Day: October 29, 2018

Tennessee Town Abuses Drug Fund Money, Audit Says

Chris Butler

Officials in the town of Whiteville took nearly $10,000 of money out of their drug fund and spent it on things they weren’t supposed to, according to an audit Tennessee Comptrollers released Friday. According to the audit, town officials paid $9,230 from the drug fund and bought office furniture and wiring for the new city hall building. By law, they may not use drug fund money on such expenditures, according to the audit. No one at the town of Whiteville’s government offices were available to talk to The Tennessee Star Friday or to explain where, precisely, revenue from the drug fund originates. According to the town’s drug fund manual, town officials can use this money on drug treatment and drug education programs, drug enforcement programs, confidential expenditures, law enforcement expenditures, and automated fingerprint machines. “The police chief told the town recorder these were allowed expenditures,” auditors wrote. Comptrollers also called out town officials for paying employees during their lunch breaks and for giving out overtime to employees who did not work more than 40 hours. “One employee was being paid during lunch, resulting in an overpayment of approximately $81 during a week with four workdays. This would project to approximately…

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Tennessee Fire Department Gets Questionable Tax Exemptions

Chris Butler

Members of the New Johnsonville Volunteer Fire Department racked up more than $22,000 in unpaid cell phone bills and took advantage of city tax exemptions they weren’t supposed to have, according to a state audit. Tennessee Comptrollers released their report Thursday. “Beginning in May 2016, the department established the cell phone plan for the benefit of firefighters and others. The department plan was not created for a government purpose,” according to the audit. “The cell phone plan bills were supposed to be paid with individual participant money and not with volunteer fire department or government funds.” The plan included bills related to 116 phones — although the membership of the volunteer fire department was fewer than 25 firefighters, auditors said. The department plan included not only New Johnsonville volunteer firefighters, but also some of their family members and others. The average monthly bill was approximately $4,250, the audit said. Earlier this year, the cell phone plan invoice had a past due balance of $22,648. Some cell phone users apparently paid off a portion of the bill. Last month the account had a delinquent and unpaid balance of $7,424, according to the audit. Current New Johnsonville Fire Chief Bale Allen told…

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Dr. Carol M. Swain Commentary: The Rejection of Absolute Truth Strips Leftists of the Moral Authority to Criticize Elizabeth Warren’s Ethnic Fraud

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by Dr. Carol M. Swain   The Left has created quite a conundrum for itself. As a consequence, it has no moral language to justify its condemnation of Senator Elizabeth Warren for her decades-long decision to self-identify as a Native American. The Leftists we see on television depicted in the forms of Democratic Party spokespersons such as Senators Cory Booker, Diane Feinstein and Kamala Harris, see the world through a postmodernist lens. While secular humanists dismissed religion and believed in science, reason, objective truth, and free will, postmodernists believe in everything, thus they believe in nothing. Postmodernists see humans as social beings, shaped by a particular culture and the times, operating in a world without objective realities and moral constraints. While the humanists believed man could eventually solve man’s problems through science and human ingenuity, the postmodernists reject such ridiculous pie-in-the-sky notions. Their critique of modernism and theism have led them to believe that what some people see as human progress is merely the continuation of a dominant European worldview and a set of privileges that lie at the root of the world’s problems (See Dennis McCallum (ed.) The Death of Truth: Responding to Multiculturalism’s Reject of Reason, 1996). From…

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Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen Promises Migrant Caravan Won’t Cross US Border: They’re Not Getting In

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by Nick Givas   Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the migrant caravan headed for the U.S. southern border will not cross over into the United States, on Fox News Sunday. “I think what the president has been saying and will continue to say and certainly what I have been saying is, this caravan is not getting in,” Nielsen said. There is a legal way to enter this country. Those who choose to enter illegally will be stopped.” “We are working with our partners in Mexico. They have taken unprecedented efforts within their territory to ensure an orderly flow and that those who have no legal right to be there are removed, she continued. We intend to do the same but my general message to this caravan is do not come. You will not be allowed in. There is a right way to immigrate to the United States and this is not it.” Nielsen called the caravan a crisis and said President Donald Trump is exploring every option to resolve the situation as quickly and safely as possible. “We have a crisis at the border right now, Nielsen said. We are stopping between 1,500 and 1,700 people a day trying to cross illegally into this country.…

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Trump Creates a National Monument in Kentucky

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by Tim Pearce   Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced the creation of the new Camp Nelson National Monument in Kentucky Saturday, the first national monument designated under President Donald Trump. Camp Nelson was a Civil War recruitment and training camp that trained more than 10,000 African American soldiers for the Union Army, the third most of any camp. I’m in #Kentucky today to announce that @POTUS @realDonaldTrump has declared Camp Nelson a #NationalMonument and it will be under the care of the @NatlParkService #FindYourPark pic.twitter.com/gZXItR0Jp7 — Secretary Ryan Zinke (@SecretaryZinke) October 27, 2018 “The monument President Trump announced today will serve as a historic marker for the commonwealth of Kentucky and memorialize a site important to African American soldiers in the Civil War,” Utah GOP Rep. Rob Bishop, chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, said in a statement. “I appreciate President Trump joining the House in recognizing the unique historic nature of Camp Nelson and applaud the president for obeying the letter of the law in using his congressional delegated authority to create national monuments, Bishop continued. I am hopeful the Senate will follow the House and the president’s lead in giving Camp Nelson the prominence and security…

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Tom Steyer is Dropping Another $16 Million in the Final Days of the Midterms

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by Jason Hopkins   Billionaire activist Tom Steyer is reportedly preparing to drop one final money bomb before the midterm elections as he attempts to boot as many Republicans from office as possible. Steyer, together with his wife, has given over $42 million this midterm election cycle to Democrats and other progressive causes, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That sum makes him the most prolific Democratic donor by far, and the second highest political donor across the partisan spectrum, behind Republican booster Sheldon Adelson. Beyond supporting various Democratic campaigns and initiatives, Steyer has used his millions to spearhead two of his own campaigns: NextGen Climate Action and Need to Impeach. However, Steyer isn’t finished yet. Steyer is reportedly set to spend another $16 million in a last-minute campaign push before the Nov. 6 elections, according to a Steyer aide who spoke with CNBC. A large chunk of Steyer’s donations also have gone toward an enormous get-out-the-vote effort. His GOTV campaign is largely targeted toward young adults, a demographic group that typically doesn’t show up to the polls in large numbers. “We have 4 million people who we’re in contact with every day, he said to a local California news outlet…

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School to Remove Name of Former University of Vermont President Who Supported the Eugenics Movement

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by Neetu Chandak   The University of Vermont voted to remove the name of a former university president off a campus building due to his support for the eugenics movement that led to the involuntary sterilization of women, French Canadians and American Indians. The school’s board of trustees voted Saturday to remove Guy Bailey’s name off of Guy W. Bailey/David W. Howe Memorial Library, The Associated Press reported. “We reached our recommendation based primarily on the fact that Bailey’s active involvement as president of the University in supporting and promoting the Eugenics Survey of Vermont is fundamentally at odds with the University’s mission, Ron Lumbra, the committee’s chair and trustee, said, according to UVM Today on Thursday. We also considered Bailey’s mismanagement of University financial resources.” Bailey formed the Eugenics Survey Advisory Committee, according to UVM documents. He served in name only. The Eugenic Survey of Vermont did research, created “pedigrees of Vermont families it considered degenerate,” and educated Vermonters about sterilization as a solution to get rid of the “unfit,” according to UVM documents. The eugenics movement in the 1920s and 1930s led to the involuntary sterilizations of poor women, darker-skinned French Canadians and Native Americans, UVM Today reported. Vermont passed…

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A Remarkably Hard College Course Proves Remarkably Popular

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by Wilfred McClay   We’re used to hearing that American college students don’t like reading and avoid tough courses where they have to. But a new course at the University of Oklahoma (OU) proves that many students are eager for a demanding course. Here’s the story. In the fall of 1941, as a visiting faculty member at the University of Michigan, the poet W.H. Auden offered an undergraduate course of staggering intellectual scope, entitled Fate and the Individual in European Literature. We know little about the origins or trajectory of this remarkable course: how it was conceived, how it was taught, how it was received. It is mentioned in passing in some biographical accounts of Auden’s life. There are a few testimonials from students enrolled in the course (among whom was one Kenneth Millar, better known by his detective-fiction pseudonym Ross McDonald), but it has otherwise passed down into the memory hole—until recently. Seventy-one years after the course was taught, a faded, marked-up copy of Auden’s original one-page syllabus was unearthed in Michigan’s archives by the literary scholar Alan Jacobs. He then posted on the internet for all to see. Soon it was circulating widely, eliciting a surprising amount of…

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Planned Parenthood Says it Puts Women First, But This Missouri Clinic Proves Otherwise.

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by Monica Burke and Genevieve McNalis   Planned Parenthood claims to put women first, yet the atrocious health code violations found at a Missouri clinic earlier this month suggest otherwise. The abortion giant was campaigning against newly proposed regulations on Missouri abortion clinics when state inspectors discovered a clinic in Columbia, Missouri, was already in violation of existing state regulations. The clinic’s license was due to expire in October, so in anticipation, the state health department made its routine inspection of the facility in August. In that inspection, the department discovered disgusting and dangerous health violations such as moldy equipment and bodily fluid on recently used equipment. The state informed Planned Parenthood of these health violations and expected the organization to correct them immediately. Not only did the clinic fail to do so, it continued operating for over a month without correcting the violations. When the state visited the clinic again on Sept. 26, 2018, they discovered additional violations. They found bloody single-use plastic tubing attached to the machine’s glass suction canister that was never disposed of after the last abortion procedure on Sept. 21, along with machines covered in mold and bodily fluid. The department also found rusty machines…

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MSNBC’s Toure Neblett Calls Conservatives Anti-Media, Anti-Intellectual and Anti-Science Conspiracy Theorists

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by Nick Givas   MSNBC contributor Toure Neblett called conservatives “anti-media, anti-intellectual and anti-science” and accused them of believing in conspiracy theories on Up With David Gura Saturday. Neblett was discussing conservatives’ reactions to suspected mail bomber Cesar Syoc Jr., who was arrested Friday on suspicion of sending 12 potential explosive devices to Democratic politicians, media personalities and other public figures. “The right has been on this anti-fact thing for many years now. The president was a birther pushing this notion that was based on absolutely nothing … That’s been consistent of the right for a while,” Neblett said. “They are anti-media, anti-intellectual, anti-science. There are so many things that they believe that are based on no facts at all. So I mean, that they are embracing wholesale these conspiracy theories.” Neblett claimed it would be wrong to compare the attempted bombings to the shooting of GOP House Majority Whip Steve Scalise by Bernie Sanders supporter James Hodgkinson. “This is not the same as what happened with Steve Scalise. That was tragic. This is not the same,” he said, adding: Bernie Sanders was not telling people, Go harm people! Trump has been saying that consistently for years now. Obviously, something eventually is going to happen. Watch…

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Leftist Protesters Kick, Scream, Punch at Nashville Rally for Marsha Blackburn Featuring Lindsey Graham

Chris Butler

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina visited Nashville Sunday to campaign for Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07)  and express disgust over how Democrats treated Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court nomination hearings. “They played dirty. They lost,” Graham said at a press conference that followed a Marsha Blackburn for U.S. Senate rally at Ray Stevens CabaRay Showroom. “Because of what they did, I really want them to pay a price at the ballot box.” Graham said the adversarial nature of Kavanaugh’s U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings so appalled him he decided to take up for Republican U.S. Senate candidates whenever and wherever he’s welcome. Blackburn is running as a Republican against former Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat. Some of Bredesen’s supporters showed up — and, for their behavior got dragged out while cussing, screaming, punching, and even kicking. This, of course, mirrored much of how leftists behaved during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. One protester even disrupted a moment of silence for victims of Saturday’s mass shooting in Pittsburgh. That protester, a female, screamed “Marsha Blackburn is a white supremacist.” Security promptly showed her the door. The incident appalled Blackburn. “How despicable that you cannot even have…

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