Day: July 28, 2018

Lee Company Sends a Cease and Desist Letter to Diane Black’s Gubernatorial Campaign

Jason M. Reynolds
Diane Black

The Lee Company sent a cease-and-desist letter to the gubernatorial campaign of Rep. Diane Black (R-TN-06) on Friday, calling for the removal of information alleging the company wrongfully fired a veteran who once worked there, The Tennessee Journal’s On the Hill reported. GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee is the owner and former CEO of the Lee Company, a leading plumbing/HVAC business in Middle Tennessee. The Lee Company said Black’s campaign was “deliberately misrepresenting” the facts surrounding the legal dispute with an Army National Guard member who claimed wrongful termination in a federal lawsuit, The Journal quoted The Tennessean as saying. “We have learned that the Diane Black for Governor campaign is deliberately misrepresenting actions taken by Lee Company that relate to a former employee who served as a Tennessee National Guardsman,” according to the letter by Lee Co. general counsel Jason Hale. “You have also misrepresented our company’s attitude toward and treatment of veterans in these communications.” A Black campaign website removed material about the case and instead linked to a Tennessean article about the lawsuit, The Journal said. Black spokesman Chris Hartline said the campaign received a “vague letter that does not dispute any specific allegations.” “We are committed to the…

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Trump Touts Strong 2nd Quarter US Economic Growth

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Donald Trump

by William Gallo   U.S. President Donald Trump touted the economy’s strong second quarter performance Friday, saying “we’re on track to hit the highest annual average growth rate in over 13 years.” The U.S. economy grew at a 4.1-percent annualized rate in the second quarter, its fastest pace in nearly four years, the Commerce Department reported Friday. “As the trade deals come in one-by-one, we’re going to go a lot higher than these numbers, and these are great numbers,” Trump told reporters outside the White House. Trump said the economy is on a growth track of more than three percent this year, and noted that each percentage point “means approximately $3 trillion dollars and 10 million jobs.” The president added the trade deficit, which is “very dear to my heart because we’ve been ripped off by the world,” dropped by more than $50 billion. The growth of the second quarter gross domestic product — a measure of goods and services produced in the U.S. — was its strongest since the 4.9-percent third quarter 2014 growth rate and in line with economists expectations. Analysts anticipated U.S. President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax cut that went into effect at the beginning of the…

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Commentary: It’s On! Jim Jordan Announces For Speaker Of The U.S. House of Representatives

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Jim Jordan, Paul Ryan

by CHQ Staff   Back in May a virtual Who’s Who of conservative movement leaders, led by CHQ Chairman Richard A. Viguerie, came together to urge Rep. Jim Jordan (OH-4), the former Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, to run for Speaker of the House. Yesterday, Rep. Jordan made it official; he’s running for Speaker of the House. And Mr. Viguerie is not the only conservative leader to believe Jim Jordan is the last best hope for Republicans to retain the House majority and fulfill the Trump agenda: Jenny Beth Martin, Chairman of the Tea Party Patriots, L. Brent Bozell III, former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, Ken Cucinnelli of the Senate Conservatives Fund, Frank Gaffney, President, Center for Security Policy and Tim Wildmon, President, American Family Association were also among the more than 40 conservative leaders who signed on to the initial letter urging Jordan to run for Speaker. Our friend Daniel Horowitz of Conservative Review summed up the situation thusly: Amid all the griping about the House leadership, the biggest problem reformers have faced is the old adage, “You can’t beat somebody with nobody.” For years, nobody was willing to step forward and launch a serious and sustained…

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Tennessee’s 8th District: Trump Tweets Endorsement of Congressman Kustoff

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David Kustoff

“Congressman David Kustoff has been a champion for the Trump Agenda – I greatly appreciate his support,” President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter late Friday afternoon as he endorsed the 8th District Congressman for reelection. “David is strong on crime and borders, loves our Military, Vets and Second Amendment. Get out and vote for David on Thursday, August 2nd. He has my full and total Endorsement!” Congressman David Kustoff has been a champion for the Trump Agenda – I greatly appreciate his support. David is strong on crime and borders, loves our Military, Vets and Second Amendment. Get out and vote for David on Thursday, August 2nd. He has my full and total Endorsement! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2018 Kustoff is facing a challenge from Dr. George Flinn, who narrowly lost a multi-candidate race to Kustoff two years ago. Kustoff has been dealing with a new Flinn ad hitting him for criticizing three pregnant women who had challenged Kustoff for voting to fund Planned Parenthood as part of last year’s $1.3 Trillion Omnibus spending package.  The endorsement from the President may get the Kustoff campaign back on offense. Kustoff immediately aired a new television commercial promoting the…

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David Fowler Commentary: Summing Up the Republican Gubernatorial Primary

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David Fowler

by David Fowler   I don’t watch much television for fear it will rot my mind, but I’ve sure heard complaints about all the “negative” television ads and mail pieces paid for by some Republican gubernatorial hopefuls. Whether perceived by voters as negative or not, ads and literature that truthfully point out another candidate’s record provide helpful information. But what I’ve heard from many is that they don’t know what to believe or what to make of the information they’ve been given, so here are some thoughts about some of what I’ve seen and read. The Bottom Line First, this thought keeps running through my head: There is none righteous, no not one. Though, as a Christian, I believe that God, by grace alone and by no merit of my own, has imputed to me the righteousness of Christ, I am not righteous in myself and fall short of the mark every day. I fall short of God’s standards individually, as a state senator, and as a lobbyist. The same is true of all the candidates of both parties. I can give you reasons why you might not want to vote for any one of the Republican gubernatorial candidates, though…

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The Top Ten Most Epic Presidential Vetoes in American History

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George Washington, Ronald Reagan, Grover Cleveland

by Lawrence W. Reed   President James Garfield named his beloved dog Veto. The pooch was a monstrous but lovable black Newfoundland weighing more than a hundred pounds. Congress got the message: A bad or unconstitutional bill would go straight to the Garfield doghouse. (Sadly, none ever did because Garfield served only five months in office.) The veto itself is a long-established and venerable tool of republican government in numerous countries. Along with term limits, separation of powers, habeas corpus, and more, it counts among the storied contributions the ancient Roman Republic gave the world 25 centuries ago. The term itself comes from Latin and means “I forbid!” So committed were the early Romans to hamstringing the ambitions of power-seekers that they licensed the tribunes of popularly-elected assemblies to kill a bill from the Senate, and they invested each of the two highest officials in the government (the consuls) with the authority to nix the decisions of the other. The veto helped to constrain activist legislators and preserve the Republic for nearly 500 years. Inspired by the Romans, America’s Founders baked the power of presidential veto into the Constitution right from its inception—in Article I, Section 7. The President may block…

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Twitter Suspends Conservative Pundit Kathleen McKinley For Opposing Trans In Military, Tying ‘Extreme Muslim Beliefs’ To Honor Killings

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Kathleen McKinley

by Peter Hasson   Kathleen McKinley, a conservative blogger and political commentator for a local Fox station in Houston, was surprised Friday to find an email from Twitter announcing her account had been suspended. Twitter listed two tweets that it claimed violated rules against “hateful conduct,” emails that McKinley shared with The Daily Caller News Foundation show. In the first tweet, McKinley stated her opposition to an Obama-era rule allowing transgender troops serving in the military, which she felt the Obama-era “was normalizing a mental disorder (gender dysphoria) (called ‘distress’ now) which has no place in our military. Certainly not our $$ for surgery.” The belief that biological males who believe they’re women shouldn’t be cleared for military service is well within the conservative mainstream. McKinley’s second tweet referred to “extreme Muslim beliefs” — rather than mainstream Muslim beliefs — “that condone honor killings.” That tweet had a specific context: McKinley’s friend Obianuju Ekeocha, an African pro-life activist, was in a Twitter debate about abortion with Bill Prady, a producer on CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory.” At issue was whether pro-lifers should support exemptions for someone who claimed a religious right to abortion. Ekeocha’s answer was no, for the same reason that she…

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Analysis: The Trump Economy Booms in Q2 with 4.1 Percent Growth, But There’s Plenty to Do to Break 3 Percent for the Year

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Donald Trump

By Robert Romano   After a rip-roaring 4.1 percent inflation-adjusted economic growth for the second quarter of 2018, the economy under President Donald Trump is making tremendous progress to full recovery, after more than a decade of stagnant growth. The U.S. economy has not grown above 4 percent since 2000, and not above 3 percent since 2005. Surely, 2018 might be the year we break that trend, right? It can be. Turns out, however, to get to 3 percent for 2018 will require a bit more juice than this author had previously calculated, even with the first quarter being upgraded to 2.2 percent. Because, you learn something new every day. On Friday, after my numbers did not add up, I spoke with Lisa Mataloni at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, who — very nicely, I might add — set me straight and rescued me from my errant calculations. Ms. Mataloni pointed me to the proper formula to utilize on the Bureau’s website to calculate quarterly and annual GDP, which describes it as “a variant of the compound interest formula”. Here it is: The quarterly real GDP rate published is the compound growth rate annualized, whereas the annual growth is just the simple growth rate of…

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Former New York Assembly Speaker Gets 7 Years in Prison

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Sheldon Silver

Sheldon Silver, the former New York Assembly speaker who brokered legislative deals for two decades before corruption charges abruptly ended his career, was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison. The punishment, announced by U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni, was five years less than the 12-year sentence she gave to Silver after he was initially convicted in the case in 2015. That conviction was tossed out by an appeals court, but the 74-year-old Democrat fared no better at a second trial this spring. A jury once again found him guilty of taking nearly $4 million in return for legislative favors he performed for a cancer researcher and real estate developers. In a letter to the judge, Silver had begged for mercy. His lawyers had asked that he be given a shorter sentence with a community service component that would allow him to get out from behind bars. “I pray I will not die in prison,” Silver wrote, saying he was “broken-hearted” that he damaged the trust people have in government. “The work that has been the focus of most of my life has become dirty and shameful,” Silver had said in his letter. “Everything I ever accomplished has become a…

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JC Bowman Commentary: The Intent and Spirit of Collaborative Conferencing

JC Bowman
Tennessee Star

Are we striving toward achievement of the original objective of the PECCA law?  It is clear, a course adjustment may be in order.  Eliminating needless lawsuits, staying focused on the purpose, including more teachers in the process, and having impartial training moving forward will better establish a peaceful, stable employer-employee relationship. Who could oppose those common-sense changes? 

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Einstein Was Right: Astronomers Confirm Key Theory

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galaxy

A consortium of astronomers said Thursday they had for the first time confirmed a prediction of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity by observing the gravitational effects of a supermassive black hole on a star zipping by it. The German-born theoretical physicist had posited that large gravitational forces could stretch light, much like the compression and stretching of sound waves we perceive with the change of pitch of a passing train. Researchers from the GRAVITY consortium led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics realized that they had a “perfect laboratory” to test Einstein’s theory with the Sagittarius A* black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Black holes are so dense that their gravitational pull can trap even light, and the supermassive Sagittarius A* has mass four million times that of our sun, making it the biggest in our galaxy. Astronomers followed the S2 star as it passed close to the black hole on May 19 at a speed in excess of 25 million kilometers (15.5 million miles) per hour. They then calculated its velocity and position using a number of instruments and compared it with predictions made by Einstein that the light would be stretched by…

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Papa John’s Founder Suing Company, Accuses It Of Planning ‘Coup’

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by Kyle Perisic   Papa John’s founder and former CEO John Schnatter is suing the company, seeking documents related to the person who outed him saying the N-word and accused the company of planning a “coup” against him. “Instead of standing behind the founder and working with news media to explain what actually occurred, the Company followed its usual, and flawed, manner of dealing with false and mistaken reporting as to comments made by Mr. Schnatter,” the lawsuit, filed in Delaware, said. Schnatter resigned on July 11 after he admitted to using the N-word during a press call in May, The Daily Caller News Foundation reported. “[E]ither the purportedly independent directors acted without adequate information … or [they] planned this coup in advance,” Schnatter said. Schnatter later said in a letter to the pizza chain’s board of directors that resigning was a “mistake,” The Wall Street Journal reported on July 17. “The board asked me to step down as chairman without apparently doing any investigation. I agreed, though today I believe it was a mistake to do so,” Schnatter wrote. Schnatter’s attorney, Patty Glaser, told CNBC in a statement that Papa John’s “is hiding documents that, we believe, will disclose the actual facts as to what…

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EXCLUSIVE: Marsha Blackburn Tells The Tennessee Star ‘Chuck Schumer Has Bought and Paid For Phil Bredesen’s Vote’

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Steve Gill, Marsha Blackburn

In an exclusive interview with Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill on Friday, U.S. Senate hopeful Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07) hit her Democratic opponent square in the jaw, calling him out over one of his greatest vulnerablities. “Chuck Schumer has bought and paid for Phil Bredesen’s vote,” Blackburn told Gill. Senator Schumer (D-NY)- who is currently the Senate Minority Leader and is poised to become Senate Majority Leader should the Democrats’ “blue wave” come to the U.S. Senate in this November’s midterm elections – is said to have personally recruited Bredesen out of retirement to run when Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) opted not to run for a third term “When you look at the Senate race that you’re in the midst of, what we hear from Phil Bredesen is that he’s going to be a different kind of Democrat – but you don’t see different kinds of Democrats in the Senate. And when we look at what Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are saying – Chuck Schumer has recruited Phil Bredesen into this race – they want to raise taxes if they get back in control of the Senate and the House,” Gill noted. Blackburn made it clear Bredesen is…

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