Day: October 25, 2018

Pro-Trump PAC Releases Another Ad Going After Phil Bredesen

Chris Butler

A pro-Donald Trump Super PAC released another ad this week warning that Democrat Phil Bredesen will help reverse President Donald Trump’s agenda. The PAC, known as the Committee to Defend the President, released an ad a few weeks ago warning Bredesen will help raise federal taxes. The ad also said Bredesen will assist liberal politicians if Tennessee voters make him a U.S. senator. In an emailed statement, PAC Chairman Ted Harvey told The Tennessee Star it’s vital that Tennesseans know about Bredesen, whom he called “Phony Phil.” “While he campaigns as a moderate Democrat, Bredesen will be nothing more than a rubber stamp for the Democratic establishment—anti-Trump Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi,” Harvey said. “As Bredesen’s long history of donations to liberal Democrats shows, not to mention his radical positions on issues like abortion and gun rights, he will toe the party line when it comes to impeaching President Trump. Don’t get it twisted: Impeachment is Phony Phil’s—and the Democrats’—ideal scenario.” The ad warns Tennessee voters to think about the future and to realize that Bredesen, if a U.S. senator, will rubber stamp Chuck Schumer’s agenda. As the PAC already reported, Bredesen gave vast sums of his wealth to…

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Changes to Testing Coming to Tennessee

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Bill Haslam

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam and Education Commissioner Candice McQueen today announced changes in the delivery of the TNReady assessment for the current school year and additional changes that will take effect beginning in the 2019-20 school year. The changes are a direct response to a report generated by the recent statewide listening tour that included roundtable conversations and online feedback from educators including teachers, testing coordinators and school administrators on how to make improvements to the assessment process. “These are real solutions, some of which are already underway or will be implemented later this year, that will be felt by educators, students and parents across the state,” Haslam said. “Throughout the listening tour, the message from teachers was clear that we do not need to start over but rather do all we can to improve the delivery of TNReady. We think these changes will do just that and create a better testing experience for both students and teachers.” The Department of Education has already made significant changes, including a successful verification of the testing platform involving roughly 50,000 students, ensuring quicker turnaround of results starting with the fall end-of-course assessments, and providing better educator training opportunities. This is a “positive…

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Commentary: Illegal Immigration Hurts Black Americans Most

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Tennessee Star

by Spencer P. Morrison   In the 19th century, savvy American saloon-owners offered free lunches to attract noontime patrons. Inevitably, the diners would get thirsty and buy expensive drinks—thus was born the expression, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Despite its humble origins, the phrase captures a deep and omnipresent truth: everything has a price, an opportunity cost, a trade-off. This is as true of lunches as it is of America’s immigration policy. Although The Economist‘s propaganda-artists claim otherwise, mass immigration does not enrich all Americans. There are obvious winners and losers. The winners are wealthy Americans and the immigrants themselves; the losers are everyone else, especially the working class, Millennials, and black Americans. Black Americans are an interesting demographic. On the one hand, black Americans vote for Democrats by obsequious margins—often in excess of 90 percent. And yet black Americans are hurt most by the Democrats’ immigration policy. In short: mass immigration, legal and illegal, disproportionately hurts black Americans because they are the ones most likely to compete directly with immigrants for work. At the Hot Gates A great mob of men marches towards our southern border—thousands strong and growing daily. All eyes are on them. But…

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FedUp PAC Launches New Videos: Stop the Violent Democrat Mobs

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FedUp PAC has launched a series of digital ads – including videos – that reminds voters to cast their ballots this November and to reject the violent, mob-like behavior by leftists, namely, Democrats. “Mob rule – by mobs of violent Leftists and mobs of violent aliens planning to storm our southern border – has become a central tenet of the newly radicalized Democrats’ plan to regain power,” the announcement said, published at ConservativeHQ.com. The videos, which feature images of violent leftist mobs in action, are available for sharing on Facebook and Twitter: Facebook – Democratic Mob  Facebook – Stop The Mob Vote Republican  Twitter – Democratic Mob https://twitter.com/FedUpPAC/status/1054777275642716160 Twitter – Stop The Mob Vote Republican https://twitter.com/FedUpPAC/status/1054777974141149187 The announcement directs readers who are not on Facebook or Twitter to view share the videos from the FedUp PAC website: Vote Republican: http://videos.fedup.org/video/296520802 Democratic Mob: http://videos.fedup.org/video/296515333 The statement continues: For Democrats conning voters with promises of free stuff from the government and scaring them with visions of grandma in her wheelchair being pushed off a cliff is no longer enough. Americans got a close-up view of Democrats in action during the Obama years and what they saw was enough to motivate them to vote for the most unlikely of outsider candidates:…

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Silicon Valley’s New ‘Woke’ Code of Conduct Offers an Unexpected Twist

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by Nick Bieter   If you want to be successful as a computer programmer, one of the best ways to show off your skills to prospective employers is to contribute code to open source projects. These projects, such as Firefox or the Linux Operating System, are frequently controlled by the project founders or a consortium of top developers. While anyone can submit code for inclusion, it’s up to the project overseers if it is included in the code base or not. There’s been a quiet revolution going on in this world of Open-Source Software. Led by Coraline Ada Emcke (pictured right), a group of activist developers has been seeking to implement the Contributor Covenant for the last several years. This Code of Conduct is very explicit in its focus on inclusion and the prevention of any sort of negative or hostile environment for code contributors on Open Source projects. This is all in service of ensuring that no one feels discriminated against or otherwise rejected by the maintainers of these projects. But it goes much deeper than that. Emcke, in conjunction with many of these same activists, promotes a compact known as the Post-Meritocracy Pledge. This pledge states that allowing program…

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President Trump’s Decision to Leave the INF Treaty with Russia Impacts the North Korea Denuclearization Process

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by Robert Romano   “We’ll have to develop those weapons… We’re going to terminate the agreement and we’re going to pull out.” That was President Donald Trump on Oct. 21 pledging to remove the U.S. from the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which banned all nuclear weapons with ranges from 310 and 3,420 miles. “Russia has not adhered to the agreement. This should have been done years ago,” Trump added. Both the U.S. and Russia have said each side is in violation of the treaty with the development of ground-based missile systems banned by the treaty. At the time of its signing by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the INF Treaty was the first ever nuclear arms reduction treaty in the nuclear age. It laid the groundwork for the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Both of those in turn built off of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties of the 1970s and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1970). Taken together, these treaties are the legal, agreed-upon basis for modern arms control. When new powers, say, Iran or North Korea, attempt to develop nuclear weapons, the argument against them doing so is that it violates the arms control regime currently in…

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Analysis: Quantifying the Progressive Extremism That Has Overrun the Democrat Party

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by Ken Masugi   A shrewd observer of American politics, Thomas Edsall sums up the evidence that the Democratic Party has rapidly become a far more left-wing party than it ever has been. In the last 18 years, the percentage of white Democrats identifying themselves as liberal doubled, from 28 to 55 percent, while percentages of moderates and conservatives fell. This dramatic change may explain not just the 2018 elections but the future of American politics: 2018 may be the year Democrats push America over the cliff. Using recent survey data, Edsall highlights several changes, notably: “Progressive activists are ‘more than twice as likely [than a typical American] to say that they never pray (50 percent to 19 percent), ‘almost three times more likely to be “ashamed to be an American”’ (69-24), eleven percentage points more likely to be white (80-69), and ‘twice as likely to have completed college (59-29).’” Ashamed to be an American by almost three to one. That just about says it all. The Progressive Democratic Party breaks with its honorable past as the world’s oldest political party and is recently reborn as the radical edge of History, the dictatorship of the enlightened. Within the blinders and…

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Josh Hawley Finally Breaks Out of the Margin of Error in Missouri Senate Race

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by Molly Prince   Republican Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley took a commanding lead over Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill as a new poll showed the race is finally outside of the margin of error. Hawley is ahead of the Democratic incumbent by 7 points, according to an internal poll from the GOP campaign. Accordingly, 49 percent of likely voters prefer Hawley while 42 percent prefer McCaskill, the additional 9 points are spread evenly between undecided voters and third-party candidates. Pollsters for Hawley are attributing the boost to the contentious Supreme Court battle and McCaskill’s decision to vote against the nominee. “This lead has held firm since the vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” the polling memorandum read. A separate Missouri Scout poll conducted over the same period shows a statistical dead heat in the race between the two candidates. Hawley is barely edging out McCaskill, leading her by only 1 point, according to the polling data. “This race has lived up to its billing as one of the closest in the country. Neither Josh Hawley nor Claire McCaskill has had a lead of more than four points in a single poll for the entire year, placing this…

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‘Sons in The Shadow:’ A Book Review of a Great American Story of Family Business

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by Carter Dewitt   Roy H. Park Jr.’s compelling book into his life, his relationship with his entrepreneur father and the process by which the family business was built, is an insightful study into individual and family values. His book, “Sons in the Shadow: Surviving the Family Business as an Sob — Son of the Boss,” describes hard work, compassion, dedication, frustration, conflict and loyalty, interspersed with that spark of creative genius that separates the most successful of entrepreneurs from the flock. Roy Jr.’s father, Roy H. Park, was a North Carolina icon and a Forbes 400 entrepreneur. He was the driving force behind the Duncan Hines brand and the founder of Park Communications, a newspaper, media, and outdoor billboards company. Roy Jr. is truly the best of his father and mother — what every parent hopes their children will be. The book comes highly recommended by author P.J. O’Rourke, former Pennsylvania congressman Charlie Dent, and the dean of the School of Media and Journalism at UNC, Susan King. In the author’s own words, he “wrote the book because I believe in an America where anyone from any background willing to work hard can make it, even during the toughest of times. I…

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Tennessee Star Report-Knoxville Edition: Obama, You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Growth is About You

Julie Carr

On Wednesday’s Tennessee Star Report: Knoxville Edition– broadcast on WETR 92.3 FM – Star News Digital Media National Political Editor Steve Gill questioned why migrants and immigrants would want to come to a country that is not so great because of Trump (according to the Democrats).  He suggested that perhaps Venezuela would be a more geographically desirable location for those seeking a better life. Gill observed the rally turnout for Trump in Nowhere Nevada versus Obama’s populated rally spot of Reno, of which he drew seven thousand less people than Trumps rally in Elko. Gill continued: And as we ponder big thoughts, big things. Like if America is the racist, horrible place, that the left, Democrats running for office around the country, want us to believe, if were just so disgusting and deplorable, why do we have seven to ten thousand people walking across thousands of miles to come here?  Again it’s been a question we’ve posed before.  Why do folks try to swim through shark infested waters from Cuba to Miami if we are just such an awful place?  I mean they could get right to Venezuela that has the socialism the left tells us they think is the right…

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JC Bowman Commentary: Collaborative Conferencing Limits Educators

JC Bowman
Tennessee Star

Professional Educators of Tennessee fervently supports the right of educators to discuss working conditions and salary with their employers. There are flaws in the current Professional Educators Collaborative Conferencing Act (Public Chapter 378). Are there other options?  We believe so and toward that end, Professional Educators of Tennessee has begun to establish Education Leaders Councils in some districts to accomplish more for teachers.  It will help us cultivate true consensus building and address more critical issues. 

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Pope Forces the Resignation of Bishop of Memphis Martin Holley Following Investigation

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by Joshua Gill   Pope Francis forced the resignation of the Bishop of Memphis Wednesday after an investigation into his alleged church law violations and mishandling of diocesan finances. The Vatican announced Wednesday that Francis had “relieved (Holley) from the pastoral governance” and temporarily replaced Monsignor Martin Holley with Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz. The Vatican did not list the reason for Holley’s firing, but the language used in its announcement usually indicates that the pontiff forcibly removed a bishop who refused to resign. Tuesday reports from WMC5 and Church Militant also broke the news of Holley’s then impending firing before the Vatican announced it and claimed that a source within the church confirmed that Francis planned to fire Holley for reasons of “pastoral governance” and that Holley had in fact refused to resign. The Vatican sent two archbishops to the diocese to investigate Holley’s tenure as bishop. Holley served as an auxiliary bishop in Washington, D.C. for 12 years and was appointed as bishop of Memphis, Tennessee in 2016. Upon assuming his role as Bishop of Memphis, he reportedly transferred 40 priests loyal to himself from D.C. to Memphis, sparking the initial complaints from parishioners. The Vatican has not publicized the results…

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Leftist Academic Tells MTSU Students the Right Wants to Hurt America

Chris Butler

MURFREESBORO, Tennessee — This week Middle Tennessee State University hosted a left-wing academic who told a room of about 200 students about a network of conservative and libertarian forces supposedly out to undermine democracy. That woman, Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, made a lot of bold statements about the right during her 60-minute speech on Monday. A 30-minute question and answer session with students came afterward. MacLean complained extensively about the billionaire Koch brothers and how they supposedly work to enable a system of rigged rules that benefit only the wealthy. Tea Partiers, she said, are puppets who help carry out an agenda they unknowingly disagree with. MacLean also told MTSU students that think tanks, the religious right, and white segregationists had past or present ties to this supposedly sinister right-wing complex. “They are determined to use the religious right and the racially motivated right to get what they want. Behind all the chaos and dysfunction there is a calculated strategy that is far along,” MacLean told students. She heavily criticized the work and legacy of MTSU graduate and Nobel laureate in economics James M. Buchanan. “For the variety of capitalism…

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