Day: November 15, 2018

Bob Corker Cracks Open Door to 2020 Primary Challenge of President Trump

Jason M. Reynolds
Bob Corker

Retiring U.S. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) said that he has not ruled out running against President Donald Trump for the Republican presidential primary in 2020. Breitbart reported the story on Wednesday. When asked by reporters Tuesday if he plans to run for president in 2020, Corker said, “I have not ruled it out.” Reporters said that their colleagues often ask Corker this question, to which he usually gives a vague answer. 2020 WATCH: Will Sen. Bob Corker run for President??? “I haven’t ruled it out.” — Natalie Andrews (@natalieandrews) November 13, 2018 https://twitter.com/byrdinator/status/1062478823785185281 This is not the first time people have speculated on Corker running against Trump. In October 2017, News Channel 9 in his hometown of Chattanooga asked voters for their thoughts. Chattanooga Tea Party leader Mark West said at the time he wouldn’t be surprised if Corker runs but hopes he doesn’t. Corker announced his retirement in September 2017 amidst increasing unpopularity in Tennessee, which arose from his frequent criticism of the president and his America First agenda. He received criticism for praising Democrat and former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen during the U.S. Senate election to replace him, in which he admitted that he has closer ties to Bredesen…

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Sumner County Executive’s Email Rant Signals Major Property Tax Increase for County In 2019

Laura Baigert

In an email sent to dozens of local elected officials ranting about a political rival, Sumner County Executive Anthony Holt, while seemingly trying to conceal a significant property tax increase in 2019, may have actually revealed that intention. County Executive Holt’s email directed to Sumner County’s County Commission members, other constitutional officers and Gallatin City Council members was under the heading of “Information Regarding County Courthouse Project,” referencing the new, greater than $110 million facsimile of Rutherford County’s new courthouse Sumner County is currently pushing along. The $110 million price tag does not address the identified need of a parking garage, which cost Rutherford County $7 million in 2014 dollars and did not include the land purchase. The courthouse project is running in parallel to the first phase of a new K-12 school campus on the 265 acres purchased in 2015 in the Upper Station Camp area, approved in a special-called Sumner County School Board meeting on October 30. A special-called joint meeting of the Education, Budget and Financial Management Committees held on election eve, November 5, expedited the approval of $103 million in debt to advance the school project on to the regularly scheduled full County Commission meeting November…

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Whereabouts of Alleged Illegal Immigrant Who Killed Tennessee Woman Unknown

Chris Butler

The current whereabouts of a man who allegedly drove drunk and killed a 29-year-old Bedford County woman and was taken into custody for it last month are unknown, even to Bedford County Sheriff Austin Swing. That man, Omar Edgar Torres-Rangel, is an illegal immigrant, according to sources. District Attorney Robert Carter, meanwhile, refused to answer when asked if he knows Torres-Rangel’s present location. Officials with the Tennessee Highway Patrol worked the crash scene the night of Oct. 21. Torres-Rangel sustained critical injuries. According to numerous sources, authorities transported Torres-Rangel to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. What happened to him afterward is a mystery. Vanderbilt Medical Center spokesman Craig Boerner told The Tennessee Star the hospital had no patient by that name as of Wednesday. Boerner said he could provide no other information. Keri King was the woman who died in the crash. Her brother, Willie King, said no one in law enforcement can give him or his family any answers. “He was an illegal, and he just walked out of the hospital, and now they are looking for him. I don’t know how that happened. Those are answers we are trying to get,” King said. “How did I find…

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Commentary: Some People Need to See Socialism to Believe It Is Bad

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by Natalia Castro   Seeing is believing. People around the country were baffled when exit polls showed Robert or Beto O’Rourke won more votes from native Texans than incumbent Senator Ted Cruz in the midterm elections. But this should not be a surprise, it should be a lesson — some people need to experience socialism to understand its disastrous effects. Exit polls found that 57 percent of people who moved to Texas (also known as transplants) voted for Cruz while 51 percent of those born in Texas voted for O’Rourke. While many Texas conservatives blamed the liberalization of the state on transplants from California and New York moving to the area for lower property values, it seems the opposite is taking place. These people are not bringing their liberal ideas, but running away from them. Chuck DeVore of the Washington Examiner explains: “The lack of economic freedom in California compared to Texas is likely why, according to census, from 2012 to 2016, a net of 521,052 Californians left the state. Texas was their most popular destination, with a net of 114,413 Californians moving 1,300 miles east to the Lone Star State.  In the five years through 2016, some 542,432 more…

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Despite Security Concerns, DHS Official Says No Signs of Successful Election Cybersecurity Attacks

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by Gavin Hanson   An official from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reportedly said the department had not picked up on any indications of successful election cyberattacks as of early Wednesday morning. The 2018 midterm election came and passed without any official observations of hacking, according to the DHS, The Hill reported. This, however, doesn’t rule out that such a cyberattack could still be discovered or happen at a later time. “We’ve not seen, or we’re not aware, of any successful cybersecurity-related compromises of election infrastructure,” a DHS official told journalists during a press call. “At this time we have no indication of compromise to our nation’s election infrastructure that would prevent voting, change vote counts, or distrust the ability to tally votes,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said during a Tuesday press conference. The day before the election, the FBI released a joint statement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the DHS about the security of the midterms. The statement also said that although foreign states continue to push propaganda and division on social media, there is “no indication of compromise” to the election itself. ” … Americans should be aware that foreign actors —…

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As Federal Prosecutor Acting AG Whitaker Went After Both Democrats and Republicans

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by Fred Lucas   Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker went after Democratic and Republican politicians alike while serving as a federal prosecutor and as the head of an ethics watchdog group. Now at the center of a political firestorm in Washington, Whitaker returns Wednesday to Iowa—the state where he made his name in both politics and sports. Whitaker will deliver the opening remarks Wednesday at the Rural and Tribal Elder Justice Summit in Des Moines. The conference will focus on fighting and preventing elder abuse in rural and tribal communities. But on Tuesday, the state of Maryland sued in federal court, claiming Whitaker’s appointment as acting attorney general was illegal because he was not confirmed for the office by the Senate. He was elevated to the post last week after President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, for whom Whitaker had served as chief of staff. As a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa from 2004 to 2009, Whitaker prosecuted some 2,500 criminal cases, including against H-1B visa fraud, government contractors defrauding taxpayers, and drug dealers. Whitaker first made a name for himself in Iowa years before, playing college football for the University of Iowa and competing in…

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US Justice Department Defends Appointment of Acting AG

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  The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday defended the legality of President Donald Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general, which bypassed the usual line of succession at the agency. In a 20-page internal legal opinion, the agency’s Office of Legal Counsel said Trump could “depart from the succession order” and name Whitaker instead of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, then the second in command at Justice when the president last week ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The 49-year-old Whitaker had been serving as Sessions’ chief of staff. Whitaker’s appointment has proved controversial because he, unlike Sessions, is now overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign’s links to Russia and whether Trump, as president, obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe. Before becoming the country’s top law enforcement official, Whitaker disparaged the Mueller investigation and suggested that a replacement attorney general, such as he is now, could derail the probe by cutting off funding to it so that it “grinds almost to a halt.” Democratic opponents of Trump, and some Republicans, have expressed fears that Whitaker will try to undermine Mueller’s probe or even fire him before his investigation is completed. Sessions had removed…

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Jim Jordan Lobbies Lame Duck Congress to Fund Trump’s Border Wall

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by Nick Givas   Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said the GOP has failed to keep its campaign promises and told Congress to fund President Donald Trump’s border wall on Fox & Friends Wednesday. “What was the single biggest promise we made the American people in 2016 that we have not got done yet? Building the border security wall and securing the border,” Jordan said. “We should be focused on that one main thing over the next several weeks as we still have a few weeks left while Republicans control all of government. We should focus on the biggest promise we made them and what they sent us here to do. Plain and simple.” “Why did we lose in the fist place? I mean two years ago the American people elected President Trump to come to this town to shake it up and he has done just that. But I don’t think they’ve seen this same intensity from House Republicans,” he added. Jordan said Republicans would have won more midterm races and could have retained the House if they had stuck to the agenda that propelled Trump to the White House. “Did we replace Obamacare? Did we reform welfare?…

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Commentary: Arizona Illustrates the RINO Revenge

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by Henry Olsen   Arizona’s Senate race was perhaps the most surprising, and disturbing, midterm result for Republicans and Trump fans. Many struggle to understand how Barry Goldwater’s home state will send a former pink tutu-wearing antiwar activist to Washington. The answer is instructive regarding what Trump Republicanism must do to build a majority. The biggest reason Martha McSally lost is the same reason Republicans lost control of the House: RINOs. Across the nation, moderate college-educated independents who had frequently backed Republicans in prior elections switched sides. We can see this trend both in the Arizona exit polls and the results reported to date. Support for Republicans has collapsed since 2012 among college-educated Arizonans when Mitt Romney cruised to a 54-44 win over Barack Obama, crushing him by a 63-36 percent margin among college graduates. This year, while Republican Governor Doug Ducey even more easily won victory by a 56-42 margin, he barely carried college grads with only a 51-46 margin. McSally ran against a much tougher opponent in Kyrsten Sinema and ended up losing college grads by a 52-47 margin. Since college grads cast nearly one-quarter of the state’s votes, that 10-point swing added nearly 2.5 percent to Sinema’s…

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US Hardens Border at Tijuana to Prepare for Migrant Caravan

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  The U.S. government said it was starting work on Tuesday to “harden” the border crossing from Tijuana, Mexico, to prepare for the arrival of a migrant caravan leapfrogging its way across western Mexico. Customs and Border Protection announced it was closing four lanes at the busy San Ysidro and Otay Mesa ports of entry in San Diego, California. It said the closures were needed “to install and pre-position port hardening infrastructure equipment in preparation for the migrant caravan and the potential safety and security risk that it could cause.” That still leaves a substantial path for the tens of thousands of people who cross daily: Twenty-three lanes remain open at San Ysidro and 12 at Otay Mesa. The caravans became a campaign issue in U.S. midterm elections and U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the deployment of over 5,000 military troops to the border to help fend off the migrants. Trump has insinuated without proof that there are criminals or even terrorists in the group. To the thousands of Central American migrants making their way toward Mexico’s Pacific coast state of Nayarit, the prospect of meeting a hostile reception at the border is nothing new. After a month on…

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Audit: Jackson School Official Stole Nearly $16,000

Chris Butler

The former bookkeeper at West Bemis Middle School in Jackson stole at least $15,908 from the school last year, according to an audit the Tennessee Comptrollers’ Office released this week. That woman, Judy Hale, failed to deposit cash from candy, T-shirt, cookie dough, and discount card fundraisers, Comptrollers said. Instead, Hale kept the money for her personal benefit, the report said. The Tennessee Star was unable to reach Hale for comment Wednesday. She appeared to have no social media accounts. No one at a phone number listed for a Judy Hale out of Jackson answered our phone calls. “Investigators were unable to account for an additional $6,475 that was collected from fundraising activities but not deposited. Hale did not prepare and keep detailed records of these collections, and investigators were not able to definitively determine who was responsible for this shortfall,” according to the audit. “Additionally, Hale used a school credit card to make unauthorized personal purchases including pet supplies, fuel, tires, hair dye, and grocery items. She also improperly utilized the school’s tax-exempt status to avoid sales taxes on purchases. She failed to pay the balance of the card on time, which resulted in a large unpaid balance, interest,…

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Bedford County Asks for ICE’s Help on Illegal Immigrant Activity

Chris Butler

At least three Bedford County commissioners are concerned about what they say are alleged instances of drug deals, prostitution, gambling, and human trafficking at a local venue for Mexican rodeos and horse races. One of the commissioners wrote a letter to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement describing their concerns about what is known as the Rancho La Herradura in Bell Buckle. This commissioner has asked that The Tennessee Star not identify him, at least not at this time. “According to witnesses, neighbors and constituents, the said rodeo consisted of typical events consistent with a rodeo with the exception, according to sources, of gambling, drug sales, drug use, underage girls and weapons,” the commissioner wrote. “Other sources have told me the underage girls are part of prostitution and/or human trafficking operation which is prevalent both in Bedford County and neighboring Rutherford County.” No one at Rancho La Herradura returned The Star’s repeated requests for comment Tuesday. The commissioner went on to say an Omar Edgar Torres-Rangel, possibly known as Edgar R. Torres, attended a rodeo late last month. “In an intoxicated state, Mr. Torres drove his vehicle north bound in the southbound lane of State Highway 231 where a head-on…

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