Day: November 10, 2018

Lost Video Rant By State Representative-Elect London Lamar Saying ‘Tennessee Is Racist’ Retrieved

Chris Butler

A livestreamed video showing newly-elected State Rep. London Lamar (D-Memphis) complaining Tennessee is full of racists and uneducated white people got removed from Lamar’s Facebook page Friday. But The Tennessee Star has a copy, which readers may find here:   The video was apparently originally published Wednesday morning, and includes Lamar’s analysis of the midterm election results. “Looking here at Tennessee, let’s just call a spade a spade,” Lamar said in the video, beginning at the 2:01 mark. “Tennessee is racist, period. Period. And if you for one moment thought that white people in Tennessee were going to leave their own to jump over here and give us more access, they just told you last night it’s not happening,” Lamar continued. “If we look at some of the numbers last night, white men voted Republican well over 60 or 70 percent,” the newly elected Democrat State Representative from Memphis added. “Obviously, that is a particular base of people who believe in superiority. They don’t believe in sharing their wealth. They don’t believe in sharing resources. They believe that you need to work for your own, and they went to the polls and voted,” Lamar added. Later in the video, at…

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Commentary: The Democratic Party’s Reckless Disregard for the Nation’s Institutions

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by Jarrett Stepman   Sometimes progressives do a great job of becoming caricatures of themselves. The progressive worldview is marked by a tendency to embrace utopian dreams, and a general disregard for tried and true traditions and institutions. Ted Kennedy captured this instinct in 1968 when he said, quoting George Bernard Shaw: “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.” But while laws and norms sometimes need to be changed, there is something to be said for recklessly overturning a system that has been at the heart of the strongest and freest country that’s ever existed. This progressive instinct for change at any cost has gone off the rails. Historically, progressives have sought to bring about a radical social transformation, and in order to achieve it, they have indulged a tendency to try to upend the constitutional system put in place by the Founding Fathers. But more pathetically, in recent days, they have sought to upend the Constitution for short-term political gain. When President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, the left wanted to abolish the Electoral College. When Trump nominated now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme…

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California Governor-Elect: Gun Culture Has Become Normalized

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“I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts,” said a mother whose son died this week when a lone gunman opened fire in a bar in California. Susan Schmidt-Orfanos’ son Telemachus had already survived the onslaught of another lone gunman at a music festival in Las Vegas last year. This week, he went to the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, along with other survivors of the Las Vegas massacre. Schmidt-Orfanos’ son died Wednesday less than 10 minutes away from home. He was at the bar when a shooter fired into the crowd, killing 12 people. Schmidt-Orfanos said Congress needs “to pass gun control so no one else has a child that doesn’t come home.” The shooter, Marine Corps veteran Ian David Long, 28, apparently killed himself after gunning down customers in the bar. Investigators are looking for clues to Long’s “state of mind” before Wednesday’s late-night shooting. “It’s a gun culture,” California’s Democratic Governor-elect Gavin Newsom lamented Thursday. “You can’t go to a bar or a nightclub? You can’t go to church or a synagogue? It’s insane is the only way to describe it. The normalization, that’s the only I can describe it. It’s become normalized.” Paul…

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Andrew Gillum May Retract Concession as Recount Looms in Florida Governor Race

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by Chuck Ross   Andrew Gillum may retract his concession in the Florida governor’s race. Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, conceded the race in a speech on Tuesday, after polls showed him down one percentage point to Republican Ron DeSantis, a former congressman who is close to President Trump. But DeSantis’ vote margin dwindled on Wednesday as absentee and provisional ballots continued to be counted. “On Tuesday night, the Gillum for Governor campaign operated with the best information available about the number of outstanding ballots left to count. Since that time, it has become clear there are many more uncounted ballots than was originally reported,” Gillum campaign spokeswoman Johanna Cervona said in a statement. “Our campaign, along with our attorney Barry Richard, is monitoring the situation closely and is ready for any outcome, including a state-mandated recount. Mayor Gillum started his campaign for the people, and we are committed to ensuring every single vote in Florida is counted.” Gillum trailed DeSantis by 43,000 votes on Thursday. According to the Orlando Sentinel, that is just 0.02 percentage points from the threshold that will trigger a machine recount. Florida’s Senate battle is even closer than the gubernatorial race. Gov. Rick Scott, a…

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Commentary: Democrats Will Investigate, Not Legislate

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by Julie Kelly   In a column published the day after the election, former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell warned his fellow Democrats to proceed cautiously after winning the House of Representatives. “Our most fervent supporters hope that we will use our newly found control to investigate almost everything that the Trump administration has done,” he wrote. “Though I understand what has fed this emotion, that would be a grievous mistake if investigations were all we did and we made no attempt to meet the challenges facing everyday Americans.” But that advice likely will be ignored by a party that has no more use for relatively moderate, older, white men like Rendell. Despite election season slogans about protecting health care and migrant children, Democrats really only care about one thing: Retribution for Trump winning the White House. Their base wants it, too. Exit polls showed a plurality of voters used their ballot to protest President Trump; two-thirds of voters who supported a Democratic House candidate said they want Congress to begin impeachment proceedings and remove Trump from office, an idea supported by key Democratic lawmakers poised to take over powerful committees. Revenge-seeking henchmen in the 116th Congress will be more interested…

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OFF THE RECORD: ‘W’ #Winning – Counties Hold Strong for Blackburn and Lee

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A Tennessee Journal analysis of the midterm election results of Tennessee’s Senate battle between Marsha Blackburn and Phil Bredesen focused on the fact that Bredesen won in the state’s ten largest counties by a 55-45 margin. Former Tennessean Reporter Jim O’Hara noted that the Bredesen vote total in the largest population counties was nevertheless overcome by the 69-31 margin Blackburn racked up in the other 85 counties in the state. (The analysis did not extend to Bill Lee’s 20% margin over Democrat Karl Dean, nor Donald Trump’s 26% margin of victory in 2016.) The point was, apparently, that while the vast majority of the state’s voters, as well as the overwhelming geographic territory of the state, swung heavily for Blackburn the glimmer of hope for Democrats is some doubt about whether Republicans can keep running up the score in the 85 smaller counties while losing to a heavily funded Democrat in the largest and growing counties. Putting aside for a moment that the “growth” in Shelby has actually been a steady population decline in the past 5 years — and that dark blue Davidson County is growing at a much slower pace than the surrounding red suburban counties — we…

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ICE: Mexican National Released by Sanctuary County in New Jersey Went on to Commit Triple Murder

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by Will Racke   A Mexican national charged with killing three people in Missouri in early November was released from a New Jersey county jail in 2017, despite being the subject an active immigration detention request, federal authorities said Friday. Luis Perez, 23, allegedly killed two of his ex-roommates in Springfield, Missouri, on Nov. 1 and then, a day later, shot and killed a woman who had accompanied him to the first two murders. Perez had been kicked out of his apartment by the roommates, Steven Marler, 38, and Aaron Hampton, 23, The Associated Press reported, citing a Springfield police probable cause affidavit. The charging documents further stated the Perez was a recent arrival to Missouri and that his immigration status was in question. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed Perez’s illegal status in a statement Friday and added that he had previously been released by authorities in Middlesex County, New Jersey, despite a detainer request. “Luis Rodrigo Perez was being held at Middlesex County Jail in December of last year on domestic violence charges,” the agency said. “ICE issued a detainer and requested notification prior to his release, so that he may be taken into ICE custody and placed in removal proceedings. In…

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Trump Issues Proclamation Revoking Asylum Eligibility From Migrants Who Cross Southwest Border Illegally

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by Will Racke   President Donald Trump issued a proclamation on Friday that makes anyone caught crossing the southwest border illegally ineligible for asylum, a major change to U.S. immigration policy that seeks to reverse the rising tide of migration from Central America. The order, which takes effect midnight Saturday, suspends for 90 days the entry of any alien across the U.S.-Mexico border, with broad exceptions for people who present themselves for inspection at ports of entry and legal permanent residents. When combined with a new asylum regulation issued Thursday, the practical effect of the proclamation is to limits asylum protections to only those migrants who present themselves at U.S. ports of entry. Administration officials say the ultimate aim of the policy is to channel asylum seekers away from illegal border crossings, which have surged this year amid a wave of Central American migrants. Migrants who present themselves at the ports of entry will still be eligible to pursue asylum claims under the new policy. Additionally, migrants already in the U.S. will still be able to seek humanitarian protections pursuant to “withholding” of removal and convention against torture provisions, which use a higher “reasonable fear” standard. [ RELATED: ‘Non-Meritorious’ Central…

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Rubio Warns: Dems Are Actively Trying to Steal the Florida Election

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by Luke Rosiak   Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is warning that the fate of his state’s governorship could hang in the hands of Florida’s Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, whom he’s called incompetent for violating state and federal laws. A liberal candidate similarly painted her as incompetent and corrupt. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum initially conceded the Florida race to Republican Ron DeSantis, but backtracked after vote totals changed Thursday, narrowing the gap to less than half a percent in both the gubernatorial and senatorial races. Broward County is often the slowest of the state’s 67 counties to count votes, and its election department has repeatedly been faulted for wrongdoing. Now, Perkins Coie lawyer Marc Elias has been enlisted in a recount effort. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is retaining Elias, who said it’s “not plausible” that, as Broward statistics suggest, 14,000 people voted in sometimes-obscure state-level races but left the Senate one blank. Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who, by initial appearances, beat Nelson in a race for Senate, said Elias will use aggressive techniques to “steal” the election. Elias worked for both the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC during the 2016 election, even before the 2016 presidential candidate became the Democratic…

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Lamberth, Sexton and Williams Are the Three Declared Candidates to Become the Next State House Majority Leader

Laura Baigert

On the November 9 deadline for Republican members to declare an intention to run for a State House leadership position, the Majority Leader selection just turned from a two-way into a three-way race. As The Tennessee Star reported, the Tennessee House leadership selections will be held this year on November 20, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving as required by the House Republican Caucus Bylaws. The most important and Constitutional positions in the House, Speaker and Speaker Pro-Tempore, will be selected by the Republican Caucus members and voted on by the entire House of Representatives at a January organizational meeting. As the chief officer of the Republican Party in the State House, it is the most important Caucus leadership role. The duties of the Republican (Majority) Leader are largely related to coordinating, negotiating and representing the legislative interests of the House Caucus to the Senate and Executive Branch and vice versa. As with any election, the candidates appeal to the electorate for their vote. In this case, the candidates ask for votes from their fellow Republican House members. The candidates for House Majority (Republican) Leader are William Lamberth (Cottontown), Jerry Sexton (Bean Station) and Ryan Williams (Cookeville), with Sexton the latest to…

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