Day: November 26, 2018

Expanding Medicaid in Tennessee Brings Danger, Despite Mainstream Media Cheerleading

Chris Butler
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Mainstream media outlets across Tennessee continue to beat the drum for expanding Medicaid, hoping to sway most Volunteer State residents to see things their way. But, as The Tennessee Star reported, expanding Medicaid brings peril. A recent Tennessean article tried to make the case for expanded Medicaid. Opinion pieces in The Memphis Commercial Appeal and The Murfreesboro Post tried to do the same. The Tennessean, for instance, wrote about how voters in deep-red Utah, Nebraska, and Idaho approved ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid. “The results appear to show increasing non-partisan voter support for expansion, which was once a political lightning rod because of its legal framework under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare,” according to The Tennessean. “But, as nearly three-fourths of the nation have now expanded Medicaid, a critical question remains: Will Tennessee?” If the program were to expand, the paper went on to say, more than 300,000 Tennesseans would qualify for coverage. Tennessee, the paper added, loses out on about $1.4 billion in federal taxpayer funding per year. Writing for The Commercial Appeal, McKenzie Mayor Jill Holland told readers that state taxpayers would pay nothing if Tennessee expanded Medicaid. Hospitals, she said, would pay the state’s share of the…

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New State Rep. Griffey Calls for Resolution Supporting Trump in Ending ‘Birth Right’ Citizenship

Jason M. Reynolds

Newly elected State Rep. Bruce Griffey (R-TN-75) has called on the Tennessee House of Representatives as its first action of the 2019 legislative session to pass a resolution supporting President’s Donald Trump’s efforts to end “birth right” citizenship. Griffey urges Tennessee to lead the way in amending the U.S. Constitution, he said in a press release. His district covers Benton, Henry and Stewart counties. On Oct. 30, President Trump announced his intention to issue an executive order to clarify that simply because a child happens to be born on U.S. soil does not necessarily mean that the child is a U.S. citizen solely by virtue of that location of birth. An entire cottage industry has sprung up to cater to foreigners who seek American citizenship for their soon-to-be-born offspring. Griffey proposed that the resolution provide, in part, that: “Tennessee fully supports President Trump’s effort to end ‘birth right’ citizenship and stands ready to be the first state to ratify Constitutional amendment ending the practice if his executive order is not fully implemented and enforced.” Griffey has been a staunch supporter of Trump, having campaigned for him during the 2016 primary, his press release said. His wife Rebecca served as part of…

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Commentary: Tech Giants Didn’t Deserve Public Trust in the First Place

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by Zachary Loeb   Amazon may have been expecting lots of public attention when it announced where it would establish its new headquarters – but like many technology companies recently, it probably didn’t anticipate how negative the response would be. In Amazon’s chosen territories of New York and Virginia, local politicians balked at taxpayer-funded enticements promised to the company. Journalists across the political spectrum panned the deals – and social media filled up with the voices of New Yorkers and Virginians pledging resistance. Similarly, revelations that Facebook exploited anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to undermine its critics’ legitimacy indicate that instead of changing, Facebook would rather go on the offensive. Even as Amazon and Apple saw their stock-market values briefly top US$1 trillion, technology executives were dragged before Congress, struggled to coherently take a stance on hate speech, got caught covering up sexual misconduct and saw their own employees protesting business deals. In some circles this is being seen as a loss of public trust in the technology firms that promised to remake the world – socially, environmentally and politically – or at least as frustration with the way these companies have changed the world. But the technology companies need to do…

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Commentary: How the Greens Turned the Golden State Brown

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by Edward Ring   In October 2016, in a coordinated act of terrorism that received fleeting attention from the press, environmentalist activists broke into remote flow stations and turned off the valves on pipelines carrying crude oil from Canada into the United States. Working simultaneously in Washington, Montana, Minnesota, and North Dakota, the eco-terrorists disrupted pipelines that together transport 2.8 million barrels of oil per day, approximately 15 percent of U.S. consumption. The pretext for this action was to protest the alleged catastrophe of global warming. These are the foot soldiers of environmental extremism. These are the minions whose militancy receives nods and winks from opportunistic politicians and green investors who make climate alarmism the currency of their political and commercial success. More recently, and far more tragic, are the latest round of California wildfires that have consumed nearly a quarter million acres, killed at least 87 people, and caused damages estimated in excess of $10 billion. Opinions vary regarding how much of this disaster could have been avoided, but nobody disputes that more could have been done. Everyone agrees, for example, that overall, aggressive fire suppression has been a mistake. Most everyone agrees that good prevention measures include forest…

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British Lawmakers Warn They Will Vote Against Brexit Deal

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  It took Britain’s Theresa May and 27 other European Union leaders just 40 minutes to sign the Brexit deal after two years of tortuous negotiations, but the trials and tribulations of Britain’s withdrawal agreement approved Sunday in Brussels are far from over. As they endorsed the 585-page agreement, and a 26-page accompanying political declaration that sets out the parameters of negotiating a possible free trade deal between Britain and the European Union, powerful political foes in London plotted strategies to undo it. There is little evidence Britain’s embattled prime minister will have sufficient support to win legislative endorsement of the deal in a House of Commons vote next month. That was clearly on the minds of European Commission officials Sunday as EU leaders gave their backing to the terms of Britain’s split from Brussels after 44 years of membership. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned that Britain cannot expect to get a better deal, if its parliament rejects the agreement. “Now it is time for everybody to take their responsibilities, everybody,” he said. “This is the deal, it’s the best deal possible and the EU will not change its fundamental position when it comes to this issue, so I…

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Brett Kavanaugh Keeping a Low Profile in His First Months as a Justice

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by Kevin Daley   Justice Brett Kavanaugh seems to be keeping a low profile in his first months on the U.S. Supreme Court after his bitter confirmation inflamed much of the public and recast the 2018 elections. The new justice’s approach to his first months on the high court is in marked contrast to President Donald Trump’s other appointee, Justice Neil Gorsuch. The justices have done their best to project normalcy since Kavanaugh’s confirmation. The panel was especially lighthearted during his first day on the bench, as when Justice Sonia Sotomayor turned and pinched Gorsuch while posing a hypothetical about the term “violent felony” within the meaning of a federal sentencing law. Gorsuch reacted with good-natured surprise, eliciting laughter from the courtroom audience. Kavanaugh himself has been an understated presence at oral arguments, clearly engaged but deferential to his colleagues. As a general matter, he has waited for the other justices to ask their questions before posing his own, and his inquiries have been largely confined to technical matters. He did, however, appear to break type in a Nov. 6 death penalty case, signaling concern that Missouri’s death penalty protocol could inflict “gruesome and brutal pain” on an elderly convict. Kavanaugh was…

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Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse Says Climate Alarmists Don’t Offer Constructive Solutions

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by Jason Hopkins   Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse slammed climate alarmists during a Sunday interview on Fox News, suggesting they don’t offer constructive solutions for the future. “I think reasonable people can differ about how much and how rapidly, but I think it’s clear that the climate is changing and it’s clear that humans are a contributing factor. I think the real question though becomes: What do you do about it?” Sasse explained on Fox News Sunday. “Right now you don’t hear a lot of people who put climate as their No. 1 issue, you don’t hear a lot of them offering constructive, innovative solutions for the future, it’s usually just a lot of alarmism, but I think the report is important and it shows that the climate is changing,” he continued. Sasse’s comments follow a White House report, the National Climate Assessment (NCA), that was published on Friday. The NCA found that temperatures in the U.S. are 1.8 degrees higher than they were a century ago; sea levels about nine inches higher; natural disasters such as hurricanes, heat waves and wildfires are worsening; and climate change could slash U.S. GDP by 10 percent at the end of the…

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Pressure Builds on Government Agencies to be More Transparent in Research

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by Robert Romano   In 1963, Karl Popper proposed that the central criterion of the scientific method should be its testability, or the ability to falsify a theory. Absent that, he wrote that such a theory could not be considered scientific. Popper wrote, “A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific,” adding, “Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.” Although controversial, in science, the whole premise of peer review is encapsulated by Popper’s central theme, which is that science as a practice should be transparent. The evidence backing up a scientific theory should be reproducible. Popper wrote, “Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.” But many scientific theories, although subjected to peer review, are often not subjected to public review, particularly when it comes to government agencies that rely on published science to enact regulations. While some agencies do require publication of underlying data to support regulations — the National Institutes for…

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Commentary: Alexis de Tocqueville’s Rebuke of ‘Guaranteed Income’ Programs

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by John Wilsey   Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) is perhaps best known among Americans as the author of the influential work, Democracy in America. He produced the book in two volumes — the first, which came out in 1835 and the second, which came out in 1840 — after taking a tour of the United States with his colleague and friend Gustave de Beaumont in 1831-32. His thesis in Democracy was simple. After careful observation of American customs, laws, institutions, and religion, he determined that the one defining factor in the United States was equality of conditions. By this, Tocqueville meant that since there was no feudal tradition with all its social hierarchies, Americans were a highly mobile people. They were mobile socially and economically — they could become entrepreneurs and build their own wealth without much to constrain them. They were politically mobile — an American could rise from obscurity to power in America without having to worry about his parentage. And they were geographically mobile, moving westward from place to place in search of their fortunes. Tocqueville noticed that Americans apparently had the singular ability to prevent equality of conditions from yielding democratic despotism. Through voluntary associations, vigorous…

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Scientists Work to Save Wild Puerto Rican Parrot After Maria

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  Biologists are trying to save the last of the endangered Puerto Rican parrots after more than half the population of the bright green birds with turquoise-tipped wings disappeared when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico and destroyed their habitat and food sources. In the tropical forest of El Yunque, only two of the 56 wild birds that once lived there survived the Category 4 storm that pummeled the U.S. territory in September 2017. Meanwhile, only 4 of 31 wild birds in a forest in the western town of Maricao survived, along with 75 out of 134 wild parrots living in the Rio Abajo forest in the central mountains of Puerto Rico, scientists said. And while several dozen new parrots have been born in captivity and in the wild since Maria, the species is still in danger, according to scientists. “We have a lot of work to do,” said Gustavo Olivieri, parrot recovery program coordinator for Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural Resources. Federal and local scientists will meet next month to debate how best to revive a species that numbered more than 1 million in the 1800s but dwindled to 13 birds during the 1970s after decades of forest clearing. The…

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Elvis Presley Estate All Shook Up Over Not Getting Corporate Welfare

Chris Butler

In a 1956 song “Money Honey,” Elvis Presley didn’t have enough cash to pay the rent, so he called his girlfriend for some “Money Honey.” Presley, during his singing career, was never known to call upon the government for money — although the people who run the late singer’s Graceland estate are calling upon the government, asking for some corporate welfare. Graceland officials want that corporate welfare so bad they’ve sued the city of Memphis, according to The Memphis Commercial Appeal. Graceland officials did not return The Tennessee Star’s requests for comment. According to The Appeal, Elvis Presley Enterprises filed a lawsuit against the city of Memphis over a delay in approval in expansion plans at Graceland. Specifically, Graceland officials want some sort of city assistance with a 6,200-seat arena. Memphis officials, however, believe that violates a non-compete agreement with FedEx Forum. Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland told the paper this is not the first time Graceland has sued the city. “Bottom line: The private owners of Graceland want public taxpayer dollars to put into their privately-owned facilities,” Strickland told the paper. “And we have a problem with that.” The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, “alleges a delay in the Land Use…

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