Day: October 6, 2018

Latinos for Tennessee PAC Endorses Seven Republican Candidates

Jason M. Reynolds

A Latino political action committee has released the names of Republican candidates it supports in Tennessee state and federal mid-term elections which will be held on Nov. 6. The Latinos for Tennessee PAC said it has endorsed: Reverend Tommy Vallejos, Tennessee House of Representatives, District 67 Brian Kelsey, Tennessee State Senate, District 31 Dr. Mark Green, U.S. Congress, District 7 Scott DesJarlais, U.S. Congress, District 4 John Rose, U.S. Congress, District 6 Marsha Blackburn, U.S. Senate Bill Lee, Tennessee governor Latinos for Tennessee Executive Director Raul Lopez said, “We are happy to support these candidates who have demonstrated their commitment to defending faith, family, freedom, and fiscal responsibility.” “I’m inspired and encouraged by each of these excellent candidates,” Lopez said. “At each level, they’re working on policies that make sense, that preserve the freedoms that make this country the land of opportunity. Members of the Hispanic community, and all citizens, want the opportunity to flourish here in Tennessee.” “We encourage all Tennesseans to vote on November 6.” Latinos for Tennessee PAC is a political action committee committed to protecting and promoting faith and family, freedom, and fiscal responsibility among Tennessee’s growing Latino population. The mission of Latinos for Tennessee is…

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Kavanaugh Confirmed!

Tennessee Star Staff
Brett Kavanaugh

by Kevin Daley The Senate confirmed Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court Saturday afternoon, securing a conservative majority on the nation’s highest judicial tribunal. Kavanaugh’s confirmation concludes an agonizing nomination process, which in stretches pertained as much to visceral feelings about identity, violence and fairness as to the high court. The final vote was 50 to 48. GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the lone Republican to oppose Kavanaugh, voted “present,” ensuring the other absent lawmaker, GOP Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, would not have to leave his daughter’s wedding in Bozeman to cast a decisive vote for the judge. GOP Rep. Greg Gianforte lent Daines the use of his private plane in the event he would have to return to Washington, should a slim margin require his presence. Among those present in the chamber for the vote was Debra Katz, an attorney who represents Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault dating back to when the two were minors. Vice President Mike Pence presided over the Senate during Saturday’s proceedings. Chief Justice John Roberts will privately swear Kavanaugh in as a justice at the Court on Saturday night. There are generally two swearing-in ceremonies…

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Commentary: Democrats Risk Losing Suburban Women with Kavanaugh Attacks

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Murkowski, Collins

by Julie Kelly   I am not a crier. One of my best friends teases me that Satan cries more than I do; my husband jokes about my “six-second cry” when I finally shed some tears. But as I watched Brett Kavanaugh’s opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday, I cried—and for more than six seconds. I wept for him, for his crushed wife seated behind him, for his young daughters, and for his friends. I cried for our country. It was an emotional release of sympathy, frustration and rage. I wasn’t alone. Several of my friends admitted they had the same reaction. The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway mirrored the feelings of millions of women when she choked up that evening during an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News: “I was sobbing when I was watching it,” Hemingway said. “I heard that a lot from people as well. It was hard just to watch those clips here.” A bungled political assassination attempt on Brett Kavanaugh will cost the Democrats more than a seat on the Supreme Court: The party might also have killed its edge with suburban women just weeks before the pivotal midterm elections. The near-unanimous reaction to this travesty among…

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To Feed a Growing World, Future Farmers Will Get a Help from Robots

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Brandon Alexander would like to introduce you to Angus, the farmer of the future. He’s heavyset, weighing in at nearly 1,000 pounds, not to mention a bit slow. But he’s strong enough to hoist 800-pound pallets of maturing vegetables and can move them from place to place on his own. Sure, Angus is a robot. But don’t hold that against him, even if he looks more like a large tanning bed than C-3PO. To Alexander, Angus and other robots are key to a new wave of local agriculture that aims to raise lettuce, basil and other produce in metropolitan areas while conserving water and sidestepping the high costs of human labor. It’s a big challenge, and some earlier efforts have flopped. Even Google’s “moonshot” laboratory, known as X, couldn’t figure out how to make the economics work. After raising $6 million and tinkering with autonomous robots for two years, Alexander’s startup Iron Ox says it’s ready to start delivering crops of its robotically grown vegetables to people’s salad bowls. “And they are going to be the best salads you ever tasted,” says the 33-year-old Alexander, a one-time Oklahoma farmboy turned Google engineer turned startup CEO. Iron Ox planted its first…

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New York Times Calls Soros Paid Protesters a ‘Well-Worn Trope of the Far Right’

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by Andrew Kerr   The New York Times accused President Donald Trump of rehashing a “well-worn trope of the far right” in his Friday morning tweet labeling anti-Kavanaugh protesters as paid professionals funded by liberal billionaire financier George Soros. The very rude elevator screamers are paid professionals only looking to make Senators look bad. Don’t fall for it! Also, look at all of the professionally made identical signs. Paid for by Soros and others. These are not signs made in the basement from love! #Troublemakers — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2018 The “elevator screamers” in Trump’s tweet are an apparent reference to the protesters who confronted Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake just prior to his decision to call for a supplemental FBI investigation into Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that she was sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh while the two were minors. Protesters on Thursday also confronted Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, asking to have a discussion while shouting at the senator, who was getting into an elevator. He caused an outburst when he said, “when you grow up, I’ll be ready” to have a discussion. “He called them ‘paid professionals’ and intimated that they are paid by George Soros, a liberal financier who…

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GOP Senators Demand EPA Fix Permitting ‘Abuses’ Used by Democratic States to Block Energy Projects

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Tennessee Star

by Michael Bastasch   Republicans senators asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review its implementation of a key provision of the Clean Water Act being used by states to block energy projects. “We ask that you work with other federal agencies to determine whether new clarifying guidance or regulations are needed in light of recent abuses of the Section 401 process by certain states,” five GOP senators wrote. “A select number of states have hijacked Section 401 to delay or block the development of natural gas pipelines and a coal export terminal,” Republicans wrote in a letter sent Thursday to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “While the focus of these abuses today is fossil energy, the approach could be used to target any type of project that is disfavored politically,” lawmakers told Wheeler. Lawmakers are concerned that Democratic-controlled states will continue to use Section 401 to block energy infrastructure projects instead of trying to protect water quality. For example, Washington state and New York have been particularly zealous in their blocking of energy projects. Washington officials blocked the Millenium coal terminal, and New York regulators have blocked pipeline projects to bring natural gas to energy-starved New England. Environmentalists support states’ use of the…

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Jobless Welfare Claims Near a Five-Decade Low

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by Tim Pearce   The number of Americans claiming unemployment insurance fell unexpectedly in late September after economists anticipated destruction from Hurricane Florence to hold claim numbers steady. The number of unemployment filings edged back toward the lowest rate in nearly five decades. The four-week moving average fell to the lowest rate since October 1973, according to data released by the Department of Labor Thursday. Roughly 207,000 people filed for initial jobless claims. The amount fell 8,000 from the week prior and outpaced economists’ expectations that the number would continue to sit around 215,000, signaling a stronger labor market that can absorb new workers quickly, according to The Wall Street Journal. “In the week ending September 29, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 207,000, a decrease of 8,000 from the previous week’s revised level,” according to the Labor Department. North Carolina, South Carolina and Kentucky posted the largest unemployment numbers, likely due to Hurricane Florence. Many residents in the area might have not filed for benefits yet, which could lead to higher unemployment numbers in those states in the short-term. The unemployment rate for August measured at 3.9 percent. Economists predict the rate will fall slightly to 3.8 percent in September. September’s initial jobs numbers will be…

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Keith Ellison Accuser’s Attorney Claims There’s ‘Substantial Corroborative Evidence’ Against the Democratic Congressman

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by Nick Givas   The attorney for Karen Monahan claimed there’s “substantial corroborative evidence” to prove his client was mentally and physically abused by Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, on “Fox & Friends” Thursday. Monahan, who is Ellison’s ex-girlfriend, accused him of often shouting obscenities at her and claimed he has a penchant for domestic violence. Ellison is running for Minnesota attorney general in November and is now considering stepping down from his post as deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee. “The DNC kicked this matter, even though Mr. Ellison is the deputy chair of the national Democratic committee, they kicked the matter to the state Democratic Party,” attorney Andrew Parker said. “The state Democratic Party decided to hire their own lawyer to investigate their nominee for attorney general in the state of Minnesota.” Parker claimed the investigators were biased and wanted a positive result for Ellison, so he could continue his campaign for attorney general. “After going through an investigation the investigator did find that it was unsubstantiated, but if you read the investigative report, there is substantial corroborative evidence,” he continued. “Even the investigator stated that Ms. Monahan not only testified credibly but the witnesses that she identified corroborated her story and…

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California Judge Blocks TPS Cancellation, Says Trump’s Decision was Based on Racial Prejudice

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by Will Racke   A federal judge in California blocked the government’s plan late Wednesday to wind down a humanitarian program for hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals living in the U.S., citing concerns the decision was motivated by racial animus on the part of President Donald Trump. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from canceling Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 300,000 migrants Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Sudan. In a 43-page ruling, Chen ordered the government to continue granting TPS protections and work permits to qualifying foreign nationals while a lawsuit challenging the TPS decision makes its way through the courts. Chen questioned whether DHS, which ordered the TPS cancellations, had been pressured to end the program by the White House. Specifically, he said certain racially charged remarks by Trump suggested the decision was made on the basis of prejudice against “non-white, non-European immigrants,” not conditions on the ground in the affected countries. “There is also evidence that this may have been done in order to implement and justify a pre-ordained result desired by the White House,” Chen, an Obama appointee, wrote in his order. “Plaintiffs have…

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Commentary: Democrats Must Pay for Treating Americans Like Addle Brained Idiots

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by Jeffrey A. Rendall   How dumb do they think we are? Plenty, if you’re human and have been paying attention of late. The “they” in the question above refers to members of the Democrat Party, a conglomeration of self-interested politicians and leftist interest groups h–l-bent on the destruction of American decorum and time-honored traditions (such as the presumption of innocence and due process). If you listened to Democrats Brett Kavanaugh’s uncorroborated high school behavior is not only grounds for denying him a seat on the United States Supreme Court, he should also be tossed in the pokey for perjury. If a person carrying a grudge from everyone’s past were to come forward making histrionic claims (about something one did almost four decades ago) it’s safe to say no one would be eligible for consideration in the Democrats’ minds…unless you’re a member of their party of course. A host of Democrats past and present have pending weighty accusations against them yet nothing seems to bother Democrat supporters when it comes time to vote. That’s the price they pay for defending Teddy Kennedy and big Bubba Bill Clinton (among others) all those years ago. Perhaps the same could now be argued for Republicans and…

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Power, People and Things in ‘Westworld’

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by Micah Watson, PhD   Since I was a child I’ve always loved a good story. I believed that stories helped us to ennoble ourselves, to fix what was broken in us, and to help us become the people we dreamed of being.” So begins Anthony Hopkin’s character, Robert Ford, in his speech marking the finale of the first season of HBO’s mind-bending, techno-philosophical series “Westworld.” Ford is the brilliant co-creator of Westworld, a theme park set several decades in the future in which wealthy customers can live out their fantasies, whatever they may be, with no apparent cost or consequence. The genius of Ford’s creation is not the theme park itself, though the sets and landscapes perfectly capture the nostalgic details of the vintage 1880s-era Western. What really sets Westworld apart is the “hosts” that populate the park, robots who inhabit various roles and inspire plots and who are entirely indistinguishable from the all-too-human guests who pay upwards of $40,000 a day to interact with them. And the guests do interact as they please, some choosing heroic and noble roles to play and others indulging in baser appetites by killing, raping and abusing the non-human hosts who were created…

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Bredesen Keeps One Democratic PAC’s Support, While Another That Has Never Supported Him Financially Will Withhold Funds Over Kavanaugh Statement

Jason M. Reynolds

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Phil Bredesen will keep the backing of a top liberal political action committee but lost the support of another PAC because of his wishy-washy belated support of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. CNBC on Friday afternoon reported that Majority Forward, a nonprofit group that spends millions to elect Democrats to the Senate, will continue to support Bredesen. “Yes, Phil Bredesen is the only candidate who has an independent record of results for Tennessee families,” Chris Hayden, a spokesman for Majority Forward, told CNBC. The nonprofit’s affiliated super PAC, the Senate Majority PAC, will also move ahead with plans to back Bredesen. Majority Forward has spent just over $1.6 million in support of Bredesen and $4.1 million against his opponent, U.S. Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07). Earlier Friday, Bredesen, a former Tennessee governor, issued a half-hearted statement of support for Kavanaugh and praise for accuser Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The statement came nearly three months after Kavanaugh was nominated and after his appointment seemed to be certain. Bredesen will not receive money from what CNBC calls the largest Democratic super PAC, Priorities USA Action, because of his belated statement of support. That PAC is affiliated with allies of Hillary Clinton.…

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