Day: October 24, 2018

Clinton, Tennessee Mayor’s Building Permit Paperwork Went Missing

Chris Butler

Clinton city officials acknowledged in recent written communications with one another that paperwork current Mayor Scott Burton filed for building permits went missing for reasons they didn’t know at the time. The Tennessee Star obtained these letters (embedded below) through an open records’ request it filed this week. As reported, scuttlebutt around town says Burton skipped out on paying various building permit fees, which is against the law. Two weeks ago, rumors of this made their way onto a mayoral debate on radio station WYSH between Burton and his opponent Stephen McNally. At the heart of the matter are four missing building permits Burton didn’t originally apply for on heating and air units — because he thought they weren’t legally necessary, according to the debate. But WYSH radio personality Jim Harris told The Star he found out later permits are indeed required. Harris also learned Burton, or one of his representatives, after the debate, obtained and paid for years-old permits on the four projects, indicating they were originally improperly obtained, according to WYSH. Becker has since paid a late penalty on that, said Chief of Police Vaughn Becker. The penalty is double the original permit fee, he added. Becker told The…

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Phil Bredesen Reportedly Downplayed Dangers of Kingston Coal Ash Spill

Chris Butler

Former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen’s actions and comments following the 2008 Kingston coal ash spill arguably may have misled the public into thinking the situation wasn’t all that dangerous. Newsweek later described it as “the largest industrial spill in U.S. history.” Mother Nature Network, meanwhile, ranked the Kingston spill as one of the 10 worst manmade environmental disasters, alongside the Three Mile Island meltdown, the 1930s Dust Bowl, and the Exxon Valdez incident. Bredesen is now the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat that Republican Bob Corker will soon vacate. According to The Knoxville News Sentinel, more than 30 of the people who handled the cleanup — without protection — are now dead and more than 200 of them are sick or dying. The spill happened December 22, 2008. Bredesen reportedly didn’t show in Kingston for another nine days. And when he did show he reportedly downplayed the hazards. “This stuff, it’s not high-level waste. I don’t think people should be scared of the stuff,” Bredesen said of the sludge all around the site, according to the January 1, 2009 edition of The Tennessean. “There’s a greater danger from air quality, from flying ash being ingested.” Bredesen said this…

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Bredesen Turns to Democrats in California, Elsewhere to Call, Write to Voters After Volunteers Flee His Campaign

Jason M. Reynolds

It’s no secret that Phil Bredesen is the top choice of Democrats around the nation to turn the U.S. Senate into a blue zone. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) personally recruited Bredesen to run. Schumer’s PAC has spent millions more on Tennessee than any other race. Billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who has pledged $20 million to Democrats this cycle, hosted a fundraiser for Bredesen in New York. Now Bredesen is getting some added help from progressive allies in California, Massachusetts and other blue bastions, Chattanooga’s News Channel 9 says. Democrats in those states are mailing postcards to people in Tennessee urging them to vote for Bredesen. “Join Organize Win Legislate Sacramento in getting out the vote for Phil Bredesen and be part of the Blue Wave,” a Facebook event page for a California virtual phone bank says. Phil Valentine tweeted, “A listener sent me this. It’s a Phil Bredesen mailer that looks like a 6-year-old wrote it. But note the BOSTON postmark!!! Oh, no. There’s no big liberal outside money in THIS campaign. (Where’s my sarcasm emoji when I need it?) #MarshaBlackburn Retweet!!!” A listener sent me this. It's a Phil Bredesen mailer that looks like a 6-year-old wrote it.…

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Alligators Reportedly Make Their Way to Tennessee

Chris Butler

Alligators have made their way to Tennessee, and, per the law, there really isn’t much you can do about it. According to News Channel 5 of Nashville, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officials confirm alligators are naturally expanding their range into Tennessee from southern border states. “A recent sighting on video of a seven-foot alligator in West Tennessee at the Wolf River WMA in Fayette County was just one of several confirmed sightings in Southwest Tennessee,” the station reported. According to The Tennessean, a four-foot alligator was captured Tuesday in East Tennessee’s Monroe County. In March, a seven-foot alligator was spotted in West Tennessee’s Fayette County, the paper went on to say. “Alligators are protected species and catching or shooting them is against the law,” the paper went on to say. According to News Channel 5, nervous Tennesseans may have to accept the situation, as is. “Authorities with the TWRA said they have not stocked any alligators in the state, and they added the alligators are simply expanding. They said we must learn to coexist with them like many others in the southern states,” the station reported. Alligators, News Channel 5 went on to say, will prey on fish, turtles, snakes, frogs, and waterfowl. They are also…

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Bakers Fined $135K Over Wedding Cake Appeal to Supreme Court

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Aaron and Melissa Klein

by Kelsey Harkness   The former owners of an Oregon bakery, ordered to pay $135,000 in damages for declining to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, are appealing their case to the Supreme Court. Lawyers for Aaron and Melissa Klein filed a petition Monday asking the Supreme Court to reverse an earlier decision handed down by the state that forced them to shut down their family bakery. “Freedom of speech has always included the freedom not to speak the government’s message,” said Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty, a nonprofit legal organization representing the Kleins. “This case can clarify whether speech is truly free if it is government mandated.” An administrative judge for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ruled in July 2015 that the Kleins had discriminated against a lesbian couple, Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, on the basis of their sexual orientation. The judge ordered the Kleins to pay the $135,000 for physical, emotional, and mental damages. The Kleins appealed that ruling to the Oregon Court of Appeals in April 2016, and that court upheld the state agency’s decision. Under Oregon law, it is illegal for businesses to refuse service based on a customer’s sexual…

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Analysis: 100,000 Texans Can’t Be Wrong, Red Wave Rising

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by Rick Manning   More than 100,000 Texans RSVP’d for tickets for the Donald Trump-Ted Cruz rally in Houston, with thousands waiting in line for a day to get inside the venue. While the arena held about 18,000, a similar number tailgated outside, viewing the rally on big screens much like big sporting event viewing parties held outside of stadiums to accommodate fans without tickets. Senator Cruz’ opponent, Representative Robert O’Rourke, was praying for a typical low mid-term turnout to help him upset conservative icon Cruz.  His hopes rested on the hope that the dual factors of Cruz’ outside the establishment fights on Obamacare and other issues along with the bitter Trump-Cruz presidential primary fight would create enough divisions that GOP turnout would be low, allowing him to sneak into the Senate seat. The President and Senator Cruz on stage together puts an end to this dream, as it signals the uniting of the limited government Republican Party that Cruz champions and the populist agenda espoused by Trump. What’s more, for the first time since Ronald Reagan, a GOP President is able to campaign for and help Republican members of Congress in off-year elections.  While George W. Bush and his…

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Interpol’s Chinese President Meng Hongwei Has Disappeared

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by Ted Bromund   Nearly a month ago, Meng Hongwei, the Chinese president of Interpol, disappeared during a visit home from France. Meng – or someone acting for him – has since submitted his resignation to Interpol, and Beijing has announced that he’s under investigation for corruption. His wife, who is still in France, now calls Chinese authorities “cruel” and says she’s not sure whether he’s still alive. He has not been seen or heard from since Sept. 25. Meng wasn’t a diplomat. He was a vice minister in China’s Ministry of Internal Security. In other words, he was a high-ranking official in the Chinese Communist Party and a political policeman. He almost certainly sent a lot of people to prison for their beliefs, and he evidently didn’t have any problems with the cruelty of the system he helped to run. Perhaps he and his wife should have considered the possibility that the cruel communist system might devour him before he started working for it. It was unseemly for Interpol to have a Chinese political policeman as its president to begin with. It’s also true that the danger of having the Chinese political police at the helm of Interpol was not quite…

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Commentary: Meet Them With Tanks?

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by George Rasley   Conservative social media is awash with advice for President Trump on how to deal with the army of invading Central American aliens who are rapidly approaching our Southern Border. There is a strong current of opinion that says the whole “migrant caravan” is a set-up by Soros and his minions and that Democrats are cynically hoping for some sort of election-changing incident in which some poor Central American is martyred at the hands of the American military that the Left despises anyway. Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy. Must change laws! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2018 In the view of the “it’s a set-up” crowd the illegal aliens should be somehow treated “humanely” but not allowed to enter the United States. Who will corral them and where they will be interned is left to imaginary friends in the federal workforce who will be mobilized to the Southern Border. It may indeed be a set-up and…

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New Jersey Solar Industry at Risk of Collapse as Subsidies Begin to Roll Back

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by Jason Hopkins   New Jersey’s solar industry is expected to plummet unless imminent action by regulators is taken, allowing subsidies to continue propping up solar installation sales. The New Jersey solar market has grown steadily in recent years. With over 99,000 solar installations in place and around 7,000 employees currently working in the field, the state is ranked seventh in the U.S. for its solar development. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy hopes to see the industry grow even further and signed legislation in May that calls for the state’s renewable portfolio standard to reach 50 percent by 2030. However, advocates warn the state’s solar industry is on track for total collapse. “[W]e’re afraid that the market will crash again,” Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, said in a statement on Oct. 17. “If we don’t move forward, we’ll lose more jobs and more opportunities for clean energy. We must work to become a leader once more in solar power.” The concern comes as the subsidies that have helped propel solar installation sales in the state are due to wind down. New Jersey’s Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SREC) program currently incentivizes solar investment by giving panel owners credits for the electricity…

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Tennessee Republican Party Mailer Hammers Bredesen Over His ‘Golden Tickets’ for Illegals

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As nearly ten thousand illegal aliens march through Mexico towards the U.S. border the issue of illegal immigration has resurfaced as a major campaign issue in the 2018 midterm elections. In Tennessee, that means former Governor Phil Bredesen’s issuance of drivers licenses/certificates to illegals is being used by the Marsha Blackburn campaign and her allies to remind voters of Bredesen’s misstep on the issue.  A new “Golden Ticket” mail piece hitting mailboxes this week underscores Bredesen’s weakness on the issue of illegal immigration. In May, 2001 the Tennessee legislature approved issuing drivers licenses to illegal aliens at the behest of Republican Governor Don Sundquist, despite strong opposition from many conservatives, including then State Senator Marsha Blackburn.   After 9-11 later that year, the fact that several of the hijackers used similarly issued licenses to board airplanes raised additional concerns.  So in 2002 the Tennessee legislature passed legislation requiring licenses issued to illegals to carry bold print stating “For Driving Purposes Only.” By 2004 Bredesen was Governor and he successfully pushed legislation to issue “certificates” rather than “licenses” to illegals and restrictions were supposedly put in place to limit the use of the certificates for “identification purposes.” Nevertheless, it soon became apparent…

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Congress Members Call for Investigation Into Pentagon’s Handling of Controversial $10 Billion Cloud Contract

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by Andrew Kerr   Two members of the House Appropriations Committee requested an investigation Monday into the Pentagon’s handling of its $10 billion winner-take-all cloud computing contract following widespread criticism that the deal has been rigged from the start to favor Amazon. Amazon Web Services is the only cloud computing platform that meets all the specifications of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program, which stands to be one of the largest stand-alone technology contracts the federal government’s ever awarded at up to $10 billion over 10 years. The Department of Defense is expected to select a winner for the contract in April. The Daily Caller News Foundation reported in August that a former senior adviser to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Sally Donnelly, had once consulted for Amazon Web Services through a firm she owned. Donnelly did not recuse herself from involvement in crafting the contract, despite receiving payments from the sale of her Amazon-linked firm, which she sold just prior to entering the Pentagon. “It has come to our attention through media reports that individuals who held, or hold, high ranking positions in the Department have access to the specific contractor,” Reps. Steve Womack of Arkansas and Tom…

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Phil Bredesen Ally ‘La Raza Renata’ Would Welcome Members of Migrant Army, Which DHS Says Includes Criminals, Marching Through Mexico from Honduras Who Come to Nashville

Jason M. Reynolds

Phil Bredesen ally Renata Soto is issuing a clarion call to the criminal migrant army marching toward America’s southern border. Soto on Monday tweeted in Spanish that Bredesen’s Senate race opponent, U.S. Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07) gave her heartburn. https://twitter.com/RenataSotoTN/status/1052045499870732293 Soto is the immediate past chairman of the George Soros-supported national group formerly known as La Raza and founder of Nashville’s Conexion Americas. The Tennessean quoted her Tuesday as encouraging the criminal migrant army: The Honduran migrants highlight the United State’s need for sound refugee and asylum policies, she told the newspaper. “‘We must continue to be a beacon of hope for families and children who, due to violence and dire circumstances, are forced to flee their homes,’ Soto said in an email,” the newspaper said. The Washington Examiner reported Tuesday that the group is composed of multi-national criminals, quoting the Department of Homeland Security. “@DHSgov can confirm that there are individuals within the caravan who are gang members or have significant criminal histories,” DHS spokesman Tyler Houlton wrote in a series of tweets Tuesday evening. “Citizens of countries outside Central America, including countries in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and elsewhere are currently traveling through Mexico toward the…

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