Trump Says He Misspoke at Helsinki Press Conference: ‘I Accept Our Intelligence Community’s Conclusion’ That Russia Meddled in 2016 Election

Donald Trump

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he accepts the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia sought to influence the 2016 U.S. election. “I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place. Could be other people also. A lot of people out there,” Trump told reporters in remarks from the White House. His comments come a day after the president publicly accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denial that Moscow was involved in election interference, drawing sharp criticism from U.S. lawmakers for taking the foreign leader’s word over his own intelligence agencies. The president said that after he reviewed a transcript of his Helsinki remarks, he said he realized he misspoke. “In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word would instead of wouldn’t. The sentence should have been…’I don’t see any reason why it WOULDN’T be Russia,” he said. The president continued to assert Tuesday that the media misrepresented his remarks while traveling abroad. On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, responded to Trump’s rosy assessment. “Let’s be very clear: Russia meddled in our election,” Ryan said. “We know they interfered with our elections, and we have passed sanctions…

Read the full story

State Governments Move to ‘Off-Load’ Public Responsibilities to Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

State governments partnering with faith-based and community organizations to maximize the use of resources is not a new concept. In some states, public-private partnerships have been expanded across most government departments, a model GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee proposes to follow for Tennessee. With President Trump’s intention to trim federal spending, a new question has been raised with regard to the role of faith-based and community organizations helping to augment the work of state government agencies and one that may be especially relevant for Tennessee. According to a 2017 article in Governing Magazine, data related to major spending areas put 38% of Tennessee’s general revenue reliant on federal aid in the domains of public welfare spending (59.7% federal dollars), education (14.6% federal dollars), and 53% reliant on federal dollars for roads. WalletHub ranked Tennessee overall as the 13th state most reliant on federal aid but whose state government funding was 8th overall most dependent on federal dollars. If Tennessee were to receive fewer federal dollars, would the state be forced to cut certain services? Would faith-based and community organizations be financially prepared to step into the service gap? There has been long-standing opposition to faith-based groups relying on government funding. Responding to President Bush’s push…

Read the full story

Soros-Linked Group Will Spend Millions To Stop Kavanaugh

Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh, George Soros

by Kevin Daley and Andrew Kerr    – Progressives have formed a new political outfit to mobilize left-wing energy on judicial confirmations, including Judge Kavanaugh  – The group, Demand Justice, is financed and administratively supported by the Sixteen Thirty Fund  – George Soros’ advocacy network has given millions to the Sixteen Thirty Fund in recent years A new political advocacy group that vowed to put $5 million behind an effort to stop Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court has significant ties to the liberal financier George Soros. A Daily Caller News Foundation review has found that the group’s primary financial supporter is a nonprofit to whom Soros has given millions. The group, Demand Justice (DJ), is organized and financed by a 501(c)(4) called the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which collected some $2.2 million in contributions from the Open Society Policy Center (OSPC), one of Soros’ primary donation vehicles, between 2012 and 2016. The Soros Connection The Fund is largely financed by a handful of donors. Financial statements filed with state oversight officials in 2014 show just three contributors accounted for 70 percent — or some $11.5 million — of the Fund’s total donations and grant revenue. Disclosure forms filed with the same agency…

Read the full story

Commentary: What Happened to Williamson County?

Williamson County

by Ira Weiss and Don Barnett   As you travel about Williamson County you can’t help but notice the construction sites everywhere. Maybe it is time to take a closer look before you wake up one morning to find you no longer live in the suburbs or exurbs, but live in an environment that looks more like a city replete with tall buildings, massive traffic – including commuter rail and heavy bus and truck traffic, and other urban necessities. What is driving the higher growth in Williamson County? In 2012, the Williamson County Commission contracted with the Williamson Chamber of Commerce – which also calls itself Williamson Inc. – to promote growth. The result has been growth on steroids. In fact, the Chamber is contractually obligated to secure a minimum of 25 corporate relocation and expansion projects for the current fiscal year alone.  As part of its mandate it must achieve a level of job growth in Williamson County that is at least 25% higher than that of the national county average.  And all of this deal-making is happening in private with almost no input from county residents. For its efforts to promote hyper growth the Chamber has received nearly…

Read the full story

Nashville International Airport Sets Another Record, Making It Fourth Fastest Growing Among Largest In Nation

Nashville Airport

Nashville International Airport served more than 14.9 million passengers in the fiscal year just ended, The Associated Press reported, making it one of the nation’s fastest growing airports. The record makes Nashville International, or BNA, the fourth fastest growing airport among the top 50 airports in North America, the airport’s website said. BNA serves 450 daily flights to more than 65 nonstop markets. It is the 33rd busiest airport in the United States. The 14.9 million passenger figure breaks last year’s record by more than 1.3 million passengers and marks the fifth consecutive year the airport has set a passenger record. June also set a record as the busiest month in BNA history with 1,460,525 passengers, a 2.9 percent increase over the previous record set the previous month, and a 11.1 percent increase over June 2017, the airport said. “The astounding passenger growth continues at Nashville International Airport, maintaining BNA’s position as one of the fastest growing airports in North America,” said Doug Kreulen, Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority president and CEO. “Per our forecast, solid growth is expected to continue, so it is imperative we continue to plan for our future needs. Our board of commissioners and staff are focused…

Read the full story

EXCLUSIVE: Sleeping Giants’ Anonymous Founder Unmasked – Top Ad Writer Behind Boycott Campaign Targeting Breitbart, Ingraham

Matt Rivitz

by Peter Hasson    – Sleeping Giants launched boycott campaigns against Breitbart and other right-wing voices.  – The group’s founder took steps to protect his anonymity.  – The Daily Caller News Foundation has revealed his identity. The founder of Sleeping Giants, a left-wing activist group that has targeted right-wing voices with boycott campaigns, has managed to keep his identity a secret, even as his own group has become a major political player among liberals. Until now. Sleeping Giants was founded by Matt Rivitz (pictured above, from his now-deleted Twitter profile), an award-winning ad copywriter based in San Francisco, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found. The group’s original stated goal was to cripple Breitbart, the pro-Trump website whose former chairman, Steve Bannon, worked in the White House as President Donald Trump’s chief strategist. To accomplish that goal, Sleeping Giants has waged an intense and incessant campaign to pressure Breitbart’s advertisers into pulling their ads from the website. It’s worked pretty much as designed. Over the span of two months in 2017, Breitbart lost 90 percent of its advertisers. Sleeping Giants has both maintained its pressure on Breitbart’s remaining advertisers and expanded its focus. In October 2017, Sleeping Giants began pressuring investors in Renaissance Technologies…

Read the full story

Trump and Senators Offer Plans to Reorganize Bureaucracy, Drain the Swamp

Drain the Swamp, Donald Trump

by John York   President Donald Trump’s administration released a plan June 21 that, if enacted, would impose some order on the sprawling administrative state—something that is long overdue. Decades of ceaseless expansion of the size and scope of the federal government have created a bloated and inefficient federal bureaucracy, replete with agencies and offices with overlapping functions. The Rube Goldberg-esque structure of the federal bureaucracy is not only expensive, it thickens the web of government red tape, makes government services less efficient, and makes mission failure more likely by splintering simple jobs among diffuse agencies. Trump’s plan would begin the long process of rearranging the overgrown federal bureaucracy by grafting together agencies that do similar work and pruning away offices that have outlived their usefulness. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] More on the specifics of the reorganization plan can be found here. However, while the president directs the executive branch, its structure is largely the product of Congress. Through the legislative process, it creates departments and agencies, establishes their responsibilities, and determines their funding. While Congress sometimes delegates authority to the president to determine how…

Read the full story

Nashville Metro Council Rule Change Will Let People Have Their Say (For 2 Minutes)

Metro Council microphone

Nashville’s Metro Council meetings will see a major change beginning Tuesday July 16  thanks to a significant rule shift impacting public comments at the meeting. According to reports, “An open comment portion will be added near the beginning of the meeting to allow people to talk about issues even if they’re not on the council’s agenda.” Previously, it wasn’t as easy to address the council. The main restriction was that comments were only taken for items that were on the agenda and that were required, by law, to include a public hearing, such as land re-zonings and the annual budget discussion. The open comment period will now begin the council meetings held on the third Tuesdays of each month. There will be a two minute  time limit for individuals who sign up to speak. The change is linked in large part to protests in council chambers after the fatal shooting of Jocques Clemmons by Nashville police Officer Joshua Lippert back in February of 2017. If what happened Tuesday night at the Metro Council has ever happened before, it was beyond the recent memory of anyone in the chamber. Calling for justice for Jocques Clemmons, the black man shot and killed…

Read the full story

For Those Who Want A New Facebook: Privacy Advocates Fed Up With The Tech Giant Are Launching Their Own Social Media Platform

Openbook social media

by Eric Lieberman   Cybersecurity and privacy experts are currently in the process of trying to rival Facebook by starting their own social media platform. With a fundraising page set to launch Tuesday, the “open source” social network called Openbook is aimed at “helping make the world a better place,” a similar overarching objective to that of Facebook. The professed difference is that Openbook will be “privacy-friendly” in which it won’t monitor or track users. “Surf the network with absolute peace of mind!” the start-up’s site says. Many avid users of social media, including the ones who find fault with Facebook and accuse it of not caring how user data is utilized, even manipulated, are often reluctant to try to find an alternative to Facebook because of its apparent ubiquitousness. They worry, in other words, that jumping ship to another platform is mostly pointless because not enough people will follow — seemingly not considering the fundamental principles behind a movement or protest. But Openbook, which was founded in The Hague, Netherlands in April 2018, appears to have a solution by allowing users to import all photos, videos, chat logs, and other content and communications, into its platform via a “drag-and-drop” feature. While there appears to be no direct mention of…

Read the full story

Commentary: Obama Cybersecurity Failures Are The Real 2016 Election Story

Barack Obama

by George Rasley   Remember when the Democrats lost the 2016 election and the charge was that the Russians “hacked” the election? Then the charge morphed into, the Trump campaign, or maybe even Trump himself, “colluded” with the Russians to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House? As Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times summarized the charges: Christopher Steele’s Democratic Party-financed dossier said Mr. Manafort worked with Russia to coordinate the hacking of Democratic Party computers. In addition, a number of media reports last year claimed that Mr. Manafort, Mr. Trump’s erstwhile campaign manager, sought Russia’s help to bolster his candidate. U.S. surveillance captured the collusion in copious amounts of phone records, the stories said. CNN declared in September: “Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, which is leading the investigation into Russia’s involvement in the election, has been provided details of these communications.” But, reported Scarborough, that and similar reports seemed to be dashed by Kevin Downing, Mr. Manafort’s attorney. He filed a brief in U.S. District Court subject to an accuracy review by a federal judge. In a cut-and-dried manner, he said Mr. Mueller has no evidence that Mr. Manafort communicated with Russian officials. Mr. Downing is defending Mr. Manafort against federal charges…

Read the full story

Former Congressman Zach Wamp Endorses Bill Lee For Governor

Zach Wamp, Bill Lee

Former U.S. Congressman Zach Wamp endorsed Bill Lee for governor on Monday, the Lee campaign announced. The endorsement from Congressman Wamp, a Chattanooga Republican, comes after last week’s endorsement from the conservative Free Press editorial page at The Chattanooga Times Free Press. “It is an honor to have the support of Congressman Zach Wamp, a conservative leader for Tennessee,” said Lee. “Zach has always stood on conservative principles and I am humbled and grateful to have his support.” Wamp will campaign with Lee on Monday, the Times Free Press said. Early voting began last Friday. GOP race frontrunners U.S. Rep. Diane Black of Gallatin and Knoxville businessman Randy Boyd are fighting with television, radio, direct mail and digital ads. Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, is the fourth major GOP candidate. In his endorsement, Wamp said the following: “As a conservative who loves Tennessee, believes in the nobility of public service and desires our leaders to carry themselves with dignity and honor, I have decided to step forward and wholeheartedly endorse Bill Lee for Governor of Tennessee. While I originally intended to not take a public stand in this primary race, I have watched closely the tactics, tone and campaign activity…

Read the full story