Day: November 7, 2018

Blackburn Handily Defeats Bredesen to Become Tennessee’s First Woman Senator

Jason M. Reynolds

U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07) took a commanding lead of 54.73 percent to Democrat Phil Bredesen’s 43.89 percent to win the U.S. Senate race Tuesday. Blackburn received over 1.22 million votes, to Bredesen’s slightly more than 980,000 votes. The results are from unofficial tallies posted late Tuesday by the Tennessee Coordinator of Elections and the Secretary of State. The results, which could change slightly as districts trickle in, are here. Blackburn said, “You have sent a message that it is time to take Tennessee conservative values to Washington and keep our state and our country moving forward. I am so incredibly grateful to each of you for doing your part, standing with me, staying strong and turning out the vote. It is such an honor to be the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee. I am going to work as hard for you as you have worked for me.” “Just as we said on day one, I will take our shared Tennessee values to work on issues of importance to you in Washington: more constitutional federal judges and Supreme Court Justices, lower taxes, less regulation, protecting the right to life, defending the Second Amendment, providing for our…

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Commentary: The ‘Sacred Walls’ of Donald Trump

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by Pedro Gonzalez   With each step the “caravan of contradictions” takes toward our border, another progressive illusion slips away. Victor Davis Hanson considers this mob, and by extension the events surrounding it, a “paradox, a contradiction, and an irony.” He’s right. The “reasoning” of progressives that leads them to endorse opening our borders to a group of intransigent lawbreakers so that they may escape lawlessness, is logically unacceptable. Progressives recoil in horror at President Trump’s declaration that we must defend ourselves against an invasion of thousands of foreigners who denounce our laws and hold our sovereignty in contempt. And by progressives, I mean to include those “conservatives” of National Review who cry, “it’s hard to think of a response less measured and more effective at undermining moderate support for immigration restrictions than the reaction of the president and key allies.” Consider, 65 percent of voters favor – compared to 35 percent who oppose – increasing merit over connection to relatives for immigration preference, eliminating the visa lottery, and increased funding for border security. That includes 68 percent of Latino voters, 64 percent of black voters, 64 percent of Democratic voters, 67 percent of Independent voters, 63 percent of “liberal” voters, and…

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Bill Lee Discusses Transition Plans at First Press Conference as Governor-Elect

Chris Butler

FRANKLIN — Republican Bill Lee had his first press conference as governor elect Tuesday night, minutes after giving a gracious acceptance speech at The Factory at Franklin. From this point forward, Lee is in transition mode as he prepares to take the reins from outgoing Gov. Bill Haslam, also a Republican. To do that, Lee said he and his team members will build a strategy, execute it, and work with legislators. Lee said he’s open to having a Democrat serve on his team. “I want a team that is the best that can be assembled,” Lee said. Part of that strategy includes working on areas of economic development, particularly in rural communities, and working on criminal justice reforms Lee said will create safer neighborhoods. Another important focus for the incoming governor — improving the state’s education system, particularly with a focus on vocational and technical education. As for his election night win, Lee said running a positive campaign paid off. “We have an environment in the political world that is more divisive than it ought to be. I want to be the person who brings people together and doesn’t divide, and I want to do that starting from day one,”…

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SHOCK: Medical Students’ Surgical Abilities Declining Rapidly in a Growing Digital Age

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by Annie Holmquist   Whether it’s for something as serious as cancer or as routine as a kidney stone, no one likes to hear that they have to go under the surgical knife. But such unhappy news is often lightened once a patient has the chance to talk to the surgeon and realize that he is in good, capable hands. Unfortunately, those good, capable, surgery-performing hands may be an increasing rarity in the years ahead. According to Roger Kneebone, a London professor of surgical education, the last several years have seen a decided change in the abilities of medical students: they are having greater difficulty working with their hands. As Kneebone explains to The Guardian, this decline is directly related to the decline of hobbies and school activities which force children to work with their hands: People are no longer getting the same exposure to making and doing [things] when they are at home, when they are school, as they used to. Kneebone goes on to imply that skills learned in shop class, home economics, or other more extra-curricular courses have been thrown out of school with unforeseen consequences: We are talking about the ability to do things with your hands, with tools, cutting…

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Tennessee Star Report Exclusive: Hogan Gidley, Deputy White House Press Secretary Talks Statistics, Voters, and Trump the Phenomenon

Julie Carr

On Tuesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – the team spoke with Hogan Gidley, Deputy White House Press Secretary, regarding the Democrats radical agenda and they’re continuous denial that they lost the 2016 elections.  The men went on to question how, with economy so strong ,and the President’s delivery on promises made, that the midterm election race could be so close.  They all agreed that a large component could most certainly be attributed to the media’s ninety percent negative coverage of the President’s accomplishments in the past two years. Gill: And watching from the bunker in the white house Hogan Gidley is the Deputy White House Press Secretary who is on our newsmakers line this morning to give us a little assessment on election day.  Hogan good to have you with us! Gidley:  Thanks so much for the time.  I do appreciate it.  I want to make it clear though, I’m not coming to you in my official capacity today, I’m coming to you on my time off.  I’m taking personal time just because I think this is…

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Amazon Silent on Reports It Will Split New Headquarters

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Amazon isn’t commenting on reports that it plans to split its new headquarters between facilities in two cities rather than choosing just one. The New York Times, citing unnamed people familiar with the decision-making process, said the company is nearing deals to locate in Queens in New York City and in the Crystal City area of Arlington, Va., outside Washington, D.C. The Wall Street Journal, which also reported the plan to split the headquarters between two cities, says Dallas is still a possibility as well. Spokesman Adam Sedo said Amazon, which will also keep its original headquarters in Seattle, would not comment on “rumors and speculation.” Amazon’s decision to set up another headquarters set off an intense competition to win the company and its promise of 50,000 new jobs. Some locations sought to stand out with stunts, but Amazon emphasized it wanted incentives like tax breaks and grants. It also wanted a city with more than 1 million people, an airport within 45 minutes, direct access to mass transit and room to expand. The company received 238 proposals before narrowing the list to 20 in January. The unexpected decision to evenly divide the 50,000 jobs between two cities will allow…

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Supreme Court Weighs Bid to Open Nation’s Largest Uranium Mine

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by Kevin Daley   The U.S. Supreme Court weighed a bid to open the nation’s largest deposit of uranium to mining Monday, which defense hawks say is essential to national security and crucial foreign policy objectives. The deposit, known as Coles Hill, sits in a small Virginia town called Chatham. The commonwealth of Virginia indefinitely banned uranium extraction in 1983. Virginia Uranium Inc., a private company that opposes the ban, sued in federal court to end the ban, arguing it infringes on federal power. Uranium mining occurs in three stages: first, uranium ore is removed from ground deposits. Next, the ore is ground into a fine substance and treated with a chemical solution to separate the pure ore from other elements, called tailings, which are radioactive. This process is referred to as milling. Finally, the radioactive tailings are stored in an environmentally safe facility. The federal Atomic Energy Act (AEA) gives the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) power to regulate steps two and three, but the first step — the actual mining itself — remains under state authority. The legal question is whether Virginia’s ban on uranium mining conflicts with the AEA. Though the commonwealth retains power to regulate mining, Virginia Uranium says the law…

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Trump Administration Returns to Supreme Court, Seeking End to DACA

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by Kevin Daley   The Trump administration returned to the U.S. Supreme Court Monday night seeking to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an Obama-era amnesty initiative that extends protected status to illegal aliens brought to the U.S. as children. The move is aggressive and unusual, as decisions on Trump’s efforts to rescind DACA are still pending in several federal appeals courts, and the justices seldom take up cases before those judgments issue. But the U.S. Department of Justice told the Supreme Court Monday that action is needed in the near term. The Trump administration previously sought the Supreme Court’s review of its efforts to phase out DACA. After two federal judges issued injunctions requiring the government to continue administering the program, the Justice Department bypassed normal appellate procedure and went directly to the Supreme Court on January 18 to vindicate its right to terminate the program. The justices rejected that request on Feb. 26, but asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to quickly process the case so it could return to the high court in a reasonable timeframe. Other challenges to DACA repeal efforts are currently before appeals courts in New York and Washington, D.C. “It…

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Potential ‘El Chapo’ Jurors Excused for Safety Fears

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Reuters   The pool of potential jurors for the U.S. drug trafficking trial of accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman continued to shrink on Tuesday, with two people who expressed fears about their safety and one self-described “fan” of the defendant cut from the running. A total of 10 potential jurors were excused from the case during the second day of jury selection in federal court in Brooklyn, New York. Guzman, 61, watched from a table in the courtroom with his lawyers, wearing a dark suit and tie in place of the open-collared dress shirt he sported Monday. Guzman formerly led the Sinaloa Cartel, based in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, which became one of the most powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world. He was extradited to the United States from Mexico on Jan. 19, 2017, after escaping twice from Mexican prisons before being captured again. A total of 27 people have so far been dismissed as potential jurors, out of nearly 60 who have been questioned. The 12 jurors and six alternate jurors eventually chosen will remain anonymous and be escorted to and from court by armed federal marshals during the trial, which is expected to…

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Mothers of Deceased Vets Fight to Keep Memorial to Their Sons in Supreme Court

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by Jeremy Dys   They came from many walks of life, the 49 boys of Prince George’s County, Maryland. Several were laborers like George Washington Farmer and William Lee–one white, the other African-American. One, Ernest Pendleton Magruder, was a well-known surgeon. Another, Henry Lewis Hulbert, a Medal of Honor recipient of a previous war, would again display such bravery that he would earn a Distinguished Service Cross. Educated or not, white or black, rich or poor, their diverse backgrounds mattered little as they died on foreign soil in the final months of the “war to end all wars.”  Their bodies were interred under small grave makers, including crosses, in cemeteries far too distant for their families to ever visit. So, in 1925, a local post of The American Legion—now the largest veterans service organization in the country with approximately 2.2 million members—erected the Bladensburg World War I Veterans Memorial to honor the 49 Bladensburg-area men who gave their lives serving in the U.S. Armed Forces during WWI. But the cross-shape of the monument is too much to bear for some humanists, who have sued to have the memorial deemed unconstitutional. Late last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the…

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Michigan Judge Orders Food Stamp Fraudsters to Write Publicly About Their Crimes

Anna Marie Bolton

U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn ordered four Bangladeshi brothers convicted of scamming Michigan and American taxpayers out of millions of dollars in food-stamp benefits to write about it in a local newspaper. Cohn ordered the men to run an ad admitting to their crimes, and pay for it themselves. “To Readers, listen to us. If you cheat on food stamps you are committing a federal crime and will be punished for doing so,” the ad states. “We know: we have been punished for cheating on food stamps.” The fraud was committed in Hamtramck, a city that adjoins Detroit and is heavily populated with immigrants from Bangladesh. It made the news in 2015 for becoming the first U.S. city with an entirely Muslim city council. The four men, brothers Ali, Nazar, Mustak, and Mohammed Ahmed, were arrested by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2014 after an investigation revealed that six small grocery stores in Hamtramck were responsible for scamming the government out of $12.5 million between 2013 and 2014, using the practice of “trafficking” in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. The practice of trafficking is a multi-million dollar scam widespread throughout the country, as the Government Accountability Institute (GA)I) recently found…

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Bill Lee Wins Governor’s Race in a Blowout

Chris Butler

FRANKLIN —Bill Lee is now Tennessee’s governor-elect. Political pundits projected Lee as the winner Tuesday night, about 30 minutes after the last polls closed in Tennessee. And 30 minutes after that Lee took to the stage and spoke to a crowd at The Factory at Franklin. With 57 percent of the votes tallied, Lee had 60 percent of the vote compared to his Democratic opponent, former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, who had 38 percent. Lee told supporters Tennessee is already in a good place — but it can always do better. “We ran a positive campaign from the very beginning to the very last day,” Lee said. “We wanted to give a picture of what this state could look like if it lived up to its potential.” Continuing that theme, Lee said he wants to make sure everyone “has a good job and lives in a safe neighborhood.” “We have kids living in very tough neighborhoods, going to failing schools and wondering if the American dream is available to them,” Lee said. “Right now, violent crime is taking up in every major city in our state. I believe every neighborhood and every community can be a safe place to live,…

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