Day: November 12, 2018

Florida’s Recount Begins Amid Allegations Officials Tampered With Ballots

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by Chris White   Florida’s secretary of state announced Saturday afternoon that the races for governor and senator would will be reviewed through a recount as Republicans allege officials tinkered with the results. Republican Gov. Rick Scott leads incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson by more than 12,500 votes. Former Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis leads his opponent, Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, by nearly 34,000 votes in the Senate race. The paper-thin margin prompted the recount. Votes will now be recounted by machine after both races fell under the .5 percent margin. Races within .25 percent will then go to a hand recount. Scott’s campaign is calling on the Nelson to accept the official tally. “It’s time for Senator Nelson to accept reality and spare the state of the Florida the time, expense and discord of a recount,” the Florida Republican’s spokesman Chris Hartline said in a press statement following the news. Nelson shows no signs of giving up, telling reporters in a statement: “We have every expectation the recount will be full and fair and will continue taking action to ensure every vote is counted without interference or efforts to undermine the democratic process.” Scott initially won the open seat,…

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Registration Is Open for the 2020 Tennessee Star Constitution Bee, Which Will Be Held on April 25

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Constitution Bee April, 2018

  The 2020 Tennessee Star Constitution Bee is open for registration!   If you have a secondary school-level student enrolled in a public or private school, or an accredited home school program, they are eligible to participate in the 2020 Tennessee Star Constitution Bee, a one-day event to be held Saturday, April 25, 2020 at Metro Christian Academy in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. The top three finishers will earn college scholarships of $3,000, $1,000, and $500 respectively. In addition, they will win a free trip to Washington, D.C. for themselves and a parent to participate in the inaugural 2020 National Constitution Bee, where the winner will earn a $25,000 college scholarship! The questions in the 2020 Tennessee Star Constitution Bee will be based on the 2019 edition of The Star News Digital Media Guide to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students, which is now available for purchase at a price of $30 here. The guide is written at the level for 11th and 12th grade students who are taking the half semester course in Government, but can also be used as a self-study guide by any student in grades 8 through 12. Students in grades 8 through 12 are eligible to participate. The questions and…

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Commentary: Midterms Prove the Left’s #MeToo Was More About Partisanship Than Protecting Women

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by Natalia Castro   One of the real losers in this week’s midterms was not the right or the left — it was the #MeToo movement. This week’s midterms proved two things — that the Democrats only care about women when it is Republicans on the chopping block and that due process must prevail. What many have dubbed the “Kavanaugh Effect” is the wave of voters who voted against red-state Democrats who voted against Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation in the Senate. While it is good these obstructers are out of office, this whole process has only de-legitimized the real #MeToo movement and taken attention away from real abusers — four of which are now in office representing the Democratic Party. Senators in Florida, Indiana, North Dakota and Missouri who voted against Kavanaugh have all been voted out of office in favor or Republicans. As Senator Lindsey Graham noted in a press release: “Their constituents held them responsible for being part of a despicable smear campaign orchestrated by the left… These Democrats showed more allegiance to the left than to their constituents who support qualified, conservative judges like Brett Kavanaugh.  Their votes against Kavanaugh crystallized how out of touch they had become…

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Veterans Respond to Effort in Supreme Court to Remove War Memorial

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by Troy Worden   When Jake Hill heard that an atheist activist group had sued to have a historic World War I memorial pulled down because some people were offended by the monument’s Christian symbolism, the Marine got angry. “Americans of all faith backgrounds should be outraged,” Hill, a lance corporal in the Marine Corps, said. Hill, of Madison, Wisconsin, was awarded the Silver Star during the Afghanistan War for his valor in leading his squad through enemy fire in 2010 to rescue a wounded fellow Marine. He also received a Purple Heart after being wounded in action during his service from 2008 to 2013. But back home, another battle is brewing at the Supreme Court. Hill sees the latest effort to remove the 40-foot-tall Peace Cross in Bladensburg, Maryland, as one more step in a long war against religious liberty in America. “Where will this end?” Hill, 28, asked in an email to The Daily Signal. “Will they begin chiseling the crosses and stars of David off gravestones in Arlington National Cemetery next?” Another Marine Corps veteran told The Daily Signal that he would not find a broad Supreme Court ruling against religious-themed memorials appealing. “I hope that in…

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Commentary: The Left’s Fatal Attraction to Crazy

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by Bill Thomas   How much crazier can the progressive Left get? The short answer is a lot. After their victory in the midterms, Democrats can assume the two-year psychodrama they inflicted upon the nation actually worked. So why stop. Hillary Clinton’s been saying that “civility can start again” when her party regains both the House and Senate. Since that’s not going to happen for at least another election cycle, it’s a matter of public safety to wonder what the next level of crazy might be. With President Donald Trump still in office it doesn’t take a genius to predict that the other side’s removal effort is about to shift into high gear. Democratic strategy usually calls for mau-mauing political opponents with insults and agitation. But what happens this time around if things get out of hand? Suppose the anti-Trump resistance redoubles its investment in the deranged and turns into something like the Weather Underground. For those who may have missed the late 1960s, that was the group led by Bill Ayers, best remembered for setting off bombs in the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol Building. After finally surrendering to authorities, Ayers later in life was the domestic terrorist said to…

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Living in the Forest and Risking Their Lives: The Extreme Measures Enviros Will Take to Stop a Crude Oil Pipeline

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by Jason Hopkins   ST. MARTINVILLE, La. — Deep in Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin, the largest swamp in the United States, a group of protesters has seemingly stopped at nothing to scuttle completion of a legal pipeline. The construction project in question, the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, is an 163-mile crude oil pipeline that extends across southern Louisiana. The pipeline will carry up to 480,000 barrels off crude oil a day when completed — taking a lot of oil off more hazardous means of transportation, such as road and train lines. Despite the pipeline being overwhelmingly welcomed by locals and Louisiana politicians across the partisan spectrum, construction efforts have attracted an inordinate amount of pushback from national environmental groups. Organizations such as Sierra Club, EarthJustice, Waterkeeper Alliance and others have continually tried to torpedo the pipeline with lawsuits. However, it’s the opposition happening outside the courtroom that is attracting some of the most extreme elements against Bayou Bridge. Groups such as Louisiana Bucket Brigade and 350 New Orleans have assembled protests at construction sites, temporarily  preventing employees from working. The most active group on the ground is L’eau Est La Vie (French for “water is life”), a traveling camp within the Atchafalaya Basin that…

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Judicial Commissioner Who Went Soft on Justin Jones Made Another Mistake in 2014

Chris Butler

Four years ago, Nashville Judicial Commissioner Carolyn Piphus reportedly allowed a hate crime suspect to leave jail even though the man allegedly violated his parole and was supposed to remain behind bars. Piphus, of course, is the same judicial commissioner who refused to issue an arrest warrant to Justin Jones, the man who disrupted an October 28 Marsha Blackburn rally in Nashville. Subsequently, the office of Nashville District Attorney General Glenn Funk asked a judge to issue an arrest warrant for Jones on charges of criminal trespassing and resisting arrest. Jones was arrested and faces a December court date. According to the June 4, 2014 edition of The Tennessean, the suspect in the earlier case, William Eugene Massey, went missing after posting bail. Authorities charged Massey with beating a gay man at a convenience store on Dickerson Pike. According to the paper, the beating was caught on video. The victim reportedly needed 13 stitches and was likely to have a permanent scar. Massey had a lengthy arrest record, with convictions for drug, firearm, and aggravated assault offenses. Massey was still on parole when he attacked the unidentified gay man, the paper reported. Police reportedly tracked him down four days later…

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Democrats Escalate Push for Matt Whitaker’s Recusal from Mueller Probe

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by Chuck Ross   Top Democrats in the House and Senate continued Sunday to press for acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker’s recusal from the Mueller investigation over his remarks criticizing the probe. In a letter sent to the Department of Justice’s top ethics official, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and five leading committee Democrats asked whether Whitaker was advised to recuse himself from the investigation. “There are serious ethical considerations that require Mr. Whitaker’s immediate recusal from any involvement with the Special Counsel investigation of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” reads the letter, which was sent to Assistant Attorney General Lee J. Lofthus. “Regrettably, Mr. Whitaker’s statements indicate a clear bias against the investigation that would cause a reasonable person to question his impartiality.” The Democrats pointed to remarks that Whitaker made in 2017 when he ran the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a conservative non-profit group. Whitaker was hired as Jeff Sessions’s chief of staff, reportedly after President Donald Trump saw him on CNN criticizing the Mueller investigation. “The official supervising the Special Counsel investigation must be — in both fact and appearance — independent and impartial,” reads the letter, which…

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Report: Government Workers in Tennessee Steal Millions

Chris Butler
Tennessee Capital building

Local governments in Tennessee are short more than $3.75 million of taxpayer money they’re supposed to already have in their coffers, according to two new reports from the Tennessee Comptrollers’ Office. That’s because too many local government employees are stealing the money you worked so hard for — and they’re spending it on themselves, Comptrollers said in two new reports. The reports detail money that went missing during the most recent fiscal years.  One report profiled how much money went missing from local county governments — more than $971,000. Another report detailed cash shortages and other thefts for other local government entities, including internal school funds, utility districts, housing authorities, and nonprofits. For that, Comptrollers said there was a shortage of more than $2.7 million. Combined, both reports detail about 50 examples of government waste, fraud, and abuse in Tennessee. Among only a few of the examples: • An employee in the Bradley County Mayor’s Office, according to Comptrollers, paid fictitious persons for contracted services. That employee used that money, more than $15,000, for personal gain. • The Cocke County Office of Clerk and Master had a cash shortage of more than $101,000 due to theft and conversion of office…

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