2017, also at the Municipal Auditorium. As reported by The Tennessee Star on April 10, Corker has expressed his support for Blackburn in the past, although he stopped short of a rousing endorsement. Though he did not use the formal term “endorsement,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) announced his support for Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN-07) bid to replace him in the United States Senate on Monday. Corker sent this tweet out late Monday afternoon: Now that the Republican primary has essentially concluded, I am sending a contribution…

Read the full story

After Retrieving American from Venezuela Prison, Senator Bob Corker Urges Dialogue with Socialist Dictator Maduro

Admin

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is urging engagement with Venezuela’s socialist government after he traveled to the South American nation to bring home a Utah man jailed for two years without a trial. Joshua Holt is scheduled to return to Salt Lake City on Monday night after receiving medical care and visiting President Donald Trump in Washington. He was released over the weekend following secret, backchannel negotiations between members of the U.S. Congress and Venezuelan officials. Corker meets with Maduro Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee traveled to Caracas on Friday to seal the deal with President Nicolas Maduro that would bring Holt home. Corker stressed in an interview Monday with The Associated Press that “nothing was asked, and nothing was given” in exchange for Holt’s freedom. But he said the 26-year-old’s release as a goodwill gesture by Maduro shows what can be achieved through dialogue with the United States’ adversaries. “In my conversations privately, I could not be more strident in my criticisms of the way the Venezuela government has handled itself. I’ve seen in Venezuela people lined up outside grocery stores just to buy toilet paper,” Corker said. But he contrasted the hardliner approach toward…

Read the full story

Dramatic Decline in Memphis Airport Traffic Not Helped by ‘Nashville-Based Government That Mainly Focuses Dollars on Middle and East of State,’ Shafer Says

Chris Butler

The Memphis International Airport has had a dramatic decrease in the amount of traffic that goes through there, and the chairman of the Shelby County Commission says some of the blame lies with the Tennessee state government. Shelby County Commission Chairman Heidi Shafer talked to The Tennessee Star in response to a recent New York Times article that detailed how Memphis International Airport has lost almost two-thirds of its passengers in recent years. “All of West Tennessee is in the process of adjustment…trying to adjust to the reality of heavy competition with neighboring states’ tax incentives, the move away from brick and mortar, a Nashville-based government that mainly focuses its dollars and action on the middle and east divisions of the state (think Mega-Site), and an airport that must balance crucial cargo traffic with de-hubbed passenger status,” Shafer told The Star. In a report that came out this month, the Times described the Memphis airport as “a glaring casualty of an airline merger that transformed the American aviation industry but cost the Mid-South’s most important city its status as a hub.” As the Times went on to say, there once was a time when Northwest Airlines was the dominant carrier.…

Read the full story

Lifson: Did You Know That President Trump Stood on Concrete in the Hot Sun and Shook the Hand of Every Single Naval Academy Graduate?

Admin

Conservative thinker and self-admitted ‘avid consumer’ of the political news-of-the-day Thomas Lifson watched the coverage of President Trump’s address to the Naval Academy graduates and their commencement ceremony over the weekend, and noticed a story that was largely overlooked by the mainstream media. As he writes in American Thinker: I am a fairly avid consumer of political news, and I watched the live coverage of President Trump’s address to the Naval Academy graduates at their commencement ceremony. (If you happened to miss the inspiring speech, Rick Moran’s coverage of it was excellent. But Rick and I, and probably you, did not hear about the fact that the President of the United States, a 71 year old man, stood in the Maryland sun and heat, wearing a suit jacket, and took the time to shake the hand and thank every single one of the 1,191 graduates. I learned of this via Glenn Reynolds and The Newly Press. (emphasis added) It was not exactly a secret, yet got little play in the media. You can see the entire process, speedy up, in this tweet: https://twitter.com/joshdcaplan/status/1000072025342345221 https://twitter.com/dukeblu85/status/1000077967505219585   Read the whole piece at AmericanThinker.com        

Read the full story

Officials: Trump, Japan’s Abe to Meet Ahead of Possible US-North Korea Summit

Admin
Trump and Abe

by Steve Herman President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are to meet before a planned summit between Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, according to Japanese officials. Trump and Abe spoke Monday as American officials were in North Korea and Singapore to discuss arrangements for the prospective talks. The White House has not responded to VOA queries about the details of the Trump-Abe discussion, however. The phone conversation took place before Trump went to Arlington National Cemetery for a Memorial Day ceremony. There the president made no reference to the situation on the Korean peninsula in his 22-minute scripted remarks. Nearly 34,000 Americans died as a result of hostile action in the three-year war on the peninsula. Hostilities ceased in 1953 with an armistice but no peace treaty has ever been signed. It is unclear when or where Trump and Abe will meet before the anticipated Singapore summit, which the U.S. president has said in recent days is likely to occur on June 12 after he declared last Thursday that the summit would not be held on that day. Both Trump and Abe are set to attend the Group of Seven economic summit June 8-9…

Read the full story

US Government Won’t Release Details of Settlement With FBI Agent

Admin

As they fight allegations that Connecticut FBI agents retaliated against employees for whistleblowing, federal government officials are refusing to release details of a legal settlement with a special agent and asking a judge to throw out another employee’s lawsuit. Special Agent Kurt Siuzdak’s lawsuit, filed in 2014, exposed allegations of internal strife and dysfunction within the FBI’s main Connecticut office in New Haven. It also disclosed a 2013 visit to the New Haven office by then-Director James Comey, who apologized to employees for “the failure of the FBI’s executive management to correct the leadership failures” in Connecticut. Siuzdak’s lawsuit was reported settled in court documents filed in March, but the FBI and Justice Department have declined to release the details and rejected recent requests under public records laws by The Associated Press for a copy of the deal. Officials would say only that there was no admission of wrongdoing in the settlement. Federal officials are now battling another lawsuit by a second New Haven FBI employee, electronics technician Omar Montoya, according to court documents obtained by the AP. Montoya alleges the retaliation against him included his supervisors falsely labeling him an “insider threat” to the FBI, which sparked an investigation,…

Read the full story

Off the Record: A Number One ‘Hit’ About La Raza Randy

Chris Alto

  First it was “The Ballad of La Raza Randy,” a lyrical stroll through Boyd’s “conexion” to the leadership of the National Council of La Raza which earned him his nickname not long after he decided he wanted to “spend whatever it takes” to get elected. Hint – it had something to do with his quarter of a million dollar donation to the Nashville organization whose founder and director has been the chairman of the board of the National Council of La Raza when Boyd decided to turn on the greenies – that is, the paper stuff, not the dog breath freshener. Granted, he’s tied to plenty establishment type issues and groups like Common Core, Jeb! and the big-business-cheap-labor lobbyists. But the alliteration with La Raza? Just sirens out to creative conservatives in Tennessee to bring it on! And sure enough, the newest, catchiest tribute to La Raza Randy, was recently posted on YouTube. Boyd’s been trying to convince voters that he actually really does support Trump. He’s even running ads where he says, with a straight face, that he and President Trump “have a lot in common.” Pay close attention when you get to minute 1:26 – it could be…

Read the full story

State Senator Mark Green Commentary: Why the Delay on Federal Judges?

Tennessee Star Staff

by State Senator Mark Green (R-Clarksville)   Why are there still more than 30 federal judge nominees awaiting a floor vote by the U.S. Senate? These well-qualified nominees are broadly-supported and have all been approved by the Judiciary Committee. At a time when federal courts are desperately needing new judges to handle their caseload, these nominees are still stalled. Why? After reading Scalia Speaks, the collected speeches of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, I understand why. In the not-to-distant past, judges were voted into the Judiciary in a bipartisan fashion. In fact, the vast majority of judges were approved with resounding majorities if they were not unanimous. The litmus test was minimal and usually revolved around the individual’s commitment to the original meaning of the Constitution. What did change the method of picking our judges has larger ramifications than the delay for these judges. It actually threatens the very existence of our democracy. The problem began with the creation and permeation of the concept of a living Constitution. From our nation’s founding until the 1950s or so, the analysis of the Constitution was intended to be the original meaning of the words contained in the document. During the era of…

Read the full story

Federal Civil Service Abuses Bigger Than Just the Department of Veterans Affairs

Admin

By Natalia Castro   When news broke of employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) putting the lives of veterans at risk with waiting lists to die, the country was outraged. When it became clear that these employees were not being terminated for their failures and mismanagement, Florida Senator Marco Rubio led bipartisan legislation that protected whistleblowers and provided management the authority to remove bad employees. Unfortunately, the VA is not the only department allowing bad employees to stay on the job despite grotesque violations of employee guidelines and even the law. Here we highlight some of the worst stories of civil service abuse in recent years and how they have been allowed to occur. Department of Veterans Affairs Some stories of abuse are obvious, like the Washington Times of April 2016 which reported on two senior VA officials who were responsible for the death of nearly 300 veterans on waiting lists, yet took over two years to even be proposed to be terminated. But as Senator Rubio argued in a May 2017 press release, this large-scale abuse flourished because of a culture of mismanagement. Rubio explained, “To list just a few examples, one VA employee was arrested and spent time in jail…

Read the full story

‘Little Pink House’ Journalist Proposes City Return Land to Former Owner Susette Kelo

Admin

  A new proposal by journalist Jeff Benedict to return the land once owned by Susette Kelo appeared in the pages of The Day newspaper from New London, Connecticut, The Volokh Conspiracy’s Ilya Somin reported over the weekend: Jeff Benedict is a prominent reporter and author of Little Pink House, an excellent journalistic account of the events leading up to Kelo v. City of New London, the controversial 2005 Supreme Court decision in which the justices ruled that it is permissible for the government to take homes and other property in order to transfer it to new private owners for purposes of promoting “economic development.” His book was recently made into a powerful movie about the case (which I reviewed here). Benedict writes: It was 20 years ago this month that the City Council authorized the New London Development Corporation to prepare a plan to acquire and redevelop 90 acres on the Fort Trumbull peninsula where the Thames River joins Long Island Sound. For its part, Connecticut invested $75 million in the plan, which was intended to complement the $300 million global research facility that Pfizer opened next door to the redevelopment area in 2001. But after acquiring nearly all of the targeted 90 acres, the city and…

Read the full story

Trump’s Populist Coalition Reshapes American Politics

Admin
President-elect Donald Trump

by Ginny Montalbano   Salena Zito and Brad Todd recently co-authored the book The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics. They spoke to The Daily Signal’s Ginny Montalbano about who the Trump voters are, what motivated them during the 2016 election, and what they can tell us about the future. “The Great Revolt” by Salena Zito and Brad Todd does much to tell the story of our great Election victory. The Forgotten Men & Women are forgotten no longer! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 7, 2018 Ginny Montalbano: Your new book called “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics” just came out. Can we start with what inspired you to write this book and what it’s about? Brad Todd: I didn’t see Trump’s nomination coming in 2016 in the election. I was working for a different candidate. After watching it come about in spite of my expectations and then watching the general election develop, I really was interested to know if the long term question; was this something that was just starting, was this something that was in the middle, or was this something that was finishing with this reforming of the coalition…

Read the full story

Commentary: Time to Fire Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein

Admin

by CHQ Staff   We’ve said many times that we think Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should be fired, but his latest round of tone deaf pronouncements ought to be the final straw for the President and Attorney General. After President Trump rightly complained about the latest revelations about the Obama administration spying on his campaign, Rosenstein snarked back at his ultimate Boss during a presser discussing the Justice Department’s approach to corporate crime. Rosenstein said current policy discourages “piling on” penalties. He paused to prepare his New York audience for the punchline. “The dictionary defines piling on as joining with other people in criticizing someone, usually in an unfair manner,” Rosenstein said. “I also have experience with that.” This snide complaint about “piling on” came as the Daily Caller and Breitbart are reporting that FBI agents out in the field are begging to be subpoenaed to blow the whistle on Obama administration skullduggery. “There are [FBI] agents all over this country who love the bureau and are sickened by [James] Comey’s behavior and [Andrew] McCabe and [Eric] Holder and [Loretta] Lynch and the thugs like [John] Brennan–who despise the fact that the bureau was used as a tool of political intelligence…

Read the full story

Malware Discovered Pre-Installed On Android Devices Including Chinese Company ZTE

Admin
Smartphones

by Kyle Perisic   An anti-virus company has discovered malware comes pre-installed on Android phones, including on ZTE phones — a Chinese phone company with ties to the Chinese government. “Thousands of users are affected” by the ad-related malware, or adware, according to Avast, the Czech anti-virus company, in its May 24 blog. “The adware we analyzed has previously been described by Dr. Web and goes by the name ‘Cosiloon,’” according to Avast. “The adware creates an overlay to display an ad over a webpage within the users’ browser. The adware has been active for at least three years and is difficult to remove, as it is installed on the firmware level and uses strong obfuscation.” ZTE — the Chinese-based tech company President Donald Trump has been negotiating a new trade deal with after they violated U.S. sanctions on Iran — is one of the phone companies infected with the adware. China’s telecom giant was subject to a crippling U.S. ban after the company was discovered to have violated North American sanctions by selling products to Iran. The U.S. and China have been renegotiating a trade deal with ZTE. The U.S. is expected to lift the ban after ZTE pays a $1.3 billion…

Read the full story

Report: Britain’s May to Urge Trump to Avoid London Protests During UK Visit

Admin

Reuters   British Prime Minister Theresa May will urge U.S. President Donald Trump to avoid protesters in central London during his UK visit in July and instead meet her at her country residence, the Sun newspaper reported on Sunday. The details of the plan will be given to the White House by Kim Darroch, British ambassador to the United States, the report said. There are two proposals that will be made to the White House by Darroch upon May’s approval – one for a Downing Street visit or one based at Chequers, a 16th-century manor house 60 km (40 miles) northwest of London – the report said, citing a source, who added it would be made clear that May prefers the meeting take place at Chequers. Trump will also be asked to have tea with Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, a royal residence west of London and not at Buckingham Palace, according to the report. Darroch will suggest to the White House that Trump does not visit Britain’s houses of parliament, the Sun reported. May’s office was not immediately available for comment. Trump will travel to Britain in July for a working visit with May, after months of back-and-forth over…

Read the full story